An Idea to Improve Coordinape

Governance Proposals
1

An Idea to Improve Coordinape

Background

Coordinape is the product we use to distribute 4.5M BANK a season for contributor rewards. This represents around 15% of our total seasonal budget. This BANK is distributed monthly - 500K BANK respectively for Guest Pass, L1, and L2 contributors.

Contributors sign up for the coordinape round monthly and allocate GIVE to their fellow contributors. After a week, the GIVE amounts are tallied and then converted to percentages, which are then used to allocate the pot of BANK for each member circle (i.e. if you receive 1% of all GIVE, you are rewarded with 1% of 500K BANK, 5000 BANK).

The intent behind coordinape is to compensate contributors for their work the previous month. Put another way: the goal of coordinape is to encourage contributors to contribute.

The Problems

  • Coordinape is complicated, especially for BanklessDAO newcomers. There are 3 circles (one for each member level), and it can be difficult to understand how to use the system, much less how you should be allocating on each circle.
  • Coordinape doesn’t reward contribution. Our L2s are our most active contributors, and it’s possible (and probable) that less active Guest Passes receive MORE in coordinape rounds than these extremely active contributors simply because there are more L2s sharing the same 500K BANK. I’ve personally dumped a ton of GIVE on a Guest Pass simply because I didn’t have anyone else to give it to.
  • Coordinape doesn’t encourage contributors to move up member levels. In May’s coordinape allocation, the top Guest Pass and L1 each received around 2x more BANK than the top L2. I’ve even seen contributors refuse L2 nominations.

The Idea

  1. Convert the 3 circles into a single BanklessDAO circle.
  2. Use pirate math to weight the rewards towards higher-level contributors. How this works in practice is that after all GIVE is allocated, L1’s and L2’s will have their GIVE multiplied by certain percentages (i.e. L1’s GIVE is multiplied by 1.5 and L2’s GIVE is multiplied by 2)
  3. (optional) Remove status for L2’s who fail to register for coordinape or receive any GIVE for 3 months in a row.

An example of pirate math, with Guest Passess getting 2 shares, L1’s getting 3 shares, and L2’s getting 4 shares (i.e. using 1/1.5/2 multipliers):

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The Benefits

  • The coordinape process will be simplified. Instead of having 3 circles, there’s just one, which makes it easier to teach people how to use it.
  • Coordinape will more closely reward contribution. With everyone in the same circle, it’s easier to align your GIVE with who you’ve actually seen contribute, rather than run out of GIVE in the L2 circle and have excess in the Guest Pass level.
  • This could encourage L2’s to stick around longer. I can’t be the only person to notice that L2’s have a habit of reducing their commitment after a few months. These are, by definition, our top contributors. We need to encourage them to stick around and contribute
  • Contributors will be encouraged to move up member levels. This means contributors will be encouraged to hold onto BANK. We often talk about utility of BANK…this is utility!
  • This becomes a mechanism to remove L2s who aren’t contributing.

The Impact

Here’s a little spreadsheet to see the impact of this change on May’s Coordinape. Note that this simulation doesn’t take into account how things would change if all contributors were in a single circle.

POLL - Which multipliers do you like?

  • I like 1/1.25/1.5 multipliers
  • I like 1/1.5/2 multipliers
  • I like another set of multipliers (I’ll comment below)
  • I don’t like this system at all

0 voters

Next Steps

  • Work with Coordinape Workstream in Ops Guild to see if it’s technically feasible
  • Gather consensus in a forum post, and push to Snapshot if we have it
  • Implement the proposal for the next Coordinape round

What do you Think?

I’d love your feedback!

POLL - What do you think of this proposal?

  • I love it! Implement it right away!
  • I like the idea, but I have some issues which I’ll comment below.
  • I’m against it, and I’ll tell you why in the comments.

0 voters

1 Like
2

Generally I like this idea. However, why would you move to strip L2s of their status if they don’t participate in Coordinape? By your own admission, L2s are the highest contributors. I can see stripping someone of the role as demoralizing just because they choose not to participate in bDAO Coordinape rounds.

6 Likes
3

I like and support the change and see it as an improved process. I appreciate freedom of choice by L2s to opt in or out as fits their preference without loss of status of privelege.

5 Likes
4

The thought behind it was that if you are active, you’d join the monthly coordinape. I’m hearing that’s not really the case, so maybe it doesn’t make sense to tie active status to the coordinape.

2 Likes
5

I like the idea and the better alingnment of incentives to progress from guest pass to L1 and L2. But also not in favor of stripping L2 from people who’ve been inactive on coordinape for a while. I think it is ok to take some time off and still be able to come back without having to start over.

3 Likes
6

I disagree with the arguments. let me explain why:

  • coordinape is NOT complicated but needs to be learned. And I think it is an easy application to learn, compared to many things that we use in our daily lives. there are many way more complicated tasks in the blockchain or even IRL . there’s this tendency in the DAO towards doing everything easier, simpler and less complicated and i really don’t like that personally since it effects the quality of the outcome, significantly.
  • I think L2’s mostly find their way to earn bucks way better than L1’s and GP’s. Coordinape is probably the best way to encourage GPs imo but the multipliers will significantly decrease the reward of GP’s and L1s. If someone spent that much of an effort to be an L2 here and still complaining about their income, the problem is either about their contribution or the remuneration. There’s no need to blame the coordinape here i think.
  • I’m a new L1 here and I’ve become one by buying some bank in addition to what I earned from coordinapes and tasks. I decided to this because i’ve seen at a certain point that I’m being rewarded when I contribute more and make more sound. And how did I get to that conclusion? By the money I earned from one of the coordinapes. I’ve seen that increase in my shares and decided to invest in a bit and go for the L1. I think this is an opposite case that I need to share.

If you’re seeking a problem with coordinape, let me give you one: If you’re famous enough you can get rewarded better from a round without contributing more or even doing anything at all. people tend to allocate their give to people that they see around more but they don’t tend to judge if their contribution is good enough or not.

8 Likes
7

Thanks a lot for putting this together, I like the idea! It has become apparent to whoever took a look at the Coordinape Rounds the last 3 months that the system is not working as supposed. Guest passes continue to be at the same tier after participating in multiple Coordinapes and consistently receiving more BANK than L1s or L2s. This also leads to an imbalance for the L1s (too few L1s participate in comparison to the other 2 tiers).
I really like the idea of weighting the GIVE to reward higher-level contributors and further incentivize Guest Passes to HODL their BANK, instead of selling it, only to receive even more at the next round.
The only part I disagree with is tying the L2 with the participation to the Coordinape. As someone might miss the dates to register or decide for him/her self that they have not contributed enough during a month to participate in a Coordinape Round.

4 Likes
8

Thanks for taking the time to put this together links. I can see your arguments and I perceive the same problems. And to add - from the recent data that LiviuC posted about the current Coordinape round it seems to be a problem as well, that you can register for a Coordinape round, receive GIVE and still not distribute your own GIVE. This is also a mechanism that confuses me. If you want to receive GIVE you should also be obliged to distribute. What is your view on this?

To the points in your proposal:
I find the points of Okachu interesting. Maybe we need to be clear on the purpose of Coordinape.

To my understanding it is a tool that rewards the part of work that we do in the DAO that is not role based. All the meetings, people attend for free, all the help that someone provides to others in the DAO without compensation, participating in Governance, commenting in posts. Therefore it may be fair, if Guest Pass holders and L1s get a higher cut of the compensation assuming that L2s are more prone to have paid roles.

On the other hand, with low BANK rates L2s may also struggle to see, how their work is compensated fairly through paid roles and hence, Coordinape may have become a more important income stream (if not additional signal to be compensated at all).

I tend to agree to okachu, for me personally, if I felt that I was compensated fairly for may paid roles, I would most likely even like to see people who are ‘up and coming’ in the Guest Pass or L1 levels to receive higher cuts than L2s.

7 Likes
9

I absolutely agree with @links proposal and I think we need to improve the way of handling our current coordinape system - which is exactly what this proposal does. This will clearly incentivize people to move up to L1 and ultimately to L2.

Certainly Guest Pass holders will be getting a smaller cut but I think we should always keep in mind that the Guest Pass is not a member status but a way to become a member if you cannot afford to buy into banklessDAO.

The only thing I would not implement is #3. Instead I would rather opt-out people at the end of each round that did not distribute GIVE as not allocating give is effectively increasing your own share of the pool. Even though that is probably not the intention of most people, it is still not too hard to allocate GIVE and show appreciation to fellow DAO members IMO.

9 Likes
10

IMO this post raises a very important and so far overlooked question of the update of L2 status. There are some members who received L2 status, however, for whatever reasons, they are not active anymore. There needs to be a system in place to remove the L2 status in such cases and one quite good way would be to monitor Coordinape. I second @paulDE 's suggestion to monitor whether GIVEs have been allocated. If one fails to allocate GIVE in 2 consecutive Coordinape rounds, we could (safely) assume they are no longer active in reality.

As for increasing the BANK/GIVE ratio in favor of L1s and L2s over GPs, I agree with @okachu - higher levels oftentimes have a better idea of how to make BANK by contributing, so they are less dependent on Coordinape.

3 Likes
11

I second @GalPe definitely on the L2 status check. We have too many inactive L2s and even L2s that aren’t verified Level 1 members anymore.

4 Likes
12

Thank you for putting this proposal together @links and I agree 100% on the coordinape part.

As for L2 here are my thoughts,

  1. A status game works optimally when there is an inbuilt scarcity function. Eg: A nice car can give you status, but there’s always a risk that one might go bankrupt or loose the car to an accident etc…which makes you go out any buy insurance, polish and take care of your car etc… the point is that by introducing a scarcity function to status games, one can incentivize people to not only achieve a status, but also to maintain it.

  2. The general trend we see in the DAO is that many folks drop out once they achieve L2 status because there is no more thrill left in the game. If the game is designed with finite outcomes in mind, then it will only attract players who want to play short term finite games as opposed to players who want to play long term infinite games. Quoting the famous book here:

"There are at least two kinds of games: finite and infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play. Finite games are those instrumental activities - from sports to politics to wars - in which the participants obey rules, recognize boundaries and announce winners and losers. The infinite game - there is only one - includes any authentic interaction, from touching to culture, that changes rules, plays with boundaries and exists solely for the purpose of continuing the game. A finite player seeks power; the infinite one displays self-sufficient strength. Finite games are theatrical, necessitating an audience; infinite ones are dramatic, involving participants

In order to incentivize players to continue to play the game we have to structure the game in a way that it becomes infinite.

I think @paulDE 's point on GIVE allocation is a step in the right direction, however, for the long term, we need to think deeper about the status game and intentionally design it from the pov of a game designer as opposed to a renumeration system.

4 Likes
13

You are rightly pointing out shortcomings of the Coordinape systems, however, there are some premises or conclusions I would not agree with:

Guest pass holders do in fact contribute a lot to the system. The reason why they do not advance can have multiple reasons, which are not contribution related but due to financial constraints on their side. To address this a kind of mandatory locking of a percentage of the distributed BANK could be implemented for those engaging in Coordinape rounds and are paid as role holders, though that is a separate and complex issue and would need more thought.

Also you claim that L2s are to be considered the top contributers, yet at the same time you acknowledge that in some cases their contribution seems to drop off as soon as they reach L2 level. Although this being a personal impression and not statitically verified I have the same impression at times. But the reason for this may be because some are just promoted to L2 far to quickly - blinded by their intense contribution cascade upfront resulting in huge BANK accumulation within a very short space of time which does not say anything about their long term committment ability. In addition, the BANK accumulation is also enabled by individuals holding paid roles, and therefore one has to take into account how active they are in this capacity, too. So this problem is not only Coordinape related. Perhaps a cooling off periode of one epoch after reaching L1 before L2 can be considered would help, or a promotion to L2 not before 6 months of membership.

Regarding Coordinape however there is a more apparent flaw in the system, which you have mentioned but have drawn a different conclusions: the L1 receive the hightest payout proportionately. That is not realy surprising, given so many are promoted to L2 immediately after they hit L1. So the problem, in my view, lies somewhere else: Firstly, to become an L2 one should introduce a BANK limit of at least 70k (if not more), equivalent to about 2xL1. That would signal committment and reduce selling pressure on BANK. Secondly, a weighing mechanism for the individual rounds, meaning the amount of BANK/GIVE available is dependant on the size of the group at every given round, not fixed as currently is the case, at 500k BANK per circle. It is this which leads to distortions. Another aspect could be to reduce these tip spiked in distributions. There are always 2-3 different individuals who receive a disproportionate amount of GIVES/BANK during coordinape rounds. (I am not claiming this is undeserved, not to be misunderstood.) Perhaps a cap/limit of 10k-15k BANK per round/candidate max would address this.

However, the argument could also be made, that there is no reason to still remunerate L2 via Coordinape at all, or be it only at a reduced level. Given that they have now reached seniority in the sytem and other means of compensation, e.g. by taking up leadership or specialist roles as is becoming to their elevation, the question can arise whether they should still be able to participate in Coordinape rounds at all, and if yes, to what degree.

4 Likes
14

Thank you for this proposal.

I have started as a guest pass and achieved L1 and L2 in time. Huge coordinape sums were the catalyst for my L1, not roles or bounties. When i became L1 there was a dramatic change in the BANK received from coordinape. It was good when it carried me to L1 in no time, then the decrease was impactful.

We may need to find the sweet spot where L2 payments are up while keeping the guest passes having a meaningful amount of BANK from the coordinape.

Most of the time GP’s hold micro roles with lesser payments. L2’s can close the gap with the higher payment roles.

4 Likes
15

I like the coordinape solution but I think maintaining L2 status is a separate problem and should be decoupled from this proposal. It needs to be solved but it’s probably easier to address one thing at a time.

11 Likes
16

Thank you for taking the initiative to fix this broken Coordinape model in bDAO. Agree that L2s can opt out without losing their status. I will post some statistics related to inactive L2s so we can discuss that separately.

Level 2 Latest Activity 

Count
98	0 - 3 Days
19	4 - 7 Days
6	8 - 15 Days
9	16 - 30 Days
4	31 - 60 Days
6	61 - 90 Days
10	Over 90 Days

We have 20 L2s that haven’t been active in a month.

8 Likes
17

This can be about responsibility levels. Leading a guild carries quite a bit of weight with it, so it can be another factor to consider. Folk need to be very present in those roles, and some of us can’t manage those presence levels.

18

My thoughts:

  1. I think it can be bad to the DAO for folks to stay Guest passers even though their contributions can easily make them L1 and above - you can even think of it as farming and dumping in some special case.

  2. Guest pass is just a transition phase for contributors - ideally contributors should be L1 and above. Thus the system is flawed if it incentivizes contributors to stay Guest Passers.

  3. The more L1s we have, the better for the ecosystem in general - it’s more like staking imo.

5 Likes
19

I did hear one L2 say they were less active, and I found that quite disappointing.

And with the L2 status, might they be reinstated if they return to active duty?

20

Seems to be different operation guild by guild, maybe intentionally, but that also confuses matters.