What Does Community-Driven Development Mean for Delphi?

After reading about these goals that we’ve set out to accomplish, the question may naturally arise: “What will this actually look like, day-to-day?” Well, the honest answer is that while we have a few thoughts about some exciting things we’d like to try, we also aren’t 100% sure, at least not yet. At a high level, we want to open up as many channels of communication and feedback as we can (some more formal than others). This includes everything from the traditional approaches other projects might take (like being active on chatrooms and reddit discussions), to more experimental methods, like allowing users to use the PHI token to signal for things like feature development and priority (we are particularly excited about this one; look out for more details on this front soon). We want to explore all the ways that the community can cooperatively interact with us during the development process, to make sure that everyone who has something to say has their voice truly heard.

When it comes to community engagement, one of the most common complaints we have heard is the concern over a lack of clarity or consistency with regards to communicating progress and updates to project supporters. To combat this, we are now in the process of ironing out a plan to keep whoever is interested in Delphi in the loop within a schedule they can count on. Whatever the latest is, we want you guys to know (and also want to hear what you think about it), and we will be experimenting with different media outside of the traditional blog updates for communicating this information very soon.

Another important piece of this puzzle for us is the emphatic encouragement of the spirit of collaboration that we have always tried to embrace. We are going to be counting on the community to help test where appropriate, provide honest feedback whenever you notice something you feel could be done better, and to simply contribute in ways that play to your respective strengths. We want to go above and beyond in terms of being responsive to (and respectful of) any and all contributions, no matter what form they may take. And of course, if you have any ideas about how to best move forward or anything on your wishlist of things you’d like to see out of Delphi, please let us know. This will most certainly be an iterative process, and we have been consistently surprised at how creative and thoughtful the Delphi community has been so far; we’re supremely confident that our friends out there are up to the challenge.

Delphi Systems is a passion project, and we really want to explore (and push) the boundaries of how involved the community surrounding the project can be. There have been many experiments tried along the way, some of which have worked (and some of which haven’t), but we truly believe that the Autobid contract represents more than just a way to put our work above all else; it represents a sincere declaration that we value our supporters and your feedback, and an acknowledgement that we couldn’t do this without you. We sincerely thank you for all your support thus far and can’t wait to show you a few more of the things we have been working on recently.