A Dynamic Task Reward System for Workgroups

Workgroup challenges

In observing and participating in workgroups I’ve noticed the following emerging challenges:

A difficulty for stewards to gauge the value of contributions either with a task-based model which would incentivize completing low effort tasks, or a time-based model which would incentivize slow work.
To maximize the value ENS receives when it pays for work, so that ENS doesn’t overpay for simple work done inefficiently and burns through treasury funds needlessly.
To incentivize active participation and completion of tasks on time so that the workgroups are a viable alternative to hiring outside contractors.
To make the compensation predictable to users working in workgroups to avoid confusion and conflict.

A dynamic reward system for tasks

A solution to this is to set an initial reward value to each task that increases hourly or daily until someone accepts it, which offers the following benefits in that it:

Incentivizes active participation by having users compete for tasks by actively visiting the task platform until the price of a task is in-line with their expectation of compensation.
Maximizes the value received by ENS by users competing to accept tasks at the lowest price they’re willing to complete them, which guarantees that ENS neither under- nor overpays for tasks.
Users A and B might be equally competent, but B might be willing to complete the task for less and would pick up the task before A.
Naturally scales to the complexity of the task with a dynamically increasing reward when fewer users are willing or able to complete it. Then the reward would increase until it attracts someone either willing or able to complete the task.
Users agree beforehand what their time is worth which avoids time-consuming “I did x I should’ve earned more than those who did y”-conflicts.
Speeds up work by limiting the number of tasks a user can claim at a time to n.
Removes a burden on stewards to subjectively gauge the value of work that may not be within their area of expertise, and without knowing how much time was spent or expertise required to complete it.

Potential problems that could arise from this system

Problem: Users accept tasks at a low price, but do unacceptable work.
Solution: Stewards will approve the quality of work after a task is completed through a vote to accept/reject/send back for suggested edits. If a task is rejected or repeatedly sent back for edits, this behaviour would be disincentivized.

Problem: Users form a price cartel and mutually agree to not take on tasks under a certain price (this seems unlikely to occur.)
Solution: Add more users to the workgroup. The more users that participate, the harder it is to sustain a price cartel.

Implementation

While there are advanced platforms that could probably be leveraged for this such as Amazon Mechanical Turk, I think that for ENS the best option would be a simple dashboard that links to clarity, as it doesn’t seem to support any sort of pricing system.

The purpose of this post is to kickstart discussions around these ideas, if and how they should be implemented as well as to serve as a springboard for ideas.