Closed: The Community Managers Funding Proposal has been resolved

Governance Community DAO
1

MODIFYING THIS PROPOSAL

Several members of the community have reached out to discuss this proposal with me. I thank all of those that have. I would like to encourage more open discourse and discussion so that decisions are NOT made through direct messages or personal phone calls.

That said - it is clear to me that this proposal needs some work. We need to have a robust discussion of where Community Operations is right now and where we would like to see it be in three months. Tobaboba has a very good point in that there isn’t enough information here to truly gauge the efficacy of this grant.

So, I propose that we use this thread to discuss the framework we would like Community Operations to take. Personally - I like the idea of each social channel (i.e. Twitter, Telegram, Reddit, etc) having a leader that specializes in that forum and who can use their expertise to the greatest effect.

Thank you for engaging and for debating this. Please be sure to be respectful and only make comments that are productive.

This is the Proposal in its original form. I am keeping it here as a reference.

Name of Project
Harmony Community Operations (“C-Ops”)

Proposal overview
For the last few months, the community operations team, administered by “Crypto’s Wolf of All Streets” (“Wolf”), has been performing their duties without the benefit of being paid.

ADDED FOR CLARITY: Wolf and Dragon are paid directly from the Harmony. Wolf manages the support on Telegram, and coordinates the other community volunteers. Dragon manages the support on Discord. It was in error for me to suggest that no one from the c-ops team was being paid.

This situation cannot continue.

This proposal is to fund the C-Ops organization for 3-months under Wolf’s administration. This initial fund will be paid by the Harmony Foundation. It is expected that the C-Ops organization will approach Harmony-centric DAOs (for example, the Community DAO) for further funding at a later date.

Proposal ask
$50,000

Term

3-Months

Metrics for success
(1) 10% Community Growth and participation. Measured through size of Telegram and Discord channel populations as well as by the number of subscribers to the @harmonyprotocol twitter handle and the various Harmony focused sub-reddits.

(2) Prepare and deploy a smooth, automated on-boarding process for new members of the Harmony community. This could include processes as listed on harmony.one/new or any best practices from other DAOs such as OlympusDAO or CryptoDads.

(3) Share the number of support tickets resolved on a regular basis. During this initial 3 month period, C-Ops will begin to share the number of technical support issues that they have helped resolve. It will be under Wolf’s purview to define what qualifies as a “support ticket” and how it is resolved. This metric will serve as a bench-mark for further C-Ops performance goals.

(4) (Stretch Goal) Measure and Improve Community Sentiment. Examine professional tooling in existence in Web2 and determine the appropriate tools to bring to the Harmony community. Evaluate existing community sentiment in a qualitative manner and work to improve the sentiment and reduce instances of FUD

STATUS OF COMMUNITY POLL WHEN MODIFIED:
Yes: 88%
No: 6%
More Info Needed: 6%
Total Votes: 17

25 Likes
2

I 100% support this. Let’s get it done asap.

10 Likes
3

Open question: Is $50K enough for three months?

I pegged that price more as a starting point rather than the final destination.

Weigh in and let me know your thoughts?

8 Likes
4

This seems like a no brainer to me. I support this completely

7 Likes
5

I think with the amount of time and info the c-ops team brings to the community every single day is absolutely deserving of a bonus like this.

Voted Yes.

8 Likes
6

This is interesting. There is a “No” vote now for this proposal… but no explanation as to why.

I would love to hear some counter arguments. Are we paying too much? Is there not enough information available? Do we think that the existing C-Ops team isn’t the right team?

This is supposed to be an open forum for discussion. Let’s see if we can break the “hive-mind” mentality and have a respectful conversation :slight_smile:

3 Likes
7

C-Ops are an integral part of the community and provide vital support for the foundation. We need to make their positions sustainable to allow them to continue to dedicate time to continue the hard work that they put in for us all.

100% Yes from me.

5 Likes
8

Need more information. Would need a full list of responsibilities and job description. The metrics of success needs clarification. Who will audit that for accuracy? Also how about mods for Reddit main sub? And the ambassador program?

2 Likes
9

the proposal should include specifically who the c-ops are and what the budget is going towards in more details.

10 Likes
10

Regarding the metrics

  1. Growth could be measured through new users monthly on each platform. Each platform should hold monthly or biweekly events such as an AMA or some sort of community discussion or contest. That would increase participation on each platform.

We have to learn to leverage each social channel to help support growth in the community as a whole. Each channel is unique and have their advantages and disadvantages. For example, reddit community can cross to other subs to bring on new members. Those members then can join telegram or twitter.

  1. On boarding process for new users. If its assisting new users where to purchase ones, how to set up a wallet, transfer ones, etc there should be a survey afterward for the user. End of the month reports on the data collected where improvements could be made, if any. Sample survey questions could be on ease of wallet use, transferring, staking, community improvement, general comments, etc.

  2. A tracking system for support tickets where monthly data could be aggregated. End of each month we should be able to tell what our top three issues are. What the community is struggling with. And a written plan for the next month to implement changes to improve on those matters.

  3. Send out a monthly survey on each platform. Rate it from 1 to 5.

1 Strongly Disagree
2 Disagree
3 Neutral
4 Agree
5 Strongly Agree.

Have a statement see if the community agrees with each statement. That would be a true measurement on community sentiment and from that data we would be able to come up with a plan for the next month to combat lowest scored sections. Then give the same survey to see if the sentiment has changed.

Just spitballing here.

1 Like
11

Hey Harmonauts :wave:

I believe that it’s time for me to weigh in on the conversation here a little seeing as it directly involves me and my current team.

Please allow me to take this time to explain some things and why we are even doing this at this stage, because right now we need YOU.

The C-OPS Team is something I started to put together at the end of last year, prior to that the entire community really resided on telegram (though since weve grown into a massive multiple community system), we had around 12k users at that time and answering all the users questions around the clock became a task I could simply no longer undertake alone.

I needed to find help urgently to support not only all the users but also myself having spent many sleepless nights assisting users with their issues, helping them setup validators, and generally hosting the channel, though some of the questions were becoming repetitive I had the idea that I could build a bot to assist me on telegram and with that I started to build out WolfBot who many of you use in the channel now daily.

That was simply not enough and we found ourselves once again overwhelmed with issues and support to users once again, and upon speaking with the rest of the Harmony Core Team we decided I needed to find some real help in order to continue offering the level of support that had by now come to be expected.

I found Dragon or rather Stephen Tse did and we got along really well - he was able to cover my sleep time and was extremely necessary, though as we continued to do what we wanted (grow the channel and the harmony brand) we continued to increase the number of issues at the same time that needed support, at that time many users were needing assistance with building validators and the bridge had just been introduced, hence I bought Kratos in because he could help users build validators and Elbow for bridge support.

Sadly due to lack of funding Elbow is no longer with us and has since been replaced by Mando who is a replacement we are lucky to have.

So who are the C-OPS ?

Wolf :wolf::

I’m the Community Manager for Harmony and manage the C-OPS team, from training and etiquette, to hiring and firing - I’m fully responsible for the entire team as a whole - when I’m not managing the team, I’m on the front line in the channel offering help and advice, I am and always have been available to users all day every day 7 days a week, I currently cover 6am - 10pm each day, I’m also responsible for making sure the channel has things to offer such as AMAs - this involves a level of planning and co-ordination and we currently have 2 or so per week in the channel, especially while we are highlighting the ecosystem. I also maintain the robots of the channel adding information to them as necessary. On the whole my job is to make sure that when a question is asked it gets an answer almost immediately, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Dragon :dragon::

Dragon is my right hand man, he goes above and beyond the call of duty every day to make the community a better place, not just on telegram but he is largely responsible and in charge of Discord too.

Operating similar hours to me but on the EST time zone, he covers my downtime daily and allows is to operate at any hour of the day. If I listed just ONE of his tasks it would be bridge support where I have seen him spend 8 hours a day assisting users. His other tasks involve running the community store, and offering swag and accompanying initiatives and giveaways for us.

Kratos :earth_americas::

Being the first official C-OPS admin Kratos has been instrumental in freeing us up to perform other tasks for the community and all the initiatives you see around you such as validator spotlights and ecosystem AMAs wouldn’t be possible without Kratos and his support towards the community as a whole. Offering as many waking hours as is possible he not only supports the users in the channel but is constantly curating the latest news and information from harmony and putting it all in ONE place for you all to see - you won’t miss much while he’s around. We currently mainly rely on Kratos for Social Media Exposure of the community - his account and his many followers continue to grow on a daily basis and for that reason we chose Internally for Kratos to focus on being our Social Media Manager for C-OPS and the community as a whole.

When a message needs to be spread far and wide - Kratos will deliver the message

:black_joker:Mando:

Last but certainly not least we have Mando, the newest addition to the team, you will no doubt have seen him literally everywhere, responsible for ONEChain amongst other things, he is extremely passionate about Harmony and has helped many users long before he was appointed to the C-OPS team.

Mando specialises in 2 key areas for the community, besides supporting the users daily in as many channels as he can, and they are:

• Graphic Design : he is responsible for some amazing graphics and videos that have been seen in the community including his most recent work on the bridge map image - he will continue to produce many of the community images you will see for upcoming events and announcements - keep an eyes out for these

• Event Organisation : Mando is a natural negotiator and facilitator, he is currently organising events for the ecosystem projects to give them a boost in advertising and to bring us to their users and their users to us.

Believe me when I say the above is literally not even 10% of what we do around here.

Now for the fun part ……

All day every day - come rain or shine, there is always someone available to ask a question to …… those people you ask questions to are trusted people, in a VERIFIED channel, there you can feel safe and rest assured you’re talking to an authorised individual who is able to help.

We do all of the above and so much more for the community and we do it WITHOUT FUNDING.

So these guys aren’t getting paid at all currently, I and many others simply think this is unfair and cannot continue, we wish for this team to grow along with the community, not be held back by financial restraints, they have a lot of ideas for fun things to really engage the community with older users and new users alike in mind.

We want to continue to offer the same lighting fast support that the users have come to expect from the team daily, and now we need your support to keep it alive.

Though we largely reside on Telegram and will always ask users to join us there for support first (thats mostly because they can feel safe there in a verified channel speaking with the C-OPS team) its not our only focus.

As the Community Operations team we have already undertaken Discord and the maintenance of the servers there under our wing.

Our Team will always try to help on all social platforms that they can and we also, with funding, aim to bring more members into the C-OPS team and have some level of support on each being offered daily.

Currently offering round the clock support on Telegram and Discord, we also plan to use instagram more, add a facebook account, and even TikTok and YouTube for support videos we plan to make, and so now it falls to the community…

I’m sure theres TONS of things ive missed already and ill add / edit this again BUT

Do we bring enough value as a team to Harmony to warrant our existence ?

Have you ever received help or assistance in the channel ? if so then you’ll know how important we are to the users each day.

Personally ? I think the answer is yes, of all the things Harmony may issue a grant for this year, this is definitely ONE of the most important things a user will make use of at some point in their Harmony journey.

You may not need us right now, but when you do we will be there for you :smile:

Wolf :wolf:

7 Likes
12

A Big YES for those 24x7 Support :heart:

5 Likes
13

Aye!

Since the beginning, the amount of efforts wolf and other community members have put into building the harmony community is priceless!

Definitely in favor of this.

4 Likes
14

I can personally say that kratos and the rest of the team have helped me out on more than one occasion. Without them the ecosystem would be way less welcoming to new ppl.

3 Likes
15

These guys are awesome, I’m the new addition to the team but, it’s only when you actually get the inside scoop that you realise it’s not easy work. I’ve been with these guys for about a week now and the hours they put into this and the effort it takes to maintain and run that channel is massive.
Honestly if you were to document all the little things they do they would still be underpaid. They provide support for even 3rd party apps and products that technically aren’t even part of Harmony directly just to keep the members happy and they always stay on top of it with the scammers and bots. To be honest I was a little surprised how difficult it actually is to run a group with this many people in it with little to no automation except a couple of bots. C-OPS is a critical part of the blockchain and they need funding not just for the C-OPS members but for resources and a better support system with at least some form of automation.

3 Likes
16

Great topic; I have several points I’d like to bring up.

  1. The name C-Ops (Community Operations) entails it pertains to the entire Harmony community; however the original proposal is only highlighting Telegram (mods) which is one section of the Harmony social media platform ecosystem. This brings me to my next point.

  2. Telegram is not the only official area of Harmony where mods function in a support role. Reddit mods perform the same duties with a large member count; dealing with the same questions and requests for assistance. Telegram and Reddit are the 2 main platforms where the community is looking for support. The unofficial Facebook groups, Instagram and Twitter are not designed to be able to capture a structured support function as needed.

  3. To clear up any pay misinformation, Reddit mods have never been paid for the hours invested helping the community. As a Reddit mod I can tell you we are out of pocket for many AMA giveaways. If the idea is to pay Telegram mods for their time (I completely agree with that notion!), then the fair and balanced approach is to ensure all members who moderate official Harmony social media platforms in a tech support role are compensated equally. I will happily engage with anyone who wishes to discuss time spent on both platforms helping the community.

  4. As mentioned already in previous comments, the metrics involved to ensure work load is captured efficiently should be fleshed out. The idea here if I’m not mistaken is to ensure we retain knowledgeable members in these support roles by ensuring due compensation; simultaneously ensuring the work being done is adequate and meets an identified standard.

So where do we go from here short term and long term? I believe short term we wrap all current support members into the proposal to be voted on very soon. The funding is increased to encompass everyone for the next 90 days.

Long term - Collectively the Community DAO, support functions and Harmony team take advantage of the 90 days to shape the support role structures onto a viable solution. A solution that can be implemented long-term funded by sustainability options under the Community DAO umbrella. We (Reddit mods) drafted the Ambassador program which encompasses support mods from both Telegram and Reddit in addition to many other roles. These many different roles are fluid and designed to be pivoted to what the focus area needed at the time is. Currently the Ambassador program is not implemented; my suggestion is to look at this program during the next 90 days, put it under the Community DAO and design the long-term structure.

TLDR -

I think this proposal takes things in the right direction. Our Telegram moderators should be compensated for all the assistance they provide.

Related to this, I would like to ask that Reddit moderators are also considered for compensation for the work performed for the community. By omitting Reddit, and labeling only Telegram moderators as “Community Operations”, it diminishes the work done by other moderators and excludes them from being considered as community leaders - at least that’s a perception that exists. We need short-term compensation to retain current support roles and a long-term solution identifying proper structure and sustainability.

9 Likes
17

The Reddit mods were originally actually included in the C-OPS team though you and Daniel both decided to recind your positions to continue promoting your validators and your own channels, given enough funding we would of course be only too happy to help over there too but we’re limited in what we can do for free and what the team members really need is funding.

Telegram of course isn’t the only place but it’s most relevant to the work we do and it’s a trusted and verified place

We also cover discord - Twitter - are looking into our own social networks too and like I said plan to have a good standing across all social platforms.

The C-OPS Team is currently small but with funding we can actually start to do what we set out to do and grow the number everywhere the difference between Reddit and telegram is clear though - the users come to telegram for an instant live support agent - going to Reddit will require waiting for a reply much akin to emailing for support

Truly our biggest intention is to remove support from the main telegram channel and host it entirely elsewhere - that way the main chat can also get back to being just that - a place to chat and talk about harmony and not be congested with user issues all the time.

If the Reddit moderators truly offer an all encompassing service including round the clock support to its users then I urge you to apply for funding as a separate grant to this ONE.

18

This is an absolutely no brainer…YES…I don’t think I have to explain why…

I VOTE YES

4 Likes
19

The Reddit mods were originally actually included in the C-OPS team though you and Daniel both decided to recind your positions to continue promoting your validators and your own channels

Hey guys - this does not apply to me. I was added and then removed for reasons I’m not aware of unfortunately.

I’m happy to remove all references of my validator (which appears only on auto-mod) if that means direct compensation for the work being done. The only reason that’s listed, as it says in the auto-mod response, is to help support our efforts being that we’re also not compensated for our time and efforts.

Truly our biggest intention is to remove support from the main telegram channel and host it entirely elsewhere - that way the main chat can also get back to being just that - a place to chat and talk about harmony and not be congested with user issues all the time.

I think think this is a great idea. Something akin to an incident management system would greatly help you organize support efforts, build an SLA, have a clear trail of communication, and set clear expectations with users on what is and isn’t supported by the group.

the difference between Reddit and telegram is clear though - the users come to telegram for an instant live support agent - going to Reddit will require waiting for a reply much akin to emailing for support

I think a distinction between the platforms isn’t necessary. They serve different purposes and serve the community in very different ways, with varying degrees of reach and purpose.

This proposal is a step in the right direction!
I think some additional clarification is needed, but it’s exciting nonetheless.

Exciting stuff!

2 Likes
21

Hey everyone,

Just adding my two cents as more of a lurker in all channels.

I would strongly support this proposal and myself would like to see it encompass Tlegram, Doscord and Reddit mods.

Myself I was on-boarded to the Harmony project via Reddit and learnt a lot in my early days from the invaluable support the mods gave to others. I do agree with RockTheBlockchain about removing reference to Validators if in a paid position and think it’s wholly fair to keep it until that time.

I’ve since migrated to Telegram and Discord and use these more often than Reddit and I can honestly say that I’m surprised to learn that you guys aren’t in some way already paid for the work, time and effort you put in. The on-boarding and help given to new users is second to none and the best of any of the telegram groups I frequent.

In short, I wholly support this proposal and would like to see Reddit, Telegram and Discord encompassed into the one proposal.

Just a final shoutout to Kratos on Twitter. The most efficient at bringing the latest Harmony news to me. (yes I found this vote through him)

Thanks for everything all :v:
7even

2 Likes