Secret Network Support Team Funding Proposal

Secret Governance
1

Purpose of the Support Team

This proposal is for on-chain funding of the Support Team through the period November 22nd, 2021 to February 22nd, 2022.

The Secret Network Discord and Telegram channels have been swamped with users requesting help basically from Secret Swap re-enabling their pools on October 5th 0 to now, with special emphasis on release periods. Between Reverse, Mr. Garbonzo, and I we are closing out between 15 and 20 tickets per day, every day, to say nothing of the help provided in the various support channels, and Telegram. This activity has made it clear that, while Mr. Garbonzo is incredible, he needs additional help.

The goal of this Support Team is to be a first line of defense for users on the Secret Network.

Target Deliverables in This Funding Period

Continual Deliverables

  • Create, maintain, and organize support documentation across the Secret Network.
  • Assist platforms on the network with their user support, including but not limited to: Secret Network Discord, Secret Community Telegram, and SecretSwap.

Project Deliverables

  • Create an FAQ section of Secret Network Discord, similar to the Osmosis server channel. [1] This acts as a hub for answering questions which includes common questions answered, in addition to images to direct answers.
  • Create a master support document to direct and streamline answering users’ questions. This will be a public document that goes into more detail than the FAQ outlined above.
  • Update build/docs.scrt.network as outlined in: SNAC Proposal: Consolidate and Revamp docs.scrt.network and build.scrt.network [2].This proposal will supercede the SNAC Proposal (unaccepted) per mumuse’s comment on having recurring funding, rather than a 1-off proposal. This proposal includes all work outlined in the linked proposal.

Budget Request

The Support Team asks a budget for the compensated leadership roles and a discretionary budget for compensating those who are able to provide extended support.

Compensated Roles

Mr. Garbonzo (Lead) = $8,000 / month | 40 hours per week

  • Providing community support for Secret Network since the first block

Reverse Sigh = $8,000 / month | 40 hours per week

  • Customer service specialist with 10 years experience
  • Secret Agent Program on-boarding and coordinator

schultzie | Lavender.Five Nodes = $6,500 / month | 20 hours per week

  • Senior Software Engineer with 8 years experience
  • Authored more than a dozen technical and architectural documents, including authoring the Web Map Specification which standardizes 2D maps across all ESRI products and the Department of Defense, and had an advisory role on the 3D spec
  • Member of the Secret Network Infrastructure team

Discretionary Budget

Discretionary Budget = $2,000 / month

The team recognizes we can’t be everywhere at once, and would like to be able to reward and recognize members of the community that are going above and beyond by providing support/help by offering them tips, at the team’s discretion.

One Time Budget

Reverse and I would like to ask for funding for work completed over the course months of October through November, at the rate outlined above. There were several weeks Reverse and I worked in excess of 80 hours per week on a volunteer basis.

Reverse = $8,000

schultzie = $6,500

Included in the SNAC Proposal was a 1-time budget of $350 to test an issue where new Intel processors have potentially fallen out of compliance/sync with the current SGX drivers, as discovered by Figment [2]. I find this deeply concerning, as it’d then effect the Spartan Proposal. I want to provision a server and test to confirm compliance.

Provision and test Intel E-2388G Processor = $350

Total Ask

Mr. Garbonzo = $8000 / month
Reverse Sigh = $8000 / month
schultzie | Lavender.Five Nodes = $6500 / month
Discretionary Budget = $2000 / month
Backpay = $15500
Server cost = $350

Final sum for 3 months: $89,000

Volatility buffer of 20% [per governance]: $17,800

Total Proposal Spend for 3 Months: $106,800.00
/ 11900 SCRT (as an estimate - will be re-calculated when going on-chain)

Any feedback you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Best,
schultzie, Reverse, and Mr. Garbonzo

[1]: Osmosis FAQ channel: Osmosis
[2]: Discord

8 Likes
2

There was consensus in the recent Governance meetings to make proposals USD-dominated.

Please adjust

3

Ah my apologies, I missed the last meeting. I’ll correct shortly. Thanks for the heads up!

edit: As I’ve received questions about it, I also want to point out that this is intended to replace the SNAC Proposal linked above. Not to supplement it.

4

I’ve updated to proposal to reflect the 20% volatility buffer, per Governance.

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5

Sorry I’m a bit confused on what is being stated here but, to reiterate my stance just in case, I supported the proposal as long as we didn’t overlap funding with what we already paid Infra for. Initially I was against it because, due to the initial post and my own misunderstanding, it seemed like it was sticking to infrastructure docs only. Once it was cleared up in your follow up response I was pretty much fine with it.

I support this proposal.

5 Likes
6

Thanks!

I thought you made a good point about it being part of recurring funding rather than a single time SNAC Proposal, so folded it into this as part of my responsibilities. I appreciate all the feedback you’ve provided.

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7

Hourly rates seem kind of high. Are there benchmarks that were used in the creation of these figures?

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8

The support you guys have and do offer is incredible and valuable. The hourly rates being proposed here though are $50/hr for two members, and $80/hr for another. This is much higher than market rate.

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9

Hey, I think you’re a bit off here. It should come closer to ~$50/hr, not 200. (160 hours per month * 50).

2 Likes
10

just edited, sorry. On a call and multi-tasking, I apologize.

1 Like
11

Ah - I see the update. I’m happy to expand!

Speaking for myself, I am (and have been) providing a technical role, which is being continued through this proposal. Both in terms of validator support (see the SN Validator chat as an example), providing updates to technical documents, and making code changes. $80/hr is absolutely NOT out of line for a technical role, especially in what amounts to a contractor capacity.

With regards to the others, $50/hr is also not out of line with support pay provided by tech companies 0 1. Average salary pay for support in general across the entire US is $53,000/yr 2, with an upper bound of $81,0000. Both Mr. G and Reverse have greater than average experience, and are also working within a contractor capacity.

My point with working within a contractor capacity is that it warrants an increase to reflect the lack of benefits. From what I could find online, the expected increase of salary vs. contractor is an increase of 30-100%.

Finally, I don’t think anyone can argue that any of the 3 of us has worked fewer than 40 hours per week over the last 6 weeks, making the estimated hours provided (especially my own) quite low.

5 Likes
12

Thank you for enumerating. All of you certainly do an excellent job, and the experience in dealing with Secret Network and its intricacies would be difficult to replace. I apologize for abrupt opposition as I have been off the forums for a bit and was just surprised by the size of the ask, but as we expect to expand greatly, we will definitely need to scale our support efforts to handle new traffic of unpracticed individuals.

The Secret Code Podcast Node will vote Yes.

3 Likes
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Thank you, I completely understand your trepidation and truly appreciate your comments and feedback.

14

Are both support members located in the US? I’m more acqainted with the model where support is outsourced.

Given the relatively high cost of support, I’d rather see more emphasis on project deliverables than an ongoing expense. For instance, this proposal is for 1,200 hours. How many hours for the project deliverables?

1 Like
15

I vote in favour of funding this bigly.

I helped out a while back in a very small capacity and it is definitely not something I enjoyed.

It’s also definitely needed, primarily for bridge transactions. If it isn’t funded, then the entire responsibility lies on SCRT Labs and their pay rate is a tad bit higher.

3 Likes
16

All 3 members of support are within the US. Ideally the team would be expanded further down the line with another member from outside of the US to provide more coverage.

The project deliverables are largely falling on my shoulders, as this proposal is cancelling out the SNAC Proposal, above. I anticipate a minimum of 120 hours will go towards project deliverables. There are more things we have on our list we’d like to add, but felt it’d be better to over-deliver.

Is there anything in specific you would like to see added?

1 Like
17

Given orageux’s input re: the bridge, this proposal makes sense to me as-is, especially since the support team’s timezone will allign with those bridge users.

Once there is an exchange with SCRT open to the US without a VPN, I’d imagine the need for ongoing support will decline.

3 Likes
18

I support paying dedicated support people (secret supporters). Considering the level of familiarity needed with the secret ecosystem to provide adequate support, I think the hourly rates are fair. You all have done great work for months and deserve compensation for it.

Two things to note:

  1. I’m pretty sure some of the other validators have ran the E-2388G without issues, so I don’t know if that testing is necessary.
  2. In general, I am against volatility buffers. That’s the risk with on-chain funding. If the price crashes, you can always submit another proposal to cover the difference. 20% is a huge buffer and you already are including $15.5K worth of backpay.
5 Likes
19

Hey thanks for your feedback. I’ll reach out to the SN Validators chat and see if anyone has ran the E-2388G processor.

On point 2, we originally didn’t have a volatility buffer in, but were requested to make the following corrections:

  1. Updating the estimates to be exclusively in USD
  2. Adding in the volatility buffer

As those are the new “standard” as outlined by the governance conversations.

20

Rurouni validator said they were able to run their node post-Supernova with the E-2386G. I’ve removed the provision for testing it to ensure compliance, and updated the price accordingly.

1 Like