Agent of the Day Bounty

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Dozens of community members are making small contributions to the ecosystem every day, be it in the form of explainers, code, coordination, or others. These contributions are valued by the community but rarely recognized with tips. This together with the perception of some that proposals that are never executed get approved by OpenGov, leads to a sentiment that honest contributions are not worth as much as they should be in Polkadot.

@jakub raised the idea of giving out “Agent of the Day” tips. Those tips are intended as a simple reward mechanism to highlight the contributions of community members regularly and show that good honest work is rewarded in Polkadot.

From my personal experience, I can attest that one of the things that got me hooked as an ecosystem agent was when I received a tip for a video for the first time. I was excited for the whole day and committed to spending much more in an ecosystem, where providing actual value gets rewarded.

This post intends to kick off the discussion of how we could organize such a bounty. The remainder of this post shares some first thoughts and discussions but is incomplete and just a starter.

Process

  • People should be able to surface interesting content, similar to the old tipping system.
  • Experienced ecosystem agents should judge the submissions and decide on a winner for the day (week/month)
  • Rewards should be significant, but not overblown, say 100-300 USD.
  • The whole process should be very transparent to protect the good vibes
  • We would avoid the notion of “friends get rewarded”, although this is hard in an ecosystem that still can be overlooked by the regular participant. One protection mechanism might be that the same agent cannot be rewarded again for X amount of time.

The whole thing should be fun and light.

The biggest challenge we discussed is that the established ecosystem agents who should judge the winners are fairly busy and we should add this work to their daily workload. One idea I had regarding this is to have a longer list of judges, maybe 42, such that 3 of them would be judging a winner every 14 days.

The idea would be to organize this as a bounty.

Any feedback is welcome.

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I find what you propose very interesting. I think many members of the ecosystem began to deepen and focus their efforts as a result of an experience similar to yours. Reactivating a reward system for community contributions would be a good strategy to attract new valuable users. :+1:

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in short, why dont create two tracks:

  • one for open submissions

  • one for things that need to be done ( or would be very nice to be done )

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The idea would be to organize this as a bounty.

I think using/setting up a new bounty is a terrible idea imo.

I would hope that you instead think of building an off-chain layer on top of the existing tipping system, and not some whole new thing.

The Tips track on Polkadot is already a perfectly solid method to get this amount of money into the hands of contributors to the Polkadot ecosystem, at very low friction.

It seems you just want to formalize a process which brings more visibility and interaction to these creators. For that, we def do not need anything on-chain, and we would be better to not have it on-chain too.

I spoke on exactly this kind of approach recently on the Kusamarian: https://youtu.be/yXYxnN33VbQ?si=RwDHkgbSXKLygDn_&t=3160

This is how I would envision the program:

  • Use the Polkadot subreddit as the place for contributors or nominators to post content.
  • Introduce a new tag which notes that these posts are submissions to “agent of the day”
  • Have a basic format for someone to submit the address of the person who should be rewarded. Ideally the content (like a video, blog post, twitter account) has the address embedded so that people do not try to inject their own address to get the tip.
  • At the end of 24 hours, reward the top upvoted posts (1st place 50 DOT, 2nd place 25 DOT, 3rd place 10 DOT).

In this context:

  • reddit the platform is perfect for posting external links to content, and people upvoting / downvoting the content and sharing it
  • we can rely on reddit, which already spends a lot of effort to prevent manipulation of the site, fake votes, fake accounts, etc…
  • reddit also already handles duplicate link posts and other kinds of basic spam
  • we can bootstrap the reddit community, which is probably a little more dead and lacking in content than we would want

A simple bot can be made to make automatically make tips using the reddit api. All it needs is a little bit of DOT/KSM to boostrap it, but after that, it earns a small cut of each tip and is self-sustainable after that. This is how the substrate tip bot works, which is also a totally external effort, requiring no special on-chain stuff.

When regular voters go look at the queue, they will see the daily tips from the “polkadot-reddit-bot”, and they can either approve by default, or audit the links more carefully.

Finally, assuming reddit is getting gamed or bad content is popping up, Polkadot governance is ultimately responsible to actually pay out the tip. They are the final gatekeepers for what actually deserves a tip and not, and if we catch bad links winning the agent of the day, then we can halt the bot, and re-evaluate the situation.

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The discussions here are very interesting, and I agree that it is essential to find a viable solution to meet this need. Thank you to @alice_und_bob and @shawntabrizi for your contributions, which I share. Allow me to add a few thoughts on this fascinating topic.

I believe we have three promising approaches to explore, which would add value to our ecosystem and address the need to reward content creators effectively and transparently.

  1. Using Existing Tools:
  • Leverage Grillapp’s functionalities: Grillapp already offers a robust infrastructure and a user community, which could accelerate the deployment of a viable solution. However, it would be necessary to adapt the platform to Polkadot’s specific needs, particularly regarding the collective distribution of $DOT.
  • Advantages: Existing solution, existing user community.
  • Limitations: Limited flexibility due to Grillapp’s current features, need for adaptation to specific needs, exploration of collective $DOT distribution from OpenGov.
  1. Extension for Rewarding Creators on Social Networks:
  • Develop a browser extension dedicated to the Polkadot ecosystem: This extension would allow users to tip creators in $DOT directly on platforms like Twitter, Twitch, or other social networks. The extension should be designed to integrate seamlessly with the Polkadot ecosystem and ensure a smooth and secure distribution of rewards.
  • Inspiration from Gift + Telenova: Our existing solutions could serve as a model for this approach, simplifying the tipping process and ensuring transaction security (technically not necessarily simple). (Polkadot Gifts App) (Telenova) (Tipping with Brave | Brave)
  • Advantages: Seamless integration into environments where creators are already active, maximizing engagement and reach, smooth user experience.
  • Limitations: Development and maintenance of the extension, adoption by users and content creators, exploration of collective $DOT distribution.
  1. Developing a Standalone Project with a Dedicated DAO:
  • Create a decentralized crowdfunding platform dedicated to the Polkadot ecosystem: This platform would allow anyone to submit funding requests or publish their work, facilitating rapid and agile participatory or individual funding. The platform should be designed to integrate seamlessly with the ecosystem and enable transparent and collective distribution of rewards. (OpenGov for everyone! 1 KSM = 1 DAO)
  • Inspiration from Gitcoin and OpenGov: The successful model of Gitcoin in the Ethereum ecosystem could be adapted for Polkadot, also drawing inspiration from the OpenGov (https://polkadot.polkassembly.io/opengov). A Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) could manage the platform, ensuring transparency and fairness in the funding process when necessary.
  • Advantages: Maximum flexibility, community control, transparency, and fairness ensured by a DAO, potential for collective $DOT distribution.
  • Limitations: More complex development, need to build a community of engaged users and contributors.

Refining these ideas and determining the best approach is necessary. In any case, I am convinced that it is essential to recognize and reward community contributions to encourage continuous and quality engagement.

Thank you again for this constructive debate, and I look forward to your feedback on these proposals.

In addition to these three approaches, it is important to consider the following points:

  • Ease of Use: The reward system must be simple and intuitive for both contributors and content creators.
  • Transparency: The process of selecting winners and distributing rewards must be transparent and fair.
  • Sustainability: The reward system must be designed to be sustainable and viable in the long term without adding a layer of complexity to the existing infrastructure.

I am confident that adopting an effective contributor reward solution will strengthen community engagement. :slight_smile: Don’t hesitate to criticize me; I’m just trying to open up some chakras, maybe. :blush:

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We’d be happy to collaborate with anyone willing to set up a DAO on Kreivo focusing on ecosystem incentives for the well being of the community. Communities will have available different of tools to carry out all kinds of initiatives such as payments requiring approval/review or curated listings that members of a community can vote for.

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