I am really happy with the responses so far!
I want to clarify something explicitly which may be obvious to some, but maybe not to others.
I am in big support of us thinking about and creating specific roles that we want in our governance and ecosystem. I really like the verticals proposed by @tomi:
- Outreach
- Adoption
- Governance
- Engagement
- Technical
I like the idea of roles, experience requirements, and reporting requirements.
I like the idea of people taking on leadership roles across verticals like @lilymendzdev just posted.
What I don’t like is any program / idea needing to create any on-chain logic which rigidly defines these verticals, roles, budgets, etc…
This concern goes back to one of the philosophies of Polkadot, which is that the best blockchain today is not going to be the best blockchain tomorrow.
The same can be said for any kind of structure or plan we define here.
It is certainly is possible that we can come up with the perfect plan for the biggest needs of Polkadot today, but in months, years, or even decades, those needs will change.
I am not saying that anyone is really asking for that above, but I just want to point out that one of the philosophies of my design is keeping things a little open ended.
For example, I like creating an on-chain system to put $10,000 in the hands of high quality individuals, but I don’t like limiting this to only “Head Ambassadors” or even people in the ambassador program (whatever that becomes).
We as a community could make a plan, and agree that the first people we will elect should be these leadership positions, but it should not be strictly enforced on-chain.
And I would even suggest that such a program should allow for some people outside of the “plan”, allowing for experimentation, and other kinds of scenarios which are not being discussed right now.
This is why I strongly believe we should be discussing two separate programs, whereas most people are still simplifying to one.
Those two programs should be:
- One for payment to individuals, decided dynamically by governance, to help make things happen for Polkadot.
- One for status / merit / title / rank, which simply acknowledges contributors from any area of expertise as having helped Polkadot be successful.
While I expect a large intersection between these two groups, I do not think it should be just one. Having two groups allows for much more flexibility on both sides.
- people who aren’t being paid, can still be ambassadors and move up the ranks
- for example, this program will start to include people like myself, other core developers, or long time contributors to Polkadot
- people who are being paid are not restricted to the confines of how we are currently define our plans