💲Funding Round Dec'22 - Feb'23
Proposal: Allocate 300,563 OSMO from the Community Pool to the Osmosis Support Lab Multisig Wallet.
Q4 of 2022 has been a time of significant change for Osmosis and in Osmosis's community-led working groups. The Osmosis Support Lab (the "OSL"), in response to shifting market conditions and the dissolution of the Osmosis Ministry of Marketing, has undergone a restructuring and now seeks governance approval to move forward with that restructure into the next quarter and subsequent proposal cycles.
To continue delivering the quality support that the Osmosis community has come to expect, as well as continue to drive strong community engagement with new and ongoing initiatives, the Osmosis Support Lab is requesting 300,563 OSMO to fund operations for the months of December 2022 through February of 2023. Should any of these funds not be used this quarter, they shall be rolled over into subsequent proposal cycles and used to offset any subsequent funding requests. A detailed description of the highlights and expenditures from last quarter and our proposed deliverables moving forward can be found below.
Accomplishments Last Quarter
In addition to providing round the clock Osmosis user support, the OSL has launched a number of community initiatives aimed at increasing engagement efforts during the bear market. Here's a breakdown of what we've been working on:
Continued to Provide Best-In-Class Community Support for Osmosis: In the year since its inception, the Osmosis Support Lab has set the standard for community support in the interchain economy. We provide a 24/7 support network across all of Osmosis's official social channels, as well as on Osmosis's support website at https://support.osmosis.zone/. We support multiple classes of Osmosis users including:
End Users: We assist with onboarding and supporting Osmosis end-users into the ecosystem. This includes answering support inquiries, troubleshooting technical issues, and maintaining infrastructure like the support website and verification / scam deterrent bots that protect users from common scams that plague the industry. User experience is at the core of Osmosis's philosophy, and the Osmosis Support Lab drastically improves the experience for Osmosis users. Included are some stats from the Osmosis Support Website Live chat. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nn8FybUNe7EC4yTAL6yqLfCyRc_289kmb-Ubq8ApDkQ/edit?usp=sharing (NOTE: The dip in November's numbers is likely due to the temporary removal of the linkout from the main Osmosis website at app.osmosis.zone. This underscores the need for a support site linkout from the main Osmosis webpage. We've been told that the linkout will be re-added to the webpage in the next UI update.
Node Operators: The OSL supports node operators by communicating state breaking upgrades and troubleshooting simple setup issues. In so doing, we provide assistance to relayers and other critical infrastructure providers for the network and the broader IBC ecosystem.
Core Developers: One of the Support Lab's key functions is to act as a conduit between the Osmosis core development contributors and the rest of the community. When a bug or issue is discovered with Osmosis, the support team on the front lines is usually the first to hear about it. We then communicate these issues with development contributors and assist in further troubleshooting the issue by gathering more information from the affected user(s). This helps get bugs resolved more quickly and efficiently.
Commenced Work on Support.Osmosis.Zone v2.0: After laying the groundwork for Osmosis's support website, we're now working collaboratively with the Osmosis Labs product and front-end teams to revamp the site and align it more closely with the Osmosis design language and UX flow. The upgraded site will contain the same live support system that you can find on the current support website, as well as newer, easily digestible onboarding and support articles and guides that will prepare Osmosis to accept and onboard the next wave of new users when the bull market returns.
Absorbed Key Community Initiatives from the OMM: When the Osmosis Ministry of Marketing dissolved, the OSL temporarily absorbed two community initiatives for the remaining duration of the OMM's proposal cycle: The Osmosis Community Updates blog and the OMM social media operations. We would like to maintain these operations moving into subsequent proposal cycle. More explanation on these items and the benefits they bring to Osmosis can be found in the "Structural Changes to the OSL" section below.
Launched the Interchain Laboratory Discord Podcast: The Interchain Laboratory is a biweekly discord podcast that brings builders and other great minds from across the ecosystem together to discuss the latest Cosmos and Osmosis news, talk about new Osmosis integrations, and give live support to Osmosis community members. The show has hosted guests from projects like Kado Money, Skip Protocol, and Stride. The OSL hosts this podcast on a biweekly basis in the Osmosis discord in order to give a platform to Osmosis community members who don't enjoy the twitter / twitter spaces forum. The podcast is run entirely by OSL volunteers above and beyond their normal support duties for no cost. You can find previous episodes of the Interchain Laboratory on the brand new Osmosis Support Lab Youtube channel here.
Maintained the Osmosis Community Incentives Programs on Reddit and Discord: The Osmosis Community Incentives Program was created to help foster community engagement on Discord and Reddit. Per our latest funding proposal, a portion of our funding has been directed each month to a wallet meant to be used by the Discord and Reddit admins to use to reward community members that participate in community support and engagement. This quarter, reddit incentives were used to put OSMO directly into the hands of Osmosis redditors that contribute meaningfully to the discussions on that forum, and help other users with support issues. On discord, incentives were deployed to fund community engagement events and giveaways. Moreover, this fund was used to co-host an ecosystem spotlight event with the Axelar and Osmosis teams. This event was a huge success, and we hope to be able to host more of these in the future. To watch the event, you can visit Axelar's youtube channel here. For transparency purposes, the wallet addresses for the respective incentives programs can be found below:
Discord Incentives Wallet: osmo1cm5m47cqtk55hsz5jpfesszy7gl7fk8s3d3wvj
Reddit Incentives Wallet: osmo1kn0upwprug772v2ph9sylsfgfercdjf7k7fktx
Structural Changes to the OSL
The OSL proposes to make two key changes to its overall structure to improve efficiency and increase the scope of the duties performed in service of Osmosis.
The first of these changes is organizational in nature. Previous iterations of the Support Lab have utilized a top-down structure with a 3 of 5 multisig at its head. This created a managerial structure and fragmented internal communication. Moving forward, we'd like to use a much more collaborative process internally, in which each member has a vote in major decisions. The ultimate intention of this transition is to move in the direction of converting the Osmosis Support Lab into a DAO that lives on the Osmosis chain.
The foundational principles underlying this new structure can be found in our updated Support Lab Constitution, which you can read here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lNQjuX-eV4mbPrgKM5dsG_Cix1Y6VjcToS2BE-dQim8/edit?usp=sharing
To that end, moving forward the OSL will be utilizing a 4 of 7 multisig. Every multisig signer will also be an OSL member, ensuring that no funding is allocated unnecessarily to signers that don't contribute to the day-to-day support duties of the Support Lab. Signers will be paid a small stipend of $500 each to account for their additional transaction signing duties. Pay scales will also be flattened out, eliminating the pay discrepancies between the Junior and Senior admin roles in order to foster an environment of equality for all members.
Second, the transition of the OMM's marketing duties to Serotonin, while good for the Community Pool's budget, has left a hole in community engagement efforts within the Osmosis DAO that were previously OMM funded. As the community group that interacts with the community on the most frequent basis, we felt it would be a natural transition for the OSL to take up these community engagement initiatives. Doing so will also bring some of the most important aspects of the OMM to the community at a fraction of the cost. Keeping the Osmosis community engaged, while expanding our reach to other communities is key to ensuring the long term health of Osmosis. Here are the initiatives we propose adding to our duties:
Osmosis Community Updates Blog: The Osmosis Community Updates blog is one of the largest community-run blogs that covers Osmosis. It releases weekly articles on new token listings, upcoming airdrops, new product integrations with Osmosis, and covers all major chain upgrades with detailed descriptions of upgrade features. As indicated by the stats below, the blog is a significant source of community engagement with Osmosis even in the bear market, boasting over 150 unique visitors per day and approximately 6,000 views per month, on average. Projects integrating with Osmosis are welcome to submit articles and gain exposure for their project, while also ensuring the community stays up to date with new Osmosis integrations. For those unfamiliar with the blog, we encourage you to read some of the content for yourself by visiting https://medium.com/osmosis-community-updates
Osmosis Community Updates Twitter: The Osmosis Community Updates twitter account is a significant source of engagement and community outreach for Osmosis. The account has nearly 11,000 followers, and reaches the broader Osmosis community and beyond with educational content, update announcements, and fun giveaways and competitions. The account has seen significant growth even in the bear market, as seen in the stats below:
Together, the blog and the twitter account compliment each other to act as one of the most significant sources of community engagement throughout the Osmosis ecosystem. Community engagement is more important than ever in a bear market, and we view these initiatives as an important supplement to the work that the OSL is already doing to educate, engage, and steward the broader Osmosis community.
As indicated in the budget below, the costs for these initiatives are minimal, and represent less than 1% of the old OMM budget being saved by the community pool with far more than 1% of the benefit of that budget.
Osmosis Support Lab Multisig Wallet
The Osmosis Support Lab treasury will be a 4 of 7 multisig wallet. The address is osmo1rsc56qdxmkdequ4y00900xrf24xdkqzv8ap5ln. Funds will only be moved from the current Support Lab multisig to the new multisig wallet in the event that this proposal passes. The seven multisig signers are as follows:
Workerbee3 (Telegram / Reddit Admin)
Max Power (Telegram Admin)
Kych (Telegram Admin / Art and Content Management)
Togg LeTek (Twitter / Social Media and Content Management)
Waterspinner (Telegram Admin)
Jasbanza (Telegram Admin)
Jeremelric (Discord / Reddit Admin)
As a reminder, the current Support Lab multisig wallet address is osmo10naz63zd0f90dmz6a3rskhfqyasxf7ges2pymq
Note: Our constitution currently proposes term limits of 2 funding proposals per multisig signer, but does not address the situation in which all 7 signers hit the term limit at once. As it is a living document, we commit to an amendment of the constitution to address this situation prior to the next funding proposal. We invite the community to give feedback on how best to implement the term-limit solution without needing to rotate out all 7 signers at once if they all hit their term limits at the same time.
Transparency
The Support Lab maintains a publicly available google drive folder reflecting all of our paid invoices and various transparency / spending reports. That drive link is included here for ease of access: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hWz4VI8ECoXDU6aERfdFy9B_z2XYxbh9
Funding Goals and Projected Budget
The following is the estimated budget upon which this proposal is based. These numbers are derived from our experience managing our existing funding over the last year.
Per the budget spreadsheet outlined below, and in keeping with previous proposals, the Support Lab has elected to ask the community for a sufficient sum of OSMO to fund operations for 3 months. As with previous proposal iterations, this quarterly operating budget will help to keep us accountable to the community by requiring us to return to governance on a quarterly basis to replenish our treasury. This will give the community adequate time to review our performance and suggest changes to the manner in which we operate before any additional funding is allocated to the Support Lab treasury.
See below for the proposal’s budgeting spreadsheet and a brief explanation of some of the line items contained therein:
Staffing
This quarter, we've further reduced the size of our admin/moderation team from 21 admins to 17. We have not budgeted for any additional admin staff, as we do not anticipate expanding the existing support team this quarter. Additionally, as noted above, pay scales have been flattened out so that all support staff are paid equally. Under the new budget, support staff will receive the following monthly stipend:
Junior / Senior Admin: $4,000 USDC per month
Multisig Signers: $500 USDC per month
Additionally, you may have noticed that the pay rates for the content / social media managers and the graphic designer have increased. The Osmosis Ministry of Marketing was previously paying for half of these stipends. To keep these contributors on staff, we have agreed to take on the portion of this pay previously compensated by the OMM. These roles are a strong part of our community engagement initiatives moving forward, and only represent a very small portion of the overall budget.
Public Goods - OSL Relayer
Stuck or clogged IBC relayer channels channels lead to a degraded user experience for the community. This is an issue the OSL has consistently run into, and while most relayers are quick to respond to requests for assistance clearing these channels, we saw an opportunity to provide a public good on behalf of our community by doing it ourselves.
Throughout the last year, many Support Lab members have had the opportunity to grow their technical skills and we feel confident in adding an additional service to our value proposition: Relaying.
The OSL will use these funds to supplement existing relayer efforts by maintaining relayer nodes that will be used specifically to clear stuck transaction packets that are reported to us in one of the main support channels. This will allow for a much quicker resolution of IBC congestion issues and improve the overall Osmosis UX
For example, let's say that the relayer node between Osmosis and Regen Network goes down for a short time. In this time, the OSL will usually get reports of stuck transactions to or from Regen. In these instances, we can use our relayer nodes to clear the stuck transactions while we reach out to the dedicated relayers for this channel, ensuring both a short and long term resolution of the issue.
Public Goods - Osmosis Nodes / Public RPC
Distributed nodes support a healthy, decentralized network. Public RPC endpoints allow interaction with the network without the need to provide the back-end server infrastructure. Running this infrastructure is a vital public good for the Osmosis community, as it allows developers and users to experiment with Osmosis in a cost-minimized manner, ensuring that cost doesn't deter necessary activity.
We intend to use these funds to set up high performance Osmosis nodes for use in Support Lab IBC relaying activities, and make them freely available to the community in order to improve public RPC infrastructure.
Website / Software
These funds will be used for ongoing maintenance and updates to the Osmosis support website. Specifically, we intend to use the funding outlined in this proposal to pay the annual fee for the Osmosis live support chat widget, which will not be a part of subsequent proposal cycles for the next year. We will also use these funds to fund ongoing bot maintenance for the various Osmosis social channels including:
Osmosis Telegram Bot (FAQ commands, anti bot raid / scam bot)
Osmosis Telegram Tip Bot
Osmosis Discord Governance Proposal Bot
Osmosis Discord Tip Bot
Bounties
In addition to providing for ongoing maintenance costs for existing Telegram bots, this proposal seeks to fund additional support bounties including:
Creation of additional written tutorials and articles on how to use Osmosis
Creation of additional instructional guides as new features are integrated into Osmosis.
This list is not exhaustive, and If there is anything else the community would like to see added to the bounties list, please let us know. Teams and individuals with the skills required to fulfill these bounties are encouraged to reach out to any of the Support Lab members for more information.
Community Incentive Program
Due to the ongoing success of the Community Incentives Program, we'd like to continue this valuable initiative. These funds will be used to reward community members that make valuable contributions to Osmosis and help to onboard new users. We want to encourage the Osmosis community to help and support each other, and to be able to give generously to those that do. Do you maintain an active presence in Telegram, Discord, Reddit, or Twitter assisting others but are not an OSL admin? This fund is for you. Do you put together written materials or instructional videos for the sole purpose of helping your fellow Osmonauts? This fund is for you. The Community Incentive Program will ensure that community funds are available to community members that provide value to the ecosystem.
Multilingual Resources
Pursuant to its mandate to increase support across a broad range of communities, the Osmosis Support Lab has been providing funding to members of the Turkish Osmosis community for the purpose of expanding our support network into communities whose native language is not English. This program has proven extremely effective, and we'd like to continue providing for them as our non-english speaking community continues to grow.
Contingency Fund
The purpose of this fund is to deal with any unexpected expenses and ensure that we can continue to build without any interruptions in service. Some examples of uses for this fund would include a need for additional staff in the event of a hyper-growth event for the Osmosis ecosystem or to fund projects and bounties that were not accounted for in the budget. Should this fund not be used, it will be rolled over to subsequent proposals to reduce the size of the next proposal request.
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