Summary:
Discord Management within the DAO was previously funded by the DAOops workstream, which is closing operations at the end of Season 17. Moving forward, we look to the GCP process as a mechanism to fund operational & organizational efficiency within one of our primary community & working hubs: Discord.
Scope:
I propose funding Discord management to do five things:
-
Continue addressing daily server management tasks and contributor requests.
a) Respond to DAO contributor access, channel/role creation, and help/informational requests within 24 hours.
b) Tracking of server insights and metrics to spot suspicious activity
c) Regular checking of role access to various channels and the ongoing need for these roles
d) Regular checking of activity across channels to ensure stale channels are archived when they become stale
e) Continued maintenance and monitoring of bots for active use, relevant updates, server security/automation, and community engagement -
Facilitate coordination and strategy between workstreams, working groups, and community groups within Discord.
a) Suggest proper & scalable approaches toward implementing new working groups or growing existing ones
b) Creation & maintenance of admin-level roles for individual workstream, guild, and pod maintenance -
Continue documenting best practices and how-to guides for contributors.
a) These are developed as needed. Examples include a Discord best practices guide, a kick/ban policy, a bot access tracker, a guide to playing music in Discord, and Discord channel structure/role access documentation -
Continue the development, maintenance, and user training of the Gitcoin Sentry bot as an in-house security tool.
a) The Gitcoin Sentry bot is an internally-developed bot that provides access to mass-moderation commands and unique server security functionalities, such as targeted pruning and public-channel monitoring, not offered by other bots. In addition to the continued development of this bot, a series of documentation providing usage guidance will be developed and shared with DAO Core members and any other contributor with administrative-level access on any level within the server -
Coordinate the development of a ChatGPT response bot
a) We will aim to introduce a ChatGPT-powered bot to quickly respond to community questions with answers from our Knowledge Base and assist with wayfinding within the server and broader Gitcoin Community. This bot will improve citizen comfort and engagement while reducing the contributor strain of additionally monitoring the active public channels to assist grantees and other citizens experiencing issues or that have questions
Benefits:
- Retain high context tooling contributor who understands the DAO, its organizational structure, and the needs across workstreams/working groups
- Maintenance of a healthy, safe, and efficient working space
- Quickly respond to emergent contributor requests and potential scams/raids
- Continued development of bots to improve security, contributor productivity, and community support/engagement
Risk assessment:
- Using the GCPs process to fund high-context work could lead to a loss of resources due to the seasonal instability of the role
- Not funding this work will mean the existing work must be stopped or reassigned to existing resources
Budget:
An estimate based on the history of filling this role suggests this work requires one contributor operating at a part-time capacity, or approximately 30 hours per week for the 13 week season.
Payments would be distributed by one Tally vote for the season or by individual Tally votes at the end of each month.
This role will require access to “core contributor” tools such as Discord (with “moderator” access), email, g-suite, miro, etc. There is no consideration for vacation, travel, training, severance, conferences, or other ancillary DAO/workstream contributor benefits.
30 hours/week * 13 weeks = 390 hours total. 390 hours at $60 per hour = $23,400
Total request: $23,400*
*All spending will be tracked, including hours committed. Any unused funds will be sent back to the treasury at the end of the season if a consecutive GCP is not passed.
Timeline:
The season would start on May 1 and conclude on July 31, for a total of 13 weeks. There would be no severance should the service not be renewed.
Success Metrics:
What metrics, outcomes, or deliverables should be used to verify the project met expectations? Said another way, after the project is complete, what measures will you use to confirm the project met or did not meet the outcomes listed in the “motivation”.
- Continuous Discord role & channel maintenance and re-organization, focused on reducing overwhelming views and promoting efficient coordination
- Response to DAO contributor requests & access issues with a response time of <24 hours
- Immediate response to raid attempts
- Release of and proper documentation for the Gitcoin Sentry bot
- Release of and proper documentation for the ChatGPT response bot
- Continued documentation & guidance on best practices for navigating/using Discord as a contributor, lead, or workstream Discord Manager (e.g., Discord best practices guide, kick/ban policy, bot access, playing music in Discord, discord channel structure) to promote clarity, context, and introduce shared processes to maintain organizational consistency
- Continued training sessions on special cases as they arise (e.g., banning, entry flow, wayfinding within the server, onboarding/offboarding, where to look for documentation, how to receive support)
- Continuous implementation & maintenance of external and internal bots to aid contributor security, increase productivity, and engage our community
- Overall positive sentiment from active DAO contributors
Vote:
For - Fund Discord Management $23,400 for Season 18
Against - Do not fund Discord Management for Season 18