# The Noun Pulse

*“Is Nouns activity growing?” “Who is helping increase engagement and spreading the meme?” “Which proposals are driving growth?” “What’s our spend rate?” “How many builders are contributing to the Nouns ecosystem?” “Are the amount of proposal candidates increasing?”*

## **TL;DR**

We aim to create a single-purpose website where Nouns activity metrics are published. It will integrate activity across social channels and highlight which Nouns, advocates, and proposals have best supported the Noun’s meme propagation. Our creative motto is: *Track Memes, Not People.*

As a starting point, this proposal focuses on [1] onchain activity (supported by the Nouns subgraph), [2] a single social media source (Farcaster), and [3] a limited set of metrics — such as proposal submissions, votes, comments, casts, and engagement. Opportunistically, we will incorporate additional sources and expand the set of metrics.

## Background

As of the moment, the Nouns’ community and audience members produce a wide variety of data. Over time, more data is likely to migrate onchain (e.g. similar to vote comments today) and data will be produced across even more digital localities. The *United World of Nouns* will have a wide-ranging data footprint. Combining data across these localities can become a powerful tool for proposal development and decision-making.

However, as @Krel mentioned in their [Request for Proposers](https://www.notion.so/94dadff999ac493b9902aa002e4b296e?pvs=21):

**“Nouns DAO does not have a reliable way to measure ‘growth’ or ‘success’. Its not clear what should be measured, or what growth in the context of Nouns even means.”**

This project will create an initial repository of activity growth combining onchain and offchain data. We are long overdue to experiment on this front!

## Scope

The metrics tracker will be in the form of a single-purpose web application.

To begin, we will include onchain data available in the Nouns Subgraph and a single social media channel: Farcaster. We will publish a selection of core metrics that provide clarity to Noun holders the wider community. In addition, we will include a graph (Activity Momentum) and leaderboard (The Race) showing “drivers” of Noun activity.

Most importantly, the underlying data pool will serve a first step towards a data-driven Nouns culture, which community members and potential builders can use to find opportunities for proposal submissions.

Success of this project will be measured based on web application usage (unique visitors), proposal references (e.g. This project will increase X metric supporting Noun activity growth), and data pool connections (e.g. external usage of the database).

As a stretch goal, we will look to expand the data sources, for example including key derivative NFT projects (LilNouns) and other dominant social spaces (Discord, X, Lens).

## Product Components

### The Noun Pulse

Whenever we want to test our internet speed, we can easily go to a speed test website. If we want to see how our activity on X (formerly Twitter), we can go to profile analytics. **Where do we go to check how the Nouns ecosystem is growing?** We go to *The Noun Pulse.*

The Pulse is a single purpose website showcasing onchain and offchain activity metrics. This includes public conversations related to the *United World of Nouns.* The main graph, which we are currently calling *“Activity Momentum”* will showcase daily activity growth, a proxy for the Noun meme adoption and mind-share online.


Our data analytics approach will combine methodologies from (1) traditional media broadcasting (e.g. combining data like number of views, replies, likes, proposal submissions, unique voters, etc.) and (2) materials science and engineering (read more about how engineers develop [material selection indexes here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_selection))


Data will be synchronized in real-time directly from the Nouns’ Subgraph and Farcaster to an SQL database. The sync mechanism will be architected in a uniform adapter interface for easier future integration with other onchain data and offchain sources, such as Twitter, Discourse, Discord, Telegram, DeSo, and Lens.

### The Great Nouns Race

In addition, the website will include an activity leader table. However, we want to be unlike traditional races which are solely based on unique identities. While social media analytics ask questions such as: who are the top casters in the Farcaster Nouns Channel?, we want the leaderboard to show which are ***the top memetic sources of Nouns activity***.

Our ambition is to be able to say: The Burn proposal is driving the most engagement, or Noun40 is the most popular Noun. In other words, we want to have a *Meme Race. **Can we create a leaderboard of memes, instead of people?***


Through this design, Nouns would be able to identify the memetic drivers of growth. To start, we would look to rank discussions around specific Noun personas (e.g. which Noun is most popular), and look to extend this to include popular proposals and initiatives.

### Meme Activity Database (a.k.a. The MAD)

In addition to the main activity index and the leaderboard, the product’s underlying data model will be available for others to query and contribute to. That way, others can embed the index into their own Noun interfaces. Anyone should be able to get clean and reliable **meme-data-as-a-service** to support a diversity of Noun initiatives. Imagine a world where active proposals have conversation hype trackers, or ongoing projects can easily see total impressions across social media channels

Web API interface will be available publicly in the form of parametrizable JSON endpoints used by both The Great Nouns Race and The Nouns Pulse. The data will be distributed per specific sources (onchain Nouns, Farcaster, and others) as well as in aggregated form to enable the development of tools such as alerts and bots.

## Product Roadmap

1. Phase 1: Confirm data ETL operational design, create “Meme Activity Database” and publish MVP Pulse Website for testing (2-3 weeks)
2. Phase 2: Iterate on the website and create “The Great Nouns Race” (2-3 weeks)
3. Phase 3: Incorporate community feedback, address bugs and publish database (2-3 weeks)

## An Ambitious Vision

This project aims to uncover what “Nouns-Native” analytics could look like, and what data infrastructure is necessary to feed this analytics into the broader Nouns governance and participation process.

We’ve already intuited that we want to ***Track*** ***Memes, Not People*** — and we’re certain there will be other innovations along the way. After all, we need to address challenges in crossing the web3-to-web2 data pipeline chasm. Is it possible? We think so.

Nouns is a place for ambitious ideas, and we are an ambitious team.

## Team

This project will be led and executed by Rafa Fernandez (Farcaster: @rafa) and Rafi Gutkowski (Farcaster: @rafi).

- Rafa Fernandez is a community architect with a focus on building [Digital Public Utilities](https://www.notion.so/General-Networks-e4615b9b52294f8bab34a82b47023d11?pvs=21). He has decade of experience in corporate analytics and studied materials-science and engineering. He is the founder of Folklore (Folklore.Institute), a community that curates and commissions research on digital cultures. Most recently, he was part of the Summer of Protocols research program looking at [online swarms](https://www.notion.so/41c114211ac045f087c44c16bd993748?pvs=21). Previous to the program he worked at Mirror where he worked in creator partnerships and community development.
- Rafi Gutkowski is a software engineer and data scientist ([libred.org](https://libred.org/), [LinkedIn](http://linkedin.com/in/rgutkowski)). He started mining bitcoin in 2015 but only after exiting from his recent startup, did he double down on web3. Since then Rafi has been working on sementic analysis of decentralized social graphs, as well as creating web3-web2 bridges, such as Folklore’s web3-signature to feed [broadcast applet](https://www.notion.so/Folklore-5d34757913064064b87119c4593eda74?pvs=21).

## Funding

We are requesting 25 ETH to fund this project over approximately 10 weeks.

## Our Commitments

- We commit to posting updates on [updates.wtf](https://updates.wtf/) with sprint plan and outcomes.
- We commit to executing this work as an open-source project, such that other onchain communities and organizations can benefit.

## Other Notes

This proposal was built based on the Basic Nouns Proposal Template, built by Rafa and available here: https://hackmd.io/@rafathebuilder/BkPAmHZbp