by 0xe6af22b8fd4a2fdfec9a0b18c6be9683882d70e6 (Yararasita)
Linked Draft Proposal
DAO grants program - New Category: Community Experiences
Summary
Create a Community Experiences category for the Decentraland DAO Grants Program, to serve the needs of our community of creators who bring people together in the reference client, generating value in community engagement.
Abstract
After an analysis from the Grant Support Squad on Q2 funded grants, an open session with the community, hearing thoughts from the DAO on the previous governance poll, among other conversations with several stakeholders, grantees and advisors, we are submitting this Governance Proposal to create the Community Experiences (in the previous draft referenced as Community Experiences) category. If the proposal passes, some changes in the existing Grants Framework must be done along with its creation. This includes the proper definition of the categories to avoid overlapping in objectives, and changes in the percentages of allocation of budget in current categories. We have decided to pursue both in different draft governance proposals. This one will address the details of the Community Experiences category, including its requirements, impact metrics and the delimitations of scope of existing categories. Another draft governance proposal with the name “DAO GRANTS PROGRAM - BUDGETARY REDISTRIBUTION” will address the percentages of allocation of budget. From the Categories definition and scope, we suggest to make the following specifications: In world building (current In-world content): Aims to build architecture to populate Land. The experiences can be scenes and games for Decentraland users through in-world. Community experiences (this proposal): Aims to bring people together in-world and generate community engagement. This can include creating wearables and emotes, or organizing events to gather with others and ignite fun community interactions. Social Media (currently has the same name): Aims to generate social media content to bring new audiences to Decentraland. The other categories (Documentation, Platform, Core Units, Sponsorship and Accelerator) will remain the same.
Motivation
As stated in the poll, During Q2 which finished in June 2023, we detected grant proposals that could fit into two or more categories, and that there are great projects that are not addressed by our program. One example is the type of grant that aims to onboard new members to Decentraland for specific target audiences, like DCL Brazil. In this case, the grantee requested a Documentation Grant, which was not compliant with the Category, but the proposal was valuable for community building and onboarding new members. There are also valuable DAO members that make community-building experiences and events, like ABC Decentraland, or CBD - Community Building Decentraland who share knowledge with newcomers and ignite interaction among Decentraland users and DAO members. On the other hand, in the near past, the community has voted YES for the Ambassadors Program, and one of the principal objectives was to empower community members. We strongly agree with the spirit of the proposal, and think it would be a good investment to support these valuable community stewards that make the experience in Decentraland more exciting and fun. With these inputs, we hosted an open session with the community to discuss the creation of a new category in the Grants program, named Community Experiences, and we created a poll. We also consulted with several stakeholders, grantees and advisors to gather valuable insights in building this proposal.
Concerns so far that have been taken into account:
- The community has expressed the concerns of not closing the possibility of newcomers to be able to submit proposals, so we have deleted the requirement posted in the poll regarding the “Demonstrated commitment to community building within Decentraland: Proven track record of organizing and facilitating community events, initiatives, or educational programs” as we agree that we don’t want to close the possibility of new creators to join us in building a Metaverse owned and created by its users. We want to be open, welcoming and friendly to our fellow creators who want to join us in this quest. We have added track record as something that is valuable in the brief description, and not as a requirement.
- The community has expressed the concern of adjusting this proposal to not only mention the reference client, as there are other clients being developed and maintained. We do not aim to disencourage the development, use, maintenance or promotion of other reference clients, so we have changed the scope from reference client to in-world, to cover them.
Specification
Name of new category: Community Experiences
Brief description: Aims to bring people together in-world to generate community engagement. This can include creating wearables and emotes, or organizing events to gather with others and ignite fun community interactions. A proven track record of organizing and facilitating community events, initiatives, or educational programs is highly valuable.
Category Requirements:
- Define how your project will contribute to community building in the Decentraland Ecosystem.
- Development of attractive experiences in Decentraland that generate retention of users in the form of events, exchanges of wearables, emotes or other interactions consumed by players in-world.
- The proposal should include how you will collaborate with other community builders, Core Units, or projects to foster cross-community partnerships.
- The proposal should include the development of resources, tutorials, or guides that help explore the Decentraland Metaverse or onboarding new community members for these experiences.
Impact metrics:
- Number of community members engaged or impacted through Community Experiences initiatives. This can be measured by event attendees, wearables minted, or other pertinent metrics based on the specific proposal.
- Feedback and testimonials from community members regarding the value and impact of the proposal’s contributions. This can be shown in the monthly updates of the grant as quotes from users who come to the community building experiences or other stakeholders. - Growth and activity metrics of the community platforms, scenes in-world forums, or social media groups facilitated by these Community Builders.
Impacts
With the Category impact metrics, we will be able to measure in the next Quarters, which is the real impact this category has in our platform in terms of community engagement, participation, and new users. The main goal of this proposal is to better serve grantees, have successful projects, and grow the community of creators. By measuring the number of community members engaged, hearing the feedback and testimonials of community members and growth of users in the referent client, we will measure the success of the category itself.
Implementation Pathways
For the implementation of this category, we need to follow the next steps:
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Allocation of category budget: We need to reach a consensus with the Decentraland DAO community to understand how much money we need to allocate for this category. A governance proposal is being drafted to address this need. A poll has passed. A draft governance proposal was rejected. The next step is to make an open session with the community to gather inputs, thoughts and things we need to take into account to upload a second governance draft proposal to achieve this purpose.
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Coordinate with the GovApp team: After the category budget is set, we need to coordinate with the Governance Squad, who is the team in charge of the technical implementation in our platform. This includes the changing of the json file that allocates the percentage of funds for each Q, and the addition of the category in the grants request page, plus adding a new form specifically for this category.
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Update documentation: While the changes are done, the grant support squad has to implement these changes in the Grants documentation page.
Conclusion
The implementation of the Community Experiences category would help the Decentraland Grants Program by covering the needs of the Decentraland members who make an outstanding work building community, and generating fun experiences in-world, igniting valuable engagement. In the past, this type of creators haven’t been able to successfully apply to grants under the current categories as their activities and impact metrics would fall under two or more categories, or were not covered by our current categories. It would also help us better define the categories objectives, like Social Media (which would aim to to bring people from other communities to Decentraland) and In-world Content (which would aim to build architecture to populate land with games and builds) and add this Community Experiences category (which would aim to generate engagement), allowing each of these categories to cover specific needs.