Kudos: Unlocking the Full Potential of Polkadot’s Developer Community
We will be opening a treasury proposal in the coming days requesting support for the future development of the Kudos Portal. We would love to get some feedback from the community regarding our ideas.
Context
The motivation for the Kudos Portal stemmed from a shared challenge encountered as successful graduates of the Polkadot Blockchain Academy in Berkeley. Despite being equipped with specialised skills in Polkadot technologies, we, along with many fellow alumni, found it difficult to immediately secure roles within the ecosystem, mainly due to the global tech hiring slowdown. Unfortunately, the lack of open roles in the Polkadot space at the time led to many skilled individuals accepting roles in other blockchain ecosystems or Web2 industries. One potential path to getting hired into the ecosystem is via contributing to the open source repositories with the hope of providing value and getting noticed. However, the difficulty with this method came into sharp focus during an alumni catch up at the sub0 Polkadot Developer Conference in Lisbon. Here we discussed the daunting task of navigating the Polkadot ecosystem to find suitable projects that aligned with our interests and skill levels. With over 25 000 repositories in the Polkadot ecosystem, efficiently locating and contributing to relevant open issues seemed nearly impossible.
In response, we developed the initial version of the Kudos Portal (available at morekudos.com), which offers:
Unified Repository Access: Aggregating all ecosystem repositories into a single platform, simplifying the discovery process for developers.
Project Categorisation: Allowing users to filter projects by interests, categories, and programming languages to find opportunities that best match their skill set and passions.
While the alpha version of the Kudos Portal has started addressing the key challenges of navigation and engagement within the Polkadot ecosystem, there is a substantial need to broaden and deepen the solutions it offers.
Competitive Landscape
OnlyDust has made significant strides in improving the developer experience as it relates to open source contributions. They currently support over 200 projects from 5 ecosystems, Cosmos, Ethereum, Starknet, Optimism and Aptos. Regarding contribution incentives, OnlyDust currently distributes roughly $500K per week. We see an opportunity to improve on their centralised approach by leveraging the unique decentralised capabilities of the Polkadot platform, such as OpenGov, Asset Hub, and XCM, to create even more powerful tools for our community.
Problems
The Polkadot ecosystem, while robust and innovative, presents several significant challenges that impede both new and experienced developers from effectively engaging and contributing. First and foremost, gaining a comprehensive overview of the ecosystem is daunting due to the sheer volume of information and the limited tools available to navigate this vast landscape. This complexity is compounded by the absence of metrics that track trends and activities, making it difficult for developers to identify where their efforts might be most needed or appreciated.
Moreover, finding suitable contribution opportunities that align with a developer’s specific skill level, interests, and preferred development languages or technologies proves to be a strenuous task. The lack of effective filtering and search tools means that developers often miss out on projects that could benefit from their unique skills and experiences. Similarly, opportunities to earn rewards are not easily discoverable, which could otherwise incentivize more sustained and impactful contributions.
The challenges extend to interpersonal connections within the ecosystem as well. There is a noticeable gap in opportunities for finding mentorship and guidance from more experienced developers, which is crucial for professional growth and effective contribution.
Project teams also face hurdles, primarily in attracting developers to build with their tools and platforms and in finding contributors for their open source projects. Gaining visibility among the vast developer community remains a persistent challenge, further exacerbating the difficulty in driving project progress and adoption.
Lastly, the community interaction within Polkadot is hindered by limited feedback mechanisms. Developers and users alike struggle to interact with projects in a meaningful way, whether it's providing feedback, requesting enhancements, or simply engaging in dialogue about future directions. This lack of robust interactive channels stifles community-driven development and the iterative improvement of projects based on user input.
Solutions
To address the identified challenges within the Polkadot ecosystem, the Kudos Portal plans to introduce several innovative features designed to streamline and enrich the developer experience.
Project Homepages
Project homepages on the Kudos Portal will provide a dynamic snapshot of each project's activity, highlighting open "good first issues," available rewards, and comprehensive developer resources. This feature allows new and experienced developers alike to quickly gauge a project's activity level and discover opportunities to contribute that are aligned with current project needs and their own capabilities. Additionally, each homepage will provide contact information, including the main maintainers and links to communication channels such as Telegram or Discord. This ensures developers have immediate access to points of contact, facilitating easier communication and faster integration into the project community.
Contributor Profiles
Contributor profiles will offer a detailed view of individual developers' contribution metrics, active engagements, rewards earned, and displayed interests and skills. Profiles also indicate whether the developer is open to work, facilitating a more efficient matching process between projects seeking specific skills and developers looking for opportunities. This visibility will not only aid developers in showcasing their capabilities but also helps project teams in recruiting the right talent.
Personalized Developer Notifications
Through personalised notifications, the Kudos Portal will ensure that developers are promptly informed about new contribution opportunities that match their specific interests. This feature will minimise the time developers spend searching through irrelevant content, allowing them to focus more on making meaningful contributions directly aligned with their expertise and project preferences.
Community Wishlist
The Community Wishlist will serve as an ecosystem hub where community members can post, discuss, and upvote feature requests and project ideas. This direct feedback mechanism will not only foster a collaborative community atmosphere but also guides developers and project teams on what features or improvements are most desired, helping prioritise development efforts that have community support and potential for treasury funding.
Metrics Pages
Metrics pages will provide real-time data on project and developer activity within the ecosystem. These pages will help track engagement levels, identify trends, and spotlight areas needing more developer support or resources. By offering insights into both project and individual contributions, these metrics empower developers and project teams with the data needed to make informed decisions and adjust strategies for better outcomes.
Curated Issues
Working collaboratively with project teams, the Kudos Portal will facilitate the curation of high-quality, well-documented issues, making it easier for new contributors to begin making impactful contributions. This approach not only lowers the barrier for entry by clarifying expectations and reducing initial complexity but also enhances the overall quality of contributions across the ecosystem. We are already in discussions with the maintainers of several Polkadot ecosystem projects.
Team & Ask
Igor Papadinas - https://github.com/ipapandinas
Software Engineer, blockchain specialised
Leandro Palazzolo - https://github.com/leapalazzolo
Software Engineer, specialised in web3 projects.
Connor Campbell - https://github.com/CJ13th
Software Engineer, blockchain focused.
The Kudos team has many years of full stack software development experience in both the Web2 and Web3 world. We each graduated from the engineering track (Igor graduated from the founders track too!) of the Polkadot Blockchain Academy Berkeley edition and have participated in and won important prizes in various Polkadot hackathons. Some our notable achievements include:
Polkadot x Encode Hackathon - 1st place with Kudos Ink!
Polkadot x Encode Accelerator Program - Shipped Kudos Portal v1
Polkadot Winter Hackathon - Hong Kong - 1st place
We are requesting $128 000 (17,822.33 DOT) to fund the development of the Kudos Portal for a period of 1 year to aid us in delivering on the milestones specified in the proposal linked below.
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