The Community Layer of Web3.

Today, we are thrilled to present the first iteration of Orb Communities, a vision that has been with us since we embarked on the Orb journey a year ago. These communities are a fundamental part of the composable and interoperable community layer of web3. By harnessing the power of the Lens Protocol, integrating community features across any Lens app becomes effortless. Moreover, through smart contract-level solutions, anyone can introduce new features within the community aspect, benefitting all apps directly. These new features naturally bring about collective benefits and membership perks in ways never imagined before. If you haven’t already, download the app from orb.ac and give it a go.

Creating Communities The Web3 Way

The significance of communities in shaping the human story cannot be overstated. Whether we look at the tribes of the distant past or the virtual communities of today, the essence of community remains as vital as ever. Communities unite us, providing a sense of identity, shared purpose, and collective strength. They have been the cradle of innovation and societal evolution throughout history.

From hunting mammoths to farming arid lands, these were not individual endeavors but the collective efforts of communities that led to success. In modern times, gaming and online communities have brought people from different parts of the world together, fostering robust conversations and collaborations. However, we believe that web3 can take community-building to even greater heights. Existing platforms sometimes take away user identities and fail to offer transparent infrastructure, but with web3, the need for communities is paramount. We aim to change that.

Why We Built Orb Communities? 🤝🏻

💡 We believe in the immense power of user-owned communities.

User-owned communities empower people by decentralizing authority and making every individual a crucial stakeholder in the community's direction and evolution. This marks a significant shift from traditional, centralized communities, where only a select few make decisions affecting everyone else.

In user-owned communities, every member has a voice and a vote. Decisions are made collectively, respecting each individual's unique insights and perspectives. This democratic process ensures that the community genuinely serves its members, aligning with their needs, interests, and aspirations.

To foster such democratic spaces, we rely on the Lens Protocol, offering a user-owned social layer. As we evolved, we realized the need to enhance this with a community layer, leading us to develop Orb Communities. Seamlessly integrating with the Lens Protocol, Orb Communities adds an additional dimension of social interaction, allowing users to connect, collaborate, and shape their digital communities to serve their collective needs better.

Imagine, for instance, a community of artists on Orb. In a user-owned structure, every artist can contribute to decisions about exhibitions, collaborations, and community standards. They wouldn't be passive participants waiting for mandates from a central authority. Instead, they'd be active stakeholders, shaping their community's future.

Thus, we're bringing the richness of user-owned communities with our new feature, Orb Communities. This enhancement not only embraces the power of collective interaction but also fosters connection, collaboration, and meaningful conversation amongst users.

A Leap: Orb's Unique Approach to Community Memberships

We believe that Lens Profiles are much more than NFTs. Moreover, in web3 social, actions should be decoupled from the wallet controlling a particular profile to make room for privacy. At the core of our Communities feature lies the revolutionary ERC-6551 with Token Bound Accounts (TBA). This groundbreaking approach permits each NFT to have its own ERC-4337 smart contract wallet, capable of holding other NFTs and tokens, extending the concept of digital ownership. Everything the profile owns can be coupled with the profile either via smart contracts or with ownership.

What excites us, even more, is the fact that we can build on top of public Lens Protocol smart contracts without introducing any updates or references to the actual contracts. We can witness the Lens profile entering new spheres. Orb has implemented a hierarchical approach to its Community Memberships. A double TBA!!! This structure forms the DNA of Orb Community Memberships allowing the addition of structure across different community memberships.

Key Features for Orb Communities

The Main membership community defines the framework for the actual communities. Such framework can include roles, criteria for joining or leaving, rules appearance, or additional features. We think that these should be permissionless and up to the community creator/admin to decide.

Roles: Each community should have designated roles for smooth operation and management. The primary roles envisioned are:

• Admin: Responsible for overall community management, setting rules, and making important decisions.

• Moderator: Assists the admin in maintaining community guidelines, resolving disputes, and ensuring a positive environment.

Eligibility Criteria for Joining and Leaving: To ensure community integrity and alignment, specific eligibility criteria for membership can be designed: These criteria include:

• Ownership of Assets: Holding a certain amount of an asset can grant access to certain communities.

• Activity on Lens: For example, if somebody has collected publications from an artist, they may be eligible to the artist’s community.

• Open Invitation: In some cases, communities may be open for anyone to join without specific criteria.

Community Access for Non-Members: The accessibility of community content and interactions can vary based on membership. We are exploring two options at the moment:

• Public Publications: Certain posts and content may be accessible to the general public, promoting transparency and outreach.

• Gated Posts using Lit Protocol: Exclusive content or discussions may be restricted to community members, fostering a sense of belonging and added value.

Additional Features: We are actively developing and exploring various exciting features to enrich the community experience. Some highlights include:

• Events Tab for EthCC: We have successfully implemented an events tab, enabling seamless event management and engagement.

• Sponsorship: Thirdweb sponsored an advertisement for our community at EthGlobal Tokyo, promoting community growth and recognition.

• Ongoing Innovations: We have an array of additional features in the pipeline. Moreover, we encourage you to contribute your ideas to further enhance the platform. If you are not going to build it then who will?

Concluding Thoughts

Orb Communities, built on the revolutionary ERC-6551 protocol, offer a unique approach to community building. We firmly believe that this feature will set the stage for countless innovative applications. Our commitment is to create a dynamic and inclusive community space, fostering growth, collaboration, and innovation. We warmly welcome developers to build upon it. At Orb, we are dedicated to creating a more open and welcoming space for all users and other apps.

Still here?

Great. We need you! Communities are much more vibrant and engaging when built together.

Our roadmap for communities is as follows:

• Open source everything for developers to build new features and smart contract engineering (you can already start building by reaching out to us at hi@orb.ac).

• Open up all the tools needed to deploy communities in other apps.

• Open up the creation of communities for everyone.

• Learn, iterate, and continuously improve.

We will also retroactively offer funding to those who help us build the things we see need to be built. More about that soon!

Together, we can make Orb Communities a powerful force for positive change and collective growth.

Team Orb