Discussion: What is the most successful NounsDAO supported project?

TLDR: As in title - Curious to get a feeling for some opinions?

I think Nouns were culturally significant in that they 1) brought CC0 into the limelight when the role of IP within the NFT space was heavily challenged 2) they provided an abundance of innovative software as open-source resource.

However, I have been a bit underwhelmed by projects who were either supported by or inspired by Nouns, as they have rarely gone on to gain significant steam and maintain it. It seems somewhat bizarre to me given the success of Nouns, and the firepower available within the treasury…

What do you think projects have done well so far, and what can they do better going forward? How can Nouns support that strategically?

Hey Sook,
I think that the power CC0 in itself has not yet been sufficiently explored and Nouns have so far been wary to show any official support towards extension/derivative projects to avoid favoritism (as there is a looong list of extensions and projects utilizing Nouns assets), and partially due to worries that this might actually take people/funds/attention away from Nouns.
I think we have seen that the worries were unfounded and the extensions proliferate Nouns and nounish culture, therefore are beneficial to the original project.

We have recently seen a turning point, which is the creation of Nouncil - a special council of Nounish BUIDLers and project leaders working within the framework of NounsDAO to proliferate cc0 and nounish culture. Some of the nouners have delegated their votes to this nouncil, which represents many extensions/projects, so it now has a say in the DAO´s future.

Even though none of the projects have been officially supported, there are many that are living and thriving - SharkDAO, Noun Cats, Noun Punks, Noadz, …

Nouncil is a great foundation upon which we can hopefully continue building and experimenting to strenghten the relationship the DAO has with the extensions.

Thank you for your reply maty! I agree - I think it is so early in terms of what we will see. I am just curious to see what can be done better by derivative projects in the short / medium terms…

Maybe based on your reply, one thing could be derivative projects which are clearly inspired, but not aesthetically similar (as to take avoid the fear of the below). A lot of the existing derivative projects focus heavily on the glasses, but artistically, there is a lot more to explore!

“take people/funds/attention away from Nouns”

The Nouncil is very cool too! I think ultimately the success of Nouns will be played out by cultural relevance of derivative / inspired / funded projects, rather than the specific sucess of Nouns itself. IMO this is simply a matter of probability (e.g. rather than current criticisms such as financial accessibility to ownership which can be addressed by innovation in the future). Therefore, things like the Nouncil will end up being super important for community direction.

That kind of explores the new project side, but I wonder based on this…

“Nouns have so far been wary to show any official support towards extension/derivative projects to avoid favoritism”

…what do you (or anyone else reading this) think can be done on the Nouns side? Ultimately favouritism will occur in some way, but surely as long as it is community decided, that is fine?

I think if the DAO decided to support extensions, it should create some sort of framework to evaluate all the different projects that would help them decide if/how much support the projects should get. The criteria could include the size of the subcommunities, how well they proliferate nouns, what they are doing with their treasuries etc. I don’t think favoritism should occur if it can be helped… if they choose to support one project over the other, there should be a reason for it.