EVALUATION.md

  1# `Contribution Evaluation`
  2
  3## Abstract
  4
  5This document describes general ideas regarding contributions evaluation. The principles laid out are intended to be part of the Evaluation DAO.
  6
  7## Contents
  8
  9- [Concepts](#concepts)
 10
 11  - [Committee](#committee)
 12  - [Evaluation](#evaluation)
 13  - [Contribution](#contribution)
 14  - [Pull Request](#pull-request)
 15  - [Vote](#vote)
 16
 17- [Future Improvements](#future-improvements)
 18
 19- [Implementation](#implementation)
 20
 21## Concepts
 22
 23### General Ideas
 24
 25Contributors DAO will designate members of a committee. In the beginning, the evaluation committee members will be the core development team members or any other trusted entity.
 26A committee will be given the mandate to evaluate a certain set of contributions.
 27For example, the first committee will evaluate code contributions inside Gno central repository.
 28A contribution will be associated with a pull request managed in Git.
 29A Committee as a trusted entity can decide on a category and its corresponding evaluation criteria.
 30A member can propose to add a category and its corresponding evaluation criteria.
 31A member can propose a contribution for evaluation. However, the pull request category must be from the list of approved categories.
 32At the time of writing, a member can vote based on as set of options either "YES" or "NO", all members need to approve a category or a contribution.
 33
 34### Committee
 35
 36A group of designated members who are given a mandate to act as an evaluation authority.
 37A DAO may elect a committee and designate its members based on contributions or merits of the members.
 38A committee member can propose a contribution to avoid spam and confirm viable contributions will be evaluated.
 39
 40### Evaluation
 41
 42A logical entity to group a certain types of contributions.
 43
 44#### Category
 45
 46A group of contributions that should be evaluated based on the same principles and guide lines.
 47An example of a category is a bounty, a chore, a defect, or a document.
 48
 49### Contribution
 50
 51A contribution is associated with a pull request.
 52A contribution has an evaluation life cycle.
 53A submission time is set when a contribution is added.
 54A last evaluation time is set when a contribution is evaluated and approved by a member.
 55An approval time is set when a contribution is approved by all members (or when a future threshold is reached)
 56
 57#### Submission
 58
 59Any committee member can submit a contribution.
 60
 61#### Status
 62
 63When a contribution is submitted its status is set to "proposed", its status will change to "approved" once approved by the committee or to "declined" otherwise.
 64Intermediate status options such as "negotiation", "discussion", "evaluation" are TBD.
 65A further discussion around the idea of deleting a contribution is required as it raises questions regarding record keeping, double evaluations, and the motive.
 66
 67#### Approval
 68
 69A contribution is approved once it reaches a certain threshold.
 70
 71### Pull Request
 72
 73A pull request from a source control tool, namely GitHub.
 74
 75### Vote
 76
 77#### Voters
 78
 79Voters are committee members, all committee members have the right and obligation to vote on a contribution.
 80
 81#### Voting Options
 82
 83The voting options available to a voter.
 84A committee may set voting options for its evaluation categories.
 85The initial option set includes the following options:
 86
 87- `YES`
 88- `NO`
 89
 90#### Voting Period
 91
 92Voting period is set by the committee, all committee members are obligated to vote within the voting period.
 93
 94#### Threshold
 95
 96Threshold is the minimum percentage of `YES` votes from the total votes.
 97
 98#### Tally Votes
 99
100## Future Improvements
101
102The current documentation describes the basic ideas as expressed in the code.
103Future improvements listed below will be decided based on future discussions and peer reviews.
104
105- Committee negotiates contributions
106FIXME Next line is unfinished:
107- A committee may set voting options for its categories and evaluated contributions, otherwise; the Contributors DAO may set a global
108- A committee may set a threshold required for a category or a contribution to be approved, otherwise; the Contributors DAO may set a global threshold and quorum.
109- A committee sets evaluation criteria scoring range (1-10), scoring a contribution is essential when there are competing contributions (Game of Realm). Otherwise, the evaluation is a binary decision. Moreover, scoring should be translated to rewards of any sort, or become discussion points durning negotiation about the viability of a contribution.
110- Committee members assess contributions based on the evaluation criteria and vote accordingly.
111
112## Implementation
113
114The implementation written is to express the ideas described above using code. Not all ideas have been implemented.