Secret Word Guidelines

Community
1

POAP has created a variety of different distribution methods to guarantee that POAP issuers can get POAPs into the hands of everyone who shared the experience being commemorated.

In this article, we’ll discuss POAP Secrets and provide the guidelines for safe distribution.

What is POAP Secrets?

If you’re in this forum, you’ve probably already heard of or used the POAP Secrets distribution method. But, just in case, here´s a brief description of it:

Secrets are used to distribute POAPs through the use of an issuer-selected word or phrase that collectors use to mint a POAP via the POAP app.

The steps :footprints: to mint the POAP are super simple:
Open the App > Tap on Mint > Tap on Secret > Enter the Secret word.

IMG_74E532EDE768-1
IMG_74E532EDE768-11170×2532 115 KB

Wen Secrets: Use Cases

The appropriate use cases for Secrets are online live events like Twitter Spaces, Discord Stages, Youtube lives, or Zoom gatherings. Although some issuers use Secrets for IRL events, this is not recommended. The suggested method for IRL events is Mint Links. The use of the POAP Kiosk is fantastic for easy distribution.

Secrets can’t be used for past events. The only distribution methods allowed for past events are Mint Links or Delivery – as long as the issuer has a list of participants and a way to verify participation.

IMPORTANT :rotating_light:
Secrets can’t be shared in any type of written communication: social media publications, emails, DMs, groups, etc. Curators audit the drops; if a lousy practice is found future POAP petitions can be rejected.

Advantages vs. Disadvantages

  • Advantage: Easy distribution

Secrets are highly convenient for drops with more than 50 POAPs since issuers don’t have to lose time sending individual links to collectors.

  • Disadvantage: Potential for leaking

If the secret word is shared with non-participants, the POAPs can be farmed. It’s essential to follow the guidelines below to prevent farming.

Guidelines:

  • Secret Name: Use a random Secret :shushing_face:; don’t use a word that is in the title or description of your drop. For example, for a drop titled “Bob’s Birthday at Ahupulco,” a secret word like “WeLovePuppies” is fine, but “BobAhupulco” is easy to guess and should not be used

  • Mint Window: Use a very short mint window :window:. Best practices are to have it open only for 15 minutes and announce it during the last 15 minutes of the event

  • Announcement: Only announce the word verbally (don’t share it by DM or elsewhere online) :studio_microphone:

Useful Links:

:point_right: How do I set up a POAP Secret?

:point_right: POAP Issuer Guidelines

Thoughts? :thought_balloon:

We’d love to hear your thoughts about POAP Secrets!

  • How’s your experience with this distribution method?
  • Any suggestions you have for POAP or other Issuers?
  • Tell us about any significant drop using Secrets
19 Likes
2

Hi there,
First of all, thank you for addressing this important issue. I support the implementation of secret code. However, it also has some risks. I think it’s a practice that benefits poap farmers. A poap farmer who knows the secret word can get poap in many ways in a very short time. You can enter codes from many mobile phones at the same time or share this secret code with many people who do not attend the event, causing unfair competition. A fairer method can be developed in which real people who attended the event can receive poap. For example, in twitter space, a method can be developed to register the user names of the participants and poap can be defined through these usernames. I don’t know much about the technical details, but a different method can be tried. For example; an information pool can be created. This pool should contain the dc-twitter username and e-mail address of the people. When the relevant person joins dc or space, the username should be determined and checked from this information pool. After confirming the information, the poap link can be uploaded to the degen-guild bot or the poap link can be sent to the person via e-mail. In this way, real participants can be identified and their poaps can be distributed.
Note: The knowledge pool should be kept up-to-date and should be filled in by the people themselves.
Thanks

5 Likes
3

I prefer distribution links. but for who attends the event for a specific period of time. In other words, we need a bot to check the attendance of the collector.

1 Like
4

For me It will be nice idea to send the secret poap directly to each recipient with code that can only be claimed by the person alone which will prevent the person from sharing to others as if shared with others then the person lose their chance. Thank you and hope it will help

5

  • How’s your experience with this distribution method?

    A:I have never used secret word in any of drops I have issued (of course, I haven’t issued many drops, and very few links for each application) I like to send manually, although it is not efficient, it can be guaranteed that only qualified people can get it.I have collected some poaps using the secret word method, poaps all gone within a few minutes. It’s hard to tell if these people are fans or farmers.

  • Any suggestions you have for POAP or other Issuers?

    A:Honestly, I have some doubts about the fairness of secret words, most secret words will be shared with non-participants, real participants may have a glass of water, poaps are all gone…except for more identity authentication methods, secret word drops should also be charged a certain fee. Of course, whether to enable it depends on the will of each issuer, but functions can be tried to open, for those issuers who don’t want their drops to fall into the hands of farmers,It is also a protection.

2 Likes
6

Are you serious?
The solution to farming is not to issue any poap.
You poap team should play by yourself.

7

I find the secret word distribution very useful for finding the mystery POAP that might be out there. It shows very positive and motivated people to join different communities’ live events where they can learn something new.

My experience with the secret word distribution has been great. I have attended numerous events on; twitter, discord, youtube, and telegram, and overall I can say it has been an excellent distribution method. There was one time that the first word was a little confusing, and the issuer decided to type in the chat, but after that, no farmers were present, and the event went smoothly.

I would like to see in the future some Issuers could implement the secret word for some scavengers hunts events and even apply some fun easter eggs as I have seen recently, issuers typically use an excellent slogan for attendees to find the secret POAP.

I would say it has to be the one from POAPathon because they presented Sara Phillips as a special guest on the show, and she even performed for everyone!

1 Like
8

  1. I have received POAPs with this method. They all used password and of course I think it is better to consider a unique way to distribute POAP.

  2. It is better for POAPs to be valid for people with specific addresses. It’s a bit unfair that anyone who knows the password can get it.

  3. The password must be valid based on the wallet address, otherwise anyone who knows the password can receive multiple POAPs!

  4. Identifying the people present in the meetings is a requirement. That a human can get multiple POAPs based on weak validations is a huge disadvantage.

  5. It is better for the people participating in the meetings to be fully known and to receive POAP with the unique ID.

1 Like
9

The experience of distributing poap using secret phrases is best, but it is important to strictly limit the time window and not to distribute large numbers of clients. Tip secret phrases can be given in a different way without saying them directly.

1 Like
11

The distribution of POAP secret words has undoubtedly brought a lot of convenience to many POAP farmers, and this behavior is not what we advocate. I think this method of claiming should be abolished, and I prefer the payment of a certain amount of cryptocurrency in our community calls to prevent farmers from doing so.
During the release process of POAP, I suggest adding the following measures to prevent robots from destroying our entire ecology: 1. Address detection 2. POAP set to non-transferable (similar to SBT)
Off topic, I think if we can solve the fair distribution of POAP then POAP will definitely be a phenomenal application for the next 10 years

1 Like
12

As mentioned above, one of the advantages of this method is the ease of distribution of POAPs, which is suitable for meetings with a large number of attendees. In my opinion, apart from the aforementioned guidelines on the “Secret Name, Mint Window and Announcement,” for this type of distribution, the following 2 conditions are better to be observed:

  1. As the receipt of the POAP in this case is based only on the attendance in the meeting and the recipients do not need to do anything, according to the Discussion on the Pre-Announcement, it is reasonable not to announce the POAP in advance, unless for exceptional cases, for instance, the cases in which the POAP is used as a means of advertisement.

  2. To ensure the presence of the recipients of POAPs and to reduce the POAP farming, it is better to suggest using a combined method with Secret Word. For example, a form including a few multiple choice questions from the session along with the Secret Word can be used for this purpose.

Unfortunately, I have observed cases where the meeting was held on Twitter, but the Discord ID was required to be filled in the form and vice versa. To avoid such cases it is good to mention in the guidelines that the information “proving the presence” can be combined with Secret Word, i.e., if the meeting is on Discord, the Discord ID should be required, and if the meeting is on Twitter, the Twitter ID can be filled in the form.

1 Like
13

I don’t think secret code is a good solution, because anyone (farmer) who gets that word can harvest several popups and maybe those who were present in that meeting can’t get them.
You will definitely find better solutions than this.

14

Hello. Thank you for addressing this important issue. The methods that have been implemented so far for poap, such as secret code, are facing many problems. High performance and with several systems in a short period of time, all the capacity is taken and there is nothing left for the people who attended the meeting and spent time and money. On the other hand, these people sell poaps very cheaply, which is also bad. It is better to consider a mechanism like bright I’d to identify the people present. Thank you.

15

I have never used the secret words since in my case, 99% of the events we will be onboarding people. They need to learn and understand a lot, new vocabulary, why am I doing this, and so it ends up in people in different phases of the process. On top, most are like me non-native English speakers with different mother tongues, I would need to write the secret. Not a real issue in my case, mostly internal employees in a controlled environment, but displaying a QR code in my phone is more visible. Having said that, I like the simplicity of a secret word. Typical at most nascent technologies, Usability is very poor in the whole Web3 space. Having a Secret word is a great option. I will use it at some point and find the Guides / Recommendations above quite useful.

16

It is a good method, but if the internet speed is a little slow, it will be lost easily, and as you said, there is a possibility of being mined by farmers. I think we need another confirmation besides the code secret to prevent this.
For example, one of the human identification methods such as BrightID Or using bots for attendance accuracy.

17

I have used this method to get poap and I am sharing my personal experience

Advantages:
1- High distribution speed to remove farmers
2- receiving poap easier compared to other methods

Suggestion: If we are really looking for real people, more advanced and combined methods should be used, such as simultaneous use of Degen and secret code distribution, and a user name should be defined in Popap application for people with a certain wallet add

1 Like
18

I have used this method and it was a good experience
However, sometimes I failed to receive or I could not hear the secret code correctly and I lost it. :slight_smile:
It is a fast method, but usually it is not distributed fairly among the participants. On the other hand, the organizer does not have enough manpower to approve each person. Perhaps methods such as the Gitcoin passport can be used to establish justice. In this case, the possibility of hunting by hunters will be reduced and the real users will be known.

19

  • How’s your experience with this distribution method?
    i Guess its better distribute because bots like Degen is very easy for farmer and the community should stay and listen to know the secret and another thing because of limit POAP everyone on meeting can mint !

  • Any suggestions you have for POAP or other Issuers?
    i GUess its better way to combine some method together like DEGEN and Secret together !!!

  • Tell us about any significant drop using Secrets
    one of the most drop is community call of poapathon in YOutube

20

Hey everyone :upside_down_face:

I’ll add a few pros and cons to this mean of delivery below.

Pros:
– Easy and fun to claim as an attendee
– You need the POAP app, so in a way it limits farming possibilities
– People need to actually listen to get the POAP (With Degen or Guild some people can just connect multiple Discord accounts and join the call to farm)

Cons:
– Secrets are being shared outside of the group
– Easy to miss (word misheard, toilet break, connection issue…)
– Disappointment when you attend an event and look forward to a special POAP but miss it
– Not the easiest to setup compared to some other methods

I regularly attend events where there’s 2-3 times more POAPs claimed than people present, I hope this can be improved in the future.

I read above some ideas of using combinations of Degen + Secret Word (or adding BrigthID, Proof of Humanity…). Those ideas are interesting and need trials. There’s always the risk of making it too complicated or restrictive, so we need to continue to experiment until we find a good formula :woman_scientist:

3 Likes
21

Hello my friends. I recently made a Youtube video going over these new guidelines while giving my thoughts and highlighting some comments from this thread. I’ll post a few of my thoughts here as well.

  1. How’s your experience with secret word?
    It’s very hit or miss. As an issuer, it’s been pretty bad since every secret word distribution I’ve been a part of has been farmed. As a user, sometimes it can be very great because I could easily get my POAP for the event, but sometimes I miss the secret phrase or was too slow to claim due to farmers.

  2. Any suggestions you have for POAP or other issuers?
    Not sure for POAP, but for issuers I can say that using secret word should be a last resort, especially if you care about who is minting your POAP.

  3. Any significant drops using Secrets?
    POAPathon has used it quite frequently, as well as the SporkDAO/EthDenver Community Call. I tend to not have issues with it as a user. As for the GitPOAP launch call, I feel like if I wasn’t in the know of the secret word beforehand then I would not have gotten the POAP because it hit the 750 mint limit in moments of the phrase being given out.

4 Likes