Meeting Cabin's Technical Needs

[grin]

TL;DR

Cabin’s plan for 2024 includes a lot of technical work: app changes, citizenship minting improvements, necessary maintenance, potential whitelabel efforts, etc. Beyond this known work, we also need to stay agile and explore the space of possibilities that leads to Cabin’s success. I started working on all of that when I joined the First Fellowship five months ago. Now that the fellowship is over, I’m submitting a proposal to continue to fund that work.

Team

• Sponsor: @grin
• Steward: @grin

Goals

The proposal includes three goals:

1. Complete Roadmapped Work
2. Map Out and Complete Future Work
3. Maintain Cabin’s Lead

Complete Roadmapped Work

The winter roadmap has the following technical goals:

@jon

• 1. Make Citizenship Better
     a. Develop City Directory
     b. Improve new Citizen experience
• 2. Grow active Citizens
     a. Reduce friction to become a Citizen
• 3. Improve data and analytics
     a. Migrate DB to SQL
     b. Create dashboards

Doing this work well requires a deep understanding of web2 and web3 development, as well Cabin’s specific needs. After working at the First Fellowship, I’m very familiar with Cabin’s tech stack and have a clear idea of how to accomplish all these goals. In fact I’ve already started working on 3a since it is urgent.

Map Out and Complete Future Work

Executing on the winter roadmap above is the first step, but there’s much more to do. I made several suggestions in my network state conf debrief, and I have others, like this:

The right approach will require paying attention to what users want and sequencing the work for maximum effect. I will work closely with Jon, other contributors, our citizens, and the wider Cabin community to understand what needs to be done, then do it.

Maintain Cabin’s Lead

Beyond shipping code, Cabin must successfully map out the idea maze between where we are now and the network city we want to create. While technical work will be the bulk of this proposal, I plan to spend some time strategizing with Jon, exploring new possibilities, connecting with others in the space, doing thought-leadery things (writing, podcasting, posting on Farcaster), and generally repping Cabin (as I did in Amsterdam). This has benefits in both directions: it helps us understand how we want to achieve our goals, and it helps others find us and collaborate with us.

Why Me

This proposal is a big ask. Why should Cabin trust me to do all this? First, because I was the First Fellowship tech lead for the last five months, so I’m very familiar with the tech and the team (and they with me). Second, I have lots of relevant experience. Before joining Cabin, I founded two successful companies and designed and built multiple widely-used products. I’ve also created adjacent projects such Vibecamp and FarCon, and have been interested in this space for several years now.

Proposed Budget

1 year of funding for this work:

• $200,000 USDC
• 2400 ₡ABIN

This is a 20% reduction from my pay at the First Fellowship.

Timeline and Deliverables

Timeline: 1 year, at which point the proposal can be reviewed and renewed as needed

Deliverables: Cabin meets it’s present and future technical needs

[jon]

I am strongly supportive of this proposal. @grin has been the primary developer of Cabin’s app over the past five months and is the logical choice to continue building the Winter 24 roadmap & beyond. He has demonstrated his technical skills and has also served as a leader within Cabin, representing us at the Network State Conference & working with me on strategy.

[grin]

Proposal is live at Snapshot

[chalice]

Leaving a comment here to express my rationale for voting against the proposal.

I believe that transitioning the role to a fulltime position is not necessary for the current state of the DAO. The existing technical needs outlined and included in the Cabin Labs proposal by Jon, including app changes, citizenship minting improvements, and maintenance, seem adequately addressed. I would find it helpful to have more concrete data and references supporting the need for a fulltime position, especially considering the absence of a significant demand for white label efforts.

I think Grin is highly qualified for the role. I would appreciate a clearer understanding of the specific technical requirements and tasks that justify hiring a fulltime person. It would be beneficial to have more insights into the technical work Cabin Labs needs and how it aligns with the goals outlined in this proposal. For example, in the proposal Grin states, “Beyond this known work, we also need to stay agile and explore the space of possibilities that leads to Cabin’s success.” I understood this to be a part of the intention behind Cabin Labs.

A detailed exploration of the technical work required for a fulltime position, with a focus on the specific needs of Cabin Labs, would impact my support of this proposal.

[grin]

Thanks for the feedback! I had originally planned to go into more detail, and I appreciate that you voiced your concerns. I’ll try to address them here.

@chalice

The existing technical needs outlined and included in the Cabin Labs proposal by Jon, including app changes, citizenship minting improvements, and maintenance, seem adequately addressed.

The work is outlined, but there’s a lot more thought and design that needs to be done before it can be handed off to a contract dev. I’ll be taking most of that work off Jon’s plate.

Going back and forth with an outside developer is a tough way to polish a product. Cabin’s goal for the year is 500 active citizens, which means both increasing the benefits and also lowering the bar to citizenship. If we want the core flows like onboarding and minting to be smooth, we need to do many iterations and minor tweaks. I’ll be able to do them as we think of them, without the extra labor and back-and-forth of scoping work, handing it off, reviewing the results, etc.

I can observe our users interacting with the product (eg at ethdenver, at supper clubs, at vibeclipse) and make changes based on that. An outside dev can’t. They also don’t have the context to push back on bad ideas or take initiative to make changes independently.

@chalice

in the proposal Grin states, “Beyond this known work, we also need to stay agile and explore the space of possibilities that leads to Cabin’s success.” I understood this to be a part of the intention behind Cabin Labs.

It’s true there’s some ambiguity here. The biggest overlap I see between this and Cabin Labs is the work under the Network Citizens area. Originally we thought of this as one possible area to try out. But after thinking and talking about it over the last two months, we’ve come to believe this is the most viable path to sustainability and doubled down on it. We now think there’s more to do here than would fit under the original scope of the Cabin Labs proposal. So I’ll be doing space-exploring that’s more narrowly focused on the app and technical work, whereas Jon will be running experiments outside of that.

That said, I’m sure we’ll overlap sometimes. Jon and I will try to be clear on which work is coming from which bucket. To give some examples, we’re pretty sure citizenship needs to be easier to mint and the app needs to be refocused around person-to-person connections. We’re less convinced that merch is going to end up being that important.

[grin]

Closing the loop: the proposal was approved and executes here: Ethereum Transaction Hash (Txhash) Details | Etherscan

[David_Cobana]

Hello everyone. As someone who’s new on this platform I thought it could be helpful to share my experience that can be used to improve the platform.

As a new person the amount of information is currently overwhelming. It is not really clear what is what and what are the connections between all this information. Currently I am just browsing through stuff trying to make sense of it. Also it is still not clear to me how things work practically in terms of voting, what are my rights, etcetera. Perhaps a guide for newbees is required or another idea is to link a “veteran” citizen with a new one. Personally I like the last one most as humans seem always more capable to explain how things are running than dry manuals plus you immediately start making connections which is the whole idea of Cabin…

This idea could be taken further to create a path from outsider to citizen; people who are enthusiastic about Cabin start a process to become a citizen. They could possibly also help building the platform and stay at neighbourhoods…

I would be happy to set something like this up with a veteran here on the platform…

[jon]

Hey David, thanks for sharing these thoughts. It’s helpful to see things through the eyes of a new member and I definitely appreciate that the amount of info can feel overwhelming.

@David_Cobana

Perhaps a guide for newbees is required

We do have several guides in our Wiki to help orient people, including:

Cabin 101

Cabin 101 Overview Cabin is building a network city for our citizens, who span the globe and come together to colive and create in nature. We are a network of internet friends co-creating modern villages around the world. Over the last two years, the Cabin community has come together across dozens of IRL activations and hundreds of online events to begin developing a global network of nature-immersed properties designed for thoughtful creators and remote workers. We have built neighborhoods, r…

The City Directory

[Screen Shot 2023-10-25 at 2.10.15 PM] Overview The City Directory contains all of the properties available to Cabin Citizens for coliving in nature. It effectively determines which neighborhoods are inside of Cabin’s city limits. Access to paid coliving offers in the City Directory are only available to Cabin Citizens. Caretakers (folks who own and care for coliving properties) can post their properties to the City Directory. Their property will start as “an outpost.” When outposts with at l…

Cabin Citizenship

Traditionally, being a citizen implies rights, access, and responsibilities in civic, political, and social life. Being a Cabin Citizen is characterized by a similar set of benefits and responsibilities. Start you path to Citizenship by creating a profile here, and learn more below. Overview Cabin Citizenship is an annual subscription membership to Cabin’s network city that unlocks access to amazing people, places and experiences. There are two paths to Citizenship: You can pay for Citizens…

These are wikis, so anyone in the community can help update them or ask questions.

@David_Cobana

another idea is to link a “veteran” citizen with a new one.

I like this idea — I am happy to try it out with you : ) I can answer any questions that you have or hop on a call if you want to talk through anything live.