The Giveth Unicorns, a group of superheroes working together on projects in the Giveth Galaxy, come from all over the world. This community lives and works in 10+ different countries spread across 6 continents, and is constantly growing. Many other groups of people working on blockchain projects are similarly dispersed.

One challenge for these decentralized teams, as they coordinate many people working remotely, is creating a robust feeling of community among colleagues. These teams work on projects that promote transparency, accountability, and inclusiveness. How can they incorporate these same principles and values into their organizational structure and culture?

What a busy month on the Wall of Fame looks like

At Giveth, we have developed and implemented an app called “The Wall of Fame” to achieve this goal. The Giveth Wall of Fame, which is up and running at fame.giveth.io, is a virtual billboard for Giveth contributors to post videos of themselves and what they have accomplished. This blog post will dive into the creation of the Wall of Fame, how it works, and how it has helped Giveth become a more transparent, accountable, and fun community.

The idea that grew into the Wall of Fame came from Oz Jones, a Giveth DApp developer who wanted to integrate video submissions into the Dapp itself. The Wall of Fame has made Oz’s idea a reality and taken it much further.

Videos posted on the Wall of Fame are linked to Giveth’s RewardDAO system. Anytime that a Giveth contributor is dished RewardDAO points for their work (thank you, Giveth Pointsbot!), they must post a video on the Wall of Fame in order to receive their ETH reward. Wall of Fame users can upload a video, record with their webcam, or screen-share.

All users must authenticate by signing in through the MetaMask browser extension, a bridge that lets them run Ethereum DApps in the browser. This MetaMask integration adds a layer of security to the Wall of Fame, and enables contributors to submit an ETH address along with each video, creating a seamless and efficient way to reward contributors directly with cryptocurrency.

The initial development of the Wall of Fame was done by Edu, and the code was later rewritten by Deam, who resolved some UI issues and made the codebase cleaner and more reusable. The frontend is a combination of React.js and Next.js, while the backend is supported by Google Firebase and a Next.js Node Server. All code is available at https://github.com/Giveth/wall-of-fame/.

This video is an artistic masterpiece

Here at Giveth, the Wall of Fame has improved transparency and accountability while simultaneously fostering community. Contributors must post a video to get rewarded, but that video can be about pretty much anything. We’ve found that this gives our people the flexibility to be creative, comedic, and candid (look no further than Yalor’s “Multiple Personality Complex” video from month 5 for an example of all three at once!). This system also accommodates our shyer contributors, who can use screen-sharing to share their work without having to show their faces. Ultimately, although no two videos are alike, the Wall of Fame puts faces, voices, and personalities to names and contributions. It reminds everyone involved that the humans of Giveth, and the community that they collectively form, is what makes everything possible.

The next step for the Wall of Fame, which we are now beginning to take, is implementing the concept of video-based accountability into the Giveth DApp itself. Currently, contributors can create videos on the Wall of Fame, but Milestones (specific tasks or objectives within an on-DApp giving campaign) must be created on their behalf. The vision for the future is that when a contributor is dished points for their work, they will be able to create their own video and Milestone within the DApp itself and move it through the review process to receive their reward. We are proud to be following through on Oz’s initial vision of video integration into the DApp itself.

Giveth is a Decentralized Altruistic Community (DAC), and we are building a platform to meet the funding needs of the Makers of the future. Through our organizational structure, mission, and culture, we demonstrate our commitment to each of these three words:

These are our three pillars. And, although the Wall of Fame is not a direct part of the decentralized giving platform we are building, it has become a fixture of our community and is a crucial part of the Giveth Galaxy. We hope other organizations, teams, and movements, will follow our example. We invite anyone and everyone to check out the Wall of Fame, use our code, and foster community in ways that we haven’t even dreamed up yet.

Giveth is an open-source platform for building Decentralized Altruistic Communities. Interested in getting involved? Head to join.giveth.io.

Interested in checking out the Wall of Fame’s inner workings? All code is available at https://github.com/Giveth/wall-of-fame/.

Interested in learning DApp development or helping out with cool projects like the Wall of Fame? Check out the social_coding Riot channel, tell us what you’re interested in, and help build awesome stuff!

The Giveth DAC, the team of people working on the DApp and many other projects, is funded through the DApp. We ourselves depend on you, on Givers: the people out there who believe a tool like this should be a reality, individuals who want to help us to make the World a Better Place. If you want to be one of our favorite Unicorns, go to donate.giveth.io and claim your space on our leaderboard, donate directly in the DApp (right here) or come talk to Griff or Kris on Riot, and tell us how you’d like to contribute. ❤