Changed up methodology for testing voting mechanisms
Decreased budget that would compensate project leads
Background
What problems do you aim to solve? How does it serve the mission of a user owned internet?
The goal of this grant proposal is to secure support for the Stacks community’s Governance Working Group for the remainder of Q4 2020 to Q1 2021. The Governance Working Group aims to solve pressing issues that hinder Stacks community members from making meaningful contributions to the mission of building a user-owned internet, such as insufficient community tools and educational material. The general objective of this working group is to advocate for the needs of the Stacks community, and empowering them with better tools and governance upon the launch of Stacks 2.0 is one major way to do that. Based on discussions with community members, we have identified and prioritized a couple of key issues to address starting this quarter:
There is currently no voting mechanism in place that community members can utilize to come to a consensus/make decisions on matters impacting the Stacks Ecosystem.
Although much of the community supports the“Can’t Be Evil” ethos, there is no official code of conduct or manifesto to enforce and unify the Stacks community around that ethos.
Should we secure support from the Grants Program, the Governance Working Group would take the lead on the research and project management required to solve the above issues, but work closely with the wider Stacks community to execute on their solutions. It’s worth noting that this proposal is meant to kickstart several important projects ahead of the launch of Stacks 2.0. If the Governance Working Group is successful in delivering on these projects over the next two quarters, we hope to renew our support from the Grants Program in upcoming quarters to continue serving the Stacks community.
Project Overview
What solution are you providing? Who will it serve?
The proposed solutions to the aforementioned issues are:
Test, evaluate, and select an official voting mechanism for decision-making within the Stacks community. This is a longer term project that will likely take up to six months. For the purposes of this proposal, we aim to test, evaluate, and report on at least 4 different voting mechanisms by the end of Q4 of 2020. If our efforts in Q4 are successful, we would continue testing into the following quarter and aim to select and implement a voting mechanism for the Stacks community by the end of Q1 of 2021.
Develop and publish a draft code of conduct that will have been reviewed, contributed to, and qualitatively approved by the Stacks community by the end of Q4. Get the code of conduct officially approved by the Stacks community(via the voting mechanism determined above) by the end of Q1 2021.
These solutions will primarily serve Stacks community members focused on educating their local communities about a user-owned internet, and community members seeking a more structured governance model for community participation and decision-making.
Scope
What are the components or technical specs of the project? What will the final deliverable look like? How will you measure success?
Stacks Community Voting Mechanism
A representative of the Governance Working Group, with the help of Jude Nelson at the Stacks Foundation, will lead testing of different voting mechanisms via focus groups. Community members will be polled on relevant issues within the Stacks ecosystem(e.g.“Based on the designs that you have seen so far, should we move forward with the Stacks logo?”), using each of the different mechanisms.
Testing 4 mechanisms: a formula that endows longer-term community members with more voting power(increases log linearly with time; based on age of BNS names), quadratic voting, and 2 mechanisms chosen by the community.(Community members to submit voting mechanism proposals for consideration within the first week of testing.)
Testing will be conducted simply, using a combination of Blocksurvey and spreadsheets.
We will ensure that at least 50 community members participate across(not in each) the focus groups in order to gather sufficient data; results of each test will be publicly accessible throughout the process.
By the end of Q4 of 2020: Once all mechanisms have been tested, we will release a report analyzing and comparing the accuracy and efficacy of each voting mechanism, all of which will be open for discussion within the Stacks community.
^If successful, by the end of Q1 of 2021: These tests and evaluations should ultimately result in the final product: open source voting software, specially designed for the Stacks community and easy to integrate into various platforms.
“Can’t Be Evil” Code of Conduct
A representative of the Governance Working Group, with the help of Jenny Mith at Blockstack PBC, will develop a comprehensive code of conduct that not only covers the values of the Stacks community, but also outlines best practices for contributing to the Stacks Ecosystem
Would address different stakeholders in the Stacks community, from investors to developers. I.e. For developers, the code of conduct might enforce strict privacy-preserving practices when it comes to building tools and applications. For investors, the code of conduct might encourage and endorse behaviors that help grow the Stacks Ecosystem, e.g. hodling.
We will conduct broad research of existing codes of conduct and take inspiration from the most effective ones(such as the Contributor Covenant) before outlining a Can’t Be Evil Code of Conduct and crowdsourcing content from the Stacks community.
Reference
Proposal v.2
Notable Changes
Background
Project Overview
Scope