The assessments completed by Community Advisors and the quality assurance completed by veteran Community Advisors is a linchpin in the Cardano Catalyst program. Voters rely on the (v)CA assessments to make critical decisions regarding which proposals to fund. Proposers depend on the objective impartiality of the assessments to assure that a) the valuable time they have contributed into writing proposals is treated fairly and b) that the reviews provide them with meaningful paths to future improvement. As such, the integrity of the (v)CA process is critical for the long-term success of Cardano’s development efforts.
During 2021, Cardano Catalyst rapidly grew into the largest DAO in the world. During this rapid growth, intense scaling of the (v)CA capacity was a principal focus. With this rapid growth came systemic weaknesses which now need to be given high priority to resolve. These problems, as documented in the Project Catalyst Iterative DropBox v2, include individuals registering duplicate Ideascale accounts, poor quality submissions requiring rejection, automated assessments lacking in informative value, a ranking and rewards system that biases toward favorable reviews, bias in the selection and completion of proposal assessments, coordination among the (v)CAs which may be perceived as collusion, and other actual and potential threats.
The Improving Integrity of CA Processes (iiCAP) will seek to prepare for implementation critical improvements by a) partnering with CryptoAlley’s development of a CA digital identity program, b) partnering with one or two of the best initiatives documented in Iterative DropBox, and c) evaluation of alternative ranking methods to remove bias toward favorable reviews using methods such as Quadratic Voting (QV).
The iiCAP project will focus on the following KPI contributions to the CA Improvements Challenge:
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Build a new tools for the integration of CA reputation with digital identity. KPI: Specification of reputation method and collaboration with digital identity projects
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Foster a culture of continuous improvement in maintenance of CA processes. KPI: number of community meetings attended to mentor improvements
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Complete a comparative evaluation of quadratic voting as a method for scoring proposals. KPI: Increased variance in scores as an indicator of an increase in the information content of the rankings regarding selection of proposals
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Identify and support the community's best initiatives in developing a reputation system. KPI: number of community leaders supported in developing out of the box ideas
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Provide recommendations regarding how improved reputation and scoring can facilitate improvements in the compensation algorithm. KPI: communication with IOG and Circle via documentation and meetings attended
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Developing a reputation system depends on the availability of a digital identity system. Nelson and Fromm have completed the Atala PRISM program, have submitted two DID-focused proposals, and are partnered with the ProofSpace team, who have F7 funding to transfer their HyperLedger Identity capabilities to Atala PRISM.
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Effective selection and integration of a dropbox proposal and proposal lead to partner with will be important. Nelson and Fromm are actively engaged in the CA process and will be continuously evaluating proposed improvements.
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Modifications to the assessment scores and compensation need to balancea) ease of implementationb) difficulty of training andc) effectiveness in equitable scores and compensation. To facilitate the experiments with Quadratic Voting, Nelson is advising the Snapbrilla on Open Source Ecosystem proposal and is participating in the RadicalXchange community.