My opinion comes from my participation in the LTIPP as an Advisor in the Seedgov team, which I am no longer part of, and my current role as Arbitrum delegate.
I want to provide an alternative perspective to Powerhouse’s (@Lumen) request for retroactive funding.
I do not agree that PowerHouse’s work has been a community contribution eligible for retroactive funding.
The application template for the LTIPP provided the structure for how the reports would be executed for the program and to track the execution of the incentive distribution
That’s why I was surprised when, after the deadline to publish the first report in the forum had passed, none of the applicants had done so. I decided to post in the LTIPP Discord to ask the applicants who were advised by Seed, and I was surprised to learn that they were not supposed to publish in the forum, but instead send their reports to ArbGrants:
Not only that, but the tool wasn’t ready and still wasn’t working; it was supposedly going to be up and running a few days after the deadline for submitting the first report. Many applicants also reported difficulties in understanding how to complete the reports. Additionally, the report was supposed to include the OBL dashboards, which could easily be integrated into the forum posts, but that information was not available in the ArbGrants reports.
There was also no timely formal communication in the forum about the incorporation of ArbGrants as a tracking tool. Nor proper discussion regarding its implementation.
Note that the linked post is from after the first reports deadline. This led to confusion, delays, and challenges both for the recipients of the incentives and for us in tracking the distribution of incentives
I know the PowerHouse team from my participation in Maker DAO governance. I know they are serious and hardworking. I believe they could be excellent service providers for managing future incentive programs, as a tool to facilitate progress tracking is necessary. I am very grateful to them for their work, for engaging with the DAO, and for providing a new tool.
However, I think Arbgrants was not a community contribution, but rather an unilateral business development decision from the Program Manager for how reports would be executed. Decision which I do not intend to comment on, the elected PM made the decision deemed appropriate and its fine.
To be clear: I don’t think Powerhouse did a bad job. Arbgrants may become a great tool for the DAO in the future. I just don’t believe that the Program Manager BD decision can be labeled as a community contribution nor should it be eligible for “community” retroactive funding, which is what the DAO approved the funds for.