Toolmakers and Maintainers Circle Activity

Toolmakers and Maintainers Circle Activity

Toolmakers and Maintainers problem sensing

T&M Problem sensing #1

Saturday Swarm Session - 17/07/2021 - 18:00

Timestamps and summary

Victor Corcino - Introduction - 0:00

Len - How is ranked voting interface going to work with the Miro board ?- 1:48

Victor Corcino - Listing all the problem statements first - 2:05

Felix - Our role is only to re-present the problem statement - 2:28

Each week we have three sessions. The After Town Halls, Swarm Sessions and Each of the sessions are recorded. Each session we work on a miro board as well. We have to filter two problem statements. Which are able to represent the problems of all toolmakers and maintainers. I prefer to start from zero. Everyone here goes on the Miro board and puts their problem statements on the notes. The iteration of this will come in the next Wednesday After Town Hall when we only use the outcomes from today's session.The idea is to include the people into the process.

Google Document

Swarm Session 17/07/2021 from 17.00 - 19.30 UTC

T&M Problem sensing #1 - Transcription

Swarm Session 17/07/2021 from 17.00 - 19.30 UTC

This problem statements have been stated, selected and filtered by Community members, participating in the problem sensing process #1.

Miro Board:

Recording: T&M Problem sensing #1 17/07/2021

Statements:

• Participants wrote down their problem statement(s) on a Miro board

Selection & Filtering:

• Participants which states several problems, selected their own “most important” statements

• Participants filter statements, when statement is covered others already

• Beginning 26 statements to selected & filtered 9 statements

Process:

• The 9 selected statements will be restated and selected in the next sensing step. After Town Hall breakout room T&M problem sensing #2 on July 21st at 18.00 UTC

• The outcome from T&M problem sensing #2 will be delegated to next Swarm Session on 24/07/2021

9 Selected problem statements:

How to make voters aware about projects already under development? (funded by Catalyst or not)

• Newcomers don't know where to go or how to start getting involved in the catalyst process. How can we ensure a frictionless experience for every participant?

• Currently 3-12 people determine the ranking, and therefore likelihood of a proposal getting funded

• How can we recruit influencers to promote community involvement (many are simply promoting participation in crypto as a monetary construct, not social)

• Upcoming Fund Challenges have no place to build momentum, teams and synergy

• Proposal system forces waterfall. How to get stakeholder input in between voting rounds?

• Missing reputation system

• No clear, accountable and democratic process for improving Project Catalyst

• How to involve CF

Not selected problem statements:

• Voting power is entirely determined by the amount of ADA an individual holds. This leaves key community members like SPO's with the most power

• Too much branding

• How to Update or revise the Ideascale interface when we agree changes

• There is no form of "Office Hours" for proposers to speak with CA's on how to improve proposal and get live feedback

• Need DID's solved still

• Very high, and growing number of proposals in the system each cycle - difficult to personally attend to them in the time available

• dominative CA role

• What is the best practices for driving communication between the various interested community members (example: all of the parties depicted by Charles in his governance yt video/white board)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_wJOF4Y8gU

• Incentives are what makes governance work. How can we clarify/quantify the incentives for each member of the community to participate?

• missing Ideascale API access

• no rewarding system for highly engaged community members

• Dev Daedalus App "snap" in: Nix, SCSS, Java Script or Rust?

• how to improve the quality of proposals

• Monetary Incentives - vs other system of incentivisation can we use?

• Project Catalyst Community self-awareness that there are multiple options for funding, and this is one

• Is there an individual or organization responsible for documenting and spreading info on the problems identified here/everywhere else? (possible for the Circle to solve this?)

• How can we monitor multiple competing projects and measure their comparative success?

Afterwards added statements

• There need to be multiple approaches considered for providing Reputation scores or validating IDs. As otherwise any one system can be used as a means of controlling populations.

• Note: I had to add my contributions after the session. As I had to have time to think

• you can not assume people are making a fully informed affirmative decision if they move quickly towards the largest text if given 30 secs to assess 9 statements.

• hovering does not work on a touch screen, so my preference could not be registered in the 30 sec herding experiment.. FYI. So might want to warn ppl ahead if herding is likely to be part of decision making!!

T&M Problem sensing #2

After Townhall, 21st July 2021

Toolmakers and Maintainers problem sensing #2 Second Iteration - After Town Hall - 21st July 2021 Toolmakers and Maintainers Circle Activity

Miro Board

T&M Problem sensing #3

Saturday Swarm Session - 24th July 2021

T&M Problem sensing #3 - 24th July 2021

Google Document

Transcription

T&M Problem sensing #3

Swarm Session 24/07/2021 from 17.00 - UTC

• (1) list the problems within your group. Problem statement rubrik

  • What problem do you see?

  • Why is solving this problem important to the mission of Project Catalyst?

  • Can you articulate the gap between the current state and the expected or envisioned state?

  • How might the value of solving this problem be quantified and/or measured? (optional)

• (2) Rank the problems (focus on top two statements)

• (3) Share our feedback with each other and look for problem statements to solve together (eg. join with another member - eg Victor, Juli, Felix)

• (4) Place Problems in accessible backlog tool (E.g Trello)

What problem do you see?

1.Missing bridges regarding onboarding & introduction process and infrastructure:

There is a lot of information for Cardano and Catalyst, but it is very decentralized and hard for someone just starting out to know where to look and learn how to participate. Much of the available materials are also in English only. Different communities do not have bridges between each other, which leads to siloing and potential waste of resources and engagement. People feel overwhelmed and lost when first starting out.

Why is solving this problem important to the mission of Project Catalyst?

Diverse and passionate community participation is vital for Catalyst to be successful. If we can build a vibrant community with creativity and input from as wide a group as possible, we will be building the future infrastructure that is as inclusive as possible. We want to avoid instantly alienating people because of feeling overwhelmed, not knowing how to participate, where to start, or other barriers to joining effectively.

The amount of information available about Cardano and Catalyst will only continue to grow as more people join the community. It’s a reinforcing feedback loop. Without a way to aggregate and streamline information while giving people direction on where to go next, the process of getting connected will only get more difficult.

Can you articulate the gap between the current state and the expected or envisioned state?

- There is an overwhelming amount of information for new people to digest in a large number of places.

- A lot of different communities support Cardano. It is hard to know where they are, which are valuable, and where to start. FOMO is real and exhausting.

- Blockchain, Cardano, Stake Pools, Staking, Voting, Catalyst, Funding, Proposals, there is SO MUCH to learn to feel like you understand how things work.

- Some discord servers have an overwhelming number of servers.

- No clear central starting point to learn about Catalyst.

- The envisioned state is having information and community mechanisms and systems available to take people deeper and deeper into the community in a safe and inclusive way.

T&M Problem sensing #4

After Town Hall, 28th July 2021

Final Form of T&M Problem Statement

Transcription

After Town Hall 28/07/2021

Previous steps: Catalyst Circle ( CC ) - Toolmakers & Maintainers ( T&M )

T&M Problem sensing #1+2 T&M problem sensing #1+2

T&M Problem sensing #3 T&M Problem sensing #3

• (1) list the problems within your group. Problem statement rubrik

  • What problem do you see?

  • Why is solving this problem important to the mission of Project Catalyst?

  • Can you articulate the gap between the current state and the expected or envisioned state?

  • How might the value of solving this problem be quantified and/or measured? (optional)

• (2) Rank the problems (focus on top two statements)

• (3) Share our feedback with each other and look for problem statements to solve together

• (4) Place Problems in accessible backlog tool (E.g Trello)

Problem #1 - Onboarding & Introduction

What problem do you see?

There is an overload of information for Cardano and Catalyst, it is very dispersed and therefore hard for someone just starting out to know where to look and learn how to participate. People feel overwhelmed and lost when first starting out. \

Much of the available materials are in English only. Different communities do not have bridges between each other. This adds friction to world domination! Slowing down our ability to connect as a cohesive community and gain momentum.

Why is solving this problem important to the mission of Project Catalyst?

Diverse engaged and informed community participation is vital for Catalyst to be successful. We want to build a vibrant creative community able to sense local needs and act upon them collectively. Sense locally, act globally. \

The amount of information available about Cardano and Catalyst will only continue to grow as more people join the community. Improving findability creates a reinforcing feedback loop which in itself becomes a super-power. The process of getting connected will only get more difficult, without a way to aggregate and streamline information. We need to give people orientation and confidence to contribute to the ecosystem. \

Can you articulate the gap between the current state and the expected or envisioned state?

Yes :)

To find what I need when I need it and be able to work with who I need to work with.

Any gap must be filled by us as humans to focus on what matters most individually; Specialization with a method toward awareness of what is happening around us.

Many different communities can flourish in Cardano. It is hard to know where they are and where to start. In the “Experiment” there is an overwhelming amount of information for new people to digest. Scattered in a large number of places. We’re achieving a lot, however keeping up is exhausting.

Having mechanisms to separate the signal from the noise. Mechanisms and information to bring people into the community in a safe and inclusive way are important. To be able to create new knowledge and merge that with the collective intelligence of Cardano. Markets are after all, conversations.

To build the communities we need, we need to sow radicles 🌱 so that we can work together effectively.

Written by the T&M Community

Problem #2 - Trust, Participation, and Reward system(s)

What problem do you see?

As the community grows larger it becomes harder for people to establish direct connections. Knowing who to trust, who delivers value, and what expertise other people bring to the table becomes important.

The key problem is related to building the next layer of trust.

For example, one person stated, "I do not know who to trust for engagement, mentorship, technical expertise." The flip-side is people need to be able to build a sustainable livelihood in the ecosystem if Cardano is to flourish.

As a community, we don't have any way to reward community participation and contribution. People participate and contribute to the greater Catalyst community; In chat rooms, meetings, events and other forums where time, energy, and enthusiasm are routinely on display. This effort is not acknowledged or rewarded. We don’t want to create sweatshops.

Why is solving this problem important to the mission of Project Catalyst?

Creating honest trustworthy signals becomes important for the growth of our ecosystem.

A certain level of altruism and passion are needed for the community to flourish, but taken to an extreme it is not sustainable long term. Egalitarianism verses slavery. Having a mechanism for the community to state what is valued, track contributions, and reward those that participate and provide value will be key in growing the community and keeping people engaged over the long term.

As the community grows, knowing who to trust and who has expertise in specific areas will allow people to safely express their preferences and also delegate to respected experts.

Knowing who to trust in different scenarios will allow people to collaborate effectively with the best possible individuals, projects and teams.

Can you articulate the gap between the current state and the expected or envisioned state?

There are currently many emergent systems in operation to assess proposals; however, their utility has not been proven nor their behavior well characterized.

Working on projects which are unfunded or under-resourced because of inadequate information is not sustainable either. Ultimately we want to give super-powers to people and ideas.

Creating reputation and reward systems are complex and must balance extrinsic reward with intrinsic motivation. Defining these components is a difficult undertaking but amplifies and focuses effort. Data and the construction of honest signals are required. Ideally modelled and evolved based on empirical evidence to move forward.

Proactive funding via proposals tends to favour certainty over outcome. Yet navigating uncharted territory needs explorers and some continuity of funding for productive engagement in the ecosystem.

The future state gives the Cardano ecosystem a veritable treasure chest of primitives for building and navigating our space together.

Written by the T&M Community

big shout out to a really engaged Toolmaker & Maintainer community

Discord context

Discord - Group Chat That’s All Fun & GamesDiscord

Timeline

Overview - relevant steps related to the CC history and specific regard to T&M’s

First Steps Archive:

Problem sensing:

T&M problem sensing

Things that are going well

Team building: ?

CC Team building

Who is doing the problem sensing?

How and “by who” are the Problem statements formulated?

Who is doing the problem sensing?

Miro Board