Foundation Mission Request: Evaluating Voting Design Tradeoffs for Retro Funding

[opjulian]

Foundation Mission Request - Evaluating Voting Design Tradeoffs for Retro Funding

To take on this project, submit a proposal to this thread by June 7th. Read more about Missions here.

• Foundation Mission Request Summary: Evaluate tradeoffs of different voting designs for Retroactive Public Goods Funding ("Retro Funding") based on simulations and present conclusions in a table.
• S5 Intent: Intent 4: Improve governance accessibility
• Proposal Tier: Ember
• Baseline grant amount: 9,000 OP
• Should this Foundation Mission Request be fulfilled by one or multiple Alliances: Multiple
• Optimism Foundation point-of-contact: @elizarileyoak until Jun 10, @JSeiferth after Jun 10
• Submit by: June 7
• Selection by: June 14

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How will this Foundation Mission Request help accomplish the above Intent?:

In order to reach our goal of improving governance accessibility, we need to understand the optimal voting design to encourage diverse, informed, and values-aligned voting behavior.

To recap, we refer to governance accessibility as follows:

“Accessibility” includes enabling a diversity of perspectives to participate in governance, facilitating better knowledge sharing to develop more informed voters, and lowering barriers to participation for more culturally diverse involvement in the governance process. Increasing the votable supply and reducing the concentration of voting power are important byproducts of improved accessibility.”

What is required to execute this Foundation Mission Request?

This Foundation Mission aims to measure how different Retro Funding voting designs perform against a number of requirements aimed at optimizing different objectives. We hope to identify a voting design which minimizes the impact of "malicious badgeholders" on voting outcomes, while also achieving our other requirements (e.g. incentive compatibility, easy to understand for voters, etc.). The performance of different voting designs against requirements should be achieved by simulating different types of voter behavior and applying formal reasoning.

Requirements to test voting designs against

For each of the below requirements you should apply a standardized way of measurement across voting designs

1. Resistance to malicious behavior: Measure how a malicious voter can impact voting outcomes
2. Resistance to collusion: Measure how a group of coordinated malicious voters can impact voting outcomes
3. Incentive compatibility: Prove or disprove that the voting design is incentive compatible (”every participant can achieve their own best outcome by acting according to their true preferences”)
4. Simplicity for voters: Voters can easily understand how the voting design works and how to best behave to achieve their goals
5. [Your input here! We’d love to hear from you about requirements we should optimize for]

Voting designs to test

In Retroactive Public Goods Funding, voters are asked to express how much OP a project should receive based on the impact they delivered to the Collective.

1. Quadratic Voting: Retro round 1 leveraged quadratic voting
2. Mean: Retro round 2 applied the mean to calculate results
3. Median: Retro round 3 applied the median to minimize the impact of outliers
4. [Your input here! We’d love to hear from you what voting designs should be tested]

Resources:

• Voting simulation of Retro Funding 3
• Voting mechanism implementation Retro Funding 3
• Governance forum discussion on voting mechanisms

The desired outcome of this mission is:

A memo making a recommendation based on both qualitative and quantitative research:

• The primary output should be a table comparing different voting designs (e.g., quadratic voting, median voting) against several high-priority requirements that align with Collective goals (e.g., COI-resistance, incentive compatibility, ease of voting process)
• The table contents should be based on data simulations of voter behavior to gain insights on how different voting designs perform. This analysis should be shared in an appendix or in a separately linked repo, and underlying assumptions in each model should be stated explicitly
• There should also be a written section summarizing the table, noting the tradeoffs between different voting designs with respect to each requirement

What milestones will help the Collective track progress towards completion of this Foundation Mission Request?

1. Identify list of requirements and voting designs to evaluate

• Before proceeding to the analysis, the Foundation and the grantee have agreed on the final requirements that will be optimized for and the voting designs that will be tested based on a proposal by the grantee
• This should include a brief summary of each requirement and voting design to justify its importance, juxtapose tradeoffs, and list assumptions

2. Quantitatively test voting designs via data simulations

• Grantee has developed a simulation framework to test different voting designs
• In the analysis, it is most helpful to assume the base case of voting for a Retro Funding project where a voter has a set amount of OP tokens to allocate across a given number of projects
  • The model likely includes design parameters such as number of votes, minimum allocation, and quorum requirements

3. Compile findings and recommendations via written memo

• The grantee has delivered a memo which includes a table outlining tradeoffs across these dimensions and a written portion evaluating tradeoffs, as described above

How should badgeholders measure impact upon completion of this Foundation Mission Request?

• The summary of tradeoffs between these voting designs with respect to the different requirement should be clear, both quantitatively in the table and qualitatively in the written portion.
• If this Mission Request is successful, Collective stakeholders will be able to evaluate different voting designs through the lens of a few prioritized requirements.
• Ideally, the mission directly informs the voting design for upcoming retro funding rounds. In this case, grantees are encouraged to apply for an additional allocation of tokens in the August 2024 governance-themed Retro Funding Round 6.

Application instructions

To apply for this RFP, please complete the form in the expandable section below and leave your response as a comment on this issue thread. Submissions will be open until June 7, at which time the Foundation will review all submissions and select one or two individuals/teams to complete the work defined here.

Submission form

Copy the entire application below and leave a comment on this issue with your answers completed. A representative from the Optimism Foundation may reach out using the contact info provided to request more information as necessary.

Foundation Mission (RFP) Application

Please verify that you meet the qualifications for submitting at the above Tier

• Alliance Lead: Please specify the best point of contact for your team
• Contact info:
• L2 recipient address:
• Please list the members of your Alliance and link to any previous work:

Read more about Alliances here

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What makes your Alliance best-suited to execute this Mission?

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Please describe your proposed solution based on the above Solution Criteria (if applicable):

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Please outline your step-by-step plan to execute this Mission, including expected deadlines to complete each peice of work:

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Please define the critical milestone(s) that should be used to determine whether you’ve executed on this proposal:

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Please list any additional support your team would require to execute this mission (financial, technical, etc.):

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Grants are awarded in OP, locked for one year. Please let us know if access to upfront capital is a barrier to completing your Mission and you would like to be considered for a small upfront cash grant: (Note: there is no guarantee that approved Missions will receive up-front cash grants.)

• [...]

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Please check the following to make sure you understand the terms of the Optimism Foundation RFP program:

• I understand my grant for completing this RFP will be locked for one year from the date of proposal acceptance.
• I understand that I will be required to provide additional KYC information to the Optimism Foundation to receive this grant
• I understand my locked grant may be clawed back for failure to execute on critical milestones, as outlined in the Operating Manual
• I confirm that I have read and understand the grant policies
• I understand that I will be expected to following the public grant reporting requirements outlined here

-- end of application --

[simers228]

Alliance Lead

Simer Singh

Contact info

• Email: simers228@gmail.com
• Username: @simer_14

L2 recipient address

0xE61b17c7601E1FC839bD59c6313e7f92A4926eBB

Alliance members and previous work

• GitHub
• Most recent project: A visualization presenting a side-by-side comparison of a standard Ethereum transaction and a transaction that leverages Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs)

What makes your Alliance best-suited to execute this Mission?

With a strong foundation in Quantitative Economics and extensive hands-on experience in data engineering and analytics, I am well-equipped to tackle this mission. My background in developing AI-driven tools and my contributions to the Ethereum Foundation have provided me with the necessary skills to create robust, scalable data systems and run complex simulations. This project perfectly aligns with my technical expertise in Python and deep interest in the field of blockchain governance.

Proposed solution

My proposal involves developing a Python-based simulation framework to evaluate the performance of existing voting mechanisms (Quadratic, Mean, and Median Voting) and introduce an AI-enhanced double-blind voting system. This approach randomizes project assignments to voters and initially masks project details using AI-generated descriptions, reducing bias and voter fatigue. By focusing on core aspects and withholding identifying details, the system encourages merit-based assessments and minimizes collusion. Once voters approve their assigned projects, they can allocate their OP and access more detailed information. This solution addresses key requirements, including minimizing collusion, aligning incentives, increasing informed voting, and reducing voter fatigue. Crucially, this approach tackles the subjectivity of equating impact to profit by assigning projects to voters based on their expertise and interest, ensuring a more accurate and context-aware assessment of each project's value. The simulation framework will provide insights into the performance of various voting mechanisms, informing future retro funding round designs.

Step-by-step plan and deadlines

1. June 2024: Develop a Python-based simulation framework to evaluate Quadratic, Mean, and Median Voting mechanisms. This step lays the groundwork for more complex simulations.
2. July 2024: Integrate an AI-enhanced double-blind voting system into the framework. This includes both the randomization of project assignments and generating AI-created project descriptions to ensure unbiased evaluations.
3. August 2024: Run a series of comprehensive simulations to compare the performance of all voting mechanisms. The analysis will focus on meeting the specified requirements, followed by compiling the findings into a detailed report.

Critical milestones

1. Completion of the Python-based simulation framework that supports evaluating different voting mechanisms.
2. Fully operational AI-enhanced double-blind voting system within the framework, proving the system's capability to manage randomized assignments and generate project descriptions.
3. Successful execution of detailed simulations and the subsequent creation of a memo that compiles the results along with clear recommendations based on the analysis.

Additional support required

Collaboration with the Optimism Governance team for insights and feedback throughout the project.

Terms of the Optimism Foundation RFP program

• I understand my grant for completing this RFP will be locked for one year from the date of proposal acceptance.
• I understand that I will be required to provide additional KYC information to the Optimism Foundation to receive this grant.
• I understand my locked grant may be clawed back for failure to execute on critical milestones, as outlined in the Operating Manual.
• I confirm that I have read and understand the grant policies.
• I understand that I will be expected to follow the public grant reporting requirements outlined here.