Consenz: Governance Documentation Co-Creation

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Aharon Porath

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

aharon@consenz.io

Additional applicants

-

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

8

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language.

No

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

Yes

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.” .

The Consenz web app is using these services:

• Hasura for backend
• Digitalocean for database & servers
• Auth0 for users authentication
• Google for google sign in and email

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

Yes

[GENERAL] If NO, please describe which outputs are not going to be open source. If YES, please write “Project will be fully open source.”

The project is fully open source under MIT license - https://github.com/consenz-io/webapp/blob/main/LICENSE

[METADATA] Category of proposal

DAO

[METADATA] SDG rating

SDG goals:

Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable

Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all, and build effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels

Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development

SDG subgoals:

11.3 By 2030, enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries

16.3 Promote the rule of law at the national and international levels and ensure equal access to justice for all

16.6 Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels

16.7 Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels

17.16 Enhance the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in all countries, in particular developing countries

17.17 Encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships

Key Performance Indicator (KPI):

11.3.2 Proportion of cities with a direct participation structure of civil society in urban planning and management that operate regularly and democratically

16.3.3 Proportion of the population who have experienced a dispute in the past two years and who accessed a formal or informal dispute resolution mechanism, by type of mechanism

16.6.2 Proportion of population satisfied with their last experience of public services

16.7.1 Proportions of positions in national and local institutions, including (a) the legislatures; (b) the public service; and (c) the judiciary, compared to national distributions, by sex, age, persons with disabilities and population groups

16.7.2 Proportion of population who believe decision-making is inclusive and responsive, by sex, age, disability and population group

17.16.1 Number of countries reporting progress in multi-stakeholder development effectiveness monitoring frameworks that support the achievement of the sustainable development goals

17.17.1 Amount in United States dollars committed to public-private partnerships for infrastructure

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

The Problem:

The main focus of decentralized organization governance is voting on proposals and treasury management, as these are processes that can be done on-chain and by that support the "autonomous" character in DAOs. However, many conversations, discussions and communications are needed for establishing open and decentralized governance.

For this communication DAOs communities use social media channels such as Telegram, Twitter, etc., or platforms such as Discord and Discourse. However, these communication tools and platforms lack the ability to provide structured and productive processes. To provide clarity to the DAOs operation documentation is needed, such as:

• Constitution
• Code of conduct
• Roles and rules
• Processes outline
• Guidelines
• Etc.

DAOs governance documentation creation is been done today on several platforms, none of them was built or designed for this purpose:

• Google Docs: Great tool for collaboration on document editing, but is not capable of supporting large-scale participation. More than 20-30 participants on one google doc will create too much noise that can not be handled properly and tracked efficiently. Also, google-doc has no way to include inputs in a democratic manner - it is controlled by its owner or open for editing by everyone that have permission which may create a chaotic output.
• Github: Amazing tool for open-source code creation. Is been used more and more by DAOs for purposes such as collaboration on document creation. However, github is not accessible to non-coders. DAOs members that are not used to working with github find it very difficult to use. Also, github repositories are controlled by their owners, and they have the right to decide which pull request to approve and which one to deny. This can create a central point of control.
• Discourse: One of the best platforms for discussion about proposed documents, but lacks options for collaborative document editing.

Our Solution:

The Consenz platform was built to allow large-scale participation in governance documentation creation and to provide the best user experience for the DAO member that wish to take part in these processes.

The platform does so by integrating discussion features with voting mechanisms and editing tools.

The following discussion features make Consenz unique, compared to other platforms:

 

• Instead of an endless and chaotic thread of comments, there is a focus and a product to the process: A document that can be discussed and edited by the participants and reflect their agreements.
• There is a clear structure to the content: comments are attributed to a specific section version and function as arguments for or against it; sections are attributed to a specific topic; topics are attributed to the document.
• There is a voting system that allows the users to express their opinion without adding noise to the discussion.
• The voting system also creates a method to deal with conflicts and determine which opinion has the majority of participants’ agreement.
• Those agreements are separated from the noise by a simple algorithm that determines which section received enough support and can be added to the document automatically.

The platform's core logic is based on allowing the users to suggest improvements to an agreement document by publishing edit suggestions to the sections of the document. Then other participants can discuss these suggestions, and express their approval or disapproval of the suggestion by voting on them. Improvement suggestions that will stand in an approval threshold will be added to the draft automatically. The approval threshold is dynamic, and adjusted to the number of participants and to the consensus level that was reached so far, as shown in this diagram:

 

The process on Consenz creates a “micro-democracy” system – an option to discuss the details of a proposal by all members of the DAOs community without limiting it to a small group of representatives. Consenz combines elements of – and is inspired by – liquid democracy, direct democracy, deliberative democracy and sociocracy.

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The Project Status

This proposal is a continuation of our Fund 7 proposal - "Agreements Building Platform".

The funding for our previews proposal was used for building an MVP version of the Consenz platform, that you can see and use here - app.consenz.io.

You can read the F7 proposal completion report here and watch its close-out video here.

This proposal funding, if approved, will be used for further development of the Consenz platform, adding needed features and improvements, based on users' feedback and lessons learned from the use of the current version.

 

We also have a few funded proposals in fund 8, still in progress.

[IMPACT] How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

The challenge description specifies these needs for DAOs on Cardano:

Tools for prospective organizations to use in evaluating the features available in Cardano DAO's

• DAO community collaboration
• DAO creation
• DAO operation
• DAO governance.

Consenz can support 3 of these needs -

1. Using the Consenz platform will allow better and more efficient collaboration between DAO community members
2. It will improve and streamline DAO operations by making them more inclusive and bringing more members to participate in the DAO operation design and implementation.
3. It will bring structure, productivity, and efficiency to governance processes without compromising on decentralization and inclusiveness.

DAOs on Cardano that will choose to include Consenz in their toolbox will benefit a more engaged community, wide trust and better ways to deal with potential conflicts.

As for integration with the Cardano blockchain, deploying on the Cardano blockchain is an important part of the project roadmap.

We are planning to do so in the future by:

• Allowing authentication using wallet connect at first and DIDs/SSI later
• Ratifying agreements documents that were drafted on Consenz by voting on-chain
• Reaching out for partnerships with other projects that are building voting tools on Cardano, such as Clarity, ADAO, Summon and others (with some we are already in touch) for leveraging the potential of collaboration of our technologies

[IMPACT] How do you intend to measure the success of your project?

Main KPIs:

• Number of DAOs and communities that will implement the Consenz platform in their governance process.
• Number of processes that DAO improve by using the Consenz platform (for example - one DAO can use Consenz only for constitution creation, another will use it for several guidelines documents, code of conduct, election outline and reputation system proposal).
• Number of DAOs members registered on the Consenz platform.
• Different use and engagement metrics - conversion rate, daily use, number of votes, number of new comments, number of new agreements, etc.

[IMPACT] Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?

We will update the Project Catalyst and Cardano Community on the progress and outcomes of the Consenz project in all available channels:

• After Town Hall breakout room: We find these opportunities to be the best way to engage face to face the members f Catalyst, show our work products and get feedback. We have already hosted a few sessions and workshops on ATH breakout rooms (#1, #2, #3, #4), and we plan to initiate and host more in the future.
• Consenz GitHub account: This is a great way to track the progress of our developer's teamwork - https://github.com/consenz-io/
• Twitter account: This will be used to engage with the wide Cardano/ADA holders community - https://twitter.com/consenz_io
• Other channels:
• The project youtube channel - were will upload team meeting recordings and other updates.
• The Consenz website
• Medium (to be activated soon)
• Existing project catalyst community channels, as Telegram groups, discord channels, forums etc.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability?

The Consenz team have a proven record of completing funded proposal, building new product and delivering.

Over the last months, we have expanded the team and recruited new members that are needed for the next iteration of the project, such as - product manager, marketing manager, and UX designer.

In the "team" section below you can read about all the team members, their experience and their capabilities.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What are the main goals for the project and how will you validate if your approach is feasible?

The main goal of this proposal is to design and develop the next version of the Consenz platform, so it can answer the needs of DAOs governance processes while providing an accessible and easy way for the DAO members to engage and contribute to them.

We will validate that this goal was achieved by tracking use metrics and analytics for a quantified measure and gathering feedback from users and DAOs leaders for qualitative measures.

To achieve this goal we plan to:

1. Analyse use data and users' feedbacks on the current version
2. Design improvements and new features for the next version of the platform
3. Develop and implement improvements and new features
4. Deliver, gather users' feedback for further developments, and analyze results.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed breakdown of your project’s milestones and each of the main tasks or activities to reach the milestone plus the expected timeline for the delivery.

Certainly! Here's an updated plan with realistic cost estimates (in USD) assigned to each milestone:

Milestone 1: User Experience Enhancement

• Duration: Month 1-3
• Deliverables:
• Activity feed page
• User profile page
• User profile page view
• User dashboard (optional)
• Leaderboard
• Chatbox (optional)
• Testing and bug fixes

Milestone 2: Document Version Control and Comparison

• Duration: Month 3-4
• Deliverables:
• Draft versions history view
• Draft versions diff view
• Section version diff view
• Suggestion explanation box
• Interactive draft sections
• Testing and bug fixes

Milestone 3: Enhanced Discussion Components

• Duration: Month 5
• Deliverables:
• Replies feature
• Reactions feature
• Quotes feature
• Tabs for section comments and version comments (optional)
• Comments on agreement rationale
• Testing and bug fixes

Milestone 4: Navigation and Document Management

• Duration: Month 6
• Deliverables:
• Sections browsing feature
• Document Table of Contents / Outline
• Testing and bug fixes

Milestone 5: Permissions and Admin Panel

• Duration: Month 7
• Deliverables:
• Permissions system
• Admin panel
• Testing and bug fixes

Milestone 6: Marketing and Community Outreach

• Duration: Months 6 to 8
• Deliverables:
• Tutorial videos
• Social media promotion
• DAOs outreach and partnerships
• Project Documentation Gitbook

Please note that some of the deliverables and tasks were tagged as "optional". Development of these items will be depended on ADA value in USD terms at the time of funding distribution.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please describe the deliverables, outputs and intended outcomes of each milestone.

For milestones 1 to 5 we will provide for the community review:

• Design materials - on Figma and Zeppelin tools:
• Wireframes
• Mockups
• Developers' work tracking:
• Project GitHub repository stats
• Code files
• Demo videos
• Monthly team meeting recordings

For milestone 6: Marketing and Community Outreach we will provide:

• Tutorial videos storyboards and scripts
• Videos links on youtube
• Monthly google analytics reports
• Project social media stats
• Links to blog posts of DAOs use and partnerships achieved

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

Milestone 1: User Experience Enhancement

• Total cost: ₳70,000

Milestone 2: Document Version Control and Comparison

• Total cost: ₳50,000

Milestone 3: Enhanced Discussion Components

• Total cost: ₳60,000

Milestone 3: Enhanced Discussion Components

• Total cost: ₳50,000

Milestone 4: Navigation and Document Management

• Total cost: ₳30,000

Milestone 5: Permissions and Admin Panel

• Total cost: ₳60,000

Milestone 6: Marketing and Community Outreach

• Total cost: ₳30,000

Total budget: ₳350,000

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

Catalyst is almost the only source of funding for the Consenz project (alongside the DeepFunding project).

As such, we are dependent on Catalyst funding for all the costs of the project, including:

• Management
• Legal
• Account Management
• Third-party services - servers, authentication, etc.
• Marketing
• And others

While most of the funding will be dedicated to development and design, we have to take into account overhead costs.

The budget requested here is based on the average cost of the software developer's hourly wage of 80$, which is acceptable in Israel where most of the team is. On top of the dev and services costs, we have calculated about 30% for overheads and management costs.

All of the Consenz team are freelance, which allows us to keep a low monthly burn rate, and adjust expenses to the Catalyst schedule and other limitations. We also plan to outsource some of the work and to look for developers that can be paid in ADA, using the Snapbrillia platform.

The total budget requested will allow us to fund enough dev hours for building the next version of Consenz.

Another thing that we considered in this proposal is the fluctuation of ADA price, as most of the costs will be in fiat (dollar and Israeli shekel) terms. Our requested budget is based on ADA price of 0.3$. To mitigate price fluctuation we outlined a modular work plan - if ADA price will fall we will be able to deliver fewer features, and if it will go up we will be able to deliver more improvements and new features from our backlog.

[IMPORTANT NOTE] The Applicant agreed to Fund10 rules and also that data in the Submission Form and other data provided by the project team during the course of the project will be publicly available.

I Accept