[DAO:da1929a] Genesis city map, 6-month renewal

by 0xb3197cad2032899ef2f33bf0e8a26f3ac5b48b03 (seibo)

Should the following $32,700 grant in the Platform category be approved?

Abstract

Maintain, update, and improve https://genesis.city/, a top-down map of Decentraland. This is an extension of the previous grant:
Genesis city map, 6-month renewal

We’ll continue maintaining the website, running the mapping script weekly, and improving the product according to community feedback.

Grant size

32,700 USD in DAI

Project duration

6 months

Beneficiary address

0x74B495aC736874BfD53bC8238a8f8fa2b195833F

Email address

seibo03@gmail.com

Description

As you may know, we have been fortunate enough to receive funding from the Decentraland DAO three times in the past (1,2,3), which has enabled us to keep our project running and growing.

In December 2022, our last grant was approved to continue working on features for the map and regularly update the project.

In the past six months, we have made significant progress. We added two new layers: “Points of Interest” and “Estates”, which we also polished to provide a better user experience.

Points of Interest layer:


Estates layer:

Furthermore, we’ve implemented a permalinks system that allows users to link to specific coordinates on the map and updates the URL when moving the map. We have also added a parcel information modal that appears when you click on a specific parcel on the map. This sign displays the parcel URL link, which users can copy and share.


We’ve allowed the community to report broken coordinates, which has enabled us to make more accurate weekly updates to the map with the help of our users.


Finally, we improved our project’s maintenance processes and stability. We paid off some technical debt, fixed bugs, and improved our database backup system.

On the team front, our previous developer (Rodrigo Heredia) left the project, and we welcomed Ivan as our new developer.

We remain committed to engaging with our community and continue to receive valuable feedback from our users, including requests for new features and improvements.

This grant will set up a budget, including salaries and expenses (web hosting, image storage, and domain name renewal), to run this team for the next 6 months of developments and updates. We will request further grants in the future if the community continues to be happy with our work.

Roadmap and milestones

As the Genesis City project approaches its second year, our team has been reflecting on our mission and vision.
We have defined the following objectives:

  • Help the community discover Decentraland content
  • Make people want to upload more content to Decentraland

We will update the map weekly for 6 months. Once that time has elapsed we will request another grant.

Here are some of the projects in our roadmap:

  • Create a user survey for gathering project feedback
  • Implement a search feature for locating particular areas
  • Share weekly parcel/scene recommendations from our team
  • Dark mode Layer
  • Establish a communication channel with the Foundation and showcase their featured content
  • Create and share weekly tweets to increase project visibility
  • Add status to the permalink system
  • Add ability to log in with Metamask and display user-owned lands
  • Move bug reporting to Netlify forms
  • Add land/estate metadata on mouse over
  • Go-to-marketplace for parcels on sale and rent Layer
  • API for getting images from the map centered at specific coordinates
  • Integrate livestream of virtual cameras from certain points in DCL
  • Create a scoring system for the lands (review system)
  • Offer isometric views (e.g., for Points of Interest)

(more in comments)

We will continue improving the website and mapping script based on this list and future suggestions by our community. Please let us know which features are the most important to you, so we can prioritize accordingly.

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

Adding some of the projects in our roadmap that did not fit in the proposal, due to character limit:

  • Implement a clickable icon that opens a modal with the project changelog
  • Upload tutorials on how to use our features to Twitter
  • Display the image from the official client’s map when clicking a POI on our map
  • Modify the “Recent changes Layer” to show content from the previous week instead of displaying a red section
  • Visitors heatmap Layer
  • Number of live users per Estate Layer
  • Integrate with https://dcl-metrics.com/
  • Add ability to have bookmarks/favorite destinations
  • Add historical versions of images (to see the growth/change of an area over time)
  • Colors by owners Layer

IMPACT METRICS

A working version can be found at https://genesis.city/

Repositories:

  1. Website: GitHub - genesis-city/genesis.city: Decentraland map
  2. Scouter: GitHub - genesis-city/scouter
  3. Unity Renderer: GitHub - genesis-city/unity-renderer: Unity implementation of Decentraland Client

We’re using GitHub to host the images, and Netlify to handle deployments and building the website.

Some users love the map!

I really love this project, the features are amazing, but should we move towards making this part of the default DCL map? How long will this stay separate from DCL to the tune of 80K/year?

I like this project but have some questions and concerns. I notice that the original grant went from $5000 to $36,000 to $33,000. Why the drastic jump? Do appreciate the decrease from the last one but is there a way to bring this down further? Is there any type of way for this to become self sustainable or will this just continue to need to be funded by the DAO? If that is the case there definitely needs to be a way to bring the cost down. I will vote yes, however I believe there needs to be some exploration into those issues, IMO.

Restating it here as a comment because it’s a little bit hidden in the Personnel section:

maraoz will be gradually reducing his involvement, starting from this grant. Following this period, maraoz’s participation will continue to decrease until he is no longer involved, allowing the team to take full ownership of the project.

Just wanted to give the community a heads up that I’m working on making https://genesis.city/ a self-driven and self-managed team.

I would like to know or see some kind of metrics for Genesis City Map? Who would need to use this map & for what reasons? I don’t see the any reason why we should continuously fund this project. This could be said for many other projects who had little or no impact so far. DAO is not a charity. I am voting NO.

I recently talked about Genesis City map on our Twitter space, and I was surprised how many people said “I never knew this existed!”. (You quoted some of those responses up above)

How do you intend to make Genesis City map a staple that people know about? Since you have already received a large sum from the DAO, I feel like marketing your project should have been more strongly prioritized. I LOVE Genesis City map, I’m just surprised more people don’t know about it. I don’t think DAO funded projects should sit in obscurity… they need to be actively sharing their progress and marketing themselves so as many people are aware of the content as possible. Thank you :slight_smile:

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Besides the marketing, what sort of impact Genesis City Map had or has? I am wanting to hear a logical explanation as to why this should exist? how does it help the overall eco-system?, what are the benefits?

Genesis City Map already received multiple fundings from DAO and it had little or no impact so far. I feel these funds would be better utilised in the ongoing VR & 2D clients.

@Existential14 + CheddarQueso
The increase in the grant amount from $5,000 to $36,000 and then to $33,000 was primarily due to the expansion of our team. We hired a dedicated programmer and a project manager (myself) to ensure efficient maintenance, regular updates, and community-driven improvements to the website. These additions allowed us to enhance the quality of the map and better address user feedback.

Regarding the sustainability of the project, we currently do not have plans for self-sustainability. However, we are open to exploring possibilities in this regard. For now, we don’t want to hurt the product with ads or some other monetization strategy.

@JasonX
We appreciate your feedback, although we disagree with your perspective. While we understand that not every project may resonate with everyone, the Genesis City Map has garnered significant support from the community, as evidenced by the multiple grants we have received.

The Genesis City Map serves as a valuable resource for the Decentraland ecosystem. It provides users with an intuitive and visually appealing top-down view of the virtual world, allowing them to navigate and explore the various virtual lands and assets within Decentraland. The map has proven to be highly useful for both newcomers and experienced users who are looking to discover, buy, sell, or interact with virtual properties.

If you’re interested, here are some usage metrics too:

Metrics alone may not fully capture the value and impact of a project, especially in the early stages of development. The Genesis City Map serves as a user-friendly tool that aids in navigation and exploration within Decentraland, hoping to cover the lacks of the official client’s map.

I explore all kinds of different areas in DCL and have never used this map. I think I saw it once. I am going to vote yes this time for the 6 month extension, however without there being a way to self support it becomes necessary to come back and I am afraid it may become more difficult to for it pass. So am I suggesting if not finding a way to self support, perhaps there is a way to self update. I am not techy so that could be totally out of the question but with smart contracts is that a possibility and something you could look into.
Thank you.

I love this project, but I’m not sure it’s adding enough direct value back to Decentraland at this time to fund continuously. I voted yes this time, but you need to do some marketing to get awareness to your project to DCL users. You can have the best project in the world, but if people aren’t aware you exist, then they won’t use whatever it is you’ve created.

1 Like

Genesis city map, 6-month renewal

This proposal is now in status: PASSED.

Voting Results:

  • Yes 91% 6,961,299 VP (83 votes)
  • No 8% 646,521 VP (5 votes)
  • Abstain 1% 301 VP (2 votes)

Hi, we tried to reach out to you but emails to seibo03@gmail.com bounced. Is there a better email contact we can use?

Genesis city map, 6-month renewal

This proposal has been ENACTED by a DAO Committee Member (0x88013d7ed946dd8292268a6ff69165a97a89a639)

Vesting Contract Address: 0xbd4c2c464ffc304069856df4f69961e26f3fafb4