On behalf of the Open Web Sandbox, we would like to request extra 3000NEAR to finalize our payouts for the August period. This includes the running contributors’ claims, 850N that still need to be paid out to the Sandbox moderators (150N*5 for moderators +100N to one council member) and a small buffer till the next request in September. August metrics similar to this OWS Fund Request [August] will be provided in September Guild Report. For questions please contact myself or @mecsbecs
It's September 1st but August is far from over from a monthly OWS rewards-claiming perspective.
We appreciate the patience of Sandboxers as we’ve been inundated with a RECORD high of claims this month and our three moderators responsible for reviewing, approving, and voting on each claim (myself, @Sofia_Alum, and @vrdoingthings) have been overwhelmed.
We find ourselves in an unprecedented situation where the wonderful engagement of our community has meant we will have once more depleted our Sandbox SputnikDAO funds before everyone can receive their reward for August.
Our combined list of PENDING REWARDS (not including moderator payouts) is here and combines the pending reward claims still be reviewed, claims already approved and waiting to be voted through on the SputnikDAO, and claims that have been approved but are yet to be posted to the DAO.
This list of pending reward claims totals 9,274 $NEAR
In order to ensure we’re paying out our moderators, and so we don’t have to come to the CommunitySquad DAO requesting yet a FOURTH time for funding for the month of August, we would also like to request a 5,000 $NEAR buffer so we have a treasury amount in the SputnikDAO for emergencies. We have requested a small buffer amount before, but have depleted these funds to pay out rewards each time.
This brings our total (and final) August 2021 funding request to 14,274 $NEAR
We have made a promise to our contributors, when we posted the opportunities for rewards at the beginning of August, that work matching our rolling rewards & opportunities list would be rewarded, and we do not want to disappoint them by not keeping our word. We are working on addressing our internal capacity issues so this month’s slow-down does not happen again (1 new moderator confirmed to start in September, with plans for more by the end of the month with fluency in languages other than English), and the OWS September Fund request should be more reasonable than the surprising uptick in funding we’ve needed for August based on the claim maximums we’ve added in our rewards list (see below).
Any positive and productive suggestions for actionable improvement are always welcome, but the name of the game in the Sandbox is to be as open and flexible as possible in order to encourage engagement from across the NEAR Ecosystem. Just with increased interest and engagement requires adjustment, and as the Sandbox grows and scales up, we look forward to the support of the Community along the way.
See also these pertinent Forum posts regarding what the 'state of affairs' is in the Sandbox for your reference:
PLEASE NOTE that for September’s rewards we have made adjustments to not just the number of memes that can be claimed monthly, but have capped the number of infographics; we have also lowered the reward amount that can be claimed for the Social Media Force category so we are focusing on rewarding quality engagement social media accounts