The DIP - the juice is not worth the squeeze.
I have other paying clients I work for and can no longer justify putting time into Arbitrum for this level of uncertainty. The program needs to seriously take a look in the mirror and needs major reflection and revision.
Yes you’ll notice an uptick in disputes, next your notice a drop off in those not even bothering to dispute and then disengagement all together.
I’ve been contributing for nearly 2 years in Arbitrum and am known by most people here for my work passing proposals and running the 2 GovHacks and being on many calls and writing on the forum at length, I’m a known and genuine actor.
I became a delegate 3 months ago and put significant effort in for 3 months trying different approaches as I learn about all the undocumented (not in the DIP Bible) subjective rules I didn’t know in advance were being used to judge and award points.
Getting zero compensation for 30 hours or so work each month in an unpredictable program has led me to give up and significantly limit my time in Arbitrum, the current DIP is too poorly constructed and does not occur as a winnable endeavor, the program administrators seems to care more to appear to “save money” on the budget vs retain talent this is quite myopic imo burning contributor goodwill with endless “gotchas” denying contributor’s contribution forcing endless dispute attempts by disputees.
I ended up spending significant time to even write and debate the disputes.
SeedGov - is treating me with criteria like an unknown person, designing a catch-all system trying to protect against the worst behaviors possible for malicious actors, farming etc but applying them with people who are already known, forcing them to guess/dispute/justify every little thing - this feels like a miscalibrated and overactive immune system that is a recipe for eroding existing contributor goodwill and producing contributor churn.
After being told my contributions with DAO Watch will be delayed from April to say they will be considered for May, then in May marked as worth zero (even though they say they award both effort and impact). Also not valuing well received comments by many, that vote against an initiative i.e. I called out the gross lack of specificity and means for accountability for the DRIP and because the DRIP has passed these are marked as “no impact”.
In addition I wrote a considered comment to Entropy’s “infinite SOS extension” announcement here, it takes real time and work to write this and expend social capital as a force of contribution helping to provide and guide clarity, accountability in the system - this comment was overlooked and not considered valuable, this is a bug imo and should be considered in your backlog for an improved system.
If you only reward voices that align to final vote outcomes, you incentivise no one to speak out with any counter-views, this is a massive system design fault and perversion of governance.
I find the current DIP administrator’s policy misguided following an ethos stringent to undocumented criteria and not acting for the spirit of contribution.
All in all - for me personally I’m lead to the conclusion the juice is not worth the squeeze to put the hours into the DIP for the level of uncertainty, subjectivity and perverse incentives in the program.
This program is currently occurring for me as a disincentive program and I’m thoroughly unimpressed.
I’ve had a few people ask me recently is it worth it to learn more about Arbitrum and join the Arbitrum DIP program, and right now honestly I cannot recommend it as I don’t know how to guide them to be effective.
I share all this, not for my case specifically but for the benefit of Arbitrum to know how it’s landing with good contributors, you need to get this right.
Clear objective criteria, major updates to the DIP Bible so participants can trust their contributions are valued and lean in on the DIP program month over month.