ZCG Evaluation Process: A Case Study in Shifting Standards and Subjective Metrics

[ZArabia]

Full version

Hello everyone,

Before presenting our concerns, we would like to make one thing clear:
We respect all current ZCG committee members, This post is not intended as a personal criticism of any individual, nor is it the result of a personal disagreement with any committee member.
Based on our experience across multiple proposal submissions, we believe there are four fundamental issues that deserve discussion:

1. Grant reports and documented work do not appear to be reviewed thoroughly before funding decisions are made.
2. The criteria used to approve or reject proposals appear to change throughout the review process, making it difficult for applicants to understand what is expected of them and how success is being measured.
3. We repeatedly asked what specific metrics and outcomes were expected from us, but never received clear, objective, and measurable criteria for success.
4. Some feedback is subjective and difficult to translate into concrete actions, making it challenging for applicants to know what specific improvements would lead to approval.

Some work we did from February 2026 to May 2026 (Please refer to our monthly reports below for full details.)

• Educated hundreds of Arabic-speaking users about privacy and Zcash through our gamified learning Academy, educational content, webinars
• In May only, 70+ ZODL wallet downloads through our campaigns and community activities.
• Produced and localized 50+ articles, guides, lessons, and educational resources, alongside dozens of videos, infographics, and awareness campaigns covering Zcash and its ecosystem.
• Grew our community from:
• 200 → 420 Telegram members (+105%)
• 400 → 910 X followers (+125%)
• 100 → 220 Academy participants (+110%)
• Hosted multiple community events, webinars, contests, and campaigns with ~500 total participants in total
• Onboard 90+ users to ZcashNames.
• Launched new Academy tracks including Rust Development and Security & Privacy.
• Hosted ecosystem AMAs and collaborated with multiple projects across the Zcash ecosystem.
• Launched community initiatives related to IRL activities such as: (Eidiya Merch Campaign, World Cup Prediction website, Draw Your Country Flag with the Zcash Logo Contest).

* All these efforts were not sufficient to obtain approval, while no clear alternative path or expectations were provided.

In December 2025, after completing substantial work and beginning collaborations with ZecHub, we submitted our funding proposal to ZCG (We invested over 7 months of intensive work without any funding to demonstrate our commitment to this ecosystem and build a strong foundation).
Rather than immediately approving or rejecting the proposal, the committee postponed its decision for approximately two months, explaining that it was working on a broader plan regarding support for emerging regional communities.

During this period, we continued building and delivering work without interruption.
The committee later held a meeting with us, the primary takeaway from that discussion was straightforward:

Collaborate with ZecHub and translate content (This is the plan)

During that meeting, we asked a number of questions in an effort to better understand the committee’s expectations.

We asked:

What specific work would you like to see from us?

We did not receive a concrete answer.

We then asked:

What metrics would you like us to achieve?

Again, no specific metrics were provided.

* To this day, we still do not know what specific growth targets, adoption targets, event targets, or community metrics would have been considered sufficient for approval.

At one point, we asked whether translating approximately 10 articles per month and publish them in our academy (Proof) would be considered a reasonable level of output along with other work we do like community management. The response was affirmative.

Initial Rejection

After that meeting, we spent the three months doing exactly what we understood had been requested of us.

We collaborated with ZecHub, translated and published educational content and did extra work such as: expanded our academy, grew our community, organized educational initiatives, and increased our engagement with the broader Zcash ecosystem.

During this period, we achieved significant milestones and strong community growth, which gave us confidence to apply for funding again in order to continue and scale our work.

We were therefore surprised by the committee’s response.
They rejected the proposal for three reasons:

• Lack of collaboration with ZecHub
• Lack of activity and demonstrated impact
• Budget concerns.

Hanh stated:

“Last time we talked to them we asked them to get in touch with ZecHub and work on integrating their academy and their gamification to do some project together and I don’t think any of this stuff has actually happened.”

Zerodartz added:

“I think they translated some articles but they didn’t make it to ZecHub yet.”

Artkor stated:

“I do not have sufficient confidence that the demonstrated impact is proportional to the requested amount.”
“X activity, and Telegram engagement, do not provide sufficiently strong qualitative evidence to justify approving this grant.”

Decentralistdan

“I’m a reject as well based on what was just said. Not executing on the previously agreed upon concept and lack of activity and price”

These comments were particularly surprising because they appeared to contradict information that had already been documented in our reports here.

At the time, our reports documented:

• Collaboration efforts involving ZecHub.
• Community calls
• Educational content production.
• Academy growth.
• Community growth across Telegram and X and ongoing ecosystem engagement.

For this reason, it was difficult for us to understand how the committee reached some of these conclusions.
Based on the comments that were made, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that at least some committee members were either unaware of, had not fully reviewed our reports!
This is important because several of the reasons cited for rejection were directly related to activities that had already been completed and reported.

We Addressed Every Concern

After receiving this feedback, we did not argue.
Although the reports in question were already publicly available, clearly structured, and contained detailed documentation of our activities. we attempted to address every concern raised by the committee,
We:

• Provided additional evidence regarding our collaboration with ZecHub.
• Expanded and documented our activities in greater detail.
• Clarified misunderstandings regarding our work.
• Reduced the requested budget as they request.

New Reasons Appeared

At this point, the original concerns regarding collaboration, activity, and budget had been addressed directly. We therefore expected the proposal to be reevaluated on the basis of those concerns and whether they had been successfully resolved. Instead, a new and entirely different set of concerns emerged.

The focus moved toward new concerns from ZCG!

• Team transparency.
• Community engagement quality.
• IRL events.

At the same time, committee members explicitly acknowledged that valuable work had been delivered!

Artkor stated:

“I think we all appreciate the effort that Zcash Arabia has put in during their trial period.”

He then proposed approving funding for May because the work had already been completed:

“Only May because today is the 25th of May and Zcash Arabia is doing work this month. Work that’s been completed.”

Zerodartz agreed:

“I’m ok to approve one month of work in May.”

All committee members agreed and approved payment for May only.

This creates a difficult contradiction to understand.

If the work delivered by us was valuable enough to justify funding, what objective criterion separated that funded work from the future work proposed by the same team?
Conversely, if the work was not impactful enough to justify continued support, why was it considered worthy of funding at all?

The distinction was never clearly explained.

And the most concerning comments came from Hanh.

He stated:

“Honestly I don’t think we have the bandwidth to review one by one all these region specific community efforts.”

“I just don’t have the time to see and judge whether it’s good work or not when I don’t even understand the language.”

This raises a fundamental question.

If a reviewer openly states that they do not have sufficient time to review the work and cannot judge the quality of that work, how can they confidently conclude that the work lacks sufficient impact or does not justify continued funding?

This is especially important because several earlier criticisms were directed at activities that had already been documented in our reports.

We Continued Improving Anyway

Despite receiving only one month of funding, we continued building.

Please check our May report and here + we have promoting ZODL wallet and got ~50 new wallets in May.

as you can see in our report we responded directly to the committee’s feedback again by increasing collaboration, increasing educational output, increasing ecosystem participation, and increasing community-building efforts.

We Responded To New Concerns As Well

During the second review for our new proposal, Zerodartz stated:

“My concern with this proposal is they do everything online and other similar smaller communities usually start doing also real life events.”

If anyone checks our May report, he will see that we clearly stated distribute merchandise to community members and launched a World Cup campaign involving real-world engagement. These activities were already part of our plan. Furthermore, in our June proposal, we explicitly proposed organizing in-person events to address Zerodart’s concerns regarding IRL activities.

At this point, we believed we had responded to every major concern raised throughout the previous review rounds.

Another Rejection, Another New Reason

After publishing one of our strongest reports, demonstrating additional ecosystem collaboration, expanding educational efforts and responding to concerns regarding community engagement, the proposal was rejected once more.
This time the discussion shifted again, the previous concerns were no longer the focus.
Instead, the justification became increasingly subjective.

Gguy stated:

“I’d like to see them do more community building before they ask for more funding.”

Zerodartz stated:

“I appreciate this team’s work so far. But for me it doesn’t yet have the same growing energy behind it compared to many other more successful smaller community teams.”

At this stage, it became increasingly difficult to understand what measurable criteria were being applied.

The discussion had shifted from concrete concerns to subjective concepts such as “energy.”

Unlike collaboration, budget, wallet downloads, partnerships, translations, educational output, or event participation, “energy” is not an objective metric that applicants can clearly measure or respond to.

An Additional Contradiction

Another statement from Hanh raises further concerns.

He stated:

“We funded them through May, right? We did tell them that we were not impressed and we wanted to terminate in May.”

This raises another important question.

If the committee had already decided in May that it wanted to terminate support, how were the later proposals being evaluated?

Were they being evaluated based on:
New evidence? Expanded collaboration with ZecHub? Additional ecosystem partnerships? Stronger reports? Reduced budgets? Additional community initiatives?

Or had the decision to discontinue support already been made regardless of future improvements?

This is difficult to determine from the discussions that were published.

Conclusion

The issue is that throughout multiple review rounds, the stated reasons for rejection changed repeatedly.
More importantly, it appears that several committee members did not fully review our reports before reaching their conclusions. This is difficult to reconcile with comments that questioned activities, collaborations, and achievements that had already been clearly documented and publicly reported.

When concerns regarding ZecHub collaboration were raised, we addressed them.
When concerns regarding activity were raised, we documented our work in greater detail.
When concerns regarding budget were raised, we reduced the budget.
When concerns regarding ecosystem engagement were raised, we expanded our collaborations.
When concerns regarding real-world engagement were raised, we began incorporating those initiatives as well.

Yet after each response, the evaluation criteria appeared to shift.
As a result, we are left with a two simple questions:
What specific, objective, and measurable requirements would have been sufficient for approval?
How can applicants successfully address committee feedback if the reasons for rejection continue to change after previously raised concerns have already been addressed?

Because after multiple rounds of feedback, revisions, additional work, additional reporting, ecosystem collaborations, budget reductions, and continued delivery, the answer remains unclear.

Summary:
We respect all current ZCG committee members. This post is not intended as a personal criticism of any individual, but rather to discuss what we believe are important issues in the proposal evaluation process that affected us.

After several proposal submissions over the past months, two recurring concerns stood out.

1. Grant reports and documented work do not appear to be reviewed thoroughly before funding decisions are made.
2. The criteria used to approve or reject proposals appear to change throughout the review process, making it difficult for applicants to understand what is expected of them and how success is being measured.
3. We repeatedly asked what specific metrics and outcomes were expected from us, but never received clear, objective, and measurable criteria for success.
4. Some feedback is subjective and difficult to translate into concrete actions, making it challenging for applicants to know what specific improvements would lead to approval.

Some work we did from February 2026 to May 2026 (Please refer to our monthly reports below for full details.)

• Educated hundreds of Arabic-speaking users about privacy and Zcash through our gamified learning Academy, educational content, webinars
• In May only, 70+ ZODL wallet downloads through our campaigns and community activities.
• Produced and localized 50+ articles, guides, lessons, and educational resources, alongside dozens of videos, infographics, and awareness campaigns covering Zcash and its ecosystem.
• Grew our community from:
• 200 → 420 Telegram members (+105%)
• 400 → 910 X followers (+125%)
• 100 → 220 Academy participants (+110%)
• Hosted multiple community events, webinars, contests, and campaigns with ~500 total participants in total
• Onboard 90+ users to ZcashNames.
• Launched new Academy tracks including Rust Development and Security & Privacy.
• Hosted ecosystem AMAs and collaborated with multiple projects across the Zcash ecosystem.
• Launched community initiatives related to IRL activities such as: (Eidiya Merch Campaign, World Cup Prediction website, Draw Your Country Flag with the Zcash Logo Contest).

* All these efforts were not sufficient to obtain approval, while no clear alternative path or expectations were provided.

After our meeting with ZCG in Feb. 2026, we spent three months doing the work that ZCG asked for and did extra work.

Despite this, our proposal was rejected for reasons including:

@ZCG

• Zerodartz: I think they translated some articles but they didn’t make it to ZecHub yet.

@ZCG

• Hanh: I can see in the grant from Q1 that they said they would begin translation of some upcoming articles and then publish them in their academy in Arabic. I don’t think that has happened and we spent quite a long time talking to them to set expectations.

@ZCG

• Decentralistdan: I’m a reject as well based on what was just said. Not executing on the previously agreed upon concept and lack of activity and price.

These comments directly contradict information that had already been documented in our reports.

For us, this is strong evidence that at least some committee members did not fully review our reports before reaching their conclusions.

Although the reports in question were already publicly available, clearly structured, and contained detailed documentation of our activities. we attempted to address every concern raised by the committee, we

• Provided additional evidence regarding our collaboration with ZecHub.
• Reduced the requested budget as they request.

After that, we submitted a revised proposal. Since we had addressed all of the committee’s original concerns and reduced our requested budget, we expected the proposal to be approved. Instead, the committee raised an entirely new set of concerns.

Despite introducing new concerns, the committee acknowledged that valuable work had been delivered.

Artkor stated:

“I think we all appreciate the effort that Zcash Arabia has put in during their trial period.”

He then proposed funding only the work that had already been completed:

“Only May because today is the 25th of May and Zcash Arabia is doing work this month. Work that’s been completed.”

Zerodartz agreed:

“I’m ok to approve one month of work in May.”

The committee therefore approved funding for May only.

This raises an obvious question: if our work was valuable enough to fund in May, what objective criterion made the exact same team’s future work unworthy of continued support? That distinction was never explained.

The most concerning comments came from Hanh:

“Honestly I don’t think we have the bandwidth to review one by one all these region specific community efforts.”

“I just don’t have the time to see and judge whether it’s good work or not when I don’t even understand the language.”

Despite receiving only one month of funding, we continued improving our work. Please check our May report and here

However, during the next review, the concerns shifted again.

Zerodartz stated:

“My concern with this proposal is they do everything online and other similar smaller communities usually start doing also real life events.”

Yet our May report already included plans for merchandise distribution and a World Cup campaign involving real-world participation, and our June proposal explicitly included organizing IRL events.

After publishing one of our strongest reports, the proposal was rejected again even we addressed all the concerns about lack of activity and IRL events, and this time the discussion shifted toward subjective judgments.

Gguy stated:

“I’d like to see them do more community building before they ask for more funding.”

Zerodartz stated:

“I appreciate this team’s work so far. But for me it doesn’t yet have the same growing energy behind it compared to many other more successful smaller community teams.”

At this stage, concrete concerns had largely been replaced by subjective concepts such as “energy,” which are not objective or measurable criteria that applicants can meaningfully address.

The issue is that throughout multiple review rounds, the stated reasons for rejection changed repeatedly.
More importantly, it appears that several committee members did not fully review our reports before reaching their conclusions. This is difficult to reconcile with comments that questioned activities, collaborations, and achievements that had already been clearly documented and publicly reported.

We addressed the committee’s concerns. Instead of evaluating whether those concerns had been resolved, a different set of reasons became the focus.

Yet after each response, the evaluation criteria appeared to shift.

[NoFace]

The whole landscape of “work” is changing in the advent of AI, so of course the evaluation criteria should also evolve. Additionally, lots of people build on platforms without the objective being compensation. Try to come up with a different way to monetize if you require it to continue building.

[palmar]

I believe it’s important to grow an Arabic (Arabia) Zcash community, and I think it would be good to give you an opportunity. However, I also understand the ZCG’s caution in delaying and rejecting this grant. Below, I’ll share my thoughts on the matter:

I consider your work with translations and AMAs important because it helps your community overcome the language barrier (AI will probably solve this next year). Even though many translation tools are available, having a central place where people can find everything in their own language right away is very valuable. We also need to keep in mind that the algorithms on X or YouTube may only show users content written in Arabic, so it’s crucial to publish directly in the language. This is the main reason why I’d like to see you receive support.

That said, I think the amount you’ve requested is excessive. In your most recent proposal, you’re asking for $16K USD, of which $4.5K USD is allocated to the team leader’s salary from June to September, equivalent to $1,125 USD per month. This represents 65% of the salary of a core member of the Zcash en Español (ZEE). I don’t believe the current workload of Zcash Arabia justifies 65% of the effort that Zcash in Spanish delivers. To illustrate this better, here’s what ZEE does:

Community management and support, online events, in-person events, adoption through Zcash wallets, digital content, articles, guides, tutorials, translations, newsletter, Zcash podcast, online radio, online educational platform and events, distribution of Zerch (Zcash merch), digital items, and ZEC, Discord/Telegram, Bluesky, Instagram, X, Spanish Zcash website, Free2z, Substack, YouTube, Zcash 101 in Spanish, Who Wants to Be a Zcasher?, community workshops, ZecHub Dework, Club Zcash, etc. If you check the source, you’ll see that many of these activities include multiple subtasks, so the work is really broad, consistent, and comprehensive. How many of these things is Zcash Arabia currently doing?

In addition, members of the Spanish community have been active in the global Zcash ecosystem for approximately 4 to 7 years. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying you lack the ability to do this. I’m just pointing out that the current level of execution is still far from that scope and will require more time and focus. I’d genuinely love to see you reach that level.

After reading the ZCG meeting minutes, I also feel this grant wasn’t handled properly.

As a solution, I propose the following: For me, Zcash Brazil (ZB) and Zcash in Spanish are the two leading communities due to their track record, consistency, and impact. Right now, you can see members from these communities actively participating in ZecHub, Zingo, ZKAV, ZCAP, the Zcash Community Forum, etc. Therefore, you could aim to reach that same level and demonstrate that Zcash Arabia deserves higher budgets. In the meantime, you could frame your work as an Ambassador for Zcash Arabia.

I did a quick search and found a post from Zcash Korea proposing a very similar workflow to what you currently have, for $400 USD per month. Perhaps the amount could be a bit higher than that, but I don’t think it should exceed $800–$1,000 USD per month. This way, you can maintain momentum and gradually steer it toward the standard that ZB and ZEE have established in the global community. You can copy activities or programs from these communities and adapt them to yours, keeping in mind that every community has different needs and operates within its own cultural context.

I hope you receive these comments and suggestions in a positive way. I wish you the best of luck.

[hanh]

Here are my notes on the subject:

- ZCG receives an increasing large number of grant requests for community work
- Appreciate the engagement and the interest
- But creates a large workload to review fairly and objectively
- Especially in the days of AI when
  - content can cheaply be produced
  - metrics can be faked
  - bots are widespread
- And it is in a language we do not speak/understand
- ZCG decided to put in place a common framework for community work
- New comers, ie people we haven't worked with, are in a "probation period"
  - once we have successful results, we can relax the process
  - but in the beginning, we have to follow:
- Process is
- Work with Zechub
- We want Zechub to be the center of the community
  - People should have a common place where they get their info
  - Allows us to check that the material shown
  - Framework for reporting
- meeting with ZArabia
  - All of this was communicated
  - We liked the game
  - I played it, and noticed some issues with the answers but I
  liked the gamification approach
  - Ask ZArabia to work with Zechub on translations and the inclusion
  of their game
  - Approved grant as a trial
- At the end of the period,
  - ZArabia reported their own success metrics
  - The only arabic content I could find on Zechub is from zoz in 2023
  - ZArabia translated Zechub content to put on their own website
  - This is not what was asked
  - ZCG wanted ZArabia to contribute to Zechub
  - ZCG still tried to evaluate ZArabia based on their own metrics
  - The results were not good enough
  - ZCG is not confident that the engagement is real
  - For example, the links in their report have no clicks, which means that no
  one from the forum followed them. When we go to see them, they have few
  comments
  - The posts seem AI generated
  - We don't see people anywhere

The summary is

ZArabia was awarded a trial grant to translate content into Arabic and contribute it to Zechub — the community’s central hub — as part of ZCG’s new framework for vetting newcomers in an environment where AI-generated content and fake engagement are rampant. At the end of the period, ZArabia had not contributed to Zechub (the only Arabic content there was from 2023 by someone else), had instead translated Zechub content onto their own website, and reported self-measured success metrics. Upon investigation, forum links in their report had zero clicks, posts appeared AI-generated with few comments, and little genuine community engagement could be found anywhere.

---

Conclusion:

The grant was discontinued because ZArabia failed to meet the core deliverable — contributing Arabic content to Zechub — and the engagement they reported could not be verified as real. In a trial process designed to build trust through results, they did not demonstrate authentic reach or impact, leaving ZCG with no basis to continue funding.

[ZArabia]

Hello Palmar,

Thank you for taking the time to write such detailed feedback. We genuinely appreciate both your support for growing an Arabic-speaking Zcash community and your constructive suggestions.

Regarding Zcash en Español, we agree that they are one of the strongest regional communities in the ecosystem and have built an impressive track record over many years.

That said, we believe our work has been underestimated.

@palmar

Community management and support, online events, in-person events, adoption through Zcash wallets, digital content, articles, guides, tutorials, translations, newsletter, Zcash podcast, online radio, online educational platform and events, distribution of Zerch (Zcash merch), digital items, and ZEC, Discord/Telegram, Bluesky, Instagram, X, Spanish Zcash website, Free2z, Substack, YouTube, Zcash 101 in Spanish, Who Wants to Be a Zcasher?, community workshops, ZecHub Dework, Club Zcash, etc. How many of these things is Zcash Arabia currently doing?

We actually do most of the activities you highlighted.
In addition, we have several initiatives that are unique to our community, including a gamified Academy, educational games, a World Cup prediction platform, and other community campaigns.

Our concern is that throughout the review process we repeatedly asked what objective milestones we needed to reach, addressed the feedback we received, and continued improving our work, yet the evaluation criteria appeared to change over time.

At the same time, several comments made during the review process suggest that some committee members did not fully review our reports before reaching their conclusions, despite those reports already documenting the very work they said was missing. This made it extremely difficult for us to understand what was actually expected or how success was being evaluated.

We appreciate your suggestions and hope you’ll continue following our progress.

[ZArabia]

Hello Hanh,

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

First, we appreciate your technical contributions to Zcash. However, as you previously acknowledged, you did not have enough time to review all regional community reports in detail. We believe this is at the core of the issue.

You state again that we did not collaborate with ZecHub and did not publish Arabic content there.

First:
The agreement was to translate the articles and publish them in our Academy, not on ZecHub, We have evidence supporting this:

@ZCG

Hanh: I can see in the grant from Q1 that they said they would begin translation of some upcoming articles and then publish them in their academy in Arabic. I don’t think that has happened and we spent quite a long time talking to them to set expectations.

Link to proof

@ZArabia

After a productive meeting with the ZGC and ZecHub teams last week, we would like to thank all members for their valuable help, recommendations, and support.

Based on this discussion, we will begin translating some of the current and upcoming ZecHub guides and articles and publishing them in our academy

Link to the proof

Second:
We also received a confirmation that we had completed the requested work. Unfortunately, we cannot publish that conversation without permission, we send it to you in PM, please check.

Third:
After our proposal was first rejected because we had not published the articles on ZecHub (even though this wasn’t a part of the original agreement), we immediately requested that the translated articles be published there as well. You can verify that here: Add Arabic Zcash articles by Cryptoblarabi · Pull Request #1673 · ZecHub/zechub · GitHub
…

Our intention is not to criticize anyone personally or create argument. We simply want the facts to be clear and to receive a fair evaluation based on what was actually agreed upon and delivered.

We hope this additional context helps clarify our position and that you will reconsider your assessment.

[artkor]

Well, I think you are right that some of the evaluation is subjective. But I also think this is the natural reality of grant evaluation: not every meaningful result can be reduced to objective metrics.

That is also why ZCG is an elected committee with an odd number of members. One person’s judgment is subjective; when 3–5 elected committee members independently evaluate the same proposal, the decision becomes less arbitrary and closer to a balanced assessment.

However, since you are asking for measurable factors that influenced my own assessment, here is one concrete objective example.

I tested the Academy articles page using both curl and Lighthouse.

for i in {1..20}; do
  curl -L -o /dev/null -s -w "$i http=%{http_code} dns=%{time_namelookup} connect=%{time_connect} tls=%{time_appconnect} ttfb=%{time_starttransfer} total=%{time_total} size=%{size_download}\n" \
  "https://academy.zcasharabia.xyz/articles"
done

(Anyone can test this for themselves to ensure the experiment is fair.)

In 20 curl requests to the articles page, the initial HTML response returned HTTP 200 every time, but the response times were inconsistent:

• 20/20 HTTP 200
• HTML size: 6535 bytes
• median total response time: ~0.79s
• average total response time: ~2.03s
• max total response time: ~18.49s
• 8/20 requests took more than 1 second
• 5/20 requests took more than 2 seconds

I also ran a desktop Lighthouse audit. The results were:

• Performance: 40/100
• Accessibility: 89/100
• Best Practices: 96/100
• SEO: 83/100
• First Contentful Paint: 1.9s
• Largest Contentful Paint: 3.8s
• Speed Index: 3.8s
• Cumulative Layout Shift: 1.0
• Total page size: 9,818 KiB

My point is that using this resource is not just uncomfortable; at times it can be actively frustrating. This matters because the Academy is being presented as one of the main outputs and evidence of impact.

Regarding May, I personally supported approving the May work largely because the decision had been delayed and the work for that period was already underway. But I also made it clear in the Telegram chat that any work you are doing now is at your own discretion and does not create a prior commitment from ZCG, and that I cannot promise any outcome before the committee discusses it. You replied that you totally understand.

I don’t think I have much more to add here. I’m glad you raised this topic, and I think it is worth everyone reflecting on it. People can judge for themselves whether the current process feels fair, and if you have concrete ideas for how it could be improved, I would definitely encourage you to share them with the community.

[ZArabia]

Thank you, Artkor, for taking the time to respond.

First, we genuinely appreciate your efforts. You have probably been the committee member who helped us the most, acknowledged our work several times, and consistently responded to our messages. We truly appreciate that.

Our concern is that every time we receive feedback, we address it, improve our work, and provide additional evidence. Yet instead of evaluating whether we met the previously raised concerns, new reasons for rejection appear! and now a completely new issue has been introduced by you about the Academy’s technical performance! This was never mentioned during any of the previous review rounds.

Our question is simple: if we improve this issue “if it’s really exist”, would that be enough for you to approve the grant directly?
Another question: why do our achievements and documented results seem to receive so little attention, while each review focuses on finding a new reason for rejection?

For reference, we also ran the same benchmark you shared, and our results were better, please see:
median total response time: ~0.25s
average total response time: ~0.28s
max total response time: ~0.73s
0/20 requests took more than 1 second
0/20 requests took more than 2 seconds

We also tested two websites operated by other ZCG grantees. Their performance results were very similar to ours, and in some areas our Academy performed better.

We prefer not to publish their names publicly, as this is not about comparing or criticizing other teams. However, we would be happy to share the results and the website names with you privately if you would like to verify them yourself.

median total response time: ~0.70s
average total response time: ~0.76s
max total response time: ~1.16s
1/20 requests took more than 1 second
0/20 requests took more than 2 seconds

median total response time: ~0.75s
average total response time: ~0.87s
max total response time: ~1.62s
5/20 requests took more than 1 second
0/20 requests took more than 2 seconds

We are absolutely willing to improve the Academy immediately if doing so would help secure your approval of our grant.

Thank you again for all your support throughout the past months. We truly appreciate everything you’ve done for us and the time you’ve always taken to respond and help.

[artkor]

I don’t know what else to suggest. The only thing I know is that every member of ZCG pays close attention to the community’s opinion.

[palmar]

I don’t mean to underestimate your work. On the contrary, I value it, and as I’ve said, I’d like to see you get the support needed to continue. However, my position remains the same. I don’t want to drag this out in a long thread, so I’ll get straight to the point:

I know you’re carrying out many of the activities I mentioned from other communities, but I don’t believe those activities yet have the impact required to justify a $16K USD grant for 4 months. For example, here’s your YouTube channel (created one year ago with 12 videos), here’s Zcash Brazil (created four years ago with 727 videos), and here’s Zcash en Español (created four years ago with 396 videos). So it’s not just about having a YouTube channel, a Telegram group, or an X account; it’s about the volume and visibility of the work being done through them.

The YouTube channels I mentioned from other communities reflect years of consistent, high-quality, and diverse work across multiple areas of Zcash: from covering conferences like Zcon, to specific wallet tutorials, to long-form interviews with special guests outside the Zcash community who are aligned with its mission. This is just one example. You can use it as a reference if you find it helpful.

I would like to give you detailed feedback on each of your activities and what could be improved (from my point of view), but that would take a lot of time, and I’m not part of the ZCG.

My evaluation of Zcash Arabia is positive, but I still believe the best approach is to start with a smaller budget through an Ambassador grant. This would allow you to focus on growing specific areas such as YouTube, X, blog translations, and academy, while delivering even stronger reports, visibly and verifiably involving more people, and using long-standing, well-recognized communities in the ecosystem as a benchmark. It would be interesting to see if the ZCG committee agrees with this approach.

The role of Ambassador should come before that of a regional community. In fact, it is the Ambassador who can create or activate a community as a result of their work. An Ambassador is one person, whereas a community (in the sense of an organization requesting a grant) implies the contribution of multiple people. I recognize your contributions, but I wouldn’t classify them as a regional community yet, rather, as the work of an Ambassador. I hope you can continue with your efforts.

[ZArabia]

Thank you Palmar for your thoughtful reply. We respect your opinion and appreciate the time you took to share it.
Since you are still comparing us with other communities, it’s also worth mentioning that we have initiatives that they do not have, just as they have initiatives that we do not. Every community has different strengths and focuses on different priorities but this is not the main topic of this discussion.
It’s also worth noting that ZCG had already approved our proposed budget in previous proposals as they see our hard work we did so this not the main problem. We started as ZecHub Ambassadors more than a year ago before moving to ZCG. Going backwards to an Ambassador grant is simply not a practical path for us comparing to work we do.

Regarding YouTube, it has never been one of our primary objectives in the past months. Our focus has always been on X, Telegram, our Academy, educational content, and community growth. YouTube is something we may expand in the future if we find it valuable.
Also, when comparing us with Zcash Brazil or Zcash en Español, it’s worth remembering that they didn’t have hundreds of videos during their first year either. They reached that level after receiving funding for years. Every successful regional community started small and gradually expanded with sustained financial support - and you can check that they got +3000$ in their first year with small number of videos and articles and community.

More importantly, YouTube cannot be considered an objective benchmark. ZCG has approved grants for the current regional communities that do not even have a YouTube channel, while others have channels that have been inactive for over a year. So it is clearly not a requirement for approval.

We are not asking for $4,000/month in exchange for doing nothing. We are asking for the resources needed to continue producing educational content, growing our community, increasing adoption, and building new initiatives that help expand the Zcash ecosystem. Our goal has always been to maximize impact.

We noticed that you’re running for a seat on ZCG, and we wish you the best of luck.
If you’re elected and want us to justify our budget or compare our work with other communities, we’d be happy to do that. As you’ve probably noticed, we’re always trying to improve ourselves and work as hard as we can. We’re confident we could find common ground regarding both the budget and the scope of work.

We truly value your advice and understand that you’re trying to help us. However, the main issue raised in this topic is different: some committee members did not fully review our reports, and after we addressed every concern that was raised, entirely new reasons for rejection kept appearing. That is the concern we’re trying to solve it.

[ZArabia]

Since the committee approved funding for our work in May and acknowledged that the work delivered had value, while the reasons for rejection appeared to change throughout the review process and some feedback relied on subjective concepts we would like to propose a solution that we believe is fair for everyone.

We propose establishing a public agreement on the forum that clearly defines both the required monthly activities and the minimum expected outcomes.

This framework would create complete transparency. It would make it straightforward for both ZCG members and the wider community to review our reports, verify whether the agreed work was completed, and determine whether the agreed objectives were achieved.

The framework should define both the required work and the expected measurable outcomes.

Proposed Monthly Framework (Draft, Open to Review and Modification)

Activity	Monthly Deliverable	Minimum Acceptable Outcome
Translate articles from ZecHub, Zcash Foundation, and ZODL	Translate all newly published articles	At least 100 views
Educational Articles (Guides, tutorials)	3 articles	At least 100 views
Educational Videos (Guides, tutorials)	3 videos	At least 100 views
Short videos	10 videos	At least 100 views
Infographics	10 infographics	At least 100 views
Threads/posts on X	30 posts	At least 100 views
Webinars / Workshops	1	At least 20 participants
Community campaigns or contests	1	At least 20 participants
Telegram	Ongoing	30 posts
Community management (answering questions & onboarding users)	Ongoing	Respond to community requests within a reasonable timeframe
Ecosystem collaboration (AMA, partnerships, etc.)	1	At least 1 completed collaboration
Academy improvements (new lessons, quizzes, gamification)	2	+10 new users
Zcash wallet onboarding campaign	At least 1 campaign	At least 20 new wallet downloads
IRL activity (meetup, merchandise distribution, etc.)	At least 1 activity	At least 20 participants
Monthly report	1 detailed report	Complete public documentation of all deliverables and outcomes

ZCG is welcome to modify this framework, remove items, or add any additional deliverables or measurable outcomes it considers important.

Note: The activities and minimum acceptable outcomes listed above represent the baseline requirements for receiving the full monthly payment. They are not intended to limit our work.
Whenever possible, we will continue delivering additional initiatives beyond this framework based on the ecosystem’s needs and new opportunities.
For example, during previous months we onboarding 92 new users to ZcashNames, and organizing additional community campaigns (world cup predication, drawing contest)
Our goal is always to exceed these targets whenever possible and continue improving our impact over time.

If all deliverables and minimum acceptable outcomes are completed, the previous month’s payment should be approved and funding should continue for the following month.
If one or more deliverables are not completed or the minimum acceptable outcomes are not met, the committee would have clear, objective grounds to reduce the monthly payment proportionally or, in cases of significant underperformance, suspend or discontinue funding until the agreed requirements are met.

We ask the committee to consider adopting this framework on a two-month trial basis (July and August).
To make this possible, we also request approval of the June funding for the work we did, which will enable us to continue our work and deliver the agreed objectives during the trial period.
We look forward to the committee’s response, whether by approving this proposed framework or suggesting any modifications it believes would make it more effective.

Our goal is simple: to establish a fair, clear, objective, and transparent evaluation process that benefits both ZCG and grant applicants while eliminating misunderstandings and reducing subjectivity.

@zerodartz @hanh @artkor @GGuy @decentralistdan