Call for delegation news?

Staking & Delegation Operate a Stake Pool
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#1

Greetings beautiful people!

According to this late November post by Tim Harrison:

This topic was supposed to be discussed in the December 3rd update. I have to admit that while watching it live I fell asleep (it was 4am for me), so I then watched it again on YouTube. In case you missed it it can be found here:

I don’t know if I am missing something here, but as far as I could tell there was no talk about the “call for delegations” that is apparently on its way on December 10th (today). By the way Happy Birthday Ada :partying_face: :birthday:

If I understand correctly, small SPOs (such as myself and many others) will be in a position to “apply for funding” in this new delegation strategy. So here are my questions:

  • does anyone know what’s going on with this process?
  • where are we supposed to link to to find application guidelines and similar materials?

Any comment/news will be greatly appreciated,

A

Call for IOHK delegations opened yesterday
#2

no news about this… I think they will make it public… till now nothing about…

#3

The “call for delegations” for IOHK delegations opened today. You can find more information and the application form in this blog post:

2 Likes
#4

Thank you @adatainment for the heads up!

Cheers,

A

#5

We need to find out (from IOG, or anyone at the CF who can find this for us e.g. @adatainment maybe?)), a list of the application questions before submitting the “typeform” for this application, which is crucial to our goals with Cardano:

Since the first days of “typeform” I’ve seen many applications get botched because

  1. substantial answers often get typed into a question for which they’re less appropriate than a future question;
  2. you never know when a “Continue” button will fully submit your application (without any yet- unentered material); and
  3. usually there’s no way to resubmit a “duplicate” application if anything like this goes wrong.

There seem to be be a lot of “typeform” fans out there and I’m not disputing that choice. If that’s how IOG would like to accumulate their data then I’d be happy to comply. We just need a list of questions in full before we prepare our application, some time before the end of this week, to make it as complete and coherent as possible when we submit it before the deadline.

2 Likes
#6

Hi Robert,

Thank you for your input, as usual on the dot. I went ahead and filled in the application online when it became available. This was a couple of weeks back now. I found the following:

  • the questions are direct and well presented, although a couple of them (requiring a yes or no answer) left me a bit perplexed. For example: is your pool environmentally friendly (don’t quote me on the exact wording). This is difficult to determine and even more so answer as a yes or no. For example, in a hybrid set up one could be running in local off solar and remotely in a hydro powered country/area. How certain does this need to be? I answered no, and was left with no option to further clarify.

  • the form allows going back and forth, even when you have continued you can scroll back up to previous questions and amend your answers. The submit section is quite clear.

  • what I found unbelievable is that no communication (automatic or otherwise) comes upon submission of the application. This is like submitting a grant and the funding body not even acknowledging that you have done that. I have been very close to sending a ticket to the zedesk (Iohk) to ask if they have received my application. Bah. I have not done that yet, maybe I should wait until other SPOs report similar issues.

Again, don’t quote me on this, but you may be able to peruse the whole form without submitting it.

Cheers A

PS I reckon we should invite other SPOs to this thread to see what their experience is

2 Likes
#7

Thanks @Adrem; although somewhat reassuring I still think we have to get the full profile of questions somehow. Since IOG Marketing is behind this I do believe coming forward with the list of questions would be of greater value in marketing (e.g. supporting the environment) than as some kind of “trade secret.”

I’ve also sent a Twitter DM to @benohanlon “The Concierge to the Stake Pools” to urge them to post a solid answer on this before we go ahead. I’m guessing it’s less than 5 minutes of work to export the questionnaire from Typeform into a text-based format & post it either here or in a more confidential medium.

2 Likes
#8

Please note that there is little support here over the holidays. I’m positive that Ben will address this if needed when he is back in January.

#9

thanks @adatainment, it’s certainly good to address this issue in general, but the last I checked our applications were due on 31 December… and it didn’t even say what hour of that day or what time zone (i.e. just like Catalyst).

If you can confirm the deadline is not strict, then we do have a little more time to wait for him, but this is one we cannot afford to miss. Our application will be based on information changing all this week, right up until the last minute, so we’d also like to get confirmation of the deadline time & time zone by any means necessary. :pray:

1 Like
#10

Even with the above expectations, it’s amazing how much time we ended up spending on this application: like a full retrospective of everything we’ve done in the last 6 months and all our evolving goals for the new year, including 6 answers that were like full-blown essays. But after submitting the whole “Typeform” we don’t have so much as an email confirmation of our submission. Unless we’d prepared the full application offline in advance we wouldn’t even have a record of our responses.

Would it therefore be too much to ask from IOG Marketing to get an email confirmation receipt once our applications are successfully received without any apparent gaps in the data? I am sure many SPOs believe the IOG delegation opportunity to factor in quite strongly to their own plans for success and further contribution to Cardano. It would be a relief for those applicants at least to get an email confirmation that our applications have been received & are under consideration. :pray:

@benohanlon @IOHK_Tim

3 Likes
#11

That is something I would have loved to receive afterwards, too.

2 Likes
#12

@hanswurst wrote: “That is something I would have loved to receive afterwards, too.”

Ditto.

I am frankly quite surprised about this and also the general lack of activity in this particular thread.

I would expect that many SPOs who submitted lengthy, well thought out applications would be shocked at the idea they might have just wasted hours of their time. I have never seen this happen in grant applications. Let’s hope someone from IOHK will take the time to ease our concerns and respond soon.

In the meantime, all the best to everyone for 2021.

Cheers A

PS I had to edit in a quote, as system autoremoved it

#13

@COSDpool Did you ever get an answer to the DM you sent on Twitter from @benohanlon?

#14

not yet & I’m therefore assuming the marketing people have been on a Christmas-to-New-Year holiday, probably returning Monday the 4th. :partying_face:

#15

I filled the questionnaire with dummy responses most likely to represent my real answers. Of course, I did not submit this garbage ;-).

1. First, let's find out a little bit about you.
    a. First off, what's your first name? How should we address you?*
    b. And your last name.
    c. What region is your pool located in?*
    d. What country is your pool located in?*
    e. Are you affiliated with a group? → No
    f. Are you on Twitter? → Yes
    g. Please share the link.
    h. Are you on Telegram? → No
    i. Do you have a YouTube channel? → No
    j. Do you have a website? → Yes
    k. Please share the link.
    l. What email address can we reach you at?*
    
2. Thanks for that. Next, let's find out a little bit about your Stake Pool.
    a. What is the ticker of the pool you are seeking delegation to?*
    b. How many stake pools do you operate on Cardano?* → 1
    c. What is your Mission Statement and/or Pool Goals?*
    d. Have you or your Stake Pool created educational content that is publicly available?
    e. What languages is your content in?
    f. Please share details, results and links...
    g. Have you or your Stake Pool held a meetup? → No
    h. Is your Stake Pool environmentally sustainable? → Yes
    i. Please tell us how? (e.g. carbon offset, renewable power etc...)
    j. Is your Stake Pool a charity or run on behalf of a charity, non-profit organization, or non-governmental organization? → No
    k. Has your Stake Pool ever been bootstrapped or compensated by another organization, including but not limited, to Cardano Foundation or EMURGO? → No
    l. What contributions have you made to the community or ecosystem not mentioned above that support your application for the delegation? (e.g. running a pool on the ITN, long time ada HODLer, technical contribution, github PRs, CIPs, general community contribution etc...)
    m. Share your feedback about this process or any other thoughts you have about IOG's delegation strategy.

3. By submitting this form, you are confirming that the information you provided is truthful and accurate to the best of your ability. We look to full transparency from every member of the community.This question is required.*

4. Would you like to sign-up for our ‘SPO Digest’ newsletter so that we can keep in touch with relevant information? We may also share your email address with carefully chosen community collaborators but we promise, we won't spam you or sell your info.This question is required. *

There will, of course be questions I have not been asked which cannot appear above. Maybe this is helpful for someone…

1 Like
#16

Hi all. We’ve received over 300 delegation applications and have begun reviewing them today with Francisco.

Thanks for the feedback @Adrem you shared above especially about the need for some automation (I thought that this did happen… so will need to test future forms).

Thanks for the feedback @COSDpool and timezones etc… are noted. I should have included that, however, I can assure you we didn’t cut anyone off for being over it.

4 Likes
#17

@benohanlon thank you for getting back to us on this. All the best for 2021 and good luck with application reviews, sounds like you have had good participation.

Cheers, A

1 Like
#18

Hey there, what would roughly be the amount of ADA IOG would delegate to each winner for those months until the next call for delegations? Thanks in advance

1 Like
#20

We communicated “At k= 500, we anticipate this amount to be between 3 million and 5 million ada per pool. All pools selected will receive an equal delegation amount.”

3 Likes
#21

Thank you for this clarification. :slight_smile: