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###### tags: `Universe Guide`
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# UG Structure vs MC Work Stream Structure
### Need to disambiguate the tool applications
- UG = open-source, collective-owned IP, lore crafting repo/dashboard
- MC = requires project management for contributors for *all projects in the work stream,* of which the UG is one of many and includes tasks that are not explicitly lore crafting.
### UG Structure
- Repo for canonical lore
- Ideologies and concepts
- The minutae of the world-building
- Changes are embraced, but highly mediated so that the changes are:
- deliberate
- transparent
- reflexive
- continuously realigned with the core principles
- How do these changes positively affect our telling of the story?
- We need standards for evaluation
- Pure fantasy (literary changes) are deprioritized over references to regenerative cryptoeconomic concepts and GitcoinDAO vision
- Which proposals require a quorom, signal voting, can be early executed, etc.
- Forks vs. composability of canon, especially if directly related to another meme or marketing initiative in another GitcoinDAO work stream
- The coherent narrative must be aligned with regen cryptoecon concepts and the pragmatic KPIs of the workstream: reflexive accountability
#### Purpose of the UG:
1. Collect the canonical timeline into an open-source repo
2. Tracking the narrative of the forks/changes so the whole community can understand the divergent timelines
- Before contributions begin, the infrastructure and mechanics for submissions must be setup.
- The consequence of the minutae is to communicate real ethics and values, no pure fantasy.
- The method we have been pursuing is *open-source lore architecture as agile imagination software development.*
- Design sprint
- Convergence to a task list
- Outsourced tasks to other contributors (green pill opportunity)
- A clear final deliverable: the comic
- Associated economic strategy for regen to public goods: Kyle (as liaison) will work on this.
- The comic is the first **rigorously documented process**, accompanied by **user research** to evaluate it's efficacy. It's a case study to **analyze and extract learnings for strategizing improvements to the next iteration**.
- Other projects are **dendrites** that spin off of the main UG architecture.
#### Core KPIs
- The UG value-add needs to be defined.
- Should not be defined by memes, marketing, or merch. Rather the UG focuses on:
- adding mythological depth to existing and future campaigns
- elaborating transmedia potentials (dendritic tangents)
- extending a tether between internal creativity and external regen cryptoeconomics.
- The 3 most important KPIs for evaluating the resiliency of existing/new projects:
- sustain the project (the artists or team)
- sustain the work stream
- generate value for public goods
- The UG serves as a vetting mechanism for projects and contributors. It provides proof of work for new and unknown contributors. Anyone can submit content for consideration.
### Metaverse Coordinators Work Stream
- Requires a **vetting** process:
- for new contributors to orient to the fundamental goals
- onboard to a DAO for clear accountability/responsibility
- clear committments to avoid redundancies with other contributors and work streams
- clear compensation expectations:
- how much money
- what the tasks are
- how the tasks are valued
- how to apply to each task
- how tasks are approved/merged
- by whom and when
- MCs serve as **stewards to the UG** and all other MC projects
#### Roles of the Work Stream
- Requires internal project + account management:
- clearly **distinguish** UG lore crafting from other tasks, both within the UG and for the work stream itself
- **identify potential** transmedia dendrites and organize them into new tasks
- **allocate** funding for new tasks
- **resolve and archive** completed tasks
- identify and **manage** developer/designer tasks for the UG dashboard (UG contributions that are not lore crafting)
- **orchestrates** divergent considerations of ideas/changes to all of the above buckets that is kept separate from lore crafting contributions
- This structure should be illustrated to align the KPIs of the work stream to both GitcoinDAO and individual ad hoc contributors. TW is compiling notes and diagrams for this purpose.
- The UG is a product/deliverable currently being hacked together by RaidGuild.
- When that contract ends it will be delivered to the Metaverse Coordinators to steward, develop, etc.
- Focus of this work is to **collect knowledge of the various Gitcoin marketing campaigns and align them to increase the impact of ongoing transmedia projects.**
- Schelling Point
- Green Pill
- Comic lore
- Solarpunk
- etc.
### Interfaces of the Metaverse
- Work stream infrastructure is DAO architecture and PM tools, not to be confused with the open-source wiki-style world-building of the UG.
- **The UG is the interface as it appears from within the metaverse.**
- The work stream tools serves as the interface for engaging with the metaverse, how we enter.
- **Two sides of the same portal**, but not the same quality of focus, nor are they the same work stream.
##### Work Stream Interface
- Supports the **ideologies** of the mother DAO
- Produces **products** with work stream stewardship. *Products are software for interacting with the code base of canon lore that is common to all the transmedia tidbits.*
- Clear **accountability** of *captains* (leads)
- KPIs are **tethered** to the mother DAO **to justify** value for compensation.
##### UG Interface
- Open-source
- Collectively-owned IP to support artists
- World-building dashboard
- Character/avatar creation and management
- Canon timeline with clear access points
- Specific task lists
# Universe Guide Breakdown ⚔️
The UG is an **interface** between the fantasy **lore** of the comics and the core **principles** of Gitcoin.

### Transactions
1. **Compensation**: In the MC work stream: money incentivizes an individual to contribute labor as either creative content or infrastructure. Txn #1 is how the contribution is recognized and paid. A bounty system?
2. **Acceptance**: The contribution needs to be evaluated to be accepted into the UG or denied for clear reasons. How is this decision made? Democratic consensus via Snapshot or signal voting? A central admin seving as gamemaster/lore keeper?
3. **Retroactive Changes**: Can anyone propose to change any component, both lore and technical? Are these changes permissioned to admin, DAO members, or via other gated access? Are there mutable and immutable parts to the canon? Are there code validity checks? How does the change affect the larger lore "code base" to ensure that the change doesn't "break" the canon?
4. **Forking Canon**: How to impliment forking and illustrate these branching timelines while retaining a tether to a core "tap root" that be followed? Reference: The DAO hack in 2016 leading to ETH forking into ETH Classic and the Ethereum we have today. This was a cultural and technological fork.
5. **Visual Metadata**: Easy enough to create a proposal for changing text/coded data, but what about aesthetic/visual content? How are the changes recognized technically, subjectively, and canonically? Reference: Figma and Sketch use symbol/component libraries (a visual design system that can be shared across projects). Change a local instance does not affect other instances, but changes made at the symbol/component level do affect all instances of that component. Is the symbol layer mutable? Who permissions access and changes? Admin, etc?
6. **Dendrites**: A proposal that opens up a tangent, a story that runs parallel to the primary "tap root" and build off of its canon without proposing changes. (If it does propose changes to canon, see txn #2, 3, 4).
### Transmedia
1. All content contributed might be scrutinized for its potential regenerative value for the greater crypto economy. The primary considerations here are 3 fold:
- **In-game economy.** Sustain the UG economy to encourage ongoing interaction, ie: the UG as a public good.
- **Out-game economy.** Sustain the contributors themselves, ie: artists as a public good.
- **Metaverse>Meatspace economy.** Capture value for grant matching pools, ie: generate value for other Gitcoin public goods projects.
2. **How is the value captured?** Taxes/payments for submissions? Artist kickback mechanisms? "Software" as a service? Marketing monetization models? Public goods fundraising mechanisms like Yeeter, quadratic funding, etc?
3. Immediate goal is to **reduce the overhead for writing future comics** and to have the Universe Guide serve as a value generator in supportig this initiative.
4. **Explore instances from the Web3-DAO ecosystem**:
- NFT DAOs: collective purchase and ownership over visual assets
- Krause House: DAO trying to buy an NBA basketball team
- Constitution DAO: trying to buy a copy of the constitution, but *why?* This is more than economic investment, larger philosophical implications.
- Community support DAOs: Gitcoin quadratic funding, Panvala and Giveth matching, DAOhaus + RaidGuild Yeeter tool
5. Fundraising the **UG as shared infrastructure** with accountability and skin in the game for how the product develops, without an explicit monetary return. **Not an investment.** Value-based proposition over hourly rate: to raise the highwater mark of collective sanity for the whole ecosystem.
6. **Let's avoid Merch, Memes, Marketing**, and other product-oriented ideas. Not to exclude them, but the production should be driven by the cultural value add.