1. Project: ICON Hub
2. Category: Development – Tools, Community - Platform
3. Description
3.1 Introduction
Contribution Proposal Fund (CPF) is ICON attempt to solve two important problems in DPoC system, a P-Rep contribution, and the funding. The CPF provides a means for iCON to fund its development as all P-Reps are contributing a percentage of their rewards to the fund.
Anyone can make a contribution proposal, present the project, and ask to be funded from CPF. If that proposal is accepted by the majority of the main P-Rep votes then the requested amount will be paid out and deducted from the monthly budget amount.
Contribution proposals are submitted through the ICON community forum and they include the description of the proposal, details of the work, and the breakdown of the proposed budget. Once approved, the proposal owner is expected to provide a periodic report on budget expenditure and completed work to show the value created from the allocated funds. If for some reason they do not provide regular reports and cannot answer questions about their budget allocation than project funding will stop.
While the CPF is providing a robust solution to stimulate and fund the development of the ICON network, to fulfill its potential CPF needs a complementary system that will collect, monitor, store and present the data to the Iconists in a better and more visually user-friendly form than the forum posts.
3.2 Problem
The existing contribution records are all based on the proposal data that are introduced by proposal owners and rated by the user votes. This doesn’t work as intended due to several reasons:
- There are no clear criteria for how the projects/proposals need to be described and what metrics they need to include to be measurable.
- The listed projects follow no rules and require no accountability behind them. It is impossible to measure contribution as the same amount of space is reserved for the big infrastructure project and the single 1 –page medium article
- The current system heavily relies on spamming the system with irrelevant proposals to take over the intended space. It resembles the human governance where politics and propaganda put in charge the loudest teams or the ones heavily focused on these areas.
- The voting system is not working as intended as it heavily relies on the users to rate the projects. This has failed as the majority of the votes are either 5-star self votes or 1-star votes against the ‘’competitors’’.
- There is no system where Iconists can go and read, search, and filter the contribution data in a clear, user-friendly, and transparent way. While a community forum may be a suitable place to go through the official proposal process, a better solution is needed to reflect the activities on the network.
3.3 The Idea
We propose to build up an ICON web portal as the “accountability hub”, where all ICON ecosystem members (voters, P-Reps, developers, Foundation) can interconnect and track each proposal status and performance metrics.
All the proposals that are sent out to the CPF will be collected and stored in the system with the proposal metrics. The accepted proposal will be tracked until the final report when the data entry will be closed and the metrics from the final report indexed and saved to the system.
The proposals that are approved and verified by the CPF committee is only contribution data that should be used for measuring the contribution. Because not all of the proposals will go to the CPF, the committee can also verify proposals for following scenarios:
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in order to receive contribution value and to verify a previous work not registered in CPF of Grant program, P-Reps can submit the final project report to CPF for approval. In order to qualify for the CPF vote, team must follow all the requirements as it was a normal CPF proposal.
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if the team plans to work on the project that is self-funded, in order to receive contribution value and to verify the project, the team must declare it is a self-funded project and follow all the requirements as it was a normal CPF proposal.
The proposal metrics will be assigned to the proposing team and the sponsor P-Rep. This allows successful proposal submitters and sponsors to build up a reputation and establish a bond of trust and a social contract with the network. Once enough proposals are submitted to the system, the built reputation metrics can be used as a productivity index or the Proof of Contribution (PoC) score. If proven successful and approved by the ecosystem, the PoC Score can be shared with the other Apps, i.e. trackers, wallets…
The web portal will perform the following tasks:
- Present an unbiased metrics based score system for proposals and P-Reps. The score system is a relative function where the category score will be decided only by valuating the proposal category score relative to all other existing values. The score value is not fixed and will vary in time (example below).
- Remove the biased self-evaluation and promotion from the system. The score system will be based only on metrics listed in official proposals/reports and approved by the CPF committee.
- To collect data of all the submitted proposals, verify it, and enter into the system.
- Monitor the proposals and monitor the ability of the proposal owners to deliver on their promises with a focus on delivery dates, the total amount of budget allocated, and other KPIs.
- Gather and store the proposal data and proposal owner/sponsor history.
- Allows repeat proposal owners to build up a reputation and gain trust from the community. Each of the proposals and its owner will have a history and a list of the previous projects and their reviews assigned to him.
- Table view - Present a wide option of filtering, tagging, and sorting options so that Iconists can view all proposals listed by date, funding amount, proposer, proposal P-Rep sponsor, status as well as each of the performance metrics mentioned above. This will provide an easy tool for Iconists to display the Proof of Contribution metrics.
- Table view - Present a wide option of filtering, tagging, and sorting options so that Iconists can view all P-Rep contributions including funding amount, proposer, proposal P-Rep sponsor, status as well as each of the performance metrics mentioned above.
- Single page view - Each proposal and P-Rep will have a unique page where the data will be gathered and presented
3.4 Solution
The portal will have a following look:
- Landing page – Contribution table with all relevant data displayed. Number of columns may vary
- Project page – Table of the projects listed with all relevant data displayed
- P-Rep page - Table of the projects listed with all relevant data displayed
- CPF Budget – this page will stay empty in 1.0 version. Reserved for the future work once CPF is approved and ready to be deployed. Intended use is to collect and display the time progress of the CPF, funds deployed and other statistical data similar to Projects or P-Rep
- Statistics – very basic graphs showing the proposal stats over the time. In the future version particular attention will be put here to design a complex graphical UI to visually present all the data
- Map – a map with geographical distribution of the proposal. Intention is to indicate the areas of interest
- About – info page with all the relevant info about the portal
- User – not part of 1.0. Future versions may introduce the users to portal with the option for only social interaction with the content, comment, like, tip… P-rep accounts for teams to be able to keep their team information up to date.
- Project unique page – each proposal will have its own page where all the relevant proposal data will be displayed including the proposal link, periodic reports…
- P-Rep unique page – each P-Rep will have its own page where beside all of the team information, all of the relevant team projects will be listed
3.5 Examples
The simplified example of the relative metrics score system, i.e. P-Rep projects Score:
Let’s say in April we have 3 teams with the following projects in their portfolio:
- Team A has 1 project
- Team B has 2 project
- Team C has 5 project
The minimum Score value is 0 and corresponds to 0 projects. The maximum value of 100 corresponds to the highest number of projects an individual team has which is 5. All the values in between will be derived as the relative values, i.e.
*a. Team A gets a project Score of 20 = (1/5)100
*b.Team B gets a project Score of 40 = (2/5)100
*b.Team B gets a project Score of 100 = (5/5)100
The project’s scores above represent the status in April. Let’s say in May both Team B and C delivered 1 project. Then the May metrics would be:
*a. Team A gets a project Score of 16 = (1/6)100
*b.Team B gets a project Score of 50 = (3/6)100
*b.Team B gets a project Score of 100 = (6/6)100
A similar Score system will be implemented for several categories. The purpose of the example is to display the fact that activity and the quality of the projects are the only factors that will affect the PoC score over time. We believe the dynamic value is very important as it will degrade the Score of inactive teams and at the same reward the working teams.
The list of the initial data that will be collected:
Project name, P-Rep, Sponsor, Category, Type, Start date, Lenght, End date, Actual end date, Total budget, CPF Budget, Self Invest, Contact, Project Reports, Location, Wallet, Payment Tx, Status, PoC Score, Description, Links, Budget requested, Total received ICX, Total received $, Transparency reports, Projects, Active
Final PoC score formula will combine all of the relevant Scores, i.e. it may be as simple as the sum of all the relevant Scores. The work on the Score system metrics is an integral part of the proposal and it will include engineering of the formulas, running the multiple iterations, and the constant evaluation as the data grows.
Please note again the example is given only to help get a better idea of the proposed system.
3.6 UI graphics
Please have in mind below are just early-stage graphics and the final product design may vary significantly in both the design and amount of presented data.
The contribution table
The table view of the projects data
P-Rep unique page infographic example
Simplified CPF graphics (in version 1.0 dashboard will include only the basic graphics)
Alternate design option
Google map data with geographical distribution of the proposals
3.7 The future
We envision a future in which this model of transparent, accountable, and verifiable contribution to the network, in combination with the participation of the voters will make the ICON DPoC system work as intended.
In this proposal we are looking to develop a 1.0 version of the portal that is mainly focused on the unbiased contribution functionality. After the completion of the 1.0 version, we want to add and expand the functionality of the platform by introducing the additional tools like:
- Detailed dashboard with graphs showing the CPF metrics
- Accounts: user, P-Rep…
- Add social media interaction: adding the discussion panels to the proposals
- Support the transparency: add predefined forms that can make it easier for teams to deliver and store transparency reports
- Support the CPF: add predefined forms that fit the CPF proposal criteria that can help teams produce and present the official proposals in the professional form
- Support the pre-proposal stage by helping teams present proposals and connect them to the sponsors through a mutual reputation system
- Implement the ICON services and interact with the blockchain
Our long term vision for the portal is to transform into the UI hub that will allow users to read and interact with the blockchain-based data and the services.
4.Duration
2 or 3 months for completion, depending on the offer accepted.
5. Milestones
The following KPIs are to be met:
- Graphic design of the UI with the focus on data presentation
- Build and test all of the Score functions
- Design and build a DB
- Follow and implement any changes to the CPF proposal
6. Funding amount requested
6.1 Offer 1 - Web development team offer
The team will consist of a Project manager, Backend and Frontend developers, UX designer, DevOps, and Manual Tester. The developers and designers will be outsourced and the work will be performed part-time outside of their normal working hours. The expected duration of the project is 2 months.
The work includes web design, web page frontend production, backend functionality, CRUD, merging the frontend and backend using react,js, QA testing, research and entry of the approved proposals, assigning the metrics to the db, research and testing the score functions.
Outsourced team background:
Full-time employees, active developers, and administrators of https://codeanywhere.com/
Some of the previous work related to the web:
https://codeanywhere.com/
https://money.shiftconf.co/
https://dev.shiftconf.co/
https://remote.shiftconf.co/
https://www.trycatch.tech/
https://marine-eye.com/en/
The total projected cost of the project is 9,825 $.
We will liquidate ICX worth of 2,500 $ to participate in the costs.
edit 05/06/2020 - dt slash in funds from i_rep reduction cant afford anymore to fund proposal. therefore asking for the full funding amount.
The final funding amount needed for the project is 9,825 $.
6.2 Offer 2 - Blockchain R&D Company offer
The contracting team Node Factory is a blockchain R&D company.
The 5 person team has the experience and the products based on Ethereum, Cosmos, Filecoin and Polkadot blockchains as it can be seen in their company portfolio where several blockchain solutions are displayed:
The proposed scope of work exceeds a lot the first offer. The expected duration of the project is 3 months. The proposed solution is a more scalable and robust blockchain service oriented platform as it can be seen in some of the portfolio projects.
The database will support the dynamic data feed from the API and JSON RPC which can be upgraded to support the CPF onchain data. Manual entry of the proposal is supported by the admin panel where the offchain proposal data entry. The dynamic statistical and graphical data will be built upon the different db data ranges and presented over several pages.
The total projected cost of the project is 34,100 $.
We will liquidate ICX worth of 2,500 $ to participate in the costs.
edit 05/06/2020 - dt slash in funds from i_rep reduction cant afford anymore to fund proposal. therefore asking for the full funding amount.
The final funding amount needed for the project is 34,100 $.
While the first look and the discrepancy between the offers may surprise many as it surprised me, when I gave it a second thought, it does seem more reasonable. While the first offer is based on a lot of web made products, the second one is a custom-built one. I believe that in the long term it will be more economically viable as the additional services will be much easier to implement. I see a platform as a landing page where a first impression of the platform is made. A transparent and rich dashboard with all the activities present is something that is aiming to attract the smart investors.
During the last couple of days, I spent a lot of time communicating with the team. One of the first questions I had to answer was “Why ICON”? I think this type of feedback from developers shows a lack of awareness for ICON in the developer community. For the same reason, I believe this project is a unique opportunity to onboard a young and talented blockchain dev team to the ICON.
7. Official team name
iCONsolidation
8. Team contact information
Telegram: https://t.me/iCONsolidation
Telegram group: https://t.me/iCONsolidationChat
Twitter: https://twitter.com/iconsolidation
9. Public address
hx55f2cc3244350085734f4e405f761ecf3d2095b3