Decision factors for consideration

Listing the different decision factors that will be considered for each funding decision approach

The methodology used for this approach comparison is documented separately.

Voter participation time required

• Description - Voter participation time required concerns how much time the voter must spend to participate in the voting process.

• Maximum score - 5, Very important. It will be vital for funding processes to minimise the required time it takes for voters to participate so that the maximum number of voters can feasibly participate that are willing and capable of doing so. The higher the amount of time that is required to participate in voting the higher the likelihood of increasing voter apathy and disengagement.

• Scoring questions - How much context and information is required for someone to be well informed in the process? How much time would need to be committed to participate? How long might it take to make a decision? Can the voter participate in only the decisions they’re interested in or capable of helping with or must they be involved in every part of the process covering priorities, ideas and contributors?

• Scoring - Lower required time is good (Score - 5). Higher required time is bad (Score - 1).

Voter decision complexity

• Description - Determining how complex it is for a voter to make decisions when selecting their preferred priorities, ideas and contributors.

• Maximum score - 5, Very important. The more complex the decision process is the easier it becomes for voters to make suboptimal decisions. It also becomes more likely that voters disengage with the process or simply delegate the decision to someone else.

• Scoring questions - How complex is it for a voter to make an informed decision when they want to properly participate in one of the funding process votes? How fast can voters make an informed decision?

• Scoring - Lower complexity is good (Score - 5). Higher complexity is bad (Score - 1).

Voter expressiveness

• Description - An expressive voting system means that voters are able to express their opinions and preferences through their voting decisions.

• Importance score - 5, Very important. To properly understand what the current sentiment and preferences are of a community it is important that voters are able to express what their exact preferences are when voting and sharing their opinions.

• Scoring questions - Can a voter specify exactly what their preferences are given a set of different decisions or are they limited in only being able to respond to what has been presented to them instead of their actual preferences? How much potential information is lost with the approach being taken?

• Scoring - Higher expressiveness is good (Score - 5). Lower expressiveness is bad (Score - 1).

Funding outcome influence

• Description - Decisions made by voters are at their highest influence when it creates a fixed and exact outcome, one example could be a system parameter change. Alternatively voting outcomes might not produce fixed and exact outcomes and instead create influenced outcomes. For instance voters could prefer and vote on a high level idea but not have influence on how that idea is exactly executed and what is involved during execution.

• Maximum score - 4, Fairly important. In many cases such as where the majority of incentives get allocated the voters will want to have a higher and more exact influence on where assets are disbursed. In other situations such as exactly what idea gets executed or how an idea is approached the importance of that influence might not be as important if there are more effective, scalable and efficient ways to handle those outcomes to generate the right outcomes.

• Scoring questions - What influence does the voter have for each of the decisions in the suggested funding approach? Is any reduction in voter influence justified due to a potential approach?

• Scoring - Higher influence is good (Score - 5). Lower influence is bad (Score - 1).

Voter decision change complexity

• Description - Voters sometimes change their mind on what is most important or promising based on new information or a changing environment. What complexities might emerge for an ecosystem that wants to change the priorities, ideas and contributors involved in the future due to the decision approach being taken?

• Maximum score - 5, Very important. The more complex it is for an ecosystem to make changes to the existing priorities, ideas and contributors involved the slower that the funding process can become in adapting to important changes in its environment. This slower ability to manoeuvre and change can then lead to stagnation and slower adaptability.

• Scoring questions - How easily can an ecosystem change their decisions in the future as new knowledge emerges which can influence which priorities, ideas and contributors are the most promising and suitable at that moment in time? How easily can contributors change their execution approach to react to a fast changing environment?

• Scoring - Lower complexity is good (Score - 5). Higher complexity is bad (Score - 1).