PASSED: Proposal to add Vesting to Current Contributor's Distribution

DAO Ops
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Context

In the original proposal, the Current Contributors distribution (4% of all tokens created) was given to everyone that is currently contributing upfront with only the stream acting as a sort of “Vesting”. Since then, some contributors have started contributing and some have stopped contributing… so Willy, Lauren and I went to update the distributions to reflect that in our recent hack sesh as it seems unfair for the contributors no longer supporting us to get the same reward, when other people who stay will not see any benefit for staying active (there is another proposal about that modification).

This is something we were able to do because we haven’t distributed the tokens yet… but its not something that we can do after the GIVdrop!

This got us thinking about a way to make the distribution to Current Contributors more fair, so I am proposing it here:

I would like to propose that only a portion of the Current Contributor distribution be allocated right away and the rest of the allocation be rewarded regularly by rGiv.

If the Contributor gets rGiv tokens, then they get the next installment of their allocation. If a contributor drops below the level of engagement required for the rGiv DAO to give rGiv tokens out then the contributor loses ALL future installments. The rGiv DAO decides if the contributor is contributing enough to continue to get installments.

It is also worth remembering, most current contributors are Past Contributors that have been paid via Giveth so they will get tokens from many buckets.

For example.

Let’s say we decide to give 20% of the tokens up front and the rest is split up evenly to be distributed every 3 months for 2.75 years (These 3 parameters should be voted on here).

Alice, an active Giveth contributor, gets allocated 100,000 GIV from the Current Contributors Bucket and 50,000 GIV from the Past Contributors bucket and 10,000 GIV from other buckets.

She will get 100% for the 50k and 10k allocations. 6k in the GIVdrop and 54k as the GIVstream. Of the 100k distribution, she would get 20%, so at Launch she would have 2+6 = 8k in the GIVdrop and 18+54 = 72k in the GIVstream.

Every 3 months that she works for Giveth she would get 80k/11 =7,272 GIV tokens allocated to her. This 7,272 GIV would be a mix of liquid tokens and streaming tokens based on the month Given to her. e.g. for the first distribution she would get 14.5% of the tokens liquid and 85.5% unlocked, for the 2nd distribution 19% would be liquid and 81% would be put in the stream. (this is how the stream works, every 3 months, 4.5% more of the stream is liquid).

If she decided to make an NFT start-up after working a year at Giveth and getting the original allocation and 4 follow up allocations, and the rGiv DAO decides not to give her any tokens in what would be her 5th distribution then she would only get 49,091 GIV out of her 100k. The other 50,909 GIV would be held by the rGiv DAO to decide what to do with.

If her NFT start up fails and she wants to come work at Giveth again, the rGiv DAO could decide to give her some allocation from the future contributors bucket eventually, but it would be a new allocation, her previous allocation is lost.

2 for 1 Proposal!

So i want to do this proposal in 2 parts… First gauge buy in on this idea, second fine tune the params:

  1. Advice process on the idea of doing this at all!
  2. Choosing the parameters. What % up front and how often should the rGiv DAO distribute it and for how many years should we distribute it?
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Bowen made a great suggestion about making the current contributor bucket smaller and breaking up this bucket into 4 different buckets:

Contributors since the past contributor group was made
Current Contributors
Strategic Partners
Future Contributors

The Pro here is that it is much cleaner, it is what we are doing with this bucket, and removes the vesting idea, also it lets us take what we do with the future contributors tokens out of scope from launch

The Con is that it means we have to decide how much of the 4% goes to each bucket and reassess everyone’s contribution again and we have uncertainty for how current contributors will be rewarded beyond payment post launch

I will add it as a second “no” option. :smiley:

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Do we include vesting on the Current Contributor’s Distribution?

  • Yes, include vesting
  • No, let’s keep it how it is
  • No, let’s break it into the 4 buckets this bucket really represents

0 voters

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I wish i would have been slightly clearer with the idea, which is this:

The current contributors tension was generated by the time-lag between when we were supposed to launch the airdrop and where we find ourselves today. Having the hindsight to know where “current contributors” is now versus 5 months ago is a huge difference in mindset by the contributors in question.

The “current contributors” who are actively involved with the project now move to the “past contributors” list - since the tokens are already on a drip, it seems senseless to add the layer of complexity of an additional vesting layer to the contract(s) - even if it’s already built in

This makes for 3 buckets -

  • Past Contributors (up to the day of the drop)
  • Future Contributors (anything to be given after the drop, obviously mutable)
  • Strategic Partners (vest this as you wish, but remember it’s already on a drip)

I see this as removing added complexity, and addressing the tension around current (and recent) contributors feeling pinched both by the ‘double vesting’ and by comparisons of personal value to the numbers being given, without vesting, to parties not actively engaged in the project at this point.

This could be slightly different than the revised current contributor numbers. I don’t think it would be much of a change, however, taking the short amount of time to get accurate numbers now would remove steps and future work from this airdrop, and most likely end up with a much happier group in the end.

Could we revise my idea to reflect this, or add this much simpler solution to the list of options above? :slight_smile:

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I’m at the stage in my learning curve where I still don’t know what’s blindingly obvious. So, please bear with me as I learn.

One of the things I found really interesting about the Colony whitepaper was the way compensation is tied to tokens and reputation and how reputation decays over time (2.52). Reputation decay seems like an interesting approach to these kinds of problems, more generally.

I don’t know the internal systems here well enough to know how relevant this is. Also, I’m guessing you all need a more immediate answer, so just consider this more of an fyi than any sort of proposal.

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I’m not in favour of contributor vesting, period. It honestly feels like you’re implying our current contributors aren’t trusted with their airdrop allocations so redundant layers of vesting need to be added. If there’s issues with people on the list who aren’t currently contributing that’s an issue with the list that needs to be dealt with, not the system of the airdrop.

It’s a bit ridiculous that you would suggest to hold an airdrop hostage over the course several years just to make sure people keep working for Giveth, hopefully our organization has built or will build better incentives to contribute.

I also worry that vesting so much of these tokens threatens to hamper our Governance model as we move forward into an inclusive community/donor driven DAO.

I would agree with Bowen in that rewarding past contributers including past contributions by current contributors should be measured and rewarded for their work up to this point by an airdrop. Future Contributions is another system and should not be tethered to the GIVdrop.

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With only 5 voters, I think that we should re-propose these ideas, side by side, in a new poll.

I believe it can be narrowed down to two options, rather than 3:

  1. Add Vesting for current contributors
  2. Create three buckets to avoid excess later work and complexity

I believe there are cogent arguments on both sides of this issue, but I don’t believe that “leave it how it is” is a viable option, so should be deleted, and very concise and clear language should, once again, be used to explain the workings of both possibilities and how it benefits everyone involved.

I believe that a new post should be structured by a third party (not Griff or I) using provided arguments for each option, with a vote afterward, such as one might have for any other vote. I suggest this option because the effects of this decision don’t just effect what we do now. This consequences of this vote will affect every single current contributor and will continue to be felt reaching out over the next five years regardless of the choice.

Finally, I believe it is incumbent on each and every current contributor to weigh in on this decision, or publicly (anonymously if desired) make the active choice to abstain from this advice and decision making process. The onus is upon each of us to shape the group’s future in the most equitable way we can for each other.

Let’s do some democracy, right now!

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Yeah! We have a funny rep decay… we go with inflation instead of demurrage. In our repDAO, rGIV, we issue a larger quantity of tokens every 3 months so that the people that contributed always have some voice, but it’s power decays over time… and each new contributor has a little less than 1/2 the tokens that the old contributors have.

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I feel like making a new post might just be making more work and there is a lot of info in this thread…

I love the abstain idea tho! We should have that in EVERY poll!

I’m taking the do-ocracy approach and making a new poll and then going to DM it to everyone… as that is just what it takes to get people to vote, and it’s blocking us from finishing the airdrop list!

  • Include Vesting for Current Contributors
  • Break the Current Contributor bucket into 3 buckets - Current,
  • Abstain

0 voters

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I’m totally confused now and I read this thread 5 times. I’m not ready to vote.

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Include Vesting for Contributors

This would mean that we lock in distributions for Current Contributors now (~3.5% of the Token Supply) and they would be given out over time. If people stop contributing they lose the allocation.

Split into 3 buckets

This would mean that we separate that 3.5% into 3 buckets.

  1. The Past Contributors for the last 6 months,
  2. The Launch Team
  3. Future contributors

1 Past Contributors for the last 6 months: This is the people that worked with Giveth since the Past Contributors Bucket was solidified. Anyone working in the last 6 mo would get some of this bucket.

2 The Launch Team: The core team taking GIV to the Moon! :wink: The team that is here right now for this critical moment in Giveth History!

3 Future Contributors: Future contributors already have 4% allocated to it, we would increase that and probably use it to reward people as we go? We haven’t put thought into how we use this bucket yet, honestly… but it would probably be
used for bonuses and some of that would be streamed.

PSYCH! They would both have about the same outcome :wink:

Effectively the first one is just the second one but not split out as far as tokens go… but there is the negative framing of Vesting… in the second one, there isn’t vesting, we just reduce the number of tokens allocated and give more tokens later.

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Ahh I thought I understood as well but now I’m a bit confused too. Rereading again… But thank you for the latest summary Griff

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Uhhhhhh. :exploding_head:

I’m seriously baffled by what is happening here. These options do not seem to reflect what is being conveyed by Mitch to which I am becoming quite sympathetic at this point. There is already a future contributor bucket, and the concern seems to be about what the requirements are for a current contributor now that some who contributed then aren’t here now.

Or is it that we allocated too much to the present and not enough to the future?

Splitting into 3 buckets then giving part of what is now “Current Contributor” allocation over to “Future Contributors” is just a change in allocation that would imply we are rewarding too highly the people who have contributed to “Giveth 2 and Trace” since we resumed… and need to save more for people who stick around or come in later. But I haven’t heard that stated, at all.

I think this missed the intention as I interpret it from this sentence " it seems unfair for the contributors no longer supporting us to get the same reward". In the process of trying to make it more fair by incentivizing those still here, it feels more like we’re penalizing ourselves instead by putting these ‘golden handcuffs’ on each other - we now HAVE to stay in order to receive what was already given for getting Giveth this far.

What about voting to move the dates for what is a current contributor vs. past contributor, is that not possible? I think I kind of assumed we would do that anyways depending how long it took us to launch the token.

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Personally, I think moving dates for what is a current versus past contributor given how much more work has done in the interim might make sense and solve the problem as well… could we see that reflected as an option too?

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I had some discussion with Griff about this issue face-to-face and I definitely can see that from certain perspectives there is value in having vesting. However still, laying out the arguments I’m still in favour of a solution that doesn’t include vesting. I would propose that for simplicity’s sake we split the contributors airdrop into 2 buckets (which is really just one bucket):

  • Past Contributors (Including the Launch Team, since everything you’ve done to launch Giveth still, technically, is in the past.)
  • Future Contributors (A revamped RewardDAO system or something akin)

Past Contributors

Past Contributors have put in the time to build the dapp(s) and the culture that many of us inherited when joining Giveth. They laid the foundation that we walk on now and even though they have left (for any number of reasons) that work still contributed to the org and in part contributed to the success of our GIV launch. Not having these tokens vested will help our active contributors fully participate in liquidity mining, GIVstaking and GIVgardens autonomously. ( and thus help us transition from the rGIV DAO faster).

Weighing out who gets what shouldn’t look much different from what Griff proposed and any objections to the amounts given should be raised, be dealt with and voted on (I prefer rGIV DAO for security reasons), the advantage of being a current contributor is that you have the social influence and relationships with your colleagues to get a favourable airdrop. The ones who have left, even if they return to participate in the discussion, do not have the social captial (nor perhaps the rGIV) to hold as much sway over our decisions. The people on this list should be dropped the tokens they are allocated without any vesting besides the regular GIVstream (90% vested over 5 years).

Future Contributors

Future Contributors should include current contributors as they continute to contribute and any newcomers who join the team. If regular payments are being switched to GIV then why have the redundant layer of vested GIV being distributed as well? To make it more comprehensive we could add a percentage of the airdrop to the RewardDAO. At any rate if you work for Giveth you should get just compensation. The mission of our organization, the strength of our social fabric and how fairly we pay people should be the incentives we rely on to retain contributors, not witholding airdrop tokens.

In Sum

Why should current contributors get fat stacks (to the amount we could consider it a threat if they ragequit) of airdrops because they happened to show up at the right place at the right time? If the value of someone’s work increases then they should get rewarded more, just as in any workplace when receiving a raise. I think by merging the past/current contributor allocations and upgrading our RewardsDAO we can settle the airdrop in a timely fashion (without vesting), allow current contributors to fully leverage the GIVeconomy and ensure we have strong, positive, incentives to retain contributors.

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Honestly I thinking keeping the allocations as they are (with the adjustments made recently to add people and reorganize) and adding vesting is the simplest, most efficient and fairest solution. Here’s why:

  • Right now we have ~3.5% of the token being allocated the this “current contributors” bucket, meaning that people who are contributing a lot now (but in some cases are relatively new) are getting allocations that are pretty similar to big past contributors

I think the work we’re doing now to launch the economy is extremely important and we’re growing super fast, and because of the evolution of Giveth, it could be argued that this current contributions are more valuable than some of the past contributions… but I still don’t think that 1 year in “current” times should be akin to 3 years in the “past”. Leaving the allocations as they are and eliminating vesting is saying as much… that our scrappy and helpful current contributors of <1 yr are deserving of more tokens than Giveth founders who worked >3 years fulltime laying the foundation.

If we remove vesting it would be reasonable to argue that we should completely revamp the allocations for current contributors. That sounds like an unnecessary amount of additional work, and already a lot of work went into creating the current allocations… so it’s like throwing out all of that careful attention and thought.

  • We have not developed a good system for how “future contributors” GIVdrop GIV will be distributed and that unknown creates an potential inefficiency in awarding governance power (i.e. GIV) to relevant people in the near future (i.e. our current contributors every day past the GIVdrop snapshot)

By adding vesting we are basically setting up a future rewards program… assuming that our current contributors stay on to the same capacity… but instead of calling it “future rewards” we’re just calling it vesting.

If we change (i.e. reduce) the allocations for current contributors and have no vesting… awesome people who are working here now and are familiar with how things work will not have a clear allocation of GIV in order to help steward decisions that support of common future vision… and instead we’ll really have to figure out a good way of distributing the “future contributors” bucket and it should arguably start right after the GIVdrop… so I really think that if we had no vesting we’d need to put energy into developing this system an having it start at the same moment as the snapshot…

Also, to your comment @mitch

Regular payments are the salary people need to live on… They need that to eat and pay rent… so it’s not fair to assume this is like giving them more GIV to hold and use in governance (and later project curation, etc.). The extra vested GIV is like proportionate influence in the GIV ecosystem being allocated to people who are contributing to building and understanding the ecosystem. It’s the difference between giving influence to stewards and giving money to people to support themselves.

SO

TL;DR

  • Our current contributors are really valuable and it’s reasonable to expect that many of us will stay on and keep building Giveth.

  • Current contributors should really get allocated a good chunk of GIV to use to govern Giveth because we have the best concept of what’s going on here.

  • It’s not fair to give fatstacks to our current superstars that are similar in amount to people like founders, original builders, biggest donors, etc. without vesting because the current allocation imo is to a significant degree based on “current level of activity and projected future performance” and not necessarily “contributions to date”

  • GIVdrop is very different from GIV being earned as salary - the former is more akin to “influence as a steward” whereas the latter is more akin to “food on the table”

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For me it is hard to pick! I agree to Bowen, to delete vesting and make it simpler and clearer with three buckets . The main purpose of vesting is to encourage people to remain active and contribute to the community which can be done by other means and it is already considered on the future bucket I guess.
As Lauren mentioned this is a reward not “food on table” salary, however it should be generated fairly, people get rewarded for what they’ve done so far and got voting power It takes some time to apply Bowen’s suggestion.
On the other hand, if it it needs too much effort and takes too much time, we can play with percentages on upfront airdrops and streaming to make it fairer.
Anyways, if you guys don’t mind, can you please elaborate more with a use case or scenario like what Griff did at the beginning but compare it in both cases, so make it clearer?
I love to contribute to this discussion but I’m not sure whether I got it right!

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After reading this forum post a few times, I think the vesting idea makes sense for Giveth in terms of ensuring that people who are given power in steward decisions are going to be more aware of what is happening in Giveth and can make the most informed decisions.

One worry I have surrounding vesting: would it lower the current contributors influence earlier on, and give much higher weight to past contributors who don’t know as much about what is going on in our organization?

I also value what past contributors have done to get Giveth going and foster this community and lay the groundwork for out incredible organization. That should definitely not go unnoticed or unrewarded. However, I think that current contributors should be given a large enough portion to influence decisions somewhat equally to past contributors, but gain in influence over time, as we have the best idea of what is happening and can make more informed decisions that those who haven’t contributed in months or years. Due to this, I support vesting because I feel it accomplishes this objective. I also agree with what Lauren said here:

Regular payments are the salary people need to live on… They need that to eat and pay rent… so it’s not fair to assume this is like giving them more GIV to hold and use in governance (and later project curation, etc.). The extra vested GIV is like proportionate influence in the GIV ecosystem being allocated to people who are contributing to building and understanding the ecosystem. It’s the difference between giving influence to stewards and giving money to people to support themselves.

Regular payments are the salary, the vesting can increase the decision making power for those that are most involved - which I feel is the best for Giveth long term.

I don’t know how long I will be contributing to Giveth (I hope for a very long time, but we never know - none of us do), but having the tokens vested is still what I believe is best for Giveth and personally it does not make me feel trapped for financial incentive.

However, I also want to offer my perspective as a “cusp” contributor because others might also be in the same place. To this, I agree with Bowen’s call out of this issue:

The current contributors tension was generated by the time-lag between when we were supposed to launch the airdrop and where we find ourselves today. Having the hindsight to know where “current contributors” is now versus 5 months ago is a huge difference in mindset by the contributors in question.
The “current contributors” who are actively involved with the project now move to the “past contributors” list - since the tokens are already on a drip, it seems senseless to add the layer of complexity of an additional vesting layer to the contract(s) - even if it’s already built in”

I began contributing to Giveth (not full time but I attended many meetings and gave a decent amount of my free time to side projects) about 5 months ago. This was around when the current and past contributor lines were drawn. Where we are today, I feel like I have contributed to Giveth in the past and helped us get to where we are today. I understand our structure and how we work, and share our mission and values deeply. I use myself as an example of someone who joined on the “cusp” of where we drew the line, as others might be in a similar position. It seems that we are having “blocks” set people apart (past versus current contributors set apart by one date that occurred awhile ago) rather than something a little smoother to allow for those cusp cases, or people who have been contributing for months but receiving the same amount of steward influence as other contributors who have very recently started. Also thinking in terms of what is best for Giveth, it seems logical that those who contributed for longer understand our processes slightly more and should be allocated GIV that represents a proportionate influence in the GIV ecosystem and governance.

TL;DR:

What I believe to be the best for Giveth is…

Vest current contributors contributions because members remaining active will garner more governance influence and they will be the most knowledgable about what is going on in our ecosystem and which decisions we are making

Revisit the timeline from when we drew the line between past and current contributors to more accurately reflect today’s distribution. This could look like a more “smooth” distinction rather than a hard date of 5 months ago (perhaps diminishing past contributor rewards from 5 months ago to present), manual adjustments, or moving the date to a more recent one.

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It’s true what you mention, I’m worried about how we’d execute it though. Manual adjustments sounds like it may bring A LOT of chaos to it. I’m interested in knowing more about that “smooth” distinction you mention. We should focus on the easiest and less troublesome solution. Any solution that we pick will have something to dislike.

I’d love to see a “skin in the game” measurement for this, it would solve all our problems :sweat_smile: is that a thing?

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I Think we are hacking this distribution to satisfy 3 use cases.

Distro 1: “Recent” Contributors

I feel like a launch bonus for the current team is warranted… but that could be included as part of the “past” contributors bucket… which I would propose we call the “Recent” Contributors bucket.

The past contributors bucket was really well done by Dani, Bowen, Kris, Kay and myself… but it was done in March.

So the contributions after that… let’s call “Recent”, were voted on back in April and obviously need to be updated… I did that to the best of what I see, but I don’t see everything so I am open to re-voting on that. (DIFFERENT PROPOSAL)

Distro 2: Current Contributors @ Launch

Then Current Contributors at time of launch should get a nice reward for being part of that magical moment… but I don’t think it should be sooooo huge, right place right time shouldn’t be such a controlling stake if you just leave the next month.

Distro 3: Future Contributors

The rGIV DAO is where the “Old Guard” (Our Core Team) will continue to manage many token distributions so it makes sense for it also to manage future rewards to team members. I think its good to hook the crew up with GIV that is building our stuff, and every 3 months seems like a good cadence.

From on perspective its vesting, from another, its rewards… but the out come is the same, feels like framing more than anything (which is important!)

Bowen is proposing we separate all 3.

Mitch is proposing we combine Distro 1 and 2, to avoid the vesting framing.

I propose we leave it as is with all 3 combined since that’s how it is and requires no extra work. And then we don’t have to kick the can down the road for sorting out the future contributions for everyone that is already here… only new people we hire.

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