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Collectives

Collectives are on-chain groups hosted on the Polkadot Collectives parachain, designed to serve the Polkadot network. They enable collaborative decision-making and governance through customizable parameters and funding mechanisms.

Setting Up a Collective

To set up a collective, stakeholders define its purpose, governance structure, and operational parameters. These parameters include member promotion/demotion periods, offboarding timeouts, and minimum promotion periods, ensuring flexibility while maintaining operational consistency.

Once these matters are decided, a new instance of the collective pallet is added to the runtime with the desired parameters in place. A collective may need multiple pallets to implement all of its desired functionalities; for example, the Polkadot Technical Fellowship has the following implementations in the runtime for its specific logic:

  • Ranked Collectives: A membership pallet which allows members to use their voting power for referenda within the collective.

  • Core Fellowship: A pallet containing specific logic regarding salary, member activity, promotion, and demotion specific to the Technical Fellowship.

For more information on the pallets used, refer to the implementation file in the runtime.

Collective Parameters

Key parameters for collectives include:

  • Demotion Period: The time required to demote a member.
  • Minimum Promotion Period: The minimum duration before a member can be promoted.
  • Offboard Timeout: The time allowed for offboarding a member.

These parameters, and more, can be tailored to meet the specific needs of the collective.

Submitting Evidence

Collectives may require evidence submission from their members to retain their rank. Guidelines for submitting evidence are defined by the collective and ensure transparency and accountability.

For an example of this mechanism, see the Evaluations repository for the Polkadot Technical Fellowship

Funding and Salaries

Collectives can manage sub-treasuries to fund their operations and allocate salaries to members. This allows them to operate independently while contributing to the broader Polkadot ecosystem.