Polkadot Ambassador Program

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Polkadot Ambassador Program

This document describes the mandate for a proposed Polkadot Ambassador Program, to be realized as an on-chain, rank-based, system collective.

Members of the program, Ambassadors, should represent Polkadot outside of its existing sphere and help bring new entrants into the Polkadot ecosystem. In this capacity, ambassadors have a lot of similarity to what might normally be considered business development, outreach, and relationship management. They should introduce new people and organizations to Polkadot, speak at and host events, and facilitate partnership creation.

Although anyone can perform these services in their own capacity, having a program that formally recognizes members makes the work more effective. The recognition that comes with a title like Ambassador helps in building important relationships.

A rank-based, on-chain collective will allow the network to manage membership in a decentralized way, and also allow the organization to manage a treasury for salaries, events, and other expenses incurred in fulfilling its objectives.

Membership

The program will have four ranks, from highest to lowest: Head Ambassador (HA), Senior Ambassador (SA), Ambassador, and Candidate Ambassador (CA).

Head Ambassadors

Head Ambassadors are the highest ranking group of ambassadors and correspondingly hold the most power within the group. Head Ambassadors can only be appointed (or removed) via general token-holder referendum on a new, Ambassador Admin track. This track should be configured in a similar fashion to the existing Fellowship Admin track.

The role of Head Ambassador should necessitate activity on par with a full time job. Besides their capacity of leading the program, HAs should be able to represent Polkadot effectively to new people and businesses and be able to speak fluently on the philosophy underpinning Web3 technologies, on Polkadot and its high-level design decisions, how Polkadot compares to other blockchain tech stacks, and typical user stories like staking, participating in governance, or building parachains. They may not be (and probably are not) developers, but they should demonstrate sufficient skill, understanding, and communication ability to be trusted to work autonomously in the best interest of Polkadot.

The program should only allow up to 21 Head Ambassadors. Once the number is reached, adding a new HA shall require replacing an existing HA or making a proposal to all token holders on the Ambassador Admin track to alter the program.

Senior Ambassadors

Senior Ambassadors are promoted from Ambassador on the Head Ambassador track. The SAs should be experienced Polkadot Ambassadors who have already made substantial contributions to the success of Polkadot. One would expect that SAs have been using Polkadot and are engaged in the ecosystem by for example hosting or speaking at events or participating in a non-trivial way in governance discussions.

Ambassadors

The Ambassador tier is the main level of the program where the majority of people will stand. Ambassadors should be fluent in most end-user applications of Polkadot. They should, for example, be able to show a new person how to stake via a nomination pool or how to set an identity on-chain. Ambassadors may do any number of things, like translate documentation, make tutorials in written or video form, host/attend events, etc. It is up to the judgement of the HAs and SAs to set objectives for the program and decide what is most effective and what should be recognized.

Candidates

All new joiners to the program enter as a Candidate. Ambassadors can induct Candidates, but they will need approval from the Senior Ambassador track to get promoted to Ambassador. Members should generally not stay Candidates for long (as a guideline, no more than six months); it ensures a fast onboarding to the program, but those who are inactive should be removed and those who are active and competent should be promoted to Ambassador.

Treasury and Salaries

The Ambassador Program should have an on-chain Treasury. It is envisioned that this Treasury is used in the following ways.

Salaries

Head Ambassadors shall receive a salary of 10,000 USDT (or equivalent stablecoin) per month. This represents their commitment to representing Polkadot in the equivalent of full-time capacity and their ability to bring high-value entrants into Polkadot. Given that personal circumstances can necessitate periods of lower activity (e.g. vacation, family, illness), HAs can place themselves on a passive 2,000 USDT per month allowance until they are back full-time.

Other members of the program do not receive a regular salary, although they may make proposals to the Treasury to cover expenses or recognize exceptional work.

Proposals

Members of the program at any rank can make funding proposals to the Treasury. These proposals could be to cover expenses related to hosting an event, for rewarding exceptional contributions by members, putting funds into the salary account, or for general Treasury management (for example converting some DOT to a stablecoin or other asset).

The Treasury shall have two main tracks:

Spends of less than 1,000 USDT can be approved by the Senior Ambassador track.
Spends of 1,000 USDT or greater must be approved by the Head Ambassador track.

Seeding

The introduction of the program to the Polkadot runtime should not include any initial members. Only after the program is included in the Polkadot runtime should referenda be held to appoint Head Ambassadors.

Because the Head Ambassador track is powerful within the group and there will be a seeding phase where there is a small number of HAs, the HAs shall not take any action until there are at least ten HAs appointed. That is, until such point, the program should not be allocated Treasury funds, all remarks from HAs shall be ignored, and HAs who use the track to induct Ambassadors or Senior Ambassadors should have a referendum to be removed as Head Ambassador.

Modifications and Evolution

Much like the Technical Fellowship, the Ambassador Program may want to implement changes to how the group operates. It should do this by passing a remark on its Head Ambassador voting track that states the change. This is similar to the Fellowship’s RFC process.

Changes that significantly affect token holders or Head Ambassadors, like program salaries or how many HAs should exist in the program, should pass referendum on the public Ambassador Admin track.

Tracks

The Ambassador Program should have the following internal tracks:

Head Ambassadors: A track expressing the voice of Head Ambassadors. As only HAs can vote, each vote is weighted equally.
Senior Ambassadors: A track expressing the rank-weighted voice of Senior and Head Ambassadors. Each HA shall have five votes and each SA shall have one vote.
Ambassadors: A track expressing the rank-weighted voice of Ambassadors, Senior Ambassadors, and Head Ambassadors. Each HA shall have ten votes, each SA shall have two votes, and each Ambassador shall have one vote.

All tracks should have a voting period of seven days, with a linear curve such that greater than 50% turnout unanimously in favor can pass a motion at its start and a simple majority of voters at the end (as in, no turnout requirement).

Conclusion

An on-chain group of ambassadors, dedicated to furthering the awareness, adoption, and ultimate success of Polkadot will be a powerful organization. It should have resources and recognition from the network itself that will attract skilled and effective representatives of Polkadot.

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The format of the remark is taken from RFC-12 in the form APPROVE_COLLECTIVE("{collective name}, {commitment}"), where the collective name is "Polkadot Ambassador Program" and the commitment is the Blake2 hash of the program description, 98dfd4f93660b5858d21d4522f4266484b9bc8303c9db7190200f15086dcf6b7.

To regenerate the commitment and the on-chain call, you can download the attached ambassador-program.md file and run the following python script:

from hashlib import blake2b

fname = './ambassador-program.md'
h = blake2b(digest_size=32)
with open(fname, 'rb') as f:
    h.update(f.read())
print('{}'.format(h.hexdigest()))
Output: 98dfd4f93660b5858d21d4522f4266484b9bc8303c9db7190200f15086dcf6b7

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17kBUg8Ahrm5UQJf-zBxvFKmqlVAjDeEz/view?usp=sharing

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Status

Decision28d

Confirmation1d

Attempts

Tally

94.2%Aye

50.0%Threshold

5.8%Nay

Aye

≈32.61MDOT

Nay

≈2.01MDOT

0.0%
0.0%
0.0%

Threshold

Support(0.75%)

≈10.36MDOT

Issuance

≈1.38BDOT

Votes

Nested

Flattened

Calls

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Comments

14Ss...sTho

Orderliness and structuring are often positive decisions that have a beneficial impact on the final outcome. However, it's currently unclear why the previously proposed "Fellowship-like program" was transformed into this one. I can see several disadvantages of the new program:

Lack of clear criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of HAs and other ambassadors' work. What work by HAs is evaluated at 10k/month? Why this specific amount? And if HAs get 10k, why SAs and others have to seek their rewards via treasury?
A small number of Head ambassadors could accumulate too much power and control over the program, potentially leading to uneven resource distribution or skewed priorities (look at the current vote).
The program in its current state fails to provide motivation and retention mechanisms for participants, which will lead to the departure of talented individuals or a lack of motivation among current participants.

In my opinion, the program is not yet ready for implementation.

15G4...A6wC

This is not Polkadot Ambassador Program, it is Hunger Games of Polkadot.

This bringing nothing but harm for the Polkadot. Strongly against the vision and vibe provided with this and other Proposals. It is eroding what was done for years. Not creating, or improving but destroying.

I as Head Ambassador skipping this and vote NAY.

Polkadot Head Ambassador's proposal how to solve it here - https://forum.polkadot.network/t/polkadot-ambassadors-call-to-return-to-gavin-s-vision-of-the-program/6269/9

Edited

14QL...NRh5

“He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”

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15G4...A6wC

I have recently had conversations with a number of ambassadors, seniors, and head ambassadors. Most of the people I spoke with are frustrated and disappointed with the vision presented by the author of this proposal.

The only way to save the Polkadot ambassador program is to go back to the roots, rethink the list of head ambassadors (including active seniors and respected veterans and excluding those who are not active or refuse to join), and vote collectively (as a whole initial list at once). Reduce the HA rewards, return to the original reward system (+ ambassadors and seniors), and return to a vibe similar to the Fellowship (a long-term program to reward non-technical contributors).

Otherwise, current HA will lose the support and respect of the community. Respect and support is more important and valuable than $10K or even $100K per month.

I represent several HAs who are strongly opposed to the format of this initiative. We, as HAs, represent Polkadot more than the majority of the cynical DOT whales. The Polkadot Ambassador program (the idea behind it) needs to be in the hands of the head ambassadors, one way or another. No one should dictate our agenda. We will do what we have done for years and we will get the resources to continue doing things in the name of the community, not just whales.

The head ambassadors' initial seeding needs to be approved by a list, not on an individual basis. Otherwise, it could go wrong and fall into the hands of random people who have not contributed to this ecosystem for years.

Whales, please leave the Polkadot ambassador program alone and go your own way as cynical merchants. Give us the ability to build the Web3 community we want and in the way we want, to create new productive connections and friendships. We don't want to be speculators or your sales team, or BD team and we don't think only about pushing prices up.

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13Qr...oG5m

This is a program that we do for ambassadors, but it's ambassadors that say that this program does not help. I vote nay.

15G4...A6wC

Now, it's clear that nobody, except for a few of the Head Ambassadors, really cares about the program. It was whale attempt to get more funding under control. Ambassadors are not silent.

I believe it's time for the Ambassadors to step in and take matters into their own hands. Program is belong to Ambassadors, not greedy and unprofessional whales. I don't want this program turn another DED shit.

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