How to fund what you want to exist

Waidrn's third room is a community projects market: anyone can ask for something to be created, other people can back it with WAID, and a creator can claim it with milestones and deliver in public. Patrons only pay for what is actually delivered. This page explains the whole flow in order.

The short version

1. Ask. A requester writes a quest: what should exist, what "done" means, a minimum funding target, a deadline and a licence for the finished work.
2. Back. Patrons pledge WAID from their account into escrow. Pledges can be withdrawn in full until a creator's claim is accepted.
3. Claim. When the pool reaches the floor, a creator proposes milestones — each with acceptance criteria, a delivery date and a payout percentage. The claim is hashed and becomes immutable once accepted.
4. Vote. Backers vote STAY or LEAVE at the claim and at every delivered milestone. Abstaining counts as staying. Leaving refunds your remaining stake in full.
5. Deliver. The creator publishes the artifact at a public URL with a SHA-256 hash before patrons vote. Private deliverables do not count.
6. Settle. Stayers pay the milestone's payout percentage to the creator; the rest stays in escrow for later milestones. At completion, leftover escrow is refunded pro rata and the public receipt is published.

What a quest is (and is not)

• Kinds: a quest is a request; a venture is a claimed request being built; a commission is a request for a specific piece of work; a collaboration is a project with more than one maker.
• Categories: story, art, music, game, software, film, tabletop, real-world build, research, other.
• Terms are literal. The request text, milestones, payout percentages and acceptance criteria are the contract. They cannot be edited after the claim is accepted; clarifications go in the linked discussion thread and do not change terms.
• The platform is not a party. It holds escrow and keeps the public records; it takes no fee and does not arbitrate in v1. Patron votes and the receipt are the accountability.

The money, honestly

• The currency is simulated WAID. New accounts start with simulated US dollars that can be exchanged 1:1 for WAID inside the demo; WAID cannot be bought with real money, sold for real money, or withdrawn. There is no blockchain, no KYC and no investment.
• A pledge moves WAID from your account into project escrow. It is not a donation to the platform and not a purchase: if the funding deadline passes unclaimed, or a claim is rejected, every pledge is refunded automatically.
• Gifts and power are a separate, smaller form of patronage: you can gift a post, chapter or proposal, split between the author and the post's stored power. Gifts come from your spendable balance and are never refunded.
• Your wallet shows two balances: spendable account WAID and loaned WAID from the simulated mint, which can only fund power for your own posts.

For patrons

• Read the project page before backing. The terms card, the milestone plan (once claimed) and the timeline are the whole story; if a promise is not in the terms, it is not part of the deal.
• Check the pool against the minimum, the deadline and the backer count. A lively pool with no claim is still a proposal; a claimed project with milestones is a plan.
• You can withdraw before a claim is accepted. After that, your exit is the vote at each milestone.
• It is normal and welcome to back a quest with a small amount to signal demand, and to leave at a milestone if the delivery is not what the terms promised.
• Every settled project's receipt is public and permanent: amounts, milestone results, deliverable links and hashes. If something goes wrong later, the record exists.

For requesters

• Write the request in plain language: what should exist, what "done" means, what you will accept. Specific beats grand.
• Set a realistic minimum. Better a small funded quest that happens than a large one that expires.
• Name the licence up front — permissive for software, a free licence for creative work — and make the public-release rule explicit.
• Use the discussion thread to answer questions; it is the clarifications channel the terms point to.

For creators

• Claim only when the pool reaches the floor and you can deliver the first milestone.
• Write acceptance criteria you would be happy to be judged by, with delivery dates you can keep. A missed date with no public update stalls the project and refunds patrons; an honest stall is survivable, a silent one is not.
• Publish each deliverable publicly before the vote opens, with a SHA-256 and a release note. Provide source for software; provide an artifact for creative work.
• If the remaining stake after a milestone is below the next fund target, the project stalls and the remainder is refunded. That is the continue rule; it protects patrons and it is written into the terms you accepted.

If a project stalls

Deliverables stay public and forkable. Anyone can open a fork with fresh terms and a fresh pool; the original's terms, pool and history stay visible for comparison. Refunds already settled are not reversed.

Where to start

• Community Projects — browse suggested, picked up, completed and stalled projects; filter by category, fandom and tags.
• Ask for something from the projects page; the form asks for the request, the minimum, the deadline and the licence.
• The economy page explains the simulated WAID system; the Lexicon defines every term; the Rules state the commitments.
• Questions about a specific project go in its discussion thread; questions about the system go to Contact.