Telos Build — A Revised Telos Works 3.0 Proposal

7 min readMar 30, 2022

Introducing Accountability & Focus to Telos Public WPS Funds

Introduction

Recently, a working group of BPs and community members developed the concept for a Request For Proposal (RFP) platform that could serve as a complementary platform that utilizes funds from the WPS account. The WPS funds are earmarked for network members to request funds for projects that benefit the network.

The following document will lay out an alternative method that seeks to activate WPS funding in a directed manner.

Current Problems

Over the years, the Telos Worker Proposal system has evolved into Telos Works, which uses the Decide governance engine to power stake-weighted voting of each project. Telos Works

Current Telos Works System Does Not Provide Significant ROI

Many of the projects that have gone through Telos Works and the initial Worker Proposal System have not provided a significant ROI for the network. This can be attributed to a few factors including projects being 3rd party for-profit, lack of project completion, lack of accountability, and token price volatility.

Telos Works & Telos Ignite Do Not Leverage Crowdsourcing Ideas

Telos Works & Telos Ignite rely on individuals with minimal guidance on what should be developed for the network. Discussions in Telegram and Discord are hard to measure sentiment and often do not make it to a backlog.

Large Amounts of Unused Community Funds

Leaving large sums of community funds being unused on an account is an attack vector. As the price of TLOS increases, the sum becomes a more attractive target to someone with bad intentions. A large amount of TLOS, valued at over 5 million USD as of time of writing could be used to fund network growth rather than sit unused.

Telo Build Goals

The goals of Telos Build are to improve the efficiency of community funds by creating a community driven bounty system that protects those funds by creating an accountability system.

Activate unused community funds to further development of Telos public works.
Provide an accountability framework for the execution of projects
Create a competitive process that discovers the market price for development work on the network
Recruit high caliber design/development teams growing the Telos network development community

Project Scope

Development of Telos Build is approximately 75% of the way complete. Detroit Ledger Technologies (EOS DETROIT) is targeting the first half of April for project completion.

Work in progress link: https://telos-works.test.eosdetroit.io/

Project scope (flow diagram): https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOLwcr5I=/

Telos Build Roles

Administrator

The account assigned to the administrator role of Telos Build is able to change the configuration of a small subset of features and set the accounts assigned to the Program Manager role. The administrator does not make project level decisions such as whether or not to award payment or performance bonuses to project teams.

Responsibilities

Set the bonus rate for projects that meet milestone deadlines
Set the bond amounts required for submitting project ideas.
Assign / remove accounts assigned to Program Manager role

The administrator account will be assigned to a trusted member of the Build Committee (description below).

Program Manager

The Program Manager is a role at the TCD that:

Curates and selects project ideas (to be altered in Phase 2)
Phase 2: Feature request that measures both popular and stake-weighted voting
Creates request for proposals in the Telos Build system
Sets bond amount required to submit proposals
Double checks quality of finalist proposals & awards community vote bonuses
Delivers winning proposals to Build Committee for awarding of the project to a final winner
Serves as a transparency agent for the network
Reports back to the community biweekly progress from video calls
Approves payments to project teams
Determines if deadline is met for Vesting Telos Bonus eligibility

Build Committee

The Build Committee is a selection board of 5 team members that will review the winning proposals from each community voting round to determine the overall winner. The Build Committee will be composed of members from the TF and TCD. The Build Committee will also serve as the dispute resolution panel to determine if a Program Manager has abused their position until Telos has a functioning arbitration process.

Timeline

Creating a project — 2 weeks (COMPLETE)

Listing all projects and Accepting proposals — 2 weeks (COMPLETE)

Voting on proposals — 2 weeks (COMPLETE)

Starting a project — 2 weeks (COMPLETE)

Changes requested after feedback — 2 weeks (COMPLETE)

Administrative transfer, bug fixing and improvements — 2 weeks (IN-PROGRESS)

Total: 1 epic / 6 sprints / 12 weeks

Anticipated launch time frame: Mid-April 2022

Funding Source

The Telos Build Project will seek funding from the existing Telos Works to test out the effectiveness of the RFP process. The breakdown of the budget in USD is as follows.

Phase 1 Telos Build Platform Development — $42,750

450 hours @ $95/hour

Telos Build Project Funding Source — $107,250

Winning Project Bonuses
Project Funding
Vesting Telos Bonuses

The funding will be requested in two different worker proposals. One Telos Works proposal for the platform development, and one proposal to fund the Telos Build account. The proposal must be split into two due to the cap on per proposal funding implemented by Telos Works.

Platform Development Proposal Telos Requested: 75,000 TLOS

Telos Build Proposal Telos Requested: 150,000 TLOS

Total Telos Requested: 225,000 TLOS

Detroit Ledger Technologies is requesting above the listed amount to account for volatility in the cryptocurrency markets. Any additional leftover funding from the platform development proposal will be returned to the Telos Works fund. Excess funding from the Telos Build account funding proposal will remain in that account to fund additional projects. The funding requested is estimated to fund 3 projects of $25,000 USD budgets approved or any number of smaller projects or improvements.

Potential Telos Build Roadmap

Phase 2

On-chain feature request voting

Phase 2 will introduce a feature request section that allows token holders to vote and will measure both the popular and stake-weighted voting amounts. The feature request is meant to create an open place for documentation and discussion of improvements, bug fixes, and features. Program Managers and the Build Committee can use the insights gained from feature request polling to prioritize roadmap work.

Phase 3

Multiple Funding Sources

Expanding the mechanisms for project development to allow the TF, TCD, econdevfund, or other entities and account holders to create and fund projects and development work. Funding could be applied to projects in the feature request to prioritize those projects being assigned to a Project Manager.

Meetup

Detroit Ledger Technologies (EOS DETROIT) plans to host a Telos focused meetup in its office March 30th, 2022 to demo the new Telos Build system to Detroit’s local developer & blockchain community to encourage firms and freelancers to participate in Telos Build and join our community. This meetup presentation will be livestreamed on youtube for the greater Telos community to view and participate in asking questions.

In-person Meetup RSVP: https://www.meetup.com/Detroit-Blockchainers/events/283180424

Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdUl7Brerek

FAQ

Is Telos Build meant to replace Telos Works?

Initially, Telos Build will operate alongside Telos Works. The goal of launching the MVP is to measure which system is more successful regarding completion rate and return on investment of projects that use public funds.

Doesn’t Telos Build serve the same purpose as Telos Ignite?

Telos Ignite is meant to fund both for-profit and public goods. Being that it is a grant, accountability over project completion and use of funds is categorically absent.

Telos Build is an open system that allows community members to bid on performing development work for the network. The Telos Foundation can leverage Telos Build by providing funding for Telos Ignite and have the program managers disperse funding and provide accountability. The systems are complimentary.

Will Telos Build conflict with the Telos Core Development Team?

Telos Build is meant to be a complimentary system/tool that the Telos Core Development team can use. The feature request portal is something that can help inform the TCD of what the community values and would like to see built for the network and that team can decide if they have the resources and bandwidth to take on a project before a project goes to the RFP stage of Telos Build.

The TCD will also have oversight and some decision-making power on the appropriate team to award projects through by having representation on the Build Committee.

Finally, Telos Build is a way for the TCD to optimize their allotted network resources. The TCD can funnel scoped projects to Telos Build that may not be able to be prioritized because of personnel or funding constraints by having a framework to tap funding laying dormant in the WPS account.

How are community funds protected in a system like Telos Build?

Small bonds are required to submit projects and submit proposals. The Program Manager has the ability to disqualify spam projects or projects that are found to be using bots/dummy accounts.

How are the Program Managers compensated?

The Program Managers are compensated through a negotiated rate/salary with the TCD.

Credit

The Telos Build concept was developed with the help of the following contributors: Detroit Ledger Technologies (EOS DETROIT), Richard Downing (Telos Clear BP), Justin Giudici (Telos Foundation), Chris Barnes (Telos Foundation).