This is a statement regarding PolkaWorld’s application to become a candidate for Decentralized Voices!
If you’re not familiar with PolkaWorld
PolkaWorld is the earliest and largest Chinese community for Polkadot! It was established in May 2019 and hosted two Polkadot China Tours and a hackathon, where projects like Acala and Bifrost were born, during July and September of the same year (during Gavin Wood’s visit to China). Subsequently, PolkaWorld became the only recipient of a Web3 Foundation Community Grant, followed by establishing a two-year collaboration with the Web3 Foundation to help build a thriving Polkadot Chinese community! In pursuit of further decentralization, after two years of collaboration with the Web3 Foundation, PolkaWorld opted to apply for funding from the Polkadot Treasury to continue its contributions. Since June 2021, PolkaWorld has received funding from the Polkadot Treasury 11 times, with 9 of those instances through Governance V1 Motions and 2 through OpenGov referendums!
Why PolkaWorld is Applying to Become a Candidate
1. PolkaWorld has been a long-term contributor and active member of the Polkadot community: Since its inception in May 2019, nearly five years ago, PolkaWorld has remained active within the Polkadot Asian community. It has received funding from Web3 and the Polkadot Treasury, making it one of the few long-standing contributors.
2. Deep understanding and insight into Polkadot’s mechanisms: Over nearly five years of contributions, we have translated countless Polkadot documents, including whitepapers, all wikis, and technical documentation, and produced over 1000 Chinese articles. This work has given us a profound understanding and insight into Polkadot’s technology stack, various mechanisms, and ecosystem developments. We also possess a deep understanding of Polkadot’s governance evolution from its inception to OpenGov.
3. Active involvement in governance and the management of Polkadot Treasury: Initially, PolkaWorld served as the Council member for both Kusama and Polkadot, participating in numerous motions’ voting and discussions during Governance V1. Besides, as proposal authors, we are familiar with the governance process, have established our proposal standards/templates, and understand many considerations within proposals.
4. Limited interaction with the global community: PolkaWorld has focused on the Chinese community, resulting in low awareness and limited interactions with communities in other regions. Joining the Decentralized Voices program presents an excellent opportunity for us to connect with teams and individuals contributing to the Polkadot community from other regions, allowing for a better exchange of experiences and skills. Additionally, beyond fulfilling tasks in PolkaWorld’s proposals, this allows us to contribute more deeply to Polkadot’s decentralization – an aspect PolkaWorld is particularly passionate about!
What Types of Proposals Can PolkaWorld Handle?
As an organization that has long contributed to community education and support for Polkadot, PolkaWorld excels at and enjoys reviewing and commenting on proposals related to community education, event organization, and content production. Specifically, this might include proposals in the following categories:
1. Marketing Initiatives: Promoting Polkadot and educating developers in specific linguistic regions, which could involve organizing Meetups or hackathons.
2. Content Production: For individuals or small teams skilled in creating introductory articles, videos, or audio content related to Polkadot.
3. Online Events: For teams that may not specialize in offline marketing, there’s an interest in hosting various online events related to Polkadot, such as live streams on different platforms, X Space broadcasts, or Polkadot’s weekly online promotional and educational activities.
4. Or a proposal that may cover these three categories or other broad community building and educational initiatives not mentioned.
The Core Principles of PolkaWorld
Long-termism: We hope that your entry into the Polkadot ecosystem is driven by a passion for and a long-term pursuit of the Polkadot ecosystem, rather than the allure of short-term gains or incentives. While incentives are important for the development of an ecosystem, our focus is on the long-term health and growth of Polkadot.
Opinionated Outputs: We wish for all Polkadot community builders to be opinion leaders with their viewpoints, not merely engaging in simple copy-pasting of all things Polkadot. This approach fails to convince newcomers to understand and join Polkadot. Mere replication has zero utility in promoting Polkadot effectively.
Independence, Good Reputation, and Crypto Sense: We’ve seen too many scams and deceptions in the crypto space, causing significant harm and diminishing trust within the community. We expect you to have a positive reputation and a strong sense of crypto awareness. This is the fundamental baseline.
Criteria for Evaluating Proposals
- Completeness of the Proposal: This includes a background introduction, necessity of the proposal, detailed OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), a clear budget for expenses, deliverable outcomes, and the team’s background.
- Specificity and Clarity of Listed OKRs: Are the OKRs detailed and clear?
- Alignment of Requested Amounts with Market Norms: Are the amounts requested in line with what is generally expected in the market?
- Cost-Effectiveness of the Proposal: Are the expenses and expected outcomes within a reasonable range?
What Will PolkaWorld Do if Selected?
- PolkaWorld will review and comment on all relevant proposals every Monday. These comments will be posted in the comments section of each proposal and on PolkaWorld’s X account.
- A public Telegram group will be created to provide a platform for all proposal authors to explain their proposals.
- A Future Consideration: Over time, as we gather more community members, media, and individuals, PolkaWorld is very much looking forward to establishing a Community/Media Collective. This will decentralize and deepen contributions from the community even further.