Proposal: Awesome Zcash

Title:

Awesome Zcash

Applicant name:

Tolga Yaycı

Team member name:

Tolga Yaycı

Pitch: A one-liner elevator pitch version of your proposal

Ultimate social platform for discovering and exploring the most exciting projects in the Zcash ecosystem!

Total Request (USD):

$5000.00 USD

Have you previously received a grant from Zcash Community Grants (formerly called ZOMG) or ZF?

No

Are you seeking or have you received funding from other sources for this proposed project?

Yes

Please provide details on funding amount, funding source, and any other relevant information.

Several protocols are currently actively using the awesome series and have provided grants.

Lens Protocol: $10K => https://dev.awesomelens.xyz

Compound Protocol: $5K

Project is mostly developed and ready to ship for Zcash program, if there will be another feature requests I am eager to implement that to platform.

Applicant background:

As a full-stack developer with 2 years of experience, I have honed my skills in software development, with a focus on dApp development in the past year. I have a deep interest in the Web3 and NFT space and have put my skills to the test by creating a number of relevant applications. In addition to my experience, I have developed detailed React and Next.js projects, further enhancing my ability to build robust and scalable web applications.

In addition to my technical skills, I have also been actively involved in the wider tech community. I have served as a Chainlink Community Advocate, Aave Turkey Community Manager, and Founding Chair of Gazi University ACM Student Chapter. My previous role as a Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador has also given me the opportunity to share my knowledge and experience with others. I have set of experiences and skills and particularly in the areas of full stack software development and community management.

I have a track record of successfully developing and completing applications for various protocols, including Aave, Polkadot, Lens Protocol, Filecoin, and others.

Description of Problem or Opportunity:

The Zcash ecosystem has grown tremendously over time, yet it lacks a centralized platform for showcasing the projects developed on it except Zcash Foundation gallery page. Existing resources are scattered across different websites, making it challenging for project owners to keep their information up-to-date. To tackle this problem, I have created a new platform called “Awesome Zcash.” This platform acts as a social hub for all Zcash based projects, providing a centralized location for project owners to showcase their work and manage their informat ion. Through Awesome Zcash, project owners have complete control over how their project is presented on the platform and can engage with a community of peers who share similar interests.

Proposed Solution: Describe the solution at a high level.

Awesome Zcash has 2 personas for managing the platform: Project owners that want to publish their project on Awesome Zcash, and ecosystem partners that is authorized ones like someone from a DAO, or from Zcash Foundation team.

Project owners can send a request to publish their project. After review and approval, they will login to edit their project’s page via their web3 wallets on a special dashboard. This enables project pages to be updated by project owners all the time and have unique dynamic pages.

On the other side, ecosystem partners can have admin access to Awesome Zcash. They can approve or reject projects and request to remove any harmful content with an explanation. This allows ecosystem partners to help manage Awesome Zcash and ensure that all projects are aligned with sustainability goals.

In summary, Awesome Zcash provides a platform where project owners and ecosystem partners can work together to create long-term sustainable platform. By empowering project owners to create and manage their own projects and providing ecosystem partners with the tools to manage and monitor the platform. With all this features end users who wants to explore Awesome Zcash can reach up-to-date information about the projects and easily observe the zcash ecosystem.

Solution Format: What is the exact form of the final deliverable you’re creating?

Here is the general overview of deliverables from a high level, details will be shared on milestones section.

  • Publication of Application on awesomezcash . org or a similar domain.

  • 8 Different Pages

  • Login with Wallet Connect

  • Project Owner Dashboard (Admin panel for projects which projects can update their page)

  • Open source GitHub repository with manual

Technical Approach: Dive into the how of your project. Describe your approaches, components, workflows, methodology, etc. Bullet points and diagrams are appreciated!

The project consists of three main parts: a public frontend, a dashboard where project owners can update the projects, and an admin dashboard where admins can perform some operations on the projects.

Aws Dynamo Db and Aws Appsync (graphql) are used together for the project backend, new users and projects are added to the database using the GraphQl API with the relevant operations. Meanwhile, auth transactions are managed with the AWS Lambda service. For example, when a project enters its account using its wallet, a token is generated with the Lens API, and on the server side, it is checked from which address the token produced by this relevant wallet was produced and whether it is valid. If it is valid, it can continue its functions as much as allowed.

Algolia is used as the search infrastructure, and thus, users can quickly perform detailed global searches on the page and expand their search scope by using the filters they want on the project page.

Technology Stack:

  • AWS App Sync (GraphQL)

  • AWS Amplify

  • Next.js

  • Additional Tools & Frameworks

  • Redux

  • Tailwind CSS

  • Wallet Connect, Lens API (Web3 Auth & Wallet)

  • Algolia (Search Infrastructure)


Public Page

  • Home Page: Visually appealing and user-friendly homepage which includes latest articles, popular categories and many more

  • Projects Page: Showcase page with detailed filtering and search infrastructure

  • Project Detail Page: Project details page to display detailed information about project with several modules

  • Articles Page: Articles page to showcase informative articles related to the subject

  • Article Detail Page: Detail page for individual articles to display their full content

  • Ranking Page: Ranking page based on votes and token stats which is supported by CoinGecko api to showcase popular projects and articles

  • Learn Page: Useful resources to learn about Zcash ecosystem

Project Owner Dashboard

  • Main Page: Homepage that displays statistics about the project

  • Project Page: Management page for project detail page with 6 modules like description, token stats and so on

  • Articles Page: A page that has give ability to update or write articles with built-in editor

  • Profile Page: Displays to core areas about project and gives ability to update

Admin Dashboard

  • Main Page: Homepage that displays statistics about the Awesome Compound

  • Projects Page: A page which gives rights to admins approve, reject or change status of projects

  • Roles Page: This page will provide the ability to update project owner and admin roles.

Dependencies: What external entities is your project dependent on? What involvement is required from ZF, ECC, and/or other external organizations? Who would have to incorporate your work in order for it to be usable?

There is no external dependency to use the project, but initial project details can be added with the support of the project owners and the Zcash Foundation, which will contribute to the sustainability of the platform.

Execution risks: What obstacles do you expect? What is most likely to go wrong? Which unknown factors could jeopardize success? Who would have to incorporate your work in order for it to be usable?

The project has been tested on several protocols and works well, similar to the previous question, no extra work on usage is required.

Unintended Consequences: What are the negative ramifications if your project is successful? Consider usability, stability, privacy, integrity, availability, decentralization, interoperability, maintainability, technical debt, requisite education, etc.

The project is designed in a sustainable structure, and anyone with a membership can update their profile as they wish, or administrators can restrict access to content they find inappropriate. Admins will be determined as the project is delivered, and in the meantime, I will continue to act as an admin. Although the most powerful aspect of the project is that the project-based platform can keep itself up to date, this may be more difficult in some scenarios.

For example, some will not want to deal with such accounts and showing some predetermined information will be enough, I encountered this problem the most on other platforms. For this scenario, I, as the admin, will add such projects manually, and with a button on the page, anyone who wants to edit this page in the future, if they are not the project owner, will be able to request a correction or update through a form, and the admins will update it if they find it appropriate.

In this way, the platform will continue to operate to the fullest extent possible to keep the platform up to date.

Evaluation plan: What metrics for success will you share with the community once you’re done? In addition to quantitative metrics, what qualitative metrics will you commit to report?

I’ve shared the previous supports this project for other protocols, you can except a similar output, design will be same and may be small different features according to these platforms. At least 40 projects will be add on platform as initialization which includes in this repo https://github.com/electric-capital/crypto-ecosystems/blob/master/data/ecosystems/z/zcash.toml

Hardware/Software total budget:

$0.00 USD

Please provide justification for the total hardware/software budget:

N/A

Services total budget (cloud, hosting, etc.):

$120.00 USD

Please provide justification for the total services budget:

  • Aws Amplify (Low Usage) - 1 year

  • Aws Workmail - 1 year

  • Domain Price - 1 year

Compensation total budget:

$0.00 USD

Please provide justification for the total compensation budget:

N/A

Do you require startup funding?

No

Milestone 1 - estimated completion date:

10/14/2023

Milestone 1 - USD value of payout upon completion of deliverables:

$5000.00

Deliverable 1.1

General =>> Open Source Repository, MIT License & Publication of at least 40 projects on projects page.

Deliverable 1.2

UI & UX Development =>> Home Page: Visually appealing and user-friendly homepage which includes latest articles, popular categories and many more, Projects Page: Showcase page with detailed filtering and search infrastructure, Project Detail Page: Project details page to display detailed information about project with several modules like explained in the solution, Articles Page: Articles page to showcase informative articles related to the subject, Article Detail Page: Detail page for individual articles to display their full content, Ranking Page: Ranking page based on votes and token stats which is supported by CoinGecko api to showcase popular projects and articles, Learn Page: Useful resources to learn about zcash ecosystem, UX Improvements & Testing: I will work to improve the user experience by ensuring that the user interface is fully compatible with mobile and tablet devices.

Deliverable 1.3

Project Owner & Admin Dashboard =>> As part of this milestone, I will be implementing both the frontend and backend components of the Project Owner & Admin Dashboard. This involves designing and developing the user interface (UI) for the dashboard, as well as building the necessary backend infrastructure to support its functionality. To ensure the quality of my work, I will conduct thorough testing to ensure that the dashboard is user-friendly and performs as expected. My ultimate goal is to provide project owners with a seamless and efficient experience when updating their pages and publishing articles on our platform.

Total proposed USD value of grant:

$5000.00 USD

How was the project timeline determined?

2 Weeks

Application submission date:

09/23/2023

1 Like

Hi @tolgayayci - Welcome to the forum, and thank you for submitting your grant proposal! We will review it in the upcoming weeks and reach out if we have any questions.

In the meantime, if you have any questions for us, you can post them to this thread or DM us at @ZcashGrants.

Zcash Community - We want to hear your feedback on this grant! You can post your comments to this thread or DM us at @ZcashGrants if you’d like to provide feedback in private.

Thanks!

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Thanks @aquietinvestor, if anyone has questions or have an idea about feature requests I am happy to listen and discuss!

That is the centralized platform, and should be where it lives, IMO.

Way over engineered.

  • You don’t need redux.
  • You don’t need algolia (that lens example website has like 7 articles and it’s paginated after 6 results?).
  • You don’t need a web3 auth/wallet either.
  • “Additional tools & frameworks” = ?? not sure what that would entail but I can assure it’s additional bloat.

$120 for hosting? You can get away with a static next.js site hosted on a personal Vercel plan.

If anything, hosting it on ifps is more of a compelling project.

You don’t need redux.

Yes I need, redux for using user and article state.

You don’t need algolia (that lens example website has like 7 articles and it’s paginated after 6 results?).

Maybe this is because of example website? Algolia using for projects & articles, some protocols has lots of projects and I don’t want to give focus on search and filtering part.

You don’t need a web3 auth/wallet either.

Using for auth, instead of classic oauth I choose web3 auth. This is needed to enter project and admin dashboards.

“Additional tools & frameworks” = ?? not sure what that would entail but I can assure it’s additional bloat.

Sorry for that, just an unnecessary bullet, syntax problem.

Sorry @pkr just to forgot last question’s answer in previous reply!

This is a dynamic website because there is 2 dashboards for admins and project owners. Public frontend side is okay but for this dashboard needs user interaction.

Use context.

If you do need search, use Meilisearch. Algolia costs money. Hint: I bet you probably don’t need search.

The main concern here is that you have to anticipate that people will be willing and able to submit their work, and maintain it. Building a community in 2023 is extremely hard. Not saying you aren’t competent of the technical aspect of it, but the community building part is a crapshoot and there may be a better way to contribute your time and skills rather than building an entirely new website. For example, maybe implementing something on z.cash or https://zfnd.org directly.

i think it would be great and a huge improvement for zcash community if we just copied monero community crowdsourcing

it’s great way for people to ask for community funding for their projects and hopefully eliminate the need for grants which are better spent on the zcash blockchain, and things like ledger support, POS, ZSAs. etc.

@tolgayayci Thank you for your submission. After consideration from @ZcashGrants and sufficient time for the community to provide feedback on the forum, the committee has decided to reject this proposal. Please feel free to apply for the Minor Grants Program when the program opens again (timing TBD).

The committee appreciates your grant submission efforts and encourages you to continue as an active member of the Zcash community going forward, both here on the forum and in the below avenues as well:

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