Hi @lara and ICP community,
My name is Wenzel Bartlett, founder of CodeGov. This is our formal application for the Grants for Voting Neurons program offered by DFINITY.
TL;DR
We have decided to apply for all four team grant opportunities, which includes IC-OS Version Election, Protocol Canister Management, Subnet Management, and Participant Management & Node Admin. The CodeGov team has been reviewing and voting independently on technical NNS proposals for over a year. We hope to continue making an impact on the decentralization of NNS governance through funding from this program. We are a larger team of developers from the ICP community who have the skills to provide an educated evaluation of proposal details, document their findings, and a willingness to vote reliably on every proposal. There are 8 reviewers on our team along with a marketing manager and a project manager.
CodeGov
Details about the CodeGov organization including our manifesto, team members, and known neuron configuration can always be found on our website at codegov.org. The configuration of the CodeGov known neuron is actively managed to ensure that Followees for each proposal topic are selected who are fully committed and available to perform detailed reviews within 48 hours proposal creation. The CodeGov known neuron vote is cast automatically by consensus of our reviewers who are configured as Followees for the topics in which we specialize. In the rare event that we cannot reach consensus automatically due to unforeseen circumstances, then vote for the CodeGov neuron is cast manually based on feedback from the reviewers who have been able to complete their review the proposal within this timeframe. Hence, we always strive to complete our reviews as soon as possible and well before DFINITY votes.
The CodeGov neuron owns the minimal amount of voting power required to participate in NNS governance, but we trigger 5-6% total voting power in the NNS for the topics that we cover. Hence, the voting power that we trigger is 100% provided by other neurons who have chosen to follow us on these topics. This is a great honor and a heavy responsibility that we take very seriously. It inspires us to perform our due diligence on every proposal and reminds us that our work has been making a difference to the NNS governance community.
In addition to participation in NNS voting, we also have a CodeGov WTN neuron that votes on WaterNeuron proposals. WaterNeuron is a liquid staking protocol built on ICP that owns very large 6 month and 8 year neurons and enables WTN token owners to cast the votes for these large NNS neurons. CodeGov participates in the WTN governance process because it is open to the community and has a growing influence on NNS governance. We have built a vote relay canister that automatically casts the same vote on WTN NNS proposals that CodeGov already casts on NNS proposals. The WaterNeuron team recently announced that it is following the CodeGov WTN neuron on the WTN proposal topic called “Vote on NNS Proposals”. This is another honor, privilege, and responsibility that demonstrates the positive impact that CodeGov has been making on the ICP community.
IC-OS Version Election
CodeGov reviewers have over a year of experience reviewing IC-OS Version Election proposals and we have 6 reviewers who are dedicated to continuing that effort if we are awarded the grant for this topic. These reviewers include @Lorimer @ZackDS @Zane @cyberowl @hpeebles @ilbert. There are many examples of prior reports that our reviewers have posted that can be found in our IC-OS Version Election channel in our CodeGov community on OpenChat, which is a strong demonstration of our qualifications on this topic.
Protocol Canister Management
We have 2 months of experience reviewing System Canister Management proposals, which includes all canisters that are included in the new topic titled Protocol Canister Management. We have 5 reviewers who are dedicated to continuing that effort if we are awarded the grant for this topic. These reviewers include @ZackDS @Zane @cyberowl @LaCosta @timk11. There are many examples of prior reports that our reviewers have posted that can be found in our System Canister Management channel in our CodeGov community on OpenChat, which is a strong demonstration of our qualifications on this topic.
Participant Management & Node Admin
We have decided to apply for the Participant Management & Node Admin grant because we have 4 reviewers who are willing to review these topics if we are awarded the grant. They are already gaining experience on these proposal topics by performing reviews on a few past proposals and all current proposals. Based on this experience and our evaluation of the difficulty / effort required to perform these reviews, we believe we have the skill and capacity required. Our reviewers will include @ZackDS @LaCosta @timk11 @Cris.MntYetti. You can see the reports of our reviewers in our Participant Management channel and our Node Admin channel in our CodeGov community on OpenChat, which we offer as evidence of our qualifications on this topic.
Subnet Management
We have decided to apply for the Subnet Management grant because we have 3 reviewers who are willing to review this topic if we are awarded the grant. They are already gaining experience on this proposal topic by performing reviews on a few past proposals and all current proposals. Based on this experience and our evaluation of the difficulty / effort required to perform these reviews, we believe we have the skill and capacity required. Our reviewers will include @ZackDS @LaCosta @timk11. You can see the reports of our reviewers in our Subnet Management channel in our CodeGov community on OpenChat, which we offer as evidence of our qualifications on this topic.
One of our team members and regular IC-OS Version Election reviewers, @Lorimer, is keen to maximize the funded time that he can allocate to Subnet Management proposals. Therefore, he is planning to submit a separate application for this topic as an individual reviewer. He will provide more context in his application, but please note that he has the full support of the CodeGov project to pursue the grant for this topic on his own. He is a very strong candidate for this grant.
Voting Principles
While the teams listed above is our current plan to staff these reviews for any proposal topic where we are awarded a grant, we reserve the right to change these teams and our known neuron Followee configuration as needed. We will actively manage our team membership in a way that ensures we have skilled reviewers dedicated to each topic who can make the time and resource commitment to these reviews for the duration of the grant program. Hence, if anyone needs to drop out for personal reasons or because they are not in compliance with the grant requirements or our CodeGov team standards, then we will recruit and train others to fill their spots. We also may add additional team members as needed to ensure that we are able to fulfill our commitment to these proposal topics in the most reliable way possible. Performing technical reviews of NNS proposals is real work that requires skilled developers who are dedicated to the task every week. It can only be accomplished reliably with adequate funding that developers are willing to accept. Our reviewers are asked to review each proposal for technical correctness and compliance with established work processes defined by the NNS community and/or DFINITY and to vote on each proposal with their own convictions. They are expected to explain and defend their vote, but to always remain diplomatic and civilized in how they make their case. The fact that we have a larger team provides a safety in numbers where individual reviewers can have an opinion that differs from the rest of the reviewers, which provides an opportunity to raise awareness of differing opinions. Having a larger team enables us to be flexible in our organizational structure and work processes to ensure we are a reliable known neuron to follow on any proposal topic. We have spent a lot of time trying to gain experience and credibility as reviewers of technical NNS proposals and one of our goals is continuous improvement.
Final Remarks
Thank you for the opportunity to apply for these grants. Whether or not we get some or all the grants, CodeGov will remain committed to supporting decentralization of the NNS through active participation in governance. Our neuron will always be configured to follow people and organizations in the ICP community who have publicly announced that they are committed to being reliable and educated Followees on any proposal topic. We will not follow anyone who pencil whips their vote or casts automatic yes or no votes without first making a concerted effort to review technical details and vote with an educated opinion. If we cannot find suitable Followees for a specific topic, then of course we will follow DFINITY on that topic. DFINITY is an appropriate Followee for any topic because they offer an educated and active voice on all NNS changes. However, if decentralization is our goal, then CodeGov is here as an option to help enable the ICP community to move in that direction.