Looking for people to store some of the forum's money

[theymos]

Here's the first draft of the treasurer contract that I came up with. I'm trying to make a contract without using laws. Therefore, "The Forum" can't exist as a corporate entity and its existence needs to be defined in the contract. We'll see if this sort of structure ends up working well. If it does, maybe other Bitcoin organizations can use it as a model.

What defects does this agreement have?

This includes a list of "community council" members, but note that I didn't actually ask these people if they want to be members yet. I'll do that before this contract is actually used.


This is a non-legal agreement between The Bitcoin Forum ("Forum") and ___ ("Treasurer"). This agreement is intended to be enforced in a non-violent, non-legal way by the community.

Held Amount: ___
Monthly Fee: ___

TREASURER OBLIGATIONS

After the treasurer receives the Held Amount of bitcoins, the treasurer owes the Forum the held bitcoins and must keep the entire amount safe at a particular address, never transferring them except:

  Transactions

After the head administrator requests that the treasurer send the held bitcoins somewhere, the treasurer must send the bitcoins as directed within 14 days.

Exception: 1 trustee or 3 members of the community council may order the treasurer to temporarily stop all payments. After such an order, the treasurer must not obey administrator transaction requests until the order is reversed by those same trustees or community council members, or until the trustees or community council members are removed.

The treasurer *should* delay transactions as long as possible if the administrator is believed to be compromised, under duress, or acting against the best interests of the Forum.

  Treasurer wrap-up

The treasurer may always send the entire held bitcoins amount to any trustee in order to end his obligations in this agreement. He then must also return any fees that were paid in advance.

FORUM OBLIGATIONS

The forum must pay the Monthly Fee by the first of every month when it is due. These fees may be paid in advance. If the forum is late in paying, the treasurer may take fees out of the held amount. If the held amount is not enough to cover the monthly fee, the contract is ended and neither party has any more obligations or debts.

The forum cannot incur any debt. Under no circumstances will the forum's staff members, trustees, or community council members be liable for anything whatsoever.

DISPUTES

Because this contract does not define any obligations for the forum except monthly fees, and since that issue is completely handled in the previous section, it is not possible for anyone to have a dispute with the Forum under this contract.

A dispute may be raised by the Forum (represented by the head administrator) against the treasurer.

In case of a dispute, both parties may agree on an entity to act as arbitrator.

Only if the parties cannot agree on an arbitrator: the arbitrator will be the first person in the list of community council members excluding trustees and the head administrator, assuming that the person is willing to arbitrate for free and the person is not involved in the dispute.

If a party is non-responsive at any point in this process for more than 7 days, that party loses the dispute.

The arbitrator can only decide whether the treasurer is in violation of this agreement or not. The arbitrator cannot award damages, order either party to do anything, or decide that the Forum is in violation of the agreement.

If the treasurer is in violation of this agreement, he has an absolute moral obligation to correct the violation as soon as possible. If he does not correct his violation within 7 days, he agrees to be ostracised by the Bitcoin community. The Forum can forgive the violation at any time.

THE BITCOIN FORUM

Trustees and community council members are added, removed, and reordered by the head administrator. Any change in the list of trustees takes place 60 days after a public announcement. Any change in the list of community council members takes place 30 days after a public announcement.

The head administrator can be replaced in any of five ways:

  Method 1

The head administrator resigns and assigns someone to be head administrator.

  Method 2

1. One of the trustees publicly and formally states his desire to replace the head administrator.
2. 7 days pass.
3. Any trustee higher on the trustee list except the head administrator can cancel this process.
4. The trustee becomes head administrator if one half of community council members agree.

  Method 3

1. One half of trustees and two thirds of community council members vote to remove the head administrator.
2. The head administrator is considered to be removed.
3. A plurality vote determines the new head administrator.

  Method 4

1. One third of community council members agree that the head administrator should be replaced.
2. 7 days pass.
3. Any trustee, including the head administrator, can cancel this process.
4. A plurality vote determines the new head administrator.

  Method 5
 
If it is absolutely clear that the head administrator is inactive and there are not enough active community council members and/or trustees to replace him, the treasurer should consider the head administrator to be whoever seems most capable of continuing the Forum.

  Voting

Above, a fractional number of voters means the fraction of voters rounded down, but at least one.

Votes should be delivered to the treasurers once there are enough votes. Treasurers must take appropriate measures to verify the identities of the voters.

When a plurality vote is called for, the treasurer should contact all voters. 7 days from this contact, all votes received should be tallied and the person who received the most votes wins. In case of a tie, the vote is repeated.

Initial roster:

Head administrator:
- Michael Marquardt (theymos)

Trustees:
- The head administrator
- Stefan Thomas (justmoon)
- Malmi Martti (Sirius)
- Gavin Andresen

Community council members:
- All of the trustees
- nanotube
- hazek
- BCB
- Keefe
- hugolp
- sgornick
- psy
- jgarzik
- BadBear
- johnthedong
- Maged
- Meni Rosenfeld
- Blitz
- Cory
- MoonShadow
- gmaxwell
- FreeMoney
- MtGox
- Private Internet Access

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[theymos]

By the way, I decided that for now I'm not going to use any sort of multisig. Multisig is too uncommonly used -- I'm uncomfortable with using it at this point. Treasurers will just get portions of the total BTC amount. Once multisig is more common, I'll switch to using that.

[sublime5447]

Put their real names up if they are going to hold communal funds. From where I sit this agreement is shit.  I will give my donations to the forum some other way. Somewhere I know where they are going.

[John (John K.)]

The contract seems to be in order. I would like to add a situation where someone who wants to take a hiatus from the forums can take his leave by returning the funds to the admin or to someone else in the list which is entrusted to do so.

[2weiX]

once again, offering to be one of the trustees.

[starsoccer9]

Seems like a good contract, I to can hold some funds

As far as giving real life info if we are gonna keep the forum decentralized i think its best we just keep the trust we have with out any more info. giving out our names and address or encourage someone to say wow he has 1000btc let me go to his house and take them.

[John (John K.)]

...

As far as giving real life info if we are gonna keep the forum decentralized i think its best we just keep the trust we have with out any more info. giving out our names and address or encourage someone to say wow he has 1000btc let me go to his house and take them.

This, although I'm not exactly that hard to find. I've held more than three times of that amount under my pseudonym for my escrow service too in the last few weeks.

[Herodes]

If there's any way I can help out, fell free to query or add me to any list. I've handled considerable amounts for various bitcoin businesses, contact me if you need more information.

[sublime5447]

Let me ask this. BCB just got 2,000 dollars stole from him. What if it was 20,000? what would prevent him from taking the donations to cover his losses?

This is a good ol boys club, A bunch of insiders looking after themselves with donated money. Let me ask how people would react if the salvation army.
Started holding all the funds in the personal accounts of the board members?

This all looks like a scam in the making to me. 

[theymos]

Let me ask this. BCB just got 2,000 dollars stole from him. What if it was 20,000? what would prevent him from taking the donations to cover his losses?

BCB hasn't volunteered to be a treasurer.

[Rassah]

This is a good ol boys club, A bunch of insiders looking after themselves with donated money. Let me ask how people would react if the salvation army.
Started holding all the funds in the personal accounts of the board members?

Salvation Army is a charity. The money they receive is not their profits, and is not theirs to keep. This forum is a privately owned business of sorts. Whatever donations the owners of the forum get are their to keep and do whatever they want with, "gool ol boys" or not. You are also free to whine and not participate, or to join that club yourself.

[wtfvanity]

Here's the first draft of the treasurer contract that I came up with. I'm trying to make a contract without using laws. Therefore, "The Forum" can't exist as a corporate entity and its existence needs to be defined in the contract. We'll see if this sort of structure ends up working well. If it does, maybe other Bitcoin organizations can use it as a model.

What defects does this agreement have?

This includes a list of "community council" members, but note that I didn't actually ask these people if they want to be members yet. I'll do that before this contract is actually used.

Are community council members treasurers?

The agreement is without law? Without law or force? So if a treasurer takes the money... we will ask them nicely to do the right thing?

If this is where you are going with the agreement, just send it out as you wish. If there are no legal responsibilities on either side, why an "agreement" Just tell them what rules they can abide by if they wish, and if they don't want to it's cool.

Sounds a little silly to me.

[sublime5447]

Here's the first draft of the treasurer contract that I came up with. I'm trying to make a contract without using laws. Therefore, "The Forum" can't exist as a corporate entity and its existence needs to be defined in the contract. We'll see if this sort of structure ends up working well. If it does, maybe other Bitcoin organizations can use it as a model.

What defects does this agreement have?

This includes a list of "community council" members, but note that I didn't actually ask these people if they want to be members yet. I'll do that before this contract is actually used.

Are community council members treasurers?

The agreement is without law? Without law or force? So if a treasurer takes the money... we will ask them nicely to do the right thing?

If this is where you are going with the agreement, just send it out as you wish. If there are no legal responsibilities on either side, why an "agreement" Just tell them what rules they can abide by if they wish, and if they don't want to it's cool.

Sounds a little silly to me.

+1000 

"Salvation Army is a charity. The money they receive is not their profits, and is not theirs to keep. This forum is a privately owned business of sorts. Whatever donations the owners of the forum get are their to keep and do whatever they want with, "gool ol boys" or not. You are also free to whine and not participate, or to join that club yourself."

Then dont call them donations call them dues or fees.

[theymos]

Are community council members treasurers?

Not necessarily.

The agreement is without law? Without law or force? So if a treasurer takes the money... we will ask them nicely to do the right thing?

If a treasurer breaks the agreement, no one will trust him again because it will be absolutely clear that he broke the agreement. This is a pretty high cost. The purpose of the agreement is to make it clear to everyone what the treasurer is obligated to do so that everyone in the community will know without a doubt that the treasurer can no longer be trusted if the contract is broken.

Laws = violence. I'm uneasy about using violence in response to a non-violent breach of contract. I also want to avoid relying on or dealing with governments.

I thought about including a paragraph saying that the treasurer will be "outlawed" if he breaks the contract, and everyone with similar non-legal contracts would be able to ignore their own obligations to the treasurer in question. But maybe this is taking things too far.

[wtfvanity]

Are community council members treasurers?

Not necessarily.

The agreement is without law? Without law or force? So if a treasurer takes the money... we will ask them nicely to do the right thing?

If a treasurer breaks the agreement, no one will trust him again because it will be absolutely clear that he broke the agreement. This is a pretty high cost. The purpose of the agreement is to make it clear to everyone what the treasurer is obligated to do so that everyone in the community will know without a doubt that the treasurer can no longer be trusted if the contract is broken.

Laws = violence. I'm uneasy about using violence in response to a non-violent breach of contract. I also want to avoid relying on or dealing with governments.

I thought about including a paragraph saying that the treasurer will be "outlawed" if he breaks the contract, and everyone with similar non-legal contracts would be able to ignore their own obligations to the treasurer in question. But maybe this is taking things too far.

I understand what you are trying to accomplish. But really, the agreement would be, you take the funds, you're banned. Maybe that should be part of the agreement. Stripped of any forum title and one that says stole forum funds added.

Is it not a possibility to have funds stored at a specific address so that community members could verify the balances?

Maybe have them show an address where their fees could be sent to so that we could confirm payment of any storage fees?

[sublime5447]

Make it decentralized give every hero member a share, give it back to the people who donated it, set up a loan service and give it all out. Just a few idea to socialize the risk.

If you change it to fees or dues I will shut my mouth. 

If these truly are donations then they are for the improvement of this community. If they are fees, dues, or revenue that it is your money spend it on what ever you like, just dont do around calling fees donations.   

[TECSHARE]

This IS a good old boys club. This "contract" has ZERO force of law. Legally they could all just walk away with the forum donations. Just because you want to handle it in the community doesn't mean you should write a contract with no teeth and eliminate your OPTION for legal action. Also they get paid monthly fees, WTF is that? Plenty of people are willing to do it without charge. This looks to me like a jerking of the circular variety.

[sublime5447]

This IS a good old boys club. This "contract" has ZERO force of law. Legally they could all just walk away with the forum donations. Just because you want to handle it in the community doesn't mean you should write a contract with no teeth and eliminate your OPTION for legal action. Also they get paid monthly fees, WTF is that? Plenty of people are willing to do it without charge. This looks to me like a jerking of the circular variety.

+1 really I think that theymos and the rest need to be added to the pending scammer list. I think I might put a poll about this and see how others feel.

[wtfvanity]

I think that theymos and the rest need to be added to the pending scammer list. I think I might put a poll about this and see how others feel.

lol... okay... and I'm sure we would all appreciate it if theymos would just leave and take his forum with him...

[sublime5447]

they are on drugs xtc is my guess. I understand what you are saying, but at the same time looks like a scam to me. Giving donated money to your friends is sketch