Parachain Developer Re-engagement
As far as I’m aware, Polkadot Alpha Program used to be provided as a link on the Polkadot website here https://wiki.polkadot.network/general/alpha-program/, but now it returns a 404 error, however there’s still a link to the Polkadot Alpha Program in the Kusama Network Guides (that appear to be maintained by W3F) here https://guide.kusama.network/docs/alpha-program that was “Last updated on Sep 30, 2024”, but that has links to https://polkadot.com/alpha-program/ that returns a 404 error.
In the past I was in a parachain team from Aug 2019 until May 2022 when I resigned after giving a couple of months notice to the company that was developing it for personal reasons when the Substrate Builders Program was around. Then they changed it to the Polkadot Alpha Program so I rejoined it in June 2024 for the parachain projects that I was developing by myself through Clawbird, and I received a link to the Polkadot Alpha Program website on Notion at Notion.
On that page it says the Point of Contact is Nico Morgan on Element: @nicholas:parity.io, and that the “Builders Program - General Chat Room” is the invite-only communication channel.
Below is the latest status of that Matrix/Element channel and others:
-
Substrate Builders Program “Builders Program - General Chat” #substrate-builders-program-overall:matrix.parity.io associated with this information
→ Last post May 2025 had requesting coretime help no response -
Substrate Builders Program “Builders Program - Chains Track” #substrate-builders-program-chains:matrix.parity.io) associated with this information
→ Last comment was in Nov 2023. -
Parachain Announcements #parachain-announcements:matrix.parity.io ?
→ Last comment Oct 2022 -
Parity Support (Public) #support:matrix.parity.io ?
→ Comment in Feb 2023 asking if it was active received no response, and two subsequent technical questions in Sept 2023 and June 2025 received no response -
Parachain Technical #parachain-technical:matrix.parity.io?
→ Last post was in May 2023 by RSS Bot called “RSS Bot [@shawntabrizi:matrix.parity.io]” but it appears to have been deprecated for some reason
Why were those parachain channels in Element/Matrix effectively abandoned?
Why isn’t there a requirement and incentive for admins/moderators in parachain-related technical support channels to have to stake DOT/KSM whilst they’re active and if they plan to discontinue providing that service they only receive their deposit back after the Technical Fellowship has confirmed that they’ve perform proper cleanup like public backup/archiving and providing notifications and redirection links if the channel has been replaced?
For example, if I go to Polkadot Direction #polkadot-direction:parity.io, it conveniently provides a notification This room has been replaced and is no longer active. The conversation continues here. https://matrix.to/#/#Polkadot-Direction:parity.io.
Historically I’d proactively create Pull Requests to fix the broken links since it was even encouraged in the Polkadot Ambassador Program, but I don’t believe those efforts get recognised and I think maintenance of these websites to check for broken links should be automated by now. There was a time when Kian Paimani proactively created a script to automatically check and fix broken links in the Substrate documentation from recollection.
The new Polkadot Agents Program WFC Polkassembly - Referendum #1660 highlights the problem and even suggests that a new structure including promoting “accountability” might be on the horizon to support real contributors.
It suggests that there might even be a “Developers” track (which looks similar to the original Polkadot Ambassador Program that had a “Developers” track before it was disbanded), and indicates that it might include a reimbursement process for operational expenses with a focus on impactful expenditures that deliver value to the ecosystem that mentions dev onboarding and strategic content.
Would simply fix those broken links and communication channels contribute to metrics and KPIs since it impacts dev onboarding, community engagement, and retention?
Would contributors who manually fix them or create scripts to automatically fix them be rewarded through recognition, NFTs, and access to exclusive events and trainings?