Why are you here? Kusama founding values, culture and focus

Hello

So i'm pretty new to the Kusama community, but I've been an active (and funded) contributor in Edgeware/Substrate for couple of years. Funding has come for both my own 'network R&D' (of which this post is a small example) alongside helping source and develop other individuals / teams proposals.

The most ambitious R&D/curation project resulted in the creation of Kabocha via a series of interlinked but independent proposals from a variety of new and existing Edgeware contributors.

This experiment in grass-roots contribution, curation and funding concluded with Kabocha winning a Kusama parachain slot.

Prior to that I spent 18 months contributing to Decred - another on-chain governed/upgradeable network with its own treasury and proposal system. For anyone interested, I documented the experience of contributing to the DAO here.

Having engaged in the WagMedia discussions recently its been reassuring to see many of the same arguments, miscommunications and philosophical differences play out in similar ways as they did in Decred and Edgeware.

Perhaps unsurprisingly on-chain governance, funding, culture, oversight and direction setting is really quite hard.

So I thought it might be useful to dig out a mildly tweaked first post in Edgeware which was posted as a way of resetting discussion at a point when argument was at its peak and the bigger picture was getting lost.

Why are you here? Kusama founding values, culture and focus

Discussing and outlining a founding charter such as Decred's Constitution is a good way to ascertain what kind of culture Kusama is seeking to foster.

It's also a great opportunity to solicit input from a diverse set of stakeholders and community members who each have valid but varying perspectives on the project - its successes, failures and challenges.

With the project in the very earliest stages, asynchronous conversations the norm, and decentralised governance a work in progress, it is important to utilise the tools available to drive increasing community participation to aid decision making, transparency and to better plot a path forward together.

Given the sometimes contentious debate around the recent WagMedia proposal and the mentioning a few times that Kusama is the most misunderstood project in crypto, it seems like it’s a pretty good time to ask the emerging community a few questions…

(These are just prompts so feel free to ignore)

• What was the motivation that excited the Kusama team at the start (individually and collectively)?
• The same for the existing council members?
• What inspired the name and the logo? (might be useful for newcomers to hear the story)
• What first attracted you about the project?
• What problems do you see Kusama solving?
• What is Kusama not for?
• What other projects do you follow or think Kusama could improve upon?
• What lessons do you think Kusama can learn from other projects?
• What founding values or principles do you think Kusama should have? (e.g. should the project focus on public benefit etc)
• What areas in the wider crypto-sphere interest you?
• What areas or communities outside of crypto interest you?
• What does success look like to you? (what kind of a world do you see?)
• What does failure look like to you?

Hopefully this can be a useful exercise. I'm excited to hear from a wildly diverse set of viewpoints and in deciphering the commonalities and opportunities for progress that exists.