ProposalsProposal 481

NounsKarma - Contributor analytics and reputation system

Defeated

For

Against

Abstain

Quorum: 60

Proposed by

0x7916...A5f2

, sponsored by

0xA868...9E63

TLDR;

Our team at Karma is developing a tool NounsKarma aimed at establishing an identity and reputation system for contributors of Nouns. We are seeking a funding of $20k per month for the upcoming four months to support the ongoing development of this application.

Details

We would like to make NounsKarma a reputation primitive in the Nouns Ecosystem that can be used by anyone to build tools and applications. We have been working on NounsKarma for the past two months and have been sharing regular updates in Nouns channel on Farcaster. We have received good feedback from the community and we were also the winners of Garden Round 3.

At a high level, we aim to build this system by:

Indexing Contributor Activities: We will surface contributor activity by consistently indexing and aggregating their involvement across all platforms and tools used by the Nouns community.
Capturing Subjective Data: We will implement the attestation feature so Nouns contributors can attest/endorse others in the network. This will result in subjective reputation data that can be useful for multiple use cases.

We will open source the entire code and all the data we collect will be made available through APIs. A robust system providing access to detailed contributor data can serve numerous purposes, such as identifying top contributors, rewarding and retaining them, aiding in Gardener and council elections, optimizing Farcaster feed sorting, and influencing funding decisions, among other applications.

NounsKarma is an ambitious project, and we are committed to its long-term development. Below, we outline the progress we have already made, demonstrating our team's capability to execute this project, along with our planned roadmap for the next four months.

Progress to date

We have developed a range of features to showcase contributor activity. The current features include:

User Profile Lookup: Anyone can view a user’s profile to access their complete activity, including votes cast, props created, candidate props created, feedback on props, droposals, and OE NFTs minted.

Analytics page: An analytics page that displays comprehensive DAO activity metrics.

NounsWrapped: A full onchain NFT displaying a user’s 2023 activity.

Linked Wallet Accounts: Feature to link multiple wallet accounts for aggregating activity across various accounts.
Specialized Pages: Dedicated pages for Droposal minters, OE minters, Gardeners, and Prop House voters.

4 month roadmap

Over the next four months, our focus is to enhance the application's value to the Nouns community. We plan to utilize the funding to implement new features

EAS Integration for Endorsements Ethereum Attestation Service is a simple service and has been gaining a lot of traction in the crypto ecosystem. We aim to integrate with the Ethereum Attestation Service (EAS) to enable contributors to endorse or attest to each other within the Nouns ecosystem. Contributors will be able to attest right on NounsKarma website and everything will be recorded as onchain attestations.
UI/UX Enhancement Collaborating with our designer, we intend to refine the UI/UX to enhance user experience.
Backend System Improvement We will focus on refactoring and improving our backend system for enhanced efficiency and stability, along with regular maintenance tasks like API updates and bug fixes.
Integration of Propdates and Other Metrics As the Nouns DAO adopts new tools, we plan to index and aggregate this data. A key example is integrating Propdates, widely used by builders, into NounsKarma.
API Development for Data Exposure The community has expressed a keen interest in exploring diverse algorithms and feed sorting methodologies for the Nouns Farcaster channel. In response to this, the DAO has already invested in clients such as nouns zone. Our team is eager to collaborate with these entities and contribute by providing comprehensive reputation data, which can be instrumental in developing varied and innovative feeds.

Benefits to Nouns DAO

Having a strong reputation system can be extremely beneficial to Nouns DAO. Below we list a few ways this system will be useful to the DAO and it’s contributors.

Enhanced Contributor Recognition: By aggregating and displaying detailed activity of each contributor, NounsKarma provides a clear view of individual contributions, ensuring that active and valuable members receive the recognition they deserve.
Improved Decision Making: Access to comprehensive data on contributor activities and reputations aids in making informed decisions in various DAO processes, including elections, reward distributions, and funding allocations.
Strengthened Community Engagement: The integration of tools like the Ethereum Attestation Service (EAS) fosters a sense of community by allowing members to endorse and attest to each other's contributions, enhancing engagement and trust within the ecosystem.
Customized Content Delivery: By providing reputation data for use in different feeds, NounsKarma enables the creation of tailored content experiences in the Farcaster channel, improving information relevance and user engagement.
Long-term Growth and Innovation: The continuous development and integration of new features, like the indexing of Propdates and other metrics, ensure that NounsKarma evolves alongside the DAO, supporting its growth and capacity for innovation.

Team

Mahesh Murthy - I am the founder of Karma, we have been building reputation tools for the last two years. I have been in the crypto space since 2016. You can see some of my old posts here. You can reach me on Twitter and Farcaster.

My team who will be working on NounsKarma consists of part time designer, full time frontend and a backend engineer.

Funding and Accountability

We are requesting $20k/month USD for 4 months of work which comes to a total of $80k. All funds will be used for development and maintenance of the product. We will post regular updates on propdates.

Rough breakdown of costs

$14k/month - Comp for two developers $6k/month - Comp for Product, designer and community support on need basis

Proposal votes

For

Against

Abstain

Quorum: 60

Activity

0x47C0...bd20

voted abstain (1)

ABSTAIN x 🥌 ↳ mmurthy.eth

Throwing weight behind zero weight votes with reason.

385d

0xdcf3...7a19

voted for (1)

totally understand the concerns but this feels like it has a lot of potential ⌐◨-◨

385d

0xcC26...6Ed5

voted against (24)

The Nouncil has spoken.

We discuss all Nouns proposals every week in our Discord https://discord.gg/fdjJpMeV6K. The calls are public and all are welcome!

You can find previous call recordings here: https://nouncil.notion.site/30328df718424f17a623859018497fc2?v=806b5234a2a34b619c3d5028bcd879f0&pvs=4

Against - Wins

FOR - 8 VOTES

AGAINST - 25 VOTES

akva556 | "another client, no thanks"

peterpandam | "What happens after the 4 months?"

ABSTAINS - 6 VOTES

386d

0xCEEd...D915

voted against (2)

Previously I've expressed concern that this will not capture the Nouns ecosystem and that seems to be playing out. It's good at surfacing Nouner activity but not much beyond. I'm afraid this will lead to another app that does not get much use and we end up with additional tech debt.

386d

0x8e71...71BC

voted for (1)

386d

0x2ED2...1300

voted for (1)

I would like to support the attempt to visualize onchain activity itself.

386d

0xaE65...46c0

voted for (2)

386d

0xFC21...6214

voted for (20)

(noun40 voting via agora)

a well maintained onchain contributor/fan database + a platform for subjective attestations are the foundation we need to build a sybil resistant identity system within nouns. we NEED to get out of a world where nouners/delegates are needed to vote on everything. we should have the whole nouns citizen base ("true fans" "nouns folk" or whatever we call this group of ppl that really care about nouns beyond their financial incentive) to vote on things. we can start small (like micro grants), but we can't let anyone vote. we also can't let a trivially fakeable set of ppl to vote. nouns karma's work is the foundation for that type of development.

what i would ask from the proposer is to not just build the onchain database and attestation system hope someone uses it. you should be ACTIVELY looking to make it used for an economic system of consequence within nouns. specifically i think you should provide a set of addresses that you think are sybil-resistant for different use cases.

(you mentioned nouns.zone but i don't know spam is really an issue on farcaster these days since the warpcast team improved the system)

two use cases i see are:

bound is trying to get a prize pool going (the initial prop failed but i hope we can get another one up soon; growing the nouns minting economy is important!). if the prize pool emerges then there will start to be attempts to juice the mint numbers to win more of the prize pool. if you could provide a sybil resistant set of addresses here to help count mints by true fans rather than bots for the purpose of the prize pool distribution calculation then i would consider that a meaningful use of nouns karma's work.
you could talk to seneca (for advice) to see if we can get some sort of infinite round or regular round for small grants going that again true fans vote for rather than nouners/delegates. this would be a big win since we haven't had a nouns funding mechanism voted on by nouns fans rather than nouners and if it works it could really help make nouns more democratic and scale governance further as well.

if something like #1 or #2 materializes in the next 4 months i would consider this prop a success and be willing to continue to fund. if it doesn't and nouns karma is a thing that exists but isn't used to support any type of economic system of consequence within the nouns world after 4 months then i would likely not. just a note for the proposer is that nouns is at times hard to navigate b/c it's headless. there's no company or foundation that you can talk to. that's what makes it both hard but also special! hope you can find your way around this world and make nouns karma the foundation of important economic systems within our world.

386d

0x8d2B...b275

voted for (2)

386d

0xA868...9E63

voted for (3)

Pretty much agree with willpappers vwr but still choose to vote For based on a couple things:

Im fascinated by nouns as a software platform, and specifically software built for a small but fervent user base of nouners (broad definition). Arguably, this circle of people carry nouns on a day-to-day and, all things considered, its pretty brittle. I believe one way to expand and strengthen this circle is to feed it with new, useful, fun tools (and people! see next bullet) that adds to the game of nouns.
Its proven hardish to attract devs/founders/teams who deeply understands nouns and im willing to make a bet on karma team w hopes that they both deepen their understanding to become domain experts and stick around for the long haul

On introspection, i believe i want to run this experiment to see if mmurthy and team can be thoroughly noun-pilled during the 4m term

386d

0xc2d4...e413

voted abstain (4)

386d

0x8ac3...5987

voted against (1)

Echo Wylin and Brennen's vwr

386d

0x3Cbd...8637

voted abstain (1)

I wish that the relationship between Karma and NounsKarma was more fully spelled out in the proposal. Karma already has VC funding. Since Karma already has VC funding, the question is not whether a Karma-like tool needs support from Nouns to enable it to exist (it has independent funding, which is great!). The question is whether Nouns wants to pay for Karma's software.

Of course, having funding shouldn't disqualify a project from receiving funds from Nouns. That would be silly -- Nouns should fund tools that it finds useful, regardless of their funding sources. Myself and multiple other Nouns community members run VC-backed companies. The fact that NounsKarma already received funding from Nouns Garden is a testament to this.

But if a project already has funding, that does change the relationship between Nouns and the project from backer to buyer. For projects without funding, Nouns is uniquely stepping in to enable that project to exist (which is the case for public goods projects that may not have a clear business model). For projects that have funding, Nouns becomes in effect a buyer of their software.

So, to put it another way, should Nouns buy Karma's software for $80K? (Possibly more if there are subsequent requests.) I don't have a strong opinion on that. Personally, for me, NounsKarma does not quite provide $80K of value to the DAO yet. It certainly does provide value -- having a dashboard for activity across all of the Nouns ecosystem is useful -- and the Garden funding is great support for this. But since Karma has funding, I would prefer to wait and see Karma develop more before funding further development. I'm not opposed to funding them at all - it only seems better to wait for NounsKarma's usage to grow since Karma will not live or die by Nouns's funding alone. I'm not Against -- if the DAO does decide that NounsKarma provides $80K in value, I am very happy to fund that. But I will Abstain since I don't believe the DAO needs to fund NounsKarma right now, since Karma can continue to develop and NounsKarma can grow in usage.

387d

0x5D80...1F16

voted for (2)

Reputation tracking infra is something that is very needed in crypto generally, and in Nouns more specifically. Nouns is also perhaps better suited than most communities to experiment in this area, as many of us are pseudonymous, but still care greatly for our onchain reputation.

I like that this proposer won a Prop House round (on their third attempt) and delivered a working MVP, and then some. I also think the per month ask here is not very high for developers of this caliber, and overall I just think it’s worthwhile to let them cook and see what happens.

387d

0xDf6e...0019

voted for (1)

This proposal gives me a mandated-round vibe!

387d

0x7916...A5f2

voted abstain (0)

I'd like to address some comments and clear up a few misunderstandings:

What we have built for other DAOs is entirely different from what we are building for NounsKarma. The codebase is different, the problem itself is different. For other DAOs, we have built delegate dashboards. This is not at all what we are building. NounsKarma is an attempt at solving reputation for all nounish users. Some ideas like indexing activity are same but sources we are indexing are different, the entire attestation concept is new and we haven't built anything like that yet.
$80k/4 months doesn't necessarily translate to $240k because we won't request the same amount again if we can't justify the future work involved. Ex: Our app is not design heavy, so we probably won't even need further design help. If we do request that amount and dao feels we haven't executed well, pretty sure our prop will fail.
Regarding "unproven necessity", I just want to say every single usecase we want to tackle and solve has come from our discussions with community members who deeply understand Nouns ecosystem.

387d

0xa736...2Cab

voted for (1)

This would be the best way to identify the most nounish members and keep them active.

387d

0x8491...8bf1

voted against (1)

+1 to 💎.wylin💎.eth's perspectives.

387d

0x13eE...DA33

voted for (2)

had a great call with mahesh earlier this week and was impressed with his plans for nounskarma. making progress to solve for nounish rep would unlock a lot of value for us and I am happy to support a team focused on solving these issues. it's also important for establishing a robust nouns minting economy

387d

0x7f64...d6d2

voted for (2)

387d

0xDCb4...5E5e

voted against (1)

https://www.lilnouns.wtf/vote/nounsdao/481/votes FOR 27 VOTES 0xADa31Add8450CA0422983B9a3103633b78938617 | "LIL NOUNCIL HAS SPOKEN Delegate to Lil Nouncil here -> https://lilnouns.wtf/delegate?to=lilnouncil.eth" AGAINST 57 VOTES 0x9e0e9D25a5ED9bc773f91691f0b45599255257B1 | "Unclear purpose, unproven necessity, lack of tech details, funding justification, limited track record, and unclear long-term viability." ABSTAINS 27 VOTES

387d

0xcC75...BEbB

voted for (0)

388d

0x3B60...a43F

voted for (1)

Attestations will be the most important new crypto primitive in 2024. Karma is one of the top teams in the emerging attestation ecosystem. Attestations will allow us to broader the community, officially, attesting that people have contributed to Nouns, attended events, minted NFTs, won prop houses, given conference talks and have built things. It will be the #1 way to identify someone as Nounish onchain which will unlock many new things. We should lead innovation on attestations and this is the team to do it. Additionally we should be growing our developer ecosystem and sending signals that we are open to new talented developers joining the ecosystem.

388d

0xD94e...3b4d

voted for (1)

388d

0x7d65...3C75

voted against (0)

389d

0x2666...4607

voted against (3)

For the similar reasons I voted against bound.wtf. I think the team is solid and the product is a good one. But we need numbers that nouners are nounish people are using this product.

389d

0xc6a3...96E4

voted against (1)

As part of my participation in the UnfilteredNoun experiment, VWRs will be minted via bound.wtf

https://zora.co/collect/base:0x445e0d7e1a8cef145d9e0e59c766c95e478f427a

This proposal seems like exactly what i'd be looking for from a small team working exclusively on this project for Nouns. Love that it started in the Garden. The more props we graduate up from Prop House and subDAOs, the better.

The full-time salaries are reasonable, as is the part-time/ OpEx budget. Could be more lean and resourceful imo but we're not that far out of the ZIRP era yet so can't expect software developers to think like general contractors.

That said, this totals out to $240k annual for a piece of software from a venture backed company that is also building similar tools for the largest, most well-financed organizations in the Ethereum ecosystem

i'm no developer so pardon if i'm speaking out of turn; is it not mostly a matter of putting Noggles and Londrina on top of the same web app all of the other orgs are using + plugging in Nouns smart contracts?

No diss to Nouns, but if Gitcoin, Optimism, ENS, and 20+ others are already using this tool, i have a hard time seeing what is so novel about our use case that to implement these features it would require 2 full time developers + part time staff dedicated exclusively to Nouns

also, having worked in SaaS sales, $240k annual is the price of enterprise software. unless and until the DAO is pulling in 9-10 figures of annual revenue, we have no business paying this much annually for software.

i'm sympathetic to the need for venture-backed companies to drive revenue - especially in this market. i think the DAO would do better to consolidate around operating its own internal software team, something like Verbs + Camp + Prop House + Bound, funded with reasonably low annual base salaries + quarterly sprints as defined by the DAO that unlock bonuses to make it more than worth it

not saying Mahesh isn't Nounish, he certainly seems like it. just think the DAO could harbor and develop passionate internal talent, not contribute our public goods money to the VC industrial complex, and maybe be a little less scatterbrained with what we're building

389d

ProposalsProposal 481

NounsKarma - Contributor analytics and reputation system

Defeated

For

Against

Abstain

Quorum: 60

Proposed by

0x7916...A5f2

, sponsored by

0xA868...9E63

TLDR;

Details

At a high level, we aim to build this system by:

Indexing Contributor Activities: We will surface contributor activity by consistently indexing and aggregating their involvement across all platforms and tools used by the Nouns community.
Capturing Subjective Data: We will implement the attestation feature so Nouns contributors can attest/endorse others in the network. This will result in subjective reputation data that can be useful for multiple use cases.

Progress to date

We have developed a range of features to showcase contributor activity. The current features include:

User Profile Lookup: Anyone can view a user’s profile to access their complete activity, including votes cast, props created, candidate props created, feedback on props, droposals, and OE NFTs minted.

Analytics page: An analytics page that displays comprehensive DAO activity metrics.

NounsWrapped: A full onchain NFT displaying a user’s 2023 activity.

Linked Wallet Accounts: Feature to link multiple wallet accounts for aggregating activity across various accounts.
Specialized Pages: Dedicated pages for Droposal minters, OE minters, Gardeners, and Prop House voters.

4 month roadmap

Over the next four months, our focus is to enhance the application's value to the Nouns community. We plan to utilize the funding to implement new features

EAS Integration for Endorsements Ethereum Attestation Service is a simple service and has been gaining a lot of traction in the crypto ecosystem. We aim to integrate with the Ethereum Attestation Service (EAS) to enable contributors to endorse or attest to each other within the Nouns ecosystem. Contributors will be able to attest right on NounsKarma website and everything will be recorded as onchain attestations.
UI/UX Enhancement Collaborating with our designer, we intend to refine the UI/UX to enhance user experience.
Backend System Improvement We will focus on refactoring and improving our backend system for enhanced efficiency and stability, along with regular maintenance tasks like API updates and bug fixes.
Integration of Propdates and Other Metrics As the Nouns DAO adopts new tools, we plan to index and aggregate this data. A key example is integrating Propdates, widely used by builders, into NounsKarma.
API Development for Data Exposure The community has expressed a keen interest in exploring diverse algorithms and feed sorting methodologies for the Nouns Farcaster channel. In response to this, the DAO has already invested in clients such as nouns zone. Our team is eager to collaborate with these entities and contribute by providing comprehensive reputation data, which can be instrumental in developing varied and innovative feeds.

Benefits to Nouns DAO

Having a strong reputation system can be extremely beneficial to Nouns DAO. Below we list a few ways this system will be useful to the DAO and it’s contributors.

Enhanced Contributor Recognition: By aggregating and displaying detailed activity of each contributor, NounsKarma provides a clear view of individual contributions, ensuring that active and valuable members receive the recognition they deserve.
Improved Decision Making: Access to comprehensive data on contributor activities and reputations aids in making informed decisions in various DAO processes, including elections, reward distributions, and funding allocations.
Strengthened Community Engagement: The integration of tools like the Ethereum Attestation Service (EAS) fosters a sense of community by allowing members to endorse and attest to each other's contributions, enhancing engagement and trust within the ecosystem.
Customized Content Delivery: By providing reputation data for use in different feeds, NounsKarma enables the creation of tailored content experiences in the Farcaster channel, improving information relevance and user engagement.
Long-term Growth and Innovation: The continuous development and integration of new features, like the indexing of Propdates and other metrics, ensure that NounsKarma evolves alongside the DAO, supporting its growth and capacity for innovation.

Team

My team who will be working on NounsKarma consists of part time designer, full time frontend and a backend engineer.

Funding and Accountability

We are requesting $20k/month USD for 4 months of work which comes to a total of $80k. All funds will be used for development and maintenance of the product. We will post regular updates on propdates.

Rough breakdown of costs

$14k/month - Comp for two developers $6k/month - Comp for Product, designer and community support on need basis