Proposed schedule / rough flow of contest process schedule

[adamavenir]

Thanks for starting this discussion, @maurelian:

Just to throw out an idea for folks to beat on, I propose we run a regular schedule flow:

• Contests start Thursday midnight UTC
• Contests end Tuesday midnight UTC

Contests can run multiple weeks, but still all would follow the start/end cycles.

As we iron out our processes, we could work towards completing a regular schedule around this. Again, for the sake of having something to beat on, and expectations should not be that we're running this schedule until we've nailed down process a bit more and gotten some more assistance onboarded, particularly with report writing.

We'd put it on a github kanban board to track the flow. The schedule could look something like the outline below:

Prerequisites to scheduling contest (done asynchronously):

• Sponsor inquiry with project information provided for review by C4
• C4 gives a cursory review / assessment of code base complexity and scope
• C4 proposes scope and pot range to Sponsor

Pre-contest:

• Agreed scope and deposited contest pot — by Friday EOD prior to contest
• C4 confirms contest is scheduled — Monday
• New contest announced on social media, discord, and mailing list — Tuesday prior to contest
• New contests publicized on social media — Wednesday–Thursday

Post-contest:

• Judge(s) and sponsors review submissions — by EOD Monday after contest
• Awards distributed — Monday after contest ends
• Leaderboard updated — Monday after contest
• Public report drafted — Friday after contest
• Report published — Following Monday (after contest ends)

@zscole—how long should we allot for these? I'm 100% just spitballing here.

Rough visualization of one contest's flow

	Prereqs	Fri	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat/Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat/Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat/Sun	Mon
Sponsor	inquiry & project info	deposited funds									review	review	review	review	review
C4	review code / propose		confirm	announce contest	promote contest	promote contest									pay awards, update leaderboard						publish report
Wardens						contest	contest	contest	contest	contest					get paid
Judges											review	review	review		draft report	draft report	draft report	draft report	draft report	draft report

[adamavenir]

I have the start of a board for this created:

https://github.com/code-423n4/code-contests/projects/1

I think the phases on the board should probably be:

• Candidate
  • Sponsor submits pull request.
  • C4 ensures we have all info and access needed to move to Discovery.
• Discovery
  • C4 solidity dev reviews code and assess complexity
  • C4 proposes scope and pot range
  • C4 recruits judge for contest
• Proposal
  • Sponsor reviews and accepts proposal, deposits funds
• Scheduled
  • C4 verifies funds deposited, adds contest to calendar.
  • C4 creates and schedules promotion of contest
  • C4 assigns judge
• Active Contests
  • Wardens join and participate in contest, submit findings.
  • Judges begin review of submissions.
• Judging & Awarding
  • Judges review findings, assign awards.
  • Sponsors review findings.
• Writing Report
  • C4 releases funds for awards.
  • Judges complete report.
• Completed
  • Sponsors review report and give approval to publish.
  • C4 publishes report.

For the sake of visual simplicity, I could see combining the first few and the last two, but I really think it's worth breaking up the phases based on the moments where the ball is clearly in someone else's court in order to move it forward.