Curatorial guidelines for the up-and-coming POAP issuer.
Context
Creating quality drops is an art and a science that requires issuers to deeply understand the desire of their community, as well as the collector’s spirit. This brief guide reviews best practices for creating high-quality POAP drops.
POAPs are minted as an attestation to a collector’s attendance (physical, virtual, or spiritual) at an event. They are a gift from issuers to collectors that acknowledge the non-material (and, yet, invaluable) contributions that members of a community have given to improve its collective health. POAPs can be issued for special events and memorable moments of all sizes, physically or virtually, provided there is good cause.
Issuers may mint test POAPs 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.
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Petitioning the POAP Curation Body
The POAP Curation Body manually reviews all drop petitions. 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 POAP Curation Body 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 cases where further communication may be required. If the petition is created on behalf of a large brand, it should be done via a brand account.
Petitions can be created via the POAP Issuer Portal. This process is explained in detail in our How Do I Set Up a POAP Drop? guide.
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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 artwork should reflect the significance of the occasion commemorated. Quality art and well-written copy are frequently the make-or-break factors for curators in determining whether a drop meets the standards 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, 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 PNG or GIF.
- Art should be cropped to a circular shape no larger than 500px in diameter.
- For proper display across applications, the 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.
Additional information can be added after submitting the petition. As a rule of thumb, issuers should include all context possible about the drop.
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Distribution
Drop execution, or the format of the drop itself, is part of the artistry in creating great POAPs. The best drops, like gifts, recognize the energy collectors put into both nurturing their communities as well as collecting their POAPs. Good distribution aims to present POAPs to collectors with care and makes a good-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 incentivized or able to mint multiples by gaming various minting mechanics.
Guidance on distribution methods and drop size 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 equipped with proper anti-bot measures.
If you elect to use POAP Websites, Secrets, or Delivery for distribution, the number of mint links requested should be minimal.
Website
A website generates a secret subdirectory under http://poap.website, which, when visited, allows event attendees to mint a POAP for a short period of 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.
Websites are highly discouraged for use in online events.
Secret
A secret is a 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) events with large audiences. Best practices for large distributions are to leave the minting window open for a relatively short timeframe.
Delivery
A Delivery is useful for any event that includes on-chain activity, whether it be past, present, or future. Given a complete list of Ethereum addresses, 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 Delivery, the list of addresses cannot be updated by issuers after the petition is submitted, and test deliveries are typically not approved.
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Sizing your drop
The number of mint links requested should be close to the expected attendance. Curators monitor the size and nature of the communities that issuers request on behalf of in order to evaluate whether the requests are reasonable. The choice of distribution method will impact the likelihood of drops being approved without revision or comment, particularly for large drops.
Issuer guidelines on sizing can be found here.
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Drop review
After an issuer submits a petition, it undergoes a manual review by the POAP Curation Body. Petitions have several possible outcomes:
- Approval without comment: In the best-case scenario, where curators have no objections to the preparation or the execution of the drop, you will receive mint links (if requested) or a notice that the petition is approved, sent to the email included with the petition.
If your drop is not approved within 24 hours, you may submit an appeal on Zendesk. You may be in one of the following situations:
- Request for information: In some cases, additional information (often pertaining to distribution) is required by the curators to make a decision about the petition. If this is the case, you will receive an email from the Curation Body with some questions about your event.
- Conditional approval: In other cases, a drop may be approved with relatively minor changes to the POAP content. Curators will send you a request change email. After your update is done, your petition will be approved promptly.
Finally, it’s worth acknowledging that not all petitions are approved. The most common causes for rejections are (starting with most frequent):
- 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 rejected 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 collectibles, and, as such, should be developed with a certain degree of craftsmanship. Low-quality or repetitive artwork is often rejected.
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