Consenz: Community Discussions Integrations and Notifications

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Aharon Porath

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

aharon@consenz.io

Additional applicants

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[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

Other

[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.

Problem Statement:

Governance and decision-making are made mainly by two methods: discussion and voting. Discussions allow the participants to express different opinions and perspectives and to take into consideration the pros and cons, the benefits and the risks before decisions are made.

But discussions are not scalable. Discussions create noise, and when there is too much noise, it is hard to identify the signal, i.e., the relevant data that contributes to the process. 

In decentralized organizations, governance is being made by voting on proposals on-chain. The focus on proposals leaves outside wider policy challenges that are relevant to the community, such as process guidelines, community code of conduct, monetary policy, etc. Discussions are usually disconnected from the voting process and spread on different platforms: twitter, google-docs, telegram, discord, reddit, github, and others.

This situation makes the decision-making process ineffective and creates a risk of getting decisions that are not in the best interest of the community and its members. Also, it may discourage many members from actively participating in the process.

Our Solution:

Consenz is a platform that was created to address those problems and offer a proven solution.

The platform's core logic is based on allowing the users to suggest improvements to an agreement document by publishing edits to the section 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, as shown in this diagram:

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 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.
• These agreements are separated from the noise by aggregating only section versions the received enough support on the document draft.

The process of 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.

However, it is very difficult to accustom the users to a new platform, great as it will be. People want to engage with others, and to start onboarding participants to a new, and first empty, channel, is very challenging.

To address this challenge we are going to initiate a few strategies: Marketing, Direct and active outreach for users and communities, and - building integration between the Consenz platform and other platforms and channels, to go where the users are and bring the unique way of getting things done to them.

This proposal funding, if approved, will be used for building a set of integration between the Consenz platform and other channels and platforms that are used for discussions and document editing, including:

• Telegram
• Twitter
• Discord
• Github/Gitbook
• Discourse

By creating bots and plugins for these platforms we will be able to bring the benefits of the Consenz platform - i.e., productivity, focus, efficiency, and scalability - to the places where the conversation is happening now.

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.

We also have a few funded proposals on 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 goals:

Products & Integrations focuses on the following areas:

• Creation or improvement of different products that provide value to the Cardano community and wider ecosystem.
• Integrations with other existing services, products, and protocols that improve the end-user experience. This could mean giving the user more options or making something easier to use that benefits the wider ecosystem.

And these types of proposals:

• Social media
• Mediation

This proposal is for creating and improving an existing product (the Consenz platform MVP version) built using funding from Catalyst.

This product has already been proven as having the potential for providing value to the Cardano community by creating a better way to discuss, agree, and form consensus around relevant issues.

By integrating other existing services and products such as social media channels and text editing tools. we will be able to leverage the tool that we have built and bring great value to the community.

As for integration with the Cardano blockchain, in this proposal, we are focusing on delivering UI for community discussion with integration with other web2 applications. However, 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

As you can see in the project roadmap, it is divided into 4 layers, the third layer (the "Trust Layer") include on-chain components:

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

We will use this Potential success metric (as mentioned in the challenge brief) to measure the success of this proposal:

• Social media - Total number of users, number of meaningful interactions

Specifically:

• Number of new registered users that arrived from social media integrations
• Number of shared items of user-generated content from Consenz to social media channels
• Engagement with those items (likes, comments, shares)
• Use of the product of the Consenz process on social media and other channels

[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 this opportunity 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 developers' 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 has a proven record of completing the funded proposal, building a 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?

This proposal aims to provide structure, productivity, and focus to online discussions of crypto and other communities, by connecting the Consenz platform functionality to diverse social media platforms and other services that are been used for communication, discussions and decision-making processes.

We will validate the validity of our approach by measuring the use of the tools that we will build, analyzing the content and the outputs that will be created on them, and comparing it to online discussions that are happening without using them, to make sure that they do elevate the conversation to be more efficient and productive.

[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: Consenz API Development

Goal: To allow third-party applications to access content on Consenz such as - documents, comments, improvement suggestions, voting stats, etc., to publish it on other channels and to modify it according to the platform protocol logic.

Tasks:

1. Design and plan Consenz webhooks, API endpoints and functionality for accessing this content:
2. Document
3. Comments
4. Edit suggestion
5. Events such as changes in the document draft
6. Develop API infrastructure and architecture
7. Implement authentication and authorization mechanisms
8. Build API endpoints for accessing and manipulating agreement data for allowing users to comment, vote and suggest improvements using third-party applications
9. Test API functionality and ensure proper error handling
10. Document API usage and provide developer resources

Expected Timeline: 2 months

Milestone 2: Email Notifications

Goal: To enhance users' engagement on the Consenz platform and encourage them to return to the discussion and interact with other participants.

Tasks:

1. Design email notification templates
2. Implement an email notification system using a third-party service or an in-house solution
3. Integrate email notifications with relevant events (such as - new comments, new edit suggestions, and changes to the document), and triggers within the Consenz platform
4. Test email notifications for accuracy and delivery
5. Configure email settings and provide user preferences for managing notification frequency
6. Document email notification system and provide user guidelines

Expected Timeline: 2 months

Milestone 3: Social Media Integration

Goal: To bring user-created contact from the Consenz platform to other active communications channels, such as community Telegram groups and Twitter threads.

• Telegram Bot

Tasks:

1. Design Telegram bot interactions and commands, such as commenting and voting on suggestions in consenz on Telegram groups
2. Develop a Telegram bot using the Telegram Bot API
3. Integrate the Telegram bot with the Consenz platform and build its capabilities to publish automated notifications on relevant TG groups.
4. Implement features such as receiving notifications, providing updates, and managing user interactions
5. Test Telegram bot functionality and ensure proper error handling
6. Document Telegram bot usage and provide user guidelines

• Twitter Bot

Tasks:

1. Design Twitter bot interactions and commands
2. Develop a Twitter bot using the Twitter API
3. Integrate Twitter bot with the Consenz platform to allow automatic publishing of contact from consenz as tweets and tweet replies
4. Test Twitter bot functionality and ensure proper error handling
5. Document Twitter bot usage and provide user guidelines

Expected Timeline: 3 months

Milestone 4: Discussions Platforms Integration

• Discord bot

Tasks:

1. Design Discord bot interactions and commands such as commenting and voting on suggestions in consenz on Discord servers channels.
2. Develop Discord bot using the Discord API
3. Integrate Discord bot with the Consenz platform
4. Implement features such as receiving notifications, providing updates, and managing user interactions such as voting, commenting and publishing improvement suggestions.
5. Test Discord bot functionality and ensure proper error handling
6. Document Discord bot usage and provide user guidelines

• Discourse Plug-in (optional)

Tasks:

1. Design Discourse plug-in functionality and user interface
2. Develop Discourse plug-in components using the Discourse API
3. Integrate Consenz platform with Discourse for discussion and engagement
4. Implement features such as embedding agreement sections, linking discussions, and displaying notifications
5. Test Discourse plug-in functionality and ensure proper error handling
6. Document Discourse plug-in usage and provide user guidelines

Expected Timeline: 2 months

Milestone 5: Editing Tools Integration

• GitHub/Gitbook Integration

Goal: As many .

Tasks:

1. Design GitHub integration workflow and functionality
2. Develop integration components using the GitHub API
3. Integrate Consenz platform with GitHub repositories for seamless collaboration
4. Implement features such as syncing agreement versions, tracking changes, and managing pull requests
5. Test GitHub integration functionality and ensure proper error handling
6. Document GitHub integration usage and provide user guidelines

Expected Timeline: 3 months

The work on the various addons and integrations will be carried out simultaneously so that the indicated time estimates for all milestones can add up to about 8 months of work for the entire project.

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 each milestone 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

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

Milestone 1: API Development

• Total cost: ₳70,000

Milestone 2: Email Notifications

• Total cost: ₳50,000

Milestone 3: Social Media Integration

• Total cost: ₳60,000

Milestone 4: Discussions Platforms Integration

• Total cost: ₳70,000

Milestone 5: Editing Tools Integration

• Total cost: ₳60,000

Total budget: ₳310,000

[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 the 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 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