STIP - Round 1: Voting Period Update

[Tenzent]

Would also love some clarity on this for the protocols right at the cutoff. Perhaps a list with numbers would be good.

I think the biggest learning and take away for next vote/program/extension/whatever is decided should be to move the system to Ranked Choice Voting.

This way projects can express votes in a much more sophisticated manner and no delegate is encouraged to not vote on a proposal. I also thought @cattin and the SEED LATAM community did an amazing job doing exactly this but manually, only voting for 50M of ARB worth grants. RCV would be a huge improvement to the way things are currently being done but Romang explained some of the other benefits better than I below:

@romang86

I want to show my strong support for this idea and explain why using a ranked-choice voting system would benefit the Arbitrum ecosystem.

First of all, I want to say that I appreciate your careful attention to the grant program’s progress and your proposal. More people want grants than people initially thought. The demand is about 74 million ARB, much more than the 50 million ARB the foundation had planned for. This shows the community is enthusiastic about supporting projects and growing the ecosystem.

The idea to extend the grant program makes sense, and here’s why:

1. Fairness: You mentioned fairness, and I agree. The unexpected demand for grants and the absence of a round 2 could mean some projects miss out on the chance to apply for funding. This isn’t fair to those projects and doesn’t help the ecosystem grow equally. Using ranked choice voting would make the decision process fairer and allow us to consider all projects more equally. This would reduce some blatant lobbying and “horse trading” (favors/backdoor deals) that have been happening.
2. Variety of Projects: Ecosystems are healthiest when they have all sorts of projects, big and small. Big projects are essential, but we (the community) also need smaller ones that can become big in the future. Extending the grant program lets us support big, established projects and the more petite, promising ones. Ranked choice voting helps us make these choices more carefully and ensures a mix of projects that benefit the ecosystem to grow and thrive.
3. Changing Opinions: You also pointed out that people’s opinions might have changed after the first round of voting. Ranked choice voting is significant for situations like this. It lets people express their preferences more accurately and adapt to the community’s current needs. This keeps the grant decisions in tune with what the community wants.