talk.kiezburn.org
Mon 15 Apr 2019 10:05AM

What to do with leftover dream tokens? - first orientation

S Saskia Public Seen by 158

!!!VOTING IS LIVE NOW!!!

What are we discussing?

Here we discuss and decide with Kiez Burn Participants what is going to happen with leftover tokens.

Why are we discussing that here?

Because decentralizing the art grants situation and letting the community have a say in what's going to be on the event was the core idea of the dreams platform. Hence they should also have a say in what is going to happen with unspent tokens. This is in line with consensual do-ocracy.

If we're so radically do-ocracy why don't we leave unspent tokens unspent?

  • Leaving thousands of euros on the bankaccount of the Verein makes virtually no sense at all and also might come with implication in terms of taxing, finances and Vereinsrecht
  • It is in no ones interest that we save up money from tickets that people bought for this year and not use it for the experience ticket holders paid for. There is no force to vote. Not using the money people paid because they have not used their tokens would be punishing the whole community for the non-volunteering of the inactives. This would be a minus-minus situation
  • Veto by one Dream Guide. They will not walk up to dreams which did not get funded and tell them 'Well there is money but we decided to not spend it because people did not use dreams enough."

What are leftover tokens?

There are going to be unspent tokens (aka tokens that never got spent in the first place), Tokens that belong to yet unsold tickets (we are basically sold out tho) AND there are going to be 'comeback-tokens' (aka tokens that got assigned to projects which did not hit minimum funding).

How is the decision making process?

  1. We gathered Ideas with the dream whisperers (done)
  2. Gathering Ideas from the community (done)
  3. Getting some input from tech, finances and other positions wether or not they are actually ABLE (tech wise) to work with the ideas presented (semi-done)

  4. Have an anonymous dot voting (In Progress)

  5. Apply the options in their ranked choice outcomes until most tokens are spent (after voting ended)

Important: Some of the options available can be implemented parallel or can be used in conjunction. Also we will most likely run through more than one round of distributing leftover tokens. F.e. the first choice is to fund all public service upgrades up to their minimum funding goal. This will not use up all the art grant. In this case we will then switch to the 2nd favorite option. Another option would be the proposed algorithm which would take care of distributing ALL the tokens

Chances

This is a chance to cancel out biases in the token system. Biases that can be cancelled: Camp bias (camp-based projects have a tendency that camp members spend their tokens on their own camp), Recency and Latency Bias, Bias towards entertainment and away from public service, Bias for big projects which need a lot of funding.

There is a good chance that 30%-50% of tokens will go unspent, especially since this is the first year we are using the Dreams platform. Once we have all the ideas, we we should rank them - as there will probably be several ways to distribute funds before we run out.

Current ideas

The ideas are sorted. They are ranked after dot-voting results among dream guides/whisperers from favorite to least favorite. Options 6 to 8 did not get any votes from dream guides.

  1. Funding public service upgrades which are within 25% margin of their minimum goal
  2. Popularity based system - prioritizing projects which have a lot of individual contributers instead of projects with a few generous backers and fund them up until their minimum goal
  3. Funding dreams which are NOT part of a camp but brought by individuals which are within 20% of their minimum goal
  4. Priority system within the ranking system -> e.g., projects are ranked on priority of lowest % needed to meet the minimum funding. E.g., projects with smallest % to meet their minimum get prioritized over those with larger percentage
  5. Funding dreams which are within 10% margin of their minimum goal to get them the minimum funding.
  6. Randomly distributing leftover tokens** to ALL projects which are not fully funded
  7. Randomly distributing leftover tokens** to all projects which have **not yet met their minimum funding goa
  8. Funding projects that have already met their minimum, but could be even better with more funding

Some Ressources & Links

Borderland Post Refarding Redistribution Decisions made there 2018

S

Saskia Wed 24 Apr 2019 5:20PM

@moony1 - you also mentioned the algorithm to redistribute in a post somewhere else. Is there a link that can be used to put in the dot-voting ?

KW

Karlo Walz Wed 24 Apr 2019 6:38PM

@saskia31 is it already clear that there is already a decision to either a) redistribute the remaining tokens and why? I remember there was this discussion at some point which tells that radical everything should be a dream and needs voting tokens and b) that there is a algorythm who distributes tokens within his wisdom. The algorithm could use experience from the past or "those who has most will get most" or opposite.. those who got at least will get most or all get even (that means the same amount of tokens")..
The issue is that all of the above methodology has always a good and a bad side..
Thinking that maybe the descision of "how to spend unspend tokens" is one of the most important question I would like to remind you on how we selected the "theme"..
There was even a second round as not all options has been on the table for the same amount of time.
I am very much in favour of do more advertising and also ask people why did they not vote.. maybe there is a technical problem or they do not know and so on..

S

Saskia Thu 25 Apr 2019 9:39AM

Hello Karlo,
thanks for raising the question wether or not unspent tokens should be distributed at all. Here is a short answer that is summing up my POV and trying to take into account the POV of others as expressed:
Unspent tokens WILL be distributed. For the following reasons:

  • People paid money with their ticket and with that money art and structures and everything should be funded. The money should get used for that. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to let the money sit in the bank and I am pretty sure people involved in finances have no interest in figuring out how to send unspent token-money back to ticket holders AND handle that witht he finanzamt. The finance-team and the board are most impacted by this decision and their consent is necessary for the decision.

  • The dream guides and dreamers are the one directly impacted by said decision. I as a dream would guide give a veto / do not consent to the decision to stash the money we got from the tickets and not use it. I will not send a mail to my dreamers saying 'Sorry people, we still have like XYZ euros left but people didn't vote so that's why we keep it in the bank and will not hand it out'. I am, however, willing to tell dreamers that there was a discussion and a decision and that the chosen method of redistributing has not resulted in them getting their minimum funded.

  • The decentralization did not mean 'forced participation'. Ticket holders have the opportunity to vote for projects and KBorg does not guarantee a lot of things. That's what decentralization means. But it did not and never meant: "If you don't vote you get NOTHING." and it did not meant "KBorg will not make any decision whatsoever." . Ergo: Everybody who has a ticket also has a voice and is more than welcome to make their opinion known and is more than invited to make every decision regarding KiezBurn as long as consensual doocracy is followed. If a ticketholder decides to abstain from their opportunity to vote on dreams that does not mean that their tokens should go to the void.

To your question regarding the distribution method:
There has been no decision on how to distribute leftover tokens. in the end it will be a decision made by the board / finance team. I am leading the discussion about this decision because I personally feel it is an important topic.

There have been suggestions of algorithms by @vladimireske & @moony1 additonally to the suggestions that are listed under current ideas. <

i also agree that advertising the dreams platform more is crucial! It would be way better for everybody if the community decided what was going to be funded. HOWEVER there are some experiences from other events where they kinda said that reaching 50% of tokens spent would already be a huge success.

KW

Karlo Walz Thu 25 Apr 2019 11:07AM

Hello Saskia, thanks for your pov. I do not fully agree with sone of the assumptions. Forced participations is a bit hatd in the wording but we all ahre that this is a coworked event and that everybody should participating and even better do volonteering. it might be nice to find out what us the ratio of assigned tokens to all tokens. I do assume we gave 10.000 tokens and ny feeling is that we cover currently less then 15%. so is this 15% at all an indication fir something like a minimum threahold reached? no, not for me...
I fully understand that we better spend the money by the way and I was just thinking a bit in this direction to be a bit more radical.

S

Saskia Thu 25 Apr 2019 11:24AM

Currently we are at around 18% of tokens spent.
We also had a short hand-rise yesterday at a meeting to find out who has spend more than half of their tokens. That weren't a lot of people. I for myself have not spent all my tokens as of yet.
Given this, I'd currently that we might hope to end up with 30-50% of tokens spent, if we advertise.

Back to the 'forced participation': Yes, I agree. Everybody is supposed to volunteer and participate. But everybody is free to choose and decide how and when to spend which part of their time and also we do not have a volunteer police punishing people for not participating. So if somebody decides to invest virtually zero hours before the event, not even to distribute dream tokens, it is their choice. Maybe they're the person who takes on a ranger and a shit ninja shift and that's how they decide to participate. Does that mean the money they paid with their ticket should not get distributed to art at all? I don't agree. But I can certainly see the appeal for some people to radically 'in your face' seemingly non-contributing people.

So there is a difference between the two statements:
"You HAVE to spend your tokens and otherwise your part of the money will not be used to fund ANYTHING despite you having paid with your ticket for art and stuff on the event."
or
"There is an OPPORTUNITY for you to participate more directly in the distribution of funds if you choose to invest your time to use your tokens. If you choose not to make a choice, the choice will be made for you." (And how that choice is made on behalf of non-voters is discussed here)

DU

Deleted User Thu 25 Apr 2019 3:34PM

Having a discussion with @waldo, made me think, there is an ultimate way to distribute unspent tokens: return them to the festival guest with a message that there will be no art or music this year. Actually well allined with burning principles. What would u say @karlowalz and @saskia31?

KW

Karlo Walz Thu 25 Apr 2019 5:11PM

I still have the impression this is a technical issue that peopke did not vote aka spend.
It is again another system and in addition this works only if you use the same email address then for buying the ticket. I would prefer if people can up to when the gate is opening can spend their tokens!!
Every dream knows the sitaution of their tokens and they can decide themselves if they wanna do it or not (aka remove minimum threshold)
you know who has not yet spend any tokens and has not logged in: send them an email and we tell them how it works to sign in and to vote.

DU

Deleted User Thu 25 Apr 2019 6:30PM

@saskia31 here is an sample google sheet which makes token distribution: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ev_9eDO52Izw8UNtXSbcd8vr1lC7oulw34yEdenKeUI

Building it I realized that there is not a single distribution but 3 questions we need to answers:
1. Who to distribute leftover tokens - what is a fair and sane way to do it
2. How to decide which projects wont make it after we have no more tokens to distribute and what to do with their tokens
3. Distributing tokens should we only move projects to their min goal, or try to move all projects to max goal keeping in mind our distribution algorithm

This is 3 questionnaires I would create, and they decide on the formulas for the excel doc and then it is done - token our distributed in a fair mode and transparent mode.

For the sample document:
1. I devided the leftover tokens equally according to how many tokens project got from the votes. Tokens were adjusted to reduce big camp effect by allowing only 3 token per vote.
2. After all tokens were distributed projects with the lowest financed % were dropped first (which is fair, but creates funny side effects).
3. Projects were financed only till their minimum goal

This implementation of algorithm, left 500 out of 1700 tokens undistributed, which have to decided manually; since according to the rules is just fine.

I would personally suggest the following rules for the real distribution:
1. All tokens are distributed equally among all project according to how many tokens they got already - which makes project interested in bootstrapping in the coming two weeks if they wont the project to get financed (o token projects wont get anything). @waldo suggestions the tokens number should be adjusted to the number of votes and maybe an expert modifier score can be added, for instance - main sound stage can get a 20% boost to their tokens from KBorg.
2. After all points distributed drop those first which has the furthest from their goal psychically, so out of two projects one has 100 out of 200, the other 250 out of 400, the second project should be dropped first. Set project points to 0 or to the originally voted amount and ask if they can go with this amount.
3. Finance only to min first, ask projects to reevaluate their min before we go into token redistribution!

DU

Deleted User Thu 25 Apr 2019 6:31PM

It is a long algorithm, but it is complete and fair and answers most of the questions, at least i see no big holes in it for now :)

Q

Quentin Fri 26 Apr 2019 1:41PM

Thanks for proposing creating this ! Overall, this sounds like a fair and transparent approach to redistribute unspent tokens (Which I fully agree should be spent).
Not very sure about the 'expert modifier score' tho, it is bringing some kind of subjectivity..

If currently at 18% tokens spent, should we postpone the deadline until we reach a certain threshold (that we would define beforehand) ?
I am confident that much more tokens will be spent when the event is approaching.

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