About applications aimed at increasing participation in Astar Forum

Economics
1

This is my first time making a proposal to the forum.
If the method is wrong, please feel free to point it out.

Particularly in discussions in some stakeholder communities in Japan, current issues that seem to be emerging include a gap in understanding of technical knowledge between the core team and stakeholders, and timelines related to development and operations. I feel that there is a slightly larger gap in the way we perceive

Regardless of whether you need to solve it yourself or not.

It can be said that the low participation rate in the Astar portal forum, which has been an issue for some time, has exacerbated this issue.

I believe that by having stakeholders participate in the forum, the gap will become smaller and it will become easier to understand the intentions of Mr. Sota, the core team, agents, etc.

I think there are many people who are not familiar with the fact that Forum is a decentralized environment.

Personally, I feel that the people currently participating in the forum are limited to those who have a strong desire and sense of responsibility for the project.

On the other hand, I feel that the people who don’t participate are simply because they don’t see the meaning in participating in the forum.

Currently, people may hesitate to participate in the forum because they feel that it takes time and effort to log in to the Astar portal and participate in the forum.

Also, in order to participate in the forum, you will not be able to know about new topics unless you are constantly following the information.

The benefits of the app that I would like to suggest are:

  1. You can receive notifications

  2. You can log in with confidence using the app

3.Easy to find topics

  1. Easy to view anywhere

  2. Feel free to vote anywhere

  3. Complete with smartphone

etc.

We also believe that it is possible to lower hurdles when it comes to language barriers and difficult words by using AI to provide translations and explanations.

I also hope that by making the app more versatile and creating a system where users can receive incentives by adding functionality as a wallet, it will motivate people to participate.

For example, as a participation reward

・When you propose an agenda

・When commenting on a discussion

・When you vote

etc.

If you want to entrust your voting rights, pay a fee.

etc.

I think that using $ASTR could be one of the use cases.

I imagine that there are things that can and cannot be done considering the positions of many people involved in ASTR, but the purpose is to encourage participation in the forum, improve the knowledge of stakeholders, and meet market demand for the core team. I believe that if it becomes an application that can absorb information, we can expect the development of ASTR and the sharing of strategies.

I think it is best to plan the development of an application after it is needed.

I have experience drawing drawings in the construction industry, but I have never designed an application.The only knowledge I have is that I obtained a Japanese national qualification in information processing called Entry-level Administrator when I was young, but I have no experience in designing applications. I think it would be good to have

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2

Hello, glad to see your post on the Forum!

I agree that it is easier for more people to participate in the Forum. This is very important as it will lead to higher turnout in governance.

I do think there are aspects of the app that would be useful, but the more difficult issue is that it would be difficult to develop and manage the resources. Also, it would be very difficult to include even a wallet function.
Ideally, Astar Foundation and Startale should basically concentrate on the protocol layer and BizDev, and the applications should be developed by third parties.
And if it is useful, then subsidize it. The drawback is that this application is difficult to generate business revenue, so you always need to get the running costs out of the treasury, and then there is the question of who will design and develop it.

For ease of understanding, Townhall has an AI summary function, although it is currently under further development for Governance 1.0.

Both Forum and Townhall can also receive notifications by email.

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3

I am very happy that you are looking at the topic.

You’re in an environment that already has more features than I expected.

If you want to answer the problem you are thinking about

Q. Deploying with a third party?

A. Someone starts a business. Or ask an existing company

Q. How do you manage running costs?

A.dApps Staking

Q.What about management and operations?

A. The community does it in DAO

This is not an easy task.

I think I need to think a little deeper

I think the biggest advantage of making it into an app is that it’s easy.

However, if the existing system is sufficient, it is best to think about ways to attract stakeholders to the system.

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4

I agree with you, having more stakeholders participating in governance is the right way to focus. Most of the time users don’t pay attention to the Forum and skip all the community related voting topics. As @you425 mentioned, Astar is already working on a solution to attract more community votes for important decisions :grin:

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5

Thanks for letting me know.

I believe that the participation of many stakeholders in the Forum will grow the Astar network!

I guess I was not knowledgeable enough about the existing efforts to do so!

However, I am sure that many other stakeholders feel what I feel as well!

The development and operation of the application is challenging at this point in time.
I could think of it as a shortcut to onboarding stakeholders who are not able to participate in the Forum to the existing system, instead of the effort it would require.

Thank you very much.

6

Hi @airlmo welcome to join the forum and see your interests.

On top of what @you425 and @VasaKing explained above, you can have a look at what is being discussed for governance, for example,

I also totally agree with that participation of the stakeholders would be a great beneficial for the ecosystem in general. And hope for the forum and/or other social media channels to be great places to be discussed constructive aspects for Astar Network and its ecosystem.

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7

thank you for your reply @pithecus

I am very happy to have been provided with a very interesting forum for discussion.
There were many things I didn’t know about Town Hall.

I also think that it is very important for people involved with Astar to participate in discussions.
I also learned that there are many things I need to know before that.

I feel that I need to know what direction Astar is heading in from now on. Similarly, I believe that stakeholders can create a healthy environment by knowing what is going on.

I would like to continue to actively participate in discussions.
Thank you very much.

8

Thanks for the reply!

If you are going to create an app, I think it would be appropriate to create a dedicated Sub DAO as Astar and have a treasury for it.
I don’t see how any particular company or developer can release an app without incurring the burden since there is no revenue potential, it should be done as a public project for Astar. It would also be difficult to cover the running costs with dApp Staking. Probably need to maintain Tier 2 and above.
Some infrastructure services regularly charge costs on the Forum, so I think it could be done similarly.

By the way, the fundamental problem is that if you create an app with governance as the main focus, most users will not install it. In that sense, I think it would be effective to have a wallet as the main application and have governance notifications appear there.
Then it might be better to have the functionality added to an existing wallet like Subwallet. I don’t know if it can be done.

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9

Thank you for your valuable opinions and suggestions.
I believe your actions will serve as a reference for others.

Now, regarding the actual issues, I am also aware of them. However, I think it might be difficult to solve them just by providing the app you are thinking of. This is because, objectively speaking, the content you are trying to implement in the app is already quite similar to what is currently implemented in the forum from 1 to 6.

Implementing wallet and AI functions will likely incur development costs. For this, if the development cost estimate is approved, it may be possible to provide it from the treasury, but as others have said, continuous maintenance is necessary. It could become a project in itself.

I believe that the perspective of incentivizing users to participate in discussions, react, post, and vote is quite effective. However, there is also a challenge here, as Crypto Native people tend to act from the perspective of “earning,” which may not be very essential, so control becomes very important. This could also become a project in itself.

I appreciate that you have given us a starting point. Among your proposals, there are several challenges that need to be overcome, so it is important to assess feasibility and proceed with discussions.

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10

I do agree with the comments raised in both of them. In fact, creating an app, which would be intended for governance, may face problems with user onboarding and maintenance costs afterwards.

Probably a public project could be suitable for Astar in which governance notifications would be integrated into an existing wallet like Subwallet. Of course, this could add the development costs by adding wallet and AI functions, but these could be covered by treasury funds upon approval. While incentivizing participation could be effective, it would have to be handled with care to avoid purely profit-driven behavior.

In any case, what is needed is an assessment of the viability of such propositions, further debates on how and which ones to actually carry out, and the exact way to go about doing it.

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11

@you425
@tksarah
@Matt

thank you for your reply

In my opinion, the most appealing aspect of the application is that it is safe and easy.
However, unlike web2, web3 has a heavy burden of self-responsibility.

Especially for the generation that grew up on web2.
・When connecting to wallet
・Clicking on links introduced on SNS too easily
・Opening a dangerous website, mistaking it for an official website, etc.

Everything is a threat to moving forward.

We thought that we could reduce that risk by making it an application.

However, it is understandable that there are significant barriers to its application.

・Development costs are high

・It takes effort to operate

・Large scale of development

each is a difficult task

As a prelude to application development, it is important to remember that the fundamental objective is high-quality communication and collaboration with stakeholders.

Throughout the history of information technology, community-based applications have been developed for free.

Having worked in the construction industry, I have benefited from great and versatile free software like JW_CAD.

By harnessing the infinite power of the community, we can expect development and collaboration.

Rather than rushing to create an application, it may be better to deepen our understanding of the existing system and involve more stakeholders in the discussion.

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12

HI! I think you have raised a very relevant question regarding participation in the forum. I think that the lack of participation from common users, other than the fact that many do not know that it is a decentralized environment, is the fact that there is a knowledge gap to be able to “give your opinion”. Another obstacle is certainly the confusion that a new user has when dealing with the forum where there are a lot of topics, perhaps started some time ago and therefore difficult to understand if you have not followed the story from the beginning. Surely making everything more user friendly with AI that translates and perhaps makes simple summaries that summarize the topic etc makes the forum more accessible for everyone
 Another solution is to somehow encourage active participation in votes/proposals etc
 this definitely helps

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13

@SimonB

Thank you for your reply

i agree with your opinion

This is my first time participating in a forum and I have found Astar Forum to be a very thoughtful and easy to use system.

I never imagined that until I joined.

I think the first challenge for beginners is the desire to take a step forward.

As SimonB said, as a current issue

  1. I think the first challenge for beginners is the desire to take a step forward.

  2. Beginners feel they don’t have enough knowledge to form an opinion.

  3. It is difficult to make time to look back at the history of the forum, and it is difficult to check it in chronological order.

Solving that problem

  1. Provide incentives to help beginners take their first steps

  2. We hope that using AI to translate and summarize will make it easier for beginners to participate.

  3. We believe that AI can be used to associate similar topics, prevent topic duplication, and reduce time constraints for participants.

I think it is best if the problem can be solved without creating a special application.

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14

Hmm, I’m not in favor to provide incentives to beginners. As a lot of farmers and bots will spamming.

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15

@souleater

thank you for your reply

I also have some concerns about incentives for motivation, which I think are not healthy.

I was guided by tksarah and decided to participate in the forum.

However, we believe that there are limits to the ability of agents to provide individual guidance.

I think it would be good to have some kind of healthy motivation instead of incentives.

・Notify stakeholders on SNS etc. to encourage them to participate

・Guidance in each country’s language

・Prepare a bulletin board where you can view the summary of the agenda

etc.
I would like to deepen my thoughts and consider methods.

16

Yes, I agree with that point.
Providing incentives as a ‘positive reinforcement’ to strengthen desired behaviors is a method proven by behavioral science. However, I believe caution is needed when doing this in the digital world.
Therefore, instead of giving incentives indiscriminately, it is necessary to set certain standards.
For example, we could consider and create indicators that recognize sustained contributions, support, and empowerment, and then provide incentives based on those.”

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17

I think all decentralized app/networks have the same issue: participation is low (too low), mainly because it’s time consuming and people are not interested.
I liked the solution proposed by proof of chaos https://www.proofofchaos.app/ to try to solve this issue. They sent a NFT (Legend, Rare, Common) to all voters.
I would like to see a such app on Astar Network :slight_smile:

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I agree with you.I think that the incentives for beginners must have a very well thought out and studied strategy because as we know the web 3 world is now full of farmers and bots that ruin this beautiful system

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@souleater @tksarah @GuiGou @SimonB

Thank you for your feedback and good ideas
I am relieved that you all have cautious opinions about incentives.

There are quite a few people in this industry who only care about their own interests.

As a possible incentive concern,

・The purpose is to obtain incentives.

・Have a negative impact on the purpose of the discussion

・Spam lines occur

・Continuous management and great responsibility arise when dealing with incentives.

etc.

The method you suggested was

  1. A method using science-based incentives

  2. How to use NFTs like proof of chaos

I think the most important thing is to motivate people to take the “first step” on the forum.
I felt that an effective way to do this would be to provide NFTs that would allow participants to feel like they are part of the project.

I feel that if NFT works, it will be easier to encourage continued participation.
However, I think that the method of operating NFTs should be as simple and easy to handle as possible, and I think that this requires careful discussion.

I feel that participating in stakeholder forums will require some time.

It is believed that this issue can be improved through steady efforts.

I believe that actions that can show the significance of attracting people, such as “web3 for Billions”, will help this project.

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Currently, I am interested in “proof of chaos” and am researching NFT.

Can I create an NFT even though I have no programming skills or experience?

Also, how can the NFT function to attract the interest of general holders?

I would like to study a little.

Once I have an idea, I would like to submit it again on the forum.

1 Like