Introduction
RetroPitches are friendly competitions where public goods creators present their contributions to Optimism, raise awareness for their work, and help advance governance systems on the Superchain. These events provide RetroFunding Round 6 applicants with an engaging platform to demonstrate their impact while helping badge holders discover and evaluate governance improvements.
RetroFunding Round 6 will distribute up to 3.5M OP to reward impactful governance contributions made between October 2023 - September 2024. As part of our RetroSeason initiatives, these pitch competitions work alongside RetroPolls - where Token House members, Citizens' House badge holders, and Optimism Fractal community members can help evaluate impact through onchain voting.
This page curates information about the most recent season of RetroPitches. For details about the first season and history of the events, you can see this article. Read on to learn how you can pitch your project or join our community in recognizing governance innovations across the Superchain.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Event Details
- Season 2 Videos
- Benefits for RetroPitchers
- About RetroPitches
- Origins & History
- Innovation & Evolution
- RetroPolls: Evaluating Impact
- RetroSeason Overview
- Looking Ahead
- Related Posts
Event Details
At each RetroPitches event, contributors have up to 5 minutes to showcase their project’s impact on Optimism governance. All presentations are recorded and timestamped, enabling badge holders and community members to easily discover and evaluate various contributions. Participating applicants can share their screen during the presentation, and we’re happy to display any helpful websites to promote their grant while they speak.
We invite everyone to join these events and help recognize impactful work in the ecosystem by sharing your thoughts. You'll have the opportunity to learn about innovative projects and connect with governance leaders across the Superchain. Time permitting, we'll open the floor for questions and discussions. Don't forget to RSVP on the Optimism Town Hall event page. We can't wait to see you there!
Season 2 Videos
9:01 OpenRank pitches by @gloriakw
24:25 Optimism Security Council pitch by @alisha.eth
33:12 Optimism Fractal pitch by @DanSingjoy
43:09 SEED Gov pitch by @delphine
11:09 Delegate Match pitch by @suede
18:13 CharmVerse Grants pitch by @ccarella
22:17 CharmVerse Retro Funding Application Review pitch by @ccarella
27:55 GovXS (Token Engineering Academy) pitch by Idrees
35:04 Deliberative Process on the definition of profit pitch by @antoine
42:35 Tribuni Telegram Bot pitch by @ken12138
12:24 DeepDAO pitch
19:16 Growthepie pitch
25:23 Boardroom pitch
30:44 Lighthouse pitch
33:54 Grant Round Analysis (S5R2) pitch
37:42 Pairwise pitch
45:38 Optimism Newsfeed + Assistant pitch (x23.ai)
50:13 Governance widget for X and Farcaster pitch (IDriss)
54:37 Fracton Research - Retrospective Quantitative Review of Grants pitch
1:01:52 RetroList app pitch
Benefits for RetroPitchers
For RetroFunding Round 6 applicants, RetroPitches offers:
- A platform to showcase your work to badge holders and the wider community
- High-quality video content with timestamps to help promote your contributions
- Feedback from the community to refine your impact messaging
- An audience of governance enthusiasts and connections with other innovators
- Participation in pioneering new evaluation methods for RetroFunding
These pitch competitions build on a rich history of successful public goods evaluation experiments in the Collective. Learn more about past RetroPitches events and how this initiative helps optimize governance evaluation at scale below.
About RetroPitches
RetroPitches are hosted by Dan Singjoy, organized at Optimism Town Hall, and presented by Optimystics—a team of innovative builders building open-source software, orchestrating events, and developing prosocial games on the Superchain. Dive into our origins and vision for RetroPitches below to discover the heart of these groundbreaking pitch competitions!
Origins & History
RetroPitches began during RetroFGF Round 3, where we hosted three successful events that not only helped badge holders discover and evaluate public goods, but also gave contributors an exciting platform to share their stories and connect with the community. These early experiments demonstrated how interactive presentations and community engagement could make governance evaluation more effective and enjoyable for everyone involved.
Optimism Governance RetroPitches builds upon these foundations, incorporating a year of learnings to create an even better experience focused specifically on governance contributions. We invite you to explore RetroPitches Season 1 and one of the videos from our pilot season below to get an idea of what to expect for the upcoming events:
RetroPitches 3
How can public goods creators spread the word about their work? RetroPGF applicants share presentations then judges vote on the most impactful, exciting, heartwarming, and fun pitches 🎤 🏟️ ✨
We invite you to explore our rich history of public goods evaluation experiments and see how these events have evolved. Check out our article on the history and future of RetroPitches to learn how these competitions are helping pioneer new ways to evaluate impact in the Collective. You can also discover how RetroPitches fits into our broader vision for public goods games and the future of governance evaluation.
Innovation & Evolution
For RetroFunding Round 6, we're enhancing RetroPitches with new features that specifically focus on governance impact evaluation. Building on our learnings from the past year, we're introducing RetroPolls - an onchain voting system that enables diverse stakeholders across the Optimism ecosystem to participate in impact evaluation.
These innovations are part of RetroSeason, our initiative to enhance RetroFunding through better evaluation methods. The combination of live presentations and onchain polling creates a rich dataset that helps badge holders assess contributions while experimenting with new coordination mechanisms that could benefit future rounds.
RetroPolls: Evaluating Impact
To complement RetroPitches presentations and create a comprehensive evaluation process, we're also launching RetroPolls - an innovative onchain impact evaluation system. RetroPolls will allow Token House members, Citizens' House badge holders, and the Optimism Fractal community to help evaluate the impact of RetroFunding projects. Everyone is welcome to join the events, participate in the voting, and help recognize impactful work in the ecosystem.
This multi-stakeholder approach draws inspiration from successful governance systems around the world, including bicameral and tricameral structures, as well as modern pluralistic approaches to impact measurement. The voting system itself, implemented using Snapshot X for onchain voting, incorporates elements from Respect Trees in its use of reputation-based voting mechanisms.
Participation is open to key stakeholders across the ecosystem:
- Token House: OP holders and delegates who safeguard protocol evolution and manage economic policies aligned with the Collective's long-term viability
- Citizens' House: Badge holders selected to allocate RetroFunding and provide checks and balances in a "one person, one vote" system
- Optimism Fractal: Community members who have earned OPF Respect tokens by playing the Respect Game at Optimism Fractal weekly events
Looking ahead, we plan to expand voting participation to include additional stakeholders like past RetroFunding recipients and active builders (measured through metrics like GitHub contributions and Farcaster engagement). This expansion aims to capture an even broader range of perspectives and leverage collective wisdom from across the ecosystem.
By participating in RetroPolls, you can:
- Help evaluate and reward vital governance contributions
- Shape the future of RetroFunding processes
- Pioneer new methods for measuring impact
- Support public goods development in the Collective
Learn more about RetroPolls in this article and keep reading to learn about the final stage of RetroSeason: a RetroReport that summarizes the key learnings from RetroPolls and RetroPitches.
RetroSeason Overview
RetroSeason represents our most comprehensive initiative yet for enhancing impact evaluation in RetroFunding Round 6. The journey begins with RetroPitches, where projects share their contributions through engaging live presentations. These presentations feed into RetroPolls, where the community can participate in onchain voting to evaluate impact across multiple dimensions.
To complete the cycle, we aim to produce the RetroReport - a comprehensive analysis of the RetroPolls data using The Graph protocol to transform onchain results into clear visualizations and insights. The report will compile voting data from various stakeholder groups into accessible charts and spreadsheets, providing badge holders with valuable signals to help them fairly reward impact with profit.
Coinciding with Optimism Fractal's first anniversary, RetroSeason embodies a year's worth of learnings and innovations Through this combination of live events, democratic participation, and data-driven analysis, RetroSeason aims to pioneer new ways of measuring and rewarding contributions that strengthen governance throughout the Superchain ecosystem. You can learn more about the complete RetroSeason initiative in this detailed article.
Looking Ahead
RetroPitches represent an exciting evolution in how we evaluate and reward impact in the Optimism Collective. As we expand to multiple events over the coming weeks, we look forward to showcasing the incredible work being done to enhance Optimism governance and pioneering new ways to measure contributions across the ecosystem.
Complementary Events
While RetroSeason focuses on governance contributions for Round 6, we invite you to join our cornerstone weekly events that provide ongoing opportunities for governance collaboration:
Optimism Fractal
Join our weekly Respect Games, an innovative platform for evaluating contributions and earning Respect tokens within the Optimism ecosystem. By participating, you'll:
- Experience fractal democracy principles firsthand
- Contribute to fair, decentralized impact assessment
- Network with like-minded community members
- Earn Respect tokens that may influence future governance
Join Respect Games on Thursdays at 17 UTC to how we're fostering collaboration, awarding public goods creators, and optimizing governance. Learn more at OptimismFractal.com.
Optimism Town Hall
An hour after Optimism Fractal, join our collaborative forum for Optimism governance discussions. Features include:
- Democratic topic selection by various stakeholders
- Open discussions on crucial governance matters
- Opportunity to shape the future of Optimism
- Regular updates on ecosystem developments
For topic selection examples, see this proposal. Join us Thursdays at 18:00 UTC. Learn more at OptimismTownHall.com.
Both events are concluding their current seasons and will return after a two-week break on November 21st. Everyone is welcome to participate!
Your participation in RetroPitches helps strengthen Optimism's governance processes and supports public goods creators who are building vital infrastructure for the Collective. Whether you're presenting your work, evaluating contributions, or just learning about the incredible projects in our ecosystem, you're helping pioneer new ways to measure and reward impact.
Thank you for contributing to this exciting initiative. Together, we're building better ways to recognize and reward those who help the Collective thrive. Register now to secure your spot for upcoming RetroPitches events. We're excited to see your presentations and collaborate on improving governance in the Optimism Collective! 🌞
Related Posts
An exploration of RetroPitches, a consensus game where Optimists coopete to promote their RetroPGF projects and grow Optimism.
Imagine epic tournaments where talented creators compete, collaborate, and coordinate to help the Optimism Collective. Like the Olympic Games, but for creating public goods.
Discover Optimystics' suite of open-source tools and prosocial games designed to revolutionize community governance, impact measurement, reputation systems, and public goods funding mechanisms on Ethereum.
An innovative onchain system to evaluate impact and contributions on Optimism, allowing diverse ecosystem stakeholders to participate in transparent voting processes.
An initiative aimed at optimizing the impact evaluation and reward system for public goods creators with RetroPitches, RetroPolls, and a RetroReport!
RetroPitches Season 1 featured the pilot program of are engaging competitions where RetroPGF applicants present their projects to the public, help evaluate impact, and learn about innovative public goods initiatives.