# Grading: S5_oss_burnout — Grader 2

Independent substance-only scoring. Methods unknown to grader. Six dimensions, 1-10.

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## Recommendation R1
1. Structural coherence: 9/10 — Single load-bearing principle (protect attention) drives charter, selective queue, security lane, replenishment, and visibility, and pulling the charter would visibly de-legitimize every downstream refusal.
2. Failure-mode anticipation: 8/10 — Names community-death-from-gating, the angry-support-desk demand, and budget-overrun, each with a counter (never gate use; canned reply + lock; tighten intake before touching security), though contributor-pipeline collapse is only lightly hedged.
3. Implementability: 9/10 — Templates, auto-close, labels, fiscal host, and tiers are all unilaterally executable by one maintainer without forcing anyone to pay or help.
4. Mechanism grounding: 9/10 — Highly concrete: auto-label-then-close-after-grace, dedicated security channel overriding all rules, supported-version list, contributor ladder, public dashboard.
5. Stakeholder/equity fit: 9/10 — Cleanly separates free readers/forkers, companies who must opt in to buy certainty, contributors who earn priority, and abusers who get withheld attention; "free use stays free" protects equity.
6. Threshold/time-horizon awareness: 9/10 — Hard security commitment as last-touched lever, explicit "ask before touching security or the remaining maintainer," and quarterly recruitment trigger directly target the last-maintainer-walks risk.
TOTAL: 53/60

## Recommendation R2
1. Structural coherence: 9/10 — Bounded resource, entry condition, protected reserve, reciprocity, funding fork, load distribution, and adaptive review interlock tightly; removing the published contract collapses the legitimacy of every gate.
2. Failure-mode anticipation: 9/10 — Explicitly anticipates single-absence security lapse (backup responder), exhausted-mood-not-policy perception, starving good-faith newcomers (appeal path), and free-rider vs temporarily-unable confusion, each countered.
3. Implementability: 9/10 — Every move (templates, forum redirect, auto-close, delegation, rotation, scope-narrowing) is within one maintainer's authority; recruitment is offered not forced.
4. Mechanism grounding: 9/10 — Specific channels per request type, sponsor-subsidizes-free-tier framing, triager/reviewer roles with merge rights, on-call rotation, quarterly threshold retune.
5. Stakeholder/equity fit: 10/10 — Best heterogeneity handling: distinguishes persistent free-rider from temporarily-unable, gives an easy route back, ties company benefits to contribution not usage, and protects newcomers via appeal.
6. Threshold/time-horizon awareness: 9/10 — Backup security responder addresses the single-absence collapse; the closing rule explicitly recalibrates load-down vs community-up on a fixed cadence rather than in escalation heat.
TOTAL: 55/60

## Recommendation R3
1. Structural coherence: 9/10 — "Received vs accepted" separation, bounded backlog, never-throttled security, reciprocity, funding, distributed stewardship, and quarterly retune form a coherent capacity-defense system.
2. Failure-mode anticipation: 8/10 — Targets the queue-equals-commitment illusion (root of escalations), bus-factor (written process, maintainer-of-the-week), and paywall risk (free users never abandoned); contributor-pipeline thinning is named with a loosen-gate counter.
3. Implementability: 9/10 — Bounded backlog with posted target size, modest published response targets, CoC mute/block, generous rights grants — all executable by one person.
4. Mechanism grounding: 9/10 — Concrete: backlog cap justified by capacity, "triaged within two weeks, no fix-date promise," security retainer, money buys down on-call first, contributor-standing record.
5. Stakeholder/equity fit: 9/10 — Carefully insists free users keep backlog/community/security guarantee while paid tier buys only speed and a private channel; converts heaviest extractors into payers.
6. Threshold/time-horizon awareness: 9/10 — "No individual is ever the last line of defense" is the explicit anti-collapse rule; fund security on-call first directly defends the non-negotiable lane; quarterly loosen/tighten balances both failure poles.
TOTAL: 53/60

## Recommendation R4
1. Structural coherence: 8/10 — Reset, intake filter, reciprocity lanes, funding, single-point-of-failure fix, recognition, scope-shedding, and monthly review cohere well, though pieces read more as a strong list than a fully interlocking whole.
2. Failure-mode anticipation: 9/10 — Names single-point-of-failure as gravest risk with immediate second-responder recruitment, retaliatory/status exclusion with a forbiddance, and surveillance-leaderboard with an explicit guardrail.
3. Implementability: 8/10 — Mostly executable, but "immediately recruit a second security responder" and "grant authority to a trusted contributor" presume people the maintainer cannot force to appear — acknowledged but optimistic.
4. Mechanism grounding: 8/10 — Concrete (FAQ gate, 48h first-response target, pledge-threshold drives, runbooks, community-maintained tags) though slightly less operationally specific on queue caps than R3.
5. Stakeholder/equity fit: 9/10 — Forgiveness path, ban on status-based exclusion, separating one-time from ongoing funding, and "buying continuity not charity" framing engage actor heterogeneity well.
6. Threshold/time-horizon awareness: 9/10 — Explicitly elevates single-irreplaceable-person as the gravest risk and acts on it; monthly (vs quarterly) review is tighter for fast collapse, and pipeline-vs-load tension is named in the closing rule.
TOTAL: 51/60

## Recommendation R5
1. Structural coherence: 9/10 — Flows logically from one premise (defend the depleting pool): compact, one front door, visibility, funding, graduated sanctions, scope review — each piece supports the asymmetry "guaranteed security, best-effort everything else."
2. Failure-mode anticipation: 8/10 — Anticipates hard-rate-limit choking newcomers (use triage instead), neglect being hidden (public board), and over-harsh gatekeeping killing the community; security single-absence is less explicitly countered than R2/R4.
3. Implementability: 9/10 — Templates, auto-pointer, health board, voluntary funding-never-a-gate, templated calm closes, quarterly scope review — all unilaterally doable.
4. Mechanism grounding: 8/10 — Strong on intake/sanction mechanics and "payment is an offered exception not a requirement," but contributor ladder and funding are described a notch more aspirationally than R2/R3's role-and-rights specifics.
5. Stakeholder/equity fit: 9/10 — "Bug reports are information not work orders," free users held to best-effort never billed/blocked, capable free-riders as target converts — clear equity framing of who bears cost.
6. Threshold/time-horizon awareness: 9/10 — "The only durable fix for a depleted commons is more stewards, not a more heroic few" squarely names the collapse dynamic; explicitly rejects rate-limits that choke the pipeline while defending the security lane absolutely.
TOTAL: 52/60

## Recommendation R6
1. Structural coherence: 9/10 — Sharp organizing insight that support-load and contributor-pipeline are different resources that must move in opposite directions ties the time-box, tiers, security lane, and pipeline moves into one mechanism.
2. Failure-mode anticipation: 8/10 — Counters capture-by-loudest-payers (money buys time not roadmap/security control) and angry escalation (templated boundary + lock); security single-absence and pipeline-collapse are addressed but less granularly than R2.
3. Implementability: 9/10 — Declared weekly time-box, auto-label/batch-triage, public board, direct outreach to largest companies, low contribution barrier — all within one maintainer's control.
4. Mechanism grounding: 9/10 — Concrete and distinctive: weekly time-box as the cap, "no SLA for unpaid requests and say so," money explicitly walled off from roadmap/security control, good-first-issues plus reporter-to-committer path.
5. Stakeholder/equity fit: 8/10 — Strong on payer-capture equity (loudest payers cannot buy control) and barrier-high-to-consume / barrier-low-to-contribute asymmetry, but less explicit than R2/R4 on temporarily-unable vs free-rider distinction.
6. Threshold/time-horizon awareness: 10/10 — The clearest articulation of the core tension: support-throttle and contributor-pipeline are different resources that must move in opposite directions, with "recovering even two or three contributors directly relieves the draining capacity."
TOTAL: 53/60

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## Comparison (~150 words)

All six converge on the same correct spine — protect maintainer attention as the scarce resource, free use stays free, security is the unconditional lane, attention is earned by contribution or payment, and retune on a cadence. They differ at the margins. R2 is the most complete: it uniquely operationalizes the heterogeneity the scenario demands (persistent free-rider vs temporarily-unable, with an easy route back and an appeal path) and is the only one to directly counter the security single-absence by recruiting a backup responder. R6 has the sharpest single insight — support-load and contributor-pipeline are opposite-moving resources — and the best capture-resistance, but is thinner on equity nuance. R3, R1, and R6 tie on rigor of mechanism. R5 and R4 are excellent but slightly less interlocking; R4's reliance on people who must volunteer is its softest spot. None collapses into vague aspiration; the spread is narrow and earned.

## Ranking (best to worst)
1. R2 (55)
2. R1, R3, R6 (53) — tie, with R3 edging on equity specificity, R6 on the resource-asymmetry insight
3. R5 (52)
4. R4 (51)

## Would adopt
**R2** — it carries the same correct spine as the rest but is the only one that both anticipates the security single-point-of-failure with a concrete counter (backup responder) and operationalizes the human-equity distinctions (free-rider vs temporarily-unable, appeal path, easy route back) that keep the gate legitimate and the pipeline alive under stress.
