Project Catalyst Fund 12: The Vote is On!

Quick Pitches

If you have any proposals on the ballot for Fund 12, you are probably biting your nails now that voting is live, and perhaps also wondering what you can do to spark voter interest in your project. At Lido Nation, you can pair your proposal with a QuickPitch to get some attention!

The idea here is the same as an “Elevator Pitch” - what would you tell the voters if you had 1 minute on stage to explain your idea and why they should vote for you? Making a QuickPitch gives you something useful to share on social media, and it also gives voters a new way to find you in the Catalyst Explorer tool! When they look at your proposal, they can choose to watch your QuickPitch. Also, on the Fund 12 page, there is a quick filter that ONLY shows proposals that have added a QuickPitch. Those proposals will get more attention!

To add a QuickPitch: put together your pitch in a video, and upload it to YouTube or Vimeo.

Then, on Lido Nation:

1. Create a user account, or log in
2. Claim your profile. Find your ideascale user profile on the “People” tab, and follow the steps to securely link your Lido Nation user to your Ideascale profile. (If you have done this already, you don’t have to do it again)
3. Go to your Dashboard. If you just logged in, you might already be on the dashboard! If you navigate away from the dashboard, it can be hard to find it again. (I’ve raised this to the developer team!) One way to get to the Dashboard is to click on “My Draft Ballots” in the menu
4. On the Dashboard, click “My Proposals”. You should see a list of all the proposals linked to your verified Ideascale user.
5. Click on the proposal you want to add a QuickPitch to. You’ll then see a field to add your QuickPitch link!

Draft Ballot

When it comes to actually voting, that still happens in the Catalyst voting app, which is only available on mobile devices. The app has gotten some good quality of life improvements recently, but it is not designed to be a place to do your research before voting. It includes a few of the headlines from the proposal (Title, problem and solution statements, requested amount) and you can read through reviewer notes, but to read the actual proposal you have to leave the app. Furthermore, the ability to search and sort proposals according to areas of interest is limited or nonexistent.

(Newsy note: If your Catalyst voting app isn’t working, it’s because there is a new version! You must DELETE the app, then download the new version. You WILL need to find your QR code that you saved when you registered to vote!)

What all this means is that if you haven’t done any preparation before logging into the voting app, you may flounder a bit. There are over 1200 proposals to consider!

In order to vote effectively and confidently, we recommend you try the Lido Nation Draft Ballot tool! First log in, then find “My Draft Ballots” in the Menu. Start a new draft ballot for Fund 12. Since the only votes that really matter are “Yes” votes, you can choose to make that the default when you set up your Draft Ballot, which will save a few clicks along the way.

Then you are ready to search, filter, and fill your ballot. I like to go to the Proposals tab, filter in to Fund 12, and then click the FILTERS dropdown to the left of the search bar to interact with the many filter terms that help me find proposals I am interested in!

The Fund 12 page is also a good one. There you can find proposals with QuickPitches, something you can only find on Lido Nation. You might also like the ability to browse proposals by tag or by Campaign.

To add proposals to your ballot, just click the “bookmark” icon on the proposal. You’ll have to select the ballot you are adding it to, and save. Then, when you go to the Voting App, you have a checklist in hand to vote efficiently and make the most of your voting power!

NOTE that the Lido Nation Draft Ballot tool does NOT submit your votes. You MUST still do that through the Catalyst voting app.

Live Vote Tally

You can watch a LIVE TALLY of the votes coming in on Lido Nation. Go to “Catalyst Numbers” in the menu.

A few notes about the live vote tally:

• Remember, there’s no down votes any more, but there is an abstain vote. Our tally can’t tell what kind of vote it was (Yes or Abstain) – All it can tell is it’s a vote. So 10 votes on your proposal might mean 10 yeses, 10 abstains, or a mix of both. What the number definitively tells you is the number of voting wallets who have submitted some vote on your proposal.
• Remember that in the end, ADA value is what counts! Our tally only shows the number of votes cast, not their ADA value.
• Currently, the tally tool loads kinda slow. We’re working on improving performance, but for now, be patient!

We hope you enjoy watching the tallies add up over the next week! Just remember that the tallies are showing levels of participation and interest, but the real results will only be revealed at the end of the voting process by the Catalyst Team.