Tracking Engagement and Governance in the Web3.2 Community

This chapter delves into the metrics of GitHub activity to assess community growth and engagement within Web3.2. The discussion highlights the need for effective contributor interaction, governance policies, and reward mechanisms to support both veteran and new participants in the ecosystem.

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Thank you to the folks at Sustain for providing the hosting account for CHAOSSCast!

CHAOSScast – Episode 114

In this episode of CHAOSScast, hosts Georg Link and Nicole Huesman engage in a deep discussion with Christian Taylor, Terence (Tex) McCutcheon, and Johnny Kelly about measuring and enhancing open source community health through innovative methods. Christian and his team share their experiences in implementing the 'paid open source model' within the Cardano blockchain community, designed to retain and motivate contributors. The panel discusses a variety of topics, including governance models, the integration of AI for report generation, and the challenges of balancing open source principles with corporate interests. They also explore specific tools and metrics used to evaluate project health and community engagement, providing an illuminating look into the future of open source development. Hit the download button now!

[00:01:40] Our guests give a brief introduction.

[00:04:37] Christian provides a non-technical intro to Cardano, a top blockchain focused on peer reviewed, academic rigor.

[00:06:07] Johnny explains Cardano’s high decentralization via SPOs, DReps, and

community tools like GovTool, and Christian outlines how open source ties in.

[00:09:39] Christian talks about open source governance and Intersect and explains Intersect serves like the Linux Foundation for Cardano, holding code, facilitating contribution ladders, and launching an incubation program.

[00:13:06] Georg gives a summary for those who are new: Cardano’s treasury is funded via blockchain transaction fees. This funding supports open source development, tools, documentation, and maintainers, and Christian elaborates more about this.

[00:15:39] Johnny details governance and funding decisions and Christian emphasizes the transparency and checks and balance system.

[00:17:08] Nicole raises concerns about aligning paid models with open source ethos and Christian discusses Intersect’s neutral, community-owned governance structure and internal checks and Johnny shares a link about the current members and the elective process within Intersect.

[00:20:37] Christian shares using Bitergia and CHAOSS metrics to build out Cardano’s open source health dashboard. Focus areas were response times, geographic contributions, contribution ladders, and project maturity.

[00:26:03] Tex shares their dashboard is public and useful for spotting high-impact projects. He aims to improve documentation standards and repo governance practices.

[00:31:05] Georg gives a brief description of the “jellyfish diagrams” that show how developers connect across projects.

[00:33:26] Christian shares their approach to using AI in metrics reporting and Tex emphasizes AI assists analysis but doesn’t replace human validation.

[00:37:10] Nicole asks if the paid open source model is being shared externally. Christian confirms they presented the model at open source summits, validated it with leading experts, stress-tested with community input, and outlines a six month pilot of the model.

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