I created this post as an update of the Meetups bounty #43. As a curator of this bounty who has been part of it from the beginning, I want to create a summary of what the first six months of the bounty looked like, what we had to go through, and where we ended up. This post should give you all a better idea about the journey we had to overcome. It can also be a nice base for a report.
Initially, this bounty was created during times when the Events bounty was not functional. Events bounty became functional shortly after Meetups bounty was created.
Meetups bounty #43
How was this bounty created?
A proposal was created, and during the decision period, anyone who added their name to a list linked in the proposal became a curator. The way curators were added is not ideal, but not unusual, as there were more bounties that were created this way. 17 people just added their names in one doc, and they became curators. With the threshold of 9/17 it became it was clear that curating events will not be easy. I applied as I already had wide experience with events, and at the same time, I was searching for a place where I could contribute.
Useful info
- 2024-02-28 - bounty proposed
- 2024-03-24 - bounty become active
- Number of initial curators: 17
- Link to our public Notion page
- Link to our bounty info on Subsquare
- Meetups bounty received 5000 DOT to manage (with around 700 DOT left - which will most likely be spent in the upcoming days as we receive new submissions).
With 5000 DOT, it is the smallest bounty (in amount) we have in Polkadot.
Goal of the bounty
Funding for meetups, up to 1k. Provide financing to people with potential and grow Polkadot communities around the world.
The difference between Events Bounty and Meetups Bounty
- Meetups bounty (MB) has a cap for events of a maximum of 1000 USD per meetup. Events bounty (EB) has a cap of 2500 USD for meetups.
- EB funds, besides meetups, also more significant events, side events, sponsorships, and other kinds of events.
- Submissions for EB must be submitted before the event happens. MB funds meetups submitted AFTER the event. We pre-fund events rarely, only in cases when a person is well known and we have experience with him(all curators must agree).
What did we struggle with:
- Too many curators: Having so many random people curate meetups that are supposed to be so small and low-cost was not easy and fast.
- Inactive curators: Right from the start, we had a few of those.
- Lack of experience of curators: Most of the curators had little experience with bounties.
- Lack of pro-activity and responsibility: Again, 17 people with different level of motivation.
- Documentation: It took us some time to create and agree on the necessary documents.
- No system: We had to create our system from zero which was not an easy task.
- Lack of leadership/teamwork caused by hectic start of the bounty
- Lack of communication: There were no calls at the beginning
- People leaving every few weeks: Curators were removed every few weeks, which was tiring.
Meetups Bounty Today
I have good news: the bounty is in great shape. We can say that the testing phase of the bounty was done and it gave us a lot. It was a long journey during which we had our few bad moments but never gave up.
Most of our problems were created from the fact of how the bounty was designed and created. With so many curators came a lot of struggles. We were trying hard from the start to make it work. The current status of the bounty is that we have five active curators who are now ready to push the bounty to the next level. We are not expecting anyone to leave atm.
I have to say that there were times when I was sure that the bounty would fail and didn’t deserve any attention. But this changed after we got to the point where there are only a few of us. The team is dedicated and creative, and we are working on our internal communication. Looking back, I can see how much work we did with the bounty.
We received around 43 applications for meetups, of which 26 were awarded. There are new meetups that are coming our way.
Curators:
What do we want to change in the future
- Work on better documents. We have been following a discussion about the new bounty standards (this was also posted today). There are a lot of things we still need to work on. Currently, we have internal documents with everything we need as curators, a public page with all the bounties we distribute, and a public communication channel. We have been lacking on the reporting side, even though all meetups can be seen on our Notion page.
- Be more proactive on social media and in other circles, work on various campaigns to promote the bounty more, have public open calls, and start working with content we collected from meetups that happened.
- Curators were receiving 10% of all bounties they award: This kind of reward system is not feasible as it might tempt people to fund meetups that are not good. At the same time, in a few cases, curators spent hours reviewing documents only to reject the bounty in the end. This reward is not motivational enough for curators to put extra effort into the bounty (grow social media, create campaigns, spend time on reports, create and keep up-to-date proper documents…). We will be aiming for fixed rewards for curators.
- Rethink the concept of meetups, consider how to motivate people to organize better meetups, and hopefully, have more event organizers. Try reaching out to locations and communities where meetups have not happened before.
Few last words
I’m confident about the curators we have now. I’m also confident that the next bounty proposal will implement everything we learned and every suggestion we received.
We are also open to any kind of feedback from the community, as we are also thankful for every piece of advice we receive on the way. I also hope to recieve any comments/suggestions under this post.
And we are also thankful to everyone who approached us and submitted their event via our Meetups bounty.
