[Proposal] SourceCred Engagement Incentives

[Coopahtroopa]

_ (Fire Eyes DAO) has been working with the Balancer team to develop governance mechanisms that complement the launch of Balancer V2.

At the end of 2020, we proposed Governance Mining to encourage community members and liquidity providers to participate in governance, and to compensate these people for doing so.

One piece to this incentive program is the implementation of a SourceCred instance to track contributions to the Balancer Community.

This proposal looks to leverage SoureCred to distribute a fixed amount of BAL per week based on the Cred and Grain scores accumulated by users across both this forum and the #governance channel in Discord.

Community members will need to opt-in to this program to be eligible for rewards, with specifics on the process and parameters to be finalized based on feedback from this post.

Motivation

The introduction of ‘soft’ incentives around governance in Maker and Index Coop have improved the quantity, quality and diversity of contributions.

We aim to empower these contributions in the Balancer ecosystem via a suite of governance incentive programs. The GovFactor addresses the incentivisation of liquidity provider participation, and we believe that there is a much broader space for participation in the Balancer community from people and groups who may not have the capital to become LPs, or who otherwise choose not to do so.

Specification

The Balancer SourceCred Instance was set up in December 2020 and has been collecting contribution data for the past ~4 weeks.

We propose that BAL tokens are distributed to contributors based on the Cred scores recorded by SourceCred and the subsequent grain (or BAL) scores earned among active participants. For more on how this works, please see this documentation.

The following specification details our proposed structure for these incentives. Inspiration for the allocations and configuration of this instance were modeled after the MakerDAO SourceCred Trial.

Forum Incentives

The Balancer governance forum is the home to the most important discussions and Balancer Improvement Proposals (BIPs).

This program looks to offer a fixed amount of BAL per month to those contributing in meaningful ways, measured using SourceCred to track aggregate likes, posts and engagement across all topics.

Balancer’s SourceCred instance is heavily weighted towards the amount of likes received across all posts, rather than the quantity of replies. This enforces a ‘quality over quantity’ approach, rewarding contributions that are deemed valuable by the community through engagement and signal.

Discord Incentives

We’ve noticed community members on Discord play an active role in educating new users as well as providing valuable feedback and discussion around protocol governance. Through this integration, we want to create mechanisms for those actions to be easily validated and rewarded.

The first instance of Discord incentives will track activity in the #governance channel, rewarding participants for meaningful contributions in the same way as forum activity - focused on reactions as opposed to post volume to push towards a ‘quality over quantity approach’.

This program looks to serve as an ongoing medium for community members to be better rewarded for their discussion in Discord, with ambitions to boost the importance of BAL emojis and token-based roles using tools like Collab.Land.

Funding

The proposed funding for SourceCred incentives sits between 25 and 250 BAL per week.

After an amount has been signaled, a Snapshot vote will be proposed to finalize the winning option and specify where the BAL incentives will be paid from, and how they will be managed.

Drawbacks

Some points to consider around the introduction of SourceCred incentives for contributions to the Balancer Forum:

• There is potential for this program to be exploited using bots or through collusion between actors. We will be monitoring the rewards distributed by the instance and will take action if malicious activity occurs.

Vote

Poll One: Should Balancer allocate a fixed amount of BAL per month to be distributed via SourceCred for contributions to the Balancer Forum and the #governance Discord channel?

Implementing SourceCred incentives

• Yes - I am in favor of implementing SourceCred incentives
• No - I do not agree with this proposal.

Poll 2: How much BAL should be distributed per week to SourceCred incentives

SoureCred Incentive Specification

• 25 BAL
• 50 BAL
• 100 BAL
• 250 BAL

Please note that this program aims to ramp up in the event that it is successful, and we believe that starting with smaller allocations and building up as time goes on is the best way to approach these incentives.

SoureCred has an opt-in revenue model of allocating 5% of all BAL tokens distributed through this program back to their community, and we are very much in favor of supporting this intiative.

Additional conversation for this proposal can be found in the #governance channel in Discord.

[tongnk]

This is a super cool experiment. I would say though that given the big push on governance we should put a heavier weight on the forums itself.

Also I voted for the smallest amount to start with - it’s a lot easier to add more but a lot harder to reduce. Would make most sense to run it as a small limited experiment and then take it forward

[Coopahtroopa]

Definitely agreed with both sentiments here. The forum should be favored and over time, we should look to expand Discord rewards beyond the governance channel itself.

@tongnk

It’s a lot easier to add more but a lot harder to reduce.

Totally agreed with this point! I want to make sure this program is quite meaningful for early participants, so personally have voted for 50 BAL but can see the logic in 25 BAL too.

Thanks for the swift responses here @tongnk

[DavisRamsey]

Looks like a good idea to me. Voted Yes and for 250 BAL. You get what you pay for

[Fernando]

Love the proposal.

Agreed with Davis: as long as only real and valuable interactions are considered 250 seems like a great investment by the ecosystem fund to get more participation. A thriving governance is absolutely key for Balancer’s long term success.

[Shawman]

I agree in starting small with 25 bal per week and evaluating performance and increasing as appropriate in the future. Maker started small with 5,000 dollars per month, and then gradually increased over a year to 5,000 per week.

[0xLucas]

Thanks for posting Cooper!

Similar to the govFactor, I’m leaning towards being more conservative to start off. The last thing we want is a flood of spammers/bots into the Discord + Discourse because we incentivized the ecosystem with ~$20K per month (i.e. the 250 BAL/wk option) to participate.

That said, I voted for 50 BAL per week (200 BAL = ~$4K/mo) as it’s in line with MakerDAO and their $5K per month for SourceCred incentives.

I think it’ll be a good basis to start testing out SourceCred incentives as it’s much easier to increase than decrease.

[Uncle]

Long time Balancer fan, first time poster. I am ready to be engaged!

[cjremus]

This is fantastic! Incentivizing positive and negative constructive feedback is important. In my experience, if this isn’t done, negative feedback usually dominates.

[0x_vadym]

Today most protocols don’t offer any direct incentives to become a protocol politician or simply contribute to a gov discussion. Best token models include skin in the game for token holders via slashing, dilution, and long-term lock-up, and provide economic incentives in the form of protocol fees sharing and/or gov token distribution. In most other cases the reward is the token price growth.

However, these models do not drive active participation and do not dis-incentivize for free riders.

Totally support this proposal.

[rabmarut]

Definitely in support of this. Voted for 50 at first, then changed to 250, then back to 50. I want to ensure that contributors feel sufficiently valued but also err on the side of conservative to start.

[immutbl]

I also lean toward starting small and potentially building it up rather than going in heavy from the start. I felt 50 would be a good balance.

[IvanG]

Hi folks,

I think it’s the time to contribute a little more to the community. Fully supporting this one.

[Shawman]

Does the source cred instance test update weekly? It would be nice for us to review to make sure the output is working properly before rewards start.

[monstrosity]

I don’t have a strong opinion on the weekly amount other than I would consider a dynamic grain / BAL distribution.

I am really glad to see this take affect.

@Shawman

Does the source cred instance test update weekly? It would be nice for us to review to make sure the output is working properly before rewards start.

Not sure who will be running sourcecred but it’s pretty manual and can be done weekly or biweekly. Weekly imo is best for the reason you stated

[TelcoinD]

Like this idea!

I do have some questions though

1. There might be some instances where a person didnt get a like on their post but their suggestion (whatever that is) gets implemented. Will Sourcecred be able to track those?

2. Is there a difference or should there be a difference between rewards given to forum vs discord? Not sure if one media weighs more (number of audience - users).

3. Should a max amount implemented per person (reward recipient)

4. Should there be a max # of likes etc a user can give on a weekly/daily basis? Im just thinking how they do it in games where you can only have certain number of gifts you can give to your clan members (most likely i am way off base here)

Thanks.

[monstrosity]

@TelcoinD

There might be some instances where a person didnt get a like on their post but their suggestion (whatever that is) gets implemented. Will Sourcecred be able to track those?

You can creatively adjust various edge weights

@TelcoinD

Is there a difference or should there be a difference between rewards given to forum vs discord? Not sure if one media weighs more (number of audience - users).

This can be adjusted and with current state of disocrd only tied to 1 channel I would agree that forum should have a heavier weight. This can be done 2 ways:

1. by adding an additional multiplier to forum edge & node weights
2. by adding a ‘plug in budget’ this however only limits maximum cred so it may not actually reward one over the other.

@TelcoinD

3. Should a max amount implemented per person (reward recipient)
4. Should there be a max # of likes etc a user can give on a weekly/daily basis? Im just thinking how they do it in games where you can only have certain number of gifts you can give to your clan members (most likely i am way off base here)

I don’t believe there is a current individual limit capability however when BAL is distributed you manually adjust those. However, I don’t think this is desirable route. Maybe a more practical approach, you can use the forum trust levels so higher trust level members mint 1x cred whereas a lower trust level member mints 0.25x cred.

[Ruttchezz]

It will give room for people to participate in governance voting

[Shubiwubi]

Are there any updates around SourceCred Incentivization in the community as of late? The off-chain votes here in the forum seemed overwhelmingly positive, so curious as to where the process is currently at, and what the next steps would be?

[schorgie30]

Agreed! I’d love to learn how this program has been going - would be great case study for other communities too.