Community Governance Oversight (CGO) Parameters Platform

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Phil Khoo

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

catalystphilk@gmail.com

Additional applicants

Andre Diamond; Stephen Whitenstall; Vanessa Cardui; Tevo Saks; Eystein Hansen; Juana Attieh; Rodrigo Pacini; Victor Corcino; Ubio Obu; Miroslav Rajh

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

9

[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?

No

[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.” .

No dependencies.

[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.”

Project will be fully open source.

[METADATA] Category of Proposal

Data, Explorers, Trackers

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

The impact of our proposed solution will be the delivery of a community dashboard and participatory interface to log, track and report changes to Catalyst governance parameters, as well as a dedicated team of overseers to maintain, engage and inform the platform and the community.

We will build and operate a platform that includes a dashboard to make it easier for the community to record and maintain oversight of changes to governance parameters in Catalyst. The Community Governance Oversight (CGO) team (a group of people with experience of working on Catalyst governance in previous funds) will meet to discuss any parameter changes that have been added and adjusted; and, outside of meetings, will research each recognised change and complete additional data about it; and will report back to the community on our findings via a weekly slide at Catalyst Town Hall, plus posts on social media including Discord, Telegram and Twitter. The project will end with a final report on the governance changes in Catalyst over the period of the proposal, and the effectiveness of the dashboard to track them.

Step-by-step:

1. Fully develop our dashboard proof of concept into a working, open-source tool, which will enable any community member to log a Catalyst governance parameter change that they have noticed. 
2. Initially, populate the dashboard with material researched by CGO in our Fund 8 project (see https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BixYPVfyWSYIRhNK2qaRDwebZk-oCpkxfitE_U2TBL0/edit?usp=sharing )
3. As part of the process of testing the dashboard, invite the Catalyst community to add data about changes to Catalyst governance parameters that they notice during the period that the proposal is active. As shown in the spreadsheet, the dashboard will invite background data such as whom the change will affect, how it was introduced, who initiated it, what research is behind it, etc. We anticipate that people might add some parameter changes that are retrospective by the time this project is scheduled to start - for example, the F10 changes to the PA/Community Assessor role; any changes to Catalyst Circle or any Catalyst Circle election; changes to the milestone assessment process for proposals, etc; plus any new changes that might emerge during the project’s run. 
4. The CGO team (10 people from many areas of the Catalyst ecosystem, skilled in governance, finance, accountancy, project management, community engagement, oversight and analysis, as well as academic and community research) will meet monthly for 4 meetings (one onboarding meeting to assign areas of responsibility, plus 3 oversight meetings) to discuss the issues that the community is adding to the dashboard. In the month between meetings, team members will conduct research to fill in any missing details. During this period, the team will inform the community via fortnightly Town Hall slides, regular GitBook documentation, a GitHub project board, and engagement on Discord, Telegram and Twitter, on what is emerging from this oversight of governance parameter changes, and to encourage discussion and input. 
5. The team will write a final report addressing the governance parameter changes that have emerged, and the usefulness of the Dashboard to track them. The report will make recommendations for further development of the Dashboard to support better community oversight, and recommendations to develop some process by which Catalyst governance parameter changes are introduced, shared, and implemented.

The background to CGO’s approach to “governance parameters”

Since Fund 7, Community Governance Oversight (CGO) has been funded to maintain community-led oversight of governance processes in Catalyst. In our Fund 8 project, we concluded that “governance parameters” in Catalyst is a broader field than IOG’s definition of the parameters for each Fund - in fact, it comprises any change that substantially alters the way Catalyst operates, or the way a Fund is run.

Alongside this, we noticed a lack of any clearly-defined process for introducing changes to the Catalyst governance parameters, or any commonly-agreed idea of how to consult the community on changes, and how much consultation was sufficient.

In F8, we began collecting data on Catalyst parameter changes, logging a range of relevant data about each change: see this spreadsheet CGO community register of Catalyst parameter changes. We also analysed the meaning of this data - read our analysis in the F8 project’s closing report, and/or see the summary in our closing video Community Governance Oversight - Fund 8 - Closing Report)

Based on this foundational work, we began initial scoping for the idea of building a platform to enable the community to easily log parameter changes and collate information about them. See repo at https://github.com/Catalyst-Auditing/Catalyst-Parameters-Dashboard for this initial work. We believe this platform, when fully developed, will enable Catalyst to embed long-term community oversight of Catalyst governance parameter changes. 

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

The open-source build of the dashboard fits the open-source ethos of this challenge (and indeed of Cardano itself), and we hope that others will go on to use it as a basis for other tools that foster community engagement with governance issues.

More significantly, the idea that underpins this proposal is rooted in the ideals of Voltaire governance - that the community needs tooling that can support it to engage more easily with governance changes. This is to help maintain a lively community oversight and awareness of what is actually happening when Catalyst governance parameters change, thus moving towards greater co-production and shared power. We hope that this platform and dashboard will be a tool that will begin to move basic monitoring and oversight of governance changes away from small groups like CGO, to the community at large.

The real-time insights provided by the Parameters Dashboard, together with the research, analysis and publicising conducted by the team, will raise awareness of some of the core governance issues in the Catalyst ecosystem. 

We also believe the methodology that we are refining will be readily applicable to maintaining awareness and oversight of wider Cardano governance changes, such as CIP-1694, Continuous TestNet changes, and the development of the Cardano MBO, and we see this proposal as a testing-ground for this.

Recording community contributions to parameter oversight will provide a way for Cardano to be more accountable, and for decision making to be more transparent, more evidence-based, and more participatory.

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

The open-source build of the dashboard fits the open-source ethos of this challenge (and indeed of Cardano itself), and we hope that others will go on to use it as a basis for other tools that foster community engagement with governance issues.

More significantly, the idea that underpins this proposal is rooted in the ideals of Voltaire governance - that the community needs tooling that can support it to engage more easily with governance changes. This is to help maintain a lively community oversight and awareness of what is actually happening when Catalyst governance parameters change, thus moving towards greater co-production and shared power. We hope that this platform and dashboard will be a tool that will begin to move basic monitoring and oversight of governance changes away from small groups like CGO, to the community at large.

The real-time insights provided by the Parameters Dashboard, together with the research, analysis and publicising conducted by the team, will raise awareness of some of the core governance issues in the Catalyst ecosystem. 

We also believe the methodology that we are refining will be readily applicable to maintaining awareness and oversight of wider Cardano governance changes, such as CIP-1694, Continuous TestNet changes, and the development of the Cardano MBO, and we see this proposal as a testing-ground for this.

Recording community contributions to parameter oversight will provide a way for Cardano to be more accountable, and for decision making to be more transparent, more evidence-based, and more participatory.

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

We intend to measure the success of our project by recording -

• The number of GitHub commits while the dashboard is being built.
• The number of parameter changes added via the dashboard.
• The number of data-points added for each parameter change.
• The number of unique users engaging with the dashboard as viewers 
• The number of unique users adding data.

• Qualitative measurement of the success of the Dashboard (assessed by a questionnaire to users, inviting comment in social media channels, and looking at the kinds of issues being raised and the depth of people’s engagement).

• Qualitative measurement of the success of our regular TownHall slides, our documentation (assessed by views and comments), and any After TownHalls or similar events we run.
• Informal qualitative monitoring of the degree of community discussion of the parameter changes identified, in channels including Discord, Telegram and Twitter.

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

We plan to share the outputs and results of our project via - 

• A GitHub repository, which will provide an audit trail
• A GitBook, and YouTube videos, to document our fortnightly meetings.
• Fortnightly Town Hall Slides.
• Hosting 2 After Town Halls during the course of the project.

In addition people will be able to view the dashboard itself and see for themselves what parameter changes are being raised and documented there.

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

Our team members are highly skilled and experienced in their fields, and established members of Catalyst with a deep understanding of the ecosystem and its governance. Several of them were part of CGO (Community Governance Oversight) in Fund 7 and Fund 8.

We are all committed to the open-source ethos, and all have extensive experience of working on projects (developer-based and other) that are accessibly documented through GitHub and GitBook, providing a trackable, accountable and trustworthy audit trail. For more detail on who we are, please refer to the “Who is in the project team and what are their roles?” section of this proposal.

Our project wallet will be managed by Miroslav Rajh of Treasury Guild, thus ensuring trustworthy and accountable budget management.

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

The project’s goals are to:

1. build a dashboard and participatory interface that the community can use to keep track of governance parameter changes in Catalyst by logging changes as they arise.

We can validate that this is feasible because the build and design team (Andre Diamond and Phil Khoo) have already researched and scoped it and begun to build - see GitHub repo here https://github.com/Catalyst-Auditing/Catalyst-Parameters-Dashboard. 

We will validate that it has been done, both by ongoing GitHub commits, and by sharing the dashboard itself, and inviting the Catalyst community to help test it by adding data.

1. have the CGO team (10 people from across Catalyst who are knowledgeable about decentralised governance) maintain more detailed oversight of the changes captured in the dashboard, researching exactly when and how they were introduced, what the process of consultation was, and what the effects of the change are.

We can validate that this is feasible because the team for F8 CGO (many of whom are also part of this proposal) already began to do this research - see spreadsheet here CGO community register of Catalyst parameter changes. Also, new team members such as Rodrigo Pacini and Victor Corcino bring extensive experience of researching, tracking and communicating data in Catalyst, particularly in relation to Fund voting results and PA/VPA statistics. 

We will validate that this work has been done by adding our research to the dashboard itself so users can see it; by the record of our meetings where the issues are discussed; by reporting on our findings in fortnightly Town Hall Slides and via social media updates; and by drawing our research together in our final report.

1. present updates via a regular Town Hall slide about recent additions to the parameters Dashboard, and via video summaries of our meetings, to help raise awareness of governance parameter changes.

We can validate that this is feasible because several members of our team were part of the CGO Fund 8 project, where this was successfully done. We will be able to validate that it was done via the recordings of Town Halls, and via our own documentation. We will also monitor whether views of, and additions to, the Dashboard increase shortly after Town Halls in response to raised awareness.

[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.

Milestone 1 (completed within 2 weeks of getting funded): Set-up 

15% of budget

Fully onboarding the team. Set-up of GitBook, wallet management, GitHub project management, Treasury management, and documentation systems. Initial 35% payment to developer team. 

Milestone 2 (completed within 3 months of getting funded): Dashboard

27% of budget

Parameters Dashboard fully built and ready to be rolled out to the community. 2 progress meetings between the developer team and the project manager; main payment of 55% to developer team; creation of a community engagement plan to share the dashboard as widely as possible.)

Milestone 3 (completed within 4 months of getting funded): Community input

10% of budget

Publicise the Dashboard and invite the community to user-test it by adding parameter changes to it.

Meeting with developer team to address any issues that emerge; final payment (10%) to developer team when complete.

Milestone 4 (completed within 7 months of getting funded): Oversight 

28% of budget

3-month Oversight period of parameter changes added to the dashboard by the community. Team members work individually between meetings, to research and analyse each change; plus monthly meetings to discuss. Town Hall Slides every 2 weeks, to share with the community what the oversight and research is discovering.

Milestone 5 (completed within 9 months of getting funded): Oversight report and close 

20% of budget

Team members finish (and are paid for) their research, and use it to write and publish a final Oversight report, examining the key governance parameter changes that emerged, plus the value of the Dashboard and future directions for its further development. After TownHall to share and discuss the report; production of the formal project close-out and video.

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

Milestone 1 (within 2 weeks of getting funded): Set-up

Deliverables: 

• a documentation GitBook and project management space on GitHub, including treasury management;
• a meeting between the developer team for the Dashboard, and the CGO project manager, to finalise scope and details of the Dashboard

Outcomes: a robust and transparent system for managing the project and its budget; developers are clear what they are building.

Milestone 2 (within 3 months of getting funded): Dashboard

Deliverables: a working Parameters Dashboard; a plan for publicising and sharing it.

Outcomes: the Dashboard is able to support oversight of governance parameter changes in Catalyst, and the oversight team knows how to use, share and publicise it

Milestone 3 (within 4 months of getting funded): Community input

Deliverables: Town Hall slides, an After TownHall, and social media posts on Telegram, Discord, Twitter, and the Cardano Forum.

Outcomes: The community is aware of the Dashboard, knows how to use it, and are adding Catalyst governance parameter changes to it.

Milestone 4 (within 7 months of getting funded): Oversight

Deliverables: A record on GitBook and Youtube of 5 meetings of the Oversight Team (1x onboarding, 3x monthly oversight discussion, 1x plenary); a record (via Town Hall videos) of 6 Town Hall Slides delivered; a record of regular posts on Telegram, Discord and Twitter to raise community awareness; a short How-To video to show the community how to use the dashboard.

Outcomes: at least 10 governance parameter changes have been added to the dashboard; the CGO team has investigated these, collated data about them, and discussed the implications; insights have been shared regularly with the community and with IOG, via Town Hall Slides and social media posts; the community is aware of and discussing the issues behind the changes that have been identified.

Milestone 5 (within 9 months of getting funded): Oversight report and close-out

Deliverables: a final oversight report on the effectiveness of the Dashboard and the issues uncovered by it; IOG close-out report and video

Outcomes: Raised awareness in the Catalyst community about the governance changes that have taken place in the previous 8 months and their implications; growing confidence in the community to address governance issues in Catalyst; CGO team has ideas on how the Dashboard might be further developed.

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

• Development of the Dashboard, and frontend design: estimated 200 hrs x 200 ADA p/hr x 2 people Subtotal = 80,000 ADA

• Development progress meetings: 3 people x 3 meetings x 700 ADA per meeting Subtotal = 6,300 ADA

• Oversight team meetings 10 people x 700 ADA per meeting x 5 meetings (1x onboarding, 3x oversight, 1x plenary). Subtotal = 35,000 ADA

• Oversight meeting attendance for lead developer and Treasury: They will attend for the first part of meetings only, to give a report. 180 ADA per meeting x 2 people x 5 meetings. Subtotal 1,800 ADA

• Researching and overseeing individual parameters in between meetings: 10 parameters, x 2,000 ADA per parameter Subtotal = 20,000 ADA

• Treasury management: Miroslav Rajh of Treasury Guild will set up the wallet for Community Governance Oversight, arrange ADA payments to members, and maintain budget records. Average 15 hours/month for (9 months) = 135 hours x 160 ADA /hour. Subtotal = 21,600 ADA

• Facilitation: (agenda prep and facilitating 5 meetings 1,100 ADA per meeting) Subtotal = 5,500 ADA

• Project management reporting: comprises monthly reports, milestone reports Subtotal = 8,000 ADA

• Documentation of 5 working meetings (summary videos and text meeting summaries @ 800 ADA per meeting x 5 meetings Subtotal = 4,000 ADA

• Publicity and comms (covers preparing and delivering TH Slides @ 800 ADA each x 8 total (including at start of project) = 6400 ADA; weekly posting in Discord, Telegram and Twitter @ 300 ADA p/week x 16 weeks = 4,800 ADA; planning, delivery and documentation of 2 ATHs = 3,600 ADA Subtotal = 14,800 ADA

• Compiling final report/whitepaper: subtotal = 8,000 ADA

• Project close-out report and video: subtotal = 1,800 ADA

total = 206,800 ADA

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

The rates given are typical freelance rates at the low end of US and European averages. Note that freelance pay rates take into account the employment overheads of the resources contracted. The amounts in our budget are calculated for each milestone based on the hours to complete.

Also, all the people working on this project are taking on the currency risk of being paid in ADA. This means that a fall in the ADA price will result in being paid less or delivering less in each milestone. Any rise in the ADA price will represent a reward for investing in the Cardano ecosystem.

The output from this proposal will be regular open reporting, a detailed analysis of found outcomes accompanying the closing report, as well as a legacy open source platform that can be developed and maintained into the future. The proposal combines an OS development project with its subsequent use in collecting and analyzing governance data; so it is an OS proof of concept, in addition to its value in terms of maintaining oversight of governance changes in Catalyst.

Given these factors, we believe this proposal offers excellent value for money in a volatile cryptocurrency environment.

[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