How can I be a self-sovereign contributor?

See you at MetaFest to explore this and many other puzzling questions in web3

As hinted at in a previous article, there’s only one authentic source to answer that question:

However, the environment design, your collaborators, contributors before and alongside you, and - carefully - even the token mechanics can help you become the best version of yourself in the context of co-creating value. This is the current hypothesis.

And on MetaFest’s Unconference Day, 18 June 2023, I unplan to be around sharing more about the Token Economy of A Hitchhiker's Guide to TE, Peer Production License for Open Source Contributions, all the things we’re lacking for true Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, and discuss an outline of Chapter 5: Decentralizing Organizations, after we have explored the way of DAO on June 17.

It’s all about coordination & communication - and that is pretty much centralized, even in open source projects, someone - very often the initiator - becomes the BDFL.

I love that this is the first issue on the book’s GitHub! And I’d like to challenge if the token model can substitute for the BDFL/CEO/coordinator over time 🤞 at least in this tried and tested business of book publishing with a repeatable scalable business model.

How will we wean off ourselves from BDFLs and CEOs?

Or can we ever wean off from Benevolent Dictators and Visionary CEOs? First off, why do we believe this is necessary in the DAO space?

“Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely” - old wisdom

OK, but why do we have this “leadership phenomenon” even in open source projects? And what is the difference?

“Benevolent,” because else an open source project can easily be forked, if the “dictator” was malevolent. And dictator …well, because we have yet to develop the skill to coordinate like a flock of birds or synchronize our communication like fireflies, using “technology” that needs to be 10x (nah 1000x) of what we have in our current toolbox of DAO tooling: Github, Discourse, Snapshot… and Self-awareness:

• why do I want to participate in this project?

• what can I contribute that is of value to this project now or in future?

• …and what skills do I need to develop?

• who am I in-sync with as collaborator(s)?

• …does my contribution jibe with theirs?

• …does it complement?

• …or can I be an individual contributor?

This is different than (sorry for the stylistic stereotyping)

“hey boss, am I doing this right?… talk to me… hello?!” - the employee

or

“here I am, this is my skill, and that’s what I charge per hour. Tell me what you need?” - the freelancer

or

“amazing project, instructions please” - the open source contributor or freelancer in web3 looking for the next gig or the seed of self-organization… we just don’t know yet.

Let’s not call it governance - “Lovernance”

Most of my rationale behind hitchhiking token projects was looking for the lore of Organization in a Decentralized Autonomous fashion, true self-organization.

It doesn’t exist. Yet?

No one calls it management, but governance is about how we manage decision making. The most inspiring description in web3 I had found very early on in Kernel: “Self-sovereign individuals govern well together”, and the most fun just recently in DADA: “Lovernance” - unfortunately, both descriptions are elusive and both communities require strong relationships and have an according environment design, we can certainly learn a lot from.

They made me wonder, if the ideal of “Governance Minimization” is formed in minds that are reluctant to relate - or if on the contrary, governance minimization would leave us with more quality time to play, instead of relating over the rules of the game.

Always look for such opposites! Then you know where to focus, because the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

In the book’s Token Model Generation Chapter, in the “Got Game?” subsection, we’re exploring: Players’ motivations, their playing pieces and what the players can create meaningfully together with their pooled resources on the game field. So, first each player needs to answer the above questions. I believe this step is a concrete one to self-sovereignty, knowing your self, why you want to play and what are the playing pieces you can put on the table.

Then we must understand it’s a game of which we are co-creating the rules together as we play - that is the meta game! Are we creating a game that we love to play together? Is it fun and fulfilling? Now that doesn’t sound too elusive anymore, does it? (Actually it does, when I consider my real world asset related ventures. So, I decided to stop worrying and start loving the web2.5 - as a side note).

I imagined we could at least try it out in parallel with a book that is called “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Token Engineering”. The initial conditions (very important in complex systems) are simple:

1. You hitchhike with token projects,

2. You systematize your learning in the token engineering community and

3. You share it in written form & present to be considered as a chapter lead

The above rule set would substitute the “Acquisition” step in the publishing process. I also imagined anyone who would want to contribute to this amazing project would accustom themselves with the publishing process so they can include the coordination task into their contributions - and get rid of the coordination overhead.

Then I learnt, what we all learnt in the DAO space - yet another duh! epiphany 🥁 : 90% of contributors need instructions, 9% need motivational hacks, 1% or fewer are self starters.

If we want to change the power law, we need to change this distribution - “we,” the 99%

The Acquisition step worked out somewhat well: we have chapter leads or at least OGs who have committed to provide their know-how in one form or another over the years. However, the editing step requires - just like delivering a new product -

Vision

If we want this book to read coherently as a book, and not like an accumulation of essays written by different authors (could also work, but didn’t motivate us), we need developmental editing, which is the first step of the editing process:

1. developmental editing: who is this book for? the structure, the tone, “its effectiveness as a narrative” etc.

2. copy editing: focus on syntax, grammar, punctuation - and also technical editing in case of deeper dives into the token engineering rabbit hole tunnel systems.

3. proof reading: spelling, punctuation - overall careful examination to make sure the book is ready for public.

As you can imagine, 1.) the developmental editing requires vision, or co-visioning together with the author (sometimes after editing process authors do not recognize their own work, but agree that it is better) and even with the reader. Having a vision and rallying others behind that vision is much faster (hence the BDFL fallback for the OG Edition) than co-visioning. The latter takes a lot of time and communicating and has no guarantees to result in a coherent vision.

Having tried many paths for over three years, I would also argue that we as a 21st century society lack the tools and culture for co-visioning (or forgot them). At the end of the day, one way or the other, any collective effort needs a

shared vision.

The editing step 2.) requires a good grasp of the language. When we’re publishing live models as part of the chapter examples, then fluency in Python will also be needed. In general, having (aspiring) token engineers from the community contribute to the technical edit will make perfect sense. Finally step 3.) could be done by any hardcore fan of this book - followed by a myriad other instructible tasks in publishing and PR’ing a book.

But someone’s gotta specify those instructions in context. In the case of this book’s execution even down to the smart contract code level. (Leaving conversational programming 🎰 experiments to the AI Edition).

I needed to hitchhike that many projects to see and accept that contributors aren’t equal: in Token Engineering Commons we started with radical inclusion, to the detriment of all included, we fell back to coordinators and token votes (with whales and conviction voting); in DADA Invisible Economy, we fell back to the BDFL and coordinators. And most “successfully” operating projects in this space do so through a traditional organization - a Foundation or an LLC - that produces the open source code and “later” includes participation by token mechanics, whereas looking at those projects: most tokens are held by original founders and their pre-sale investors.

Needless to say, after six years in total in token space, I am totally underwhelmed by the state of the art - but hopeful optimist that we’re currently figuring out self-organization and developing socio-/psycho-technologies that we need to reach the goal of self-organization no matter how long it takes. We know where to start at least: enable those 99% to become more and more self starters through environment design, tech, and collaborative culture.

The Players’ Motivations

This is the main latent variable. Token design, as in incentive mechanism design, only can affect extrinsic motivations: token balance, voting power, poap status, … You can reward/slash with tokens. As such, by the book of Drive, tokens can be seen as “Motivation 2.0.” You don’t need them to survive - which would be “Motivation 1.0”.

or check this visual summary of the book on motivations “Drive” by Dank Pink

Creating something from scratch requires 100% intrinsic motivation: no guarantees anyone will want to read/use what you create, no guarantees that you will achieve what you set out for, no pay etc. And there could be no amount of pay that could ever motivate you - on the contrary:

There’s one scientifically proven rule of thumb. If the task is creative, do not put an extrinsic reward on it, else you will destroy the intrinsic motivation of the player. If, on the other hand, the task is standardized, token rewards can get the job done faster than waiting on intrinsically motivated players to get their act together.

Intrinsic Motivation - Priceless.

There’s a small group of core contributors in any project. And those are always or mainly intrinsically motivated.

In this book’s case, these are authors and editors, who are active in token projects, and must find the time to make sense of their experience and systematize their learning. There’s a huge amount of creativity involved - and token engineering is an emerging field: so whether whatever the core contributors come up with is good, great, or genius depends entirely on their insights and expression of that insight.

Hence, core contributions - the first chapter drafts - are entirely driven by intrinsic motivations:

• Autonomy: you can provide the draft of chapter contents anyway you want: articles here, presentations anywhere, and/or directly as the draft manuscript on GitHub.

• Mastery: it’s you who wanted to figure the chapter topic out and has done so through rubber hitting the road, bruises and bloody noses and road kill, and what you contribute as chapter content is worth it: insights that will make it safer for others.

• Purpose: you want to contribute an insightful chapter to a useful book on applied token engineering, a chapter - that people can’t wait to read.

All core contributors have committed since the earliest days of token engineering, in fact we all have created and participated in the very first courses of Token Engineering Academy, and some kept contributing continuously in the Token Engineering community ever since alongside their token projects (kudos!). We also have a high bar as to what can be written as chapter content: not something that can be imagined and then theorized about, but actually the ways we have experienced on the road — “whilst we were building the roads, the cars, figuring out how to drive and handing out driver’s licenses”.

“When the solutions are not obvious and they require a certain effort and mental work from our part: the higher the reward, the worse the performance.”

Some chapter leads even rejected that we could just hire a random professional editor: from experience with copywriters through various token projects we know that it is not easy to produce a readable text on token economy and engineering that isn’t too reductionist or simplifies in all the wrong places as to become flat out wrong.

So I will do my best to also contribute the developmental edits of the “OG Edition”. Our assumption is that based on the OG Edition and its success we will draw talent that is better at editing this stuff than the core contributors. And if those editors weren’t intrinsically motivated, that we will at least generate revenues from the OG Edition to commission for professional editing of further Editions that pass the high bar of the core contributors.

Extrinsic Motivations - that’s what tokens in all shapes are there for

In any project, there are still gazillion small enough, or clear enough tasks anyone with interest or proven track record could take on.

In a book project, those are: translating, copy editing, proof reading, marketing, PR, e.g. hosting/organizing events etc. Even the graphics and design of a landing page for the book or the web reader, or the token smart contracts development for the book’s distribution and token model will follow a standard process: each step of that way is known.

 “Rewards only work when you know in advance what to do and when the goal is clear. In other words, when they have given us the solution.” Understanding Motivation 3.0

There’s one issue with motivating core contributors. Since the high bar requests that they are actively involved in token projects, they have virtually no time to write or edit. Here, actually is where a token,

TWL - the most massively useful token an interstellar TE hitchhiker can have,

can play the role of Motivation 2.0 “reward/punishment”:

Remember though, we must be very cautious as not to diminish their intrinsic motivation - Motivation 3.0 - by aimlessly throwing tokens at them. One aspect we can play with is

• staking: learners/readers are buying TWL and staking it on chapters that they want to read “yesterday!”. Based on their stakes they also get a share of future revenues - when the book sells. For the author, editor or other contributor of that chapter this “vote of confidence” is a great motivator: You know people are keen to read it, so start - and finish writing it. After all that’s Your Purpose as an author:

Write something that people can’t wait to read and bet it’ll be of value.

Authors contribute value first, and that opens the door to the GitHub and Multisig of the “OG Edition”.

The OG Edition

The OG Edition has contributing authors who have either pioneered the Token Engineering Academy or Token Engineering Commons (or both) as providers of know-how and as learners.

The OG Edition’s tone will be that of a Hitchhiker’s Guide (well that’s been my intrinsic motivation to commit as an editor that other core contributors would consent with). Each chapter is a mini-book with subsections with a certain structure, and our editing game is to bump up the insights-per-page. With maybe the unattainable ideal of 1 evergreen insight per 1 paragraph (my vision of the one-one rule for this book on applied token engineering :)

Now what we use rewards for immediately is:

• The OG Edition’s landing page (WIP) via Magic Max

• Marketing and PR via MetaGame starting with the 1st IRL MetaFest

The next fundraise, which you can contribute to via this wallet on Ethereum

0x9678D41B9D8FE4C3288De358f1eB179A38D09C33

will provide for the:

• TWL smart contracts development, deployment and maintenance: for a simple ERC20 named TWL, a staking contract that can be configured per chapter in V1.

For publishing and distribution of the OG Edition we want to test out a “copymiddle” (inspired by where the truth often lies) version of the copyfarleft Peer Production License for the community sourced IP and a tokenized reward system for contributions in:

• capital

• code

• comms

and keep improving for any follow-on editions, which always constitute the same known steps:

• text: translations and copy/proof reads

• design: cover and page design, illustrations

• distribution: galley proofs (printing industry is _old_), eBooks, NFTs

• marketing: PR events, podcasts, workshops, courses

The acquisition and developmental edits will always require a co-visioning and an agreement/consent for each edition, taking financial and reputational risk that the edition may flop, or skyrocket, or never finish, or be demolished by an interstellar highway. Maybe we do find a scalable, repeatable model; maybe it’ll be renegotiation each time or kindling of intrinsic motivations as it was with the OG Edition.

It’s also not to say that design, distribution, and marketing could not be highly creative, intrinsically motivated, endeavors in themselves. You’re most welcome to contribute a piece that you created just because you wanted to - as said there’s no guarantee of pay like when it’s being commissioned. Each contribution that is in an Edition Release however does get TWL minted. Almost 0 TWL if you already got paid (i.e. commissioned) in other tokens though.

So, how do I contribute to this amazing project?!

At the moment all you can contribute is support, and signaling to the core contributors in the inner circle, e.g. by subscribing here

or by contributing one form of capital (i.e. liquid tokens like ETH, DAI, …) in the wallet of the OG Edition on Ethereum

0x9678D41B9D8FE4C3288De358f1eB179A38D09C33

Once we have TWL contracts deployed and staking ready, you can contribute signals by holding TWL and staking TWL on the chapters that we should focus on or staking on new chapter proposals, or on topics that should be included in a chapter etc. You’ll be able to direct attention of the editing process, and motivate chapter leads to deliver, and become a patron reader with skin in the game.

Inner Circle

Remember though nothing beats intrinsic motivation if we aim for genius. You can use your TWL power for commissioning chapters. However, chances are a strike of genius will result in superior content - or even if you put all your TWL power behind a topic to be included or a new chapter, if the inner circle of core contributors doesn’t take it up, it won’t get written or edited into the “OG Edition.”

You can at any time fork the open source repository - just make sure you own TWL if you want to commercialize (read on). Or rally with other TWL holders for another Edition.

There’s no guarantee ever if any Edition will get published through the contributions of the many nor that it will be bought and read in the various distribution formats. Ultimately, it is the paying raving readers - 100% intrinsically motivated - who make or break the books “success”:

“100 000… copies/NFTs sold” is the metric that will drive TVL in TWL.

The buying and selling activity of TWL to exchange it for other tokens or other tokens for it to be able to stake TWL or to have a stake in the TVL of TWL will determine the price of TWL on decentralized exchanges. However, what it means to hold the first ever minted TWL through content and other contributions, only those TWL holders, the early contributors, will know and appreciate.

First Circle

Once the chapter drafts are ready, you can contribute in the first circle by making suggestions, i.e. actually creating/raising issues, resolving those issues or actively improving via pull requests. The aim of the first circle is to get to a version that is ready for the publication in one or many languages. For every merged pull request, you’ll get TWL minted to your account.

Every action mints equal amount of TWL to authors and editors that review and merge the pull requests.

Here, our only mechanism that prevents a junk machine whose purpose would become to mint TWL by maximizing number of pull requests and merges - is the intrinsic motivation and the high stakes that chapter leads already invested in the inner circle. They are motivated to get to a publication ready version. However, dilluting the TWL and the IP they hold so dearly would only make sense if the merge would result in value-add. They are also motivated to co-sign an addition only if it is a great or genius one, once they delivered a good enough draft.

But would you “just add your genius” for a few TWL? And what if the author’s ego gets in the way of those genius additions? Here the editors and TWL stakers add a balanced view, and amplify recognition of genius for the OG and next Editions.

Outer Circle

During this whole time you can be active in the outer circle of permissionless participation: Support what you find amazing by all means available to you at any time, including staking - once the TWL contracts are deployed - and promote by all means available to you what you find amazing about this project and the OG Edition.

This is how you belong and co-own: in the concentric circles of contribution.

I’ll take ryuu000’s first issue up as a motivator to finish the subsection “Got Game?”

I’ve put some effort into re-simplifying the templates from the TMG1 course - without truncating…

and edit the contributing.md, update the license - but not before I get a chance to submerge in MetaFest’s Coordination/Meta Day, exchange experience, and get some more feedback on the following:

Self-organizations starts with self inquiry.

Hey! Since you made it till here, you are at the very least qualifying as hard core fan :) if not a core contributor already. Thank you!

If you haven’t already, make sure to put your email up in subscriptions and/or wallet by transferring some tokens to the OG Edition wallet, or expressing what your amazement or potential contribution could be about on GitHub.