By: The POAP Foundation
January 1st, 2022
Conducting quality drops is an art and a science, which requires issuers to deeply understand the desires of their communities as well as the collector’s spirit. This brief guide reviews best practices surrounding creating high quality POAP drops.
Wen POAP?
POAPs are minted as an attestation to a collector’s attendance (physical, virtual, or spiritual) at an event; a gift from issuers to collectors which acknowledge the non-material (and yet, invaluable) contributions that members of a community contribute to its collective health. POAPs can be issued for special events and memorable moments of all sizes, physically or virtually, provided good cause to do a drop.
In addition, issuers may mint tests to explore platform functionality and claim mechanics, as long as tests are clearly marked as such (both in the description and in the artwork) and set as “Private” events to prevent cluttering various parts of the platform.
Creating a petition
Petitions for all POAP drops go through manual review by the Curation Body. This is a group within the POAP Foundation that bears the sole authority for determining which POAP drops are allowable, in order to ensure that the POAP ecosystem remains an enjoyable place for collectors.
The committee will automatically reject drops with any of the following characteristics:
- Drops containing copyrighted content
- Drops containing pornographic or sexually explicit content
- Drops containing profanity or inflammatory content
- Drops containing hateful or discriminatory content
- Drops containing politically radicalized content, or those encouraging illegal activities
- Drops that violate guidelines for copy and creative, as described below
- Drops that lack a responsible distribution plan
Petitions should always be created using accurate contact information for the issuer, in case further communication about the drop needs to take place. If the petition is being composed on behalf of a large brand, the petition should be created by a brand account.
Petitions can be created via the POAP Issuer Portal, following the guide available here. Upon selecting “Create a Drop”, you will be presented with a graphic user interface to create the POAPs that will be dropped to your collectors.
Copy and creative
The public facing metadata of a POAP is frequently the aspect most appreciated by collectors, second only to the format of the drop itself. Both the copy (title, body text) and creative (artwork) should reflect the significance of the occasion being commemorated. Quality art and well-written copy are frequently the make or break factor for curators in determining whether a drop meets the standards for being part of the POAP ecosystem.
Apart from these general principles, copy and creative should follow certain specifications:
Copy
- Copy should be written (or translated) into English, and be free of spelling and grammatical errors.
- Copy should include some information about the reason behind the drop: What is being commemorated?
- Information about where and when the event is taking place should be included.
- Details on how the drop will be conducted should be written into the body text.
Creative
- Art should be uploaded as a PNG file, or an APNG or GIF with a .png file extension.
- Art should be cropped to a circular shape no larger than 500px in diameter.
- For proper display across applications, file size should not exceed 200 KB.
- Profane or explicit content is never acceptable in creative.
- Copyrighted or trademarked content is only acceptable when associated with official corporate issuer accounts.
Distribution
Drop execution, or the format of the drop itself, is part of the artistry in creating great POAP experiences. The best drops - like gifts - recognize the energy collectors put into both nurturing their communities and into collecting POAPs. Good distribution aims to present POAPs to collectors with care, and makes a best-faith effort to ensure that one POAP is available to each legitimate collector. Collectors should not be able to acquire the POAP unless they met the eligibility criteria, and should not be able or incentivized to mint multiples by gaming various minting mechanics.
Some guidance to choosing a distribution method and sizing the drop can be found below.
Mint links
Mint links are individual links that entitle collectors to mint one POAP within a drop. These may be distributed manually, or in an automatized fashion per account on Twitter, Discord, or other platforms. Manual distribution is suitable for most small to medium-sized events, or properly staffed large events, online or IRL. Automatic distribution is a great option for online events, provided the system distributing the links is instrumented with proper anti-bot measures.
If you elect to use POAP Website, POAP Secrets, or POAP Delivery for distribution, the number of mint links requested should be minimal.
POAP Website
A POAP website generates a secret subdirectory under http://poap.website which allows event attendees to mint a POAP upon visiting for a short period in time. This is a great solution for small to mid-sized IRL events, due to the option of transforming the URL into a QR code for prominent display.
POAP Websites are highly discouraged for use in online events.
POAP Secrets
A POAP secret is a secret passphrase that can be entered by a collector into the POAP mobile app in order to mint a POAP directly to the collector’s wallet. This is a better solution for online (particularly audio-first) events with large audiences. Best practices for large distributions are to leave the minting window open for a relatively short timeframe.
POAP Delivery
POAP Deliveries are useful for any event which includes on-chain activity, whether it be past, present, or future. Given a complete list of Ethereum addresses, a POAP delivery can whitelist the set of addresses to mint a single POAP, making it by far the most reliable mechanism for POAP distribution.
Due to the snapshot nature of POAP Deliveries, the list of addresses cannot be updated by issuers after the petition is submitted, and test deliveries are typically not approved.
Sizing your drop
The number of POAPs requested should approximate attendance somewhat closely. Curators monitor the size and nature of the communities issuers request on behalf of to evaluate whether requests are reasonable. The choice of distribution method will impact the likelihood of particularly large drops being approved without revision or comment.
Petition review
After an issuer petitions the body to drop POAPs, the petition will undergo a manual review by the curators. Reviews have several possible outcomes:
- Approval without comment: In the best case scenario, curators have no objections to the preparation or the execution of the drop. You will receive mint links (if requested) or notice that the POAP Website, Secret, or Delivery is approved to the email submitting the petition upon approval.
If you haven’t received an approval after 48 hours, we recommend reaching out to Curators via Discourse… You may be in one of the following situations:
- Request for information: In some cases, additional information (often pertaining to distribution) is required by Curators to make a decision about the petition.
- Conditional approval: In other cases, a drop may be approved with relatively minor changes to the POAP content. After revising your petition as requested, the drop will be approved promptly.
Finally, it’s worth acknowledging that not all petitions are approved for drops. The most common causes for rejected petitions are, in order of occurrance:
- “Unremarkable” events: The POAP Foundation frowns on overly superficial forms of engagement farming. POAPs as a reward for promotional activities (like generic social media engagement, or simply joining a community) are usually negatively reviewed in absence of further information for consideration.
- Poor drop execution: Drops are rejected in cases where issuers clearly have no interest in, or ability to, distribute POAPs to collectors responsibly.
- Low production quality: POAPs are collector’s items, and as such, should be developed with a certain degree of craftsmanship. Low quality or repetitive artworks are often rejected by the foundation.
Ultimately, the final determination of whether a petition is approved rests with the POAP Curation Body, as the stewards of the POAP ecosystem. Professional communication and adherence with the guidelines above are both foundational to a respectful and collaborative relationship between an issuer organization and the curators.
Sequel: Curator Guidelines: So you got smoke signals from the POAP Curation Body
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Our team is excited to learn and give back to our fans with POAPs for memorable moments in time and being a part of the communities growth
i appreate the update!