Lessons Learned from the reform of the Ambassador Program

Ambassador Programme
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The Ambassador Program is the second functional on-chain collective of the Polkadot network. Its history provides us with valuable insights into how we can build better executive structures for OpenGov in the future.

In this document, you will learn about the history and the critical discussion that surrounded its activation in the summer of ‘24. It closes with suggestions about how to continue to develop the program and suggestions for the future creation of on-chain collectives.

This is an OpenGov.Watch report, made possible through a Web3 Foundation Decentralized Futures grant. It is not an official communication/report of the Ambassador Program.

What happened so far…

The Ambassador Program was originally launched by the Web3 Foundation in 2019. Seniority was to some degree decided through time spent in the program and demotions did not happen for the most part.

With the introduction of on-chain collectives, preparations were made to move the Ambassador Program on-chain. There were differences about grandfathering in the structure from the original program, with some of the criticisms being:

  • Being an ambassador heavily depended on ‘regional’ ambassadors, creating nepotistic relations in some regions.
  • Some people who were very active in the ecosystem were not ambassadors,
  • The incentives would be misaligned if the people started to get paid within the existing structure.

Some agents proposed an alternative program as Ref 487. There was some resistance to this (see this Forum thread), but eventually Ref 487 was accepted with 32m DOT AYE vs. 2m DOT NAY votes. In code, the program was originally implemented as Runtime PR 291 with the implementation now sitting here.

After the collective was activated in the Polkadot Runtime, Head Ambassador applications started pouring in via the Fellowship Admin Track on OpenGov. Accepted applicants consisted of existing Head Ambassadors from the previous program, established community members, and a previously unknown character named Michiko Watanabe.

Program Definition

This is a summary of the most important points of the social contract established in Ref 487:

  • Main Responsibility: Represent Polkadot to the outside through business development, outreach, and relationship management
  • Ranks (from top to bottom)
    • Head Ambassadors (HA)
      • appointed through OpenGov
      • activity on par with a full-time job
      • qualifications:
        • lead the program
        • represent Polkadot
      • maximum of 21 HAs
    • Senior Ambassadors (SA)
      • promoted by HAs
      • experienced Ambassadors
      • hosting or speaking at events
      • participate in governance discussions
    • Ambassadors
      • fluent in most end-user apps of Polkadot
        • be able to show how to stake, set identity…
      • translate documentation
      • make tutorials
      • host/attend events
    • Candidate Ambassadors
      • show activity as Ambassador
      • max 6 months
  • Treasury
    • Salaries
      • 10k USD salary per month per HA
        • voluntary passive allowance: 2k USD
      • no other regular salaries
    • Expenses
      • for hosting events, rewarding exceptional contributions…
      • spends < 1k USD by Senior Ambassadors
      • spends > 1k USD by Head Ambassadors
  • Seeding
    • initially, only Head Ambassadors shall be elected
    • after there are at least 10 HA are elected, they are expected to
      • shape the rules for the program
      • request funding
      • begin operating the program
      • begin appointing Senior Ambassadors and Ambassadors
  • Voting
    • HA Track: HAs have 1 vote
    • SA Track:
      • HAs have 5 votes
      • SAs have 1 vote
    • Ambassador Track:
      • HAs have 10 votes
      • SAs have 2 votes#
      • Ambassadors have 1 vote
    • All tracks have a 7 day voting period
    • Simple majority decides

Discussion

With the appointment of Head Ambassadors, critical debates began about different aspects of the program, starting from the qualifications of individual candidates, the selection mechanism, and the intended salary of 10k USD per month. It then expanded to a broader discussion about the role and general setup of the program. A Twitter Space was held in July 2024 to discuss the program.

Inception and Definition

The program has been criticized for being rushed in its definition. Ref 487 itself states that further definition should happen through Head Ambassadors. This delayed definition of the program leads to further delays after its inception, since Head Ambassadors first need to find a working mode.

Leaving out the debate in the community pushes more power to Head Ambassadors to define the program as they see fit, without too much intervention from the OpenGov community, which can be seen as an advantage or disadvantage. The crude definition of the program becomes even more striking when comparing Ref 487 to the Technical Fellowship Manifesto, which is much more sophisticated. The Technical Fellowship Manifesto also touches on the self-understanding of the collective, values, qualities expected from certain ranks, and the work ethic of its members. All of these points are missing in the Ambassador Program definition.

HA Role Definition

Management vs. Representation

The Head Ambassador role definition is simple, only stating that Head Ambassadors should “lead the program” and “represent Polkadot”. These two aspects were at the center of the following debate, as some HA candidates focused their candidacy primarily on outward-facing matters, while others focused on the internal organization more. Would every necessary function be filled?

Some people suggested reducing the maximum number of Head Ambassadors to 5 and putting them in a more managerial role. Under this model, representational functions would be considered to be fulfilled by Senior Ambassadors. This suggestion was criticized for weakening the authority that can be communicated with the term Head Ambassador.

As an alternative solution, the introduction of Ambassador Secretaries was suggested. These would be executive functions that would focus on the administrative tasks given to them by Head Ambassadors. In this model, Head Ambassadors would work as a board of directors.

Full-time or not?

Ref 487 defined Head Ambassadors to work on par with a full-time role. As the first candidates joined, it became clear that they intended to maintain other commitments. Some criticized this and said that only people intending to be full-time Head Ambassadors should apply. Others responded that it would be impossible to find the minimum number of 10 Head Ambassadors who would be competent and at the same time willing to risk other career opportunities for a program that is just in its inception and not yet stable. It was argued that people on the expected competence level might find better-paying positions in the industry.

Another argument for removing this criterion was that Head Ambassadors can develop synergies with other rules that outweigh the reduced time commitment.

There were suggestions to remove this criterion and make time commitments more flexible. We will revisit this question in the salary chapter.

Ranks and Selection

There were hot debates about the intended selection and replacement mechanisms. It was also noted that the original program definition lacks a clear definition of the promotion and demotion mechanics.

Selection and Replacement of Head Ambassadors

Since Ref 487 prescribes that Head Ambassadors are elected through OpenGov, that there is a maximum number of HAs, and voters were very liberal in voting for Head Ambassadors, the question came up about how more competent HA candidates should replace existing Head Ambassadors. The simple suggestion was that a new HA candidate would submit a referendum to remove a specific Head Ambassador and promote themselves to HA. This was also dubbed the “arena approach”

A competing suggestion was to employ the model previously used for council elections in Gov1, where voters could vote for candidates the the top X candidates were elected to the body. Voters could keep their tokens in this voting process and elections would happen every 28 days without voters having to vote in every cycle.

It has also more generally been discussed that Ambassadors should work up the ranks from the bottom up, creating better competition and leading to better results at the top.

Promotion and Demotion

Rules on internal promotion and demotion are absent. No requirement of submitting evidence, as is common in the Fellowship, has been set up. The understanding might be that OpenGov will be able to remove underperforming Head Ambassadors. Without any standards for comparing work performance, this is arbitrary.

Salary

It was criticized that Head Ambassadors will receive salaries without having shown their ability to perform as Head Ambassadors first. As a counter-argument, it was claimed that any underperforming Head Ambassadors would be quickly identified and removed from the program and that the cost would be marginal in the overall picture.

The discussion then expanded around the question of base compensation vs retroactive compensation. Should Head Ambassadors, or all Ambassadors, be paid on commission for BD work? Or more generally retroactively for any kind of potential work they delivered? How much base compensation should they receive?

Additionally, there was a discussion about “double dipping”. Double dipping describes the act of receiving payment for the same work from different sources.

It was suggested that Ambassadors should be able to voluntarily receive only a part of their full HA compensation if they deem their contribution in a certain month to not be on par with a full-time activity.

Comparison to the Technical Fellowship

Technical Fellowship Ambassador Program
Definition very specific through Manifesto Broad, with the expectation on HAs to further define the program
Management No. Members self-assign work. Unclear yet. HAs expected to “lead the program”.
Full-time? Unspecified Expected for Head Ambassadors
Top-Rank Promotion via OpenGov via OpenGov
Promotion/Demotion/
Evidence Specified Unspecified
Compensation monthly fixed monthly fixed

Michiko Watanabe

A rather curious situation happened when an agent named Michiko Watanabe was elected as Head Ambassador via. Ref 871. Several people, including a whale, voted for this account. The identity of this person could never be confirmed and the person was removed from the program via Ref 1041.

Questions were raised about how this unknown person could have been selected as Head Ambassador with no actual proof of personhood and previous reputation in the ecosystem.

It raised suggestions regarding requiring persons to identify via DID or KYC mechanisms in the future.

Next Steps

Head Ambassadors started preparations after at least 10 HAs got elected and are preparing the further setup and definition of the program. A draft version of a reformed Ambassador Program 2.0 (Shawn’s Vision) has been published, but no further attempts have been made to influence the path at the moment.

Suggestions

The following is currently suggested for the Ambassador Program:

  • Define Selection Criteria for Ambassadors and Senior Ambassadors
  • Define and implement a recruitment process
  • Establish a way for Head Ambassadors to officially communicate with the broader OpenGov community, e.g. via reports or some kind of public meeting.
  • Establish a mode for publishing evidence for the individual Head Ambassadors
  • Define and implement initiatives for the Ambassador Program

Lessons Learned for Future On-Chain Collectives

  • Inception Phase
    • give time and space for public discussion of the proposal/manifesto, to avoid simple mistakes and allow the OpenGov community to make suggestions and get to a better consensus about the program
    • if no pre-existing team incubates the collective, it should be considered that an initial storming phase will happen where the new leader first has to find a mode of collaboration. In this case, giving the program more shape in advance reduces the time needed to define it within the collective.
    • Management responsibilities or the expected outcome/objectives of the program should be more clearly defined.
  • Selection of Leaders
    • Seeding the ranks should happen at as low a rank as possible. This creates some space and breathing room to give prospective leaders a certain time frame in which they have to prove themselves. E.g. in the Ambassador Program, candidate HAs could have been placed at rank 2 and given 4 months to prove their ability. Then, only proven candidates would be promoted to rank 3 leaders.
    • A large number of people at the highest ranks initially does not seem advisable. It makes the initial definition of the program much harder. Starting with a smaller number creates more competition and allows seeding the program with higher quality leaders / better time commitments first.
    • Leaders should be given more strict qualitative criteria to fulfill and should be more thoroughly and publicly “grilled” in advance. Submitting videos or other role-appropriate means during the application process can give a better insight into who is applying.
    • Voting should happen for all candidates at once by counting votes instead of for each candidate individually.
  • Requirements for members
    • Implementing KYC checks or similar methods to prove personhood might be advisable
    • Define promotion and demotion periods and what evidence should look like.
    • Compensation:
      • There should be clear definitions regarding what constitutes double dipping and if it is permissible or not.
      • It is helpful to discuss base compensations vs. commissions/retroactive funding in advance to avoid confusion later

Related Links

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As always, this report on the Ambassadors program is very accurate and objective. You addressed viewpoints that I also share, and they clarified my perspective on the program, on what I’ve seen, and on what I’ve read from others as well.

I come from a job (not in web3) where I supervised staff and interacted with other department heads. That experience taught me that it’s very difficult to satisfy everyone. When there is chaos or disorganization, it’s best for one or several people to step forward and try to guide the rest of the group. I understand that this is a program that needs to be established practically from scratch, and therefore, I believe that of the 21 HA, some should lead (at least at the beginning and through the consensus of all). Egos should be set aside, and defensiveness as well. I believe that if there were 3 to 5 leaders to guide the rest, the program would advance more quickly, and everyone would benefit.

According to what I saw shared on Discord after your first call, you discussed several points, most of which need further discussion. I might be wrong, but perhaps focusing on just one point and what it entails, and then moving forward, would be more productive. Perhaps it would make sense to assign each point to a team (I also think you discussed this).

I hope this is taken as constructive feedback. Sometimes I feel that some people are very defensive because, yes, the program has been heavily criticized, and regarding that, I think you should get used to it because you are now public figures and will always be criticized (like artists, haha).

I also hope that you’ll be more open to the community, listen to them from time to time, and find a way to include them in some discussions.

Anyway, good luck, and we’ll keep waiting to see how this develops.

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I point i don’t see addressed that deeply in this review is whether having a limited number of “spots at the top” leads to the kinds of outcomes we want.

Many were referring to Ambassador Program after 21 were onboarded as a “Hunger Games”, which can hardly be the kind of interaction we want among ambassadors.

At the heart of my feedback to the ambassador program, I felt there were 2 key changes that needed to be made:

  • a merit based program which actually encourages and rewards actions and outcomes
  • no limits to the number of members at any rank in the program

Rather than having people at the top gain their position by navigating the often grey waters of governance voting, btw which happens to give much greater influence to the same people who proposed the program, we should have people show through evidence of their actions and outcomes that they are qualified to be an ambassador of Polkadot at any level.

Furthermore, if you establish a merit based program, there is no need to create artificial scarcity of the role. I hope to live in a world where we could honestly say there are hundreds of head ambassadors because people around the world understand, can explain, and can advocate for Polkadot.

  • Implementing KYC checks or similar methods to prove personhood might be advisable

I would also push back hard on this. This does not seem like it embodies the philosophies of decentralized and open networks at all.

If instead you rely on merit based metrics, you need not worry about KYC at all. You simply have achievements as proof of past work and to de-sybil bad actors.

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Hi Alice, would it be possible to get an update on the latest development in the HA program please?

As an aside, the non receipt of salaries seems bizarre to me. My assumption was that once a proposal was voted through and executed then it was set in stone. As such I would have imagined that with the passing of the HA program, the treasury would then be bound to executing the salaries until another proposal passed that over-ruled this. What have I not quite understood here? Thanks a lot.

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You can follow HA discussions in the Polkadot Discord server. There’s a link at the bottom of Polkadot.com

As for the salary situation, an examination of the referendum that created on-chain Collective shows that it does not include salary and that salary therefore must pass OpenGov in a separate referendum.

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Hi, thanks for the discord link.

Sorry to repeat, how do you mean ‘an examination of the referendum that created on-chain Collective shows that it does not include salary.’

Was the referendum not the thing that got voted on by the public? I care less about the HA salaries in a vacuum and more about how the process works and what am I/am not influencing when voting.

Thanks again!

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Yeah, I mean the referendum that got voted on by tokenholders. You can read it here:

(you’ll see that while it makes reference to an on-chain Treasury & some salary/funding expectations, the referendum itself does not include any funding at all & only calls for the existence of the Ambassador Collective)

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Thanks again for replying @mister_cole

So as i am understanding it, the issue is that the proposal should have outlined the formation and initial funding of a HAtreasury? Or was it that the wording of the salary was not definitive enough?

I had naively interpreted the proposal referencing the $10k/m salary for HA as being set in stone whether it be via a HAtreasury or failing that via the main treasury who would step in because ultimately the parameters of the proposal had to be satisfied above all.

I’m really interested in the specific mechanism of failure around this point and what may be potential shortcoming of future proposals in a similar vein might be. I suppose i am being so pedantic (and appreciative of your time) as I think it’s critical to identify and clearly define the correct language/process so that loopholes are not established or any possibility for manipulation introduced going forward with the caveat of something being incorrectly described irregardless of how clear to voters the intentions had been.

thanks again

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I have no real opinion on whether the proposal that created the Collective “should have” included funding. My only point is that it didn’t, so funding must come as a separate referendum and pass community vote in OpenGov.

I guess I don’t think there was a “mechanism of failure” or a “potential shortcoming”–the referendum that was passed accomplished what it said it would accomplish, code is law, etc.

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It seems like im being very basic here so please do bear with me.

So what you’re saying is that the wording ‘Head Ambassadors shall receive a salary of 10,000 USDT (or equivalent stablecoin) per month.’ was too weak?

I suppose what i want to know is when another proposal comes along with outlined salaries and wants them coded in and working as functioning payments from day 1, what is required to make this happen?

cheers!