Volunteer Tribe for OP Protocols and Projects

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Hi,

I don’t know if this is a crazy or stupid idea…

But I was reading today’s ‘Valid Points’ newsletter from CoinDesk (this newsletter should be uploaded here soon: Valid Points - Breaking down Ethereum’s evolution and its impact on crypto markets), and the main article is all about Arbitrum taking a lead over Optimism in regards to TVL, and even then new competitors are on their way with further advances in technology.

However, the article did mention that Optimism had taken a different growth strategy to Arbritrum, by using the OP token. The OP token is great for governance decisions, has value, but I think one of the best things the launch of OP did was create and drive a thriving community of people who were now emotionally invested in Optimism. Whether these people were from one country or another, were builders or not, small holders or whales, etc etc we all had our reasons to be here (again, whether this was for the cool tech, or to make some money, or save some gas fees, or get involved in governance or voting, or support their favourite apps or influencers, again etc etc).

What I’m getting at is that the OP token has motivated a whole tribe of people who want to see Optimism succeed.
And that this disparate community is an amazing competitive advantage Optimism has in comparison to Arbitrum and other L2s.

So what’s my crazy, stupid idea?

Why don’t we try and harness this community to drive the success of of protocols and projects on Optimism? BUT get this community to do things other than ‘buy OP’, ‘complete this Quest’, ‘use my app and come back’!

Why don’t we have a ‘Volunteer Tribe’ who can offer time and skills to support Optimism, or more specifically the Protocols and Projects who are Optimism native (or who prioritise Optimism).

While the Optimism Ambassadors is a great program, the numbers are too few, the entry level partially high, and ultimately they assist Optimism as a whole, not the individual protocol teams building on Optimism. I was more thinking about volunteers who could help the teams directly.

So, can we setup some type of resource where people can list themselves to be part of the Volunteer Tribe (and no, for the record, I don’t care what this list or group of people is called).

While maintaining their preferred privacy and anonymity, they could list something like:

  • Contact details
  • Specialist skills (or even just note that they want unskilled volunteer work)
  • How many hours a week or month they could volunteer
  • Their available times
  • What projects or protocols they are most interested in working with
  • Country or time zone
  • TBD

This resource is meant to be more open than the Ambassadors program, but not quite a full blown jobs board where specific roles must be listed. Rather, it’s meant to work the other way around, where there’s just a pool of human resources that protocols can search or scour to find people to help with odd tasks, routine activities or particular problems where the investment in staff might not be warranted but it would ‘still be handy to get done’.

The resource could be as informal as replies to this Post, or something more formal and complex online.

In conclusion:
This was just a thought I had when I read the article about Arbitrum taking a lead over Optimism, and I couldn’t shake the idea that we should be using all the people drawn by the OP token to promote or work for the success of Optimism and the apps/protocols that are prioritising this layer 2. I keep thinking, “We may not all be the most rich and powerful here, but geez there’s a lot of us! There must be some advantage we can draw from this, on behalf of Optimism”.

Thanks for your time. I’d be keen to hear your positive thoughts or constructive criticism.

And FYI: I will volunteer to monitor this post, and flesh any ideas out, and can volunteer to push this idea along and get it organised if there is some support for it.

Kind regards,
Axel

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Patience is a virtue when it comes to blockchain technology.

The nerds & ambassador program is undergoing a massive improvement by @Jrocki who is a Citizen’s house delegate member I have worked with in the past on the NFT & Gaming committee last season.

I highly suggest volunteering your time in the discord to maintain the flow of the server with the proper education for new members who are inbound to Optimism network.

Other than that the two cycles of proposed grants currently passing, the rpgf round 2 distribution, and the cohort of anchors from A16z that have started up this week on Optimism are about to have all engines firing at once for the first time. As we watch this flywheel open up in 2023 it makes me feel so very fortunate and grateful to be a part of this network and I will do everything in my power to help build a great product myself on Optimism!

So please hang it there this season is going to be full of unexpected exponential growth on OP chain that no one may be prepared for.

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Thank you so much!

become-an-ambassador channel in Optimism Discord: Discord

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Hi @FractalVisions and @Jrocki and anyone else who ends up reading this read.
I have just woken up, and I wanted to spend more time (and have more coffee!) before I replied to your comments.

But the only thing I did want to say immediately is that the original post was NEVER meant to be a slight against, or show a lack of a appreciation for, the nerds & ambassador program. Personally, I’m not yet much of a Discord user, so I’m not the most familiar with the programs. This unfamiliarity would have been why when I was reading the CoinDesk article my mind didn’t immediately go to the nerds & ambassador program when thinking about possibilities on how to harness the power and talents of the community.

So all I’m trying to say is:

  1. I will respond later today when more awake.
  2. While I mentioned the Ambassadors program a couple of times in my post, I did so with only little knowledge about it. So please don’t think my Post was about, ‘Do this because the Ambassadors program doesn’t’. Because my intention wasn’t meant to be about passing judgement on current activities, but more about possibly adding more things.

Thanks for your time, but for now: I need to finish my coffee :coffee: :slightly_smiling_face:

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@Axel_T you are already contributing by sharing your enthusiasm. I agree that being a part of the token house and participate in governance makes you feel as a part of this amazing experiment.

Sure, I’d also spread the word about the governance experiment.
I wouldn’t be worried about other L2, I think there’s room for everyone, but what makes OP special is the way they’re conducting a 2 cameras governance experiment and we are too early to see the power of this.

I’ll answer to that. I’d love to participate in projects on community collaboration for solving or helping on real life problems.

What are your interest?

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Thanks for the reply @TheDoctor

I appreciate you sharing your interests.

To respond to your question:
My personal interest for silly fun with mass appeal: Apps like Overtime Markets.
My personal interest for career development: Apps in the DeFi space. I’ve very much enjoyed using Kwenta and Velodrome since the Quest period.
My personal interest based on pure potential for the tech: Voting apps (government and public company applications), Predictive Markets apps (specifically, high impact event predication where my interest is in economic data and TradFi equity markets), non-artistic NFT applications (e.g. supply chain provenance, and asset or registry tokenisation), apps that can introduce a broader user base of corporates and small businesses and link into their existing web2 tech (I’ve heard this described as DeCom, i.e. decentralised commerce), apps that can increase the transparency, accountability, and comparability of financial and sustainability information and reporting, and finally an interest in soul-based tokens and identity/reputation applications.

But I think if you asked me again in another month, then this answer might all change again :smile:

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Thanks for your patience with my reply @FractalVisions

I appreciate your input and I think I understand your meaning in your request for patience, and prioritising quality over acceleration.
From the dwindling lack of activity on this post, there isn’t a viral groundswell of support for this idea, regardless.
But I will continue to monitor the post, engage with any replies, and possibly ‘bump’ the post on an infrequent basis.

Thanks further for tagging @Jrocki and discussing the nerds & ambassador program. I’ll await an update on Discord (but I’ll have to get into the habit of checking Discord regularly!).
I think I have already replied with the required emoticon to register my interest for the wannabe-ambasssdors list; I hope this is the correct process.
But @Jrocki if you need some help ‘maintaining the flow of the server’ on Discord, as Fractal Visions suggested, then feel free to reach out and shoot me a message and I can volunteer 2-4 hours a week being online on Discord (if you wanted to recruit volunteers outside of your planned system). Feel free.

Thanks for your time both of you, and to anyone in the future who ends up reviewing this thread.

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Zero offense taken and I love the idea and enthusiasm!!

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Message me your discord name so I know who you are :slight_smile:

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Thanks :pray: for being here on Optimism.
The future is bright for layer 2 scaling solutions. I look forward to any other discussions we have in the future and see the forums becoming a very vibrant container for conversations. Creative think tanks are a good way to bring everyone together.

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Hi @Jrocki I have the same discord name as here, @Axel_T

But please give me two weeks, if we are doing this.
I need to get up to speed with Discord and know how it & flows.
I’ve only used Discord about a dozen times in total, feel quite overwhelmed by it at the moment, and need to get the hang of it. I’m confident I will, I just need to give it a daily go, for at least two weeks.

But message me on Discord, and let’s if we can do anything from there?
Cheers!

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Thanks very much for the support. I sincerely appreciate it.
As a small self-delegate, who is a non-developer, and employed outside the industry, your support is very pleasing to hear and is very reassuring.
Cheers, and have a great weekend.

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Super interested the DeCom concept! I know for a fact that there are much value hidden there. In general, I’d go for the new, so I love all this except from market prediccion (I don’t believe it is possible)

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I agree that the idea of a Volunteer Tribe has potential and could be a valuable way to leverage the strengths of the Optimism community to support the success of projects on the network. If implemented effectively, this could be a win-win for both volunteers and projects in the network, helping to build a stronger and more vibrant ecosystem. I appreciate your creative thinking and hope that your idea inspires further discussion and action within the Optimism community.

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