Community Discussion - Enhance DHF Transparency and Boost Accountability through Proposal Tracking and Reporting
Inspired by @lordbutterfly's post about DHF wise-spending, I decided to start a conversation focusing on how we can solve the transparency gap between funded projects and the community.
Introduction
For those who are wondering who I am, my name is Haris or @knowhow92 in the crypto-world, on Hive for more than 5 years, founder and active builder of @skatehive community, board member of @gnars DAO and currently working at the partnerships department of ThePass.to, the largest DAO aggregator on the market.
Hive is my favourite blockchain for many reasons. I love the supportive community, Hive's fast and free transactions as well as scalability, it's decentralized nature but more importantly it's token distribution. Tokens are rewarded to active users on a daily basis and this mean everyone has a voice in the decision-making progress whether that's witness voting or DHF proposals (our topic).
My brain is Hive, I'm building my dreams on Hive (@skatehive), I wanna help Hive thrive and that's the reason I decided to start this conversation with the community. Whether you're a "whale", a "minnow" or a user who just joined the blockchain I want you to know that your feedback is valuable so make sure you leave a honest reply at the comment section bellow, everyone's feedback is super-valuable.
My pc wallpaper for the past 3 years 🤣
The Problem
As an active Hive user and builder I often take a look at the DHF proposals and participate in the decision-making process. So far we have funded (and keep funding) many cool projects such as @peakd, @ecency, @spknetwork, @actifit , @leofinance etc. through the DHF but we also experienced rug pulls and funded projects or individuals who practically delivered nothing. As @lordbutterfly said it's one thing if a funded projects doesn't succeed and another thing if a funded project getting phat HBD daily for sitting on their asses.
Let's be true here, the "Reputation System" on Hive is good measure to some extend but not a determination factor for trust within the community. Money corrupts people, we've experienced this first hand after the fork... Solely relying on DHF-funded projects to provide updates is NOT efficient and not having regular communication with funded projects raises concerns within the community.
What Hive is lacking is transparency between DHF-funded projects and the community
The Solution
What we should do is fund a professional third party service through DHF responsible for communicating with funded projects, track and evaluate their progress using data and measurement criteria and report their findings back to the community via monthly reports and Townhalls. Think of it as what Hivewatchers is doing in the content creation side of Hive but focusing on the DHF (DHFwatchers?!?).
Benefits
This will not only help our community make more informed decisions in the future but will also encourage accountability, governance participation, will save DHF money by spotting potential "lazy" builders and at the same time highlight the most trustworthy builders as well as attract new builders/users/investors.
On top of that by handling this task to an experienced and professional team who specializes in data tracking and reporting we make sure proposal reports are independent and their quality is top-knotch as well as saves time to individuals going through all funded projects to get their updates.
What are your thoughts Hive community?
Do you think a solution like this could work? Do you think this could boost accountability and bring transparency to the community? Will this open the door to new projects getting funding from the DHF?
Let's discuss at the comment section bellow and let's fix the DHF transparency problem once and for all.
Disclaimer
I'm not opening this discussion because I work at the partnerships department of ThePass.to and wanna score a deal but because I am an active Hive builder, I care about our blockchain and wanna help bring more transparency to the community.
If this idea receives positive feedback from the community I will forward it to the ThePASS team and work on a DHF proposal to get things running ASAP.
Please consider Re-blogging this post for more visibility. All rewards go to the DHF 🔥🔥🔥
Yeah, that is similar to what I proposed to some people in the background as well. We will see if there is enough will to realize this.
If I had to guess id say that there is not... but I have been surprised in the past. :)
I wonder why... Maybe more transparency and reporting to the community might harm some DHF funded projects? Maybe because some might find it irritating that they should report back to the community? Or is it because some don't want any external parties to get involved with Hive?!?
I could keep going with those questions and I bet these are thoughts lots of Hivers who participate in governance have. That's why it's important to have clarity of what's going on with funded projects on a fixed and regular basis.
Where are you guys having these conversation? I'd love to participate or even better invite some of the people you talking to in this post so everyone can read and participate!
Thanks for the inspiration @lordbutterfly
Hey @lordbutterfly , mind if I reach out to you in Discord? Can you reply with your Discord handle?
Sure
Alright, in case you don't wanna share yours mine is knowhow92 (#4050)
Accountability is definitely needed. When we penned our proposal we expect that many won't vote on it at first for fear of being duped. We do believe that those that vote on proposals should be more involved in the process, and believe scrutiny would just show that we are doing what we intend.
The only way to mature as a DAO, cause that's what DHF is, is by having more transparency between funded projects and the community. This can only happen by having a, independent 3rd party do the "dirty" job and not relying on projects promises to report back to the community.
This will not only make sure individuals/projects who really put some effort are funded but also will save DHF money by warning voters on potential dangers regarding proposals so they can adjust their votes accordingly.
Life is too busy these days and I doupt even 1% of Hivers dig updates on funded projects. We need a professional 3rd party to take care of this.
Excellent idea!
We need to increase the level of professionalism in order to compete with similar upcoming projects. The attitude "Hive is so great, just wait until the masses will find us" is delusional. We have to be very professional in how we spend our money!
That's exactly my point and especially when it comes to the DHF.
We've tried community moderation on the DHF and the outcome is that same people are getting funded and small project don't stand a chance cause there's no trust. Don't get me wrong, most funded projects are doing a great job but nothing will ever change if we don't give everyone a chance.
The excuse "we got screwed in the past so we don't fund small communities or individuals" is stupid, how are we supposed to attract builders and new projects this way?
We need an independent party to take care of this DFH transparency problem with professionalism or else as you said we won't be able to compete with other big blockchains where transparency is rule #1
Decentralization depends upon it! I second this motion.
Thank you. Decentralization needs to have centralized parties working on certain things and we definitely need a party to oversee the DHF so we can ensure it's stability.
I agree that there needs to be some accountability when you take money from the DHF. If a project gets money for the realisation of it's ideas, I think it has to show more than just what it wants. I'm not sure that an external service is necessarily the answer because such a service would depend foremost on the data delivered by the projects. That's where I think a first step should be implemented. A project getting DHF money should have the obligation to report according to certain guidelines:
As you say very correctly, people get easily corrupted by money flowing freely without and control. The present system is definitely not efficient and it creates a lot of tension within the community.
It would also depend on constant communication between funded projects and the oversight service and data tracking on social media as well as on chain data ( asset transfers). I really do think we need extrernal help on this. Having this task handled by Hivers will most likely end up in a new tension between us, we need an independend and professional service for this in my opinion.
100% with you
Agree 200% but that's the problem, having good faith in builders is not enough, we got screwed in the past this way and it will happen again. We need to establish a service who will make sure builders do provide updates, you can call it DHF police or whatever haha.
I disagree with Hive people getting involved with this. We all have out Hive friends, connections etc., we need an independent party able to provide us objective monthly reports (and townhalls).
Completelly agree. If we wanna attract projects and investors we must have a much more transparent, welcoming and "serious" or professional ecosystem.
You might be right that people from hive would be too vested, or scared to make an assesment of these DHF in an objective way. What matters to most in my eyes that something is done to increase transparency and accountability when it comes to funds from DHF.
That's exactly my point. Besides, having partners outside of Hive is marketing. We need to get out of our Hive bubble and start tackling issues like the DHF one we're talking about in this post with a more serious approach.
I would say that the DHF should be burned and let those who want to fund projects do so through support of whales and others who want to fund such projects, rather than the current system that pretends to vote from the community to get concensus.
I do believe DHF is one of the best bets we have as a community to attract new builders and projects. Look at all those DAOs out there building so many cool tools for their communities by providing funding, that's the way to go in my eyes.
While this is true to some extend I do believe that having more transparency between DHF-funded projects and the community will boost accountability meaning more thoughtful votes from big stakeholders.
Which DAOs are you referring?
Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum and just some examples... Or smaller DAOs like Decentraland and Gitcoin are doing an awesome job of attracting builders to their communities via Grant Rounds and open funding.
My favoutire example is @Gnars DAO cause I'm an active builder over there. We recently got 300,000 USDC funding from Nouns DAO to bring a million shredders on-chain!
The list can go on forever, you can check all the DAO info you want here, from proposals to activity to pretty much everything.
In my opinion, if we manage to solve the trasparency gap between DHF-funded projects and the community we will have a much healthier DAO and will be easier to attract new builders and investors. More solid projects-->More users-->More investors.
Thanks for the info, it is certainly good to attract people to build things. I just dont think we need to pay for most of the projects we have now.
I thank you for your feedback @mypathtofire , that's why I published this post, so we can all chat and exchange ideas and opinions.
I strongly agree!
DHF needs more visibility , accountability and transparency. Also the mkt potencial to atract builders is not fully used.
100% with you Vlad! DHF is one of our best bets to attract new builders and grow Hive the Hive ecosystem!
I'm reading this and I think I'm dreaming or even having deja Vu. For a while now I have been hearing some complaints about the DHF, which I consider to be an extremely important project in our Blockchain and therefore needs to be as transparent as possible.
I am faithful in believing that everything that is built in Hive should be transparent because it is something that characterizes us and it is one of the most potential messages that differentiates us in web 3.
I am a public accountant and when I think of this project and some complaints I have read the first thing I think of is "if you have an expense, that expense has an invoice and this document will be the tool to show that what you say is real" something similar I think of the DHF.
It's not about accountability because people may think wrong if they don't, the right thing to do is to do it and even faster when it comes to Hive.
I have not investigated in depth about some things, but I have considered in some conversations out there, that there are projects that should be analyzed very well, because there are unnecessary or rather avoidable expenses for example.
I have said it several times over there, it is necessary not only a delivery of reports, I think that an audit of what has already been done is also necessary. There is something called forensic auditing in accounting, this helps us to avoid some kind of fraud or losses in the future.
So the DHF should pay someone to judge the DHF proposals?
There is a limited amount of rewards available from the DHF.
You did not care about it 2 plus years ago when others voiced that the things you say today will come about.
You offered no alternative back then and wouldn't listen to any other methods.
Are you talking to me? Do you know me? Do you know how much I've conributed to hive? When did I refused to listen to other alternative methods back then?
And no, this isn't what I'm suggesting. I'm proposing an idea which I can elaborate much further if the community agrees with it. And there's no judging, no one is a judge here. Data is the king.
I have no clue about you. My grammar is more aggressive then I would like it to be rad. I have no clue what you have contributed.
I doubt we have talked or you have any knowledge of me. I am not a great people person. too bluntly cryptic at times.
On the DHF I think it is misaligned. I think a system should be put in place to disband it altogether while still supporting other projects. I think there is better methods to support projects. and implementation of that support can be researched before it is given and all of those costs covered and not by a DHF. If a project is legitimate all efforts available should be used. In doing so, accountability transparency possibly liability If it was wanted for those who hold control over an alternative system.
In my personal take, I would like to see a minimum viable product of the service you will provide before funding it. Maybe a 3 months trial is good to test the water, it's just my opinion.