Scaling Councils and incentivizing Prop Builder communities

NounsDAO
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tl;dr

  1. Replicate the Nouncil with Prop Builders
  2. Delegate DAO Nouns
  3. Pay the council over a 6 month period

Problem

By going through the on-chain proposal process and having their projects funded, “Prop Builders” have proven themselves as engaged with the Nouns DAO and have been paid for their services. However, after their product is built there is no additional incentive to stay active in the community. Many Prop Builders are no longer active in Discord (even in channels for their own projects) and so we have yet to see any following on funding for second versions of products or previously funded teams building new projects. When Prop Builders fade away from their day to day engagement with us, we lose their experience with building for the DAO, their accumulated understanding of Nounishness, and their technical expertise.

Solution

With the success of the Nouncil and the need to incentivize participation by valued community members, the DAO should initiate a Council formation program to give Prop Builders (both artists and devs) a voice in the DAO and incentivize their continued engagement with Nounish things.

Formation

Council members would be formed by grouping Prop Builders into sets of 20, giving them a channel in Discord, and allowing them to self-organize their multi-sig and mission. The DAO would then delegate one if its Nouns to the council’s multi-sig.

Incentivization

In 2 month cycles, each council would create a proposal to have 1/3 * 7 day avg Noun auction price * "impact multiplier” paid to its multi-sig.

The soft goal of the payment is for the council to collectively buy a Noun over a 6 month period so they have a permanent voice within the DAO, but the treasury spending is up to their community. The council might choose to distribute the funds to each member or keep the funds to purchase a Noun.

The DAO’s payment would be contingent upon being active community members and helping build value, while the impact multiplier would be a way to quantify exceptional work by the council.

After 6 months, the Noun would be undelegated from the multi-sig and the council could choose its own path forward.

Advantages of this model

Community within Community

By joining a council, Prop Builders gain a vote and voice within the DAO, a hand in the DAO’s success, and compensation for being part of that success.

As individuals within a mini-community they get access to like-minded individuals which helps reinforce engagement with the DAO itself.

Removing friction for follow-on funding

As long as the DAO proposal threshold stays at 1 Noun, councils can make their own proposal for follow-on funding for their projects. For example, a council that includes the creators of 3D Nouns create a proposal to fund the next phase of the project, a Cryptovoxel Noun Town, without needing a Nouner sponsor. This removes any stigma in needing additional funds to produce the next version of project (builders know the first iteration is never complete) while reducing the friction of seeking out an engaged Nouner, soliciting their feedback, and actively communicating with them to get the proposal on-chain.

Social Flexibility

The design of this program allows for flexibility and experimentation within each community and its relationship to the DAO. A council might fall apart after 2 months and never collect their vested ETH. A council might inspire other DAO members to delegate their Nouns past the 6 month mark, and allow the council to propose and self fund going forward.

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Agree with that idea. We need sustainable incentive system to be a part of Prop Builders.

One idea is giving them fractional Nouns NFT. Then They can be a part of Nouner (Stake holder).

  1. Buy Nouns using treasury
  2. Making 1000 fractional Nouns NFT
  3. Give them some fractional Nouns NFT

Then we can go same direction.

2 Likes
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Thanks for the response!

Part of what I think fractions don’t address is voice within the DAO and community formation. I don’t think only a sub-fraction of a Noun can equate with the (sometimes difficult to coordinate) joy of the Nouncil having their ENS show up in a Discord notification after they vote.

We’ve got some other ways to address future upside to projects builders create (Retro Impact Funding), but keeping Prop Builders and Retro Funders in the community seems to be a slightly different problem.

One use for fractions might be that compensation to a Council comes in the form of a fractionalized Noun that is streamed with Sablier to the Council’s multisig. This kind of approximates a vesting schedule in traditional company. Problems arise though when the multisig wants to sell those fractions as there’s no liquidity unless the DAO provides it, and then the Noun is trapped in the fractional framework unless sold or all pieces can be assembled. In short, it becomes messy. Giving straight ETH and socially coordinating around how to spend the money is messy in a different way but that’s flexible and we’re used to dealing with.

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I think this is an interesting idea and think that it’s generally a good way to bolster the voice of builders and to get more people involved - the mechanics of allocating nouns to said council can certainly be debated but I think it’s something that would be dynamic, over time. One of the difficulties with such a proposal is a continuation of the “bikeshedding problem” which we’ve already seen within the DAO - not clear on how this would potentially address this matter (subDAOs with specific focuses seem to be one of the main ways in which this has been abated by other DAOs (e.g. guilds in Moloch).

Personally, I think that one way to get more builders involved is by legitimately putting out a google form or something similar which provides an outline for them to create a proposal that would be posted to discourse. Free-form is cool and all, but putting something prominent on the website as a call-to-action that can guide them through the process and provide examples of how to get funded through milestones and via a payment stream would help them to get involved without needing to dig in as much. To me, it’s more about accessibility and this is one means of providing builders with that.

To add, there hasn’t been a big milestone-based project that builders could model themselves after - so, it’s a little nebulous as to the path they would be headed down and it could seem like larger projects aren’t the target of proposals.

So, just my two cents. I think the council is a good idea, but I think the main way to get more involvement is to fund bigger projects with larger visions - ESPECIALLY if they are enabling other developers and said developers can build on them. In that way, nouns is supporting a project which is supporting other projects and we can better instill ourselves as part of vital infrastructure.

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Thanks for taking the time to reply.

This proposal is not necessarily addressing how to get more builders to propose to the DAO; it is about forming a specific community (or subdao) of builders that have already gone through the vetting process of building with Nouns.

The problems I have outlined at the beginning of the document aren’t addressed by size of project – I don’t believe that the scale of the project proposed by a builder has a direct impact on their voice in the DAO or if they stick around afterwards. A solution to attracting builders and larger scale projects with future upside has been proposed in Retro Impact Funding

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Very interesting! I agree that fractionalization dilutes an active voice in the DAO. How did you come up with 20 as the number of members in a council? I think it should be used to buy a Noun, and not to fund council members. BTW we already have the Nouncil starting to take on a role and self organize, how do you see it integrating with what you describe? I can some self organization in the grouping of Prop Builders by affinity. As a Prop builder I think this is great but of course I might be a bit biased. Thanks for putting this out

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