Retroactive Funding for Polkadot Chain & Pallet Discovery Portal

Proponent: GHm6gp6khjcxQvnbnSsHdYejsFK1nNVxcGyGAsbDfsymtLr

Date: 19 April 2023

Requested KSM: 598

Short description: a comprehensive directory for Polkadot & Kusama ecosystem & all its actors.

The PoC built:

PoC Polkadot Discovery Portal
Main repo - https://github.com/anagolay/polkadot-discovery
Kanban and dev board - https://github.com/orgs/anagolay/projects/3

Original motivation

Polkadot Discovery Portal was born out of one developer’s struggle with finding artifacts, binaries, docker images, and specs for the chains he wanted to test. Through the discussion with fellow community members, the idea grew and evolved into the project you see in front of you, intended as a comprehensive ecosystem discovery: to connect all the ecosystem actors, from big to small.

The Polkadot & Kusama ecosystem is not only about parachains and relay chains; it’s also about pallets, wallets, apps and Dapps, browser extensions, utility libraries, websites, etc. In one word this ecosystem is about community. Without good project discoverability, the community cannot find the information it needs.

Our aim is to make project discoverability seamless and simple. This way, everyone can access the information they need to contribute to the ecosystem's growth.

Retroactive payment for PoC development

This proposal is for a retroactive payment by Kusama Treasury to reimburse for 60% of the development costs for the work on Polkadot Discovery Portal PoC, see the scope here

If this initiative gets initial support, as the next steps, based on the community feedback received so far, we are planning to prioritize the following:

coordinated projects onboarding, ambassadors engagement & incentives
implementing a minimalistic UI to allow for alternative forms of submissions
integrations with other platforms & channels

Key differentiators of Polkadot Directory Portal

All for chain discovery on Polkadot & Kusama:

detailed descriptions & tags
runtime versions, genesis hashes
spec files for easy referencing

Up-to-date and readily accessible information on the stage of each chain and the paraID and relay connection details for parachains.

Data updates & verification

Any user can independently verify the info & contribute to improving the dataset by opening a pull request: https://polkadot-discovery.macula.link/how-to/
To ensure the integrity of the data, we'll require a public display of approval from a member of the respective project (GitHub organization) before merging the PR.
See Chart 1: Adding & Updating data for details

Data Sources: "Unused data is useless. Make the data flow!"

Anyone can access all the data collected and hosted on the Polkadot Discovery Portal in the form of JSON endpoints
the data sources are easily accessible as links on every project and pallet page on the right sidebar
focus on using the data instead of figuring out how to retrieve it.

Why all that?

to provide developers, teams, and community members with a verified and trustworthy source of information for all things built on Polkadot and Kusama
minimize redundancies and maximize collaboration by streamlining the flow of information
ultimately, create a unified, comprehensive directory that drives progress and unlocks the full potential of the ecosystem

Please see the full proposal here https://www.notion.so/Retroactive-Funding-for-Polkadot-Chain-Pallet-Discovery-09c9c9adc77e4f22b7c7b36494f991c5

and, of course, check out the Polkadot Discovery Portal PoC already built https://polkadot-discovery.macula.link

Polkadot Discovery Portal is a website that helps people find information about the Polkadot & Kusama ecosystem. It has information about parachains, relay chains, pallets, wallets, apps, Dapps, browser extensions, utility libraries, and websites. The website has detailed descriptions, tags, runtime versions, genesis hashes, and spec files for easy referencing. It also has up-to-date information on the stage of each chain and the paraID and relay connection details for parachains. Anyone can independently verify the information and contribute to improving the dataset by opening a pull request. The website provides a verified and trustworthy source of information for all things built on Polkadot and Kusama, minimizing redundancies and maximizing collaboration by streamlining the flow of information.