note: this is continuation of the discussion on Osmosis Support Lab Funding Round September 2023 - March 2024 and Interchain Support Group funding for Osmosis by Interbloc
note 2: updating on August 28 2023 with current OSMO price. We plan to have this on chain by Wednesday at the latest
Purpose
The Osmosis Support Lab and Interbloc are requesting 190011 OSMO from the Osmosis community pool to fund 6 months of operation. Outstanding Support remains one of Osmosis’ key features that attracts users across the Interchain. We will continue to deliver best-in-class support to the community and ensure Osmosis remains the financial hub of the Cosmos ecosystem.
After both teams put up funding proposals on the Osmosis community forum, Osmosis Support Lab and Interbloc undertook discussions in which it was agreed that the best way to serve the Osmosis community would be to combine the best of both proposals into a unified vision that provides top-notch support and the transparency and accountability that is needed for the community.
Details
Who we are:
The Support Lab is rooted in our commitment to the community, providing:
- Social Platform Management: We’re not just about moderating. Our team drives engagements, fosters positive interactions, and ensures that every Osmonaut feels heard and valued across our platforms. This includes Twitter, Discord, Telegram and Reddit.
- User Support & Education: We provide 24/7, live, personalized user support, complemented with a rich repository of educational content that is growing constantly.
- Developer Engagement: We’re actively involved in voluntary pre-launch product testing and QA, ensuring every Osmosis release is robust and glitch-free. This synergy with the developer community streamlines user experience and drives Osmosis’s innovation.
- Feedback Channel: We act as the pulse of the community, channeling user feedback, emergent issues, and constructive criticism directly to Osmosis Labs.
- Tech Solutions: We’ve developed tools addressing recurring challenges, like IBC relaying and channel clearing.
The members of the Support Lab DAO include:
- coldchain
- Crypto Assassin
- GP
- jasbanza
- Kych
- Maquina
- Max Power
- Mikebarb
- moonzॐ
Interbloc is a validator and service provider for the Cosmos Ecosystem, composed of individuals highly committed to the success of Osmosis and the Interchain at large. Interbloc also serves the community with our anti-scam brand, Cosmoshield. For more information about Interbloc, please visit our website or Discord.
Introduction:
Osmosis Support Lab, is an independent group dedicated to enhancing the Osmosis experience. We’re transitioning to a DAO DAO multi-sig, we embrace decentralized governance. Through careful resource management, we’ve saved about 68% of our budget without compromising on our core services.
Budget Overview:
This will be the budget for the new revised proposal, accommodating the transparency and KPI tracking and reporting service that Interbloc will provide:
Support and Content - Provided by Osmosis Support Lab:
For clarity and efficiency, Osmosis Support Lab has transitioned to a per-hour compensation. This not only provides more transparent budgeting but ensures our dedicated team is fairly compensated for their exact hours worked.
- Support: Our revised budget is based on:
– Optimized Staffing: We’ve streamlined our support to have a single agent available across all platforms at any time.
– Billable Hours Basis: Instead of flat shift payments, we are now budgeting based on actual support hours worked.
– Calculation: 24 hours/day x 7 days/week x 26 weeks = 4,368 billable hours.
– Budget: 4,368 hours x $29/hour = $126,672 for support. - Content: During periods of low user requests, Osmosis Support Lab will produce written content on the blog and on the support channels we maintain, ensuring the community remains informed of Osmosis ecosystem developments.
- Auditor: This position will serve as the liaison between the Osmosis Support Lab and Interbloc, in order to facilitate the Interbloc’s duty to keep aware of and manage the activities of support workers.
Software and Infrastructure - Provided by Interbloc:
Our ongoing commitment to enhancing the Osmosis user experience involves continued investment in critical tooling infrastructure. These investments not only ensure smooth inter-chain operations but also play a pivotal role in supporting users.
- Public RPC Hosting: Distributed nodes support a healthy, decentralized network. Public RPC endpoints allow interaction with the network without the need to provide the back-end server infrastructure. Running this infrastructure is a vital public good for the Osmosis community, as it allows developers and users to experiment with Osmosis in a cost-minimized manner, ensuring that cost doesn’t deter necessary activity.
- Relayers Fees: We’ve begun relaying IBC transfers back and forth from Osmosis to certain chains on a 24 hour basis including Archway, Evmos, Juno, Quasar, Mars, Medibloc, and Stride. This allows us to clear stuck packets as soon as a downtime is reported, rather than having to track down the entity relaying on that channel. This helps ensure smooth UX for Osmosis users as they move their assets across the Interchain.
- Support Software: We will be moving the support software to Mava, which offers integrations with Telegram and Discord, giving a high level of insight into support tickets and allowing us to provide more transparency to the community on how we are supporting users.
Auditing and Transparency - Provided by Interbloc:
Our ongoing commitment to enhancing the Osmosis user experience involves continued auditing of the work done to ensure:
- Users are receiving support in a timely manner.
- Questions that are asked frequently are addressed at a UX level if possible to improve the experience of using Osmosis.
- Support staff are available to users at their reported time and compensated appropriately.
- Community is aware of the support requests volume and the work being done by the Support team in a timely manner.
- OSMO holders are informed of the way the Osmosis Support Lab is spending community funds.
- Current support staff is easily identifiable
Interbloc will also release monthly reports about the support service status as well as quarterly reports on the funding and performance of Osmosis Support Lab. This will ensure that users are supported appropriately at all times and that when it is needed, Osmosis Support Lab will be able to scale up appropriately when user requests increase and remain lean when it is not. This budget item is calculated at 7.5% of total labor costs to represent management overhead.
Final Comments:
- Support Structure: While we previously had up to two members per shift during peak hours, we’ve adjusted to ensure continuous 24/7 coverage with at least one dedicated member at all times. This ensures that no query goes unanswered.
- Content Revisions: The scaling down of our content budget means we’ll be even more strategic, focusing on vital topics and filling evident gaps in the ecosystem’s knowledge base.
- Transition to DAO DAO on Osmosis: To foster greater transparency and trust within our operations and towards the community, the Support Lab multisig will transition to DAO DAO. This move aims to make our processes, decisions, and financial transactions more transparent and verifiable.
- Furthermore we will be working with Interbloc to ensure transparency to the community, accountability in the work done and that our activities are communicated appropriately and in a timely manner to the community. We look forward to working together, combining the invaluable support expertise that Osmosis Support Lab has cultivated with a responsible outside party, to provide both the excellent service and full accountability that the community wants and deserves.