How much Nouns $$$ have you been funded with?

NounsDAO NounsDAO Proposals
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After listening to the Nouncil meeting yesterday, I have some thoughts on the thing that makes the world spin around : the mighty $$$

Let’s be honest, everyone is here to fight for those fresh crispy bills from the Nouns ATM. The gift that keeps on giving, but is it gifting correctly? This is the fundamental question.

Sam Ellis opened up the discussion about builder compensation as it has become common practice for the community to request compensation discounts on most props IE: you’re asking for too much and it feels to me like you’re taking the piss. Now, one could argue that people don’t like seeing other people making money, that is human nature. But FFS we’re in Web3 and not at a discount dollar store, right? Nouns is a premium product that requires premium inputs if the quality of global projects are not going to be compromised. That should be the modus operandi, full stop.

We’re currently experiencing the Nouns discount effect and the saltiness is real, and we’re all busy floating on the dead sea. And that should make you think twice.

Business is business and DAO’s are not the perfect circle that they’re made out to be and my thoughts are that if the world had to be a DAO you would still have the 1% vs 99% economic disparity. So is this business model really that ground-breaking as the hype train makes everyone believe? As a community how can we strive to make it close to perfect?

So what is the point to all of the above? What is the solution? Well, transparency is needed, first & fore-mostly that is the bottom line. If you want to make money from the Nouns ecosystem then you need to be open and show everyone how much money you’ve ‘extracted’ from the Nouns Treasury. IMO this is the fundamental advantage of the protocol as it’s all on-chain.

So let’s start this out as a test and see if anyone partakes. If you have/haven’t been granted money from the Nouns Treasury and have read this far, please drop a comment with your remuneration or the need to be remunerated, there should be no judgment. For those that have, you’ve earned it fair & square but lets get this shit out here for those that don’t understand the process. If you were a builder on a project and received a % of the raise or got a lump sum, drop that below as well. This is not a he/she got more than me scenario, but more a ‘how do we share the wealth, if everyone can build in some shape or form’, props are the foundations, we’re all builders and you’re not going to get rid of capitalism, as unfair advantages will always exist but let’s ensure that the old & new vested participants can actually pay some bills with Nouns $$$ as we all continue to proliferate the meme.

Let’s open a healthy debate on how to stop the discount effect, because in the long run, salt breaks & crumbles buildings.

Thanks for bringing this to the noggles table Sam!

Please note: I have never received any money from Nouns DAO and don’t own a Noun.

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I’ve put in my fair share of time and efforts towards spreading the Noun DAO and their motive, sadly most of my artist friends and other community members noticed that " just nouns" related props is a weird method; weird marketing strategy.
I spread the words not because I want some sort of compensation or proposal approved but the people I met in Nouns and Shark DAO servers are very chill and nice folks. Like minded people bring together the best out of each other and as of now Nouns ecosystem isnt very much flourish in that sense.
I say contributors doing something is if they wish to do it, thats how things started at first but now asking way above the pay grade is the problem right? If thats what you think. Ofc if you are officially doing something they for sure a budget should be fixed, but creating your own employment out of nouns for a quick ETH over the months is absolutely pogger.

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In short, you created something, you decided to build something around nouns and then you got a grant for the same. And afterwards you decide to ask for more to keep the operations running. This means that their motivation towards Nouns is directly related to the amount of ETH they can extract.
Not very nounish lmao

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I have received zero funds from the DAO.

I agree with your request. We need transparency of input and of output.
What you are requesting is information on the inputs (and im sure someone can compile a list of this looking at on chain data).

Would also be good to see the outputs. Can be from an independent body that looks at props past and provides a bit of insight into the value added.

Price is what you pay and value is what you get. I dont mind paying Nouners or non Nouners a lot of eth. Provided they can demonstrate the value the have or will bring - whether in terms of proliferation or otherwise.

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Don’t really agree with that statement by 4156 because you can’t expect users to always do ‘stuff’ for free and everything that goes with that, it is too much of a one-way street, similar to the music industry: fans forking out millions to artists each year. You also can’t expect managers, techies, roadies & merch crews to work for free because they’re fans of the artists as well. They’re helping to build the success of the artists career and therefor should get remunerated, no? This is all debatable, but you get the idea I’m expressing here.

4156 has enough money to carry himself for the rest of time and I think by him categorising Nounish with the below is a very idealistic statement in extremely challenging times.

‘do good with no expectation of return, create positive externalities, embrace absurdity & difference, teach people about nouns & crypto, have fun’

The ‘concept’ of Nouns should be to support the people that support the meme, I would argue that the core users in this Discourse should be earning something for partaking in the Nounish ecosystem, no?

The problem with people praising the Nouns ecosystem and its vast treasury is that 99% of them haven’t put a prop forward and understanding how complex the process is and how it emotionally feels for a builder to be rejected. So once again what does Nounish really mean for the fans and then the builders that are also fans as well. This is similar to the techies, the roadies and the music managers analogy.

These are the bridges that need to be discussed and crossed with the community in this Discord. I respect 4156 and everyone else that keeps this ship moving forward, however Sam made a valid point which has started this debate. And he seemed pretty bummed when he made it clear that he hasn’t been remunerated for his time and effort from what I understood (he’s owed money from a project and hasn’t received it).

Sam?

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It is pretty easy to see who and what has received funds.

You can look at pretty much all of them here.

ON-CHAIN

PROP HOUSE

NSFW

I can understand some frustrations of working on something, or making a proposal and not seeing it get funded, I totally understand, (I have a number of On-Chain proposals that I have either submitted or helped sponsor that has not made it).

It can seem frustrating at times, but I have to remember–wtf is a DAO, whose treasury is it, and how did it get there?

A group of individuals has pulled their money together to create this organization–they get to decide on what they want to use their funds on. It is their treasury to spend how they see fit, however, we are fortunate that they have invited us to submit proposals that may be selected, they have let us know that there may be a retro reward if it is something that they deem has a high impact for the DAO, they have given us the ability to use their IP without charge and to build into an ecosystem where there are books, toys, comics, cartoons, commercials, and more–this without saying we have to pay some fee to do so.

For people that don’t want to do stuff for free, they can always put something on-chain and ask the DAO–there you will always get an answer in the form of “FOR” AGAINST" or “ABSTAIN” these at times come with comments.

For example, I proposed an animated show–it did not pass, it let me know they did not want to fund it at this time, however, if I want to make it, I am allowed to and can go find funding from another source–they will not stop me if I do put it out and it brings a high impact to the DAO–they may give me a retro reward, however–I should not expect it, mostly because they already said they more or less don’t want it with their votes previously.

One of the things I see wrong with a lot of the things being brought forward is the mindset of “I think this brings value” and a disregard for what the DAO members want to fund, people outside of the DAO should try to find out what the DAO really wants if they are not getting the feedback they may have not come up with an idea that really excites the DAO overall.

I don’t want to discourage folks from bringing props and ideas to the DAO, but I do think there needs to be an alignment of ideas and an understanding of the current market as well, asking the questions who does this prop benefit, does it really benefit the DAO, what kind of impact will it bring, what is it’s reach, what will the results be, what do they see as a success, will the DAO also think that is a success, how is it measured, what is the call to action, is this only a top funnel activity, if so why? And many many more.

There have been quite a few people that have put hundreds of thousands of dollars into this project, and that usually also equates to time, from my perspective I can’t be angry at what someone decides to spend their money or treasury on when they have earned it and then deployed it into a thing with others that want to decide what they want to spend it on.

What do they want to spend it on? A good place to start besides what they have already funded would be looking at this article by 4156 from AUG 19 2021

With that being said, please continue to submit ideas and proposals, even if they don’t quite fit what has been listed, we won’t know the things we don’t know until we learn about them–and that won’t and can’t happen without all of you.

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Agreed on everything here, very beautifully said lol.
But problem is the sense of power, ruling over what will be a success and what wont. Perspective matters

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Are you referring to delegates judging what should or shouldn’t be submitted as an on-chain prop? By proxy, that’s how delegation works though. Nouns holders delegate certain individuals or groups to act on their behalf without them needing to skim through hundreds of ideas themselves.

Like @Sam said, builders should focus solely on ideas they care about that also align with what Noun holders and/or delegates value. If an idea is proposed that isn’t getting the feedback you hoped, it needs to be improved, reworked, or it’s simply something that the DAO is not interested in - this shouldn’t be taken personally.

Because the DAO is open to all builders and everything is on-chain for the public to see, it’s easy to get caught in the mindset of: “Their idea got funded, so surely mine should too.” It’s imperative to embrace the idea that funding should never be expected and not everyone is entitled to funding. You will get caught in a self-defeating cycle if you’re going in manifesting otherwise.

It’s also not a perfect system - the Nouns DAO model is one of the first implementations of it’s kind. People are not perfect, things get overlooked, and preferences/opinions can shift over time.

Before complaining about the distribution of power, ask yourself these questions:

  1. Am I focused on an idea that I genuinely care about?
  2. Would I still be interested in pursuing this idea even without a promise of financial compensation?(i.e., as a hobby)
  3. Is this something that benefits the Nouns ecosystem and the community more than it benefits myself?
  4. Is this an idea that aligns with the Nouns ethos?
  5. Am I doing everything I possibly can to make the proposal the best it can be?

If you answered no to any of these questions, try reevaluating and tweaking the idea until you can answer yes to as many of these questions as possible. Just my 2 cents on the whole debate here. I think everyone’s got a good idea in them, just need to foster and nurture it by realizing that the greatest chance you have at passing a proposal is by doing something you care about while helping as many people in the process as possible.

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This thread is taking shape in a really good way, thank you everyone. For those of you that are new to understanding delegates you can view them here: https://www.nounsagora.com/

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Oh damn that hit me like a train wreck. Ty for this hahaha

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This is really important and should not be ignored. It seems like always the same people that are getting funded by the DAO. Is there a spreadsheet somewhere of this data? @RGB-NOUN @Evil do you know?

Only then can we talk about a “fair” market with Nouns community.

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This one by @maty might help you

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This only shows limited data. The Noun Square Twitter got funded for $554,000 USD. Who is getting paid from that? How much is Toady Hawk and Aubtoshi paid? Those two people are always getting funded by the DAO.

“Transparency is needed, first & fore-mostly that is the bottom line.”

@toadyhawk @Aubtoshi can you give details on where this money went?

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Well community management is an under rated work my dude :confused:
They are managing twitter spaces everyday and making things around it, maybe thats why

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wait holy damn
half a damn million for 5 months are you guys kidding me wtf?

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Half a million dollars for 5 months is a LOT, but my problem is its not transparent where the money is going. Maybe toady hawk or Aubtoshi can give details?

Or others on the team, 142, Ser Noadz, SuperTightWoody, Benbodhi,Sam Ellis, @tracybcarpenter, Ryan Mac, @joshuafisher, maty, you are on Notion site, or anybody who can speak.

Transparency is Nounish, no?

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Some of the money goes to contests and prizes, the rest goes to pay the staff for their time and efforts, the monthly breakdown varies each period based on a combination of work preformed and votes from staff how to expend it.

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Is this data public Sam? Can it be public @SuperTightWoody @Benbodhi?

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Nice discussion with a bunch of great points being brought up.
I personally. have not received any funding. Hopefully, that changes with my recently submitted prop.
I like how the transparency issue has been brought forth but at the end of the day not sure that would change anything. It may or may not be so common in NounsDAO but I will bring up something that I have noticed within Lil Nouns props. Many holders openly communicate that they will swing votes in favor of not only holders but holders that are active within Discord/community. So it is very much like a buddy system scenario. If you make friends within Discord of holders that have groups of voting power…you will most likely be approved regardless of your prop.
Another point to consider with individuals within NounsDAO that repeatedly get funding. I would think it’s pretty safe to assume that someone who has received funding and delivered as stated, would get some preference when it comes to voting.
Anyhow, great discussion!

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