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OpenDataforWeb3 / DataGrantsforARB

Organizing work as outlined in the Data Grants proposal to ThankARB and the ARB DAO in Q4 of 2023
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Arbitrum governance discussion analysis #23

Open katerinabc opened 8 months ago

katerinabc commented 8 months ago

Objective: Understand the social layer of Arbitrum by analyzing the discussion patterns on Discourse. Decisions are made by humans who talk with each other. It is through these conversations that (1) people form opinions about Arbitrum's and (2) delegates are influenced to vote for/against a specific proposal*. By understanding key discussion patterns (e.g., decentralization, fragmentation) and who the opinion leaders are, it is possible to design interventions and incentives to create the governance involvement Arbitrum strives.

Data: Discussion posts on Arbitrum Governance Forum (Discourse). The data point are conversations. These consists of nodes (members) and edges (replies, mentions, likes). Edges are weighted by the frequency of interactions between two members.

Potentially: Using data from Karma leaderboard for delegates, the information about members can be enriched with wallet data or other off-chain information.

Methodology: The data analysts will conduct a cross-sectional network analysis of the interaction patterns in the Forum. This will be conducted at the Forum level. Subsequently a longitudinal analysis can be done to see how the overall structural patterns evolved over time. Attention should be paid on the following: (1) How decentralized is Arbitrum and is the score increasing/decreasing over time? (2) How many subgroups (clusters) exists in Arbitrum? Are these stable over time (numbers and who is a member of what cluster)? (3) Who are the opinion leaders? Are they stable over time? Are they related to a specific cluster?

Deliverable: The deliverable can be either an interactive dashboard with the social network graph and key metrics, or a static report (pdf, forum post, blog post) describing the results.

Of course, the forum isn't the only place where community members talk with each other, and influence each other. However, given it's purpose as governance forum* and it's open nature, it is the best place to conduct this analysis.

katerinabc commented 8 months ago

The analysis could further be enriched by looking at the content of posts and proposal. However, that should be a second issue as it requires a different skill set.