govNerds Maintainers S6 feedback thread

[Gonna.eth]

The govNerds maintainers are pioneering the first contribution path to onboard new govNerds into our governance processes. In following the Optimism culture of working in the open, we encourage feedback to be shared here rather than in personal messages. This approach helps promote public debate, collective learning, and building together.

We invite all participants and observers to share their thoughts, suggestions, and feedback about this path. Your insights are invaluable as we aim to improve and refine the experience for future contributors.

Please feel free to add any comments here—whether about your experience as a trainee, the support you received, or any other aspect that could help us make this process more effective. This feedback will be reviewed during our reflection period at the end of Season 6.

[Megalod]

Thank you for the dedication and hard work the Govnerds team has put into Season 6. Overall, there are many positives to acknowledge, but there are also a few areas that could be improved.

Overall, I’m optimistic about the progress in Season 6 and look forward to seeing Govnerds grow even stronger in the upcoming season.

[Megalod]

Will the Govnerd team consider creating an FAQ to make it easier to address recurring questions ?

[Pumbi]

Hi Maintainers team!

Here are some of my thoughts:

• I like the task system. While it is not the most optimal and can be improved in the future I’m more of a “keep it simple” philosophy. The system works and I would not complicate it with additional features considering that the contribution path is just taking its first steps.

• One point that concerns me is the scalability of the program. As of today this is not yet a problem because there are less than 10 of us actively participating, but what will happen when the number increases to 20-30? The concern is not related to the mentorship required, but because the availability of operational tasks to be performed per voting cycle are not too many.

• I would like the contribution path to include content creation and onboarding tasks to OP Governance. We need more people to get involved in Governance, but it is a reality that this process is not easy for someone just starting. Understanding concepts such as Seasons, Voting Cycles, Intents, Mission Requests, or how to properly use the forum is a barrier to entry for more participants. By creating simple and educational content on Governance related concepts we can address this problem.

As a participant of this initiative since the first day it was live I’m beyond excited to continue progressing in this contribution path and I’m sure that this program will be of vital importance to onboard new people to actively participate in governance processes.

[Gonna.eth]

You can check our Govnerds hub

Notion – The all-in-one workspace for your notes, tasks, wikis, and databases.

[ismailemin]

First of all, I want to thank the GovNERDs Maintainers. It’s really nice that they’ve organized this open contribution path. After years of thinking about how I can contribute to Optimism Governance, it’s great that such a path has emerged. I believe this is also very valuable for others who will ask the same question in the future.

Actually, it might be better to wait until the end of Season 6 to provide comprehensive feedback, but I’d still like to mention a few things that come to mind:

• Notion is an amazing workspace that we all use—I agree with that—but I think it would be better if the process of entering tasks were in the form of a form. This way, it would be easier for one of the GovNERDs Maintainers to approve or provide feedback. I’m ready to explore which form applications can collaborate with Notion for this purpose, and I can add it as a task to our Notion hub.

• I believe that measuring activity on the forum solely based on read time won’t be sufficient. You can see the details included in Discourse’s Read Time calculations via this link. I think having a max cap of 6 minutes hinders completely accurate data calculation. Therefore, we can combine metrics like replies to topics in addition to Read Time. To prevent abuse of this, the forum profiles of candidates who are likely to move to the next step in the contribution path can be reviewed.

• Another piece of feedback that comes to mind is actually about feedback itself. I was surprised to see this topic on the forum because when I wanted to give feedback, the first place that came to my mind would be the govnerd channels on Discord. Perhaps, to allow all feedback to be given in one place and collected together, guidance can be provided to direct everyone to give their feedback here.

[alexsotodigital]

Hello everyone!

During Season 6, I participated in the govNERDs contribution path and had the opportunity to receive support from the three govNERD Maintainers @brichis @dmars300 and @Gonna.eth (to whom I’m very grateful for their guidance and mentorship) as well as identify some areas that still need improvement.

With that in mind, for this reflection period, I’d like to share a few ideas that I believe could enhance the internal functioning of this contribution path. Personally, I’m excited about all of them and would be more than happy to take the lead on any of these.

---

Without further ado…

Here are 7 ideas that could improve the govNERDs contribution path:

1.- Knowledge as the Gateway

Leveraging the MOOC course created by the @SuperchainEco for the Super Contributor Cohort, wannabes could be required to complete this (and/or other trainings) as a prerequisite to move from wannabe-govNERD to govNERD-in-training. This would establish that the first stage of this contribution path involves acquiring enough knowledge about OP governance to correct misconceptions.

2.- Levels of Involvement

I believe the onboarding process for wannabe-govNERDs should begin with a one-on-one screening call where individuals determine, among other details, their intended level of involvement for the season. This could function like a traffic light system (or something similar):

• Red: Minimal commitment, a few hours per month, with focus on self-directed learning through courses and resource repositories.
• Yellow: Medium commitment, able to implement “mini-tasks” that do not require as much context.
• Green: Greater time commitments with more substantial responsibilities.

This approach would align individual engagement levels with appropriate responsibilities, ensuring more tailored contributions.

3.- Skill and Personality-Based Focus Areas

Recognizing the diversity of individuals, it could be beneficial to offer tasks tailored to specific skills, personality types, interests (like Token House or Citizens House) or current stages within the season. To give one example:

• A monitoring team for those who enjoy staying active on Discord and promoting Optimistic values across channels. Grouping participants by this profile could be especially valuable, particularly if maintaining the ‘code of conduct’ becomes part of this contribution path.
• A research team for individuals preferring deep, independent work on theoretical governance topics; maybe working closer with the Collective Feedback Commission and/or the research groups contracted by the foundation.

4.- Team-Based Initiatives in govNERD Projects

In Season 6, we experimented with various ‘team projects’ aimed at generating value for the collective (like the Governance Visual Contest and the Delegate Onboarding Checklist Infographics). I propose encouraging more of these collaborations, particularly to strengthen bonds among govNERDs-in-training. Additionally, having a small operational fund of OP tokens could support these initiatives effectively.

5.- GovNERD Study Groups

An idea explored in Season 6 (under @Pumbi’s leadership) was the introduction of a ‘study group’, which I believe has great potential for continuity and expansion. The govNERD concept can attract many people interested in governance and related topics. Supporting such spaces—and linking them to other study groups—could be highly impactful. This might include triads of wannabes accompanying each other through the MOOC and/or thematic groups for collective learning and reflection.

6.- GovNERDs as Support Teams for Other Experiments

Looking at the results of the Experiments in Power Dynamics facilitated by @elizaoak, it’s clear that various groups and experts are exploring critical questions about governance in the Optimism Collective. Who better than the govNERDs to serve as volunteers and/or participants in such experiments? This could primarily involve full-role members with a certain level of experience.

7.- Operational GovNERDs Office Hours

While there’s already a biweekly 30-minute space for addressing questions, I suggest extending it to 1 hour and incorporating operational elements such as:

• Reviewing a kanban board with the status of ongoing initiatives.
• Updating the contribution table to track progress.
• Analyzing metrics tied to the season’s intent.

This would provide govNERDs-in-training with a more comprehensive overview of the current state of affairs, enabling them to focus their energy strategically.

Anyway, I hope these ideas serve as inspiration so that we can co-create a better contribution path, and thus positively impact the rest of the collective.

Thanks in advance for any questions or comments.

Cheers.

[lavande]

Great points in here! “Keep it simple” and “less is more” are key learnings from the first 2.5 years of Optimism governance, so I’m glad to see you instilling those in the approach to the govNERDs.

In terms of scalability, I think the role of the govNERDs will continue to grow as the Foundation transitions more and more operational responsibilities over to the community. Next Season’s Maintainers will need to collaborate closely with the Foundation to understand the set of new tasks to be added, to make sure the program can support those additional tasks (some tasks we can’t transition until we have enough govNERDs to support them.)

I think onboarding new delegates is definitely something the govNERDs could help the Collective with and I’m supportive of adding some related tasks in Season 7!

[lavande]

Hi @alexsotodigital! Thanks for this post, I’m supportive of many of the suggestions in here. Two important points to keep in mind:

• While i’m supportive of the suggestions related to the training and requirements for active govNERDs (1, 2, 4, 7), we should always strive to strike a balance between ensuring we have engaged and qualified participants and making sure we don’t add too many procedural requirements (which can start to feel like beaurocracy or overhead to busy contributors.)

• It’s important to focus within a clearly defined scope. One of the biggest learnings for OP Labs and the Foundation has been to “cut scope” and remained focused on doing fewer things, really well. The govNERDs play a critical role in the core operations of the Collective, ensuring governance participants can effectively contribute towards Collective goals and taking on core operational responsibilities from the Foundation. Enforcement of the Code of Conduct would fit under this category, as a core operational responsibility the Foundation used to fulfill. However, it’s my understanding that the supportNERDs already serve as a “monitoring team” and the Collective Feedback Commission already serves as a sort of “research team.” That doesn’t mean that these groups are the only people that can execute these functions, but we should strive to avoid redundancy and keep the scope of each group within the Collective as focused as possible. In this context, I view the govNERDs as an “ops” team, rather than a research and development team (and these two functions almost always operate as separate teams.)

While we tend to use random sampling (sortition) to select participants for experiments, as that usually improves the rigor of the experiment, I definitely think there is a role for the govNERDs to play in tasks that we’ve had completed by volunteers in the past (Retro Funding application review, for example.)

[alexsotodigital]

Thanks @lavande for your detailed and precise answer.
I’ll answer with some of the points but, in general, I agree with everything and I appreciate that you give me more clarity on how the teams interrelate.

• I think it’s apt that we consider ‘bureaucracy’ or ‘overhead’ as a clear metric that we’re going off track. I also resonate with the notion of ‘keep it simple’ and will try to reflect that more in future posts.

• I agree with reducing the scope to do fewer things really well (and I assume that prioritization will happen at the beginning of the season). This was intended to be a burst of ideas (at this stage of reflection and creativity) in the hope of finding at least one that is valuable.

• I find it enlightening that you highlight the ‘core operational responsibilities’ to be assumed by govNERDs. I’ll keep that in mind.

• Excited to see how govNERDs can collaborate more with the CFC on research and supportNERDs on monitoring.

Anyway, just reaffirming what you already said. Thanks again for giving some guidance.

[kumahada]

Hi, I’m just one of the gov-nerd wannabes here to give some feedback.

• The gov-nerds are too busy. It’s hard to keep up with them because I can’t see how they sink on a regular basis. It would be nice to be able to see the tasktracking of the gov-nerds more easily.

• It would be nice to have an onboarding process for gov-nerds like Alex wrote about. Currently, I’m reading the discord and docs and following along on my own. It would be nice to have periodic training or study sessions for wannabe gurus.
  ex) Documentation/forum threads that wannabe gurus must read, etc.

• Need for a product with an internalized calendar: Currently, the governance of Optimism utilizes Notion and Google Calendar. And/or the forums should be utilized as needed. Currently, there are only about 20 wannabe gabnards, but it would be nice to have one gateway to accommodate more people in the future. (far future)

• History of Optimism Governance: Optimism is evolving every season, so there are many instances where the way we did things last season is different from the way we do things this season. I found this by reading past documentation and discord, and it would be nice to have a document that chronicles this history in order to fully understand the governance of Optimism.

I love the community culture that Optimism Governance has (friendly, willing to learn and change) and it would be great to have a more chill meetup for newbies. !

And thank you to all of our governance contributors for taking time out of their busy schedules to answer questions and keep us informed. We look forward to next season!