CIP Editing & our role in the Cardano standards process
There are a small number of CIP Editors from vastly different backgrounds. COSD, as a one-person consultancy and stake pool operation, has the unique distinction of offering founder Robert Phair (GitHub @rphair) to this self-organising (decentralised) team: since historically the Editors group has mainly been composed of representatives from Cardano's primary development agencies:
CIP Editors each follow their own inclination, expertise and sense of responsibility to choose proposed standards documents to review (and sometimes help to write, as part of the editorial process) via CIP Pull Requests (PRs):
CIP Pull Requests: currently open
Follow our Medium article series to learn how & why CIPs support the value of the Cardano ecosystem, through tutorials for the whole Cardano community (not just developers) as well as visitors from other blockchains:
Part 1 (Introduction) Part 2 (Benefits & Goals) Part 3 (Challenges)
My current niche in the CIP editing group — as a self-appointed librarian and developer relations enthusiast — has involved me personally in a great number of CIPs covering many subjects of interrelated Cardano standards. By steadily contributing writing and organisational support to this repository over my time as our "community" (i.e. professionally unaffiliated) editor, I have become its most prolific contributor outside the Cardano Foundation:
Cardano Foundation CIP repository: List of contributors
I know of no blockchain equal to Cardano in non-competitive support for its own body of standards. A look through the PRs above will show many selfless reviewers and hugely helpful reviews free of commercial motivation. The "numbers" of my own contributions are only a reflection of my daily work to draw all these contributions together to support the overall value of the Cardano ecosystem, the Ada currency, and our growing decentralised application framework.
My work on the CIP editing team is funded by popular vote through Project Catalyst and proceeds in full visibility and accountability to the Cardano Community:
Catalyst Fund 10: Community CIP Editor: 1 year budget (continued)
GitHub: ongoing CIP Editing work reports, tasks & community outreach
Current progress in CIP-0013 (Cardano URLs)
(2023-07-24) Triumphantly we have merged an update to CIP-0013 which provides for a more general URI framework, supporting different kinds of URLs that provide direct links to Cardano resources (like payments and stake pools) and forthcoming dApps:
CIP-0013: recently revised for a generalised Cardano URI scheme
The latest discussion to expand this protocol was itself a collaborative achievement among myself (Robert Phair), the premier Cardano agencies, and one of the Cardano community's best known developers:
CIP-0013 review / discussion to expand & generalise protocol
CIP-0099 (pending): URI use case for //claim links
Case Study: A Brief History of Cardano's URI scheme
Enclosed here, with little editing from the original postings, to demonstrate how an "idea" for a standard goes through evolutionary stages in its progression towards a full-fledged CIP, with input from multiple contributors and incorporating feedback and independent developments from the community:
Cardano Improvement Proposal (CIP-0013): Adding web links for stake pools & delegation portfolios
e.g. web+cardano://stake?COSD
e.g. web+cardano://stake?POOLX=50&POOLY=30&POOLZ=20
The COSDpool 10-month campaign (end of September 2020 through end of July 2021) to have these stake pool links adopted as a Cardano standard is finally complete.
➤ Now please let the Daedalus developers know how much you need this feature! Post here:
Daedalus feature request @ Github > Implement Stake Pool URIs
Update 2021-07-29: Multi-Pool Stake Pool Links proposal approved & merged!
GitHub PR86: add multiple pool links (i.e. delegation portfolios)
Also please support the implementation of JSON based Cardano delegation portfolios… with files, instead of web links… because the Cardano ecosystem needs both:
CIP-0017: JSON Cardano Delegation Portfolio
Update 2021-06-10: Stake Pool Links Video presentation with IOG Marketing & developers
An example of coordination among a CIP author (myself) advocating for a standard, the end user community, and a third party interested in supporting a potential standard (in this case, IOG Marketing):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PNkMUYeKVw0BKUOdq_tTLMCBPfi3FAdG/preview
Update 2021-03-30: Proposal approved & merged!
Six months to the day after submission, the proposal for links to Cardano stake pools is included in the existing plan to implement address and payment URIs in Cardano wallets... the result of much writing, editing, debate, compromise, and persistence with Cardano's early governance process (with CIP editors at Emurgo, IOG and the Cardano Foundation):
Evolution on GitHub
GitHub PR61: developer debate, leading to inclusion with CIP-0013
GitHub PR25: original presentation & first round of dev responses
Cardano Multi Pool Stake Links (original presentation)
Early history: How an idea becomes a CIP
Public discussion on Cardano Forum
In September 2020, after recognising the brutal competition between small stake pools for a survivable amount of delegation, with more stake pools diving into an already saturated YouTube market for "educational" stake pool promotional videos (often full of rapidly obsoleted information and affiliate links), I realised there had to be a way for stake pools to be recognised by potential delegators based on relevant HTML content (educational web pages, not just videos) as well as direct customer communication & support (like HTML email signatures & Twitter / Telegram messages).
My resulting CIP was one of the first coming from an author outside Cardano's supporting agencies. It has been well received and is in the process of riding into a Daedalus implementation of a URI payment link scheme, much like the one currently supported in Yoroi. For example, we will be able to refer delegators to our pool with the web link:
web+cardano://stake?COSD
and someday, after these single pool URLs have been adopted and the Cardano protocol supports "ratio staking" as outlined by Emurgo lead Sebastien Guillemot, the Cardano community will be able to create, share, and evaluate multi-pool links with "portfolios" of proportionally assigned delegation:
web+cardano://stake?POOLX=50&POOLY=30&POOLZ=20
The benefits of this CIP are universal to pools of all sizes, delegators, and the Cardano ecosystem itself: since, so far, any possibility for presenting a "delegation portfolio" has been centralised. This CIP outlines the first means of providing a delegation portfolio which the Cardano community itself can generate: allowing community centred and special interest groups to support common interests and compete more effectively for delegation without having to be recognised by a central authority.
Once the Cardano community can share and evolve its own delegation strategies, further decentralisation of Ada stake will not just be possible from large Ada holding agencies like IOG and the Cardano Foundation: it can be massively distributed in parallel by the Ada holders themselves, each being able to choose a theme or cause they believe in rather than just a single pool. Delegation portfolios and links can circulate in favour of any stake pool feature listed on the original IOG community delegation application (environmental impact, community and cultural significance, technical contribution) and many more.
Please see the CIP-COSD-MultiPoolStakeURIscheme link above for the original & most complete list of benefits for this standard, and especially for an outline of how the concept of the Delegation Portfolio will eventually emerge from this CIP, in a way that will naturally support Cardano's diversity, resilience, and future-proofing.
Support this ongoing initiative by delegating to COSD stake pool