Governance Contribution Recognition

General
1

tldr

This post is meant to:

  1. Introduce governance contribution recognition at Scroll DAO,
  2. Sketch what a first proposal would look like, and
  3. Begin the feedback process so that a formal proposal can go for vote in the June voting cycle.

This discussion is taking place at the same time as the votable supply discussion, and there are some related elements (e.g. qualification criteria)

Overview

Governance is work.

As such, we want to introduce the idea of governance contribution recognition (GCR), the first attempt at financially recognizing the work that is being done to help build Scroll DAO in the months since TGE. This will start with a 6 month retro (for contribution from inception, Oct, through mid-April). A separate proposal will be put together to define the subsequent approach’s for GCR.

Additionally, we want to put forth an initial outline of governance contribution compensation to start getting feedback so that we’re ready to vote on a proposal starting June 1.

Governance Contribution Recognition

GCR is meant to serve as a mechanism to reward people for meaningfully contributing to governance at Scroll DAO. As the DAO itself will grow and evolve, the nature of this recognition will change with it.

The first iteration of the GCR will be focused on a roughly 6 monthly retroactive award. Broadly speaking, this structure will have a small baseline reward for some minimal contribution, and will provide increasing awards based on the contribution. This was have a mix of quantitative and qualitative measures.

This initial approach will reward for certain baseline activites that are likely to not get rewarded again (e.g. voting but not partaking on the forum). The logic for including such categories is to provide a small reward (~$120 per vote) to a slightly wider set of participants, to hopefully encourage those who have some interaction to interact more.

There would be additional rewards for contributing beyond the initial baseline. To give a sense of scale, the largest award would be just over $10k USD eqiuvalent at a price of $0.20 SCR/USD.

Beyond the first retro, there will be a new approach defined for at least the subsequent 6 months. That proposal should put in place a more robust system for capturing the relevant data to minimize potential errors.

Requested feedback

We are especially keen to hear your thoughts on:

  • Qualification criteria for who is eligible for governance contribution recognition,
  • Specific things that are recognized,
  • Amounts, and
  • Payout frequency, how often should rewards be distributed?

That having been said, feel free to provide constructive feedback on any aspect.

Proposed framework

NOTE: this retro covers the first 3 votes and forum activity through April 15, 2025.

Qualification criteria

There is only one qualification for the minimum reward, namely:

  • Voted at least once.

Forumla

  • Hourly rate = 300 SCR
  • Proposal bonus = 5,000 SCR
  • Vote time = # votes * 2 hours
    • Assumption: each vote takes 2 hours
  • Call attendance = # of calls attended
    • Assumption: each call was 1 hour
  • Forum = Vote threads + endorsements + meaningful comments on one of 7 active forum posts
    • Assumption: each forum engagement takes 1 hour
  • Proposals to vote = the # of proposals that were written and made it to a formal DAO vote
    • Assumption: the sheparding of each proposal takes ~15-18 hours
  • Negation game participation = 1 if someone participated in an interview and interaction with the Negation Game team, 0 if no

Base reward = (Vote time + Call attendance + Forum) * Hourly rate

Proposal bonus reward = Proposal bonus * Proposals to vote

  • NOTE: only 4 proposals were posted by delegates as of April 15, 2025 that have or will soon go to vote

Bonus reward = (Negation game participation * 300 SCR) + (2500 SCR if 10 or more calls attended) + (2500 SCR if 5 or more meaningful forum comments) + (500 SCR if delegate has a delegate thread with all 3 rationales there) * 6*

  • *6 is a multiplier to bring the reward up to what qualitatively seems to be a more fair payout for contributions, proportionate to our treasury size.

In other words,

  • There is a base reward consisting of the number of hours spent on voting, attending calls, and making meaningful contributions on the forum, which is multiplied by an hourly rate of 300 SCR/hour.
  • There is a proposal bonus of 5,000 SCR for each proposal on the forum that has or will soon go to vote.
  • There is a general bonus that consists of
    • 300 SCR for completing an interview with the Negation Game team.
    • 2,500 SCR for attending 10 or more calls.
    • 2,500 SCR for having 5 or more meaningful interactions on the forum.
    • 500 SCR bonus for having 3/3 voter rationales.
    • There is a multiplier of 6.

Initial breakdown

The below is what the breakdown looks like based on the above rules.

image
image332Ă—2202 160 KB

NOTE: the same data was used for this and for the votable supply calculations.

This is a google sheet version you can play around with. Permissions are now fixed, sorry about that.

Concluding note

We believe that this type of proposal is an approximation of rewarding existing governance contribution through April 15, 2025. We hope such a proposal will help attract the highest quality governance contributions and support a culture where governance is seen as important work that can take significant time.

However, we do want to signal that we do not believe this is the best form of ongoing compensation. As we will work on org design for the DAO in the coming months, we are likely to re-design how most work in the DAO happens, and rewards will change accordingly. We didn’t want to delay this so are putting forth these ideas to get a proposal up in time for the June voting cycle.

We look forward to hearing your feedback and to advance this and the votable supply discussions in the upcoming governance calls.

13 Likes
2

I am supportive of this initiative broadly. I will note that the end date for consideration should be the date of this forum post. All contributions made prior were equally without expectation of compensation. Cutting the last three weeks out seems arbitrary.

Also there are small details such as call attendance and meeting negation game team which should have a path to self report for review if not noted in the current document.

3

Overall supportive of this initiative! Criteria is clear and mostly straightforward.

It makes sense to further reward a proposal given the effort it takes to design and pass a proposal. We would also be supportive of including this criteria in a future proposal. We support the inclusion of a baseline contribution contingent on minimum requirements, however small, both here (as seen in the proposal) and in future rewards, to incentivize sustained participation.

I don’t think call attendance overall has the same impact as meaningful interactions in the forum, as better proposals probably emerge out of meaningful discussions (rather than just attending the call). Interested in hearing what others think.

Some thoughts on a future approach to rewards:

On minimum qualification, it makes sense to have a minimum cut off point. Voted at least once for this retro-contribution makes sense, but in the future it could be something like “voted in at least half of open proposals”.

Even though in a strict compensation sense it makes sense for it to be monthly, given voting cycles are monthly , some months there might be no proposals to vote on.
So it might make more sense in the future either to:

  • extend payout frequency for more than a month (2 or 3 months)
  • if payout frequency is monthly, have more minimum criteria (add min. call attendance, voting power, or other)
1 Like
4

I strongly agree here. I think attendance itself is way overweighted. Huge sums of hours are going to attendance. Contribution should matter more. Being on a call doesn’t even mean one was listening at all. I would advocate reallocating rewards from call attendance either to call participation, or to forum contribution, or to both. But, ultimately, it should be something contributive.

5

We would like to see a voting power element incorporated into this. We believe it is important for ecosystems to have active involvement of their largest delegates and for them to be properly incentivised to participate. I believe @SEEDGov may have views on this from their work done with the Arbitrum incentive program and I would like to hear their thoughts on this aspect.

6

Is the intention for the retroactive governance contribution recognition to be a one-off type of thing or a recurring retroactive reward scheme?

7

Thank you @eugene and the foundation team for pushing the Governance Contribution Recognition initiative forward. Recognising governance efforts is an important step toward sustaining long-term participation, and we’re generally in favor of the proposal as outlined.

Additional suggestions

  1. Define “meaningful” forum comment more tightly. I think the term is subjective and could lead to disputes. Hence there should be clear definition, for instance, a comment should count as meaningful when it meets one of the following criteria:

Examples:

Adds new data or analysis

  • Introduces a new dataset, chart, table, or computed metric.
  • Cites at least one verifiable source link.

Raises a new or previously undiscussed risk or trade-off

  • Clearly explains the mechanism involved
  • Offers at least one mitigation strategy or open question

Prompts substantive delegate discussion

  • Receives at least two substantive replies or @‑mentions from delegates.
  • Each reply extends the conversation with a new argument, question, or piece of information
  1. I agree with @DonOfDAOs that the cutoff for eligible contributions should be May 6, 2025, the date this proposal goes live on the forum, to ensure that all delegate activities up to that point are captured.