[Discussion & Feedback Request] GG18 Round Eligibility

đŸŒ± Gitcoin Grants
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Hi there! Thanks for being critical about our work and the link to the grant round. I’m Arno, the COO at River Cleanup and I also wrote the grant application. I’ve been working in the environmental field for many years now and there is no doubt that plastic pollution and the climate crisis are linked.

The relationship is multifaceted. Plastic production is resource-intensive and emits a significant amount of greenhouse gases, contributing to global warming. Furthermore, as plastics break down, they can release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Cleaning up plastic, especially preventing it from entering the environment in the first place, can help mitigate some of these impacts.

Here are some credible research studies and reports that shed light on the connection between plastic pollution and the climate crisis:

  1. “The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet” by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL): This report provides an exhaustive examination of the lifecycle emissions of plastics, from production to disposal, and its climate implications.

  2. “Plastic & Climate: The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet” also by CIEL: This more in-depth report delves further into how the entire lifecycle of plastic exacerbates the climate crisis.

  3. “Future scenarios of global plastic waste generation and disposal” published in Palgrave Communications: This study discusses how continued plastic production at current rates can lead to increased environmental issues, including exacerbation of the climate crisis due to its lifecycle emissions.

  4. “Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made” published in Science Advances: This research provides insights into the accumulative generation of plastic waste and its implications, including how it contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.

  5. “Evidence that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly accumulating plastic” published in Nature: This research doesn’t focus solely on climate, but it showcases the alarming rate of plastic accumulation in marine environments. The indirect implications for the climate are related to the breakdown of these plastics and the potential greenhouse gas emissions.

  6. Reports by the World Economic Forum: They have multiple reports on plastics and the environment, some of which touch upon the impact on climate change due to the energy-intensive nature of plastic production.

  7. “Breaking the Plastic Wave: A Comprehensive Assessment of Pathways Towards Stopping Ocean Plastic Pollution”: This report by the Pew Charitable Trusts and SYSTEMIQ details the growth trajectory of plastic pollution in oceans and some of the potential climate-related implications. This report is also the foundation of the Ripple Model, the Theory of Change of River Cleanup. I highly recommend reading the summary of this publication.

It’s essential to be aware that while cleaning up plastic from the environment can have numerous benefits, the most significant climate benefits come from reducing plastic production, consumption, and waste. A holistic approach to addressing both the plastic pollution crisis and the climate crisis would involve transitioning to a circular economy, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels (which are the primary raw material for many plastics), and implementing sustainable waste management practices. All these activities are in the scope of our operations.

With regards to the link of River Cleanup and Web3. As I mentioned in the Twitter space on Tuesday, we have not yet integrated any Web3 solutions into our operations. But that’s exactly what I want to use this grant money for. We don’t have the expertise in our team to work on this integration, and the funds can help us with hiring someone who can help us with that. The applications are numerous: Token incentives, supply chain transparency, DAOs, crowdfunding, data collection
 You name it. I really hope River Cleanup can make some steps in the Web3 direction in the upcoming years!

I hope my explanation will help you understand our application for this round. If you have any more questions, feel free to reach out to me :slight_smile:

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37

Hi Mars. Thanks for being active in the forum despite being rejected from this round. I can address a few points from your application that led to three reviewers rejecting.

  • Q: How do you measure your impact?

  • A: This is meta. We are dogfooding. Our project evaluates impact through self-assessment (because it is scalable). Our objectives are now towards onboarding new partners and growing community. Biz dev. Outreach. Out initial milestone is to get initial 10 organisations to use BaseX.

This doesn’t show impact in relation to climate solutions. The evaluations section of your website shows eight evaluations, half of which are almost blank and three evaluations with comments like “meh meh meh”; “apple is okay”; and “expensive products, still using the old Lighting cable”. All of these evaluations seem to have been rushed within the same week and unclear who is evaluating and the criteria for evaluations used.

The BaseX twitter has tweeted 12 times in 2013, mostly retweets of other organizations.

Realm of Feasibility:

  • BaseX like SpaceX is making life multiplanetary, starting from the earth. We are essential part of tooling to align the incentives towards survival (and thriving) of humanity.

We were unable to correlate this based on the organization github you provided on your application. It appears very inactive for most of the year.

I also watched your demo vide a few times. It became evident that it’s still in concept stage. Also evident here: “Out initial milestone is to get initial 10 organisations to use BaseX.” You can try reaching our to other grantees to create collabs, having them adopt your platform so you ca apply for GG19 in November.

Your passion for this project is admirable. Please consider using the next few months to show more work, build more community, update on your progress. You might also consider applying for another round like Open Source Software.

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39

I didn’t know about this.

I wasn’t aware that plastic releases CO2 when breaking down.

I’m aware that stuff breaks down and releases CO2eq (methane).

Macro plastic breaks down into micro plastic but the GHG aspect wasn’t clear to me.

Speaking of wording - since my post is all about the wording and the rules:

  • “they can release”
    OR
  • "they do actually indeed release

(quite seriously - you do amazing job - at all times I’m operating on the level of the wording and compliance with the rules)

That’s phenomenal and much appreciated. I would also add: no activity on public facing Discord. Now I can understand why project was rejected - it appeared like a ghosttown - my entire energy was focusing on code, buidl, GitHub and it was the #GG18 that was reserved towards shlling, outreach, marketing activities (and now the opportunity is gone).

When I requested feedback via email:

Unfortunately, we do not provide individual feedback.

I remember back in the day the feedback / moderation queue was published on Notion page. Is it still in place?

Related-ish example: Moderation Log — LessWrong

There is plenty approved projects but someone could find value in browsing the rejected ones as well.

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40

What if the community fundraise 25k for a “rejected grantees round”, Same rules as Core rounds + proof of rejection from #GG18, this could run* in parallel with the upcoming Citizen Round.

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41

Wow @wasabi , I’m really in love with this idea. There’s definitely ways for the community to get more involved in raising and supporting projects that don’t perform so well due to lack of marketing. Many of the Beta round projects committed to donating part of their funding to the bundles, one project even committed 25%.

I would definitely love to see more of this in the ecosystem. Do you think this is something the Solarpunk Guild would like to explore.

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I think these are different things? Poor performance due to lack of marketing and being rejected = different things.

I recently posted here: Feature Request: Ability to browse the round content even after it is finished

I would like to browse the projects after the round - someone put the promotional effort so let them receive the attention even after the 2 week shilling period.

I would like to browse the rejected projects too. Many reasons why
 I like banned TED talks, I like results sensored by Google, surely there are some :gem: :gem: :gem: that didn’t pass the Gitcoin filter.

(sensored = new word = censorship on sensemaking)

About the appeals. To save the effort: $100 worth of ETH to initiate the appeal process. It will reduce the workload. It will ensure that those who appeal are serious. Maybe even allow to do some edits?

I was thinking about something similar
 The most successful projects in QF have aced the shilling / marketing / community (SMC) game. On the other hand, there are many great projects that are not so succesful with at SMC but doing loads of impact on the ground.

I think it would be fun / fair / beneficial for every project to redistribute some % of their raised funds:

A. 10% towards great projects (no additional qualifier)
B. 10% towards great projects that were not successful in matching

Thinking about operational complexity - shouldn’t be that difficult. I’m more concerned whether this idea makes sense. Current formula with QF is leaning towards “winners take all” (luckily there is some cap). Winners are integral parts of the community and they know which projects are A. great and which projects are B. great and didn’t not ace the SMC game.

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I / We for sure need to do a better job at that SMC (shill/marketing/community).
Who are the experts? (or maybe I should just look at the QF Leader Board?) I need to invite them to do a master class for XKind during the QF module ; - ) .

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These are not revolutionary changes



I would call them basic housekeeping / cosmetics

The criteria for forfeiting the $100 deposit:

  • in bad faith
  • frivolous
  • without merit

Review ratings displayed on the project page?

Since Gitcoin workers are reviewing the projects, putting the effort in, it would be beneficial for the users to see their evaluations.

  • On the one hand: more work as now review is public.
  • On the other hand: users have easier job figuring out which projects are worthy their funds and QF signal

Related to gatekeeping, appeared on my Twitter timeline:

image
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Source: https://twitter.com/dmihal/status/1696412187693105347

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45

Hello :wave:

Happy to add my two cents here from GG18.

Overall the user experience was an improvement on the grantees side of things.

  1. The UI improved vastly on the platform resulting in a better user experience for donors.

  2. Gas :fuelpump: fees were optimal of course when using a L2 for transactions.

On the other hand there are also a few things to improve on from this round.

  1. Grant application approval process needs more transparency focused on a scoring rubric that is available after the preliminary approval has been completed.

  2. Grant council member roles are not available of who reviewed each grant during intake.

It would be great to know who is responsible for each grant request as well as having the ability to rotate council members to different categories each round to prevent biased decision making.

  1. Gitcoin passport needs an overhaul.

We suggest using a security company like GetShield who we have partnered with to detect any suspicious activity onchain or other malicious behavior.

Eliminate scams from your platform

Direct API integration for your web3-native content filter. We continuously and proactively alert malicious scam content and users on your platform.

Monitor your user base for malicious or irregular transaction history

This library detects wallets that have interacted with sanctioned protocols such as Tornado Cash. We also scan for “burner wallets” used to obfuscate illegitimate transfers and a growing range of indicators for malicious actors.

We appreciate all of the development efforts that the Gitcoin team has made since the BETA round. I have no doubts that the experience will improve throughout the year of 2023 and beyond.

Have a great week!

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We were wondering :thought_balloon: something similar


I had a hard time with the application process because sharing the code for our platform creates unwanted vulnerabilities prior to launching our MVP.

Luckily we are also heavily focused on community & education as well so we made it into the core round.

One :point_up: thing you mentioned in the above :arrow_up: comments is whether a project plans to go open source if it has not done so due to incentives post Beta release.

There is no way to tell whether what someone is building in the current moment or says they are going to build in the future. That is uncertain & cannot be the premise of which defines a piece of open source technology.

Just as in the world of public goods these metrics are measured with data collected from the past which has already been proven to make an impact.

Otherwise we get into a discussion of what comes first the chicken or the egg.

Ultimately it is fair to say that yes a project needs to be open source to qualify.

A category for Public Goods infrastructure would be lovely to see get funding in the future for those who are contributing to the greater good of the ecosystem.

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I think it is something could be explored inside the Guild. Guild could serve as coordination and legitimate this as this is aligned with Solarpunk values.

I don’t know the full listed of rejected grantees in GG18, but could be a great idea to allow low performers to apply into this special round too.

This could turn out to be extremely valuable for new grantees, as we can embed educational content into the onboarding of this special round.

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48

Honestly, I cannot say that is a good thing. I get needing to play nice with the USA, Im in the USA, but I really don’t see that as a feature.

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49

Well that’s something you can adjust with this technology if you’re not trying to make it as restrictive.

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There is no better option than researching when someone is up to anything.

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51

I’ve seen some nice analytics dashboard (unable to find the link, it was in one of the Telegram chats) and this was one of the most funded projects: https://etherscore.network/

image

Link to the grant: Gitcoin | Explorer

(BTW - please make meaingful title and metatags preview when sharing links)

I tried using it and it is ALMOST EXACTLY PRETTY MUCH THE SAME as Gitcoin Passport. Actually I think Gitcoin Passport is better due to a number of Web2.0 integrations. I encourage Gitcoin to become trojan horse into crypto, UI / UX so good that normies do not know there is blockchain on the backened.

Web2.5-ish

Peace of feedback that I’ve dropped for EtherScore on their Discord, applicable for Gitcoin Passport and Gitcoin and Web3.0 in general too:

Have you thought about Web2.0 or Web2.5?

Thinking about trust score / reputation / social graph for the internet


WorldCoin / Proof of Humanity / Idena :arrow_right: uniqueness

Facebook account created in 2007 with 1.6k frens :arrow_right: trust

LinkedIn with my coworkers, employers, business partners :arrow_right: trust

I had a situation with Burning Man ticket, who is sending money first? I would like to leverage my social graph, establish trust
 I think that this idea would be good for the economy. Loads of scammers out there. If I can establish trust - that makes transactions easier.

HMMM
 :thinking:

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Hopefully :crossed_fingers: you sold your burning man ticket :tickets:


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53

First of all congratulations on all of the improvements made since last round and the ongoing innovation that continues to take shape around Gitcoin. Passport scoring worked flawlessly and although some legitimate people were unable to obtain a high enough score, it worked.

The climate round is in a unique position in terms of how it can be held accountable compared to other rounds whose impact is clearer from the code that they put out.

Going through the various projects’ web presence there was a lot of AI generated imagery, references to companies that have ceased operations and broken links. It was also striking how many common threads there were tying some of these projects together.

“A single grantee OR organization cannot apply to one or more core rounds with more than one grant.”

Screenshot 2023-10-06 at 00.46.38
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SolarPunk is in a class of its own when it comes to imagining a utopian vision - it is hard to discern where the money people are donating is going here. If you donate to AtlantisDAO are you donating to Kula, RegenBuild, SolarPunkNomads and others, looking at their website and prior grant applications you would assume so. But each of those projects have their own grants too which may not be clear to those donating.

The waters are further muddied by the fact that Varanustra and Hydrospear/ Hydrops (owned by the founders of AtlantisDAO) appear to be beneficiaries of funding for the projects listed on their own website.

There is a halo effect when projects associate under the same ‘brand’ - it is a great way to vouch for eachother but should they really all have their own grant each soaking up matching? Donors have a reasonable expectation that dd has been done to ensure that the Gitcoin structure ensures fairness for all those participating.

It would be a great shame to see others suffer delays in the disbursement of funds because of this. Should it be deemed that the above mentioned organisations represent a corruption of the Gitcoin funding mechanism and participated with their own grants, these disbursements should be frozen while the rest are allowed to proceed.

Looking through the different grants application pages it is great to hear that AtlantisDAO in particular is having a great impact in the communities that it serves, creating more than 1000 jobs.

Screenshot 2023-10-06 at 10.37.43
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Agnostic of the specific projects mentioned here, as the grantees in Gitcoin ecosystem mature in scale and have a verifiable impact, it would be great to see the outcomes codified via impact certificates open for evaluation and linked to subsequent grant applications, like proposed here. This will help establish traceability between results and doers, especially in areas of collaboration, and donors can make informed choices accordingly.

This is still true. Notwithstanding a grantee’s tenure with Gitcoin, the application process requires projects to resubmit how funds received previously have been utilized. If you have specific information that indicates otherwise or have feedback to improve the due diligence process, please contribute here for the GG19 Outline and Strategy post.

This gray area between cooperation and collusion is an extremely important topic for all distribution mechanisms that utilize quadratic funding. I am going to draw heavily from this paper, including the concept of cluster-matching that was implemented in GG18, to counter the spectrum between unintentional over-coordination and deliberate collusion.

The paper argues that “the issues surrounding “collusion” cannot be addressed simply by outlawing some subjectively- chosen set of ill-intentioned actions. Instead, we should design mechanisms that seek consilience by accounting for a broad spectrum of social connections (not just the “bad” ones)”.

Accordingly, GG18 matching pool was allocated by utilizing cluster-matching QF. The signals evident in the data for biases and excessive coordination led to reductions in the match of the most suspicious projects by up to 70%, redirecting those funds to other projects. The results without and with cluster-matching are here.

A quick comparison between rounds shows that the Web3 Community and Climate Round had the most “redistribution” of funds due to cluster-match i.e., these two rounds had the most imbalances arising from pre-existing participant relationships. This highlights a greater need for tying impact with funds received making it open for public evaluation.

On the other hand, a cursory look at some of the above projects tells a different story based on the signals in the data, i.e., these projects gained a larger share of the matching pool with cluster-matching QF as a result of having a more distinct set of donors supporting these initiatives in comparison to biases observed with other grantees in Climate Round.

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The signals in the data assume that there is no social centrality among grantees - this does not appear to be the case though. Perhaps this is the source of some confirmation bias here. There is little grey area on the grantee side, the links between the projects are quite clear.

Indeed, looking at the paper you referenced above then it’s very clear that there is disproportional power accumulation and the goal of applying the solutions outlined have not been met. Plurality has been squelched not grown.

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A few clarifications are to be made here.
Atlantis has always had just ONE grant application. We engage in collaborative efforts with various entities to pursue specific projects that align with the bigger vision of providing effective climate solutions for resilience & regeneration. This involves joint initiatives or the pooling of resources to achieve shared objectives with respect to the specific collaborative projects.

However, each of the above-mentioned entities maintain their own fundraising efforts as they are also actively working on their core and additional projects beyond their association with Atlantis. We at Atlantis strongly believe collaborations are essential in the pursuit of a regenerative future, and Atlantis embraces this approach to maximise impact. Also, note that the entities that you have mentioned have their own significant public presence on Twitter.

We appreciate your concern here, as it gives us an opportunity to clarify.
The names that you mention are legal entities that either helped set up Atlantis or are the operational/implementation arms of Atlantis. This organizational structure is required for the proper execution of initiatives on-ground in an efficient, scalable and lawful manner. It is important to note that the legal entities that you mentioned, have never initiated separate grant applications.

With regards to Mercy Corp Ventures, Atlantis has received a grant of $100K for a pilot project which involves building a Decentralized Water Network. The grant money is disbursed in four stages based on clearly defined KPIs and Deliverables. We share periodic updates about this pilot project on our social media accounts. For your information, the project is currently 3/4th complete. You can read more about it here.

We agree that Donors need to have more insight into the grantees and in fact, one of the main focus areas for Atlantis is to develop dynamic impact certificates which can attest credible work done by projects. This functionality will be tailored for climate action projects and built natively in the Atlantis Citizen App. We are happy to preview our early designs with interested community members."

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