Hey everyone! I'd like to thank you all for your patience over this past week. I am happy to announce on behalf of the IOST team that the campaign is being extended until the end of June.

In light of that, there are a few changes going forward that I'd like to go over.

First, payments will be adjusted every week to the USD denominated values of IOST and BTC listed in the original post. I'm sure this will come as a disappointment to some, but keep in mind that price volatility can swing both ways (as we have seen in crypto markets over the past week!).

Additionally, while the team is happy so many of you are eager to help spread the word about IOS, the campaign is being scaled back slightly for this next round. Unfortunately, this means that not everyone who is currently enrolled will continue as part of the campaign. I will announce the updated participant list this Saturday so people have a chance to see this post.

Finally, those of you who were part of the campaign and have since removed your information/applied for other campaigns, please indicate to me whether you would like to be considered for the upcoming round, either by posting here or PMing me.

As before, the campaign is still closed to new participants.

sir wow great project  howeycoin to the moon 

You can go ahead and change black's name from black to red 

It seems I have forgotten my sarcasm tag, although I think the forum is in a sad state if my comment could be taken seriously. Digaran is just a troll, he enjoys this attention.

How do we know you aren't colluding with DT members to red tag people and split the profits 50-50?

It isn't really any of your business. I think I was pretty clear earlier that I would let people know when I knew for sure whether the campaign would be continuing or not. I still don't have a definite answer, and I'd rather not spread disinformation by speculating. It isn't my decision to make and I don't have any more new information at the moment.

That being said, there have been a lot of questions and it has been a few days, so here is my take on it. As stated in the original post, this campaign was only guaranteed to last for 4 weeks. All campaign participants have been paid for these 4 weeks. Obviously, I have more funds in the escrow address (it is public), so it is entirely possible it might continue, however, I have not been told whether this is the case, and I can't in good conscience continue making payments when that was not in the original agreement. If I was to guess, I would expect the campaign to continue with adjusted pay rates (closer to the original USD estimates) and possibly less participants, however, I will have a definite answer for sure in the next few days. For those who don't have the patience to wait, feel free to seek new opportunities

Can you sign a message from this address to prove ownership?

1MuYkciQTfRsU94ReAe5MiAfUpCrbLBcFR

This should be in scam accusations, not meta. That being said, I'd definitely go ahead and contact whoever he is running the campaign for, I'm sure they would like to know.

The campaign will continue through until the end of this round for sure. Beyond that, I cannot say right now.

Just sent them out, along with the few that dropped from week 2 (plus a small bonus for the wait ). Please let me know if you have still not receive payment at this point.

As indicated from week 3's spreadsheet, a few users have been removed from the campaign. They are as follows:

sasuke102001 - red trust at DT-2 level
mame- no posts during the week
dongamk- no posts during the week
kwakufavour- failure to meet post reqs 3 weeks in a row
milleniumcoin- removed sig
TelevisionLover- no posts during the week
nellycanezo- banned from the forums for copy and pasting
apurveanand- no posts during the week

Also, congratulations for ArkiCrypto and Cinazhang for ranking up!

A few of you have reached out to me about whether or not the campaign will be extended. I don't have a definite answer on that at this time, but I will let you guys know as soon as I know for sure.

Oh, I have no sympathy for people who join the forums only to make money. I think it is great people passionate about crypto have the opportunity to earn some revenue on the side, but that shouldn't be your only motive for posting. The thing is, those people wouldn't be making quality posts in their native language either.

I think there are valid criticisms of the system as it stands in relation to contributing members of local boards. It is prohibitively difficult for quality members and spammers alike to rank up if they don't speak English, despite the fact that it is possible to differentiate between the two. For a forum dedicated to discussing a currency that is supposedly stateless, it is saddening that such a large percentage of the community is de-facto rejected.

And I agree those people deserve to be called idiots. What you (and a lot of other prominent members) fail to realize is that there are plenty of members who make quality posts in their native language on local boards, yet receive no merit because each board only has one or two merit sources. They have a right to come to Meta and complain about the system when it actually does discriminate against them. In light of that, it's laughable to dismiss every complaint by saying the user is simply too dumb to make posts with comprehensible English, which is what you're doing. The issue isn't that simple.

Mainly from the following quotes:


I don't see how those sentences can be construed otherwise?



Like I said in my first post, I completely agree that merit is a great addition to the forum. Spammers and Google-translators are a huge problem, and merit does a good job at combating them. That being said, I disagree with the connotation that low merit = lower intelligence, which the OP is pretty explicit about (see examples above).

Merit is essentially predicated on one's command of the English language, since only a small fraction of merit sources are actually active in each foreign language board. Should users not be allowed to rank up just because their native language isn't English? Members like Jet Cash act like the only people who complain about merit are the spammers you mention above, when in reality this isn't the case.

Take for instance this thread, a prime example of your average "the merit system sucks" thread. Notice how the OP actually makes the vast majority of his posts in the French sub-forum, not English boards. Reading through them, they look to be of pretty decent quality, however, he has only received 20 merits for the 400 posts he has made since the system was added (all from the French sub-forum).

I feel like a lot of the more prominent members are ingrained in the mindset that low merit = third world shitposter. As the example above shows, this isn't necessarily the case. All I'm trying to point out is that there are numerous reasons why a positively contributing member of this community might have low merit, and it is understandable that such a person would feel frustrated by the system.

This thread is a proof of arrogance. Equating command of the English language to mental ability is an extremely elitist viewpoint, not to mention completely incorrect. Merit is an excellent addition to the forum, but it shouldn't be used to justify your narrow-minded world view.

Look, no one is saying your overall contribution to the forum isn't a positive one. I am in agreement with this opinion, but the fact remains that you willingly plagiarized. There is a very good chance you will be unbanned down the line, but not with your current attitude. Go re-read your "apology" post again. Here is one of my favorite lines:


Did someone put a gun to your head and force you to plagiarize? Why would anyone believe you are contrite when you won't even accept responsibility for your own actions? The rest of the post follows along the same lines, you listing reasons why you should be allowed back/forgiven rather than actually owning up to what you did. No good apology ever won people over by simply trivializing one's actions. You save all those reasons for the post you make a month from now asking to be unbanned, a post I guarantee the administration (not just your friends) would be more receptive towards.

This post is more of the same, you listing reasons why you're such a good member and deserve to have an exception. The biggest part of proving that you deserve a second chance is accepting your punishment and actually taking some time off the forums. Come back and plead your case when you really do understand what you've done wrong. In my opinion, any arguments you make now will only hurt your chances in the long run.

BTC payments for week 3 have been sent out.

Last week there was an issue where some of the later IOST transactions were rejected by the network. My understanding is this is because of the high volume of transactions coming from the escrow address, despite using the recommended fee. To prevent this from happening again, I have sent around 2/3 of the IOST payments tonight and will send the remaining 1/3 tomorrow, including any transactions from the first batch that are dropped. For those of you who did not receive your week 2 payment, I will also be including that in the batch of transactions tomorrow, plus a small bonus as my apology for the delay.

Even when slots were open, I only accepted around half of the members who applied. Do not assume just because there are slots open I will accept just anyone.

Responded to your PM.

No, if you see I have accepted members after you post your application, you have not been accepted. Due to the large number of applicants this campaign has received, it is impossible to send out personal rejections to everyone.

As the thread title suggests, along with the first page, it is currently closed to new participants, except under special circumstances.

You sent me a PM at 2 am and 5 am, I just saw them now. I will re-send any payments that failed to go through later this afternoon. I used the same fee for every transaction, so I'm not sure why some didn't go through. I'm going to look over the spreadsheet, but please PM me if you didn't receive anything and have a txid next to your name.