The State of Polkadot's Global Events Bounty: An Analysis

Ecosystem
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I would like to start saying the following…

Before writing this message, I tried to contact and explain my concerns about the operation of the global events bounty to Zoé. Unfortunately, we scheduled several meetings with her but they could never take place from their side.

First, I attempted to attend the Event Monthly Call on September 7th, but none of the curators (Zoé and Mark) showed up.

Elodie is no longer part of the bounty.

Second, I understand the complexity of what being an events curator entails, as it is my role in the Spanish-speaking bounty. This role requires extreme responsibility since the funds that finance these projects are NOT from the Bounty, curators, or organizers but rather from the entire community. In short, what happens here concerns all of us.

With that said, I’ll begin my presentation:

The global events bounty was created to expedite the event organization process because there are many factors where, if the process isn’t efficient, organizers can lose providers, speakers, venues, face flight and hotel price increases, among many other things.

For this reason, before OpenGov appeared, it was decided to delegate 1 million DOTs to this bounty, which consisted of three community members (Zoé and Marc, Head Ambassadors Events Track, and Elodie, Parity Technologies) to finance meetups and events, both in-person and online. Here you can see the complete proposal

When I saw that only three people would be in charge of all Polkadot events worldwide, I knew this couldn’t work, and unfortunately, time proved me right.

The current events bounty fails in several important aspects:

Quickness

A mechanism designed to make the process much faster has become a tedious, frustrating, and maddening process for almost any community member who wants to organize an event. To give the community an idea, with the OpenGov model, an organizer could take about a month and a half from when they submit the proposal to receiving funds for the event. Nowadays, in the bounty, with a bit of luck, it takes two months.

For example, I submitted my proposal in early August and still haven’t received any feedback from the curators.

But some have even worse luck, Hackaton Polkadot Championship send his proposal in May and still waiting…

5 months to approve an event? Doesn’t make sense…

You can find more cases like this here

Why does this happen?

Well, it’s easy to explain. Curators give a response at most once a week, there are too few curators, they are ineffective, and they have other job responsibilities within the ecosystem, so they can’t dedicate the time that a GLOBAL event bounty requires.

This makes the process endless, and not always are the suggestions they make in the proposals clear, which shows their lack of experience in this field.

For example, recently, Georgi and I were suggested that Parity Technologies should cover the costs of roll-ups, mock-ups, and all the design work… Why should Parity cover these costs?

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Suggestions that sometimes border on nonsense, and anyone with even a minimum of knowledge in events should know.

Transparency

Another highlighted deficiency is the lack of transparency. Currently, there is no way to see any reports created by the curators, and most worryingly, there are no reports from event organizers. In their proposal to run as candidates for curators of the bounty, they stated the following:

5. Reporting: in order to keep the community involved and aware of the latest updates, the Admin Curator should update the on-chain council every three months as well as the community. Reporting will take the form of a shared and living document so that the community can keep track of the approved proposals. This document will be added as a post on Polkassembly in the timeline section of the original on-chain bounty as comment. A Update in the report will likely include things like:

1. progress.
2. Total bounty funds spent so far.
3. Details of the event such as agenda, success metrics, link to event, pictures etc. (most of the information requested on the child-bounty application) see here and here.

Furthermore, there are no established curation criteria for giving rewards or not to event organizers. This should be a secondary payment to organizers based on whether the event was successful or not.

What do they base it on?

Why don’t curators attend events when it has often happened that they are in the same city as the Polkadot event but prefer to attend events of other blockchains?

Finally, there is no effective way to communicate with the curators, and many members, including myself, have not received responses from them.

Professionalism

The curators of this bounty are not experts in events. So, how can someone who is not an events specialist be responsible for the events area? Being in charge of financing Polkadot events with money from the entire community requires extraordinary responsibility, and if they can’t respond to an email, Discord message, Telegram…

  • How can they perform the actual event curation?
  • Have they ever checked if the invoices are legitimate?
  • How do they control the attendance that the organizer promised?
  • Are they able to track social media and marketing strategies of organizers to meet objectives?

These are many questions that come to mind, but if I have to give an answer, it’s NO since 2-3 people can’t possibly do all that work. In the Spanish-speaking bounty, there are two of us curating events in LATAM and Spain, both pre-event and post-event. Thanks to that, we were able to detect a fake invoice, and the event organizer sent the $2,000 he wanted to keep to the Kusama treasury.

Impartiality

The lack of transparency raises doubts about impartiality since some events have been under review for 5 months, while others are approved within a week. To have impartiality, there should be written and clear rules where any community member knows what rules they are playing by. That is if marketing cannot be included in the proposal, this rule should apply to everyone. If speakers have to pay for their flights, meals, and hotels, the same applies. Regardless of whether these rules make sense or not, it’s worth noting that in the proposal made by the curators of the bounty, they say the following:

Child-bounties proposed for such event types can cover following costs:

  • Logistics, venue, marketing (including website, articles, swag, prints), travel, hackathon prizes, actors/artists, food & drinks.*

The lack of transparency and professionalism, combined with the curators’ lack of experience in events, is creating frustration among organizers. What was supposed to be a tool to facilitate and expedite the system has become a bottleneck with senseless rules.

That’s why the curators should leave this role to professionals in events who are genuinely willing to contribute and create a better and fairer ecosystem.

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I couldn’t agree more on most points, Albert, and I want to express my gratitude for mentioning our proposal, which has taken an extraordinarily long time to be awarded.

The only aspect on which I disagree is the idea of removing the curators. Personally, I believe it’s valuable to have insight into both sides’ opinions, challenges, and overall conduct.

Certainly, the lack of responses to messages and emails is a matter of concern and appears unprofessional. I recently sent an email addressing this issue to the Event Bounty Curators and the Community Event Team.

However, my suggestion, which I believe would be a constructive approach, is for us to come together and transparently address these issues. Let’s engage in a conversation and work towards solutions. This dialogue could take place in person or through an open call. I am confident that we, along with other community members, can provide valuable insights, feedback, and support to streamline processes.

In my view, Zoé’s initiative has been a significant asset to the Polkadot ecosystem in the past and will continue to be so in the future, facilitating the realization of numerous outstanding proposals. Consequently, I recommend that we maintain an open-minded approach and listen to both sides.

To reiterate, Bounty Curators, we are here and eager to engage in a constructive discussion. Let’s understand the challenges and issues faced by both parties and collaborate to enhance the current bounty system.

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Hey Albert and community,

We understand this has been frustrating as the bounty has been restructuring essentially since the end of Polkadot Decoded. We are entering the final stages of this restructure and we appreciate everyone’s patience as we strive to award and reward as many bounties and event producers in the community as we can, despite rapidly changing curator team conditions and market DOT price fluctuations.

The restructure of the events bounty includes a new proposal to increase the seats of main bounty curators from (currently 2 active curators) to 5 seats. This will include additional experts within the events industry from different areas, as well as a Parity seat for proper ecosystem participation.

In the meantime, we would also like to remind everyone that there has been a public call to action to apply for a sub-curator role to support the main events bounty curators in event submission reviews, and if you would like to be further involved and help ease this bounty curator’s process please feel free to apply here!

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Hi everyone!

I have seen that some events have been funded and some have not. I witnessed many of the events, and for others, I have been tracking their progress. Honestly, the final outcome for the amounts granted didn’t seem favorable to me (personal opinion). So, does that mean we should stop funding events? NEVER…

Every region, every country needs its events to activate its community and keep the flame alive. I’ve noticed that there are too many requirements or requests to hold an event, but not for others. Why does this happen? Are some events more interesting to host than others?

I believe we need to have a MORE ACTIVE curation of these events, objectively evaluating their impact and reach within the community. If someone organizes an event that had only 20 attendees and cost $250,000, I don’t think it’s a positive outcome. Therefore, we cannot allow funds to be wasted again and again. In such cases, we could recommend starting with smaller, less expensive events to see how they develop.

We can also give others the opportunity to work on the event, for the community or the region.

I never applied for the global events bounty because I saw it as a very tedious process. I also understand that Elodie, Mark, and Zoe did a great job, but the bounty requires so much attention that I think only three people were too few…

I know they have opened up slots for assistants, but I don’t see everything being resolved quickly, and the timing of events, the dates, the providers, and more, requires agility. I hope it can be taken to a much better process, that the bounty continues to exist, that the ENTIRE COMMUNITY has access, that it is promoted more, and that funding decisions and reasons are communicated openly and transparently.

I hope there can be an evaluation of everything done so far, and that they improve what may not have gone well, and continue with everything that has worked well, so that the community can have great events as we deserve! (L)

In your case, Albert, I attended several events that you have organized with your team, and not only are they of great quality, but the impact they have on the community is very high. I appreciate that, and please, even though it may be difficult to obtain funding for such events, DON’T STOP! You have done tremendous work with the Spanish community, and as a holder, ambassador, and lover of the ecosystem, all your efforts are greatly appreciated. Best of luck!"

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How do the managers of this bounty and more generally across events assess the “impact”?

Have their been any attempts to move more definitively towards onchain KPIs?

Moving forward spending disassociated from the core drivers of network activity and indeed those that are not related to driving coretime income will end up being harder and harder to justify over time.

Its worth curators considering that given the changes if we look ahead.

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Hey Zoe, appreciate your reply. Do you have an ETA of when the restructure will take effect? I think the community has been very much patient for the past few months and would like to see a detailed roadmap going forward.

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Questions, queries at the official events chat channel at the Polkadot discord goes unattended and unanswered. There used to be a recurrent calls at discord for events, that was stopped abruptly without prior notice and informed much later.

There needs to be some serious re-structuring and adding curators who are aligned with the mission.

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If the current curators cannot do the work efficiently, can we find people who can?

If the process is not working, can we have something that will?

As a new Ambassador from Asia, I share Albert’s frustration and I appreciate you for raising this concern. Our intentions and initiatives are extremely impacted with the current process of awarding the bounties for the events. Not everyone has the capacity to shell out thousands of dollars for an event and be refunded months after.

Let’s take into consideration that we’re doing this voluntarily and it’s frustrating that we even have to fund the events from our own pockets in advance just to pursue our contribution to the ecosystem.

On the other hand, I want to thank Zoe for your reply in this forum. Seeing that there is already a proposal to increase the curator seat to 5 gives hope in the process. But, again, can you share when can we expect this change? This proposed change is nothing without the timeline.

Additionally, can we set-up a timeframe wherein we can hear back from the curators if the event is approved or not so we can plan accordingly? Are there additional plans to simplify the process for us who are spearheading the events?

Also, can we have curators per region to do the first checking of proposals to make sure the process is expedited when it comes to “reviewing”?

I really hope these points mentioned can be answered

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Hi all,

We appreciate your comments and patience on the updated curator proposal.

I am sharing the proposal doc here: Bounty Curator Candidacy - EventsBountyV2 - Google Docs

This proposal is based on the initial bounty proposal from August 2022 and mainly requests to add new curators to the bounty to ensure efficient updates and improvements to the events bounty.

This new events bounty curator proposal will be published for discussion tomorrow.

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Hey there,

I assume you refer to the Polkadot Ambassador Events Working Group call ? This call was hold on the Polkadot discord server (for Ambassadors only) as an independent activity from the Events Bounty.

Mark and I only happen to manage both (the bounty and the ambassador WG call) but they are not connected on a process level.

We decided to discontinue the monthly Ambassador WG call on discord due to very low to no attendance from Ambassadors.

Many other Head Ambassadors have done so too or did never offer monthly calls to help other Ambassadors within the ecosystem.

Besides the bounty curator activity, I am always happy to guide new Ambassador candidates through the ecosystem and help them organize their first polkadot meetup in their region.

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just posted it below :slight_smile:

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Thank you for the proposal. It seems like the new proposed set of curators (Zoe, Mark, Hutch, WebZero and Parity) are all based in the States and Europe. For a Global Events Bounty to work efficiently and impartially, I think representations matter. A few curators from Asia with experience organizing successful events in Asia is necessary, given that a lot of activities are happening in this part of the world.

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As stated above:
In the meantime, we would also like to remind everyone that there has been a public call to action to apply for a sub-curator role to support the main events bounty curators in event submission reviews, and if you would like to be further involved and help ease this bounty curator’s process please feel free to apply here

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I am aware of the call for sub-curators. What I am trying to say here is having Asian curators among the current seats (and with that we can expand to more than 5 curators) – that is, having a say in the decision-making process by having voting power. I emphasize my point above that representations matter in a Global Event Bounty.

Asian curators who have extensive experience in event organization have insights into the local markets that can help them 1/ review proposals more quickly and 2/ offer advice and consultations where needed. This in turn brings benefits to the ecosystem as a whole. At the same time, this upholds the decentralization ethos that we so much value.

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Hello @zoemc,

Thank you for sharing the proposal information with the entire community.
Regarding the curators, I’m glad that you have introduced new members. However, as @djhatrang pointed out, it seems to me that the selection of curators is very centralized. Most of them are from WebZero (a project of which you are a part), and this raises certain doubts and could even lead to conflicts of interest in this proposal.

Furthermore, I don’t understand why there are sub-curators when they could be curators themselves. Wouldn’t it be healthier? Wouldn’t it be better to have a more globally open bounty with different opinions where everyone can contribute? I believe there are plenty of qualified people in events, and they have demonstrated this during the time you have been a curator. It would be great if, as Head Ambassador, you could give more opportunities to ambassadors to grow within the ecosystem, but not as sub-curators, rather as curators, with established criteria and not given to the first person who wants it (you should look at their background, history of events, past proposals, reports, etc.).

Finally, all the curators you propose hold important positions in the ecosystem, and I’m not sure if they would have the time to thoroughly curate events. We have seen in the past that people with high positions, such as Mark, Elodie, or yourself, have not been able to perform the work adequately.

My proposal is, why don’t you look at who the best event organizers are on each continent, contact them, and incorporate them as curators?

Don’t you think that would be better than adding curators with whom you have a direct relationship, which could lead to some mistrust in the community, and whose job responsibilities may not allow them to handle event curation adequately? This way, you would help ambassadors who do not have any other role in any other bounty and are experts in events to be more motivated and integrated into the ecosystem.

I would like to hear your opinion.

Thank you,

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What brought us here?
It is worth remembering that bountys emerged as an experimental alternative like many of the initiatives carried out in the ecosystem to accelerate the execution of activities and guarantee transparency in the use of funds for the entire community. Overall, the goal is to allow actors in the Dotsama ecosystem to be rewarded more quickly and regularly.

Before that there were many problems that can be reviewed in the Problem statement section of the initial bounty. With the new kids bounty mechanism on Polkadot, bounty curators were able to allocate specific amounts of DOT to community event activities, the community is motivated to produce more professional events around the world, and so on, better customer guidance can be implemented. Event organizers.

How did it evolve?
Under this structure, where a highly professional layer with verifiable experience was incorporated, as Zoe already mentioned, more than 100 high-quality events were executed (a quite interesting number considering that it was a first version and with a small group where priority was given). quality), obviously with the passage of time the demands would increase as they actually did and it would be necessary to restructure the proposal.

Expected evolution
It is understandable that since it was not a task to which they dedicated 100% of their time, this restructuring took the appropriate time to make the necessary adjustments, incorporating the lessons learned from an entire year and also analyzing the necessary profiles so that continuity will add value to this broad initiative. As of today, that proposal is already available.

Professionalism
Regarding the mistrust and alleged doubts raised by the creator of the analysis, it is easy to understand that beyond reading names, it is possible to validate the professional credentials, the knowledge and experience of the new proposed curators are interesting for the healthy continuity of the initiative.

Below is a brief analysis:
-Many of them have already had responsibilities at the Web3 Foundation, which is a good idea since they know the work philosophy aimed at the collective good.
-They also have experience directing and supervising marketing actions from a business point of view where meeting objectives is a priority.
-Experience carrying out activities in multiple locations is highlighted, this allows for a broader context and demonstrates a great capacity for attention compared to a person who is only dedicated to organizing activities in their own country.
-Direction, creativity and professional production available to the community, components that will undoubtedly be well received and will allow the quality of all activities to be raised.
-Strategy, marketing and communications: from people who are within the ecosystem, with responsibilities for those roles and who have had outstanding experience in their previous roles which allowed them to get to where they are now.

In addition to that, Parity’s support to guarantee the correct orientation of innovation, technology and the correct strengthening of the technology that supports the ecosystem.

Openness and delimitation of responsibilities
Regarding the novelty of the sub-curators, it seems to me that it is something positive since it is an opening where they are effectively being given opportunities to be part of this group where, in addition to their experience and dedication, they must have the best disposition to listen and learn from those who already walked that path during the first edition. It would be really risky to provide all the responsibilities without first receiving adequate preparation. This is not about running an events company made up of 3 people; It is a global management. For this, a public call was made that is still valid where participation is completely voluntary.

Finally, it is positive to see how Albert who has requested more than +EUR 1.1M (review+claimed+canceled) of the bounty for events in Spain and Kokolucas who is the new ambassador in Asia can express their opinions in a respectful and ideally well-founded way. It is definitely a sign of the openness of the ecosystem so that anyone feels free to give their opinion.

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Thanks for sharing your experience and highlighting important information which has impacted organising events in the past 1 year.

I was one of the members who volunteered to help SafariDAO organize the first Polkadot conference in Africa and I can admit it wasnt an easy process.
We eventually had to go through OpenGov because events bounty didnt have the capacity to approve the event (amount) and also they judged that SafariDAO (well known collective in East Africa) are new to Polkadot.

My personal wish was that Polkadot Safari should have qualified for a grant from the events bounty rather than pushed to OpenGov on Kusama for two main reasons:

  1. They would be in the hands of known Polkadot community who can offer guidance on how Polkadot events should be run and expectations.
  2. The process would have been easier and quick.

I believe as Polkadot/Kusama eco we need these events happening frequently and everywhere but they must have a purpose and should be aligned with growth metrics for Polkadot.
Having a group of people managing this would ensure we can be more efficient.

If we refer to @alice_und_bob tweet we see that Polkadot treasury has allocated almost 40% of its spend towards outreach https://twitter.com/alice_und_bob/status/1702584854192197703?t=LIErmanvJpbhTkKc2312IQ&s=19

However due to lack of coordination and managenent I feel with all this spend we lack the strategic impact we hope to achieve in the long run.
We also have areas around the global we have good community presence but low outreach activities and we have regions barely unexplored which is also a bad thing.

This is why I think this should be PRIORITIZED. We also need to organize now during ‘bear market’ where we can learn to budget with low funds.

I also agree with @djhatrang the curators need to be balanced so that you can be well prepared to serve the global community.

This is also a suggestion I had made in another group please see if it can help as you discuss and find ways to effectively manage an events bounty @ILoveCripto

  1. Allocate some funds specific for these type of initiatives then map out the world into regions then to major urban areas and/or areas of interest (emerging crypto hubs).

  2. Define the max allocation each region can be able to access within a year. (reviewed yearly according to data and statistics)

  3. Come up with yearly objectives and deliverables we expect and are important for Polkadot. (Analyse areas that need further growth and growth)

  4. Find reasonable members of the community who can oversea a region for a specific term.

For example:

Say its Africa
We can broadly categorize it in 4 regions:

  1. North
  2. East
  3. West
  4. South

Set metrics that will enhace community growth that is also strategically aligned with Polkadot Network.

Share our target like we can support X amount of events, hackathons, media for certain languages (if applicable).
Eg: We need builders with these skills to build this and that for Polkadot, or parachain.

Each region can access an X amount of funds if max allocation is reached then will have to wait until next year where teams can also be evaluated for funding and also regions (if they are still relevant).

With this approach we can have a better way of funding these community initiatives, asses effectiveness/recommend improvements within a year and ensure all regions are represented.

We will also make it easy for collectives to apply for funding, know how much they can get from “Polkadot” and at the same time what deliverables matter the most to token holders (avoid the issue where token holders feel we wasted our funds for an event)

We will also be able to market Polkadot to regions we have neglected yet are important and we have good community presence (Turkey, Nigeria, China, Brazil etc).
Reach out to new areas and people.

Events are about people.
Proper organisation and coordination can open the ground for the global Polkadot community to interact, build relationships and network that would ultimately reflect in our collectives, on chain governance, cross regional/continental projects or parachains.

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Hey Albert,

I would like to correct/comment on following of your statements:

  • The new curator candidacy proposal aims to propose and elect new events bounty curators. This curator candidacy proposal is based on the initial bounty proposal from August 2022.
    Additionally to proposing new bounty curators, this proposal updates the community on further improvements of the initial bounty proposal from 2022.

  • That said, the new curators are not selected yet but candidates are being proposed and the whole community can vote on it.

  • Since this curator candidacy proposal will be published for public discussion and voting, we see the curator candidacy election well decentralized within openGov.

  • Additionally, the proposal updates the community on new structural improvements to the operations of the Polkadot events bounty in several phases. We appreciate all the great feedback and ideas from the community and we are sure we can implement most of them, however in later phases of improvements of the bounty.

  • As of today, we need to start implementing the most critical points which are 1) working on expanding the multisig and 2) adding more individuals to the bounty review process.

  • The new proposal introduces in sum 16 community members to help working on the Polkadot events bounty. From 3 (or currently 2) curators we are expanding to 16 curators/sub-curators.

  • Regarding your misunderstanding of my relationship with WebZero, I would like to make you aware that I am not an official core team member, however an advisor to WebZero. I do not have any official contracts neither do I receive any salary or reward from the core team. To clarify, Elizabeth registered the WebZero company and Roman and Xylo are the main managers and executors.

  • We are very confident that the new multisig with 5 curators and a treshold of 3/5 can ensure decentralization and efficiency at the same time! If we would expand the curator seats within the multisig, we would 1) slow down the whole proposal process 2) slow down on-chain signing as more accounts would need to sign a child bounty.

  • We are also very convinced that having strategic minds in the main curator roles is beneficial to the bounty because these people will put event submissions into perspective of the overall Polkadot ecosystem and will discuss funding and execution within an overall context of the Polkadot branding.
    To ensure a quicker review process when it comes to invoices and documents etc. we are very excited to introduce the sub-curator roles who will be mainly executed by Polkadot Ambassadors, as per your suggestion :slight_smile:

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Great points Saimon!

We look forward having you onboarded as a sub-curator to the events bounty!

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Hi DJ,

You are exactly right! As you stated “1/ review proposals more quickly and 2/ offer advice and consultations where needed” are the main reasons why we implement sub curators to the bounty :+1:t2:

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