Introduction:
Hi Catdets! First of all, let me introduce myself to the community. I am relatively new to the Solana ecosystem, I onboarded here late December, early Jupuary. I spent the bear market on Hive, holding that bag.
I guess i could be considered a tech enthusiast. or maybe a Power Hobbyist. I’m obsessed with crypto, AI, and tricky algorithms.
I also consider myself to be a budding crypto activist. I have the crazy idea that financial incentive should not be the primary driver in business, crypto or community.
That’s not to say that financial incentive has no place, I’m simply saying that it should not be the ONLY priority, or even the main priority.
I believe the Jupiter ethos aligns with my own. The DAO priorities seem to be:
Growing the ecosystem
Onboarding and educating new users
Growing and rewarding the community
Embracing social good values.
So currently, we have successfully funded 4 WGs across 2 governance sessions. Additionally, there are multiple active WG proposals that are requesting various levels of funding if approved. I don’t have any specific feedback about any of the specific amounts that are currently proposed or have already been approved. I personally think the compensation schemes proposed have been in line with western compensation standards. It cannot be denied however, that these funding requests have been a pretty hotly contested topic.
The Problem:
There currently seems to be a large discrepancy between people’s ideas of what fair compensation is, and there is no defined standard within our community on the subject.
Additionally, there is also a fairly large spread in the funding requests. but the biggest cost is compensation.
As this is a new process, the clapback is still minimal. And as a new concept, we are exploring the process and beginning to define best practices. Now is the time to hash this out before we become too set in our ways. If we lock in things as they are, there seems to me a big potential for a nasty snowball effect regarding community compensation issues.
The Solution:
No idea. That’s why I’m posting this in the DISCUSSION board!
Okay, that’s not really true…I’m chock full of great ideas, just ask ChatGPT, it’s never told me once my idea is shit. Just sayin’, I think a frank discussion about expectations are in order though.
Are we a non profit? No, BUT we are about so much more than profit. I personally participate in DAO activities because i really do believe that we have the opportunity to change the world. We change our little corner every day, with every engagement, every post, and every conversation.
Is this my slick way of saying that community members should work for free? Well…kinda.
Let me explain my thinking. Lets say we make proposals and funding requests cover just project related costs minus any compensation budget. These would be hard costs (API access, hosting, external contractors…whatever isn’t considered pay for the team). This could be handled in a trustless fashion using multisig and then designate signers. these costs can be invoiced and tracked through standard accounting methods.
Any community member that is part of the active development team would log the work done and the time it took. just like any standard time sheet really, except maybe with a quick explanation of what you accomplished. Each week the ‘volunteer’ would submit the work sheet to the WG lead who would then verify and then publish the report with all that information. This allows for community oversight on any aspect of a project’s progress.
From the Jupiter DAO side set a participation airdrop equal to $50.00 USD per hour ‘volunteered’ by each community member in JUP to each participating governance wallet.
This idea allows for several levels of oversight by the community, project leads and the JUPDAO. This also allows for a very clear picture of costs. I believe transparency is very important here. The trustless and verifiable nature of these processes can go a long way to ensuring trust conversations don’t come up over this in the future.
Why 50 bucks an hour? Mostly arbitrary, tbh. It’s probably way less than a badass full-stack developer would earn, and more than say a community manager. And I’m sure there is a lot of variation based on the region where you live. I live in the US, so the majority of my opinions and positions are influenced by that.
It seems like a good middle ground to begin the conversation. I personally don’t care what number the community reaches…my interest is that we create clear guidelines no matter what they end up being.
I’m guessing this could ease potential tax/compliance issues as well, though i don’t really know what the legal status of the WG members are…are they actual employees? contractors?
What about the talent pool? I’ve been reading other proposals and responses and there are some amazing ideas around talent recruitment within the community. I take a more decentralized stand on the idea though…there is lots of talk about seeing resumes and LinkedIn profiles. past job experience and the like…sorry, I’m not really about all that. How is that any different than corporate America? Then there’s the issue of getting doxxed…I’m not really hiding anything lol, but I’d rather my crypto holdings be kept private. I don’t have an alarm or a gun.
Instead, let community members list their skills and elaborate on their boundless talent, and then allow 3 options to connect those skilled community members with a project
.
1 a user can apply to be part of a project,
2. the moderator of the talent pool can connect a member with a project.
3. the project can explore and recruit skilled members.
This could be for anything from UI development, to smart contracts, to Telegram stickers…whatever a project needs. We have hundreds of thousands of community members, all in the crypto space, and all fully crushing on @Meow. Our talent pool is enormous and we should leverage that.
So an airdrop based on hours logged that’s hard coded into policy allows for a more dynamic recruitment process…because the proposal is for the project, set a reasonable number of collaborators you can recruit and then let it run. each week there will be an update and if at any point the team or members don’t meet community expectations, then the team or member can be replaced without going through another proposal process, or without scrapping the project.
Welp, I guess that’s really all i got.
(Note to the Community: While the majority of my content is straight Loot writing, i do use multiple AI models to process ideas and help me to conceptualize. If i am having particular trouble articulating a subject intelligently, i will use modified AI generated text. As anyone who uses generative AI knows, they are great echo chambers, but are really not good at conceptualizing new processes and then applying them to existing models. refining concepts through AI can help clarify the cogent points…add iteration and any idiot can sound intelligent, yay me!)
Call to Action:
erm…follow my twitter? No? Fiiiiine, then engage in this post and add ideas. tell me if you think I’m off. Please be specific and kind lol. I think this is one of the most important conversations the community should be having right now. Maybe my ideas, maybe not, but it’s imperative that we begin seeking some kind of consensus.