[DRAFT] Celo Communities Guild (2024 H2 Budget)

Governance Governance Proposals
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Authors: @0xGoldo (Lorenzo), @0xj4an-work (Juan), @anthony (0xKnight)

Aligned Public Goods Bucket: Celo Grants and Requests For Proposals

Funding request: 58,800 cUSD and 3,000 Celo

Summary:

This proposal seeks to secure funding for the continuation and enhancement of the Celo Communities Guild program for the Celo Discord, Telegram, Reddit and future channels.

Since August 2021, the Celo Foundation has supported this initiative, recognizing the importance of active, community-focused moderation in creating a safe, informative, and engaging environment. Despite its success, the ongoing efforts by the Celo Foundation to decentralize operations could potentially create a more autonomous future, empowering the community to maintain safety and quality while mitigating risks of misinformation and bad actors. Our proposal aims to revive and expand this program with a dedicated budget of 58,800 cUSD and 3,000 Celo, ensuring the Celo community remains vibrant, protected, and well-informed.

Motivation:

In the realm of Web3, communities are undeniably the cornerstone of progress and innovation. Within the Celo ecosystem, these communities thrive on platforms like Discord, Telegram, and Reddit, serving as invaluable hubs of knowledge exchange and collaboration. These platforms, in essence, embody public goods, managed by and for the community itself.

Historically, the Celo Foundation has played a pivotal role in nurturing these communities through its moderator program. However, the time has come for a transition from centralized management to a more decentralized approach, aligning with the ethos of blockchain technology.

The imperative for a robust Celo Communities Guild team within the Celo ecosystem has never been more pronounced. With the community’s exponential growth, moderators serve as the gatekeepers of quality discourse, providing timely assistance, and shielding members from potential risks such as scams.

The Celo Foundation’s commitment to decentralization emphasizes the timely need to rejuvenate and enhance the moderators program. Failure to do so risks a decline in community engagement and compromises the welcoming, inclusive environment that is essential for Celo’s continued advancement and widespread adoption.

By putting resources towards our Celo Communities Guild, we reinforce our commitment to fostering a vibrant ecosystem built on trust, collaboration, and shared values. Together, we can ensure that Celo continues to thrive as a beacon of innovation in the blockchain space.

Metrics and KPIs:

  • Decrease average response time to community inquiries.
  • Increase monthly active engagement across designated platforms.
  • Track and reduce incidents of code of conduct violations.
  • Report on frequently asked questions and community sentiment trends monthly.
  • Engage the community with tools like Minttoast.xyz

Specification:

Building on the foundation’s previous initiative, we propose to engage a team of skilled Community Builders familiar with the Celo ecosystem. These people will be responsible for monitoring discussions, answering questions, and enforcing community guidelines across Discord, Telegram, and Reddit, ensuring consistency with Celo’s brand voice and values.

Current status:

The program seeks renewal and expansion in alignment with the Celo Foundation’s strategic push towards decentralizing community management. The requested funding will re-establish and scale the Celo Communities Guild’s efforts to cover increased community activity and platforms.

Timeline and milestones:

Following are the Milestones planned in a monthly basis:

  • Month 1:
    • Active moderation in Celo Guilds (Discord, Telegram & Reddit).
    • Hold a Bi-Weekly Community Hangout call on Discord.
    • Engage the community using tools like Minttoast.xyz
    • Amplification of ecosystem news and protocol updates.
    • Active coordination with the Celo Foundation, cLabs, and other ecosystem entities to keep roles, access and information up to date.
    • Exercise and enforce the community’s Code of Conduct.
    • Report the Celo Foundation and the community on progress and attend bi-weekly moderators meetings.
    • Keep channels free of spam.
  • Month 2
    • Active moderation in Celo Guilds (Discord, Telegram & Reddit).
    • Hold a Weekly Community Hangout call on Discord.
    • Engage the community using tools like Minttoast.xyz
    • Amplification of ecosystem news and protocol updates.
    • Active coordination with the Celo Foundation, cLabs, and other ecosystem entities to keep roles, access and information up to date.
    • Exercise and enforce the community’s Code of Conduct.
    • Report the Celo Foundation and the community on progress and attend bi-weekly moderators meetings.
    • Keep channels free of spam.
  • Month 3
    • Active moderation in Celo Guilds (Discord, Telegram & Reddit).
    • Hold a Weekly Community Hangout call on Discord.
    • Engage the community using tools like Minttoast.xyz
    • Amplification of ecosystem news and protocol updates.
    • Active coordination with the Celo Foundation, cLabs, and other ecosystem entities to keep roles, access and information up to date.
    • Exercise and enforce the community’s Code of Conduct.
    • Report the Celo Foundation and the community on progress and attend bi-weekly moderators meetings.
    • Keep channels free of spam.
  • Month 4
    • Active moderation in Celo Guilds (Discord, Telegram & Reddit).
    • Hold a Weekly Community Hangout call on Discord.
    • Engage the community using tools like Minttoast.xyz
    • Amplification of ecosystem news and protocol updates.
    • Active coordination with the Celo Foundation, cLabs, and other ecosystem entities to keep roles, access and information up to date.
    • Exercise and enforce the community’s Code of Conduct.
    • Report the Celo Foundation and the community on progress and attend bi-weekly moderators meetings.
    • Keep channels free of spam.
  • Month 5
    • Active moderation in Celo Guilds (Discord, Telegram & Reddit).
    • Hold a Weekly Community Hangout call on Discord.
    • Engage the community using tools like Minttoast.xyz
    • Amplification of ecosystem news and protocol updates.
    • Active coordination with the Celo Foundation, cLabs, and other ecosystem entities to keep roles, access and information up to date.
    • Exercise and enforce the community’s Code of Conduct.
    • Report the Celo Foundation and the community on progress and attend bi-weekly moderators meetings.
    • Keep channels free of spam.
  • Month 6
    • Active moderation in Celo Guilds (Discord, Telegram & Reddit).
    • Hold a Weekly Community Hangout call on Discord.
    • Engage the community using tools like Minttoast.xyz
    • Amplification of ecosystem news and protocol updates.
    • Active coordination with the Celo Foundation, cLabs, and other ecosystem entities to keep roles, access and information up to date.
    • Exercise and enforce the community’s Code of Conduct.
    • Report the Celo Foundation and the community on progress and attend bi-weekly moderators meetings.
    • Keep channels free of spam.

Payment Terms:

Only one payment with the total budget of 58,800 cUSD and 3,000 Celo that will cover Celo Communities Guild compensation, training, and community engagement initiatives. Payments will be distributed monthly, with performance-based reviews to ensure the program’s objectives are met effectively.

The Leadership part of this proposal takes care of all the security configurations, bots and all the technical stuff, other Moderators will be specifically in charge of each platform but all of them support each other.

Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Month 4 Month 5 Month 6 Total
Celo Guild Lead Moderator and PM 3,000 cUSD 3,000 cUSD 3,000 cUSD 3,000 cUSD 3,000 cUSD 3,000 cUSD 18,000 cUSD
Celo Guild Moderator 1
(Security)		 2,500 cUSD 2,500 cUSD 2,500 cUSD 2,500 cUSD 2,500 cUSD 2,500 cUSD 15.000 cUSD
Celo Guild Moderator 2 2,000 cUSD 2,000 cUSD 2,000 cUSD 2,000 cUSD 2,000 cUSD 2,000 cUSD 12.000 cUSD
Celo Guild Moderator 3 2,000 cUSD 2,000 cUSD 2,000 cUSD 2,000 cUSD 2,000 cUSD 2,000 cUSD 12.000 cUSD
Community Incentives 500 Celo 500 Celo 500 Celo 500 Celo 500 Celo 500 Celo 3.000 Celo
HashBot
(Lifetime Subscription)		 1,000 cUSD 1000 cUSD
ComBot
(One Year Subscription)		 800 cUSD 800 cUSD
Total $11.300 + 500 Celo $9,500 + 500 Celo $9,500 + 500 Celo $9,500 + 500 Celo $9,500 + 500 Celo $9,500 + 500 Celo $58,800 + 3,000 Celo

The moderator compensation is calculated based on a weekly working effort of 40 hours.

Any funds left at the end of the sixt (6th) month will be returned to the Celo Community Fund or Celo Public Goods Budget.

The Budget will be managed in a Multi Sign designed to have three members part of the proposal and one member from the Celo Foundation in guarantee of good working conditions.

Multisign Address (Threshold 2/4):

0x0B6a6666027d90fD56f4a2E1827296db4d590f4d

Signers:

  • Lorenzo: 0x6233CAB493e71689C2117213f78DAE7DaA157405
  • Juan: 0xFEF5A1A2b3754A2F53161EaaAcb3EB889F004d4a
  • Anthony: 0xdd130bEEbAFe3e8d811252194B6b1F266A85FaB4
  • Daniel Olarte (Backup): 0xA83F7098262a664A36D50AA0b9cF0bC3cF46A3E0

Team:

Led by Lorenzo (@0xGoldo) and Juan (@0xj4an-work), with a diverse team of experienced moderators like @anthony (0xKnight) who have previously contributed to the Celo community’s safety and engagement. The team will be supervised in this first round by Daniel Olarte.

Additional support/resources:

We request access to Celo Foundation’s resources for training purposes and suggest collaboration with the foundation’s team for strategic guidance and support in program execution.

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This comprehensive proposal aims to address the pressing need for continued and enhanced moderation within the Celo community, ensuring it remains a safe, welcoming, and informative space for new and existing members. By securing the necessary funding and resources, we can protect the integrity and foster the growth of the Celo ecosystem.

Final disclosure: The Celo Foundation will retain ownership of the Discord, Telegram, and Reddit channels.

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Thanks to my colleagues @0xGoldo @0xj4an-work and @olarte for setting up this proposal. I’m excited for the next step and would appreciate each and everyone’s support. Can’t wait to continue supporting the Celo community. If anyone has any questions or would like to connect, feel free to reach out. I’m @degen_knight on discord and telegram

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Hey!

Super aligned with this, and a much needed work to be done.

Can you share the official links to both the telegram and reddit? I’m asking because on https://celo.org I can only see discord, medium, twitter and github.

Also, how about Farcaster and Lens? Wouldn’t it be more interesting to invest time in these two instead of Reddit?

Let’s do this,
PCBO

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I absolutely support this proposal! :raised_hands: :heart_eyes:
I really love this, my fellow Celo moderator’s team! :heart: :heart:

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Hey Pedro,

First of all thanks for your prompt comment under the proposal!

Here the links you asked about:

Telegram: Telegram: Contact @celoplatform
Reddit: Reddit - Dive into anything

The choice of revamping the Celo subreddit came at the beginning of this year from the Celo Foundation and is something I personally worked on in the last months.

I’m a big fan of both Lens and Farcaster but I’m not 100% sure if focusing on 2 social media built on top of Polygon and Base is the right long term choice for the Celo community. Of course the pro is that we could potentially speak directly to a crypto native user base. I would honestly keep investing time on Reddit until the end of the year and then re-evaluate with the community if it would make sense to continue on it.

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I’m a big fan of this proposal overall and glad to see @0xGoldo taking on more Celo ecosystem tasks!

One important comment I would like to make is that I believe it is better to submit this proposal to a potential CeloPG H2 budget instead of taking from the H1 budget at the last moment.

We’re wrapping up the CeloPG H1 report now and will be able to share a draft of the CeloPG H2 proposal for community feedback next week. If we follow the Governance guidelines, we can complete voting on that before the end of June and submit this Celo Communities proposal for the entire period of July - Dec (6 months) into an H2 budget.

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Thanks for sharing :pray:

I’m still not 100% sold on the Reddit front, not saying we should abandon it though.

I think at least Farcaster deserves investment as Base is part of the Superchain (which Celo is converging to) and there’s a strong regen community there. I agree Lens (which I’m actually not a fan) maybe not be the right focus rn.

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Great proposal, I support this. however, the team should explore and consider lemonade too in the future since there is a transition happening within the ecosystem.

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Thanks Brisa!

Our eyes are already looking with interest at Lemonade :eyes::eyes:

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Thanks for your feedback Luuk! :pray:t3:

Me and the rest of the team is more than willing to wait for the H2 budget approval before submitting this proposal.

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It’s a good idea , but I would like to add some point to this
1- you have to focus also on social media specially X ( twitter )
2- I think we need some influencers to support this project and talk about on YouTube + X (twitter )
3- still believe X is much better than Reddit , I’m not saying we shouldn’t be active there , but X will take this project to a next level

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Thank you for this proposal @0xGoldo, I fully support this initiative. Community-lead moderation is at the heart of our vibrant community online and this team of moderators is what makes it possible.

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Hey guys, is there anyway to contribute Celo with one of these roles? Or are they already taken?

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Thanks for your inputs @Mzahed12

I just would like to remark that this proposal aim to
Communities Management and not Social media Management.

Two big different things from our point of view.

I agree with the use of Farecaster, Lens, X, etc…. But these tools are/should be managed by the Marketing and communications team at the Celo Foundation.

Our proposal is for the guilds and to engage with community members on the guilds.

Guild are spaces to interact, ask, chat, keep threads, etc…

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Hey @aegeus these roles are already taken but in the proposal there is an extra seat in case of things get busier and we need extra help (not the case atm). As a rule of thumb, moderators get chosen/asked to be part of the team among active community members who have a genuine interest in the Celo community.

Feel free to write me on Discord to discuss more! :blush:

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Hi all,

I see clear value in having Community Moderators around and having them rewarded.

As Juan mentioned before, I believe that this proposal should not be a stand-alone initiative but part of a CeloPG H2 proposal.

I agree with @pcbo that Farcaster has to be in here.

Also, I see four paid roles in the proposal, but only three people specified. Can you explain why four roles are required to moderate?

Can you also provide more insights into the current workload of moderators and data of the channels you mentioned?

Finally, are you the Lead of this proposal? The budget specified one Lead but the proposal specifies both you and Juan as lead.

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I love this initiative and proposal! Having worked with the proposers in various forms over the last few years its great to see thoughtful, dedicated and responsive members of the community moving forward in their own initiative.

This to me is the essense of Celo. To have contributors that believe in a mission contribute through work to increase their reputation before asking to be rewarded. Look forward to voting on this proposal.

Some thoughts regarding some of the comments:

  • I definitely believe that farcaster should be a priority and bumped up the list of active channels. As an early user and contributor to the protocol I was impressed when I initially saw a celo account way back in early 2023. Lens would also be a good focus point.

  • Im not sure that I agree this should be underneath the CeloPG. I see a danger in creating a hierarchy type structure where everything funnels underneath the one middle management layer. This initiative works more like a working group within a DAO, more pod like in nature. The work that has been done in the past shows their ability to self govern and self start. Of course, this is dependant of having the foundation/foundation members as advisors to the team.

  • Potentially drop the extra role for the time being as it hasnt been filled to date and add it in a subsequent proposal after this is done as a trial.

Great work!

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Hey @Wade, @LuukDAO and @pcbo

Thank you all for the feedback.

May I ask you more insight about this :point_up_2:t3:
Juan didn’t comment on the proposal, I think manly to avoid any potential conflict of interest since he is also a CPG steward.

After some internal discussions we agreed to have also Farcaster included (will be added to the [Final]) but here we would really like to have the input of the Marketing and Communication team at the Celo Foundation (cc: @deana @miranda pls help me to tag more if you know their forum nickname) in order to understand better how we can all align to to have a thriving community there.

We will keep Reddit in the proposal at least for the next 6 months and then revalute it on a potential follow-up proposal. We belive is still worth investing part of our efforts there for the time being.

We are currently 3 moderators (Lorenzo, Juan and Anthony) and in the proposal there is an extra seat in case of things get busier and we need extra help without having to follow up with a new proposal. This is not the case at the moment but you know better than me that Web3 is a fast pacing environment and for this reason we included in the proposal an extra seat in case there will be a sudden surge in community activity like for example due to a narrative catalyst or a full swing bull market. Thanks for pointing it out tho, I understand it is not clearly stated in the proposal and it will be included in the [Final] as well with the disclaimer that all the extra seat unused funds will be sent back to the CGP multisig.

Regarding the workload of moderators and analytics of the platforms let me gather this information with the rest of the team and I’ll get back to you and the community here.

Lastly, yes, I’m the lead of the proposal and the Celo Guild Moderator lead and PM of the first 6 months cycle. The idea is to rotate the lead role every 6 months since all 3 of us were moderators since the beginning of the program and each one of use deserve to be the lead.

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Thank you for a comprehensive response @0xGoldo. Adding @Charli3Havens and @Chelsea to the discussion, I think they can provide some input around Farcaster!

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Thanks for the detailed reply @0xGoldo. We’ve just published the draft CeloPG H2 proposal to the forum, which includes a line item of up to 27k cUSD + 15K CELO for community moderation.

Please review the proposed budget and structure with your group and determine if they are workable. If so, we would include Moderation in the CeloPG H2 scope and assign roles (through Hats) to the respective members. The proposed budget does not include an additional budget for one extra moderator but is limited to three existing moderator positions.

I’m still interested in better understanding the workload and tasks associated with each of the three roles you described.

On another note, I think having a comparable, recognizable display picture for each of the Mods (and potential other ecosystem members) would be cool. Especially @Anthony’s image seems a bit dark and wouldn’t give me comfort and confidence if I were coming into a digital space :slight_smile:

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