[Proposal] Noundry 1 Compensation (draft)

NounsDAO NounsDAO Proposals
1

By 142, elad, nifty, and krel

If we do not value our own pixels, what do we value?

With this proposal, we want to make a case for why Noundry compensation should not only be fair, but generous and exciting. We believe that a deep appreciation of pixel art — especially our own — is embedded in our culture. Traditions make us stronger and with the Noundry, we see a future where the Noundry festival can become a cornerstone of Nounish culture and an important driver of proliferation within artist circles.

The Noundry is a time for celebration and a chance for Nouns to create magic. If the Nouniversary is New Year’s Eve, The Noundry can be our Christmas.

To achieve that vision, we need to get a few things right, starting with compensation for Noundry 1.

Proposed compensation model

Compensation summary

  • Winning contributions: 265 eth
  • Non-winning contributions: 25 eth
  • Committee: 10 eth
  • Total Noundry 1 compensation: 300 eth

Winning contributions

Contributors with winning submissions are rewarded based on how many of their traits were selected for the 8/8 Nouniversary upgrade. Contributors with multiple winning submissions are rewarded for each trait.

We want to compensate Head traits in an outsized fashion since they are the most visually striking, tend to create the most excitement within the community, and are arguably responsible for driving much of the excitement around the Noundry.

  • Heads: 30 eth / trait
    • (8 x 30 = 240 eth)
  • Other traits (accessory/body/noggle): 5 eth / trait
    • (5 x 5 = 25 eth)
  • Total: 265 eth

Contributor breakdown

  • Heads (8 x 30 = 240 eth)
    • Facu x 3 (snowman, vending machine, wine barrel)
    • Gremplin x 2 (capybara, treasure chest)
    • LuckyCryptoCats x 1 (hanger)
    • Goldy x 1 (couch)
    • Modrovsky x 1 (index card)
  • Other traits (5 x 5 = 25 eth)
    • Amiyoko x 2 (uroko, tatewaku)
    • Gremplin x 2 (deep teal noggles, grass noggles)
    • JMA Nountris x 1 (grease)

Non-winning contributions

We recognize that the Noundry is a “co-op game” where contributors iterate upon and are inspired by each other’s ideas. We think the friendly, cooperative air surrounding the inaugural event was instrumental in making the Noundry a success. For that reason, we want to compensate non-winning contributors via a Coordinape round. (Coordinape is a compensation platform recently used for prop 63 to great effect.)

  • Coordinape round details:
    • 25 ETH is allocated to the Noundry 1 Coordinape round
    • Anyone who submitted traits (winning or non-winning) to the Noundry receives a pool of 1000 GIVE tokens
      • Note: Everyone receives 1000 tokens regardless of how many traits they submitted to the Noundry, as long as they submitted at least one.
    • GIVE tokens are used to vote on and reward non-winning contributors
    • ETH is distributed to contributors according to how many GIVE tokens they received from the voting round
  • WIP list of contributors eligible to vote in the Coordinape round: Contributors eligible to vote in the Noundry 1 Coordinape round (draft) - HackMD
  • Total: 25 eth

Curation committee

Furthermore, we recognize that the curation committee played a key role in making Noundry 1 a success. They are compensated for organizing the event, and curating and fine-tuning the winning contributions.

The committee is compensated with 10 ETH to distribute as they see fit.

  • Committee members:
    • Goldy
    • Gremplin
    • 4156
    • 9999
    • Solimander
  • Total: 10 eth

Please let us know if we missed anyone who did curation and/or technical work and should be considered part of the committee.

5 Likes
2

We have distributed 200 ETH total over the last two Prop House rounds. Those funds have gone to 10 different teams building alternative clients to better support our auction and governance processes.

I struggle to see how their collective effort is worth less than adding 8 new noun heads to the collection.

While I support rewarding the artists retroactively for their work, the proposed compensation is too high by a factor of 4.

5 Likes
3

The Noundry rewards proposed are just too excessive. “Generous and exciting” is one thing; 240 ETH for 8 Noun heads is beyond that. Agree with the factor of 4 remark. 75% lower is still “Nintendo Sixty-FOOOOOUR” for Christmas level rewards.

5 Likes
4

Kudos to you for starting the conversation. This needs to happen for sure. I also tend to believe the numbers feel high, but keeping them higher than I think is reasonable will generate a lot more creativity and submissions for next year which could lead to creative forks, a larger artist pool, etc etc etc.

That being said, cutting these numbers in half would still be a huge reward for the winners.

2 Likes
5

Agree that it feels high, though maybe not by a factor of 4. Personally was imagining something on the order of 100 ETH. I do think that it’s less about compensating the work that was completed, and more about signalling to the marketplace how much we will compensate future work. Of course using a pre-set prize pool instead of retro funding is a more direct way of accomplishing this. Wrt comparing this to other amounts that we’ve funded, I think it’s worth noting that we will eventually be paying for provenance, rather than work completed. How much would you have to pay Gary Baseman, Takashi Murakami etc. to participate in Noundry, and to put their work into the public domain without their name attached. Imho that is the eventual goal - let’s make getting artwork in the og DAO something that every artist in the world aspires to. High compensation may not be the primary motivator, but it can initiate the feedback loop.

9 Likes
6

Thanks everyone for chiming in

We have distributed 200 ETH total over the last two Prop House rounds. Those funds have gone to 10 different teams building alternative clients to better support our auction and governance processes.

I struggle to see how their collective effort is worth less than adding 8 new noun heads to the collection.

I reject the notion that this is a useful benchmark for noundry compensation. I dont mean to be antagonistic as i want us to find common ground here, but i truly dont think this is the correct lens to apply in this case.

I am open to adjusting the compensation numbers downwards, as long as the spirit and goal of this proposal remain true (4156 summarized it well).

There is a lower threshold where i no longer think comp is high enough to have the intended feedback loop effects, but ill share a revised model here:

Heads
15 (120)

Other
4 (20)

Coordinape
35

Committee
10

TOTAL: 185 eth

(more models: Noundry comp revised numbers - HackMD)

Im somewhat reluctant to haggle on this topic as i honestly think its in our best long-term interests to comp high, and that it will pay us back by orders of magnitude. However, i recognize that failing to comp at all is a much worse outcome.

2 Likes
7

Agree that the proposed amount feels high.

  • What if we think this round has been very successful and decide to go bigger on the next update - would these rewards be sustainable?

  • I dont think the DAO needs to send any more signals with big bucks, plenty signals sent with past funded proposals.

  • Sidenote : Lets not forget the “reward” of being picked and having your art included in the main collection, this (in the long run) might be more valuable than the ETH we send out.

A bit different approach:
What if instead of XY ETH per trait, there is a base reward for every contributor picked (as obv its not time we are compensating here, more of a “thank you for contributing”) + maybe a much smaller reward for individual traits? Maybe base 10 and additional 2 per trait? = 1 trait picked - 12 ETH, 2 traits - 14 ETH, …

1 Like
8

I would prefer to see a symbolic compensation of up to 2 eth per a winning contribution instead of big bags of eth. Especially when two winners are the committee members. A conflict of interest could create a bad optics for NounsDAO.

P.S. I love capybara and treasure chest!

9

Yes that is some expensive pixels right here.
It seems that it would feel better to reward the participation of everyone in the channel more than individual contribution. This was a magic channel with a lot of creativity, a great event that we will be looking forward to. I would drastically increase the “non-winning contributions” part and reduce the individual winning contributions to something more decent.
Using a coordinape round between participants could also be an interesting option that could still incentivize future participation.

10

I don’t think I should be receiving any compensation for the glasses. Yes there was time spent ensuring they work and everything, but that work was done as a committee member which also has its own compensation bucket. I was just identifying color voids and applying colors from our existing palette. There should be some degree of effort required for compensation when it comes to traits.

2 Likes
11

Apologies for the radio silence here. We are making revisions to the prop that aim to address some (but probably not all) of your concerns.

We are also mindful of the forward-looking efforts by @ripe and team and want to make sure we propel rather than handicap that project.

More soon.

12

New proposal here: [Proposal] Noundry Season 0 Compensation (2nd draft)