———————————————————————————————— The Great Filter —

Let us empower decision making- and voting efforts, by filtering proposals with a transparent set of principles, and promote the ideas objectively on social media platforms.

PROBLEM STATEMENT 💢

How can we make it easier for the community, to have deep and meaningful participation with Project Catalyst proposals?
The Project Catalyst webpage is not easy to navigate, proposals are scattered and quality of proposals vary greatly. Keeping up-to-date with the proposals you find interesting is difficult and time consuming, as the comments and conversations grow by the hour, 24/7.
In other words, Project Catalyst in its current form encourages rational ignorance (The cost of staying informed is higher than the value of being informed). This is a problem for the future of Cardano.

Pain points:

• Formal and Intimidating; the Project Catalyst page is not newbie friendly.
• Wide range of ideas; even for the engaged users it is difficult to stay on track.
• Quality of proposals vary greatly, even by simple academic/practical standards.
• Time consumption; Information updates faster than what a person with a day job is able to stay up-to-date with

GOAL🏆

Minimize time required to have meaningful participation with Project Catalyst proposals, while retaining key information. Encourage the decision making and voting efforts, by respecting the participants' time.

An open source, unbiased, filtering process, will be able to eliminate the issue of rational ignorance that prevents people from being deeply engaged with the ideas and proposals in Project Catalyst. A YouTube channel, PodCast archive and email newsletter, will serve as the medium to distribute the coverage of the filtered results.

TARGET DEMOGRAPHIC
Our key target audience consists of two different user profiles. Let's call them Bob and Alice

• Bob: A person engaged with the Cardano ecosystem and community but not actively in Project Catalyst
• Alice: A person engaged with the Cardano ecosystem and community and who is actively engaged in Project Catalyst

ACTION PLAN 💪
How:
On a per Epoch basis, our team will filter proposals submitted to Project Catalyst. Using a transparent system of objective selection criteria to filter out proposals that fails to meet a standard of professionalism and responsibility. The content will be broadcasted as podcast- and in video form, to make the information available and easy to consume for as many people in the Cardano ecosystem as possible.
Doing the leg work of filtering proposals for the community leads to lower barriers of engagement, as ADA holders will be kept informed about governmental progress, without having to dedicate several hours a week.

Platforms:

• Content: YouTube, Podcasts, newsletter.
• Marketing/Distribution: Ideascale, Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, email

Filter Principles ❌✅📄
Proposals will be evaluated based on their use of the Filter Principles
Does the proposal Include…

• problem statement
• clear goal(s)
• target demographic
• action plan
• expected timeline
• Key Metrics to measure
• Relevant expertise requirement
• breakdown/rationale for requested budget

Filter process

• ✅🟢Follow: The proposal includes the filter principle
• ⚠🟡Explain: The proposal doesn't follow the filter principle, but explains the reason
• ❌🔴Ignore: The proposal doesn't include or address the filter principle

Filter Result

• If the proposal fulfills all of the filter principles, it will make it apparent to the audience if the proposal is:
• Understandable
• Feasible / Realistic
• Useful / Reasonable / Valuable / Desirable
• Serious
  👁‍🗨The Filter Principles will remain transparent and available for the public community to criticize, amend, and propose changes.♻

EXPECTED TIMELINE 📅
2 Rounds of Governance, as the pilot program
ROUND 1

• Data collection and analysis
• Filter implementation and feedback
• Content production
• Content distribution
• Data collection and analysis of reiterations
• Filter implementation and feedback of reiterations
• Content production
• Content distribution

ROUND 2

• [same as ROUND 1]
• Review of results and experience gathered during Round 1
• Revise data analysis
• Revise filter implementation and feedback
• Review key metrics of the success of The Great Filter

KEY METRICS TO MEASURE 📊
Did we manage to increase meaningful participation from proposers, advisors, and voters?

• Community confidence: avg. rating of Catalyst members who approve of overall results of a funding round.
• Community participation: number of Catalyst participants contributing to improving Catalyst decision making systems
• Measured overall
• Impact of individual initiatives
• Proof of iteration: If The Great Filter principles are successful, we should be able to observe an increased adherence to the designed Filter Principles in the following funding rounds' proposals.
• Re-election rates: if proposers following the Filter Principles are re-elected, this is a measurable inference that the filter is evaluating relevant properties

RELEVANT EXPERTISE OF THE PROPOSERS 📚

Stake Pool Operators, Fortune 500 Marketing specialist, Software Engineers, DevOps Engineers, Communication & PR expert Languages: EN, CN, SE, DK, NO, DE, RU, CZ, EE

BREAKDOWN OF REQUESTED BUDGET 💰

The requested funding will be covering the time required for the team to conduct continuous research of submitted proposals, analysis and follow-up on reiterations with submitters, content creation, distribution, maintenance and community engagement.

Procurement of audio visual recording equipment, lighting and set dressing. Post production processing of content, marketing costs, and a small buffer for miscellaneous expenses.

FINAL THOUGHTS 💬

We believe in the core principles of Cardano; Open Source, Ease of Access and Decentralization.
By lowering the barrier of engagement with the Project Catalyst, we enable and empower interested parties, at all levels of active participation.

If we are successful in doing so; The increased participation, and the publicized coverage of our governance progress, will begin to draw in people from outside the Cardano ecosystem as well, and we can truly start changing the world.

We want as many people to participate in Project Catalyst as possible, and we want their engagement to be deep and meaningful. We want to see our community succeed.
Thank you for reading our proposal.