The following is an approval process for PKT Network Steward funded projects. Firstly the NS will publish a budget and a deadline for proposals. The deadline will be Step 0 in the following process.
- Step 0
- Deadline for project proposals
- Step 1 (48 hours after step 0 deadline)
- Deadline for anyone who wishes to change their person-month cost, allowing applicants to lower their cost in response to another project.
- Step 2 (When reviewers complete their evaluation)
- Winners are selected and comments are made
Each of the NS team members will score the proposals for each one of the evaluation criteria and then the Reweighted Range Voting algorithm (example counter provided here: rrv_vote.py). This is done by scoring each proposal based on the criteria given below, with a combined score being calculated from.
Until the agreed upon deadline, no NS team member shall converse about their rankings with anyone at all, even other NS team members, unless such statements are made publicly. Thus it is ensured that nobody has insider information about which proposals will be accepted and should be counter-proposed. Furthermore, as the criteria for evaluation are public, those making counter-proposals are able to make their own evaluations and choose which projects they expect to be the winners.
Short term impact constitutes the project's capability to help the achievement of the PKT project's immediate objectives. For example, a project to search for breakthroughs in wireless technology may be well aligned with PKT's objectives in the long term but will not bear fruit for a significant amount of time. Specific questions useful for evaluating short term impact:
- Will this project facilitate the use of PKT for micro-payments ?
- Does this project align with the PKT bandwidth market strategy ?
- Will this project help PKT to distinguish itself from other blockchains ?
- Does this project provide a piece of infrastructure which is considered necessary for any blockchain ?
Long term impact constitutes a project's capability to pay dividends to the PKT ecosystem over the long term. For example, a project such as the block explorer is quite important in the short term because without it, the blockchain would lack an important central piece of infrastructure, however the block explorer is not a key component to the long term strategy of the PKT project. Long term impact is important because it fosters a snowball effect of returns on the investment from the NS. Specific questions useful for evaluating long term impact:
- Will this project help advance the separation of "network administrator" from "infrastructure operator" roles ?
- Will this project provide key infrastructure/institutions necessary to the emergence of a healthy bandwidth market ecosystem ?
- Does this project bypass a tragedy-of-the-commons problem which blocks the natural emergence of a piece of key infrastructure ?
Use of resources is the question of how "expensive" a project is and its ability to fit within the budget. Short and long term impact will be evaluated with attention to the impact/cost ratio. Note that volunteer time/effort spent by the NS team in order to oversee the project will be taken into account, so all other things being equal, a few large projects are preferable to a large number of smaller ones. Some questions which may be useful for evaluating scope and use of resources include:
- Do the metrics for success justify the amount of effort placed on the project ?
- Does the cost for effort seem to be a good deal (attention shall be given to the skill sets of declared participants) ?
- Are there competitive aspects between the project to promote efficient use of resources ?
Risk control is about the question of how likely a project is to fail at delivering the expected result. Projects which are inherently more risky will be evaluated more stringently on their proposed risk control. Specific questions useful to the evaluation of risk control include:
- How evenly is the effort spaced over the milestones of the project ?
- How evenly is the payment spaced over the milestones of the project ?
- How well did the applicant specify success criteria for the project ?
- To what extent are the risks defined and planned for in the project proposal ?
- To what extent are the difficulties and potential blockers moved to the early parts of the project ?
- What evidence is there that the project owner is capable of delivering ?
The objective of the Network Steward is to make funding available for projects which benefit the entire PKT ecosystem equally without unfairly benefitting any one participant over any other. Hazard control is about preventing any incentive or the perception of an incentive which would promote a corruption of the process from its objective. Public perceptions are almost as important as the real thing because the perception of hazard discourages new participants from joining the PKT ecosystem and encourages existing participants to submit projects which are at least as corrupt as they imagine the average project to be. Some questions which may be useful to the evaluation of hazard control include:
- To what extent is the project safe from any real or perceived conflicts of interest with the NS team ?
- To what extent are the results of this project equally advantageous to all participants in the PKT ecosystem ?
- To what extent does the proposal structure the project such that success will be more advantageous to the applicant than failure ?
- The use of milestones, deliverables and evenly spaced payments conditioned on deliveries is encouraged.
- To what extent does the project control the risk of arbitrage profit opportunity for the applicant ?
- An example of arbitrage profit opportunity appears when there is a lack of market agreement on the cost of the deliverables which the project will produce. Logo design is a good example of a deliverable for which there lacks market agreement on the cost. While PepeiCo saw fit to spend one million dollars on their logo, the Nike logo was bought for a mere $35. In the case of such an expenditure, the NS team and overall community are unable to verify whether a project constitutes a million dollars worth of diligent effort or a $35 drawing sold at a markup.
- Did the applicant declare and control for any potential conflicts of interest ?
Some projects may be judged by the Network Steward to be unacceptable under any conditions. An intuitive example would be a proposal to build an assasination market which is blatantly illegal and contrary to the objectives of the project. These judgements will be made by each member of the NS team individually and projects which are not deemed acceptable by at least 3 of the 5 team members will not be funded, even if that means burning coins. Some questions which are useful in the evaluation of acceptability:
- Does the project seem more likely to benefit the PKT ecosystem than to harm it ?
- Does the project seem unlikely to cause significant damage to the perceived legitimacy of the Network Steward ?
- Does the project seem likely to be a better use of resources than burning the coins ? (note that burning coins causes deflation which increases the value of all existing coins)
While it is not in the interest of the Network Steward to rush projects, it is important to guard against the possibility of applicants applying for projects and then not doing the work - planning to abandon the project unless there is a precipitous increase in the price at which they can sell PKT. The Network Steward may, at it's sole discression, stop payment on a project at any time, but the Network Steward must observe ongoing projects and verify that no project is being intentionally delayed.