The voice of the community for choosing Head Ambassadors

Ambassador Programme
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On the afternoon of Friday, September 27, while some Head Ambassadors were actively working (attending Tomi’s presentation on how to better structure our Ambassadors Collective), 10 others had something else planned—a coup under reference 1186.

Over the weekend, the truth slowly started to come to light. It wasn’t just us, or you - the community - who were taken by surprise—it turns out the majority of the ‘remaining’ Head Ambassadors were also unaware. Most of them only learned about the plans a few hours before the referendum went live!

To be clear, for us, this isn’t about whether or not we should have 10 Head Ambassadors or when the “salaries” should be paid. It’s about the process. All Head Ambassadors were chosen by the community through a referendum. It’s up to you - the community- to decide if we are performing well or not, and it’s the community’s right to decide who should stay or go.

The voice of the community?

What’s truly incomprehensible is that these 10 individuals felt empowered to place themselves above the community. They made the decision, behind closed doors and without any objective criteria, to dismiss certain members—a blatant disregard for the community’s voice.

Communication is critical within a collective. If these individuals can’t even communicate within a group of 21, what will happen when we grow to hundreds of ambassadors?

The unfortunate reality is that they didn’t accomplish anything during the HA program. In their new proposal, they reference the 100-day plan, which was supposed to be delivered over a month ago by Lucy, Don Diego, and Tommi. You can find this kind of transparency in the HA rolling doc and in the video recordings. Lots of promises, but nothing was delivered, and instead, their only goal was to sabotage the current program.

These individuals aren’t thinking about the community; they’re thinking about themselves. If they had truly considered the community, they would have submitted a proposal to reduce the number of Head Ambassadors, leaving it up to the community to decide who stays.

What’s next?

Now we understand why some put their veto on the Code of Conduct or refused to participate in workgroups meant to drive momentum within the program.

Are we going to start throwing mud at everyone on the opposing side? No. Unlike others, we don’t thrive on chaos, and that’s certainly not what’s best for the community. We also know that some individuals were backed into a corner and didn’t want this to happen. We reach out to them with open arms!

What do we want?

Simply the truth—transparency! On Tuesday October 1, during the weekly Head Ambassadors meeting, we’ll be asking the proposers of the referendum about their intentions and how this all came about.

Do you, as the community, have any questions? Let us know, and we’ll raise them on Tuesday.

We, the undersigned, confirm that we have all worked together on this document. No one was called an hour before it went online. Communication and collaboration are key. Always!

  • Mario Schraepen
  • Georgi
  • CrisNguyen
  • EzioRed
  • Mexican Collective
  • Max_HIC
  • Albert - I Love Cripto
  • Mario
  • Irina Karagyaur
  • William
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Ambassadors were almost exclusively selected by Giotto, rather than by the community. For instance, consider Michiko Watanabe.

Most ambassadors exhibited highly unusual voting patterns in OpenGov, leading to speculations of nepotism.

Perhaps the program should be discontinued and rebuilt from the ground up.

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Primary question: How can the existing HAs or the OpenGov community agree to start from scratch?

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Some HAs and OpenGov community members may not like too many “questions” as a way to interact, as despite free speech, they believe it’s a “passive aggressive” way to control the conversation x.com.

If you want HAs and the OpenGov community to collectively come to an agreement on something, suggest requesting from the community “statements” that are accompanied by “assumptions” and “disclaimers” instead, otherwise we might experience conversation breakdown where HAs start blocking each other, exercising their rights from the first draft of the Polkadot Human Rights Definitions FIRST DRAFT - HackMD.

Further, please request HAs to only issue “statements”, as mentioned above, rather than asking “questions” when under the public spotlight and engaging in public conversation, since that may cause potential ecosystem adopters to block our ambassadors.

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Here is a community question, would love an clear answer for the sake of transparency:

  • how many HA were talking to giottodf when their candidacy was up to vote? when the HA program proposal was proposed?
  • how many HA were were voting under the influence of giottodf, in exchange for any kind of support?
  • can each of the 21 HA please clearly state they have never received any form of bribery (including support to their candidacy, support to any of their proposal, or just public support) from giottodf?
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Since Giotto was mentioned a few times in the comments here: Giotto has voted for candidates on both sides of this new divide in the cohort. Back then he voted for DonDiego Sanchez, Alice und Bob and Leemo (the instigators of this coup) amongst many others. So Giotto is not the dividing factor here.

The issue at hand is a different one, namely, that a few HAs somehow felt empowered to try to kick out the other half of their cohort, without providing any reasons for why they think that they are the right ones to take this program forward, and the others are not. As stated in our joint message above, if the main intention here had been to reduce the size of the program, they would have left the decision of who has to leave to the community.

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My question, as an independent community member, was related to this only. As it is proposed, I’m seizing the opportunity.
You can see from my history in this forum that I’m caring a lot about transparency, this is what all this drama is about isn’t it?

I guess your answer is not meant to answer my question and you will answer it later?

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Great call, @bLd ! You’ve hit on a crucial question that ensures full transparency in the governance process. These points are at the core of the integrity of voting and the relationships between HA members, DV members, and Giottodf. We’ve got to clear up any potential doubt about influence or conditional support to keep the trust flowing in the community.

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As this is the biggest question formulated by @bLd , who were the amb backed up by the great Giotto in exchange of “future services” ?

I put again the process i described before here in State of Polkadot - React or die

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The current program is doomed due to the original process of election.

Cheers.

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Hey @bLd and others,

Following the proposal sent out on Friday, I will be working with the group of 10 to push forward a streamlined program. We hope the community will agree that giving us the freedom to achieve what we’ve outlined in the 100-day plan (included in the proposal and to be built out in more detail during this voting period) is a better option than shutting down the entire program and starting from scratch.

There are many questions to be answered, reports to be shared, and work to be done by us as a group of 10 if we are to have any chance of success on this path. This is an incredibly divisive move that has shaken things up more than ideal, but I believe it is the best way to save the program, which was floundering under the weight of bureaucracy, ego, and a lack of commitment to the core task. Our goal is not to build a new company, but to create an army of dedicated, Polkadot/Web3-educated people to elevate Polkadot in all fields.

Over the next few days, questions will be answered and plans will become clearer, helping the community and other HAs understand the thought process behind this bold move. For now, I will respond to the critical questions you’ve raised here, speaking only on my own behalf:

How many HAs were talking to GiottoDF when their candidacy was up for a vote? When the HA program proposal was proposed?

  • While I was at Parity, I reached out to Giotto as he had become heavily involved in OpenGov. I thought it would be helpful, where possible, for any ‘whales’ who wanted direct communication with Parity/devs to ask questions and form informed viewpoints in what was then a very new decision-making concept within the ecosystem. Essentially, I established a bridge to ensure that all parties had as much real information as possible. Over the next few months, I built a good working relationship with Giotto, which continued after I left Parity. During this time, I participated in semi-regular group calls with him (and others) where various BD/referenda/governance topics were discussed and ideas shared.

Shortly after I left Parity, during one of these calls, Giotto informed us about his HA proposal. When I mentioned I had left Parity, he encouraged me to apply for an HA role should his proposal pass and when the roles opened. Initially, I wasn’t sure I had the experience to do justice to the role. However, in the following months, I immersed myself in the ecosystem, attending events, contributing wherever I could, and deepening my knowledge of the tech and community ethos. By early July, I felt confident that I could bring value to the role and decided to apply.

When my proposal went live, I was of course speaking with Giotto, and I knew he was likely to vote for me as he believed I would succeed in the role. Given the working relationship we had established well before his initial HA proposal, I felt it was entirely justified to ask Giotto, as a supporter, to vote for me.

How many HAs were voting under the influence of GiottoDF in exchange for any kind of support?

  • I have never voted on any proposal submitted by Giotto or promoted any of his ideas that I didn’t personally believe in.

Can each of the 21 HAs clearly state they have never received any form of bribery (including support for their candidacy, support for any proposal, or public endorsement) from GiottoDF?

  • I have never received any bribery from anyone within or outside the ecosystem, including Giotto. I put my income on hold for this role because I am committed to delivering what the community has asked for, and I am certainly not here to engage in any underhanded dealings.

I believe your main concern is whether people sold themselves to Giotto for his vote, which would have all but guaranteed them passing as an HA. Though I have no knowledge of this happening, given the number of people who received his vote, I can understand how someone could wonder whether candidates with no prior history with Giotto might have made a deal. My personal assumption is that Giotto’s was keen to just get the program up and running swiftly, hence so many Aye votes.

I’ve tried to be as transparent as possible and hope you can see that I had an established relationship with him, through which it made sense that I would have legitimately earned his support. He encouraged me, but I am very happy to say he never hinted at any quid pro quo whatsoever.

As an aside, I am a relatively small DOT holder and have never hinted at or desired becoming a DV, where much of the potential voting/bargaining power might lie.

I hope that answers your questions for now. I will follow up with my Q3 2024 report tomorrow, as promised to @Pieky, as soon as I returned from traveling (which is today). We, as a group of 10, will share further details on our decision to propose this referendum and our goals if it passes, over the coming days and weeks.

Thanks for listening.

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I think we also should consider renaming “Head” to something else like “Flathead” or similar, to try to overcome having to use the “alienation effect”, as highlighted here.

I don’t think the audience of the “Head” Ambassadors should just be “Tail” observers that are “distanced” through the “alienation effect” so they can’t sympathise emotionally or empathize with the HAs psychologically
in order for it to be possible for their audience to be “empowered on an intellectual level both to analyze and perhaps even to try to change the world”

I don’t think we should continue using the “alienation effect” so their audience is limited to only being able to “intellectually empathise” and understand their dilemmas and the wrongdoings that produce those dilemmas that are exposed in the dramatic plots that are set in motion, such as the recent “coup”.

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Thanks a lot for your transparency, it helps me and I’m sure other community members evaluate the influence of this external party on the program, this is very appreciated!
I hope others will bring the same level of transparency.

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Thank you sincerely for your transparency, it is truly appreciated. I hope others will follow this excellent example!

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Great transparency :raised_hands:
Waiting for the others to do the same now.

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Hello, and thanks for asking:

As someone who was writing treasury proposals for Talisman throughout 2023 and maybe into 2024, I talked to Giotto, because he was the only whale that anyone could talk to, and an active voter. Dialogue is important, and it’s helpful to understand his perspective. Occasionally I ask Giotto what his opinion is on things and why he votes a certain way. In my personal experience his public declarations line up with his reasoning when asked privately (e.g. generally pro BD and marketing). I did ask him to support my candidacy for HA, which he did.

I have never voted under the influence of giotto, nor have I ever voted in any kind of situation where there is some kind of exchange of support. I have only voted under my own reasoning and thought as to what is best for stakeholders in Polkadot, before, during and after being a DV. I have generally looked for the opinions of multiple stakeholders when voting and evaluating proposals, both token-rich and token-poor.

I have neither received nor sought out any form of bribery.

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Thank you @replghost also for your transparency, very appreciated :pray:

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Hi @bLd

I’m not an official HA but I will answer this since I was elected technically.

  • how many HA were talking to giottodf when their candidacy was up to vote? when the HA program proposal was proposed?

I attended Decoded and since it was my first time, I made lots of new connections including Giotto who attended the conference too. He learned about my work in the African community and the progress I have made since I started contributing to the growth of the community.

  • how many HA were voting under the influence of giottodf, in exchange for any kind of support?

Giotto never approached me to vote or do anything in exchange for support. He was curious and wanted to know what it was like for the African community in Polkadot.

  • can each of the 21 HA please clearly state they have never received any form of bribery (including support for their candidacy, support for any of their proposal, or just public support) from Giottodf?

Never gave any bribe, never received a bribe.
I’m a relatively small DOT holder and have not made the impression of becoming a DV so I don’t know where the bargaining power might come from.

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how many HA were talking to giottodf when their candidacy was up to vote? when the HA program proposal was proposed?

After my proposal passed, I thanked Giotto for voting on my proposal. But before the proposal I’ve once contacted Giotto to know of his ideas regarding the ambassadorship program and what his ideas of a Head Ambassador is.

how many HA were were voting under the influence of giottodf, in exchange for any kind of support?

My voting decisions have never been influenced by Giotto, and I’ve never gotten into any deals with him.

can each of the 21 HA please clearly state they have never received any form of bribery (including support to their candidacy, support to any of their proposal, or just public support) from giottodf?

I’ve never received any form of bribery from him or anyone else in the eco. lol.

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Thank you sincerely @replghost, @bekka, @Abdulbee for your transparency :slight_smile: