Arbitrum Triple Dip (Delegate Incentive Program)

[JoJo]

Thank you for your proposal.

First, the initial part about voting.
It makes total sense, and it makes also sense in having points/compensation/valuation based on the amount of VP owned. In the end, L2beat/Wintermute/Gauntlet will always have a bigger impact compared to 1 million and below delegates for obvious reasons.
This matches qualitative the idea of the current DIP. Quantative wise, I think is definitely more aggressive than what we currently have. I am not necessarily saying this is good or bad, but this will definitely discourage lower VP delegates from participation. The current weight system seems more balanced but maybe there is ground for this one as well.

@paulofonseca

• Every month, delegates enrolled in the program should post publicly, in a specific forum thread to be defined, up to [5] of their most impactful contributions each month, so that all enrolled delegates can evaluate the value of each other’s contributions, by casting a valid weighted vote in a shielded offchain vote, like this example contributor evaluation vote, on this snapshot.box sub-space with an allow-list based membership that reflects the enrolled delegates in the program, each month.
• A valid casted vote, in this monthly contributor evaluation vote, is one where the allow-listed delegates enrolled in the program don’t vote for themselves. Any delegate that votes for themselves is excluded from Second Dip rewards.

This is something I think doesn’t make sense at a lot of levels.

1. Every delegate will have to post 5 of their most impactful contributions → what can be defined as “contribution”? It’s a fairly subjective thing. I create a new proposal? objectively a contribution. I help a boot at an Arbitrum event? same. I do create a guide on how to connect rabby to a custom rpc in arbitrum? Maybe. What happens then for example if gmx creates a new pool that adds 50M of tvl to arbitrum? Is that a contribution that should be rewarded in the DIP program to the GMX delegate? And what about a manager of a DAO program that does an improvement to that very program, does it fall into contributions?
   this is a very random list just to show how it will be extremely easy for delegates to start posting random things just to get visibility. Regardless of the judgment from other delegates, it will indeed create spamming activity. This also brings me to the second point, more important
2. if i understood correctly, all delegates will have to vote, every month, on the contribution of another 10, 20, 30 people, by reading their thread and evaluating their “contributions”, and vote accordingly. This will be, to be blunt, something that just won’t happen. Governance is already cumbersome for most delegates, especially the ones that have a vested interest in the chain (think about builders and protocols) but not the DAO. DIP program has also moved, i would say succesfully and with support looking at the last vote like 1.7, toward something that is in general a less active model of governance. This point would be a big step backward, and thinking that protocols that have a business to manage have the time what I do write as Jojo every month is unrealistic.
3. there is the fundamental mistake of comingling a contribution program to a voting program. What we have seen this year, with bonus points for activities, was a secondary effect of the DAO not having a way to reward contributors. Obviously this came with a lot of flaws, starting from subjectivity up to inability to reward delegates that are not enrolled in the program as well. Trying to have a second year with the mix of the two roles will just limit ourself and make everything more confusing

@paulofonseca

assuming the OpCo and/or the Arbitrum Foundation would take care of the minimal admin required, which they are already doing for the DIP 1.7 version.

This is another assumption that might just not be true. There is a huge amount of work behind a program as broad as the DIP. Even just managing communications, both broadcast and unicast, takes a lot of time. Managing issues such as changing addresses, new kyb/c, fringe cases, verification of addresses, is something that happens more often than note.
The effort and time to run this thing will be there, is definitely non zero, and a program manager is imho needed.