What’s Next for DotCodeSchool?

Ecosystem
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Hello Community,

we need to decide how to proceed with DotCodeSchool.

:wrench: The Situation

Batman - the original creator of DotCodeSchool, the platform every PBA and PBA-X student goes through - is stepping back from active maintenance. While he may still contribute occasionally, he’s no longer in a position to actively maintain or drive the project forward.

That leaves an important question:

Who will take responsibility for maintaining, updating, and supporting the platform going forward?

It’s worth noting that DotCodeSchool has already received $159,500 in funding through past proposals. We need to decide whats next.

:compass: Whats Next?

DotCodeSchool belongs to the Polkadot Community and the Community shall decide.

I guess the first question which needs to be answer is:

  1. Do we want to drop the project and let it slowly go out of date - probably only cover the fixed costs which are ~$13/month.

  2. Or, do we keep maintaining, maybe extending it, if yes who is willing to do that?

:megaphone: Proposition

I enjoyed using DotCodeSchool while prepping for PBA. Its already a established platform in the ecosystem. I am convinced we can use this positioning to make it even greater.

Here Is What I Offer

Because of my conviction and fit I’d be willing to take care of the platform. Here is what I can offer:

  • I am able to spare 20h/week

  • I have a track record in EdTech

  • My experience in content creation is a key advantage

  • I have experience with the Tech Stack

  • I already work on Gitorial - which is another EdTech Project. This will be a great opportunity for synergies

  • I have Batman’s backing

  • I already work on a DotCodeSchool Project (Hands-on Video Tutorial + Video Streaming Functionality)

The Plan

Tasks

My job can be described in two simple words. Improve & Extend

This translates to:

  • Maintenance

  • UI/UX Improvements

  • Extension of Functionality (like the Video Streaming feat.)

  • Community Need Analysis

  • Onboard Contributors

    • One idea is to set up a small monthly incentives pot to reward contributors who improve the platform, write tutorials, or help grow DotCodeSchool. It should act as a tip and not be the primary reason for the contribution.

      The idea would be to primarily target Web2 developers who stumble into blockchain technology. The funnel is simple:

      • Make a meaningful contribution

      • Set up a wallet

      • Receive their first on-chain transaction

      This approach could be a lightweight but powerful way to encourage early engagement, grow the community, and make the platform more self-sustaining over time - even with a modest recurring budget.

      That said, Batman raised an important point:

      Low incentives might actually backfire by diminishing intrinsic motivation, as shown in the the study “Pay Enough or Don’t Pay at All” by Gneezy and Rustichini. If contributors perceive the reward as too low, it might demotivate rather than inspire. So this is something we should approach thoughtfully.

      :video_game: Two Possible Distribution Models:

      • Option A – Direct Rewards

        Contributors are compensated in proportion to their contributions. It’s simple, transparent, and directly tied to value delivered.

      • Option B – Gamified Incentives

        Contributors earn “lottery tokens” for each accepted contribution. At the end of the month, one contributor is selected at random to receive the full reward pool — with odds weighted by the number of tokens earned.

        This introduces chance and excitement, leveraging gamification to increase engagement and dopamine-driven motivation — particularly for newcomers.

      I’d love to hear your thoughts on which approach might work better - or if you have other ideas entirely. If successful, this could even become a template for other community-driven projects in the Polkadot ecosystem.

Immediate Focus

Here are the tasks which I find most important to tackle:

  1. Video functionality

  2. Refactoring of the existing code

:money_bag: Suggested Compensation

  • Time Commitment: 20 hours per week

  • Rate: $80/hour

  • Duration: 6 months

  • Contribution Pool: $300/month

  • Total: $40,200

:ear: Feedback

I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions, or concerns.

DotCodeSchool belongs to the community, and the future of the platform should be shaped by the community. Your input matters.

3 Likes
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Well done Andrzej for identifying this gap!

My initial reaction is that the proposed pay rate seems quite high. Considering maintenance costs average ~$13/month, an additional $6K+ per month feels significantly disproportionate.

Of course, video functionality would be great to have (and I recognize this involves equipment costs) alongside the refactoring of code, yet I still wonder if this scope justifies this level of expenditure.

Other questions I have are:

  • Is there any of the previous funding still available?
  • How would progress and reporting be handled for transparency?

Curious to hear what others think!

3 Likes
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Hey Andrzej, I support your idea.
I believe Gamified Incentives, is a better option.

1 Like
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Considering maintenance costs average ~$13/month, an additional $6K+ per month feels significantly disproportionate

This touches on a fundamental question if we either choose to let the project run and slowly deprecate or improve&extend.

Of course, video functionality would be great to have (and I recognize this involves equipment costs) alongside the refactoring of code, yet I still wonder if this scope justifies this level of expenditure.

I get the impression you think the $6K/month results in video feat. + refactoring. This is not going to be the case. I will be able to achieve more during this timespan but this is what’s most present and important inside the pipeline from my side. After this will be done there will be new tasks like creation of courses, build a feedback loop to get improvement suggestions from students, PR’s, onboard of devs, etc.. There is definitely work to fill more than 6 months of full-time employment.

Is there any of the previous funding still available?

No

How would progress and reporting be handled for transparency?

Great question. I am already used to tracking my hours and activities through a tool called Clockify. The most efficient approach would be for me to upload the monthly report. Inside you can find:

Task ; Duration ; Time ; Date

1 Like
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I am sorry to admit that I have not heard of Dotcodeschool. I even went to Polkadot.com to do a search as written above and with the names spaced and found no reference.

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image1675×523 108 KB

I would like to ask a few questions please.

  1. Is this open to anyone, or do you need to be picked?

  2. How do people find this, word of mouth? A prerequisite to PBA sign-up sent to them?

  3. How many currently use this education product?

  4. How many have used the product to date?

  5. Is this educational product used to encourage PBA signup, or something else?

  6. How does this differ from the treasury funding the EasyA app?

Thanks in advance,

Hope

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First of all thanks for the feedback.

I even went to Polkadot.com to do a search as written above and with the names spaced and found no reference

I never intended to mention its on Polkadot.com. Apologies for phrasing parts of my post incorrectly.

Is this open to anyone, or do you need to be picked?

Anyone can find the web app under ‘dotcodeschool.com’

How do people find this, word of mouth? A prerequisite to PBA sign-up sent to them?

During PBA-X its one of the steps (for SE engineers only) to complete two of the courses (Rust State Machine + NFT Kitties). Furthermore during PBA it gets heavily promoted to complete the Rust State Machine course and now on my YT Channel I’ve been promoting it as well. Lastly, I have a Hand-On Tutorial which I plan to publish on my channel and it will funnel more users to the platform.

How many currently use this education product?

We got 507 registered users. There are probably a lot more unregistered as the platform doesn’t require registration to make use of the content. However, DotCodeSchool currently tracks only whats absolutely essential, thus we don’t have access to this metric.

How many have used the product to date?

DotCodeSchool currently doesn’t collect user metrics. Its definitely something that would move up high on the ToDo list - in my opinion. That being sad, we had just recently 7 registrations (from 30.07-04.08)

Is this educational product used to encourage PBA signup, or something else?

No, its independent and has nothing to do with PBA in the first place. However, they supplement each other very elegantly.

How does this differ from the treasury funding the EasyA app?

Great and crucial question!

While both aim to educate developers, DotCodeSchool and EasyA x Polkadot University serve very different purposes.

DotCodeSchool is a platform for developers who are already engaged with the ecosystem or want to go deeper - especially PBA and PBA-X participants. It offers hands-on tutorials focused on Substrate, runtime development, PAPI, with full coding projects. It’s designed to help developers build real-world Polkadot applications.

EasyA x Polkadot University, on the other hand, feels like its a tool for educating Web3 interested. Alone the fact that its a only mobile app says quite a lot about the audience.

In short:
EasyA is for getting started. DotCodeSchool is for going deep.

I am super happy to make this as aligned as possible with the community needs and I obviously live in my own bubble :bubbles: which doesn’t represent the full reality. This makes our exchange here crucial :fire:.

:backhand_index_pointing_right: Please don’t hesitate and feel free to ask further questions!

1 Like
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Hi @HopeClary!
I started my journey into the Polkadot ecosystem ~2 years ago from ground zero with an online CS50 course. From there I followed suggestions and references provided by the community to continue learning Rust/Substrate. What I found was a small collection of fragmented tutorials which were, in all cases, broken.

I found Dotcodeschool as I was trying to figure out front-end stuff and how to work with PAPI. I was excited and relieved to find a collection of tutorials that were actively maintained and didn’t need any hacking to get working. I also found the tutorials being hosted to be some of the most informative content yet, answering a lot of questions and clearing up ambiguities that I couldn’t find anywhere else.

I believe Dotcodeschool is a valuable resource that this community should continue to maintain, expand and promote as it is one of the most accessible learning platforms available today.

I also had the pleasure of getting to know @andrzejSulkowski during PBA6-Luzern. Everyday I was impressed by his desire to seek knowledge, his motivation to help others and his innate abilities as a content creator.

I fully support this proposal and am very excited to see what he can do!

2 Likes
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Hi Andrzej,

I appreciate you answering my questions! I need to apologize for not knowing the DOTCodeSchool as in my research I uncovered I follow via X. - This concerns me further, as per my research I followed yet another educational program called Accelerate Polkadot that has been funded from the WEB3 Foundation over 1 year ago with a hefty uplift that seems to be in line with what you’re trying to accomplish https://x.com/AcceleratePolka ?

From an educational and business mindset I have concerns on the funds being allocated that don’t seem to be getting promotion or engagement. I obviously followed because I was interested in educating myself further, yet somehow I didn’t know any this project was completed. :pleading_face:

I am all for uplifting our Devs to assist them! right now given numbers and other projects that I have no idea where they’re in the process “Accelerate Polkadot” I have concerns about additional funding. - With that being said, at 1st glance I can see DOTCodeSchool delivered. while I would need to dive further than my investigation on the topic thus far, if Accelerate Polkadot is not going to deliver or there is a need for your extended work that would change my thoughts on this manor? With caution :warning: I am underwhelmed with the promotion in any form of this educational product, especially since I follow you on the only place Polkadot seems to share knowledge. :downcast_face_with_sweat:

1 Like
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I wasn’t saying you said this, I was merely pointing out that this educational product is difficult to find and not in a place where a seeker could find it from the brand that is DOT. This is a huge misalignment for me! While we are decentralized that shouldn’t mean lack of organization or operations.

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I appreciate this reference feedback! Please read my follow-up posts here as my concern is with all that is being funded. The caution :warning: I have again is how you found out about DOTCodeSchool via word of mouth. If the community is constantly asking for DEVs and only the PBA can pick you to attend, then self starters need these tools! Particularly when actual effort and delivery are occurring!

I digress, some days I feel like I am alone on a island in pure disbelief. It hurts my heart to see useful tools and parachains leaving Polkadot.

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Hi Hope,

Thanks for your thoughtful feedback, I share many of your concerns.

On discoverability:
I honestly didn’t realize DotCodeSchool was that hard to find. During PBA-X it was referenced at least once, and my original growth plan was to reach people through my socials and YouTube tutorials, then funnel them into DotCodeSchool where the content aligns better. But I have to admit - I’m not a marketer, and the issues you’ve described are new to me.

That’s why I’d like to propose something: you’re the perfect example of a self-starter who would have used DotCodeSchool earlier if you’d known about it. If you’re open to it, I’d love to work with you on a “spread the word” campaign so no one else misses it. What do you think?

On funding efficiency:
I understand the caution after seeing projects like Accelerate Polkadot disappear from view. The difference here is that DotCodeSchool has already delivered - 500+ registered users (likely many more unregistered), active course completions, and a proven platform ready to build on. My request is to maintain and upgrade a working product, not gamble on an unproven idea.

On access for self-starters:
I completely agree - dev tools shouldn’t be gated behind a PBA invite. DotCodeSchool is already open to anyone, but it clearly needs better discoverability. My goal here is to keep it alive and prevent it from fading away like other tools you’ve seen abandoned or that have left the ecosystem. That’s the reason for this forum post and my decision to step in.

On long-term sustainability:
I want to avoid the “fund once, forget later” trap by working closely with new ecosystem members (many already reach out to me because of my PBA journey videos :innocent:). To be transparent… I’m not planning to run DotCodeSchool indefinitely. My aim is to jumpstart it, clean up the codebase, create contributor funnels, and then hand over the reins.

That could include content on other platforms that points to DotCodeSchool, as well as the incentives pool I mentioned earlier.

1 Like
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If this evolves, I would be open to help you with marketing. There are costs and processes associated with that, so if you develop further, feel free to reach out. I am open to help attract Devs for Polkadot.

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Dear Andrzej,

If you reduce your rate by half, this will be a reasonable and sensible request.
Polkadot shall pay realistic salaries and rates in the future. Anything above 40 USD for maintenance of a non-essential product seems excessive.

Sincerely,
Milus.

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Here is the proposal
:backhand_index_pointing_right: https://polkadot.subsquare.io/referenda/1712

Its $70/h - if you think thats too much to ask for, feel free to vote “Nay” :ogre: :melting_face:

2 Likes
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Thank you for the link. I think the best way forward for the community is to start setting standards, while continuing to work together - no cancel culture.

I do appreciate your efforts for Polkadot education and my previous comment still stands.

Sincerely.
Milus

1 Like