Summary

Intelligently-themed naming systems help DAOs to develop an identity, help DAO project champions to differentiate among contributor types, and help keep things fun for contributors!

Context

Names are needed

Names communicate meaning and nuance; names reflect culture; names create identities.

Look at fan groups for names: Critical Role fans are Critters, Arsenal fans are the Gooners, and the Raiders have the Black Hole.

Names create insider culture, helping people and groups to develop a shared identity. Insider culture should not be used to exclude (they're not ______), but rather positively affirm identity formation instead (we are ______).

Bankless Names

Bankless DAO has two types of roles, financial and social. L2 is the only role that communicates anything about a contributor’s social or experiential capital, hard-earned through past contributions.

The L1, L3, L4 Bankless DAO names are sexless, bland, and don't communicate anything about those roles beyond the hierarchy of numbers.

Good names communicate the general purpose of a role.

• ex. Guild Coordinator, Ops Guild Apprentice, Notion Nerds, etc.

Levels help

• Tiers of contributors allow project champions to differentiate who has the experience and alignment to pick up tasks freely (permissionless system) versus who should be asked to apply for tasks (permissioned system).
  • Project champions could be anyone from the higher tiers.
• Gamify it and give contributors a path to grow along, similar to L1/L3/L4 system for Bankless DAO.

Keep the names consistent

A consistent theme to names helps everyone remember the purpose and hierarchy of roles intuitively.

• Think of job titles:
  • worker > manager > owner

We want to use a naming system to differentiate us from typical hierarchies. Experiential differences are to be embraced, not avoided; we can even have fun with it!

• Think of videogames or fantasy games:
  • A wizard might level up
    • mage > arcanist > archmage

Each higher tier has connotations of more experience, the names function as a signal of experiential and social capital. (check out the Eight Forms of Capital for context)

Expandable systems

A theme provides natural ways the naming system can expand while maintaining some connection to each role's actual purpose.

Fight Club can lean into the fight theme:

• contributors = "Fighters"
• contributor levels = weight classes
• other roles in a boxing match:
  • Fight promoter, fighter manager, coach, venue owner/promoter, announcer, ring girl, referee, cut men, etc.
• Some ideas:
  • A project founder might become Venue Owner
  • An Ambassador could be an Announcer
  • Workstream leads become Coaches
  • Discord Mods/Admins could be Referees

The theme provides an extensible system for roles in the organization.

Names at Fight Club 🥊

Fight Club contributors are renamed Fighters in general and have their weight class denote their amount of contribution (and a signal of their social and experiential capital).

Fighter Levels

This system is based on boxer weight classes; I understand that heavier =/= better in actual fights, but let's apply superficial videogame logic here.

If heavier == better, then you want the most CAKE possible to feed your fighter and gain weight. It uses theming to help contributors remember their levels and how they level up (become more trusted, more access, etc.)

Remember: contributors = "Fighters", contributor levels = weight classes

• Flyweight (no NFT)
• Featherweight (Black Glove NFT) (25 task points)
• Welterweight (50 task points)
• Heavyweight (150 task points)
• Sumo (300 task points)

How to Level Up

Fighters start with Fight Club (post-mint) as Flyweights (guest contributors), earn CAKE to trade in for a membership NFT, and level up to the next weight class.

The system described here is designed for projects whose members hold NFTs, but it could be easily applied to a fungible token project with amounts of tokens held representing similar contribution levels.

The point system implementation using open data and web3 technologies is outside the scope of this post.

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Notes

iSpeakNerd is an educator, content creator, and DAO techie at Bankless DAO. He is the creator of Fight Club’s contributor onboarding process, is the Content Director of Bankless Academy, and helps with Operations and tooling for multiple DAOs. His background is in physical science and education.