AIP 25: Community Engagement Incentives

[agriimony]

• by astholder An updated solution for community engagement has been proposed in #29 and #31. Please read the latest summary there. Summary

The sustainability of the Airswap governance model is dependent on an active community of members voting on AIPs and contributing to discussions on the Airswap discord chatroom. Robust dialogue, playing ‘devil’s advocate’ and the exchange of ideas is paramount to a successful long-term community with innovative ideas and solutions to new challenges.

Currently, the only incentive for community members to remain active and engaged is via the rewards for AIP creation and voting. This limits the incentivization rewards to the authors of AIPs - and anyone they choose to split the rewards with.

There is a lot of ‘non-tangible’ added value in the discord discussions – ie. creation of workstreams like analytics, marketing, development, general discussions on AIPs and other ad hoc ‘pain points’ etc. – that community members are contributing towards but are not rewarded for their contributions.

Specification

Create incentives for community members to be rewarded for these ‘non-tangible’ contributions to the community.

Requirements

• Community members eligible for rewards would need to be a part of the ‘Members Channel’
• The Members Channel should be further limited to Airswap token stakers that have at least 100 AST staked and the percentage of their staked tokens vs hold tokens should be 75%+ to minimize risk of speculation driven motives. Current members channel limitation is 100 AST.
• AIP creation on community.airswap.io subject to same requirements as Members Channel.
• Rewards up to 1000 AST per person per community engagement cycle (TBD)

Examples of actions rewarded - based on current trends. Possible to modify as new precedents emerge.

• AIP debate in discord and community.airswap.io
• Inspiration, development and steering of community tools, dashboards, marketing initiatives
• Translation services
• Research into integratabtle networks for growth
• Being a moderator

Rewards:

• Rewards in AST are sent to eligible community members who sustain engagement with the community and display the actions listed above.
• Reward funding to be taken from the Airswap treasury earmarked for Community Growth.
• Airswap team has the freedom to distribute up to 1000 AST (TBD) at thier discretion when community enagement activites are displayed. (TBD)

Rationale

Airswap governance is reliant on a robust community that exchanges ideas and encourages other members to participate. We need a way to reward active community members for engagement activities that positively contribute to the community’s long-term success.

Problems

Community Sustainability: Currently, the only community incentives are for authors of AIPs. While this should remain the primary incentivization mechanism there is a need to incentivize community members to continue to engage with the community over the long-term to ensure this marketplace of ideas remains indefinitely.

Risk of malicious AIP creation : Without limitations on who can create AIPs we run the risk of non-community members proposing AIPs to specifically increase the price of AST (speculation) rather than proposals to improve the Airswap product.

[agriimony]

astholder Mar 20

As the author - I think the largest hurdle to overcome with this proposal is how to objectively assess ‘quality engagement’. Perhaps Discord analytics can help remove some of the subjectiveness but ultimately until we can remove the human element needed for ‘sanity checks’ it will be possible to corrupt/bias the incentive system.

Examples of quality engagement could be: -AIP debate -Workstream/channel creation -Inspiration, development and steering of community tools, dashboards, marketing initiatives -Translation services -Upholding and enforcing the airswap community values -Research into integratabtle networks for growth -Being a moderator

Furthermore, the minimum AST threshold for eligibility suggested in the proposal should be debated. As should the frequency and amount of rewards.

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VladislavW Mar 20

I have something to add to the following ideas:

The Members Channel should be further limited to Airswap token holders that hold more than 15,000 AST (TBD) to limit the size of the population that eligible for these incentives. Current members channel limitation is 100 AST.

Agree, we have to understand if the person is involved in project (have AST staked or holded) or the folk that is trying to improve or criticize some idea was just walking through. But i would like to suggest to decrease the amount to 10,000 AST.
I would also to add that we have to make AIP creation ability available only for folks that have proven they stake or hold 10,000 AST+ to have some proof of involvement and interest in success of the project that is also made to avoid speculations in future.
I don’t think we have to engage chat activity. It look a bit strange and hard to analyze (just imagine you are reading the chat every day to to analyze what activity was useful and what is not), its a monkey job.
I think we can specify the following activity that should be rewarded for start and than modify the list after we have new precedents:
-AIP debate
-Inspiration, development and steering of community tools, dashboards, marketing initiatives
-Translation services
-Research into integratable networks for growth
-Being a moderator
I excluded “-Workstream/channel creation” because it is connected to “Being a moderator” and “-Upholding and enforcing the airswap community values” because this is a very vague concept and smells a bit of fanaticism :smiley:

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astholder Mar 20

I would also to add that we have to make AIP creation ability available only for folks that have proven they stake or hold 10,000 AST+ to have some proof of involvement and interest in success of the project that is also made to avoid speculations in future.

I completely agree with the above. I propose we should go a little further and say you need to have staked 10,000 AST+ and the amount staked must be 75%+ of the individuals total staked+hold. In my mind having a significant stake is the first proof of involvement. Simply holding a lot of AST sort of suggests that the individual is holding for speculation. A second prerequisite could be having a presence in the community - discord for now. This would also have to be applied to this community.airswap page - restriction on who can created an AIP based on the above.

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astholder Mar 20

decrease the amount to 10,000 AST.

I’m ok with that. the 15k originally proposed was a rather arbitrary number - based on the median stake of of 20,000. Open to thoughts on this.

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VladislavW Mar 20

Hm… If the median stake is 20,000 so that make sense for the required for AIP creation amount to be 20,000 AST. And i also agree that should be a staked amount but not just available balance.

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astholder Mar 20

what are you thoughts on just linking the stake amount to the median - which will change over time… can it be dynamic like that?

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VladislavW Mar 20

You are reading my thoughts :smiley:

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astholder Mar 20

I don’t think we have to engage chat activity. It look a bit strange and hard to analyze (just imagine you are reading the chat every day to to analyze what activity was useful and what is not), its a monkey job.

agreed. ill remove from the proposal.

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agrimony Mar 20

I would not fix it to the median as that effectively prevents the lower half of staking wallets to have any say in the project.

Remember that we want to have more people participating not less. 10k AST is worth close to 5k usd right now, would that be a minimum threshold for participation we would like to set?

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VladislavW Mar 21

Smaller stakers could still vote and make proposals to the chat.

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Lawfulgoodguy Mar 21

As I noted in the members channel on Discord, this AIP proposal is going to create a massive headache for moderators, it’s completely unsustainable, does not embrace any sort of democratic principles and seems downright greedy. The most objective way to earn rewards is to participate in votes and partake in the creation of an AIP. People who write extensively on discord do so because they believe in the project and want it to succeed. Incentivizing people to share ideas pollutes this entire process. To make matters even less equitable, to propose that only people holding above a certain amount of sAST are eligible to earn these participation rewards is an excellent way to marginalize people who don’t stake a lot. It also puts the moderators in a very awkward position of having to judge peoples’ levels of engagement (an impossible task given the lack of a quality metric).

In the end, the simple measure of a good AIP is whether it solves more problems than it creates. This AIP solves no problem. I’ll repeat that. This AIP does not address a real problem. It will just cause them.

If you are looking for more opportunities to earn rewards, why not set up something more transparent, like a referral program, or something everyone can potentially benefit from. I can’t tell you what a bad look this is for this community.

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astholder Mar 21

I think I updated the proposal just after your comment. Some of your concerns from the discord chat were addressed in the update.

I think the proposal addresses two concerns - one is that currently AIPs can be created by anyone which can encourage malicious AIP creation.

The second is that there is a budget in the treasury allocated for community growth and the proposal is trying to define what actions support community growth/sustainability.

But I completely understand how this is contentious and I’m open to removing/easing limitations to eligibility of these types of rewards.

Lastly, not all AIPs will go to vote. Perhaps this one wont. It’s a part of the process to reject ideas. :slight_smile: astholder Mar 21

You raise a really good point that i don’t have an answer for… who is determining the rewards allocations? I presume that’s the airswap team as they have discretion over the treasury? This could basically give then the freedom to give ad hoc rewards for people that grow the community.

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Lawfulgoodguy Mar 21

Thanks for the update. What is the rationale for establishing any eligibility criteria beyond being an AST staker? Why not open this up to all members (as members is currently defined)? Let’s say I’m a low staker with a great idea. I’m kinda screwed by the sAST requirement.

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astholder Mar 21

my thought process on the eligibility criteria was more based on the rewards obtained vs. amount staked. if someone as 100ast staked then 1000ast is a pretty big reward for little buy-in. if you have 20,000 staked - the median value - then the potential rewards are not that large. I supposed rewards could be reduced… but gas price so high

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agrimony Mar 21

Even if I had no or little AST, but my contributions are of value to the platform and/or the community shouldn’t I be rewarded for it? Not too sure I follow the logic about rewards being Proportional to my holdings.

Also, we do not necessarily have to reward in AST but we could reward community members with point which they could use to claim from the pools. Lawfulgoodguy Mar 21

A good idea is a good idea. If this is all about increasing engagement, then it shouldn’t matter where the contributions come from. In fact, one might argue that incentivizing low stakers is more effective to increase engagement.

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BeDreamin83 Mar 21

I’ve not read all of this yet. But if an idea or participation is worth 1000 AST then it’s worth 1000 AST doesnt really matter how much you have staked. Just because funds are allocated doesn’t mean it needs to be distributed. It may be better longterm for those funds to be allocated to increase the development fund pot.

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astholder Mar 21

thats a good point ill make the change!