Today, we (the Devcon organizing team) are excited to release a new way to get involved in next year’s event, which should make Devcon an experience that better represents Ethereum as a whole .
Devcon Improvement Proposals (DIP) are a new tool to involve the collaborative contribution of the community from the entire ecosystem. They aim to improve the Devcon experience by formalizing a process to make your ideas heard and integrated into the event.
Why now?
In previous articles, we have discussed the need to do more to represent the entire Ethereum ecosystem at Devcon. However, achieving this at any given event has become increasingly difficult over the years. In many ways this is a welcome problem, as the challenge is due to growth in size and diversity among builders, presenters, participants, organizations and all other participants.
Although there was a time when everyone involved could have easily fit into a classroom, we have long passed a point where demand exceeded supply in more ways than one (e.g., the number tickets, discussion slots or dogfood applications).
So while we have taken the first steps toward resolving specific areas of past difficulty in our launch article earlier this yearwe also tried to be proactive in thinking about how to accommodate elements that no single team would think to include on their own. And that led us here.
How do DIPs work?
Let’s dig. The best way to get started with DIPs is to visit the github DIP repository and by join the conversation at the new Devcon forum.
As a first step, we recommend posting your idea on the Devcon forum to receive feedback from a wider community. Once things seem a little more defined, you can submit a formal proposal. Upon submitting an application, you will be able to receive feedback from our team and others to help refine your ideas, discuss how they might fit into the program, and much more.
The process draws inspiration from the PEP, BIP, and EIP processes, and while this new experience is a bit more centralized (in the sense that approval of proposals ultimately rests with the Devcon team), we’re excited to ‘have a new way to diversify and I hope to find consensus on a whole bunch of newly proposed ideas. The goals of DIPs are for everyone to feel heard, have a more open discussion, and (most importantly) improve the event by listening and learning from the innovators around us.
What could DIPs look like?
If this process seems rather abstract to you so far and you’re wondering what DIPs might actually look like, you’re in luck! The DIPs were just made public today, but the Devcon team has been working with a few teams to test the first proposals over the past few weeks.
Some of our first proposals consist of trying to make Devcon carbon neutralallowing hotel and flight reservations through a decentralized travel marketplace FOSSby preparing a treasure hunt without permissionand offer participants a smart wallet card during the conference.
Conclusion
We know that the Ethereum ecosystem has simply become too large for our team alone to be aware of all the good ideas that are out there. With the help of DIPs, combined with your tremendous continued involvement, we can make Devcon more representative of our community than ever before.
For more information, everyone is welcome to check out DIP-0to take a look at the DIPs already submitted, and to join the forum participate in new and ongoing discussions. We look forward to hearing from you!
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