Dear Dotsama Community!

Many of you have participated in the validator selection study and we are very grateful for your help. In this proposal, we want to share more details about the experiment itself and also request funding to compensate all users that participated. **We request 242 DOT from the Treasury.** Results show, that the participants of the study liked the algorithm a lot and it performed very well both on an objective as well as a subjective level. We cannot provide an analysis of the data yet, because we want to write a scientific paper on it and this requires that the data has not been published anywhere before. As soon as we have a working paper on it, we can provide the analysis to the community.

**Short description:**

In close collaboration with colleagues from the Poznan University of Technology, Poland, and the University of Trento, Italy, we developed an algorithm that helps our nominators to better find suitable validators. Specifically, it infers preferences on selected criteria through an active learning approach and provides a tailored recommendation. This is especially important, because we do not want to impose any exogenous recommendation on our nominators. Instead, the algorithm is designed to learn the preferences from the users themselves. The algorithm is based on established Multi-Criteria Decision Aiding (MCDA) theories. To validate that our method improves the nomination experience, we test it with real nominators from the community in a social experiment. The algorithm is free and open-sourced and we encourage third-party applications to integrate it in their nomination flow. 

**This proposal requests for reimbursement rather than an upfront payment. The reason is, that it is critical for the validity of the experiment, that participants are not biased by previous information on our approach and potential discussions in the community.**

The experiment was conducted between 12.04.2022 and 29.04.2022 and 118 people participated. According to the design of the study, they receive 2 DOT as base compensation and staking rewards with a due date of May 20th. In addition, users receive an NFT as a token of appreciation to help this study.

The full proposal can be found [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jMZDeA_schzj_5TIHuA4Ac_1hVSM6OOxQ3EeSCh2BwU/edit?usp=sharing)

- They are thanking people for participating in a study and asking for funding to compensate them.
- They developed an algorithm to help people find suitable validators.
- The algorithm learns from users' preferences and is based on established theories.
- They tested the algorithm with real users in an experiment.
- Participants will receive compensation and an NFT as a token of appreciation.

#1036 Proposal: Funding for the Social Experiment to Test the Validator Recommendation Algorithm

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