Goals, objectives and metrics for the bounty program (reboot)

[dckc]

The 201805 Bounty Progress report (issue #759), had no statement of the objectives and evaluation criteria for the bounty program, which was noted as a deficiency during the board meeting Friday, June 15, 2018.

The purpose of this issue is to establish Goals, Objectives and Metrics for the bounty system.

In response to feedback after RCon3, we are "rebooting" the trust metric and label guides, effective Sep 19. To get certified to vote / guide an area:

• make the relevant sociocratic connections
• get mandate / sponsorship
• establish budget criteria, and
• make projections

Note earlier draft initiated by @allancto :

• Interim Report; Goals, Objectives, and Metrics of the RChain Bounty System

Benefit to RChain

A culture of return on investment in the bounty system.

Clarity for the CONTIBUTING.md, our bounty-contract.

Budget and Objective

Estimated Budget of Task: $1200
Estimated Timeline Required to Complete the Task: 6 months
How will we measure completion? endorsement of metrics by RChain president, executive committee, Task Approval Committee, and/or RChain Board of Directors

cc @deannald @patrick727 @kennyrowe @lapin7 @leithaus

Legal

Task Submitter shall not submit Tasks that will involve RHOC being transacted in any manner that (i) jeopardizes RHOC’s status as a software access token or other relevant and applicable description of the RHOC as an “asset”—not a security— or (2) violates, in any manner, applicable U.S. Securities laws.

[pmoorman]

Spoke with @kitblake just now, and he suggested we (him and me) maybe could help with this.

[dckc]

@lapin7 I just re-read your comment; which "we" needs to create metrics? Did Greg take the ball on that part too?

The first I heard of metrics for the bounty system was in the May 9 weekly update after board meeting. I'm still standing by for records of that board meeting too; I don't see them in https://github.com/rchain/board/tree/master/2018 .

[lapin7]

@dckc Yes getting the minutes correct and approved, is a cumbersome thing.

I guess it's up to the Task Approval Committee (@dckc @PatrickM727 @deannald) now to create metrics, evaluation criteria, objectives, KPI's for the bounty system. I don't know if @leithaus comes up with objectives and criteria.

Until now the objective was:

Do whatever you can to get RChain on the rails, according to your own insights.

Apparently this objective needs to be managed.
The good thing is that the trust metric solves some of the problems with concern to:

• abuse of setting Budgets and Rewards
• setting priorities
• time and result management

[dckc]

I guess it's up to the Task Approval Committee ... now to create metrics

No, I don't see anything about metrics in the description of the Task Approval Committee. Perhaps you're asking that we take this on? I'll consider it, but without records of the board meeting, we're missing a lot of essential context. Putting something together for the 201806 pay period seems impractical.

I don't know if @leithaus comes up with objectives and criteria.

What do you mean by that? You just wrote "Greg @leithaus will formulate the objectives and evaluation criteria of the bounty program" two days ago.

[deannald]

I agree with @dckc - I don't see anything about the Task Approval Committee taking on this body of work (creating metrics, etc.) nor direction on this from the Executive Committee minutes from this week.

[lapin7]

I meant to say: @leithaus said that he would formulate objectives and criteria, but I’m not sure that he will actually do it.

[allancto]

@kennyrowe can we have a rough summary of what the board discussion was on Jun15 (complete minutes would be great, but summary relative to bounty will do)? @lapin7 @deannald @pmoorman @patrick727 @dckc @kitblake are you all available at 9am PDT monday june 25 to discuss objectives and metrics? @leithaus (and others) you are invited certainly as well if it fits your schedule. @lapin7 will you set up the zoom?

Here's the document in progress. Contribute early!- we can follow @dckc 's maxim that if the work is done prior to the meeting we can dispense with the meeting. 👍
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jXm6Ks9OAe-0mgVOT2QtfaVkHndnOodj3uE5FJJXBNA/edit?usp=sharing

[deannald]

@allancto I would prefer to get some clarity and direction on who will be working on objectives, criteria and metrics before we start working on them with the group you mention above.

[dckc]

I'm not available during business hours Monday. Not until Friday.

Also, as noted above, the board minutes are essential context. I don't see how to proceed effectively without them.

[dckc]

@lapin7 I just re-read your Jun 19 comment:

The 201804 and 201805 Bounty Progress Report was received, but the objectives and evaluation criteria were missing.

In what way were they missing? Why did anyone expect them in that report? That's the first mention of objectives and evaluation criteria in issue #678.

[lapin7]

@dckc
@leithaus expected them in the report.

[allancto]

@deannald based on your comment above I changed the title of this issue to "Interim Report". @dckc , @lapin7 I have also edited the task description to include discussion from the comments above.

[dckc]

@ian-bloom thinks he can ping @leithaus about this in the next day or so

[dckc]

@allancto I ran into this issue in another context and was a little surprised to see the "interim report:" prefix in the summary. I remember now... and that would make sense, if github would let us change the author to you (a feature I'm used to from Trac). But I'm the author, so I tweaked it to something in between. Input to the TAC is not my goal. My goal is to get the whole job done, whatever it is.

[deannald]

@ian-bloom - any luck in following up with @leithaus on this issue on Friday?

[kitblake]

@deannald Ian doesn't read his Github mail. He told me to use normal mail or Discord.

@dckc Particularly for this issue, it would be useful to have the minutes of the Board meeting.
"...establish Goals Objectives and Metrics for the bounty system" is a huge scope.

[deannald]

@kitblake - I also emailed him as well.

[dckc]

recall from our July 4 meeting (#823):

@allan - ... Will write objectives and metrics based on the stated purpose, though I don’t think we’re meeting them.
@dckc: if you write objectives that we’re clearly not meeting, that will advance the discussion.

What news, @allancto ?

[dckc]

@allancto I see you made substantial progress in objectives and metrics sections in the report as of July 20. IOU a review.

[TrenchFloat]

I added to Allan's system review doc a section on the proposal from 9/12's RAM meeting to require guides to sync up with coop "higher ups" for their label and talk about it in issues like #925.

To ensure accountability from the label guides that they are regularly aligning bounty system work with coop goals, it has been proposed (9/12 RAM meeting) that a guide from each label post in each “review of X pay period by guides” issue (like #925 for August) a summary or link of their communications with their relevant connection outside the bounty system. “Relevant connections” for each guide are to be determined, but inferred examples would include Medha P. for the Development label, Patrick M. for Marketing, etc.

(Maybe there's a better word than "higher ups". I just mean people that guides would want to talk to to sync up on goals.)

[allancto]

@TrenchFloat yes, that's the direction we should be going. Furthermore in this issue two fundamentally different things seem to be conflated: is this a reboot of label guides or of trustmetric certification? Probably both require a reboot, but the discussions are (imo) totally different.

What are the qualifications for Trustmetric certification? Trustworthiness, understanding of the voting system, understanding of what makes budgets realistic and SMART. What are the qualifications for Label guiding? Connection within our Cooperative, domain specific knowledge of area or "department". Both are important.

[JoshOrndorff]

@allalcto The proposal is that both trust metric and label guides be reset.

[allancto]

@JoshOrndorff yes, dual reboot. The question is the mechanism for each. Once the trustmetric is reseeded there should be certification voting. Is there guidance as to how that will best proceed? Once label guides are rebooted we'll need to make sure we have a good plan for Labels that represent Cooperative activities and requirements, and find contributors to fill those roles. I've seen @barneycinnamon and @ysgjay (and I'm also hoping for @luigidemeo , @ddayan , @Viraculous, yourself and perhaps others to come forward). What's an appropriate venue for discussing requirements and qualifications and volunteers for guides? What's an appropriate venue for discussing requirements and guidelines for voting Trustmetric ratings?

We'll certainly have some discussion tomorrow at RAM, please everyone interested attend and contribute your thoughts on how these should proceed.

Thanks! -@allancto

[dckc]

@allancto writes:

two fundamentally different things seem to be conflated: is this a reboot of label guides or of trustmetric certification?

I don't see it as two different things.

Once the trustmetric is reseeded

reseeded? The seed remains the same: the TAC (@PatrickM727 , @deannald , and myself).

there should be certification voting. Is there guidance as to how that will best proceed?

Yes: #783 (comment)

The requirements for getting certified to vote / guide an area are

making the relevant sociocratic connections, getting mandate, establishing budget criteria, and making projections.

So write all that up for any area you're interested to see operational and if it looks good, the TAC can certify people who agree to that "charter" for the area label. I gave a nearly complete example for Development above.

[David405]

@dckc @JoshOrndorff @jimscarver I am yet to wrap my head around the proposal.

By sponsorship, do you mean support for a work in the bounty, certification for rating or endorsement to become a label guide?

[dckc]

The most direct form of sponsorship is for bounty rewards to come directly out of the budget of some other part of the coop, such as Marketing or the solutions group.

I can imagine other forms. Perhaps the Executive Committee would agree that it's worth allocating up to $X/quarter for work in some area.

In general, I guess sponsorship is when someone in a position to speak for the coop as a whole agrees how a certain amount of money should be spent through the bounty system.

I expect this question is easier to deal with in the concrete than in the abstract. Is there a specific area that you are asking about?

The new labels don't need to be the same size and shape as the old labels, but just using them as an example... I talked about Development already...

I would expect to see some sponsorship from Marketing for anything like these labels: Branding, Community Building, Events, Marketing (duh), Social media, Translation.

The Executive Committee used to be interested in member-site work, but we haven't talked about it for quite some time.

The RChain Technical Literacy / Education areas seem important, but I don't have a clear sense of what part of the coop deals with them. Perhaps the solutions group is interested to sponsor work in this area, @JoshOrndorff ?

Governance is a puzzler. We say right on the homepage "Cooperative governance and a sustainable economic model make RChain a public utility which can be applied to the greatest problems today." and yet I don't know of anybody leading work on Governance. Voting work has petered out somewhat.

Regarding China, I think I saw @ottermagically say the RChain Asia group is likely to organize something separate from this bounty system. I don't know if there is any staff or the like allocated to Africa.

I asked around about Operations; all I learned is that @allancto is covering some of the duties of @lapin7 .

Greeter work seems to have migrated out of the bounty system to the staff. @ysgjay can you help us understand how Greeter work is compensated, if it is?

[ysgjay]

@dckc for Greeter work, I am currently not compensated (Have been a greeter since April). I'll probably aim for an SOW since it's a consistent position.

[zsluedem]

@dckc I want to address a little bit more about the bounty in China.
@ottermagically and Jocellin are drafting a business plan which includes an bounty program separated from this bounty program. The Asian bounty program will not only apply to China but also other Asian countries like Korea and Japan. The Asian bounty program is different from this bounty program based on the situations in Asia.(I actually don't know the details about the Asian bounty programs.)

[dckc]

Reboot under way

We plan to go ahead, effective Weds Sep 19, by deleting all trust certs and only adding them back as we have sponsorship etc. in place.

Response to the 12 Sep proposal has been positive. I haven't see any reason not to proceed, so yestereday I began renaming member-site to zz-member-site and likewise other area labels. I changed their color to some hue of red.

Someone please review PR #973 to update ISSUE_TEMPLATE. I intend to revise Bounty Task Guides.

I just now reset the trust ratings:

delete from trust_cert;
-- 404 rows processed

There was a bug I had to fix to recompute ratings:

• a097805 2018-09-20 handle 0 trust certs

Note the archive of trusted authorities from Sep 9 in #925.

[azazime]

Won't it be important to point out sponsors RAMs can contact?? @dckc

[dckc]

Yes, it's important to help each other find sponsors. I am making an effort to do so; for example: #974 (comment)

[dckc]

In #982, @azazime writes:

Is the Bounty Program still a decentralized system and how does these new reforms support it?

I stipulate that the reboot is a regression w.r.t. decentralization. I look forward to doing better.

But to understand why I think this is a reasonable step to take, please see Urbit isn't even really decentralized! It has a government!; an excerpt follows:

TLDR: it's technically impossible for Urbit to be decentralized at this stage of its life. Urbit is designed to achieve decentralization, not be born with it.

A young network can't afford to be decentralized. It has to act as a unit. Because it has no network effect, it needs every scrap of efficiency it can get.

A decentralized general-purpose computing network like Urbit can only be bootstrapped by a central government. For example, by default your urbit upgrades its OS automatically (like an "evergreen" browser) with signed network updates. Whoever signs these updates is a government by definition.

When it's impossible to eliminate centralized power, it becomes necessary to tame, stabilize, and limit it. This should not be surprising to anyone living under a constitutional government.

As we found out with the DAO, if a network isn't ready to be decentralized, its developers shouldn't even try. If Ethereum is hard-forked to roll back the DAO (which looks like the most probable result), it acknowledges that it both has a central government, and needs a central government. Decentralization is good. Pretend decentralization -- "decentralization theater" -- is harmful, and not a effective path to actual decentralization.

[dckc]

in #982 @azazime writes:

How effective are the new reforms in the bounty system?

I think you refer to the Sep 19 reboot that is the subject of this issue, so I recommend keeping discussion of the effectiveness of the reboot together here with the other discussion of the reboot.

[dckc]

@kovmargo writes in #982:

• Will [we] continue to vote for the issues that we open/close in September?

You should, yes. Everyone has always been encouraged to vote, regardless of their trust ranking. Voting wisely establishes a record that's useful when considering trust certification.

• From which date for open-issues sponsors will be needed? For example, issues that were open after 19 Sep should have sponsors

Starting with the 201809 pay period, the TAC intends to delegate impact on budgets and rewards only to voters who agree to more clear sponsorship and budget norms, regardless of when the issue was opened.

• There are 9 people with the rating at the rewards not 3 as it were describe above. Why? What is their role now? Is there a connection with sponsors?

1. @PatrickM727 - appointed to the TAC by the executive committee 2018/06/19
2. @dckc - appointed to the TAC
3. @deannald - appointed to the TAC
4. @MParlikar - sponsor for core-dev per Sep 28 discussion in Development / Programming work: Story points, etc. #273
5. @AbnerZheng - agreed to core-dev budget norms in Development / Programming work: Story points, etc. #273
6. @ddayan - agreed to core-dev norms in Development / Programming work: Story points, etc. #273
7. @JoshOrndorff - developer-education sponsor per Sep 29 discussion in reboot Marketing bounty budgets #692
8. @ottermagically - certified by @dckc to deal with China bounties, as discussed in ONGOING:August Report for RChain community in China #934 (most likely: to use a separate system for them)
9. @zsluedem - likewise re China

Is there a list of all departments and the people who head them and those who can sponsor? I will explain. For example, I want to do smth valuable for coop and first I need to find the sponsor. What should be my steps?

The list of departments is https://github.com/rchain/bounties/labels along with https://github.com/rchain/bounties/wiki/Bounty-Task-Guides

Only core-dev and developer-education have sponsors established at this time.

If you have valuable work in other areas, you and I and the rest of us share the burden of finding sponsors. As I mentioned above, it's easier to deal with such things in specific cases rather than in a general way. So your first steps should be to share what valuable work you want to do, perhaps by opening an issue.

@dckc "As explained in #783, it's important to help each other find sponsors for good work. I gave an example of how I am making an effort to do so."
Sorry, I read all #783 and didn't find clear steps how to find sponsors.

In my Sep 26 comment above, I referred to a Sep 25 recommendation:

"@allancto This seems to overlap with responsibilities of Derek Beres, Director of Content. I recommend you discuss the benefit to RChain with him." -- #974 (comment)

It was clear enough for @allancto . Again, what good work do you have in mind?