emielsebastiaan
commented
4 years ago Polkascan.io has been operational since the launch of Kusama CC1 and has been a valuable resource for the ecosystem since then. We have made substantial non-negligible out-of-pocket expenses without any form of funding. We are an independent organization in the ecosystem and not affiliated in any way with either Web3 Foundation or Parity Technologies. We have been recipient of Web3 Foundation grants, but those funds have been spent on the development activities of the platform. Polkascan will commit to reserving the KSM sum of the backdated expenses. It will not be sold on exchanges for at least 12 month. It will be used for on-chain activities, such as: nominating, voting or elections. Longer term it could be used as a buffer for unexpected expenses.
The feedback we have received leads me to believe that this back-dated payment may actually be the only controversial part of this document. I will make serveral arguments why I believe we can justify the back-dated payment:
- Added value argument: We have provided the polkascan.io service at our own non-negligible expenses for eight months for a Canary network (with tradeable value). We believe that the polkascan.io service has had substantial added value for this community. Permalinked reference on the communication channels, github and exchanges are testament to that. Additionally because we service polkascan.io and we have our hot databases we have been able to contribute to key events like runtime upgrades and storage database migrations and been able to 'save the day' on more than one occasion. Backdated payment is justified because of this argument.
- Timing argument: We have had this document lying on the shelf for a few months. We have been discussing treasury funding for our operational expenses for over a year (Relay Chain Podcast recorded Arpil 2019) and have been in dialogue with Parity Technolgies' management team members for a while to discuss how to approach this. We have had some legal considerations and wanted to approach this the right way, resulting in founding Polkascan Foundation in January 2020. Additionally I strongly feel that the Council was not up to the task of having a discussion on this topic up to this week (21 April 2020). Timing is now right to start a dialogue on on sustainably funding ecosystem service providers. Backdated payment is justified because of this argument.
- Core-value alignment argument: I have personally been a long-time public advocate of sustainable funding methods for ecosystem service providers. I have been advocating this on the record in Griff Green's 'Open Block Explorers Now' channel since before the existence of the Polkadot & Substrate ecosystems. Those ecosystems have on-chain governance and on-chain treasuries as a mechanism to sustainably fund the ecosystem development and ecosystem service providers even after steward organizations (like Web3 Foundation) deplete their funds. Backdated payment is justified because of this argument.
- Relational argument: We are trying to prove to this Community and Council that we are here to stay. We want to build a reciprocal relationship between the Kusama Council/Community and Polkascan Foundation. Such a relationship should be grounded in some level of trust. We feel that we have earned that trust. Polkascan does not aspire to have a transactional relationship with the Kusama Council/Community. We aim to use this (social) contract to improve and mature our services. It is a game of give and take. Backdated payment is justified because of this argument.
- Money-grab argument: We are no asking for a back-dated KSM valuation for the back-dated payment.
Why is Polkascan Foundation asking for one-off backdated payment? (context: the initial Kusama Social Contract).