Polkadot was built with true decentralization in mind, which stands true in areas like protocol governance, reward systems, and protocol security. It’s now taking a step further to decentralize the expertise that maintains the core protocol with the Polkadot Fellowship program.
This article explores the Fellowship program, why it’s needed in the first place, and how to get started as a potential fellow.
About Polkadot Fellowship
The Polkadot Fellowship is a decentralized technical collective on the Polkadot network designed to recognize, nurture, and incentivize contributors to the core Polkadot protocol.
The ultimate aim of the fellowship is to maintain a constant presence of open-source experts who dedicate their time to working on and improving the Polkadot protocol and encourage up-and-coming contributors to work their way up to making instrumental decisions on the direction of the protocol.
The Polkadot Fellowship is the first of its kind in the blockchain space. The Ethereum Foundation has a Protocol Fellowship too; however, it’s a cohort-based program that equips developers with core protocol development practices, and not a decentralized or ranked structure for nurturing protocol developers.
The Polkadot Fellowship currently targets developers who contribute or will contribute to the aspects on which the protocol depends. These can include components like the consensus layer of the protocol (BABE and GrandPa), modules the protocol depends on, and the Polkadot Runtime.
The fellowship doesn’t cover contributors to codebases that aren’t necessarily required for the protocol to run. Examples are tooling and Substrate modules that Polkadot doesn’t implement in its runtime.
The fellowship also doesn’t cover technical content creators or contributors to Parachains unless they contribute to the core codebase, too. However, these are areas that can be considered in subsequent fellowship programs.
The fellowship has a ranking and incentive system that motivates contributors to dedicate their time to the protocol and act in its best interest.
Aren’t Parity engineers and open-source contributors enough?
Engineers from Parity, the Web3 Foundation, and non-Parity engineers from the open-source community are sufficient to maintain the core Polkadot protocol. But sticking to a single centralized entity to manage the network doesn’t promote the spirit of political decentralization.
Non-Parity open-source contributors could help decentralize the core protocol. However, there’s no guarantee that these contributors will remain dedicated to the core protocol or that there’ll be a healthy flow of dedicated open-source contributors without any mechanism to retain them.
With the fellowship, the core protocol will be managed by decentralized entities incentivized to dedicate their time to it.
Qualifying for the Polkadot fellowship
As stated earlier, you must have contributed to the core protocol’s codebase or any codebase required for the protocol to function optimally to progress to the first rank of the fellowship. I’ll talk about the rankings in the next section.
Essentially, you might be qualified for the fellowship if:
- You have fixed bugs or made some improvements in the core codebase.
- You currently contribute to one of the layers of the core protocol.
- You have implemented (or contributed to implementing) a feature on the core protocol.
Gavin Wood mentioned that the areas not covered in this fellowship are worth noting and are good areas to consider in future programs.
Summary of the fellowship ranking
The fellowship comprises nine ranks commensurate to ranks in the traditional academic cadre.
The lowest rank is I Dan equal to a foundational level. At the bare minimum, candidates must have made pull requests in the core codebase and have shown dedication to improving the protocol through code and communications (in developer channels, Q&A sites, etc.) to progress to this rank.
The highest rank is the Grandmaster rank, which is equivalent to a Nobel or Field Laureate). To get to this rank, a fellow must have spent 19 years contributing full-time to the protocol and be recognized as a key presence outside the Polkadot community.
There’s currently no mechanism to suspend a ranked member from the fellowship. However, an active member must be able to defend his membership every three months if the member’s rank is less than Dan III or every six months if the member’s rank is Dan III and above. Active members who cannot prove their activity after these periods may be demoted to a lesser rank, which is subject to voting by fellowship members. However, this rule doesn’t apply to fellows in one of the master ranks (i.e., ranks VII Dan, VIII Dan, and IX Dan).
The master ranks are permanent, and members can’t be demoted because of low activity. However, just like all ranks, they may be liable to demotion or even expulsion if they repeatedly take actions that are not in the best interest of the protocol.
For example, a member of the master rank who has recognized expertise in a particular aspect of the core protocol but refuses to offer assistance demanded by fellows might be considered not acting in the protocol’s best interest, which could be an indication for demotion through a general referendum.
The master ranks focus less on the code and more on high-level innovations and improving and promoting the high-level architecture of the protocol to academic communities.
Rank III Dan is a key milestone in the fellowship, which Dr. Gavin Wood considers a watershed threshold.
Fellows at this level must have spent two dedicated years contributing to the core protocol (i.e., they must have spent one dedicated year in their last rank). They are expected to have the expertise to independently build standard and idiomatic components crucial for the protocol’s maintenance and improvement.
Getting into the fellowship
Polkadot is currently seeding the first members for the fellowship (pending when Governance 2.0 launches on the Kusama Network). You can track the current membership here. The level of contributions you’ve made will determine your initial rank in the seeding stage.
If you’ve contributed to the protocol and feel qualified for one of the ranks, you’re welcome to declare your intentions here. Fork the repository, add your GitHub id, Kusama address, and desired rank to the README.md file, and create a pull request titled Member request with your GitHub account.
In the pull request’s description, you should include the rank you’re applying for and contributions that prove that you’re qualified for that particular rank.
After that, the reviewers will review your application and, if successful, accept it by merging your changes.
The seeding phase will close before Governance 2.0 is launched on the Kusama Network, after which aspirants can apply for the fellowship on-chain.
Applying on-chain
Although the fellowship isn’t on-chain yet, an on-chain application will begin with candidacy, where you lock up some tokens to declare your interest in becoming a fellow.
There are no specified obligations as a candidate, but you’ll need to make contributions that qualify you for a rank in the membership.
Once you’ve met qualifications, a fellow can request to promote you to a rank for which you’re qualified, which will require a vote by all members that are at least Rank III Dan. The voting process will last one month, and you’ll be promoted if most votes are in your favor.
Once you get a rank in the fellowship, you can continue contributing regularly. You can request promotion once you have met the criteria for promotion Check out the details of the requirements for advancement in the manifesto.
Members at least two ranks higher than the rank you are applying for will be invited to vote on your application The only exception is in the promotion to a master rank, where all members at least of rank III Dan are invited to vote. You’ll be promoted if the votes are in your favor.
Benefits of becoming a Polkadot Fellow
The most significant benefit is the opportunity to progress as core engineers, whom the collective and the general community recognize as essential contributors to the protocol.
The biggest challenge with open-source contributions is the need for more structure. Being a fellow gives you the avenue to have a sense of belonging, grow with other fellows, and subsequently become a recognized expert in the Polkadot protocol and blockchain engineering in general.
Another benefit is the monthly reward mechanism, which ensures that fellows are comfortable enough to dedicate their time to the protocol. This reward mechanism is necessary since fellows are expected to spend a substantial amount of time (full-time in some cases) on the protocol.
Monthly allowances depend on whether a fellow will be a regular contributor to the protocol or a more passive one. According to the manifesto, these allowances will be between the 80th-90th percentile of gross income in the OECD group of countries.
Active and frequent contributors are entitled to more allowances but should be able to defend their rank every quarter (or every six months for ranks III Dan and above).
Taking your first step
The first step depends on your experience with rust and the Polkadot protocol. Here are some resources and programs that’ll help improve your knowledge of the protocol and prepare you for the fellowship:
- The Rust Book
- Substrate Seminars
- Substrate official documentation
- Polkadot DevCamp
- Polkadot Blockchain Academy
- Substrate StackExchange
If you aspire to go the fellowship route, finding a mentor who can set you up for success by guiding you on your journey and recommending you for promotion later is advisable. A mentor will also help ease you into the vast Polkadot codebase by suggesting areas of the protocol you can start contributing to that suit your skill level.
Conclusion
The Polkadot Fellowship is an excellent opportunity for aspiring and current contributors to showcase their skills, improve on them, and become recognized engineers of the core protocol.
Climbing the ranks will take time, but it will provide objective proof that you’re dedicated to improving the protocol and are becoming an expert in the field.
If the fellowship interests you, check out the manifesto to dive deeper into what the Fellowship is all about. It’s a reasonably challenging read, but it’s worth it.
Credits
“Comment by Gavin Wood.” Polkadot Forum, https://forum.polkadot.network/t/calling-polkadot-core-developers/506/11.
“Comment by rphmeier.” Polkadot Forum, https://forum.polkadot.network/t/calling-polkadot-core-developers/506/18
“Comment by Gavin Wood.” Polkadot Forum, https://forum.polkadot.network/t/calling-polkadot-core-developers/506/10
Gavin, Wood. “Polkadot Fellowship Manifesto.” Github. https://github.com/polkadot-fellows/manifesto/blob/main/manifesto.pdf.
“Polkadot’s next generation of decentralized governance.” Polkadot Blog, https://polkadot.network/blog/gov2-polkadots-next-generation-of-decentralised-governance/#the-fellowship-and-whitelist.