Positive
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Compared to the last round, the workload was relatively low since most of the work was done by creating impact metrics.
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A major win I consider is the almost complete removal of bias. Despite spending considerable time reviewing in the last round, I constantly questioned whether I was voting rationally. Metrics-based voting removes this concern.
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Regarding a few opinions, I believe including Farcaster to filter out Sybils was a good move and I would like to see it evolve further.
Voting Rational
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I mostly focused on trusted users, as I want to see the impact created by real users instead of bots and reward them accordingly.
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I used a 3X multiplier on OSS. Building in public is challenging, and I request everyone to reflect on the original purpose of RPGF. Those building in public were not sufficiently rewarded for their work, and we aimed to fill this gap retrospectively. Optimism’s code is OSS, so many DeFi dApps running on the OP Stack are forks of Compound and, Uniswap before they changed their model to BSL. I am not denying that proprietary and closed-source projects can’t have a positive impact, but rewarding OSS projects means benefiting the entire ecosystem rather than just one team.
Negative
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Looking at the top five recipients from any metric, most of the reward is going to tokenless projects—one promoting quests and users farming for airdrops, and another an OP Stack L2 directly integrated with Farcaster. Similar to LP farming, I fear users will move on to the next tokenless project, and while the impact may be valid, it will be short-lived, breaking the feedback loop of reward and impact. This is not sustainable.
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I also feel we are turning RPGF into a popularity contest. Some recipients are popular due to their design (as mentioned above), while others are due to running incentives extracted from our DAO. I am not suggesting charity, but we need to find a way to support innovation through RPGF even if their impact is relatively low. Take privacy, for example. One feedback I got from the <> protocol is that they could not qualify for a grant due to a lack of activity. Another example is Superfluid; they may have fewer transactions but are a critical part of the ecosystem, and transaction-based rewards negatively impact them. I have raised this concern on many occasions. We are doubling down on a few projects while totally ignoring others.
Suggestion
- I saw a couple of posts reflecting on the existing democratic model, so I am offering one suggestion.
In the current Badgeholder manual, we don’t have a provision to abstain, and I would like to see this going forward. Democratic voting systems are quite old, and extensive research exists on finding the correct approach, but each approach is debatable and fails to provide a one-shot solution (Arrow’s impossibility theorem).
With the option to abstain, I do not want to appear indifferent; rather, I would like the ability to show my protest against some part of the decision-making process. - Snapshot, just 64 votes on a critical votes, we need to find a way to motivate other citizens to vote and Joan also shared a similar concern. Jonas is already reaching out personally, we have telegram post and email reminder so i dont think communication is an issue, apart from rewarding for active participation, monetary or recognition, I am unsure what else we can do ?