200 PTS - Bounty Rules and Procedures Document [Closed]

[barwizi]

lets wrap things up.

Stan has reviewed your document and is preparing a response.  I think it is just about done.

I just had a horrible thought.  What if the document I've been reviewing is not the latest one?   
Would you re-post a link to the official latest document(s) I need to look at, just to be sure?

Thanks

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxCtiOzdwvPyMFVXT0pEMjloeEk/edit?usp=sharing

[Stan]

The document I have been reviewing seems like a good start on a spec for what we were hoping for.

The rules are there but they don't seem to be self-enforcing.

The art of game theory is to engineer the right outcome by constructing the incentives in such a way that people do the right thing naturally in their own self interest without requiring an outside party to have to enforce the rules.  Enforcement by an outside force always leads to conflict and hard feelings - what we are hoping to avoid.

A simple example:  The Quality Assurance function (missing from the current process) might be set up such that the QA person gets a share of the developer's share proportional to the number of bugs found.  This incentivizes the developer not to have bugs when the product is submitted to QA.  And the buyer knows that the product is probably bug free if a properly incentivized QA person couldn't collect a big payout.  But the process still has to reward the QA person for trying, lest they be discouraged by receiving perfect code too often.  The best QA person might be a competitor who has plenty of motivation for finding fault.  If your competitor can't find a fault, you've got a really great product.

Game theory logic like this is largely missing from the product so far.  I like the fact that the document hasn't become bloated, but it seems to put the burden on the customer to determine if all the rules have been followed or not.

If we are to maximize the number of bounties available to the community, we can't be refereeing all the internal steps of the process.   

For example:  "Submissions with bugs may be penalized and may result in complete disqualification." How does the customer know that there are no bugs and are we expecting the customer to do the penalizing instead of the natural processes built into the system?  If we have to do that ourselves, we won't have enough time available to sponsor many bounties!

In short - the current document does not define a process that is scalable to the number of bounties we hope to offer.

Innovations are needed here.  How does this document put in place a system that delivers a quality product that an already overloaded customer can buy with confidence?

[Stan]

lets wrap things up.

Stan has reviewed your document and is preparing a response.  I think it is just about done.

I just had a horrible thought.  What if the document I've been reviewing is not the latest one?   
Would you re-post a link to the official latest document(s) I need to look at, just to be sure?

Thanks

[Stan]

From my opinion, there is one thing that is mistreated here from the very beginning. Pls accept it as a suggestion not criticism.

If you are trying buy product or service you simply go to the markets and buy it. Markets for graphic design and software products already exist and it has its specific rules so you don’t have to bother with inventing yours.

You need simple procedures for election of project managers, defining the tasks and procedures for realizing payments upon negotiated conditions. Bounties offered here on the forum, or any other dedicated place, are not the best thing money can buy. These are not developed markets for graphic design or software products. You could get far better solutions for logo design or web site look from places like freelance.com then you will get like this, and it will cost less.
 
There is one more benefit you will get like this. Word, that somebody pays usd 200 for a logo or usd 20.000 for a web site will spread with speed of light and you will get publicity that you couldn’t think of. Those people from all over the world work hard for much less.

We wrestle with this make/buy decision every time we post a bounty.  Your last point is the deciding factor.  We want to get the community involved and attract more talent to the community.  And this may shock you but we want to, egad, incubate competitors!

So these little self-organizing teams will eventually find combinations of individuals who like to work together and tend to win when they do.  These may naturally grow into successful businesses specializing in serving the BitShares Ecosystem. 

And nothing says that an enterprising project manager can't go hire one of those professional companies as his subcontractor.  He adds value by showing them how to meet our stated needs and providing the management function.

So we don't want to elect or appoint project managers.  We hope they will arise and attract people who want to work with them.  We hope they will emerge via natural selection.  If they have the ability to attract and organize a team to meet a vaguely defined need, they are the very future industry entrepreneurs we want to encourage.

And it also keeps with our social consensus to find more ways to involve the community while honoring our oft-stated values: we want to reward people for adding value rather than taking value.  Makers not Takers to coin a phrase.

So its worth it to us to spend more because we are funding more than the immediate need.  We are building an industry!

Somehow this message needs to come across up front int the document.  It sets the whole tone for understanding the rest.  Otherwise, pre-existing biases may cause readers to miss what the rules are really saying.

[Geneko]

From my opinion, there is one thing that is mistreated here from the very beginning. Pls accept it as a suggestion not criticism.

If you are trying buy product or service you simply go to the markets and buy it. Markets for graphic design and software products already exist and it has its specific rules so you don’t have to bother with inventing yours.

You need simple procedures for election of project managers, defining the tasks and procedures for realizing payments upon negotiated conditions. Bounties offered here on the forum, or any other dedicated place, are not the best thing money can buy. These are not developed markets for graphic design or software products. You could get far better solutions for logo design or web site look from places like freelance.com then you will get like this, and it will cost less.
 
There is one more benefit you will get like this. Word, that somebody pays usd 200 for a logo or usd 20.000 for a web site will spread with speed of light and you will get publicity that you couldn’t think of. Those people from all over the world work hard for much less.

[bytemaster]

lets wrap things up.

Stan has reviewed your document and is preparing a response.  I think it is just about done.

[barwizi]

lets wrap things up.

[barwizi]

While I am working on BitShares I have delegated this bounty to Stan to provide feedback on.   If you are looking for feedback, ping him.  Stan and I are in frequent communication so he will summarize the progress for me. 

Keep up the good work.

ok... so Stan, any thoughts?

[bytemaster]

While I am working on BitShares I have delegated this bounty to Stan to provide feedback on.   If you are looking for feedback, ping him.  Stan and I are in frequent communication so he will summarize the progress for me. 

Keep up the good work.

[barwizi]

all permissions granted

[barwizi]

people tend not to read the stickied post for bounties. I was wondering if a mini doc with the Basic 5 rules could be part of the bounties page. It makes it so noone can say they never saw them.

[barwizi]

I have made typo corrections and small changes in wording again, trying to make it clear it is an expression to buy with no contract implied. To keep the flow of the document i am now trying to move up the Status description to avoid orphaned paragraphs. While most will read the document online, I want to maintain the ease of reading on soft copy and hard copy.

[prateek300588]

Ok, you can use PTS as tokens but, PTS already has some value in the market.

It's a good idea, but why would PTS just be handed out, it has a great future that's motivation enough for shoddy work.

[prateek300588]

Someone will have to integrate all the work together.

May be some one on your payroll?
 or
 someone who works on commission?

[bytemaster]

The idea of managers sounds more like actual employment (contract), kinda what you were insiting should not be the case. I support your getting someone to focus mainly on this, but i think one person is enough and their terms of work will not be part of Bounties. they could be a part time employee whose compensation is discussed by you and that person.

Trying to integrate too many middle-men, processes and accounting will result in a complicated system that will be prone to hiccups and miscommunication.

I agree middle men can be messy.