The following post highlights a project I created independently, outside of my work at ECC, and this post reflects my opinions only.
Hi Zcashers.
As some of you know, I recently launched ZecHub, an open-source education hub for Zcash. I created ZecHub with the intention that it would become a community-led project. In this post, I will outline proposed next steps and an RFI to ensure that ZecHub becomes a vibrant community-led resource for Zcashers all over the world.
The purpose of this RFI is to gather community sentiment on the future direction of ZecHub, and allow for community contributors interested in taking over the project to voice their interest in doing so. My goal is to hand off ZecHub to 1-4 community contributors over the next 60 days.
The remainder of this post provides some additional background on the project and why I think it could be valuable for Zcash.
ZecHub Primer
Zechub (zechub.xyz) is an open-source education hub for Zcash. It currently consists of a “Zcash Wiki” (living on Notion), a newsletter (substack), a podcast (various locations), and a YouTube channel. The YouTube channel consists of wallet tutorials and a show called ZecDaily, which highlights news in the Zcash ecosystem.
All content that ZecHub produces is created in its GitHub repo, prior to posting on social media sites. This process is ZecHub’s key differentiator and makes the project open-source and open to contributions from community members.
The purpose behind creating these channels is twofold. One is to raise awareness for Zcash in adjacent crypto ecosystems, and the other is to update Zcashers on news items they might have missed.
The Future of ZecHub
My original intention with ZecHub was to manage it for 3-4 months. I was going to encourage community contributions during this time, and when key contributors arose, I would begin a process of off-loading ZecHub to said contributors. Due to a variety of factors, I have decided to jumpstart that process.
1-4 people managing ZecHub does not mean they are the only ones who can work on it. It simply means that a small group of people are responsible for upkeep, maintenance, quality control and future strategic decisions.
In handing off ZecHub, I would like to continue to advise contributors in some capacity, but any role I play will be decided on by the contributors that take it over.
Lastly, I will create my own GitHub repository with ZecHub content up until the hand-off date. The intention behind that is to have content ready should ZecHub be deleted. I imagine this scenario is very unlikely.
ZecHub Contributor Opportunities
GitHub
- There is a need for people to manage the ZecHub GitHub repository. This will entail ensuring that all content is posted in GitHub prior to releasing it on social, managing and reviewing contributor pull requests. This likely would take 2-3 hours (a week) of someone’s time.
ZecWiki
- ZecHub contains a wiki that helps new users better understand Zcash. Wiki pages are created in the ZecHub GitHub, and then transferred to the wiki. Anyone can contribute to the wiki/GitHub, but it’s good to have someone focused on managing it. Wiki management and content creation would likely take 1-2 hours a week.
ZecWeekly Newsletter
- This is a weekly newsletter that goes out on Fridays. It essentially acts as a document which contains all relevant links from the Zcash ecosystem for that week. Contributors would be able to use the template, which exists in GitHub, and add curated links to the newsletter to send out. This takes me about an hour every week to complete. However, I do spend a lot of time on Twitter so curating links is easy for me. I would say this likely takes someone 2 hours a week to complete.
ZecDaily
- This is a YouTube show that highlights key Zcash news from a 1-3 day time period. Link curation for the newsletter suffices as link curation for the show. Recording the show, editing the thumbnail and posting the video takes ~1 hour. This would take someone 2–4 hours per episode.
Wallet Tutorials
- Wallet tutorials take me about 1-2 hours to complete per tutorial. I do not recommend making that a part of this RFI. I believe wallet tutorials should be done by community members, and Zcashers should encourage community content creation. Wallet tutorials (like this one) are low lift and have high impact in my opinion. ZecHub’s role, with regards to tutorials, should be to find the best tutorials and add them to the Wiki and YouTube channel (with permission of the tutorial creator).
Podcast
- A forthcoming part of ZecHub is a Zcash specific podcast. Since I’ve never done this, I do not know what the time commitment is. I will have a better understanding of this in 60 days. I recommend that the podcast is not included in this RFI at this moment in time.
Donation Address
There is a donation address that has received 1.5 ZEC since ZecHub was announced. I have sent out two donations to meme creators since their memes were featured in the newsletter. I have asked for the z-addresses of GitHub contributors to send a tip to thank them for their contributions.
Upon transferring ownership of all ZecHub assets, I will ask the new contributors to set up a wallet where I can transfer this ZEC to.
Selecting Contributors
Over the next 60 days, I will work with the Zcash Community Grants committee to find community members interested in taking over ZecHub. Once these contributors are found, I will begin the process of handing over access to the website, social media pages and the GitHub repo. I will ask the new group of contributors to create a new donation address, and I will transfer the funds to that address.
I originally said that ZecHub wouldn’t ask for funding from ZCG. This is only applicable if I am managing ZecHub. As an aside, I believe that future core contributors should be paid for their efforts, and people who independently contribute to ZecHub should be tipped and recognized for their efforts. However, I will leave any decision/application to fund ZecHub to selected contributors and ZCG.
After contributors are selected, I will work with them individually to transition ownership of all of ZecHub’s accounts and content.
Core contributors should have some familiarity with social media marketing, content creation and strategic planning.
If you are interested in being a core contributor to ZecHub, please announce your interest, and why you’re a good fit, below. Upon reviewing, ZCG and I will reach out to those who we see as a good fit.
Why ZecHub
I created ZecHub to give the community a way to be a part of Zcash’s marketing efforts. ZecHub is also a lower cost/lift than other efforts being done. The majority of ZecHub is done on free platforms, and the financial cost of all the subscriptions used to support it is roughly 1,000 USD a year. Also, I find the concept of open-sourcing education initiatives, like we open-source code, a very interesting one.
None of the work around maintaining ZecHub is particularly “difficult”, it just takes committed community members willing to consistently release content pertaining to the Zcash ecosystem.
Content such as blogs and tutorials, while more difficult to create, are really there to support the low lift efforts like the newsletter and ZecDaily show.
I have an assumption that having an information source that consistently shares information about our ecosystem would strengthen and support all other Zcash marketing and development efforts.
In this case, more voices is a net positive. I’m looking forward to working with ZCG and the community on positioning ZecHub for success.
I’m looking forward to this upcoming decentralization experiment.