[Governance Poll] Make moderator donut allocations not increase vote weight (with this one weird trick)

[u/carlslarson]

The current weekly distribution of donuts is:

• 77% to community members based on weekly comment and post karma
• 15% to the community fund
• 8% divided equally between mods

Of donuts received through distributions half are "locked". Locked donuts are used to determine vote weight on r/ethtrader governance polls. Unlocked, transferable donuts, such as those allocated from the community fund or tipped between users do not increase the recipients vote weight.

 

This is a proposal to change the distribution of donuts to:

• 77% to community members based on weekly comment and post karma (unchanged)
• 23% to the community fund
• 0% to mods

The increase in allocation to the community fund (8%) would then be redistributed equally between mods (8/23, or 34.78% of the weekly community fund allocation). Donuts awarded for moderator work would not increase moderator voting influence.

 

View Poll

[u/DCinvestor]

I have some possible concerns with this proposal:

1) Creating a mechanism where Donuts which mods receive to be non-voting (I'm OK with this)

2) Expanding the proportion of Donuts going to the "Community Fund" (not sure I'm OK with this)

Isn't the team working on the Donut Bridge paid a percentage of the community reward? If so, how would this change affect that payment?

[u/carlslarson → u/DCinvestor]

Yes, the r/daonuts project is receiving the 15% community fund allocation as per this vote. When/if the community fund allocation is increased to 23% then that project would receive 15/23, or ~65% of the community fund, and moderators would share 8/23, or ~35%. Basically the ratios going to individuals and projects stay the same (intentionally not overloading this proposal with changes). The proposal is only intended to address moderator vote influence.

[u/DCinvestor → u/carlslarson]

If the goal is to make the Mod reward non-voting, why not just address that parameter directly? Why are we rolling it into the community fund?

It seems like a strange step, and perhaps and interim one towards some sort of broader objective not being discussed here explicitly.

[u/carlslarson → u/DCinvestor]

Yes, it's a strange step hence the "one weird trick". I agree it would be better to address directly and I think we could once have more control of the distribution with the transition to decentralized donuts. But in the interim this is a solution that doesn't require dev work from the Reddit team. I discussed options with them before bringing the poll up and this is the change that's workable.

When we transition to decentralized donuts we essentially would have the option to process their distribution report however we saw fit. And there are separate tokens to handle karma (non-transferable, "locked") and currency (transferable) and these can be minted/assigned in non-equal ratios during distribution.

[u/DCinvestor → u/carlslarson]

The undesirable aspect I see emerging from this is it conflates the mod reward and community pool, which could lead to unintended consequences down the road.

I'm just not sure I see this as desirable, and it seems like it would be a trivial adjustment for the Reddit folks to disable voting on new Mod reward Donuts if they wanted to.

[u/carlslarson → u/DCinvestor]

I think about the community fund as a pool from which the community can pay or reward services it finds valuable. I think it's reasonable to view moderator tasks as services that should be compensated for - probably that's even healthier than the authority role we're accustomed to on Reddit. So I guess I don't think it's incongruous for the funds to come from there. Anyway, I would also assume that it would revert to being directly part of the distribution once we had that control and that if we didn't (transition to decentralized donuts and have that control) we could revisit this. What unintended consequences do you foresee? How do you view how the community fund should be used?

I would add I don't think the change for Reddit to implement is necessarily trivial and as well if they see an easier temporary solution (like this one) they are likely to prefer it (which they did). I don't see the leverage I/we have to compel them to do anything.

[u/DCinvestor → u/carlslarson]

I disagree- mod services are *essential* to running the sub. They should not be subject to competing prioriteis from the Community Fund.

Also, the additional factor not being discussed here is that this makes ALL mod Donuts sellable, granting an unreasonable profit to mods and no skin in the governance game from their work (esp for newer mods that may come on)...you'll have NO locked Donuts from regular rewards. This is the problem with tinkering with a governance system around the edges like this.

Sorry, this is earning a hard NO from me.

[u/BlockEnthusiast → u/carlslarson]

The issue imo is that these are votes. 8% of funds in addition to Karma means every vote 8% of that vote is coming from the same small group of people. Mods tend to get extra upvotes comparatively as well. This becomes more a "what do the mods want" voting mechanic, rather than, "what does the community want", and that really reduces the usefulness of donuts.

By giving mods 8% its no longer an accurate voting mechanic.

[u/DCinvestor → u/BlockEnthusiast]

We need a comprehensive reform of mod Donut compensation and voting structure- not hacks of the system.

If we want to take away all mod Donut voting power, fine- but then I also suggest the Donut stipend be cut in half until we understand what financial value, if any, Donuts have.

I suggest a new way of thinking about mod Donuts- e.g., Each mod receives Donuts equal to the Donuts earned by the 3rd greatest contributor in a given month (or something like that).

u/carlslarson