Contribution verification approaches

Comparing the different contribution verification approaches that could be used for checking the execution outputs of different individuals and teams

Contribution verification is used to verify the contribution efforts of contributors. Contributors would submit evidence about their contribution efforts and the community could then check and verify those outputs. Funding can benefit from having a verification process to reduce the risk of bad actors trying to misuse or steal community funds. Verification can also help future decision making if a community is more easily able to determine if the execution outputs made by different individuals and teams is sufficient for the compensation they are receiving.

The importance of recording, measuring and verifying contributions has been covered in more detail separately:

Contribution verification

Approaches for verifying contribution outputs

There are three main approaches that have been compared to consider how contributors could submit contribution logs to showcase their recent efforts:

• Task milestone based contribution logs - A contribution log records the completion of the milestone tasks involved in a project.

• Project time based contribution logs - A contribution log records a projects execution outputs after a set period of time.

• Individual time based contribution logs - A contribution log records an individuals execution outputs after a set period of time.

To compare these contribution verification approaches a number of factors have been considered and then applied to each approach to try and determine the strengths and weaknesses of each one.

Key takeaways

• Automation of submission and verification - The time it takes to submit contribution logs and verify the outputs should reduce over time due to new tools and processes that can be developed. This results in these two factors becoming increasingly less important over time due to the fact that much of the data could be added and verified automatically with the right systems in place. This means that some of the main important factors are around contribution measurability, accuracy of the information provided and reducing the ongoing game theory risks. All of the suggested approaches benefit from automating the submission and verification of different contribution outputs. Code commits or document submissions would be some examples areas that can be more easily recorded and verified. Improved toolings for recording contribution efforts will make it simpler for contributors to automatically log their contribution efforts and for the community to have more confidence in knowing who was responsible for different contributions.

• Individual time based contribution logs approach is preferred - Out of these three approaches the most effective approach for making it easy and scalable for community moderators to handle verification is the individual time based contribution logs approach. Individual contribution logs give much more accuracy and in depth information that can improve contributors ability to build their reputation, improve voter decision making and accuracy of performance measurement.

• Individual time based contribution logs also produce project time based logs and task milestone based logs - Contributors can indicate which ideas they are working on when making submissions in their contribution log. They could also indicate which phase or milestone of the idea their contributions are relevant to. If this information is also added the individual contribution logs are able to be used in aggregation to generate project time based contribution logs and task milestone based contribution logs. This makes individual contribution logs much more composable and useful than the other two verification approaches due to how they can be used.

Contribution verification approaches analysis

Contribution verification factors for considerationTask milestone based contribution logsProject time based contribution logsIndividual time based contribution logs