[FINAL] Delegate Corner Podcast - Mission Proposal

ARCHIVED Mission Proposals
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S4 Intent: Governance Accessibility (Intent 4)

Proposed Mission: A Podcast that covers and spotlights delegates

Proposal Tier 22: Ember

Please verify that you meet the qualifications for your Tier: I am a new community member that has not worked with or for the Optimism Collective before

Baseline grant amount: 10k OP

% of total available Intent Budget: 0.33%

Please check here if access to upfront capital is a barrier to completing your Mission and if you would like to be considered for a small upfront cash grant: No

Alliance name: Sinkas

Alliance Lead: Sinkas

Contact info:

L2 recipient address: 0xc8F8C7634e12C45266FC1110640BB318cdbF2373

Please list the members of your Alliance and link to any previous work:

Sinkas - Host, Producer, and Editor

A lot of my previous work experience revolved around spotlighting individuals, particularly creators on the Roll platform.

I hosted the Roll Radio podcast from Ep.14 to Ep.24 - Available on Youtube and Spotify

And I wrote and edited Rollā€™s biweekly newsletter (20k subscribers) - Examples found on Rollā€™s blog (up to April 2022)

My full CV can be found here

Please explain how this Mission will help accomplish the above Intent:

  • Spotlighting delegates in a weekly podcast will help with their discoverability and will also help delegators get to know to who they delegate their tokens, strengthening the bond between them.
  • Interviewing bigger delegates who already have an audience and wide reach will help spread the word about the podcast and increase its audience, which in turn will translate to more eyeballs and ears for smaller delegates. In a way, the podcast will serve as a way for bigger delegates to propel smaller ones in a streamlined way.
  • By listening/watching the interviews, weā€™ll hopefully probe more delegators to actively think and assess who their delegate of choice will be, based on the information they acquire.
  • Furthermore, the links back to Discourse (from Youtube and Spotify) will serve as a way for watchers/listeners to get their feet wet in regard to discussions around governance.

What makes your Alliance well-suited to execute this Mission?

My past work experience has equipped me with all the necessary skills to execute this mission end-to-end without help from any third party -which may sometimes act as a bottleneck.

I have experience with:

  1. Sourcing and arranging guests to come on a podcast
  2. Building a framework that will act as the base for all interviews
  3. Researching guests and adjusting the interview questionnaire
  4. Recording and editing the episodes
  5. Creating graphics for each episode (thumbnails, cover photos)
  6. Audio-to-text transcription

Furthermore, my project management skills enable me to easily juggle multiple items at once (e.g. editing an episode while also preparing for the next one) within deadlines.

Lastly, but most importantly, I am currently not working another a full-time job which means I can put my full weight behind the execution of the proposal and all the surrounding things it entails.

Please list the critical milestone(s) that should be tracked to determine if you should receive your grant in one year:

Recorded and published at least 10 episodes with 10 separate delegates (1 episode per week for 10 weeks).

How should Token House delegates measure progress towards this Mission:

  1. The first episode will be published within a week of the passing of the vote for the mission. :white_check_mark: (See here)
  2. The total number of episodes published after a month since the first episode will be 5 (first episode, plus 4 the following month) :white_check_mark:
  3. The podcastā€™s monthly analytics (views/streams/subscribers) should indicate a growth trajectory for each month.

How should badge-holders measure impact upon completion of this Mission?

The total number of views across all 10 episodes published by the end of Season 4 should fall into one of the following categories:

  • Minimum: 10,000 views/streams (1,000Ā± views/streams per episode)

  • Good: 10,001 - 20,000 views/streams (1,500Ā± views/streams per episode)

  • Great: 20,001 - 50,000 views/streams (3,500Ā± views/streams per episode)

  • Perfect: 50,001 - 100,000 views/streams (7,500Ā± views/streams per episode)

  • Excellent: 100,000+ views/streams (10,000+ views/streams per episode)

The podcast will continue running beyond the timeframe specified for Season 4 missions. If the critical milestones are surpassed, Iā€™ll nominate the podcast for additional funding in the context of RetroPFG, which I hope to be assessed based on the results produced in terms of total views/streams.

If Citizenā€™s House delegates are satisfied with the result of the mission, then the podcast will continue running alongside RetroPGF rounds which may fund it for longer periods of time.

Breakdown of Mission budget request:

Contributor: 10k $OP split as follows:

  • 3k $OP towards sourcing guests, preparing and hosting the podcasts
  • 6k $OP towards editing the episodes, creating graphics, transcribing audio to text
  • 1k $OP towards publishing and marketing

I confirm that my grant will be subject to clawback for failure to execute on critical milestones: Yes

I confirm that I have read and understand the grant policies: Yes

I understand that I will be required to provide additional KYC information to the Optimism Foundation to receive this grant: Yes

I understand that I will be expected to follow the public grant reporting requirements outlined here: Yes

Disclosure: Iā€™m editing my proposal to let everyone know that, as I just announced on Twitter, Iā€™ve joined L2Beat as a governance representative. My joining of L2Beat came a few weeks after the proposal has been approved. Disclosing it here since 1 of the 6 approvals (of the 4 necessary) came from Kaereste, whoā€™s also representing L2Beat.

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Message to delegates:
On top of giving your feedback for the proposal, Iā€™d love for you to reach out and express your interest in participating in the podcast as a guest. Iā€™ve already done some outreach, but Iā€™d be happy to hear from you and arrange for you to be on the podcast.

Also, for big delegates who want to support the mission but canā€™t/donā€™t want to be on the podcast, just sharing the episodes (when published) with your audience would be more than enough to help spotlight smaller delegates.

Message to delegators:
If you have a particular delegate youā€™d like to see on the podcast, or a specific kind of info youā€™d like to learn about delegates, please let me know in the replies. Iā€™d love to make this a collective effort and crowdsource questions and guests!

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Iā€™d love to help you if you need a hand, let me know!

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I donā€™t need a hand with this particular proposal, but Iā€™ll be sharing a post in the OP Discord looking for members for an Alliance Iā€™m putting together for another proposal. Keep an eye out and see if your skills match what Iā€™m looking for.

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Solid idea that resonates well with conversation around delegate spotlight. This might also be a good place to draw your delegates from :slight_smile:

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The idea for the mission was inspired from the Delegate Spotlight thread as well as the discussion around Delegate Discoverability Initiatives.

Is there anything in particular in the proposal that you feel could be better? Would love the feedback!

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Youā€™ve provided really solid impact measurements. I like these

Yet your budget request appears to fund work vs impact. And based on my newsroom and content development experience when I look at the work required the budget is too high given

  1. there is a forum and specific post to identify guests
  2. preparing and hosting an interview should take less than 5 hrs
  3. AI can create graphics and transcribe audio to text

I also am comparing this to RFPG2 results as a baseline for Impact = Profit. Comparable examples include

56k OP YouTube content w view 300k
99k OP Multi year blog & social content

Problem: Thereā€™s some dissonance for me between the proposed impact vs funding requested
Solution: Could you instead tie your budget request directly to your impact measures i.e Excellent 30kā€¦

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Thanks for the constructive feedback and for expressing your concern regarding the budget of the mission, as well as for providing the reasoning behind the concern. Before publishing the proposal, I too was debating with myself regarding the appropriate grant amount so the things you mentioned are things that I had already considered and was aware of when making the proposal.

I donā€™t want to attempt to change your mind, but I will try and outline my reasoning in a way that gets you, and others reading this, to see my point of view.

Itā€™s true that in the way the proposal is framed, and itā€™s framed the way it is because of the template, it looks like Iā€™m requesting funding for my work, rather than for the impact my work will have.

Here are 2 thoughts on that:

A) My receiving the grant is contingent on my ability to meet the proposalā€™s critical milestone, which is measured in published episodes, and therefore the impact of my work rather than time spent working.
B) From my understanding, you canā€™t ā€œscaleā€ your budget based on the actual impact youā€™ll have. For example, I too would feel better if I could use the views/stream ranges with which badge-holders will measure the missionā€™s impact (as I outlined in the proposal) and assess its eligibility for RetroPGF to measure my baseline grant amount and increase it based on which range I end falling in.

And in a way, it makes sense, especially with this kind of mission. You see, the scope of the mission should fall within Season 4, which by the end voting period ends and you know your proposal has passed, is 10 weeks.

Itā€™s therefore incredibly hard to hit the numbers mentioned in my KPIs to measure success in that short amount of time without already having a huge audience. And I donā€™t think we want to only incentivize already established actors to contribute while overlooking the ā€œlittle guyā€.

Having a place that acts as a resource to find delegates and reach out to them doesnā€™t necessarily mean that itā€™ll be easy to get them as guests. To illustrate this, Iā€™ve already reached out to 18 delegates, yet Iā€™ve only heard back from 3, 2 of which couldnā€™t be on the podcast citing capacity concerns and a desire not to be doxxed.

You can imagine that coordinating with 10 individuals to agree to be on the podcast, find a time to record the episode, and do so in a way that enables me to push out an episode per week for 10 weeks straight can be extremely pressuring work.

Furthermore, I hope youā€™ll appreciate how in a sense youā€™re also expressing some dissonance between how you want the proposalā€™s budget to be assessed, and how you assess it.

Measuring impact is sometimes tricky because of how weā€™re wired to measure time spent working all those years. Should I be paid less if Iā€™m more efficient and I can get things done in 5 hours, or less, instead of 8 or more? Similarly, should I be ā€œpenalizedā€ for using the right tools and AI to maximize my output?

If weā€™re rewarding impact, the time spent delivering the impact should be irrelevant. Just as when you pay $100 for a doctorā€™s visit that lasts 30 minutes, youā€™re not paying for their time spent examining you, but rather for their ability to do so and for the impact their input will have on your health.

So if we want to assess the impact of the mission (which I believe I am trying to do in the original proposal, but just donā€™t have the framework to do so, given how missions in season 4 are structured) we should try and refrain from referencing to traditional ways of measuring output in hours of work.

In my opinion, RPGF and Missions canā€™t and shouldnā€™t be judged on the same basis. Take Michaelā€™s content for example (I really like Michael and immensely appreciate his contributions to Optimismā€™s Governance, hope Iā€™m not misunderstood):

He received 56k $OP for content that hit 300k total views. That doesnā€™t really cover the essence of it though, nor can we constrain those after-the-fact results in the scope of season 4 missions.

  1. The content was spread out over a period of 24+ months. You cannot reasonably expect to procure the same quantitive results within 10 weeks unless I already had hundreds of thousands of subscribers, which I donā€™t.
  2. Thereā€™s a lot of content thatā€™s unrelated to Optimism, yet its views are seemingly included in the total of 300k views. In fact, the majority of the content isnā€™t directly related to Optimism.
  3. The average views/video related to Optimism is approximately 1000 views (10289 views on 10 videos, spread across 12 months. In comparison, my minimum of 10,000 views/streams across the first 10 episodes within 10 weeks already seems far-fetched, and thatā€™s why Iā€™m cautious about including views/streams as a critical milestone and rather keep it as a way to measure impact upon completion of the mission, which will determine whether or not Iā€™ll receive RPGF after I nominate myself.

And more or less the same reasoning applies to the second example you mentioned; different timeframe, retroactive assessment as opposed to proactive, unknown metrics ahead of time.

Last but not least, letā€™s not forget that RPGF is liquid for the receivers (afaik at least, correct me if Iā€™m wrong), whereas mission grants are subject to 1-year lock. Given the unpredictability of crypto markets and the grim outlook of the economy as a whole, it makes sense to try to mitigate downside risk by requesting more funds. It also in a way incentivizes building in a bear market, which is harder than in a bull market where the moneyā€™s flowing freely and everyone is happy to contribute.

Also, another point to keep in mind is that if we strip OPā€™s price relative to USD, my proposed grant doesnā€™t look all that big all of a sudden (1% of the Intent 4 3M budget). With my experience in the space, we probably wouldnā€™t be having this discussion if the amounts were the same but the price of OP was at $0.10 USD.

To conclude, I just want to highlight that as mentioned above, there are multiple factors at play, some of which are not obvious at first glance.

I deeply appreciate you taking the time to read my proposal and provide some feedback. I am curious to see other peopleā€™s thoughts on the matter before deciding whether I want to edit my proposal and adjust the budget - I hope you donā€™t find that insulting.

Based on your feedback however, if required, I believe an appropriate change would be to move (and adjust to the downside) the ā€œMinimum Viewsā€ from a milestone to be considered when assessing for RPGF, to a critical milestone, therefore tying my budget to the success of the podcast has within the 10 weeks of the missionā€™s timeframe.

How would such an adjustment make you feel, given the above discussion? Would it have an impact to your view of the proposed budget and its ā€œlegitimacyā€?

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While Iā€™m not qualified (in any way) to do $OP valuations on content, I do want to make a point thatā€™s easy to miss: the morale boost to delegates being interviewed. Governance labor is generally acknowledged by all as critical, but in practice largely invisible. Being interviewed, being able to express yourself, expounding on your reasoning and philosophies behind positions, can benefit the mental and emotional health of the delegate and help retention. The content will also be highly meaningful to a small number of other governance participants in the OP governance ā€˜sceneā€™.

While this supports the case that more labor might be involved, I am wondering if this presents execution risk? If fear of being doxxed is great enough, is it possible not enough delegates can be sourced for the pod?

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There are over 100 delegates on Optimism. Even if we assume half of them donā€™t want to be on the podcast at all (since people who donā€™t want to dox themselves can still participate in an audio-only episode), that means there are still enough delegates to keep the podcast running not just for the 10 weeks of Season 4, but for a full year.

Out of the 18 delegates I reached out to, and the 3 that responded, 1 was down to be on the podcast, which is a good indicator that the mission is feasible and the risk of execution minimal.

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To be clear I think youā€™ve proposed a needed approach to Intent 4

On this point, we diverge. Critical milestones represent the work required, but not the impact of that work. imo your budget should be tied to impact not milestone delivery. A couple of reasons for this

  1. If for instance, you can deliver only 8/10 interviews it is the performance of the delivered content that should be rewarded, not the amount of work or lack thereof.
  2. By linking reward to impact you are establishing the baseline by which you quantify and seek retroactive funding over time

Thank you for the constructive consideration of my feedback. I do think a minimum performance requirement helps but I do not think you need to move lines around. I opened a conversation on content performance standards and I applied your proposal to provide examples for the terminology. Itā€™s all open for debate as I would like to generate some transparency, consistency and collective understanding around funding content impact vs work

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Thank you for the continuous feedback and discussion!

I think youā€™re right on that, and thatā€™s part of the reason why in my response to your first comment I wrote:

Unfortunately, with the way the missions are structured, I donā€™t think thereā€™s a framework to have Critical Milestones represent impact instead of work. Two reasons for that IMO:

  1. Impact of content can, by default, only be measured retroactively, while mission proposals and the metrics we use for critical milestones are proactive. Missions are supposed to incentivize people to do work and deliver impact, while RPGF is meant to reward people for work theyā€™ve already done - an important distinction to be made.
  2. Impact can sometimes be subjective. One might value the quantity of views while someone else might value the quality/ā€œresultā€ of the views. That means I might put out a video thatā€™s seen by 10,000 people that do nothing as a result of the video, or I might put out a video thatā€™s seen by 1,000 people, but 30 of them create a delegate profile as a result. How to judge what is most important if weā€™re talking about potential results that we have no indicator of?

Iā€™ve read the post before typing my response here, but Iā€™ll also drop my thoughts under it to keep the discussions relevant in the respective threads.

P.S I know it could have worked the other way, but itā€™s funny that just 2 days after I wrote my response, $OPā€™s price plummeted by >15%, and as a result, so did my potential grantā€™s value, at least for the time being.

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Hey Sinkas,

I love this proposal and the idea! I think it is something that is really needed.

My main comment comes down to the grant amount as well, at current prices this comes to just under ~$4,000 per episode. For a brand new podcast it really does seem like a large amount, and that is not including any RetroPGF funding that this may become eligible before.

Donā€™t forget that if a good job is done, that this will likely qualify for RetroPGF which could fill in any funding gaps.

Also worth noting that wrapped into this OP was the organizing and hosting of the Governance Calls which I think made up a big portion of the value.

Just to give you an idea, Iā€™m going to submit a similar idea later today (different topic but also a podcast) that will probably have a budget request of around 1/3 of the current budget in the proposal.

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Thank you for the feedback Michael, I appreciate any and all input I can get, especially coming from more experienced people in the Optimism community.

So my original idea was about starting the podcast in the context of Season 4, but continuing it beyond that timeframe (which is what Iā€™ll do regardless of whethet this proposal is voted on or not). The initial grant request meant to reflect that.

After privately seeking feedback for my proposal, it was suggested that I keep the focus of the mission and its parameters within the scope of season 4, and think of anything beyond that in the context of RPGF.

I donā€™t have any experience with RPGF (Iā€™m a new contributor) and as such I was skeptical about reducing my requested grant. After @lee0007 also suggested that the grant amount seems steep for the proposal, I mentioned that I want to receive additional feedback before making any ammends - feedback such as yours just now.

What is, in your opinion, a more appropriate grant request, keeping in mind some of the concerns I cited in my response to Renee a couples of messages higher?

Iā€™m also looking forward to seeing your proposal and using it as a reference to improve mine!

Hosting the Governance Call is an invaluable contribution! As mentioned, I didnā€™t mean my response to be any bit disrespectful towards you or your contributions to the Optimism Collective. I was merely responding to the comment, using your content as an analogy. It wasnā€™t mentioned anywhere (at least from what I saw) that the RPGF also reflected your hosting of the community call.

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So I just submitted my podcast proposal (very very similar structure but different topic) with an ask for 8,000 OP. This is remembering that if it has a high impact, that impact will be rewarded through the next round of RetroPGF.

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Thanks for sharing your proposal and for the feedback. Iā€™m ready to make the necessary amends to my proposal to reflect the feedback I have received before the voting cycle begins.

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Hey Sinkas, responding here since you tagged me on Discord. There is quite a bit of feedback and discussion here so Iā€™ll keep it brief. Overall I like the idea and theory of what you are doing, however I donā€™t see this working out in practice. The ROI isnā€™t here for me so I wonā€™t be supporting this proposal but Iā€™m wishing all of the success in your endeavors!

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Thank you for the response and feedback Katie, appreciate you taking the time to review and respond to my proposal.

In terms of ROI, you mean the funding wonā€™t generate the neecessary and respective impact to be worthwhile pursuing?

Just to note, and mainly for other people reading the proposal, I reduced the baseline grant amount to 10k OP (from 30k) and will seek to nominate the podcast for RPGF down the road.

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I like that the amount requested was reduced from 30k to 10k.

I am an Optimism delegate [Delegate Commitments - #37 by linda] with sufficient voting power and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

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I am one of the Synthetix Ambassadors, and a Optimism Badgeholder. I am an Optimism delegate [Delegate Commitments - #65 by mastermojo ] with sufficient voting power, and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote

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