Free TON Academy Developers' Pride Contest

Free TON Academy Contest: Developers’ Websites

Design and website development contests for Free TON developers.

We will implement the competition in 2 stages:

  1. 1st stage is the website concept development for developers. Researching developers needs, studying the best practices, analysis, terms of reference, layouts (3-4 weeks + 1 week for evaluating work)

  2. 2nd stage is implementing the website and support (2 months + 2 weeks of work evaluation)

1st stage of the competition. Development of a website concept for developers (Analytics and planning).

Terms of the competition: 3-4 weeks

Voting: 1 week

Motivation

Developers play a critical role in the evolution of the web. As a technology, Free TON is interesting to many, but at the moment, the entry threshold (even for skilled developers) is quite high. This leads to obvious hindering of the network’s development.

A high-quality and thoughtful solution to this problem is very important for the community. In this regard, the competition shall be held in 2 stages.

1st stage - Analytics,

2nd stage - Implementation.

The analytics stage will allow a more balanced approach to the solution of the problem, exchange of experience and implementation ideas.

Objectives

Conduct analysis to form a thorough plan for implementing the project. In doing so, participants must demonstrate a commitment to solving long-term strategic tasks, not only immediate contest rewards.

The Academy SG shall then obtain a shortlist of teams which qualify to participate in the implementation competition, the formulated requirements and detailed analytics necessary for the preparation of the project.

Content of the application

  1. CustDev. Research and analysis of the existing information needs of novice and experienced developers, validators, using personal or online interviews with interview recording and conclusions.

  2. Use cases - situations in which developers will refer to the site and options for its use.

  3. Analysis of best practices both within blockchain projects and beyond.

  4. Description of the solution, internal mechanics, navigation, user story.

  5. Terms of reference in free form, infrastructure requirements

  6. There are enough screen layouts to assess the quality of the UI

  7. Content strategy and approach to its implementation, elements of red-policy. (at the stage of the competition + 6-12 months).

  8. A list of articles with an understanding of what benefits and how they will bring developers.

  9. Description of the development approach

  10. Expected labor costs

  11. Composition of the team (no contacts) with a brief description of the experience.

IMPORTANT: You can add other points to the application if you think it is necessary, this will only be a plus.

Application format

The application should be submitted in pdf format, in English, on the competition page on gov.freeton.org, along with a copy on the corresponding forum.freeton.org post.

The application must contain links to all the source materials of the analysis based on the items you recommended.

Rewards

Participants with a score of 6 and above will be awarded.

1st place 20,000 tokens

2nd place 15,000 tokens

3rd place 10,000 tokens

4th place 8,000 tokens

5th place 5,000 tokens

The winners of the competition will receive a lump sum reward upon completion of the jury voting.

Jury composition

In case of insufficient expertise of the existing jury of the academy, IM’s of the academy will attract an expert jury.

Voting

● The juror must have a solid understanding of the described technology to provide a score and feedback. If not, the juror should choose to ‘Abstain’.

● Jurors or whose team (s) intend to participate in this contest by providing submissions lose their right to vote in this contest.

● Each juror will vote by rating each submission on a scale of 1 to 10 or can choose to reject it if it does not meet requirements or vote ‘Abstain’ if they feel unqualified to judge.

● Jurors must provide feedback on submissions or lose their reward.

● The Jury will reject duplicate, sub-par, incomplete, or inappropriate submissions.

Jury Rewards

An amount equal to 10% of the total sum of all total tokens awarded to contest winners will be distributed among jurors who vote and provide feedback. This percentage will be awarded on the following basis:

● The percentage of tokens awarded to the jury will be distributed based on the number of votes each juror casts. For example, if one juror votes 50 times and another juror votes 5 times, the juror who votes 50 times will get 10 times more tokens than the juror who votes 5 times.

● Feedback is mandatory to collect any rewards.

● Jury rewards are distributed in full upon the end of voting regardless of the long-term outcome.

If you want to share your experience of using sites for developers or ideas for CustDev, leave your TG contacts in the forum marked #custdevDS

Stage 2. Implementation

Preamble to the second stage

At the first stage of the competition, large-scale analytics work will be carried out, and the winner will be selected. All the results from the first stage shall remain available to all participants in the second stage, in order to better form an understanding of the solution that should be implemented.

You can use any combination of solutions from the 1st stage, and if you have your own high-quality solution, you can also provide it, but with your own analytics.

A key criteria of the application will be the description given. The jury must be able to understand which solution you have chosen, and how the implementation corresponds to it.

Terms of the competition

  1. Implementation stage: 2 months from the start.

  2. Support and implementation of the content strategy: 6 months.

The purpose of the competition

Develop a high-quality implementation of the site for developers, using the basis formed by the analytical stage of the competition and the documentation with which the basis of the solution was developed.

Content of the application

  1. Analytical documentation from the 1st stage, used as the basis for the development and verification of compliance

  2. Team composition

  3. Content strategy for 6 months

  4. Work plan for 6 months, mentioning improvements which are planned

  5. Link to a working version of the site

  6. Technical reference (architecture, technology)

  7. Results of stress testing, with the possibility of verification

  8. Link to github with code

  9. Link to sources of graphic materials (figma or other formats)

The materials must be available online for the entire duration of the competition: 2 + 6 months.

Application format

The application must be submitted in pdf format, in English, on the competition page on the gov.freeton.org website, with a copy on the corresponding forum page.

The application contains links to all the source materials of the analysis based on the items you recommended and added.

Rewards

Participants with a score of 6 and above will be awarded.

1st place 150,000 tokens (75,000 + 12,500 after each of 6 months based on the implementation report)

2nd place 120,000 tokens (60,000 + 10,000 after each of 6 months based on the implementation report)

3rd place 90,000 tokens (45,000 + 7,500 after each of 6 months based on the implementation report)

4th place 60,000 tokens (30,000 + 5,000 after each of 6 months based on the implementation report)

5th place 30,000 tokens (15,000 + 2,500 after each of 6 months based on the implementation report)

Jury composition

In case of insufficient expertise of the existing jury of the academy, IM’s of the academy will attract an expert jury.

Voting

● The juror must have a solid understanding of the described technology to provide a score and feedback. If not, the juror should choose to ‘Abstain’.

● Jurors or whose team (s) intend to participate in this contest by providing submissions lose their right to vote in this contest.

● Each juror will vote by rating each submission on a scale of 1 to 10 or can choose to reject it if it does not meet requirements or vote ‘Abstain’ if they feel unqualified to judge.

● Jurors must provide feedback on submissions or lose their reward.

● The Jury will reject duplicate, sub-par, incomplete, or inappropriate submissions.

Jury Rewards

An amount equal to 5% of the total sum of all total tokens awarded to contest winners will be distributed among jurors who vote and provide feedback. This percentage will be awarded on the following basis:

● The percentage of tokens awarded to the jury will be distributed based on the number of votes each juror casts. For example, if one juror votes 50 times and another juror votes 5 times, the juror who votes 50 times will get 10 times more tokens than the juror who votes 5 times.

● Feedback is mandatory to collect any rewards.

● Jury rewards are distributed in full upon the end of voting regardless of the long term outcome .


Drafts

Ideas and approaches remain open to everyone, so that the development teams can use the experience of their colleagues, nevertheless, the competitive effect of the competition remains.

Any teams can participate in the implementation stage.

Objectives

The main goal is to make the integration of new developers into the community as comfortable and efficient as possible.

To create websites on which new developers in the community can quickly and get the necessary information on the topics they need, and start using the capabilities of the blockchain. We do not limit the topics, but in one way or another they should be aimed at working with the FreeTon blockchain (Example topics: API / SDK, smart contracts, TIP, ZKP, DeBots and others).

Also, the purpose of the competition is to capture, publish and scale the development experience in freeton. Most of the developments for contests and independent ones are posted on the developers’ personal githubs and the use and transfer of this experience is not possible.

Terms

2% of all contest funds will be allocated to Admin and coordination support of the contest.

Publications that are already financed via community sub-governances or through partnerships cannot participate in this contest.

If and when this Proposal is accepted, Free TON Academy SubGovernance shall request proposed rewards from Free TON Community since they exceed current Academy mandate as described in https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/ton-labs.appspot.com/o/documents%2Fapplication%2Fpdf%2Fijqvcyw8inpkm27z1lb-FT%20ACADEMY%20SUBGOV%20PROPOSAL-7.pdf?alt=media&token=06d6553a-1749-4aec-a89e-585d5be21ef6

10 Likes

Totaly support! It’s the way to start creatin maybe smth like IDE, so it’s great chance to start)

1 Like

Данный конкурс принесет пользу сообществу , поддерживаю

What do you want to get as a result? Another Free TON wiki?

We have Free TON repo. So in most modern contests, participants are required to post their works there to transfer experience.

1 Like

IDE? Do you mean Integrated Development Environment? Like M$ Visual Studio?
What is the logical chain that led you to this idea? The objective is “To create websites on which new developers in the community can quickly and get the necessary information on the topics they need”.
So Wordpress website with good content should be enough. How it is connected with IDE?

Yep I mean it’s the way to continue create enviroment for developers, it’s just an idea, i don’t say that this contest is about it.

Hope this contest will provide a larger community of Free TON developers. You have my support.

A very useful contest, support it!

I support, great idea. Developers are a key part of the development of the Internet.

There’s no such thing as “Terms of the competition: 3-4 weeks” where you have the length of the contest. There are specific dates and times only, but I understand this is just a draft.

I don’t really see a need to describe the 2nd contest here. You run one then another. But if it is to give everyone a bird’s eye view of the implementation and support phase, then I have some very serious questions and comments:

  1. The reward amounts for stage 2 are ridiculous. Take off-chain fiat costs for something like this and convert. You’re using Edu Websites contest as a basis? It’s not the same thing.

  2. Where will the Free TON Academy get so many tokens? You don’t have them. Remember, this is an FTA contest not a global gov contest. You have to use the tokens you have and I do not believe you have anywhere near that many.

  3. Vesting is correct, but you have to provide a small amount up front and more over time to get teams to support the sites. Large amounts up front will kill motivation for some to want to continue. But again, these amounts are insane.

I think you need to rework your proposal top-to-bottom. I also agree with AlexNew. You don’t need anything fancy here.

6 Likes

I don’t think that 2 stage contest is reasonable. Since it looks like a generic marketing research and product management approach. It will bring nothing to real developers. There are already several teams which create their own documentation. The only problem is how to measure and compare its value. Researching needs will end up with useless reports from non developers.

This is a noble initiative. I full support.

Thank you, Pavel!

Yes, we meant to say Contest 1 and then do Contest 2.

As rewards will be decided mostly by professional developers maybe the risk you are pointing to is not that high as long as next step with much higher rewards, for implementation, is based on the winning concept or concepts.

But the advantage of clear criteria for all based on quality research seem appealing.

Thank you for your comments!

We shall review all of the comments received and adjust accordingly.

1 Like

The request for this contest comes from developers who need the broad range of sites by different teams and we should motivate them to create those.

2 Likes

Looking like you are searching for the best solution at the first stage, right? So, for stage 2, does it mean, the combination of solutions must be taken if the team is willing to work on different solutions other than their own? If yes, cannot it be misleading to work on others’ ideas for which the team has already given their time and effort to generate the most viable solutions? In addition, we have to spend the amount from our own pockets before submitting the work for the rewards.
Thanks.

Are you sure that you interpreted the developers request correctly? Maybe they do not need the broad range of sites but they need the ability to easily find and use well-structured information for different skill levels?

There are a lot of sites with technical info for developers in different format and levels like habrahabr.ru, medium.com, stackoverflow.com, etc… Google gives me a lot every time I search for something.
I don’t think we should reinvent a wheel and create several for FreeTON only. I would not want to compete for the form of information presentation (this is not our business I think), but for the content.
So I would prefer to motivate developers and technical writers to create articles on the existing resources.
As I understand, Initially, a subgov wiki was created for this. It might be worth borrowing their experience or/and correct their direction.

1 Like

Interesting idea, support it!

support free ton developers

Based on the feedback received from Community re-submitting new version with

  • one contest, not two
  • criteria simplified
  • quality valued over quantity
  • rewards reduced

Thank you

Free TON Academy Contest: Developers’ Websites.

Type: Contest

Contest dates: August 7, 2021 — September 22, 2021 (at 23:59 UTC).

AMA Cycle: 3 days

Voting cycle: 10 days

THE GOAL

The goal of this Contest is to support ongoing efforts of development teams in onchain programming, devops solutions, smart contracts and tools facilitating interaction with blockchain. We would like to ensure ongoing specialised learning by providing new and existing users with adequate, accessible documentation about Free TON blockchain. We want to assist in attracting developers to join the Free TON Community. New developers joining free TON for the very first time should be able to access all necessary information quickly and conveniently.

As Free TON is a community driven ecosystem, choice of materials should be diverse, with multiple teams competing for developers’ attention. Therefore, this contest is aimed at projects and teams able to create and maintain developer-oriented websites dedicated to one or several areas.

TIMING

  1. Contest submissions - 45 days
  2. Ongoing site support - min 6 months
  3. AMA sessions following the Contest to describe submission and answer questions from the Community - 3 days
  4. Jury deliberations - 10 days

CANDIDATES’ CRITERIA

Confirmed experience in onchain programming in Free TON, devops solutions, smart contracts and tools facilitating interaction with blockchain.

Confirmation of availability of Github repository code.

SUBMISSION CRITERIA

  1. Websites are done by contestant without outside help without using existing solutions or wordpress.
  2. Site has all of the standard navigation tools.
  3. UX level at the level of similar contemporary websites.
  4. All pages and elements have no errors.
  5. Site is available for web and mobile devices.
  6. Google Page speed above 70 for web version, above 60 for mobile.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

  1. Confirmation of the main contestant criteria - demonstration of the relevant work performed.
  2. 6 months plan to further develop the site(s) if needed, and corresponding content strategy
  3. Link(s) to working sites
  4. Link(s) to Github Code
  5. Link(s) to source graphic materials (such as Figma or in other formats)
  6. Site(s) must be available throughout the contest and 6 months after.
  7. Submission to be provided in English, in PDF format, on gov.freeton.org with a copy in the relevant Forum discussion.
  8. Each submission must have an identifiable contact that can be matched with your description. In the absence of confirmation by the contestant of the authorship of the submitted work, the submission is rejected.

REWARDS

To receive Rewards, a minimum of 6 points is needed.

1 Place 60000 TONs (12000 plus 8000/mo for 6 month based on the execution report by winner)

2 Place 45000 TONs (9000 plus 6000/mo for 6 month based on the execution report by winner)

3 Place 30000 TONs (6000 plus 4000/mo for 6 month based on the execution report by winner)

4-6 Place 15000 TONs (12000 plus 8000/mo for 6 month based on the execution report by winner)

Total Contest Rewards respectfully requested - 180000 TONs.

JURY COMPOSITION

If needed, Academy SD may request external expertise on this technically advanced Contest from DevOps, DevX and other specialised groups.

JURY REWARDS

An amount equal to 10% of the total sum of all total tokens awarded to contest winners will be distributed among jurors who vote and provide feedback. This percentage will be awarded on the following basis:

  • The percentage of tokens awarded to the jury will be distributed based on the number of votes each juror casts. For example, if one juror votes 50 times and another juror votes 5 times, the juror who votes 50 times will get 10 times more tokens than the juror who votes 5 times.

  • Feedback is mandatory to collect any rewards.

  • Jury rewards are distributed in full upon the end of voting regardless of the long term outcome juror will vote by rating each submission on a scale of 1 to 10 or can choose to reject it if it does not meet requirements or vote ‘Abstain’ if they feel unqualified to judge.

  • Jurors must provide feedback on submissions or lose their reward.

  • The Jury will reject duplicate, sub-par, incomplete, or inappropriate submissions.

VOTING

  • The juror must have a solid understanding of the described technology to provide a score and feedback. If not, the juror should choose to ‘Abstain’.
  • Jurors or whose team(s) intend to participate in this contest by providing submissions lose their right to vote in this contest.
  • Each juror will vote by rating each submission on a scale of 1 to 10 or can choose to reject it if it does not meet requirements or vote ‘Abstain’ if they feel unqualified to judge.

NOTES

Admin fee - 5% от бюджета конкурса to be shared among administrators of the Contest as decided by the Academy SubGovernance Initial Members.

In case of good feedback from users after 6 month, Academy SG can provide further contests for supporting the best of websites.

Publications that are already financed via community sub-governances or through partnerships cannot participate in this contest.

Each contestant has the right to provide several submissions if they are all original and differ from one another significantly enough to be considered different. This scale of difference will be judged by the jury subjectively as there is no clear way to define it. The operative phrase here is to “use your common sense”. If multiple submissions are deemed to be too similar by the jury, or if they in any way appear to be partially the same work done twice, or if they appear to be one whole body of work divided into parts to create the illusion of several submissions, jurors have the right to reject such submissions without question. Again, common sense and honesty will prevail in the event of discrepancies.

If the contestant makes an additional submission or submissions in order to replace a previously published submission, the contestant must inform the jury about this fact in their correct submission PDF, indicating which submission is the correct one to be judged. In this case, only the indicated work will count. If the contestant fails to indicate which submission is to be judged, then said contestant leaves it in the jury’s hands. NO EXCEPTIONS!

If and when this Proposal is accepted, Free TON Academy SubGovernance shall request proposed rewards from Free TON Community since they exceed current Academy mandate as described in https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/ton-labs.appspot.com/o/documents%2Fapplication%2Fpdf%2Fijqvcyw8inpkm27z1lb-FT%20ACADEMY%20SUBGOV%20PROPOSAL-7.pdf?alt=media&token=06d6553a-1749-4aec-a89e-585d5be21ef6

If you would like to share your experience in building Developers’ websites, please leave your contacts on Forum to #custdevDS,

Thank you!