Feedback that this should not combine as many efforts was very reasonable. Made the decision to pull this down and let the team proposals go through. I will work out if there is a better path to reimbursement by the community.
Thank you and apologies for making a total mess of OpenGov this week!
Threshold
I am casting this comment on behalf of the 🌶️ Hungarian Polkadot DAO 🌶️:
Dear Lucy and the Polkadot Community,
We have voted Nay on this and other ongoing Ambassador Fellowship related proposals for the following reasons:
The budget for proposal #1287 was controlled by the Advisory board and they clearly stated their stance when they effectively halted operations and withdrew support at the end of March (15th of April due to delays) and sent all remaining funds back to the treasury later.
The program director, Lucy stated publicly that all Ambassadors (including herself) are volunteers from the 15th of April with no compensation, but a potential discretionary bonus at the end, if the Board agrees the OpCom did “good work”. Since no bonus was awarded, we must assume that the Board did not find their work met their standards.
Even though Lucy shared more context on different platforms, the key points made by the Board in their May 5 Forum post still stand best to our knowledge:
“… the Board must also acknowledge that the current operational structure has not fostered cohesive and efficient collaboration. Despite individual efforts, there have been delays in implementation, misalignment in governance, and ultimately, stagnation in areas crucial to long-term success.”
This statement is reiterating the ongoing problems, delays, inconsistencies and the failure to deliver proposal #1287 creating no meaningful impact in the community.
We’re not looking to punish the community member named in this proposal, but we don’t think the payment is justified, especially since the Board, whose role was to decide if any payments was supposed to be made, had a different view.
Going forward, we’d really like to see some changes in how the Ambassador Program is run. Lately, it’s felt more like a traditional company with a top-down setup, rather than something aligned with Web3 values like decentralization and shared responsibility. We believe the program is important for the ecosystem, and with the right people leading and working together in teams, it could really thrive. That kind of structure would also make it easier to ensure ambassadors who do great work are paid fairly, and we’d fully support that.
You can view how the 🌶️ Hungarian Polkadot DAO 🌶️ evaluated this proposal on our public page here.
Lucy's ongoing efforts to collaborate with people from all walks of life so as to get the Polkadot Ambassador Fellowship running on a global stage is truly commendable.
Her "walk-your-talk" attitude is precisely what is needed to build bridges and deliver meaningful results for the Polkadot ecosystem.