Navigating Content Niches: Recipes for Polkadot Success

TLDR: This document outlines all the progress, milestones and future plans for the Dablock initiative, related to the Polkadot OpenGov proposal #240. It includes all the related resources that are being generated and detailed reports, along with the author’s experiences, recommendations and point of views on how to approach content initiatives and the Polkadot OpenGov as a niche ecosystem.

In these initial months, along with several additional achievements detailed in the subsequent reports, we have successfully completed and extended the main milestones:

• ✅ Curated a comprehensive directory of the Polkadot ecosystem.
• ✅ Published and organized over 500 URLs of content on Dablock.com.

Index

1. CONTEXT, REPORTS & FUTURE
   1. Introduction to Dablock
      1. Dablock Brain Sheet
   2. Report 1: Dablock as Polkadot Resources Hub
      1. A Comprehensive Directory and Research of the Polkadot Ecosystem
      2. An MVP for a Niche Content Portal Covering the Polkadot Ecosystem
   3. Report 2: LV as Content Creator
      1. Workflow for Individual Content Creators
      2. Content Produced During 2024
   4. Report 3: Dablock as Content Agency
      1. Product vs Business
      2. Product First, Business Second
   5. Future of Dablock
      1. Phase 1: Survive
      2. Phase 2: Resurgence
2. EXPERIENCE & PROJECT TIMELINE
   1. Main Errors to Avoid, Lessons Learned & Advices
   2. Dablock First Steps & Fund Management
      1. Set-Up for Independent Creators
      2. Management, Activity and Legal Entity
      3. Team and Delegation of Tasks
      4. Contributions to other initiatives
   3. LV Tech Talk at Sub0
   4. DaBlock DAO community and approach
      1. So, Where is DablockDAO?
3. VISION, OPENGOV & CONTENT INITIATIVES
   1. Input/Output Management for Creators
   2. Experience with current OpenGov Mechanics
   3. Facilitate Access to OpenGov for Small Initiatives
   4. Bounties and the figure of Curator
   5. Pending Words
   6. Polkadot OpenGov Trends
   7. Content Isolation & Niche Communities
   8. Use of AI in Initiatives Funded by the Polkadot Treasury
   9. OpenGov Vibes

1. CONTEXT, REPORTS & FUTURE {#1.-context,-reports-&-future}

1.1 Introduction to Dablock {#1.1-introduction-to-dablock}

On November 25, 2024, we received a first funding thanks to the proposal #240 to the Polkadot DAO Treasury to support the Dablock initiative and its activity by directing/creating content, managing web portals, and advising/training creators and marketing teams that are already native or entering the Polkadot ecosystem.

In this topic I will share the progress with DaBlock and document my experience as an active creator, educator and continuos learner focused on the Polkadot ecosystem over the past and next years:

1. Working with Dablock as a content agency specialized in Polkadot.

   1. Educate ambassadors, developers and advanced users of the Polkadot ecosystem in good practices for content creation.

   2. Advise professional creators, project teams and native ecosystem initiatives.

   3. Generate free-use guides and resources aimed at creators and media teams in the web3 industry.

2. Scaling Dablock.com as an informational portal and Polkadot ecosystem directory.

   1. Categorize & link:

      1. All the elements that make up the Polkadot ecosystem.
      2. Resources of interest to all types of profiles.

   2. Manage and direct content strategies to achieve organic visibility.

3. Generating content under my personal brand LV for YouTube channels and secondary social networks.

— Side quest: Form DablockDAO to involve the community in maintaining DaBlock.com content and directories and DaBlock decision making (see Dablock Community).

I hope that these publications, the experience and points of view shared serve as a reference for future ecosystem initiatives.

1.1.1 Dablock Brain Sheet

Before starting, you can find more details of the initiative’s progress along with thousands of useful links, all the resources and all the curated elements of the Polkadot ecosystem at the following link: 🧠 Dablock.com brain.

This resource is for all creators, portals, agencies, and teams in the ecosystem to take as a reference and starting point, since it can save you dozens if not hundreds of hours of work.

It also serves as a central document where I am organizing all the ideas and work related to Dablock. So you can closely track the Dablock initiative in that Google Sheet along with this topic in the Polkadot forum where I will be sharing reports and points of view.

The Dablock core document is currently composed of the following 10 sheets:

1. DOT Dapps: This sheet includes a list of Dapps projects building in the Polkadot ecosystem with their logos, elements, specifications, categories, subcategories, web, GitHub, documentation links, and additional information such as related legal entities and teams.
2. DOT Ecosystem: Details various components of the Polkadot ecosystem including initiatives, organizations, core developers, creators/educators…
3. DOT Events: This sheet lists events and talks related to Polkadot, including the name, date, URL, and additional details such as review status and descriptions
4. DOT Resources: List of tools and resources for developers, including blogs, documentation, learning resources, podcasts, and newsletters, each with relevant URLs and categories.
5. Web3 Glossary: Glossary of Web3 terms, providing definitions and explanations of various concepts within the Web3 and blockchain space.
6. Creators Tools: Tools and resources aimed at content creators within the Web3 Industry, potentially including software, platforms, and best practices.
7. *Project Timeline: This sheet outlines the timeline of key milestones, deliverables, and deadlines for Dablock projects. This includes dates, tasks, and responsible parties.
8. *Content: Content pieces related to Dablock, such as articles, blog posts, tutorials, or marketing materials. It includes columns for the title, category, URL, review status, and descriptions.
9. *General Pages: List of general pages in the Dablock website. It includes columns for the title, category, URL, review status, and descriptions.
10. *OpenGov: This sheet reflects the participation of LV and Dablock-related entities in the governance of Polkadot, Kusama, and other ecosystem networks. Specific proposals, the network to which they belong, the date, the track, the requested amount, the voter, the vote (AYE, NAY or Abstain), and the associated comments are presented here.

1.2 R1: Dablock as Polkadot Resources Hub {#1.2-r1:-dablock-as-polkadot-resources-hub}

This section details how DaBlock serves as a central repository for Polkadot-related content, providing curated directories and resources for different initiatives, creators, and powered users within the ecosystem.

In summary, the strategy for creating the structure and categorization of content for the Dablock portal revolves around grouping all crucial information, resources and elements and organizing it intuitively. The goal is to present the content in a way that would have been helpful to any newcomer to the ecosystem, ensuring curation and categorization, whether in post format, directory elements, or lists.

In the end, we have ended up differentiating two main sections of this work:

1. Directory: Categorization of directory elements and main sources for the curation and generation of new content.
2. Website: The creation and publication of content on the web based on the previous research and resources gathered for the directory.

All of this work is about defining a complete and ordered map of the entire Polkadot ecosystem by categorizing and linking its different elements and then adapt and show it in different acquisition media channels (X, YouTube and, mainly, aimed at content portals, as we are trying to exemplify with Dablock) and its different content formats (threads, videos, podcasts, web posts/pages. ..).¹

1.2.1 A comprehensive directory and research of the Polkadot ecosystem {#1.2.1-a-comprehensive-directory-and-research-of-the-polkadot-ecosystem}

The corresponding white label directory is mainly composed of the DOT Dapps, DOT Ecosystem, DOT Events and DOT Resources sheets. In the end, the length and details of this directory and ecosystem research have been considerably extended from what was originally proposed, with the research & directories track taking more prominence and time than expected during these first months (see Project Timeline sheet).

The objective is that this research serves both to originally work on the Dablock portal, and so that at the same time it can be used by other portals in the ecosystem, marketing teams, content creation initiatives, individual creators…

✅Currently more than 1,000 items have been curated and classified, along with their related links, with the DOT Dapps and DOT ecosystem directories being one of the most complete and updated.

The following 20 fields are taken into consideration when adding and updating new elements to the DOT Dapps directory, which is the one most extended:

It is an open-use resource, a tool to generate, organize and even automate content. With this, portals like dablock.com, new similar or more general content portals, existing projects like parachains.info, media initiatives, individual content creators like youtubers or even the so-called “KOLs”, can use it as a resource to update information, configure complete content calendars or even replicate, adapt and show the whole research and directories in their own content platforms.²

All of these graphs can be found in the Dablock brain sheet.

The importance of good foundations and research prior to production

Without a doubt this has been one of the most complicated tasks to maintain over time and at the same time, from our point of view, the most important when generating new content due to the large number of changes that occur in the ecosystem in short periods of time and the importance of these. It is very easy to make mistakes when creating certain content such as list type content, hence the importance of having a good base study and, above all, a clear categorization and definition for the different elements that make up the ecosystem.

Still, the original intention from Dablock is to continue updating and optimizing the public directory structure and categorization of elements, since it can become a parallel task to the creation of new content.

The original Google Sheet will continue to be used for now. Once the directory management is migrated to a public repository on GitHub, we will begin expanding and updating it from there and automate the other platforms.

References taken for curating the directories and content

As a starting point for the curation of the directory, work began in 2023 initially taking as reference portals such as the substrate website projects directory, various previously existed resources from the Web3 Foundation, parachains.info, dotmarketcap.com among several others, including directories of sub-ecosystems within Polkadot such as Moonbeam, dtmb.xyz… as shown in the initial PoC of the Dablock portal.

A big part of existing resources from these portals were presented with significantly outdated lists and elements, so it was important to study each specific profile as best as possible when curating a complete ecosystem directory, specially to link all the elements between them (Dapps <-> Initiatives <-> Organizations <-> Tech Stack <-> …).

We must recognize that it is impossible to always have a directory of an ecosystem as complex as Polkadot’s in a 100% correct way amid so much change in narrative, such as the volatile and ephemeral nature of the elements and brands. Hence, later on the website for Dablock, a more general structure of urls and categorization of elements was proposed.

Once the first main elements of the ecosystem have been organized and categorized into a first skeleton for the directory, the main sources of information to update the current elements and add new ones are:

1. Polkadot Forum: A central hub for discussions and updates related to the Polkadot ecosystem. From my point of view, the true heart of the ecosystem.
2. Web3 Foundation Grants, DV and DF Programs: Projects funded and supported by the Web3 Foundation in one of their diverse programs.
3. Governance Forums: Platforms such as Subsquare and Polkassembly with an interface showing insights into governance initiatives, proposals, active bounties…
4. Active Referral Profiles on X: Technical, educators and native media profiles on X that actively share and discuss updates and news within the Polkadot ecosystem.
5. Various Sources (Github, Reddit, Linkedin…): Platforms where several Polkadot community members share projects, discuss ideas, and networks.

By leveraging these sources, we ensured the directories remained comprehensive, up-to-date, and reflective of the latest developments and contributions within the Polkadot ecosystem.

³

1.2.2 An MVP for a Polkadot Niche Content Portal {#1.2.2-an-mvp-for-a-polkadot-niche-content-portal}

Set-Up and Redirections

After a first design and structure proposed in the first website presentation linked at the proposal #240, the interface design and the first url structure of the directory and content have been redesigned, trying to make it as easy as possible to maintain and scale over time and, at the same time, be as intuitive as possible for new users.

• When re-structuring the urls from the first poc, the keyword parachain has been completely removed and a categorization with more general concepts like other popular portals that work with similar directories such as Alchemy has been taken as a reference.
• When considering the categorization of posts, tags structure, etc. Other popular news portals have also been taken into account such as Cointelegraph, Coindesk… Although the same approach has not been applied here for the categorization of content since, despite the both references mentioned being able to be considered too as “content portals”, the approach for dablock.com has to be very different due to the ultra niche nature, expected scope, available resources and work methodology.

About the user experience, as detailed in week 15 in the Project Timeline sheet, in the future, among any of the many possible scenarios, it is important to continue optimizing the WPO. Although at first glance it collects good marks in the tests with Google Page Speed.⁴

Screenshot from Google Page Speed.

Portal Structure & Cornerstone Pages

The portal interface and menus have been made as simple and intuitive as possible, while at the same time trying to link any element of the Polkadot ecosystem in less than 2 clicks.

1. The three main landing pages to navigate the portal are:

1. Home (dablock.com)
2. Dapps (dablock.com/dapps/)
3. Ecosystem (dablock.com/ecosystem/)

These pages try to introduce the other main sections, directories and featured pieces of content.

2. Next are the cornerstone list type pages by topic. Instead of publishing them as if they were a post, they have been published as a main page, example:

• TOP 10 Polkadot Multisig Wallets (dablock.com/polkadot-multisig-wallets/)
• TOP 15 Polkadot NFT Marketplaces (dablock.com/polkadot-nft-marketplaces/)

From these pages the elements of the ecosystem are introduced and linked directly (example, from the first url mentioned: dablock.com/dapps/nova-wallet/). The goal is to rank these trying to respond as best as possible to the user to searches such as: “best polkadot ecosystem wallets”, “polkadot NFT marketplaces”, etc.

In this Google Sheet it is possible to consult more information about the main pages of this type that are already published, revisions, etc.

All urls published on dablock.com

Below is a brief summary of all the urls published on the dablock.com portal until now. In the sitemap there is a live-time updated list with direct links to all pages and posts.

The following table explains the main structure and categorization of the URLs of the dablock.com portal, which attempts to organize the information in the most global, agnostic, simplified and user-friendly way possible for new users entering the Polkadot ecosystem.

Evolution of organic visibility

Until the last week everything has been growing correctly, indexing all the main urls and growing organic visibility in search engines. In fact, I was and still am waiting for a high positive turning point once the content of the cornerstone pages that we discussed in the previous section is finished being optimized and indexed, since the intention is to start indexing as soon as possible for at least 1,000 keywords related to the DOT ecosystem.

Semrush Organic Research screenshot for USA

By not applying an off-page SEO strategy as such (only links and traffic from social networks and YouTube videos) and focusing everything on the application of good practices and content, for this type of portal in the short term it would surely be much more convenient to have deployed it simply using a keyword-domain instead of trying the hard way trying to grow the authority of a new brand-domain as such.

In any case, during the last few days, shortly after the Decoded 2024, there has been a sudden drop in the evolution of the visibility of the urls.

Google Search Console screenshot showing the impressions for the different dablock.com urls during the last 90 days

Google Search Console screenshot showing the urls indexed (green) and non-indexed (gray) for the different dablock.com urls during the last 90 days (including urls of images hosted).

This can be due to several different reasons. We will continue to monitor everything and a new report will be given at the end of August with the evolution and possible reasons for what caused this anomaly… So far my first assumption is that it is due to a latest update in Google SERPs pagination, but it is strange since it has also affected image search.

In any case, now with more than 20 cornerstone pages already published and a considerable amount of content managed, the real optimizations begin until we find the best structures and formats for Google and therefore for the users.

In the Future of Dablock section, different scenarios and approaches are discussed to optimize the reach of content with alternative strategies that could collect better results in less time, with greater automation and without the need to invest in off-page SEO and, of course, in PPC, like the mentioned above using a keyword-domain.

Other teams and initiatives in the ecosystem could also try to implement all of this based on the work done for Dablock and the directories in their own beneficial way for their project.

Dablock.com Users Activity

Below is the growth in the number of users on dablock.com and geographic location.

Until the anomaly a week ago mentioned above, everything seemed like it was going to start growing exponentially after all the new content published. Anyway, it seems that in recent days the break is partially being recovered, more details will be given in the report at the end of August once all the content of the cornerstone urls have been optimized.

The image above shows data from the acquisition of new sessions on the web. A curious detail is that sessions started from URLs from long-format YouTube videos and live-streamings have better overall retention than the other organic acquisition channels in general average. Even so, the data collected so far is still minuscule yet to carry out any type of study and hence a more in-depth analysis has not been carried out.

The visibility and web analytics reports with really interesting data will begin once a considerable number of well-ranked URLs in the SERPs are reached and the content derived in X/YT is further automated and linking the content of the portal.

1.3 R2: LV as content creator {#1.3-r2:-lv-as-content-creator}

In the previous section, we discussed the planning and structuring of the main components of the directory/research and the dablock.com website. In this section, we will focus on the generated content and the strategy for optimizing the production workflow as a solo creator.

Here, first of all, it is important to point out how psychologically complex it can be to deal with so many different roles and different tasks, and also how complicated it is to produce so many content formats without the appropriate set-up and tools, hence the reason that it has focused first on the research/directory carried out in the last months to achieve better automation and overall content mapping.

1.3.1 Workflow for Individual Content Creators

The fundamental strategy here as a solo creator is to achieve a good workflow and content automation between the different formats. For example, the two main work templates proposed for a complete block of content (see Content sheet) are:

In this way, the first piece of main content (web post / video) is worked on and then we try to automate the generation of the following ones as much as possible with AI tools. For example:

• Generate the base for a thread on X by adapting content from web posts or video transcriptions using an AI tool, along with a series of prompts and reviews.
• Create the foundation of articles from a prompt and transcriptions of previously published videos.

With well defined templates, with the tools used properly and good human supervision, we can greatly optimize the quality and workflow when generating content. Although be very careful, since researching, testing and introducing new tools to your work routine also involves time and even operational costs as noted below in this document at: Main Errors to Avoid for Individual Content Creators.

We delve a little bit deeper into the implications related to AI and content automation later in this document at: Use of AI in Content / Marketing / Development Initiatives Funded by the Polkadot Treasury.

1.3.2 Content produced during 2024

First of all, point out that the content must be made for some reason, it must have a meaning and a context/story behind it so that it has a real impact, hence certain tasks of all those initially proposed are prioritized or modified.

Below is a summary of all the main pieces of content published during 2024 so far. In the Content sheet there are direct links to all the generated pieces.

The numbers in parentheses refer to pieces of content that were published hastily specifically for the purpose of presenting this report. These videos have been published as “hidden” (can only be accessed through the direct link). They will be made public on the main LV channel, once the content calendar and activities resume normally.

This approach ensures that it cannot be claimed that all the “deliverables” proposed with the #240 have not been completed, despite having prioritized and greatly extended other fundamental tasks and deliverables more relevant in the short term.

Despite having invested so much time and resources in improving the quality of production and workflow when producing original videos, until now the original and more creative content has not yet been prioritized in this first stage due to having prioritized the research task, extended the directory scope and efforts on the dablock portal, in addition to more reasons that will be discussed throughout the document.

In the end, LV’s character, especially the comedian in the videos, ends up being an exaggeration of one’s personality, like every internet character, I suppose. For me at least it is a type of content that I am not able to do if I am not carefree and comfortable, it is not something that can be faked.

In the Experience & Project Timeline section of this document, we delve deeper into the challenges and explore various perspectives for addressing them when managing a content initiative funded by a DAO’s treasury.

1.4 R3: Dablock as Content Agency {#1.4-r3:-dablock-as-content-agency}

This section discusses Dablock’s role as a content agency, providing strategies and resources for effective content creation and management.

• All the resources and guides directed to creators are being published in the Web3 Marketing category in dablock.com.
• Most of the services track activity that has been accounted for can be seen in the Project Timeline sheet.

A business activity as such has not yet been developed in relation to Dablock as a content agency, and it is the part of the 3 branches to work on on which this report is based that has been least attended to.

As documented in the Project Timeline sheet and highlighted below at Contributions to Other Initiatives, basic help and sporadic consultancy has only been offered to projects and initiatives that requested it directly or with which it had already begun to collaborate a long time ago and rejecting all the monetary offers to serve as an intermediary for influencers or third-party initiatives for governance, simply because I do not coincide in the methodology and work purpose of the majority of their proposals that were presented to me. This is discussed deeper throughout this document at OpenGov section, explaining my points of view on diffetent topics related to governance and content creation initiatives.

1.4.1 Product vs Business {#1.4.1-product-vs-business}

From Dablock everything has been worked on openly and it has always helped without asking for anything in return for a long time after receiving the support corresponding to the proposal #240. I emphasize this so that it is not misunderstood when considering a “business” part for a project promoted by an initiative openly supported by a DAO.

From my point of view, it is essential that the initiatives that try to define a role in the ecosystem in the long term all try to have a part of private business, as long as this is directly or indirectly beneficial for the user base, is developed transparently and simultaneously generate free-use resources specific to the web3 industry (=Polkadot).

1.4.2 Product First, Business Second

It could be argued that during these first months we have focused only on the product part and not on the business part for Dablock. If we relate this approach with the different tracks that form the Project Timeline sheet:

1. Product Tracks:

   1. Set-Up - completed
   2. Research/Directory - free to use by any other initiative/business.
   3. Portal/Website Management
   4. Content

2. Business Tracks:

   1. Lead Management - not implemented
   2. Sponsorships/Campaigns - not implemented
   3. Services

• Note 1: The Project Timeline sheet began to be written from the end of March 2024, hence from those dates there are more details about the tasks carried out and the hours recorded.
• Note 2: Keep in mind that there are many hours, especially during the first months before and after proposal #240, that have never been counted for small specific tasks and various consultancies.

1.5 Future of Dablock {#1.5-future-of-dablock}

This report outlines the future plans and vision for DaBlock, including expanding its reach and impact within the Polkadot ecosystem.

Phase 1: Survive

1. Main thing right now in the near future is to achieve the survival of LV. There is no Batman without Bruce Wayne.
2. Continue with the development of Dablock as a project (dablock.com portal, content agency, etc.) and ensure that it evolves correctly, to ensure the survival of LV in the long term.
3. Migrate the directory management, research and resource collection that has been carried out to the public github repository mentioned above to make access even easier and open to direct third-party collaborations and greater automation.
4. Communicate things with humor and joy, publish funny edits.
5. With LV’s survival assured, continue the good work with smiles and humor.

In short, working on the usual ideas and ensuring the survival of LV is the fundamental thing in the short term.

• Donations: 15akZwzufEzFzfh18y4Q81Ci8TXyvH6hyUkRrxJED2MjEYhe

Phase 2: Resurgence, we are still alive.

Now talking about things that are not urgent in the immediate term:

1. Public Directory/Research (R1): All research carried out should be adapted and published in a single public Github repository, to further automate the process of managing and curating the different directory elements and allowing open collaboration from everyone.

   In this way, all the work will be more accessible to other initiatives, teams and individual creators, to replicate and adapt on their own platforms or simply consult as a reference for their content or their own research.

   Furthermore, it is also much more subtle to say that it is being managed openly in a github repository than from an antiquated Discord server and modest but robust Google Sheet o_O.

2. Dablock.com (R2-R1): As we were commenting previously at 1.4.1 Product vs Business, the website is one product generated from the research, as well as the content generated in the different formats worked.

   The objective is to continue optimizing, automating, and growing the Dablock portal and the different profiles on sm and youtube channels related to it and LV according to the originally proposed strategy, aiming to achieve a significant role and impact within the ecosystem. This effort seeks to address and provide visibility to the increasing problem highlighted in proposal #240, specifically regarding the organic visibility of native Polkadot portals and their lack of updated and competitive versions in search engines

   The objective is to continue optimizing, automating, and growing the dablock.com portal, along with the various social media profiles and YouTube channels related to it and LV, in line with the originally proposed strategy. Specifically, the work done with Dablock aims to achieve a significant role and long-term impact within the ecosystem, it’s just getting started.

   This effort seeks to address and bring visibility to the increasing problem highlighted in proposal #240, particularly the organic visibility of native Polkadot portals and their lack of updated and competitive versions in search engines.

   By achieving this there should be no problem in being a self-sustaining project/business over time, in one or more creative ways, and at the same time being completely transparent in accordance with the vision of the Polkadot ecosystem and web3 culture, among other things.

3. Dablock agency (R3): My idea was at the beginning of 2025 to start giving more priority to this activity once everything has been consolidated, mainly the dablock.com portal, and to formally define small service packages to offer, mainly, consulting to new teams and initiatives.

   Later we will talk in more detail about this activity and why agency services have not been provided at the end of 2023 and beginning of 2024.

   In any case, we are open from the first moment to providing support and help to all independent creators in the ecosystem who want to tackle well-defined series of technical content, since there is a shortage of that type of content in all formats. We can help by offering advice and even defining and editing content, along with its distribution, etc.

2. EXPERIENCE & PROJECT TIMELINE {#2.-experience-&-project-timeline}

2.1 Main Errors to Avoid, Lessons Learned and Advices for New Web3 Adventurers {#2.1-main-errors-to-avoid,-lessons-learned-and-advices-for-new-web3-adventurers}

Reflect on the major mistakes made during the project and provide actionable advice for avoiding these pitfalls in future initiatives.

1. The Value of Collaboration and Networking: Performance is important, but having a team or officially announced collaborators brings significant advantages. Not only does it make project networking easier and more visible, but it also provides essential support, a platform for discussing concerns and progress, and a way to share these indirectly with the “community” or influential groups within the governance model.
2. Expect Criticism Regardless of Intentions: No matter what you do, how altruistic your intentions are, or how hard you try, there will always be critics or complaints. Often, these arise from factors beyond anyone’s control. Understanding this reality is crucial to maintaining focus and resilience.
3. Challenges of Community Building in OpenGov: Engaging with the “community” can be challenging, especially when publicly exposing yourself to OpenGov processes. The associated pressures and risks can make the experience less enjoyable and more stressful than anticipated.
4. Strategic Input/Output Management: Be cautious about whose advice you take. Managing the inputs you receive is as important as the outputs you deliver. The blockchain industry is rife with manipulation in various forms, as any other industry, and at the end of the day, everyone is primarily driven by self-interest. Avoid relying on a single entity or blindly trusting established norms, as everything in this space is extremely volatile. Sadly influence and noise often dictate outcomes more than merit.
5. Pragmatism Over Idealism: It’s vital to approach everything as a business. Idealism can lead to disappointment and disrespect, especially when your efforts are undervalued. Focus on delivering manageable tasks to minimize unnecessary controversies and maintain efficiency.
6. Avoid Perfectionism: Striving for perfection can lead to procrastination, particularly with tasks that have significant short-term impact. It’s important to recognize when to stop overthinking and move forward to ensure timely and effective execution.

2.2 First Steps & Fund Management {#2.2-first-steps-&-fund-management}

12/2023 ⇔ 03/2024

tldr: Detail the initial steps taken after receiving funding, including investments in equipment and setup. Highlight the importance of strategic decision-making and resource management.

It’s been over 7 months since the Polkadot community confirmed their support for my contributions to the ecosystem by supporting the creation of DaBlock through referendum #240! What have I done during the first 2-3 months? Spend the funds 😤!

From the first moment I have taken the funds to invest in improving production equipment, ensuring operational capacity over time and scaling by purchasing the time of others, and that is what I have done, or tried to do in my best.

It all seems simple but it is not as easy as it seems. In fact, I would dare to say that the biggest complication in any initiative/project financed by the treasury of a DAO, as would be my case with DaBlock and Polkadot currently, is the initial decision making.

At least this has been my first impression as there are so many possible paths and involve so many different activities within the same project. The sum of small decisions ends up taking up a lot of time and energy, including those that affect the regularization of this activity and may have legal or administrative consequences in the country where you reside.

In any case, these initial decision making are essential to propose a comfortable, sustainable workflow that generates good performance in the long term. I have tried to do my best in that aspect, but there has definitely been a lot of room for improvement in management as detailed above in the section Main Errors to Avoid.

In the Project Timeline sheet there is more information and estimations of all the activities carried out since November 2023.

⁵

2.2.1 Set-Up for Independent Creators.

TLDR: Outline the setup process for independent creators, including a list of essential equipment and software tools. Emphasize the importance of balancing quality and efficiency in production.

Previously, it already had a good studio and video quality.

Even so, from the beginning I have wanted to take advantage of the resources granted to try to make several leaps in production quality by adding new scenes, improving the decoration, lighting and the rest of the equipment.

Honestly, all of this wasn’t necessary, but I intended to have the best studio possible. In the end, dedicating more time and resources than initially planned to improving quality and production capacity has ended up being a setback in the short term, and counterproductive from a business point of view, at least until now.

When it came to configuring the new set-up I completely overdid it with the equipment. You don’t have to be such a perfectionist and you don’t have to have the best technology and most expensive devices to create the “perfect” workflow and content for each one.

In the first weeks after receiving the funds I have been focused on trying to select and configure the best possible equipment possible.

In this aspect I have spent a large amount of time selecting the appropriate equipment and tools to configure the workflow as best as possible when having to occupy and coordinate so many different tracks and tasks.

Below is a list of some of the main devices that I have obtained to configure the set-up (I already had those with an *):

Video

• 2x Sony ZV-E10
• 2x Sigma 16 mm F1.4 DC DN Contemporary
• 1x GoPro Hero12 Black
• *1x Iphone 13 Pro Max

Audio

• 1x Shure Sm7db
• 1x RØDE Wireless Go II
• 1x RØDE Interview GO
• 1x RØDE Lavalier GO
• *PreSonus AudioBox GO
• *Shure MV7

Equipo

• *1x Macbook Pro M1 Pro

I initially planned to get a Mac Studio M2 Max as a new computer to improve performance as well as being able to work with editing programs and stream at the same time. It hasn’t been necessary until now, the M1 Pro, with a good OBS setup, is enough to cover most of a creator’s needs and perform extensive streaming.

Lightning

• 1x ZHIYUN FIVERAY M20C
• *2x NEEWER 2 Pack Bicolor 660 LED
• *2x Logitech Litra Glow LED

+Gadgets

• 1x ZHIYUN Weebill S
• *1x DJI OSMO Mobile 6
• 1x LG 49GR85DC-B
• *2x BenQ Screens
• 1x ElGato Stream Deck
• 2x Elgato Cam Link 4K
• 1x Elgato Green Screen XL
• 1x SanDisk Extreme PRO 512GB
• 3x SanDisk Extreme PRO 128GB

List of all articles in the Dablock project tracking guide (sheet: Creator Tools; Row: 79 - 129)

These are the main gadgets that make up my final studio and recording equipment. But, as I mentioned, until now, in this case, it has been totally counterproductive at first to invest so much time and resources in improving the production gear and workflow. Minimalist and functional solutions are what I would now recommend to any creator as recommended in the following post with a guide for independent content creators.

Set-Up & Software Configuration

When it comes to the configuration of the equipment and software, this makes for a wide discussion since there are a lot of different options. In any case, when it comes to producing content I have configured the main part of the process using the OBS, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, ChatGPT & Captions programs. There are a wide variety of additional programs that I use daily to complement certain tasks, but with the 5 mentioned you can cover practically the entire workflow.
List of all the tools and resources for creators in the Dablock project tracking guide (sheet: Creator Tools; Row: 03 - 78)
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2.2.2 Management, Activity and Legal Entity.

This has been the worst part and I still don’t have the truth very clear about the issue 🫤. I will try to document everything in more detail with any news. In any case, trying to get started in the Web3 industry is not easy from a legal/administrative point of view without good initial advice.

During the first months since proposal #240 was approved, I have been consulting with different professionals to try to have everything clear and find the best possible legal framework, but the truth is that, to a certain extent, the more information I obtained, the more ambiguous It became and depending on who was asked, there were proposed different scenarios and solutions.

There is a lot of lack of knowledge on the part of the majority of managers and administrative entities when it comes to dealing with activities directly related to crypto assets and web3 entities, at least that has been my experience so far with these issues.

Since we are talking about this topic, I think it would be very interesting to see an entity offering consulting or even complete services to solve these legal situations for initiatives that opt ​​for OpenGov, since it is something very necessary to make it really accessible to everyone. Or at least an article with a basic guide by a more knowledgeable ecosystem participant of these topics would also be of unimaginable help.

2.2.3 Collaborators and delegation of tasks.

Since before starting DaBlock, finding good collaborators and delegating tasks has been the most difficult task of all. What remains. When managing Creadores Web3 (Web3 Creators initiative), something similar arose when organizing the teams of creators and looking for different collaborators since they all had a different work methodology, different ideas and different objectives.

Gamified Models for Proactive Collaboration

In that regard, a possible solution to optimize this, in addition to ensuring that the right collaborators end up finding you, is to open and gamify the rewards and tasks system, the simpler, the more effective. This can be the most optimal approach at least for regular and sporadic collaborators to cover low responsibility tasks.

A good example of this system would be the first model proposed on the original WagMedia server with the bot that has the same name, which speeds up the distribution of rewards between individual creators in the ecosystem.

This model could be replicated in many more ways between different initiatives covering different fields, at least until the current Small Tipper and Big Tipper tracks in Polkadot’s OpenGov are optimized and streamlined.

Delegation vs Automation of Tasks

When it comes to delegating tasks with DaBlock, we have started testing with a couple of video editors external to the blockchain industry. The result has not been what was expected since it did not mean an improvement in the editing quality for the formats that were wanted to be delegated nor a shorter delivery time counting the revisions.

So we have decided to choose to form our own dream team with the resources we already had at home. This has made it maybe take us longer to complete this first set-up phase, but now we have the perfect and more sustainable workflow for small projects, without time to waste in staff meetings.

But yes, perhaps in thinking about automating a large part of the workflow we neglected to have taken greater advantage of the delegation of tasks, which I am still interested in being able to delegate to a greater extent for tasks such as video editing and social media management.

2.2.4 Contributions to other initiatives {#2.2.4-contributions-to-other-initiatives}

Over the last year, DaBlock (LV) has been helping ecosystem initiatives such as Dotcast and the Polkadot Anti-Scam Team with basic web development / maintenance and consulting services. The intention, in addition to providing this type of service, is to take advantage of the work carried out in the research for the DaBlock portal to advise and enrich the content and resources available on the other educational or informational pages of ecosystem related websites.

There are still large updates pending in both polkadot.antiscam.team and dotcast.io, in any case both portals are up and running and are actively monitored.

For the Dotcast website I have been sharing some content published on the DaBlock portal once it is translated into Spanish. A Spanish version of the DaBlock directories (Dapps, Ecosystem, Learn) will also be released once a last review of the content is carried out. In any case, translating and publishing written content in Spanish is a task that I do not have time to continue without further automation, collaborators or other interested parties..

It would be interesting to see how the research and curation work carried out for the Dablock portal and its directories is used in other local community projects, media portals, etc. If anyone wants to do it, they can contact me to ask any questions or make any queries.

In this regard, as mentioned previously, one of the next steps is to adapt and complete the migration of all the research that is published in the Google Sheet from where the elements for dablock.com directory were initially organized and curated (mainly the sheets: dapps, ecosystem and events tech talks) to a public repository on Github, to allow direct community collaborations. The repository is now created and will be updated at DaBlockDAO/Polkadot-Atlas.

In this way, in addition to opening the management of the directory to the whole community, it will also make the work and research carried out more accessible for all types of projects and initiatives, which was always the initial intention when making public all the work and guidelines proposed to generate the directory and content for dablock.com.
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2.3 LV Tech Talk & Sub0 Travel. {#2.3-lv-tech-talk-&-sub0-travel.}

03/2024 ⇔ 04/2024

Thanks to the donation from Stake Plus I was able to attend the latest edition of Polkadot Sub0. My first trip outside of Europe 😎. You will be able to see a summary in the vlog I am preparing about the trip: JAM, Polkadot & LV in Bangkok (Soon™).

While attending the event I considered that it would be a great idea to compile all the talks and their related resources from these ecosystem events in a single web domain, since it would also complement the work done with the directory and enrich all the available information. There this new task was added and everything began to be compiled in a new sheet and the tech-talks category.

On the dablock.com portal, all the talks from the Sub0 2024 edition have been published in individual posts under the Sub0 tag and the Tech Talks category (dablock.com/tech-talks/). The content of each post is made up of:

• Summary of the original talk.
• Iframe embedding the slides of the original talk.
• Iframe embedding the video of the original talk published on YouTube on the Polkadot Events channel.

More details in the Dablock project tracking guide (sheet: Project Timeline ; weeks: 10 & 21)

All talks and resources presented during the Decoded 2024 edition in Brussels are also being published on the website under the Decoded tag. Also on the DOT Events sheet there are direct links to the slides of all the talks.

• Sub0 resources: Dablock.com/web3-events/polkadot-sub0/
• Decoded resources: dablock.com/web3-events/polkadot-decoded/

2.4 DablockDAO Community & Approach {#2.4-dablockdao-community-&-approach}

04/2024 ⇔ 05/2024

The original idea has always been to present DablockDAO as the representation of the community of dablock.com contributors, its related initiatives and individual creators.

So, where is DablockDAO?

If DablockDAO were to exist today, it would be a collection of several individual communities of creators (of content, art, products..). From the beginning, the management of a so-called DablockDAO was proposed on a renovated discord server from the former Artic Kusama (discord where several micro-micro-communities of NFT artists ended up grouping together at the end of the Kusama NFT era in mid-2022.) and to carry out a kind of migration of the latter’s extinct nft artist communities and the also the content creators groups formed from the previous initiative of Creadores Web3 to DablockDAO.

In the end, the only thing this has generated is a major complication of the development of the project.

• This only adds more responsibility and unnecessary complexities when trying to cover and rescue all types of ideas and initiatives that were started at some point.
• When influencing so many groups with interests that are not directly related and that even speak in different languages, achieving effective communication becomes enormously complicated. Just like accommodating several different points of view and interests becomes complicated. In the end, trying to reach and please everyone has been the attitude that has most negatively affected the progress of the community around Dablock, as detailed in the Main Errors to Avoid section.
• The idea was always originally to manage this DablockDAO completely autonomously through a membership system based on one or several NFT collections, a discord server and/or a small governance app on a subdomain of dablock.com. The objective, in addition to having this open, transparent and even gamified management based on a DAO, is to also combine both worlds of content creators and NFT communities, since I have always found it something very interesting. Honestly, this series of ideas has only ended up overcomplicating everything enormously, since I never managed to find either the right tools to apply what I had in mind or the interested/right collaborators for these tasks.

For this series of reasons, the creation of a formal DablockDAO has not been prioritized until now and all effort has been dedicated to generating a solid working base with the directory, the content and the web portal, since it is the part of the original proposal that give sense for all the rest tasks and provides real value to the ecosystem in the long term, also serving as a reference for future initiatives and teams.

As detailed in Future of Dablock, another way to generate this active community of collaborators in the directory, the content of the web, individual creators… It is from the migration of the directory to a public repository on github (and in the near future even the content of the website itself), allowing new collaborators to appear organically. Which is another new way from which to form the on-chain entity called DablockDAO in the near future, when there are better tools or interested collaborators appear.

3. VISION, OPENGOV & CONTENT I. {#3.-vision,-opengov-&-content-i.}

3.1 Input/Output Management for Creators

05/2024 ⇔ 07/2024

To obtain good criteria when curating and generating content, code, ideas… It is important to have good management of inputs or references that provide context and a solid starting point to develop a project and a professional workflow.

In the end, I have invested perhaps more time than necessary in the preparation and validation of strategies than in the application itself. Which does not have to be a bad thing, especially when you are starting any type of project, quite the opposite, but it has been counterproductive from a short-term business point of view when working in such a volatile industry. In any case, it’s time to produce, publish, we will return to focusing on analysis and optimization in a few months.

There are two books that I would like to share, since they were helping me when it comes to clarifying ideas about organization and decision making: The PARA Method & Start with Why. When dealing with so many different tasks and responsibilities, without good organization it would be impossible to carry out this type of project with just one person in charge. In that regard, starting to organize all the work around the main Dablock Google Sheet has been a turning point in my workflow and helped me to focus on each different track of tasks.

Literally almost all the new content initiatives and creators that came to opengov (also those who did not show up at the end) asked me for my feedback and advice during the previous months before the launch of the first proposal for Dablock (weeks 1-5, resources and creators profiles reviews), although later very few actually followed my recommendations, especially after as I tried to disassociate myself from the diverse famous Telegram think tanks, since more than a debate it seemed like a civil war discussing the same issues that should have already been settled during the beginnings of OpenGov in Kusama, especially after all the work and reviews that some of us had already made at the time based on initiatives such as WM and CW3 (As a small example, this approach that I shared in 2023 to establish a Genearl Model for Content Creation Initiatives).

If during the first months after the approval of the proposal #240 I ended up having, as it is called today, a social “burnout”, it is because I was not comfortable with how politicized and conflictive everything was becoming in the community. In addition to the pressure of wanting to deliver the best possible product, that’s why I ended up investing so much time at first trying to improve the configuration of the production setup and workflow instead of pure content production.

At that moment I had just or was about to receive the funds to build the project that I had been working on/planning for quite some time and the truth was that I no longer feel the need to spend more time in the trending community groups/chats/forums for experts or attending creators/initiatives/teams who only followed recommendations until they got what they wanted from the OpenGov.

I focused on myself, on my project and on how to invest the newly obtained resources the best as possible on it, absolutely nothing else. I was really bored of participating in inefficient meetings and talks, even though those would be giving me business opportunities in the short term.

In fact, before the marketing bounty was activated and all the newcomers influencer agencies were established in the ecosystem, I was offered on more than one or two occasions, by several different parties, the job of representing a big part of all the spanish-speaking big influencers who have already applied to the marketing bounty during the last few months, and be able to take one of those succulent “agency fees”, which were very fashionable while the bounty was not activated yet.

If I didn’t do it, it is because, as I said, I did not have the monetary need as Dablock’s proposal was about to be approved and because I did not agree with the work methodology or the proposals exposed by the biggest part of these profiles at that moment.

In that aspect, I continue to say that it is more interesting for this type of work done by the agencies to focus on attracting talent/creators/“influencers” with a technical background, not necessarily with content and audiences related to blockchain directly at the beginning.

Culture and education are not generated in the raw awareness layer, which is also very interesting and the basis for the others, but, for such a complex and niche “product”, it does not seem to me to be the most profitable part of any outreach strategy in the medium-long term if only non-sustainable impacts over time are achieved.

That is, with this awareness give more visibility directly to the native media projects of the ecosystem. For example, having these external “KOLs”/”influencers” collaborate directly with current media teams/initiatives like The Kusamarian during certain periods of time. These types of strategies/campaigns are very common among influencers in more mainstream niches to expand communities or introduce creators to new related audiences. Another example could be that these influencers who provide that awareness generate pieces of content using as reference and linking/mentioning resources such as, for example, Polkadot Wiki resources, infographics created by Polkadot Insider, or even resources derived from the different editions of the PBA in the case of more technical creator profiles.

But hey, this is my point of view from the perspective of someone who is currently broke and who has always tried to generate stuff/business/projects from scenarios with the minimum possible and necessary resources. Although after looking at the budgets and expenses of some companies and national governments (which is what Polkadot most resembles) we must recognize that the politics world is very expensive and inefficient, especially in the early stages.

3.2 OpenGov Related Possible controversies

The DV and Voter Committees should be pristine with their activity on social networks from their official accounts when giving feedback or generating content related to projects and its proposals made to the treasury, especially those that are “native to the ecosystem”.

By this I mean that they should not be directly involved in controversies and trends that clearly seek only to generate attention and cheap engagement. Those who farm engagement by shilling memecoins on social networks are just as reckless as those who dedicate themselves to being “vigilators of OpenGov and the ecosystem full time”.

The duty of the DV and Voter Committees, in addition to participating in voting on proposals to the treasury, should be to offer support and direct communication channels with the projects they are monitoring.

My experience with DaBlock over the past months has been very mixed as could has been the public opinion. Without a doubt, from my point of view, there is a big difference especially between the “outreach/hr” proposals and the “infrastructure/development” proposals when considering public pressure when opting for OpenGov. -Although lately the gap may be closing (?). In any case, the more visible and public a work is and the more accessible and open the author is, the more eyes will believe they have the authority and knowledge to judge it without the need for deeper research.

3.3 Facilitate access to OpenGov for small initiatives

The truth is that it is a big problem when it comes to encouraging talent to choose to be supported by the treasury directly, as well as those who choose to be as transparent as possible, since you have to have a lot of security and serenity not to be influenced or pressured.

A lot of work must continue to try to make the process of participating and opting for OpenGov more friendly for current and potential initiatives that want to offer value to the ecosystem, especially in an industry so volatile and full of so many egos.

Accepting or requesting treasury support should not place such great pressure on active teams. I emphasize the importance that the DV and Voter Committees should try to encourage people to opt for the treasury and monitor the projects well, but not pressure or negatively influence them once they have started, especially without having a prior context or direct communication with the project team.

3.4 Bounties and the figure of the curator

In this aspect, perhaps it would be interesting to promote more the management of initiatives through Bounties and give more importance to the figure of the curator on the part of the community while requiring greater involvement, in order to have formal monitoring of the teams and power. maintain greater synergy with the different Voter Committees and opengov public forums such as AAG.

This monitoring and reporting task, in addition to being covered by these curators with their assigned initiatives, could also be covered in a more flexible and proactive way by other ecosystem initiatives such as OGTracker, OpenGov.Watch or the Anti-Scam Team.

In short, we should not have an aggressive position towards potential participants in the governance of Polkadot or Kusama, but instead try to support the talent that wants to develop small projects that may, or may not, scale to something more.

• On the left: projects carefully devised in groups of experts. With more work time in chats, meetings and proposal drafts than in production time.
• On the right: independent projects with individual goals that have been supported by Polkadot to launch, scale and maintain their sustainable and realistic tool/product/service that benefits the Polkadot ecosystem directly or indirectly.

3.5 Pending Words

With the latter of “non-aggressiveness” I emphasize the responsibility of especially the DVs, the Voter Committees or any highly influential participant in governance when developing their activity and avoiding making public comments lightly without prior knowledge that they may be lacking. Respect for those who are true productive agents of the ecosystem, not for aspiring political leaders or members of TG groups for “experts in especific topics”. The job of the DV, Voter Committees and any active participant in OpenGov is not to play vigilantes and engage farmers on social media platforms.

• The Polkadot community and Web3 industry is not represented, and should not be, only on Twitter/X or any sm platform.
• Decentralization does not mean having to meet for any possible reason and being transparent only when it is convenient and with whom it is interesting. Ignore endless meetings, love detailed public reports.
• Escalating projects and learning to delegate does not mean deferring responsibilities to family and friends at random.
• Being proactive or “agent” in the ecosystem does not mean having to give your opinion 24/7 on any type of topic, especially when there is not much to say.

I may seem a little annoying, excuse me. It is incredible how insulting it can be to expose yourself to the OpenGov, whether to request support for an idea, for a reward to be valued retroactively, or for a mix of both scenarios in the same proposal as should has been considered at first in my case with the #240. Even if there is almost unanimous initial support to an initiative/idea, it is exposing oneself to the eye of the hurricane.

Ecosystems with decentralized governance models need various types of leaders, with solid ideas and different currents of opinion, not an inefficient and constant synergy of different groups of manipulative and manipulated elements. Decentralized governance and politics should not be done purely either in meetings or on social networks.

Twitter/X, despite currently being the best medium to communicate quickly within the current small circles of influence in OpenGov, I personally consider that it is being a double-edged sword due to the ephemeral nature of the content on the platform.

I mean, we must learn from governance and the projects that are built in an open way thanks to it, if all the communications are made with an ephemeral tweet written simply advertising a project or a flow of ideas without a review in retrospect, in the end everything It will be an inefficient cycle of cheap political campaigns and a continued cannibalization of efforts.

This is where open communication channels, such as the official Polkadot forum, and different specific content/communication formats like the one raised by Kusamarian with AAG for more than 100 episodes, become crucial. While it is important to establish initial standards for the different proposal templates to be submitted to OpenGov, it is equally beneficial to also standardize common content formats and different distribution channels for a fluid, friendly, unconditional and regular communication between the various initiatives and the different communities that consolidate the state of Polkadot.

3.6 Polkadot OpenGov Trends

To start to conclude this section to talk about OpenGov, although I also maintain a favorable opinion regarding the support of initiatives of considerable magnitude, both in infrastructure and development tracks and in outreach, HR and especially education, without a doubt, from my perspective, the best strategy It would be to focus on promoting small initiatives and creators in the ecosystem (understand creators as a proactive and productive agent of the ecosystem, whether generating educational content, developing free software, etc.). ex-DV Kukaabi shared a point of view on Twitter in March that may seem similar to this approach I want to convey.

No matter how much noise and awareness that, for example, large sporting events may generate, we are certainly not at a point where that is interesting if the objective is to directly increase activity on the network in the short term, since we could consider that it is not our final target audience. If what we want is to increase activity in the network immediately as in other ecosystems, our target audience maybe should be bots (and liquidity), it’s that simple.

In any case, from my point of view, of course these OpenGov initiatives driven by the community can be interesting to sponsor sporting events or, specifically, sport teams and elite athletes for other reasons. A great example is the great work that The Kusamarian has done covering the sponsorship of Conor Daly in the Indy 500. Combining these events with this type of campaigns also from Web3 initiatives and “KOLs” to produce derived content can be very interesting.

That is, thanks to the community and related/derived initiatives that arise in governance, perhaps the effectiveness of this type of sponsorship or outreach campaigns could be enhanced by being creative with related works such as the one mentioned above by The Kusamarian when covering these events and activities of the ecosystem.

3.7 Content Isolation & Niche Communities

A few years ago I was an active player of Life is Feudal MMO (best raw berserker worldwide 2019-2022), one of those niche hardcore online games that are barely still alive for a small community of players. Yes, those types of online communities from which dozens of social investigations could be derived, similar to what can be done with DAOs like Polkadot and Kusama, or, basically, any free software community that forms a varied ecosystem of collaborative elements between yes for long periods of time.

I like to make this comparison because with so much freedom, the politics of the Life is Feudal MMO were quite complex and changing considering so many different guilds and alliances. I would always have liked to know what its future would have been with a product development governed by a system like OpenGov, since a guild in an MMO is a very similar element to the groups that have ended up being defined as Voter Committees in the Polkadot ecosystem .

This is where we could also see the early state of the current OpenGov, where barely half a dozen Voter Committees participate. The true decentralization of the flows of ideas and opinions in the ecosystem will be seen when there are dozens and even hundreds of different Voter Committees actively participating in the different OpenGov tracks.

3.7.1 The Problem of Isolation of Niche Communities

Today the Life is Feudal MMO has reopened to the public under a new management and responsible team, yet only the exact same players who saw it born continue to play. Why isn’t the base of new players increasing? Let’s compare the responsible factors that did not grow the community of that MMO with Polkadot:

1. The inefficiency, poor management and constant changes in the direction of the MMO.
   What if the direction of the project had been managed through an open governance system like OpenGov where active players/users participated in decision-making?
2. The incredibly complicated learning curve of this one.
   What if the game interface had been improved and an easy and friendly initiation route had been proposed for new users/players?
3. The lack of progress in development.
   And if it had been open-source, perhaps it would have been a different story?

From my point of view the Web3 industry and, especially Polkadot, has been and continues to be a niche project for hardcore users as LiF:MMO has been and continues to be (understood by users as developers/creators and clicks not coming from bots). OpenGov, fair communication, easy access and low maintenance costs can change that and scale the adoption of the technology and user base, but it is not something that has to be fast, nor have linear progress, nor have to force anyone to replicate strategies/behaviors (with their errors and benefits) of others similar ecosystems of the same niche.

Web3 Ecosystems & Hardcore MMOs Bubbles

What I always wanted to say is that not all projects or content need marketing campaigns only on Twitter/X to reach new audiences or generate value, and we should not always focus all our efforts on the same acquisition and loyalty channel, it is counterproductive , regardless of the many KOLs or “local communities” that are added to the basket.

The role that it is clear that Twitter/X plays right now is as perhaps the best means to conduct politics and influence the different influential elements of the ecosystem depending on the social node where an entity has ended up being introduced, but only that, please, Polkadot and the blockchain industry in general, we have to get out of the bubble of Twitter feeds and events. Which is fine, it is the best thing for a project in the short term to make itself known and have a presence in those channels, but why always do the same thing and replicate the strategies of some ecosystems among others over and over again?

Continuing with this comparison, it seems that, mainly, on Twitter/X, along with a combination of other platforms and events franchises, our own Web3 Industry Hardcore MMO has been generated with its peculiar bubble, made up of the different ecosystems that form it (alliances) and its different projects/communities (guilds), alongside with the different available activities like collaborations on public Github repositories (PVM) and the tremendously bored twitter spaces (PVP?).

3.7.3 PPC as a solution to outreach?

The fact that DOT seems relatively more “isolated” from other web3 communities is because until now they have had totally different natures (with the exception of a small group of Kusama degens a few years ago and the Moon “boys” (/river/beam /sama). And, above all, the difference in its beginnings when it comes to being able to interact with the network, we could consider that polkadot.js was the maximum killer of the normal user at the beginning, along with another series of factors that will be solved by complete with the Polkadot 2.0 model. Any product that requires more than 2 clicks and stopping more than 30 seconds to understand how to interact with it is a product that only its creators and hardcore gamers will like. It is exactly the same problem that occurs with the learning curve in the example with the MMO mentioned above when it comes to retaining new players/users.

By this, what I mean is that what will attract new users to the ecosystem and what “web3 adoption” will bring will never be PPC alone or large campaigns with influencers but:

1 - Good products that are easy and intuitive to use.
2 - Tools and resources that facilitate access to new developers and projects to work with Polkadot technology stacks.
3 - Leaders (creators) and native communities that inspire and generate culture about web3 and the importance of decentralization.

“Polkadot needs marketing.” Marketing for whom? Polkadot’s target audience has been and continues to be creators with a minimum of technical profile, whether they are developers, students, complete projects, governments… but definitely not directly trading bots. Although perhaps the activity generated by the latter and this entire culture of speculators also enhances progress and adoption from the businesses and communities that are generated around them?

Of course, it is very interesting to attract all this mass of users (and bots) from other ecosystems with innovative DeFi products with good liquidity. To achieve that in the short term, the focus and starting point for new users (coming from EVM ecosystems), according to the network data, perhaps should continue to be the Moonbeam appchain? There are already countless different points of view and possible scenarios here, including the future deployment of Polkadot Plaza.

Here there are already an infinite number of different points of view and possible scenarios, including the future deployment of Polkadot Plaza, or even other products that already exist such as Hydration, among several others, so it is something that is difficult to speculate on. In any case, having several different solutions in the same ecosystem competing in the same sector should only be beneficial, especially due to the secure interoperability offered by Polkadot and XCM. The really interesting thing, in my opinion, is to see which of these solutions attract that mass of users and projects from other ecosystems, in this specific case especially those related to EVM, and which even generate totally new and innovative trends.

3.7.3 So, what is PPC for?

Yes, PPC helps collect data samples in short periods of time, but…

• PPC is not a final solution to content and community isolation.
• PPC does not generate organic communities, but rather helps to sell products/services/ideas.
• PPC does not help generate organic visibility in the long term for content that does not cover a well-defined search intent.

Although certain PPC campaigns have been exceptionally successful for some teams within the ecosystem—such as The Kusamarian on X and Dotcast on YouTube—due to their high-quality work, well-defined products, and regular production capacity, these PPC campaigns are not the ultimate solution for the Polkadot community isolation.

I mean, these last two examples are generating good communities around their content thanks to the quality and consistency of their work, not due to the investment in PPC, although this can be a support to a greater or lesser extent at certain times for certain things.

Therefore, it is essential that new teams and content initiatives, especially aimed at education, also pay great focus on organic collaboration with other media, creators and projects in the ecosystem, while proposing sustainable workflows and content formats, trying to keep a low production cost in terms of time and investment necessary for each individual piece of content.

1. PPC != Communities
2. Consistent Business and Well Defined Products = Communities
3. For the adoption of complex niches such as decentralized ecosystems and technology, relying on big influencers for isolated campaigns promoting products or tokens for short periods is not the most effective approach in general. Instead, we should encourage more the emergence of dedicated and passionate communicators each one offering unique perspectives, ideas and employing diverse strategies and acquisition channels to grow their impact in the ecosystem in the long term.

3.8 Use of AI in Content / Marketing / Development Initiatives Funded by the Polkadot Treasury {#3.8-use-of-ai-in-content-/-marketing-/-development-initiatives-funded-by-the-polkadot-treasury}

Regarding the use of AI in the workflow of a content creator, developer, astronaut, or however you want to define the role of each one, it should be completely mandatory to implement in every workflow for a wide range of tasks. We must know how to use and implement all the tools that can speed up our work, especially when the difference is so great that now complete projects and products can be launched by a single person with patience and perseverance. Or at least manage to lower costs for projects formed by complete teams and not by lonely crazy people.

The use of AI should be used especially in almost all tasks related to transcription and writing. It should be completely mandatory to implement these tools in all marketing/content initiatives and train their directors/creators/whatever, so that they know how to implement them well in their workflow. And in case you think that Google and the rest of popular search engines end up knocking down content generated with AI. That is not entirely true, if Google (or any search engine) does not give visibility to a url/content, it makes no difference whether that content has been marked as generated by AI by a third-party tool such as the popular gptzero. If a piece of content does not rank it is mainly because it is simply of low quality or does not meet a specific search intention, or perhaps several other reasons, it is that simple.

3.9 OpenGov Vibes

Since the beginning of OpenGov and, especially since the appearance of new players in governance, specifically Giotto (among many others, but this has been the one that has had the greatest impact and accelerated the process), indirectly (and directly), they have speed up the polarization of the ecosystem in social networks, which, although the original intentions are good, a conflictive environment to external eyes is not attractive to attract talent organically, that is, without having to resort to agencies in the middle. The same for maintaining talent, it is not pleasant to build openly in a conflictive and polarized environment.

If from the beginning the integrity of the agents with proposals already approved by the treasury is doubted without worrying about doing a minimum of follow-up or asking the author/person in charge, in the end no productive agent (!=political) will have interest in continuing an extended professional career in the ecosystem if they do not even know how to correctly value their work or its impact by the responsible entities (in this specific case and the current state of OpenGov, the DVs and major stakeholders participating in governance).

This is why all DVs and other agents of the ecosystem (politicians) active on social networks, if they are really agents and not internet trolls, should help and support the initiatives of the ecosystem, not continually hesitate with publications calling grifters to the whole world, when really hardly any “thieves” have been seen in the treasury, what has been seen are inefficiencies, incompetence and fictitious economies derived from the social bubbles that are formed in the web3 industry in general, which they do not reflect in any way a real and efficient economy in most cases (which is not something alarming, since from what I am seeing, possible cost overruns are normal in all cutting-edge industries and compared to the most other blockchain ecosystems, Polkadot is clearly the most transparent and the one that iterates the fastest on the results that are obtained).

Every new proposal to the treasury should be celebrated by stakeholders! Just as treasury applicants should be excited and grateful to participate in the ecosystem, not be worried and afraid that “agents” or trolls on Twitter/X or closed groups of “experts” will try to misjudge and put obstacles in the way and activity of the managed initiatives.

To help solve this, it is important that initiatives such as the OGTracker or Opengov.Watch help make the ecosystem and opengov an efficient place, but above all pleasant, attractive and easy to access for current and future productive agents of the web3 industry. For this, logically, opengov monitoring/management initiatives such as those mentioned above are important to maintain, from neutrality, a deep knowledge of the entities that make up the ecosystem and the relationship between them.

As for the “ecosystem political players” who like to be proactive in governance forums almost full-time, it’s great that they also help track proposals made to the OpenGov, of course, but not with the premise of carrying out “a witch hunt” to easy farm engagement on social networks, but with the premise of helping the proposals to communicate with the ecosystem, communicate possible complications, additional achievements… Improve communication between entities and monitor the different events, do not farm engagement. Twitter/X != Governance forum.

If the initiatives and “political agents” that monitor the proposals made to opengov and their impact are based only on identifying who is “good” or who is “bad”, then we would only continue promoting the polarization of the ecosystem, which will not go anywhere if it is continually encouraged.

Opengov != inefficiency

Another additional fact, when it comes to criticizing the performance of the proposals that have been approved in governance or are being approved, until now it is more than evident that the proposals executed during the management of the gov1 council are much less transparent and in more of a case pointed out as aberrantly more expensive and inefficient in terms of investment/impact (such as this example of a single video that cost $178k. Which is not to say that the hours of work dedicated are not worth it, perhaps, but, in any case, there is a lack of clear vision when executing certain “initiatives”). Therefore, try to encourage self-criticism and value how incredible the OpenGov model is and the opportunities it offers in the eyes of true productive agents of the industry who want to build openly, not in the eyes of “agents”/trolls of twitter.

OpenGov should only hope for more good agents opting for it with an idea to develop and a commitment to the ecosystem. What is not needed is more bureaucracy, nor another hundred directors/curators watching a dozen individuals work. We do not need everyone to have an opinion on all issues, nor for all initiatives to be directly related or conditioned to each other. An environment of collaboration and experimentation where different small projects are worked on that try to build a long-term future in the Polkadot ecosystem and Web3 industry in general.

From my point of view, the future Internet and Polkadot should not even need the role of politicians to approve and manage proposals, a large part of the process should be carried out semi-automatically with on-chain reputation systems and AI tools that facilitate the decision-making in governance based on the data input provided by the entities that make the proposals and a series of dynamic guidelines that the community establishes based on the output of the joint results of all the initiatives (something like the “OpenGov strategy” on which the OpenGov.Watch initiative works).

In short, there are many approaches that could be discussed to try to optimize the performance of the governance model and, above all, improve the experience of the entities that opt ​​for it to finance their activity. We will see in the coming years how it evolves. In any case, I am convinced that the future of this lies in one or several on-chain reputation systems, specialized sub-treasuries, a more gamification and automation of a large part of management/monitoring tasks and optimistic financing models in a similar way to what was proposed recently in the Wish for Change track or worked an MVP a few years ago by Shokunin Network.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, proposing such a complex work, including such a number of elements and variables, is a titanic task to ensure that it is as up-to-date and correct as possible. I recommend reading the section of this document that explains the Main Errors to Avoid, Lessons Learned and Advice for New Web3 Adventurers and recommendations when proposing and starting the execution of a long term initiative, to obtain more context and suggestions when opting for Polkadot OpenGov.