The last two weeks, when I was intensively creating, testing and optimizing my models, I joined almost every DSC and really enjoyed it! Arbitrage has a streaming personality, thus they were very enjoyable. Also, his notebooks on GitHub were of great help.
However, I see that it is a problem that the Budget is 2000 NMR a year and Arbitrage takes 1440 (increasing the budget would be a possibility?). Would it be possible to make DSC even more “only” a social event, to reduce the hours arbitrage has to invest per streaming-hour to only around 15 to 30 minutes prep-time?
TLDR: I enjoyed the DSC and I think they are very helpful. Numerai would really lose a social aspect if DSC would cease to exist.
I think to be honest that the DSC / Office Hours are are one of the main reasons (besides for example the community, forum and rocket chat) that the tournament is still ongoing and it would be a real waste to see it go. I think it can also be a great source for newcomers to quickly get acquainted to the tournament (high learning curve). Those newcomers are definitely needed to bring in some fresh ideas and also implementations and keep the tournament improving. The lowering payout has many reasons, not just the number of stakers.
I am missing a little bit the reactions of the CoE, what do they think about this? Maybe its just a matter of finding a middle ground like start first with several months instead of a full year or reducing the number of DSC from 4 to 2-3? Maybe the CoE could come with a counter-proposal to @arbitrage ?
Also, what about moving the daily DSC, if possible, around, to make it more accessible to other time zones? Currently, technically, the DSC would not be possible for me because of Work (thanks WFH).
Like, create some counter-offers (Arbitrage has to do more for his money or make his time more efficient (e.g. bring the preparation time for DSC down to 15 minutes).