Giveth Info: An analytics tool for the community

Giveth Proposals
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Proposal Description

We are proposing the development of Giveth Info - a platform to track and display Giveth stats such as number of donations, total raised by projects, number of projects created, and much more. This tool will also provide features for analyzing specific Givers or Projects, which will help curate details and understand where Giveth is heading.

Proposal Rationale

We’ve seen community members looking for a tool to analyze Giveth metrics, especially after GIVbacks rounds. Nowadays, members have to dig into different sources to answer questions and make decisions. We believe Giveth Info will be the one-stop-shop for Giveth’s information. Furthermore, as a community-owned application, it will decentralize Giveth’s development.

Expected Duration (2 months)

After getting the community’s feedback, we decided to divide this project into milestones. This proposal asks for funding for the development of a standalone analytics application - which is the first phase. After delivering it, we’ll get back to community to decide where we should improve and/or which metrics we should include - here it’s up to the community to decide whether we should integrate the app into Giveth.

  1. UI (2 weeks). Before starting the development itself, we want to gather community feedback on our mockups and refine the app’s features.

  2. Analytics API (2 weeks). All the information for building charts and indicators is available through Giveth GraphQL API. However, fetching the data from there would stress the Giveth’s infrastructure too much. We will create an analytics API to provide the post-processed data the Giveth Info needs.

  3. Front-end (4 weeks). The development stack will be Next.js with Typescript and styled-components - already used on other Giveth apps. Also, the Giveth UI library will be used whenever possible.

We’re compromised with Giveth and guarantee that the development team will be available for the next 3 months - after project delivery - to fix any bugs or make minor improvements.

Team Information

  • Fábio: Software Engineer currently focused on building analytics dashboards and subgraphs. Has experience as Front-end Developer and built several apps for the blockchain4good ecosystem - such as GIVeconomy, Commons Simulator, Commons dashboard, and DAppnode dashboard.
  • Luiza: Front-end Developer with 2 years of experience building web apps using Next.js and styled-components. Has worked before as Data Analyst and Tech Recruiter.
  • João: Back-end Engineer with 3 years of experience developing APIs using relational and non-relational databases. Has experience with AWS services and worked before as Data Scientist.

* I’m not going to participate actively in the development given my short band-width. This app is an idea I’ve had since the Dune dashboard I made for GIVeconomy and I finally found a team able to build it.

Funding Information

Amount of GIV requested: 30000 GIV

Ethereum address where funds shall be transferred:

0x37e0F582bc436cb7E305acE4698C4971Ec51Fd86

More detailed description of how funds will be handled and used:

  • 70% will be swapped into stable coins for covering development costs.
  • 30% will be HODLed for GIVernance participation.
7 Likes
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I think this platform can be a great source of information for us and for our stakeholders: Donors, NGOs, Token holders and Builders.

I really like the info in the Dune dashboard.

4 Likes
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Thanks, @mendesfabio I think we need analytics, I only have these comments:

1- As you know building the Data dashboard is not a big deal, it does not even need a UI, there are lots of Tools for gathering these data around with a comfortable, configurable feature, not even needed to have an update for the design team to add sorting/filtering. Lots of charts and so on. I think right now we have Segment Tools in the code, you can take a look. we have to configure it in V2. But it can be a very productive shortcut rather than building from scratch.

2- We have the user tracking problem on both Frontend and back end. The problem is Brave browser usually blocks this kinda user tracking and we have to bring events to the backend. So we need the analytics and events to be clarified on the backend to have this sense of tracking.

Generally, I think in product management, it’s not about building, it’s all about maintaining. we change our backends fields regularly according to coming features and improvements, so I think you need to maintain it every 2 weeks and it’s not going to be a reliable product after a while.

So I suggest, instead of inventing the wheel, you guys work on segment events with @Cotabe to make sure we can cover all user analytics from the backend and frontend sides. It’s very badly needed and we love to have it.

I also can hep you guys, the expected data needed to be reached from this analytic tool.

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I appreciate the proposal, actually I feel we need a dashboard to track what’s happening and collect data for decision making. Nevertheless, I believe giveth backend is changing regularly and we have some tools in place to collect data and display them.

Furthermore, we have had hiring recently and have added more developers to the team. I believe filling their bandwidth is a priority and these kinds of task can be handled inside.

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I also want to add we’re using Amplitude with Segment, I suggest you guys carry the flag over it , @mitch owns it before he became the DAO Steward :slight_smile:

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I appreciate your thoughts but disagree in some parts.

  1. Maintenance: @amin @MoeNick I don’t think the backend changes in such a way the dashboard would require biweekly maintenance - and I say that because I’ve been maintaining Giveth dashboards for about a year. I built a dashboard on top of Giveth in May 2021 and the Dune dashboard in December 2021, since then I do regular updates. Lauren for instance asked for some improvements last week and I’m on it.

  2. User-Tracking: @MoeNick We’re not going to dive into data backed by the browser, but rather general stats about Giveth. I know we use Amplitude at Giveth, and, as you probably know, I’ve already built one dashboard for GIVbacks on Metabase. These BI tools are amazing, but the objective here is not to get a dirty dashboard up and running but instead a stunning UI for tracking those stats.

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  1. I think @renjer and @cquinterom096 can confirm we have regular changes biweekly, you can see the impact graph queries. What do you think Mohammad and Carlos?

  2. I did not get it we want to have maintenance included in the proposal or not? If you can confirm we won’t have any problem later I vote yes.

  3. So about the analytics and user tracking problem we are currently facing, this proposal won’t help us on that side? Am I right?

  4. Another question is how you want to develop APIs for this Dashboard? We currently plan to provide APIs with the “Client Credential” method. do you want to have it in this repo or do you want to use DB and write them somewhere else?

  5. would you pls send the Giveth Dashboard , I don;t know about it at all :frowning:

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@MoeNick
Here is the Dashboard @mendesfabio built for the GIVeconomy

I can say that Amplitude has been thus far an unreliable tool because of the lack of development/understanding of segment and making sure it works properly with our backend.

I’m not sure how a standalone platform for analytics would be helpful - I think having some reliable APIs that can be integrated with our current platform UI would be super helpful, that along with a simpler backend analytics portal that reliably works would be great additions.

I fear that a new platform with a beautiful UI would get lost inbetween other giveth features such as the donation platform, the docs, the gardens and the giveconomy

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@MoeNick, besides the Dune dashboard @mitch sent, we have a Metabase hosted at http://dashboard.giveth.io/. I can provide you guys credentials to access, or feel free to head over to this public dashboard.

@mitch, I share your concerns about this getting lost between all our features, but that’s why I would like to concentrate the data at Giveth Info. I have built cool stuff for Giveth that’s not being used because the information is spread across different apps/URLs/etc.

3 Likes
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I love this proposal, we can make it a stand alone thing to start, but I would love, once it’s up to integrate it more directly.

I think it is important that we can decentralize our development and work with other teams, this is a great opportunity to make progress on this.

I do think we need to bring in some design support… I also don’t think we need a stats page for the projects or the Giver’s page… that should be a native part of the DApp and I think it would be inefficient for your team to take that front end work on, but the other pages would be AMAZING for us.

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I agree we need design support. After last round of front-end hiring, we have an army of devs and not enough design to fill their bandwidth at the moment. Nevertheless, GIVpower is coming and we will have enough tasks after for them.

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I can say, I get convinced over Governance Meeting Discussions that having another priority (like user tracking) is not a blocker to proceeding on this. However, as a product expert, I can say, Let’s use Segment and customizable dashboards and include maintenance efforts in the proposed budget. (Hope these technical comments won’t be inferred from having a resistance over it.) @Griff @mendesfabio

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Awesome proposal @mendesfabio! I’m a huge fan of your work. The dashboards you created for The GIVeconomy and for GIVbacks have been extremely valuable, and I think having a consolidated place for Giveth stats would be extremely valuable.

+1 to this: Long-term I think it would be best to have this information integrated with the rest of the application, but if it makes thing more simple, developing it as a separate platform & intergrating later makes sense… I would just emphasize this long-term goal so that the tool is built for that.

From the figma, tbh it looks like like it fits right in with our branding. Design resources are scarce at Giveth, so I would suggest that our designers like @msaeedi and @Tossynee should only be used for review purposes… and if additional design is necessary, I think it would be best if you guys added to your team @mendesfabio.

A comms comment: let’s say “donors” instead of “givers” so we keep things very clear… It’s also better for search engine optimization.

Also @mendesfabio I would love to see Giveth info include some of the data from GIVbacks (rounds, etc)… Perhaps if you take out the donor stats, you could add in some GIVbacks stats.

Overall, I fully support this idea, think it can definitely be built by your team as external development w/ integration, and I would be very happy to oversee & provide advice as needed.

4 Likes
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I really appreciate all feedback :wink: We’re addressing some suggestions - soon the proposal will be updated!

@MoeNick I will include maintenance efforts in the proposal.

@karmaticacid We’re removing the Giver/Project stats in favor of GIVbacks and other metrics. I also don’t think we need designers, other than for reviewing purposes. Giveth has a well-established Design System that makes that work much easier - we don’t need to reinvent the wheel but follow the patterns. I can confirm we’re aligned on the long-term vision as well. All front-end is going to be developed using the same stack as Giveth currently uses - making it easier to integrate if the community wishes.

@Griff I fully agree with you on dev decentralization. As Giveth fosters decentralization, external developers should be encouraged to buidl features for the ecosystem.

3 Likes
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So excited about this!! :smiley: Can’t wait to see the new proposal and get it going! :smiley:

1 Like
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Hi all. First, I just wanted to introduce myself before I jump into this conversation. My colleague, Dawid, and I were the recipient of this grant: Proposal - Monitoring Tool to Help Identify and Mitigate Recirculating GIVbacks.

I love the idea of a dashboard, of course, being a huge proponent of transparency and openness–especially for the charitable giving space. I think it’s super important.

But…and I want to be respectful, so if it doesn’t sound like I am being, please understand that I’m trying…I think a dashboard and analytics platform run by the ‘centralized’, ‘project-team’ goes in the wrong direction, if you want to be (a) decentralized, and (b) truly open.

If I had my druthers, and of course, I don’t, I would rather see effort expended towards making that analytics platform as open as possible. So, instead of a system that is run by people inside the organization, a system that purposefully exposes itself to the outside in as broad a manner as is possible.

The idea would be something like, “Hey all you data scientists out there, come and get it.” I’d rather see 10s or 20s of outside data scientists studying Giveth than five or six developers delivering data to the community. People in the academic community could write papers. People in the security community could study Sybil and re-circulation issues. People in the charitable giving community could evaluate and recommend appropriate grants.

So, while I think the idea of a grants dashboard is good, and it does “open” the organization to more scrutiny, I’d like to see efforts to build analytics platforms that don’t rely on a small team but instead purposefully open up the data to anyone who wants it without asking.

Along those lines, I present this: https://tokenomics.io/giveth. It’s rough and quite rudimentary and it’s totally centralized now, but we’re working on a dAppNode version that would run directly against Erigon and produce exactly this type of data. It currently scrapes not only the “Giveth System” but all 1,200 of the individual grants in the system.

I’ll update the status on the proposal post soon, but I just wanted to “barge in” to this conversation and hopefully get some feedback on my admittedly unusual perspective.

Cheers.

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Honestly I don’t believe that a system, only for being built by a project team, is against decentralization and openness. Making Giveth decentralized/open means that, in my humble opinion, anyone can hop in and start building on it. Giveth Into is community-owned and open-sourced from inception - you will never see us working behind the scenes.

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Hey @mendesfabio, what are the next steps for this proposal?

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GM Givers :slight_smile: We appreciate everyone who reached out asking for the next steps on Giveth.Info. I’ve just updated the proposal to include a maintenance period and revised the project’s scope. We’re going to work on a standalone analytics app that has the main features community is looking for. After delivering it, we’ll get back to you all to gather feedback and the next steps - e…g new features and Giveth integration :eyes:

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Propoal is live on GIVgardens!

1 Like