Thanks for pointing this out, Muddlebee - it’s a fair question and worth clarifying. You’re right that curators review proposals, sign transactions, and join calls, but in reality the role is much broader and more hands-on.
Our work involves carefully checking budgets, verifying reports, and reviewing invoices, often investigating unclear items to ensure treasury funds are spent properly. The process of funding events isn’t just a one-time “approve or deny”, it’s a continuous loop of communication with organizers, guiding them through revisions, negotiating costs, supporting deliverables, and helping them run impactful events without overspending.
Curators also create and refine the processes that keep this system functioning, from reporting templates and compliance checks to documentation and community guidance, while ensuring Polkadot has strong representation at Key Industry events. Thanks to this oversight, curators have already saved the ecosystem close to $1M through negotiations and returned 85,572 DOT (~$336k) to the treasury, showing that the role is much more than administration. In addition to duties applicable to curators, each curator seat has a dedicated role; design, ops, treasury management, BD, marketing & event guidance, advisory.
On the sub-curator side, the proposal includes a predicted budget for Roots and technical support, but to be clear, not all seats are filled. At the time of this top-up discussion, only 2 sub-curators are active, and any additional roles will only be engaged if workload justifies it. This gives the bounty flexibility to scale when needed without committing unnecessary funds. Please note that each sub curator role also trials for 3 months and it may be discontinued after the period has ended.