The following is a guide for contributing AirSwap Improvement Proposals (AIP).
What is the AIP Process?
AirSwap is organized as a decentralized network of contributors using a continuous process called AirSwap Improvement Proposals (AIP). This process is how the community captures, selects, and prioritizes new projects.
Several incentives to participate are built in.
- Authors — Authors earn tokens for writing proposals, 5K sAST for a successful vote and 2K sAST for a rejected vote. See details of the author incentive.
- Voters — Community members vote to ratify each proposal. Voters earn points, which can be used to claim rewards. See details of the voter incentive.
- Developers — Once a proposal is ratified by community vote, it’s placed on the roadmap for selection by contributors. Budgets are specified in each AIP.
How do I create a proposal?
Anyone is welcome to create an AIP. Each proposal outlines a problem or opportunity and specifies a solution and its tradeoffs. Proposals cover all sorts of topics like new protocols, smart contracts, network tooling, applications, marketing, tokenomics, and more!
The structure of a proposal is as follows (See: AIP 1). Each proposal includes a summary, specification, rationale, and copyright.
- Summary — A short (200 word) summary describing the proposal.
- Specification — Technical specification for the proposal.
- Rationale — Motivations, justifications, arguments for and against.
- Copyright — All proposals are public domain via CC0.
To draft an AIP, create a new topic in the Proposal Discussion (AIPs) category. Drafting an AIP is often done with community support. Authors are welcome to discuss their proposals and solicit feedback from the communities on Discord and here on Discourse.
What are the stages of a proposal?
Each proposal follows three main stages.
Step 1: Drafting and Discussion
After initial brainstorming, the author creates a new topic in the Proposal Discussions (AIPs) category.
Discussion is generally a combination of:
- Brainstorming on Discord where comments happen in real-time and community members build on each others ideas rapidly. A great way to iterate on fresh ideas.
- In-depth discussion here on Discourse where slower moving comments contribute to our longer term memory and feedback gets integrated directly into proposals.
Original authors may also credit fellow contributors as co-authors, and specify how to share the author incentive among themselves.
Step 2: Calling a Vote
Once ready, the author requests to call a vote.
- Authors must stake at least 1000 AST to call a vote. To stake AST, navigate to Codefi Activate and follow the instructions on the AirSwap governance portal. To verify your staked balance, type “!join” in the Discord to confirm your stake, which gives you the Author role.
- Once staked, notify a community manager that you’d like to call a vote. Accepted proposals are placed on the project roadmap. If rejected, the author can solicit feedback from the community on how to improve the proposal.
Step 3: Collecting Rewards
Once the vote has completed, the author reaches a community manager to collect their reward. Author rewards are currently 5K sAST for successful votes and 2K sAST for rejected votes.
Getting help with your proposal
You can get help from your fellow members in the Discord #aip-help. Collaborating with other members leverages our collective knowledge and can lead to better proposals overall. If the discussion gets very long mixed in with other threads, you can request the community manager create a new channel for your proposal.
Your humble community manager @CryptoHamilton (Anthony Albertorio) is also here to assist you. Just message him in #aip-help or #general, and he will help you with the process.