It's Time To Start Thinking About Marketing On Polkadot: Let's Kick Off The Discussion

[RTTI-5220]

Since the beginning of OpenGov on Polkadot, we have seen numerous treasury proposals that aim to spread the word about the Polkadot Network, its usage, chains, features and tech stack. Some of them started from Polkadot Gov1, and on Kusama - some started later, alternating between chains and providing useful information to users, newcomers, and more - out of the top of my head some projects include The Kusamarian, DotCast, DotLeap, Polkaworld, the events bounty, to name a few. These projects, in my opinion, started slow, focusing on specific topics, and over time we have seen improvements in the way they produce and distribute content.

Of course there are different types of marketing efforts, depending on audiences (and excuse my ignorance here but that is not my background): however, it is important to differentiate these efforts by what the community finds useful and what they do not. The creation of content for Polkadot has been, by legacy, much linked to the marketing and communications teams at Parity and Web3.0 Foundation. Their efforts are extremely valuable, and include blog posts, content and opinion articles, press releases and documentation as well as community calls organization, online discussions and branding strategies. They also work closely with the community on articulating a unified message of what Polkadot is in a way that makes sense. With the recent news on deepening decentralization efforts, some of these existing community initiatives could be affected (or not, as more info comes to the community and we wait until these developments settle).

I think the recent events related to marketing proposals in the Polkadot ecosystem, the sudden submission of various proposals and the heated discussions within the community mean that we should start thinking about the following: does the community want to fund marketing efforts via Treasuries? And if yes, in which form? To which audiences? With which goals? This short article aims to kick off this discussion, in order to hear from others in the community who, like me, would like to see a coordinated and collective effort towards marketing and communications that make sense for Polkadot. Diversity of voices is essential, but sometimes one source of truth for content, education, communication and marketing is needed: and this does not mean our community is not decentralised - it means we delegate our decision power to those who know best, or who we think know best.

I want to outline here some of the options that are available to be used through Polkadot governance (for those who are not aware of them and how they work), so that the community can decide in the future if one of these paths is the preferred one.

At the moment, three funding alternatives come to mind when thinking about the treasuries:

1. Direct Spending Proposals: we have seen this mechanism from the very beginning, so we know how it works: a team submits an on-chain proposal to the treasury for the community to discuss and ultimately vote for Aye or Nay. In the proposal, the community should be able to find the rationale behind the submission, including: team background, scope of work, roadmap, deliverables, budget and resources, as well as reporting mechanism to the community. The pros of this mechanism lie in the fact the community is deciding directly on what to spend, how, and what are, in their eyes, the needs of the ecosystem (without delegating any decision power to third parties). The cons are intrinsically related to the immense amount of work the community needs to execute to keep this method dynamic, the fact that teams need to repeat a somehow cumbersome process for each project, and the fact teams cannot project a roadmap mid or long-term due to the funding limitations if the community decides to only approve short-term projects. Take into account that a marketing and communications roadmap needs to have a vision, and this implies a long-term projection of the developments in the ecosystem.

2. Bounty Proposals: the bounties mechanism was ideated and developed after Kusama’s and Polkadot’s inception, and added to the networks’ runtime as a new spending mechanism by community vote. This tool allows us to set aside a portion of the treasury (without leaving the treasury itself, just earmarking the funds) to be administered by a curator or group of curators with the supervision of the community. In the same way as a direct spending proposal, a bounty is submitted for vote by the community and, if approved, the community also elects the curation team that will lead the administration of the funds (technically, this is a Polkadot address, meaning it can be a single account, a multisig or a pure proxy account managed by a multisig: providing flexibility to the bounty). Once an address is elected as the curator, this address has the right to transfer part of the earmarked funds to particular beneficiaries. Curators should come up with an application process, guidelines, scope of work and budget for these funds to be used. As a positive characteristic, I think this mechanism allows the community to focus on a long-term vision for a particular effort (something we might need for this particular scope of work), multiple content creators, marketers and communicators can apply for funding and receive it if they align to the curators’ guidelines (ultimately entrusted by the community), the bounty can even be topped up, and if curators are not doing a good job, their position can be canceled, maintaining the funds in the treasury and the community can always elect a new set of curators: all on-chain. Some might think that delegating the power of decision-making for a portion of the treasury to a small group is not the best way to govern these decisions though. Furthermore, a bounty needs complete transparency and constant reporting from curators to the community, in order to keep this ‘trust’ relationship going. However, it is a great way to ‘budget’ the treasury and administer treasury funds in different areas of development, and it provides enough flexibility for a mid or long-term vision (so needed for marketing efforts).

3. The New Collectives Idea: Since the inception of the Polkadot Fellowship, I have heard discussions and conversations (both in podcasts, blogs, and forums) about the possibility of creating a marketing and communications fellowship. The Collectives chain is up and running, and that is where the current fellowship lives. This system chain allows us to create collectives governed by its own rules, make on-chain decisions and enact specific proposals: all transparent and open for the community to review. An idea for a collective like this would involve: 1. Setting some kind of rules for admission (similar to the Fellowship manifesto) with requirements regarding old and new members, rules, scope of work and requirements. Members could focus their work on improving the Polkadot brand, publishing content, sponsoring particular deals and maintaining documentation for specific rewards. They could also manage a fund, derived from the Polkadot treasury, to develop a roadmap involving more members of the community: with a funding application process, reports and reviews. The clear advantage of this idea is the stability a well-curated set of members provides for a task like the one we are discussing: fulfilling certain requirements and consisting of members who are known by the community, and are experts in their field. The collective can become a (instead of “the”) powerful source of truth on how to explain Polkadot, branding, formats, content, and documentation. It is true though, that an idea like this takes time to mature, and some heavy work would be needed from marketing and communications experts in the ecosystem to draft a manifesto with clear and objective rules, for developers to code a collective like this, and ultimately, a runtime upgrade is needed to include this in the collectives chain. The Polkadot Alliance served as the first inception of this, I think, and it would be nice to see it evolve into a similar collective like the one I described above.

These are three possible mechanisms to use for marketing efforts, and choosing one will depend on how big the community thinks the scope of work for the funding should be, which topics it should touch (it is not the same to create and maintain documentation, to produce a podcast series, or to fund an influencer campaign, as we have seen before). Maybe we want to limit the scope of the treasury funds to particular activities. Maybe we want a broad roadmap and include new things gradually: based on this, a bounty or a collective might be more suitable.

I hope this introduction to mechanisms, in relation to the topic of marketing triggers your thoughts for you to ask yourself:

1. Does the treasury need to fund marketing activities, communication and content creation?
2. Is this what I want to see as part of the spending?
3. If your answer to the above is a yes, think about which activities would be suitable, and based on this, which mechanisms are better prepared to tackle these activities (it can be a combination of all - but take into account the effort each mechanism entails).

I also want to hear from those who have experience going through some of these treasury funding processes for marketing to speak up: what are the pain points? Would alternative mechanisms to the one/s you used help overcome the issues you have seen?

[RTTI-5220]

One thing I want to add is this: Research on Media Preferences with a Focus on Builders (temp check) | Polkassembly

I want to add this here, because I also think that researching the market is key - “the marketing approach within the current OpenGov framework has resulted in a stream of applications that are challenging to assess using only the information provided by the applicants themselves. A logical solution is to learn directly from ecosystem participants (both existing and potential) about their preferences and to compile a dataset that can be used to evaluate potential media outreach.” - Researching our audience, with a focus on the builder audience (but also maybe later focusing on other segments) is really important: this helps us focus the message.

If a bounty or a collective, or 2 or 3, are born from this discussion, it is essential they include market research as a fundamental part of their efforts, to define KPIs and distiniguish proposals (thanks Rita for the insights).

[sourabhniyogi]

Great and timely post, especially given https://futures.web3.foundation/ “Decentralized Marketing”

Some basic questions: how can https://polkadot.network be managed by a collective or parent/child bounty when a single direction must be chosen on what appears there?

For example, questions of “Is Polkadot about Parachains only still? Is now the time where CoreTime => CoreJam => CorePlay should be emphasized this month or later” have to be answered with one specific answer that is reflected there.

How can the management of something so important (https://polkadot.network) be left up to a set of curators in a bounty or a collectives system which hasn’t been widely used yet?

[swader]

How does asset/brand utilization work in this new era of “decentralized marketing”? In the past, W3F was all too happy to go on the offensive vs anyone using the polkadot name or logo. Are there some guidelines on what content creators are or aren’t allowed to use going forward? Can we codify this and make it very, very, very clear somewhere, to avoid trouble down the line?

[RTTI-5220]

Just to be clear: I dont believe W3F will stop managing/owning the brand, the website, the wiki, and all they do. I believe there are guidelines on how to use the brand. I believe that, if the community decides to fund marketing activities with the treasury, some sort of collective/alliance/bounty with curators needs to be formed to make sure the guidelines and content are aligned with the overall strategy. In this sense, the curation team will ensure that all content, articles, blogposts, any documentation or videos paid from the treasury follow a no repetition principle, usefulness for the community and newcomers, and that the brand is used accordingly, among other things - cc @sourabhniyogi @swader

[sodazone]

@RTTI-5220

I believe that, if the community decides to fund marketing activities with the treasury, some sort of collective/alliance/bounty with curators needs to be formed to make sure the guidelines and content are aligned with the overall strategy. In this sense, the curation team will ensure that all content, articles, blogposts, any documentation or videos paid from the treasury follow a no repetition principle, usefulness for the community and newcomers, and that the brand is used accordingly, among other things

That makes a lot of sense. But we find it hard to figure out what’s the message and the audience that the strategy is targeting. It will be helpful to have clarity on that to contribute in the same direction.
Are any public resources explaining the target audiences and the messages to convey in the overall marketing strategy?

[ecardo5o]

Thank you Raul for your lucid and clear vision on the paths to follow. I tend to agree with all the points made here.

My vision has always been systemic and many good ideas and initiatives have been lost in recent years (or have not been used to their full potential) due to a lack of clear structures.

My vision is that everything that is being discussed here to forward new initiatives is not just restricted to Polkadot, but also and mainly for future industries and institutions that will use our legacy.

Treading new paths is an experience always marked by successes and failures. We must have agility to always respond quickly and accurately to today’s and future challenges. And I believe that these foundations that you have laid here are indeed a solid framework for this.

[RTTI-5220]

I think this is something the collective/bounty, along with any other groups/organisations in the ecosystem which have an influence on this (like W3F for being the brand owner) should come up with. I shared above a research proposal for market targeting on Polkadot, maybe this is something the community wants to fund, from scratch, to strategise after - I know various things have been done in that field, so they might be reusable.

[batman]

@RTTI-5220

I also want to hear from those who have experience going through some of these treasury funding processes for marketing to speak up: what are the pain points?

The major pain points for me:

1. Long turn around times: From discussion to decision to feedback loops, it can take up to 3-4 months just to get a final decision on a proposal of ~$100k-$150k, even smaller proposals of under $10k can take 4-6 weeks (part of the reason is that DOT price also fluctuates and the origin spend capacities are denominated in DOT).

2. Unclear process for increasing voter turnout: It takes too much time and effort just to figure out who the right stakeholders are, what their views are regarding what treasury should be funding and therefore what a builder should be focusing their efforts on.

3. Uncertainty/Lack of Reliability: The stakeholders in OpenGov change over time so it becomes difficult to plan for the future as a project builder.

@RTTI-5220

Would alternative mechanisms to the one/s you used help overcome the issues you have seen?

Yes, specialized collectives with budgets would definitely be better, provided they’re held accountable.

But a few more efforts combined with it would be super useful imo:

1. Lowering the decision periods for smaller size proposals and diversifying the treasury with some stablecoin exposure.

2. Specific RFPs that offer greater degree of certainty for funding. (perhaps an interface specific to bounties can help)

3. Easier application process for smaller amounts - maybe an option for subsidizing decision deposits for new applicants?

[RTTI-5220]

Yes, a major issue with direct sending proposals, from what I have heard from others, is time calculations, and the impossibility to plan a runway/roadmap that would ensure a product is delivered. I think bounties/collective could help with this given the flexibility they offer when executing treasury allocations in terms of time - cc @batman

[batman]

edited the message, pressed cmd+return instead of return by mistake, apologies for this!

[giotto]

[batman]

Just to clarify, my comments were specifically in response to Raul’s questions regarding pain points related to the treasury process - not solely in the context of marketing.

Here’s where those pain points become relevant:

Uncertainty

• We want to re-evaluate the outcomes to keep a check on whether the outcomes being delivered warrant renewal, but there’s uncertainty regarding promises made by treasury being upheld.

• We have legal contracts in the “real world” that enforce certain terms of engagement between 2 parties which allows for people to proceed with work without having to worry about the other party not keeping its promise.

• Example of the pain point: Gov1 Social Contracts -> OpenGov Transition - Should there be a system?.
  
  

Long turn around times and high barriers

• Long turn around times exist due to the voting culture demanding a separate “discussion” first and the feedback process being unclear. If we want to increase proposal volume, the process needs to be simplified.
  
  It doesn’t necessarily have to be at the system level, but the end user experience might need a shift in perspective to be more inclusive.
  
  What I mean by this is that we’d want a higher degree of certainty and abstraction for the “uninitiated” to lower the barriers for entry.

• Example of a barrier: someone who wants to make a valuable contribution to the ecosystem but doesn’t yet own DOT can’t formally request anything from the treasury and there’s no way to “earn” DOT permissionlessly other than the treasury itself.
  
  Onboarding newcomers to the DOT economy by creating a pathway for them earn small amounts of DOT for genuine contributions can create more trade within the ecosystem and thereby increase overall network usage, creating a positive spiral.

[ecardo5o]

Hi Giotto,

I will try to simplify here for an average user of the ecosystem how Bountys define themselves and function according to my experience and vision.

By definition, a Bounty is a micro-treasury that is created for specific purposes. For example, the case of Promoting Polkadot Events around the world.

These micro-treasurys have limited time, budget and curators. And it is initially defined through a direct proposal to the Treasury, which defines these parameters, in addition to other rules relevant to the specific activities that will be dedicated.

From time to time these Bountys can be renewed, to redefine these main parameters, in addition to incorporating best practices (in an incremental evolution model).

Usual Bounty Type 1

Some ideas require experts to evaluate them. So, with this kind of evaluation all adjustments are more precise, technical and accurate. In the Bountys’ nomenclature, these specialists are called Curators, who select and refine Proponents’ ideas for execution purposes.

Usual Bounty Type 2

Community members identify a specific need that requires experts on a particular subject or in different areas. In this case, these community members become Curators and begin to analyze ideas from different Proponents with the aim of finding best practices and solutions, as well as implementing them.

In both types, there must be processes that guarantee excellence, in addition to controlling results. Continuing this line of reasoning, I believe the Bountys that perform best are those that actually become effectively more procedural.

In practice, the great advantage of Bountys is that they are created (in general) to solve specific medium or long-term problems. And once defined, they will serve exactly this purpose, which avoids constant direct votes for the Treasury, in which we observe over time decisions that are defined, in my opinion, more by ideology, passion, short term visions and affinities than by a technical criteria and excellence.

In short, that’s it. But there are many other details about this in addition to the specifics of each approved Bounty (like Tracks, Sub-Curators, Rules to Pay for Performance, Cash Back, etc).

I hope I have contributed to your better understanding of the key question that Raul posed. In essence, it would be the recognition that there really is a problem to be solved, and that this is an issue that requires constant investment, in addition to more refined decision-making and control mechanisms.

[Barakion]

Have to say I was a bit skeptical of the Autonomous Marketing Initiative at first, but I think this post goes a long way for me and I can get behind it. A few notes that I want to throw out there:

1. I don’t think it would hurt to have a collective for media (standard budget), but at the same time, I would also think there would be a “general budget” for which any proposal could still be proposed (i.e., a permissionless one).

2. I don’t think we focus on marketing for corejam or coreplay at this point. We should be marketing products for which are available now (not for which will not be available until 2025). We can market those later once they come online.

3. Yes, we need marketing. This should hopefully be an obvious statement. All blockchains projects do this. It’s just that most are behind the scenes.

4. I would tend to focus on marketing initiatives that recruit users. Polkadot is consistently number one in code commits, we have the blockchain academy, and there are online courses that teach fundamentals of substrate. Developers will join the community based on ease of development and USERS. Let the engineers focus on “ease of development” and let marketing focus on users.

5. Agree with Giotto. We need to provide educational packets to influencers (a teach the teachers program). Again, I think we focus on getting normal users. So the content should focus on areas they care about: number of users, tps, finality, bridging security, number of transactions the system processes, number of assets in the ecosystem, and cost. Other note, we should focus on transactions processed, asset counts, and users from the parachains (not just the relay chain and system chains). End users do NOT understand the AWS model Polkadot uses so we have to account for the indirect users for them. Also, not sure if we wait on some of this until we can up the stats (which we will be able to do once Mythos comes online).

I know alot of developers cringe when they see words like tps or finality because they want to describe tps in terms of bandwidth and then theoretical arguments ensue regarding probabilistic versus deterministic finality to assess when a transaction is “final”. These are NOT helpful when we are talking to the normal user. We have to dumb it down. The end user wants to know when they hit submit on their phone how long does it take for them to see it on their screen as completed (that is it). For tps, we don’t need to provide twenty tweets or pages of mathematical proofs. The end user wants to literally see a single number (over 1M = cool).

Don’t get me wrong. The details are important, but they are important for developers and institutions. They have the technical knowledge and will go through their due diligence to understand the nuances. Side joke: just think about when a technical person delivers a tweet and then someone in the comments says “great, but can someone explain it to me like I am five.” We have to keep this is mind.

6. Polkadot content creators are great (like the Kusamarian), but their focus is largely on creating content for existing Polkadot users. Don’t get me wrong. This is a MUCH needed service. However, people need to think about marketing to non-existing Polkadot users that are OPEN to being recruited. For example, we would NOT try to show up on the Bankless podcast because those are largely ETH maxis. However, a show like Raoul Pal and Altcoin Daily have neutral users that are open to being persuaded to try something new. We have to go after influencers that are “generalists”. Worldclass SEO companies employ this concept of generalization.

7. Again, agree with Giotto on allowing users to get paid to recruit other influencers. This is pretty standard in marketing practices. With that said, I think the mechanics need to change. More in point 8 below.

8. I think we need to develop standard pricing on what we are willing to pay influencers, using a table format. The fields could include numbers of followers (vetted by a firm that could check for bots), number of videos to be produced, and overall length of videos. For example, we could say since you have between 1 and 1.2 millions followers and you are going to create three 30-minute videos you get paid X amount.

We shouldn’t have a problem paying above market to quickly close the deals and to get influencers attention. Besides, Polkadot competes on quality, so above market will come by default. By doing this, we all could debate once what the prices should be and move on. It would allow reviews of the proposals to happen more quickly. It would allow content creators to get out their proposals quicker and focus on more time actually creating content versus being bogged down in an administrative nightmare.

Also, we are going to get to a point (it might already be there) where people say oh, you said out loud you are willing to approve everything and pay above market, so I am going to increase the price. Further, the individuals recruiting influencers (if paid in percentage terms) will encourage the people they recruit to put the highest price possible because they will know how our process works and they make more money given they are getting a reward based on percentage terms. Again, we should not have a problem paying above market, but let’s not get taken to the cleaners.

9. I do not have an issue per se repeating the same type of content across influencers (for example, wallets). I think we need to logically help onboard the users. So a reasonable process is to talk about Polkadot (video 1) to here is the wallet that allows you to get into the ecosystem (video 2) to here are some parachain (and how to bridge) that you can use (video 3+). We should highlight unique use cases to Polkadot and ones that are more familiar like moonbeam since it runs a similar ethereum tech stack (and no I am not shilling the coin as I do not own ).

10. If we could suggest to the influencers to provide useful links to some of Polkadot’s apps in their show notes / youtube /etc. They could provide disclaimers if they want like these links were provided by the Polkadot community and we have not independently reviewed. But some key links could be the following:

Wallets

• Nova
• Talisman

Defi

• HydraDX as the AMM
• Polkadex as the Order Book
• Uniswap (people are familiar with) on Moonbeam
• Moonwell (people are familiar with) on Moonbeam

Liquid Staking

• Acala
• Bifrost
• Equilibrium

Others

• Interlay for Decentralized Bitcion
• Moonsama for NFTs

[sodazone]

@Barakion I think you are going in the right direction to suggest a high-level strategy, but I believe that it could be enhanced by refining the message, timing, and target audience.

Let’s consider the target audience: cryptoasset owners aspiring to build wealth. This audience can be categorized into two segments: active owners who transact and/or engage in trading, and passive owners who view cryptocurrencies as a store of value expected to appreciate over time.

One fear for this audience is the potential loss of their assets, a challenge not adequately addressed in a decentralized manner, leading to the dominance of centralized exchanges (CEX). For active owners, the paramount considerations include transaction fees and the freedom to transact. While CEX currently provides better value in these aspects, it introduces the risk of centralization and opacity, which may impede the freedom to transact: an opportunity for decentralized alts.

Identifying key influencer channels is crucial for delivering a targeted message to these audiences. Non-key influencers just follow the trend to increase views. However, timing and action are pivotal. For instance, promoting a platform like Polkadex may not be opportune if the supported trading pairs are currently unappealing. It’s essential to align the message with the right time and action.

In summary

Identify Segments:
Segment the audience in meaningful groups (active/passive holders, risk aversion, etc.)

Identify Key Drivers:
Pinpoint specific key drivers for each segment, like transaction fees and asset loss.

Create Messages:
Tailor messages to tackle identified fears, hopes and needs, emphasizing unique benefits.

Deliver Messages:
Find the right channels.
Collaborate with top influencers and media outlets who align with target segments. You don’t want to add noise to the noise and dilute the messages.

Strategic Timing:
Promote decentralized alternatives at opportune times based on market trends and product maturity.

[Barakion]

Yeah, generally concur. Let me clarify one key point that was more maybe indirect in my initial response. I used the term users and referred to products. We should only be marketing product (wallets, parachains, staking services for securing the network, etc.). We should NOT be marketing token. The latter comes with regulatory consequences. We want to focus on use case. If folks want to invest in the token that is their prerogative, but we shouldn’t be marketing to them in that regard. The speculators are more short term anyway and not sustainable long term. Further, to your point, those buyers would likely be on centralized exchanges, which could cause more centralization.

I do agree regarding timing. Polkadex to your point would need to be better timed when it has more trading pairs.

One of the biggest fears that I think we need to address is inflation. Most people see inflation = bad and deflation = good. I can understand the emphasis on this concept given current inflationary pressures on fiat currency; however, this concept is completely misunderstood and I think people need education on it. Now that I type this out, maybe videos related to this could focus on your point of store of value (that is without marketing the token, but more so on the tokenomics aspect).

Kind of veering off topic hear, but what might be an interesting exercise would be to perform on chain analytics to see how much of the staking rewards are re-staked versus sold/sent to centralized exchanges over different periods of time. We could start to extrapolate what the sell pressure is from staking to determine a true inflation number. The current inflation number could be rebranded to some acronym no one understands (kidding). But we could use terms like monetary expansion to replace the current definition of inflation and then start measuring inflation in more meaningful terms (sell pressure caused by staking).

[sodazone]

@Barakion I think that it could be worth considering that retail is a small segment that brings limited liquidity and influence. Huge inflows looking for a soft landing require strong long-term technical initiatives that give grounds for future outflows.

Considering this, the current narrative of Polkadot being the future-proof secure multicore computation layer is very good.

[Girge]

What’s with out b2b target group? Shouldn’t we lay a focus on banks, institutions, companies, public entities?
And show them where Polkadot solves a problem for them?
That would require not so much traditional marketing but b2b marketing, trade fair presence, lobby work, test balloon cases etc.
I think this should be an integral part of the strategy

[RTTI-5220]

@giotto: thanks for the reply - just so you know, it does not feel like an attack at all: I think you have a perspective on the topic that in general I dont have so it’s good you added your feedback.

• IMO competition is not the only way to increase the quality of the proposals: I dont think its justified to pay any type of allocation to any type of influencer with the goal of increasing quantity in the hope that some sort of the self-regulated mechanism controlling quality will appear: particularly if big voters control the vote. That is the reason why I think curation can provide a way forward for these proposal, a roadmap for an influencers’ strategy and vision, that accepts proposals inline with the vision and rejects those that do not align.

• I think direct spending proposals might work well for content creation: particularly those with a short-term goal and fast work rhythm, executing project by project in a separate way. I think they do not only should have editorial freedom, but deserve it. However, I worry the use of direct spending proposals, supported by voters who do not pay attention to the rest of the marketing proposals spectrum, won’t serve the purpose of marketing due to repetition of topics, lack of impact to new viewers and low quality content. I think a curation team could help with this, to provide guidance.

• With regards to the educational information provided by a “central” authority: as I said above, I don’t believe W3F will stop producing and maintaining documentation, new articles for new features, the polkadot website, etc. Which are the main sources of truth for general information. For developers, the fellowship and core devs maintain the repos and can provide more detailed descriptions and readme files based on the code on the repos. But a curation team, in conversation with collectives like W3F or the fellowship, could direct content production based on what these organisations say its needed as well: in that sense two mechanism could complement each other.

• Bounty proposals are problematic if curators do not report back and are not transparent to the public. It is also useful in the example you mentioned (100 small referendum for a particular effort) - but a bounty with as little discussion, of not a granular definition about the scope of work, could also provide much discretionary power to these curators: and then it might be more difficult to review and control results. Something in between might be more suitable. Also, do not forget that governance has the power to remove curators who are not performing as required - although, I have to say that, yes: its hard to find expert curators whose reputation precedes them and can perform as the community expects, and it is hard for the average token holder to identity the best curation team. But transparency is not an issue, as long as curators regularly report back: direct spending proposals can also be obscure in their spending and funds management and use (ie: see the questioning to the marketing agency behind 255, 256, 258), so I guess its not about the mechanism but about holders’ control.

• The critique about the top-down perspective and the first question (“is marketing supposed to fund marketing activities?”) is supposed to kick off the discussion on how - I assume the community thinks marketing funding is needed. I know the treasury is permissionless regarding topics/categories, but I aim to ask that question for the reader to kick off a discussion on how this can be done. I dont aim to remove the permissionless state of the treasury.

• I think your perspective on complementary mechanism is what we have right now. But the goal of this piece is for the community to think how to set up a more structure body/bounty that can help with guidance, evaluation, curation and payment for SOME efforts, in cooperation with information providers like the fellowship, the W3F and parachain teams. Not necessarily using KPIs, but understanding the vision of Polkadot and fulfilling this vision’s needs with content for users. The “let’s do something now” approach is always good, it actions fast response, and I believe you and others are doing this now, but I do feel a complementary approach with a body to evaluate vision and results might be able to scale better for mid-term/long-term projects, or tasks that require more vision.