Decentralized Voices: Cohort 2 - PolkaWorld is applying to continue serving as a DV

Summary of Past Proposals

Since becoming a DV in early March, PolkaWorld has reviewed and voted on 54 proposals to date. We review a minimum of 5 proposals each week related to the market, community, and media. It’s a considerable amount of work, involving thorough reading of all proposals, extensive research, discussions with the Chinese community, consultations with experts, and sometimes hour-long calls with proposers to fully understand the proposals and vote in a way that aligns with the community’s interest and PolkaWorld’s political philosophy.

  • We have established a Telegram group to facilitate proposal discussions over the past couple of months.
  • Additionally, we publish our weekly voting on Twitter.

You can view more data analytics about DV activities on Dune, but it’s important to note that the data reflects all activity since the start of OpenGov, not just during our tenure as DV. This means the data does not fully represent PolkaWorld’s active and responsible contribution to governance during our time as DV.

Evolving Political Philosophy

Before becoming a DV, PolkaWorld had its own political philosophies, which have been refined through our deep involvement over the past two and a half months. Our comprehensive engagement in Polkadot OpenGov has helped us develop more specific criteria, guiding our voting decisions and helping us make better choices:

  1. We adhere to the MVP principle, particularly considering newcomers to the Polkadot ecosystem.
  2. For those applying for Polkadot treasury funds not for the first time, the evaluation of past reports will weigh heavily.
  3. The identity of the proposer matters. It’s important they share their role and influence within the entire Web3 or Web2 landscape. Many proposals we reviewed emphasized what proposers do, rather than who they are, making it difficult to establish trust.
  4. We do not support any Bounty proposals with fewer than 7 curators. We suggest that future Bounty proposals specify periods and conditions for funding replenishment, which should only be executed upon meeting these conditions. And we hope that one day, Collectives will completely replace Bounties for greater decentralization and expert aggregation.
  5. We insist on fairness and a single standard for all proposals, regardless of the amount. We do not support large funding requests from entities claiming significant influence without providing detailed explanations.
  6. PolkaWorld continues to focus exclusively on community, marketing, and media-related proposals. We apologize to technical proposers for not being able to provide feedback and support, but PolkaWorld remains dedicated to marketing-related proposals.
  7. If delegated again, PolkaWorld will reduce support for proposals aimed at merely “increasing Polkadot’s visibility”. From a strategic perspective, PolkaWorld does not believe that a top-20 crypto protocol, which has ranked as high as eighth, lacks visibility at sports events or concerts. These are not Polkadot’s target or primary markets. While the goal of Web3 is to attract Web2 audiences, PolkaWorld believes this should be application-driven. Gavin’s proposed shift towards an application-centric Polkadot 2.0 suggests that a blockbuster application will drive more users to Polkadot. Current visibility-enhancing strategies do not seem to directly impact this. Therefore, we welcome any proposals that increase the activity of applications within the Polkadot ecosystem and those linking famous external applications to Polkadot. Of course, if you have an idea for a potentially unicorn and engaging application, we would be thrilled to have you join the Polkadot ecosystem!
  8. Although we have set the above “requirements,” PolkaWorld generally leans towards being liberal and open in spending treasury funds, encouraging innovation, but not blindly trusting proposer’s commitments. As a delegator putting the overall community interest of Polkadot first, we believe it is essential to establish some baselines.

Reapplying to Serve as a DV

While the Web3 Foundation may prioritize newcomers for the second term of DVs, PolkaWorld still wishes to make an effort to join the second term. This commitment, although time-consuming and potentially upsetting to some interest groups, reflects our ongoing passion for Polkadot and Dr. Gavin Wood since joining the community in 2019. As one of the few Asian participants, PolkaWorld needs to continue voicing in governance to encourage more Asian holders to participate!

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I believe the team behind the Dune Dashboard conclusively stated that this is not the case:

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Thank you for your message. My last update included past votes, but I appreciate you providing this updated information to me.

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The fact that PolkaWorld has literally took part in a handful of proposals is worrying and should not be delegated again as part of the program.

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We spend a lot of time each week reviewing proposals, managing five proposals a week is quite a workload. What I mean is, if you’re truly scrutinizing each one, I don’t think this reflects a lack of effort on our part. If other DVs can handle 10-20 a week, or if the Web3 Foundation expects us to manage 10-20 a week, then I must admit, we simply don’t have the time to cover such a large volume of work.

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Fully support the team

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Concerning! I have noticed lack of suggestions/feedbacks for proposals voted, whereas Kukabi and Saxemberg provide good reasoning behind their thought processes.
Also I have noticed a strong bias towards other content proposals(voting AYE) with substandard quality/outreach.

What I would personally like to see in DV who is a good crique for both good and bad proposals, also provides their thought processes and reasoning behind the vote.

PolkaWorld has been doing great as a DV. They have an active Telegram group, and I have noticed that they actively answer questions and provide insightful comments on all the proposals. Additionally, they frequently update about Polkadot on their Twitter and maintain excellent communication with the Chinese community regarding OpenGov. I would like to support PolkaWorld for the second cohort.

I am truly grateful for PolkaWorld leadership in helping me better understand and embrace the governance principles of Polkadot. Through your guidance, I have become more deeply engaged with the Polkadot ecosystem.

The knowledge you’ve provided has been invaluable on my journey into this innovative space. I hope PolkaWorld continues driving progress and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with Polkadot.