Treasury Tracker

[senseless]

Project Abstract

TreasuryTracker is an analytics portal aimed at providing insights into Polkadot and Kusama's OpenGovernance referenda. It seeks to address the lack of financial oversight by enabling efficient utilization of treasury funds and enhancing transparency.

Grant level

• Level 1: Up to $10,000, 2 approvals
• Level 2: Up to $30,000, 3 approvals
• Level 3: Unlimited, 5 approvals (for >$100k: Web3 Foundation Council approval)

Application Checklist

• The application template has been copied and aptly renamed (project_name.md).
• I have read the application guidelines.
• Payment details have been provided (bank details via email or BTC, Ethereum (USDC/DAI) or Polkadot/Kusama (USDT) address in the application).
• [X ] The software delivered for this grant will be released under an open-source license specified in the application.
• The initial PR contains only one commit (squash and force-push if needed).
• The grant will only be announced once the first milestone has been accepted (see the announcement guidelines).
• I prefer the discussion of this application to take place in a private Element/Matrix channel. My username is: @stakeplus:matrix.org (change the homeserver if you use a different one)

[CLAassistant]

All committers have signed the CLA.

[Noc2]

Thanks for the application. In general, this looks interesting, but I have a couple of questions/comments:

• Did you already consider applying for treasury funding for this? I think, ideally, tools for the treasury are funded by the treasury, since the community and everyone involved are the experts when it comes to the treasury itself.
• Are you aware of https://github.com/wpank/open-gov-insights?
• Regarding the backend, could you not potentially reuse an existing solution for this?

[senseless]

Thanks for the application. In general, this looks interesting, but I have a couple of questions/comments:

* Did you already consider applying for treasury funding for this? I think, ideally, tools for the treasury are funded by the treasury, since the community and everyone involved are the experts when it comes to the treasury itself.

Having been intimately involved in OpenGOV for the last ~10 months and observing voting behavior, We do not believe the current climate is conducive to POC funding. We opted to follow the grant guidelines and seek an L1 grant to establish a proof of concept first. If our POC proves successful, we will reconsider the future options choosing between a higher-level grant application or try to submit an OpenGOV proposal.

Please see the following memes we created to express our current thoughts on OpenGOV:

https://twitter.com/StakePlusCrypto/status/1688505265166123008
https://twitter.com/StakePlusCrypto/status/1680375674500964352

* Are you aware of https://github.com/wpank/open-gov-insights?

We're familiar with Will's tool at open-gov-insights. It's an invaluable resource for extracting voter OpenGOV data, offering significant insights into voter statistics. However, it uses only a fraction of the data spectrum we plan to analyze on our platform. Some of our data needs to be manually curated because there is no source of this information.

* Regarding the backend, could you not potentially reuse an existing solution for this?

Thank you for raising this point. Indeed, we explored the possibility of using an existing solution for the backend. Considering the long-term vision of our project, we deemed it more appropriate to tailor-make a backend that fits specifically to our needs. Another key factor behind this decision was the economic viability. The time to refactor an unfamiliar application would be longer than to build it out from scratch. Most of the work that needs to be done for the POC are in creating the interactions for graphing and tedious nature of making all of the onClick functionality for charting. The backend design will be quite minimal. We may in the future migrate over to using one or more indexing solutions (SubSquid, SubQuery, etc).

[takahser]

@senseless

However, it uses only a fraction of the data spectrum we plan to analyze on our platform.

Could you clarify the exact differences?

Also, could you show some UI-related references that your team implemented in the past?

[senseless]

@senseless

However, it uses only a fraction of the data spectrum we plan to analyze on our platform.

Could you clarify the exact differences?

Also, could you show some UI-related references that your team implemented in the past?

The most recent work was on the IBP frontends and design. This work was completed by Thomas as noted in the application.

• https://ibp.network
• https://wiki.ibp.network
• https://monitor.dotters.network

I dropped you some links in element regarding the other questions.

[CoinStudioDOT]

@senseless

However, it uses only a fraction of the data spectrum we plan to analyze on our platform.

Could you clarify the exact differences?

Thank you for pointing out Will's tool at open-gov-insights. While this tool is predominantly aimed toward voting statistics- the distribution of votes and voters—the TreasuryTracker vision, as visualized in our graphical mockups, spans a much more extensive treasury-related data landscape.

A reminder that L1 Grant is the application to create a POC that will cover the small aspect of the first two data sets only, Referenda details and Financial insights as shown in the Grant mockups which is something that is not available in the mentioned tool.

Some of the foundational features include:

• Referenda Details: Covering aspects like ID, Proposal Title, Proposer's ID, Address, Origin track, Project Category, Proposal URL, and Status.

• Financial Insights: Offering information on the Payment Schedule, Requested Amounts (in DOT and USD), Received Amount in USD, and financial variances such as the Difference in USD and Reimbursements.

• Voting Statistics: Provides a deep dive into Referenda Submission dates, Start and End dates, the dynamics of Votes (Aye, Nay, Total), Votes Casted and Delegated, and their consequential distribution percentages. Moreover, it delves into the Final Vote Results and the Controversy Index.

• Voter Analysis: Incorporates a broad range of data, from numbers of Voters for Aye, Nay, and Abstain to metrics about Voter delegation, distribution, and final results.

• Time-Defined Data: An organized view according to Quarters, Months, and Weeks for when Referenda were Submitted, Began, and Concluded.

In the future iterations of the platform, we are exploring the potential to incorporate additional data including:

• Project Management Factors: This would encompass the Proposed Timeline, detailed Milestones and Deliverables, Start and End Dates, and an updated Current Status.
• Social Engagement Metrics: This would capture the Number of Comments, Likes, and Shares associated with each proposal, complemented by Sentiment Analysis for deeper insights.
• Evaluation Factors: Here, we would look at the Implementation Success, the punctuality of On-Time Delivery, Deviations from the initial Proposal, and the existence of an Audit Report and External Reviews. Moreover, we'd highlight any Corrective Actions taken post-review.
• Proposer's History and Feedback: Incorporating a history of Previous Proposals by the Proposer, Inter-Proposal Dependencies, and any Feedback Given to the Proposer.
• Team and Geographical Data: Offering deeper insights into Team Information, the Proposer's Country or Region, and potential Secondary Effects of the proposal.
• Risk Management: Highlighting Identified Risks and the Responses or strategies to mitigate said risks.

While Will's tool provides insight into the world of voter statistics, our platform's ambition is to provide a holistic, multi-faceted overview of multiple data sources providing a more informed OpenGov experience. Platform as such does not exist in the eco.

[takahser]

@senseless @CoinStudioDOT Thanks for the explanations. Could you incorperate these features into the proposal? Also, feel free to comment on this follow-up inline comment.

[takahser]

Thanks for the update but I still didn't find the more detailed feature description incorporated into the proposal doc.
On another note: what's the reason you're using jQuery over a more modern frontend framework like React, Angular, Vue, etc.?

[senseless]

On another note: what's the reason you're using jQuery over a more modern frontend framework like React, Angular, Vue, etc.?

I'm a boomer... Basically... My background is mostly in infrastructure. I'm someone who can code, but not a coder. It's easier for me to stick with what I'm used to in order to get things built out quickly. My hope with this site is that we can build it out, have people understand the need and use of information, and receive further funding allowing us to hire on devs I use to work with to modernize things. I do not believe we'll be able to find support in OpenGOV until voters can see the need themselves. At that point we would migrate everything over to a React or similar frontend and utilize API interaction with the cakephp framework to pull the necessary data into the frontend via API. Many of the components will be reusable, some will not.

Just to reiterate the need again. "We generate X per day so we should spend X per day" is not a theory of treasury management. No one thinks like that, people look at categorized expenses and decide which areas they could cut things in to reduce expenditure. You would ask questions like "How much do I spend on cell service?", "How much do I spend on entertainment?", "How much do I spend eating out?". You would categorically prioritize expenditure. If you were try to ask similar questions of the treasury budgeting process, you would not be able to find the answer unless you go through every proposal manually. Questions like "How much do we spend on RPC?", "How much do we spend on Media?", "How much do we spend on Events?" are completely unanswerable without significant manual analysis.

Thanks for the update but I still didn't find the #1900 (comment) incorporated into the proposal doc.

These elements have been incorporated into the application

[takahser]

@senseless thanks for adding more details and answering the follow-up questions. While I'm not 100% convinced of the technical architecture I do see business value in a solution like this. Since you seem to be knowledgable about the challenges the treasury faces as well as are passionate about solution thereof, I'm still willing to give it a shot.

[Noc2]

Thanks for the update. I'm happy to go ahead with it.

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[senseless]

I'm not sure if this appropriate here now that this is approved; but just to give a status update: We have launched the primary website ( https://treasurytracker.io/ ) and are working on the last few features for this grant request before requesting for milestone delivery.

[semuelle]

Thanks, @senseless. We are always happy to hear updates between milestones.