Proposal for compensation

As outlined in the proposed methodology for structuring & rewarding contributions, our goal is to set up a system where individual guilds are able to operate autonomously, setting up their own budgets and roadmaps (with approval from the DAO at large), and allocating compensation to guild members internally based on their contributions.

The ideal tooling that helps achieve this level of autonomy and decentralisation is a combination of Dework + Coordinape (works via a native integration), whereby each guild creates (unpriced) tasks based on their roadmap, and at the end of each period guild members allocate points to each other, based on how much fellow members have contributed. More detail on this rewards mechanism can be found in Coordinape documentation.

What this ensures is that compensation is peer-assigned, and participation in tasks is open to any citizen. That means no centralised HR decision-making, no need for ā€˜core teamā€™ definition and associated bureaucracies.

While we are moving towards this model, there are a few dependencies - ā€˜metaā€™ work, most of which has been documented in Q2 Roadmap, including:

  • treasury diversification
  • liquidity
  • passport issuance
  • member onboarding processes
  • guild set up & associated processes for budget and roadmap decisions
  • brand & community work to introduce talented & committed members into the community that will actually contribute work.

Alongside some fantastic & committed recurrent contributors, a bulk of this meta-work is done by the founding members. Before the dependencies are solved and the Coordinape model is implemented, the founding members are also the ones who add and price tasks. To date, we have only published tasks with the goal of incentivising community members to contribute & earn $NATION, without claiming compensation ourselves.

Since the incentives would be quite weird for the founding members to add and price tasks, and then pick them up ourselves, Iā€™d like to propose to the community a temporary compensation of 10k USDC per month for 3 months to be allocated to @0xGallego and myself (Anastasiya) each for our work on the roadmap and the ā€˜metaā€™ tasks. @luis has chosen to not take up compensation.

Compensation in USDC is of course subject to the DAO securing funds for runway in USDC or similar without damaging the market for $NATION (eg through bonds as proposed by @Luis).

After this period, we should be in the position to move fully to the Dework + Coordinape system and then all contributors, including founding members, would be rewarded the same way.

Open for feedback & comments!

  • Yes, in favour
  • No, not in favour

0 voters

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Instead of paying a fixed $20,000 per month for two DAO members handling administrative tasks outside of Dework, I suggest adding all your administrative tasks (ā€œmeta workā€) to a Dework project board: ā€œMeta Guildā€. And then put a $NATION valuation on each task.

This keeps the proof of work per person more transparent. And by starting the process of splitting your administrative burden into smaller Dework tasks today, the upcoming transition to Coordinape will also be easier.

If, letā€™s say, you personally have 10 monthly administrative tasks valued at $1,000 each and you put them on Dework, perhaps someone else in the Nation3 DAO would have the skills and time to help you complete some of them faster?

CC @0xGallego @luis

4 Likes

I agree the opinion of @aahna and have the similar concern. It is a little bit hard for me to speak out my concern and confuse. Cuz I agree the initial member need the compensation and rewards, however, right now there are no any specific plans or systems to keep the balance between the incremental supporters( investors) and the developer who would cash out the token. If the developer who get the task and earn the $Nation on dework would cash out the token when they finish the task and the initial team will get the fixed compensation each month, I am not sure whether the behavior of ā€œ cashing outā€ will crash our market. ( Eg: just exchanging the $Nation simply )

Maybe Luis will provide a good plan or describe the specific proposal of the bond, then we will know the reason why it will not hurt our market. And we can also understand why it is a recyclable and healthy economic model.

Anyway I agree the initial team and supporter should get the good (fair) compensation.

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@rencai201 The founding team has already been compensated with 20% of the token supply ā€“ 8,414 $NATION ā€“ for the work they did pre-launch (before April): https://etherscan.io/address/0xbac3ab60a1643e5f5de8eb62cb4bb232711d9dcd#tokentxns

We are now deciding how to best use the remaining 80% of the token supply to compensate work being done post-launch (after April).

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I definitely agree, there are just a few issues to figure out, and the rationale for @anastasiya to make this proposal in the first place:

  • The main tasks are around facilitation, which includes pricing tasks. Pricing tasks while being on the receiving end itā€™s a conflict of interest. Guild budgets + Coordinape solve this in a very elegant way, but we need to set those up first (which will take some time).
  • There are also tons of tasks (especially in @anastasiyaā€™s role) that are hard to measure/hard to write down because of its meta nature. Iā€™m pretty sure she could almost spend more time writing down tasks than actually carrying them out.
  • Contributors should also get rewarded in other tokens more than $NATION. Ideally, they get rewarded in USDC/DAI/etc. for whatever they need to cash out/living costs, and keep the $NATION as a long-term incentive. The Treasury Guild can cash out $NATION over time to have stable always available, and probably cause less selling pressure than if contributors did that themselves without a thought-through strategy. Iā€™m a fan of clearly splitting what is used for living costs and whatā€™s used for long-term alignment.

That being said, an alternative to this ā€œtransitionary periodā€ is just to go to the end state directly. This would probably look like:

  • Coordinape + Dework all the way, everyone is a contributor on the same playing field.
  • A Meta Guild that rewards members at fixed rate within its budget. This Meta Guild would also do some work pricing tasks until Coordinape is up and running and a myriad of other admin/meta tasks, but they wouldnā€™t need to document absolutely everything. Instead, they could just present quarterly goals and have fixed comp.

Thoughts on that @aahna? Iā€™m personally keen of moving into the end goal directly, but I do understand that it creates uncertainty especially in those that have been working full-time in Nation3 and donā€™t want to sell their tokens (which is a good sign). Because of that, whatever we do we should do soon!

2 Likes

Iā€™m in full support of the proposal to compensate the team for their work, however I think
@aahna has made a good point about the importance of proof of work and transparency.

I also understand the conflict of interest concern both @anastasiya and @luis have raised in pricing tasks they would be handling themselves, but in requesting for a monthly pay of 10k @anastasiya has somehow indirectly priced the administrative tasks the team would be executing. Also @luisā€™ point about how difficult and time consuming it would be to describe some of these admin tasks is very understandable, but I think itā€™s a sacrifice thatā€™s worth making as this would not only help show transparency and proof of work, but also set a good precedence that would very much help the transition to a fully decentralised task and project management system using Dework and Coordinape.

This is a great conversation, one that I figure is happening everywere in DAO space in a more visible manner than it has happened in startups throughout time. The selection of USDC makes this akin to a question of founders risk, how much risk a team member can take and how much personal exposure they take on - equity vs salary.

In these early days I see no reason why those fully (time) invested in Nation3 should not be remunerated as per a regular job, and whilst I fully subscribe to working in the open it really isnā€™t practical for every task - thatā€™s like timesheets++. Aspirationally though, once the initial wiring is all in place your end state should be the periodā€™s north star, Nation salaried and freelance humans globally distributedā€¦

As to what fair remuneration looks like in USDC, I guess the core team are US citizens IRL and weā€™re using USA benchmarks for now? Therefore if 10000 USDC pcm is the fair value for what these team members do, why not move the original 3 month goal in the proposal to USDC payment through end June, and link it to getting the Coordinape integration?

thanks so much for all the comments @aahna @rencai201 @sagitario @johnmark13 @Luis - wanted to leave some time for everyone to express an opinion before commenting!

Very fair points and definitely agree with the comments here. The reason for bringing up the proposal was just to find a way to navigate the conflict of interest when it comes to same people writing, pricing, and also claiming tasks on Dework which wouldnā€™t make a lot of sense. And as @Luis correctly mentioned, to separate income used for living costs (especially when working on something full time / not receiving comp from other places) from long-term alignment, as I neither of us would like to sell $NATION any time soon!

Perhaps a good way to balance things would be to indeed do what Luis has proposed - i.e. set up Coordinape + Dework already now so contributions are priced collectively and not by specific individuals, and set up the Meta guild with a fixed rate (other community members would also able to become Meta guild members).

Would that make sense?

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