Next Steps for the Ambassador Program

Ambassador Programme
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There are many different threads on the Ambassador program. I am posting in this one because I believe this thread to represent the view that the current program is fundamentally flawed, and needs to be redesigned from the ground up.

So I don’t really think the current initiatives to salvage the program will be successful:

Below is my updated thinking on how we can start over, building on top of my original proposal for “Ambassador Program 2.0”.

Create Two Programs for Two Needs

The fundamental problem with the Ambassador Program is trying to combine too many needs into one initiative.

The two needs I am hearing about most frequently are:

  1. Bringing legitimacy, title, and rank to members in our community.
  2. Putting money into the hands of high quality ecosystem agents.

So let’s talk about solutions to those needs.

Ambassador Titles

I think my proposal for Ambassador Program 2.0 is still a good solution for this, and what we need.

  • Anyone can be an ambassador.
  • There are no limits to number of ambassadors at any rank.
  • Going through the ranks of the ambassador program is based on merit and outcome.
  • The decision process is handled by the existing governance system via treasury.
  • There is are decent incentives through the program.

If you want to shake someone’s hand and say you are a “Head Ambassador of Polkadot”, then you will be able to justify that title with the on-chain history of things you have done for Polkadot, and feel that you have earned that status and reputation based on merit, not by brown-nosing.

If you want to learn more, review the HackMD document.

Ecosystem Agents Fund

Separate to the ambassador program, I would propose we create an on-chain Ecosystem Agents Fund using the Gov1 council elections (also suggested by @bkchr).

For those unfamiliar, here is a high level look at how the council elections worked:

  • Voting for Councillors · Polkadot Wiki
    • Anyone could submit candidacy to be on the council.
    • Any DOT holder can vote for N candidates, all of which get your equal vote to join the council.
    • Phragmen, the same algorithm we use for Polkadot Staking, then calculates the best candidates based on all votes, and places them in the set.
      • This behaves like a runoff election, where if you vote for someone who doesn’t get elected, your vote will then pass to the next person who you want to vote for which would be elected.
      • It also helps new agents join the group compared to first past the post elections, or more naive election algorithms.

So with this in mind, here is how we can create an Ecosystem Agents Fund:

  • Create a Ecosystem Agents group with M agents.
    • Could be 21 like the current HA program, or more or less.
    • Depends on how much money we want to spent through this program per election period.
    • Could be updated by governance.
  • Elections happen once every month (28 days, configurable too).
  • This group gets its own treasury which is funded / topped up by the main treasury.
  • Those elected get access to spend up to $10,000 USD from the treasury during their election period.
    • Each spend has a required memo field (text) where the Agent describes what the funds are used for.
    • Agents do NOT need to spend all the money, and spending the money is not a default operation.
    • Agents can spend money to any address:
      • To themselves for payment / salary / compensation / reward.
      • To others, as a way of bootstrapping larger initiatives, and rewarding good work in the ecosystem.
  • Because elections are done on-chain, Agents need not appeal to anyone except DOT holders.
  • DOT holders can update their nominations based on the memos and spending history of Agents.
  • DOT holders can update any of the parameters based on the needs of the ecosystem.

Some Additional Ideas

  • Rather than the program running on a monthly cycle, we could do a 2 week cycle at half the amount per 2 weeks to allow for more quick turnaround.
  • We could require anyone applying have a verified identity, so there is some reputational risk. (although this is kind of wishy-washy)
  • Maybe users could apply with a variable monthly salary, so if multiple people apply at less than $10,000, we could hire more people.
  • Agents may be able to “pause” their candidacy, allowing someone else to be elected during times where they are doing other things, but not lose their votes outright when they decide to resume.

Expected Behaviors

Let’s talk about some different personas which would make sense in this program.

The Full Time Employee

There are people who want to work full time for Polkadot as an ecosystem agent. What exactly they do is not super important to the design of this system, just that the community wants to vote to support this person into the Ecosystem Agents Fund.

This person can pay themselves up to $10,000 per month for the work they have done. They are held responsible because each payment includes a memo which should justify the work they have done. If they grift the treasury or don’t show they are doing substantial work, they will quickly be voted out in the next election cycle, and probably hurt their reputation.

The Part-Time Coordinator

There are people whose value to the ecosystem is through coordination. This persona has a lot of good ideas and can act as a mentor, but is too busy with other work to actually execute those ideas.

This person will spend on themselves something like $1,000 per month on coordination efforts, but actually will spend the other $9,000 paying 3 people each $3,000 for doing work. Imagine they hire some web developers for building DApp. Of course, each of these spends will also include a memo, describing the work done by each contractor, but overall this person is making an impact into the ecosystem by getting access directly to some funds to execute with what they think is impactful, and what the DOT holders agree with.

Recognition Agents

Finally, you might have people who are just focused on building and growing the Polkadot community. Putting DOT into the hands of the right people can turn them from strangers to enthusiasts.

I have seen small scale efforts like tipping ambassadors, creating lotteries for governance participants, funding hackathon rewards, doing DOT distribution / giveaways at events, small scale marketing / advertising, etc…

The right person with $10,000 could multiply the impact of that cash, and may not even expect to take a cut themselves.

In summary, I feel that a lot of the problems around the Ambassador Program come from mixing these two different needs.

By separating them, we can create two better programs, with much more clear guidelines.

By creating a merit based organization, we can actually give meaning and substance to titles in our ecosystem. We can encourage high quality, long term agents in our ecosystem.

By adjusting how money is spent:

  • not spent by default
  • required memos per spend
  • small size budgets
  • dynamic, on-chain selection of agents
  • etc…

I think we can reduce gifting, diversify our investments into the ecosystem, and improve the overall impact of spending.

I hope the existing Ambassadors will recognize the philosophical differences from these ideas compared to the original manifesto, and perhaps look to replace the program with these pillars.

If the ambassador program continues to struggle to get off the ground, I would perhaps propose this myself directly to the chain. However, I would like to stay hands off if possible, and instead lead by convincing people of these philosophies so they make these decisions themselves.

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