@benohanlon - Here’s a hypothesis how “proximity bias” led to a huge part of the ecosystem being left out, as identified early in this thread: STANDARDS (I’m capitalising these terms because most of the “Sector Nanes” (sic) in your PDF table are capitalised):
The architect of the “ecosystem map” selects the “20 Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs)” according to the voice and interest they have on social networking platforms and areas perceived to have marketing interest: reflecting the “proximity bias” of the person who is selecting them.
Naturally, the vital but less conspicuous area of STANDARDS never comes up (though of well acknowledged importance to blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum) so there is no “key” leader concerned with Cardano’s standards (or education, for that matter).
In turn, those “key” leaders emphasise their own areas of high-profile commercial & social interest according to their own “proximity bias” which is not close enough to standards (or education, or …) for them to prioritise and include it.
Note that STANDARDS are not GOVERNANCE, which you have defined as decision-making about on-chain parameters and features. They are not INNOVATE either (though this term is appropriate to many CIPs) because you don’t have to “innovate” to converge upon standards and promote cooperation.
So if anyone were to claim that Cardano’s CIP process is included through some indirectly related category, that’s another outcome of “proximity bias”, since nobody who worked with standards directly or regularly would make such an error.
This also explains why ENTERTAINMENT is included but not EDUCATION. Why not? Is education any more intangible or abstract than entertainment… so much that its ecosystem factors need to be demoted into individual roles? If so, where are those roles? I don’t see “Teacher”, “Documentation {Builder, Developer, Writer}”, “{Working Group, Workshop} Leader” or any other roles that Cardano’s thriving education effort depends upon. (cc @Sebastian_Pabon@RyanW)
The proximity bias of the 20 “key” consultants for this list might think EDUCATION is something that happens only consequentially to their own areas of personal interest… as would STANDARDS they might need to write or evaluate for some individual activity.
This “proximity bias” can be (and has been) used to deprive the missing categories of political importance: although the people that care about these sectors will work on them anyway even if they are considered too politically unimportant to acknowledge. But this can get to be a problem when these sectors need funding and the voting communities like Catalyst haven’t been exposed to them: leading to quite a bit of tangible damage when a vital sector is left out.
So if you are coming up with a “complete” list of sectors and roles in Cardano then you have a huge responsibility to factor out this “proximity bias” by (and/or):
doing proper diligence (e.g. through public requests for comment) to ensure you have a complete survey of the “sectors”, including the ones you don’t work with commercially or politically;
posting these lists AS TEXT in a repository or CIP/CPS draft so that any community members who have been excluded can submit additions to the “sectors” and “roles” with proper justification.
Note the latter effort would be highly compatible with the CIP process; see for example this list of metadata tags which have each been contributed by the community (i.e. from someone with “proximity”) and validated by peer review through pull requests on the CIPs repository: https://github.com/cardano-foundation/CIPs/blob/master/CIP-0010/registry.json
I agree with @earncoinpool 's sentiments about building a more connected community which is more aware of the importance of others.
(emphasis mine)
I am concerned that frameworks, or “maps”, are necessarily opinionated. Every person views the ecosystem through their own eyes based on their own life experiences and interests.
I think we need to be careful that we don’t hand a tool to “20 key opinion leaders” enabling them to obtain out-sized voting control.
Creating maps like this has the potential to influence what “roles, sectors, and definitions” are even considered to be voting options. For example, when there needs to be a vote about how funding is apportioned, then anything not on the map won’t even be an option on the voting card.
I am not saying that the framework or map isn’t worth thinking about, and maybe something like this can bring the community closer together if it is all encompassing and not biased by a select group. But, unfortunately frameworks or “maps” like this have the potential to become more manipulated and politically influential over time, particularly when everyone is time poor and exhausted.
I’m asking for input on proximity bias in Cardano. I want to know if you’ve experienced proximity bias in Cardano. Has this happened to you? Where and how? What impact did it have? Sharing your real experiences will help us all understand if this is a widespread issue.
To kick off the discussion, I’ve shared a prototype map and a PDF with role and sector definitions. This is IO’s contribution to start the conversation. From here on, I’m acting as a member of Intersect and asking people if this is a problem they’ve encountered!
I may have given the impression that IO is setting standards and will undertake further diligence or public requests for comments. This isn’t the case. I believe this is an issue the community needs to consider as it self-governs. I see this as an initiative for Intersect and DReps to lead, with community input. It could help DReps better represent the ecosystem.
Responses to your comments:
@Terminada - I agree, maps can be opinionated. That’s why I’m asking for everyone’s input now. The goal is to gather many views to create a shared perspective, preventing any group from having outsized influence.
@COSDpool On EDUCATION - It’s included, but we could detail the roles better if we decide this is a problem worth solving. DReps might find this particularly useful.
On STANDARDS - They’re a key part of our ecosystem. This work could help us understand how proximity bias affects how we see and use them.
I’m not claiming this list is exhaustive. I’m suggesting there’s a potential problem that Intersect and DReps could lead on addressing, with community input AND giving you some examples of how it could be addressed.
This isn’t a task for one person or organisation. It requires community consensus, diligence and feedback.
I’ve noted the suggestion for a version-controlled system for updates. That’s something we could consider if we move forward with this.
Standards are vital in our ecosystem. This work could enhance our understanding and discussion of role-based needs, challenges and incentives.
My thought process:
1. Is this a problem? 2. Should we fix it? 3. If yes, write a Cardano Problem Statement together
What next?
Share your experiences with proximity bias. When have you or others struggled to see beyond your immediate circle?
Would you be interested in joining an Intersect working group on this topic? We could propose a special interest group (SIG) or working group (WG) if there’s sufficient interest.
How can we expand this conversation? Can you help spread the word?
Let’s bring more people into this discussion. We need to get this right.
I believe that any solution must acknowledge Dunbar’s number (Dunbar's number - Wikipedia). Maybe the diversity is not a problem to solve, but a strength.
@ParadoxicalSphere is ‘social justice’ a role (a role is like a hat) someone would wear in the ecosystem? Or is something that one of the roles might be concerned with (for example dreps might decide that’s an important part of their values and how they attract delegation).
I agree that an issue exists, but not sure about how the issue may be framed here. I would describe the issue, borrowing from the prisoner’s dilemma, as self-interested behaviour rather than cooperating or collaborating.
Alternately, the problem may be framed in terms of fundamentally perceiving the world as a place of lack (stemming from shame and blame as core emotions, perhaps the world as socially unjust) or perceiving the world as a place of abundance (with love and compassion as core emotions, a world in which we do look out for each other fairly).
I guess I would consider social justice as the interests of the ecosystem as a whole. For example, an individual SPO may only want more delegators for their pool or to operate multiple unsaturated stake pools for maximum rewards (self interest and maximizing profit). However, the ecosystem as a whole benefits from decentralization (cooperation and collaboration, such as helping smaller pools). In Cardano, SPOs tend to look out for themselves… who looks out for the whole ecosystem? Self interest is about survival, which is not enough. Cooperation and collaboration will help Cardano thrive and reach mass adoption.
Huge fan of this idea, and I see the real value for projects and DRep’s; as well as the solution it allows for many of the more broad ecosystem representation challenges we face.
there’s a LOT of assumptions within the Cardano ecosystem regarding benevolence and sharing. While the discussions about consensus do exist, the Catalyst setup exposes quite a few biases. Rather than argue about that though, I’ll say there’s a rather large group of controlling and mostly silent developers who look at the sociology with disdain because ‘they’ are the makers. Well, the vast majority of new Cardano Fans are not developers and never will be.If you want the ecosystem to grow, you do not need a community of developers making what they think is useful, you need a planet full of users who are getting what they want. Yes there’s proximity bias and a dozen others too here. Yes it is worth addressing otherwise you have choirs singing to ever smaller circles of choir-divas.