MasterCoin: New Protocol Layer Starting From “The Exodus Address”

[bitexch]

I skipped over a few posts when reading ... if there's something important I missed, let me know.

I started a thread to discuss nominating full-time developers for Mastercoin: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=351077.0

[ripper234]

Guys, this forum thread and bitcointalk is not just driving me crazy, it is not productive.
We need better forum software and we need it now.
I say skip the votes, let's move to Discourse, from what I hear they are world class (I haven't checked this myself, but I have tremendous respect for their team so I want to do a pilot with them).

Here is an email I just sent them. If anyone knows people on the Discourse team, please help me push this ASAP.


Whoa, after reading this I realize I use "you guys" way too much ... oh well.

TL;DR

We at Mastercoin (Bitcoin related startup) have a super burning need for Diaspora, we have lots of cash and clout, and we want to partner with you guys ASAP. Let's setup a meeting to discuss (please put something on my calendar at meetme.so/RonGross).



Hi all,

I hope you guys are following the Bitcoin craze.

1.
We at Mastercoin are one of the Bitcoin startup right now.
We are so young and I don't have a lot of raw data to convince you of this claim yet, but if you know anyone within the Bitcoin ecosystem (e.g. in Bitangels), just ask them.

Just for reference here is our Google Analytics stats. We just started measuring them about 2 weeks ago.



Also FYI we have the equivalent of about 20,000 bitcoins = 20,000,000 USD in our budget ... and we just started this crazy project 3-4 months ago!!!


2. To understand what Mastercoin is, the best thing would be to setup a skype call with me via meetme.so/RonGross. In the meantime, you can read our FAQ and watch this presentation. I'll be happy to walk you through that in person.

3. We need you guys!

We are conducting most of our talks on a single thread in bitcointalk, the main Bitcoin forum. This is the most viewed thread in the Project Development forum of bitcointalk over the last 3 months.

As Executive Director, it has become impossible for me to engage my community because there is so much stuff going on, and the capabilities of the forum software for bitcointalk are so primitive.

I would like to proceed with Discourse immediately.

If you would help us setup up as a managed installation and officially become your 3rd partner. I think it would benefit both parties a lot. The pace I like to move is blazing fast.

Please set up the appropriate calls with me to find out more.

High Regards (I just love you guys, especially Jeff and Stack Overflow),

[bitexch]

Many people have said that they think it is imperative for JR to be on the project full-time, yet I have not seen anyone provide a reason as to why his full-time commitment to Mastercoin is necessary. Presumably the community feels that since JR conceived Mastercoin it follows that its development is dependent on him. But it's one thing to conceive an idea and it's another thing to develop it. Does anyone have reason to believe the JR would be such an exceptionally good developer? Are we really so sure it would be impossible to find a developer of comparable skill?

I find the community's attitude towards JR untenable, and I partially blame JR for not being more direct with the community: either he believes his full-time help is necessary for the development of Mastercoin, in which case, if the community and the board agree, we should do what we can to get him on board full-time. If on the other hand JR doesn't think his full-time commitment to Mastercoin is necessary for development, he ought to say so explicitly, that way we can stop focusing on how to get him to commit to the project, and start focusing on the project itself!

In my opinion, JR obviously doesn't think his full-time commitment to the project is necessary for its success, otherwise, he wouldn't have published his white paper without any code, and wouldn't have explicitly said that for two years he tried to convince someone else to undertake this project.

I believe that J.R is currently one of the bottlenecks for this project.
Being the founder and a key board member, his input and vote is needed on a lot of issues, and we simply don't get enough J.R time right now.

I hope to be able to persuade him to change that and help us to maintain and increase our acceleration.

As I have already argued, I don't think that JR is instrumental to the development of the project because he founded it. If you disagree, please explain why.

If JR doesn't have enough time to give his input and votes, then he shouldn't be a board member. If someone isn't able to fulfill the duties of his position, he shouldn't have that position. Is JR an exception?

[ripper234]

As I have already argued, I don't think that JR is instrumental to the development of the project because he founded it. If you disagree, please explain why.

If JR doesn't have enough time to give his input and votes, then he shouldn't be a board member. If someone isn't able to fulfill the duties of his position, he shouldn't have that position. Is JR an exception?

The project can progress without JR.
However the project will move much faster with full support from JR.
This is for a few reasons:

1. He owns a lot of MSC, and carries a lot of weight. Many people look to him. So unless he supports a particular hire, feature or project, it is bound to be delayed. (I want his relative weight to decrease in order to remove him as a single point of failure in the project. Selling some MSC now would be a great start).

2. JR is a board member and he definitely should remain one. He is working on freeing up his time, and is already dedicating more time and effort than some of the other board members. "Kicking JR out of his project" is so off the table that it's in the barn with the dogs. Won't happen.

3. We never formalized the expectations from board members, but we are all busy people. Try not to judge.
Board members need to either: be available for discussion, or work to reducing the project's dependencies on them. I am pushing for both.

4. It's holidays... please be patient for a bit. I'm pushing this super hard, give me a chance to do what I do. Thanks!

[rbdrbd]

No apologies necessary at all . It's a difficult topic with lots of differing views.

There are ongoing discussions in the Dev mailing list on how we can make devs spending more time on the project a reality - have you seen those?

Thanks

No...embarrassingly enough I am not on that list. I just requested Aric to add me, hopefully I can see the previous messages.

Since I'm developing for mastercoin as well, can I get added too? Is there a way for others who are interested in mastercoin development to be added as well?

[ripper234]

FYI as you noticed I don't have a lot of attention to bitcointalk right now. If you need my urgent attention on an important matter, please email me at ron@mastercoin.org (but only if it's urgent and one of the others can't help you! help me help you).

Understand that if you email me too much on trivial or unimportant things, I will have less attention to focus on what I perceive are the project's greatest priorities (right now - strategic partnerships and hiring).

[ripper234]

No apologies necessary at all . It's a difficult topic with lots of differing views.

There are ongoing discussions in the Dev mailing list on how we can make devs spending more time on the project a reality - have you seen those?

Thanks

No...embarrassingly enough I am not on that list. I just requested Aric to add me, hopefully I can see the previous messages.

Since I'm developing for mastercoin as well, can I get added to? Is there a way for others who are interested in mastercoin development to be added as well?

Anyone who wishes to apply for Lead Dev positions should submit their resume and cover letter to info@mastercoin.org

As I mentioned elsewhere, I am currently trying to close 3 full time positions of people who are not Devs (ongoing effort). After I finish that I will work on closing positions for 2 lead devs. These devs can build their teams however way they want.

If you believe you are one of the top 2 devs working on Mastercoin, please let us know and we'll consider you for the role of lead dev. Thanks!

[bitexch]

As I have already argued, I don't think that JR is instrumental to the development of the project because he founded it. If you disagree, please explain why.

If JR doesn't have enough time to give his input and votes, then he shouldn't be a board member. If someone isn't able to fulfill the duties of his position, he shouldn't have that position. Is JR an exception?

The project can progress without JR.
However the project will move much faster with full support from JR.
This is for a few reasons:

1. He owns a lot of MSC, and carries a lot of weight. Many people look to him. So unless he supports a particular hire, feature or project, it is bound to be delayed. (I want his relative weight to decrease in order to remove him as a single point of failure in the project. Selling some MSC now would be a great start).

2. JR is a board member and he definitely should remain one. He is working on freeing up his time, and is already dedicating more time and effort than some of the other board members. "Kicking JR out of his project" is so off the table that it's in the barn with the dogs. Won't happen.

3. We never formalized the expectations from board members, but we are all busy people. Try not to judge.
Board members need to either: be available for discussion, or work to reducing the project's dependencies on them. I am pushing for both.

4. It's holidays... please be patient for a bit. I'm pushing this super hard, give me a chance to do what I do. Thanks!

(1): Agreed, he should sell some MSC.

(2): You haven't provided an argument as to why he should "definitely remain" a board member. Putting that to the side though, I find it troubling that any fundamental policy decision is "so off the table that its in the barn with the dogs", and that some one board member feels he has the authority to say this without reservation. There are already concerns about centralization, and such comments don't help.

(3): I am not judging anyone, but simply stating that people shouldn't bear more responsibility than they can handle. However, I do like that you are taking initiative on this point.

[ripper234]

(2): You haven't provided an argument as to why he should "definitely remain" a board member. Putting that to the side though, I find it troubling that any fundamental policy decision is "so off the table that its in the barn with the dogs", and that some one board member feels he has the authority to say this without reservation. There are already concerns about centralization, and such comments don't help.

It's 3:24 AM here and I'm trying to go to sleep, no time to elaborate right now. Perhaps someone else can continue my thoughts.

As with everything I say, this is just my thoughts. If the other board members / stake holders think J.R should be removed from the board, then it will happen. However knowing the board I am telling you this has zero chance of getting their support.

I am confident about some things, and when I am I just go about and call them as I see them.
This is not me ordering the board around, but rather me telling you what I think the result of any attempt to kick J.R will be. It's futile because we love him and want him onboard
[/quote]

(3): I am not judging anyone, but simply stating that people shouldn't bear more responsibility than they can handle. However, I do like that you are taking initiative on this point.

+1 for that.
J.R should adjust his weight Voting/stake wise, and should increase his availability, like I said. He is not arguing this. I am pushing hard to help make this a reality ASAP.


P.S.
Domink is also working like crazy and is very busy.
I think a lot has gone on these past few days in the forums, and it is important we capture this in a blog post.

Can we get a volunteer to summarize the last few days of posts in bitcointalk into a coherent blog post?
Please prepare the post as a Google Doc and send it to info@mastercoin.org

I think it's good to prepare a coherent summary, it will help many people see what's going on, including apparently the board members and Executive Director. I've been so insanely busy that i haven't had time to engage the community (I am working on hiring Dominik full time to cope with all the Communications work).

[ripper234]

BTW I just wanted to let you guys know there are a lot of unanswered questions about Mastercoin on Quora.

If you have a bit of time, you can jump in and help answer them, and even get some bounty as part of the Documentation Contest.

[crazy_rabbit]

Has anyone mentioned the idea of using Mastercoin to keep track of internal balances of something like an exchange or webwallet? Without the users being aware of it? For example if coinbase were to keep track of it's internal balances of it's users by using colored coins or mastercoins. this could perhaps prevent someone maliciously altering the internal database, and perhaps in conjuction with proper security, prevent someone from running of with all the coins in in a wallet?

speaking of which, we really need to build a wallet that can be 'hot' but simultaneously can't just be emptied in it's entirety.

[Ola]

+1000 Ron for restating your stance on this it is much appreciated, however is this going to be implemented immediately without any resistance? I know JR is on board I am not sure of the others. If not, do we deserve to know the board members that have opposing views to this??

Posting from my phone, real quickly all, I'd like to point out the current devs have already earned a substantial amount of money...likely enough to live off for at least a few months/years/decades... They do not need the extra advantage, and it is up to them how much time they wish to allocate between the rest of their lives and Mastercoin considering the future reward. I do not support an ongoing salary for them until some sort of objectives are laid out for such a salary that cannot be better accomplished via bounties.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Edit: board members include
Antony Vo (me)
JR
Ron Gross
David Johnston
Brock Pierce
Sam Yilmaz
Jonathan Yantis

With the utmost of respect, I'm not aware of any developer who has earned enough to live off.

Full disclosure, I have made $6,000 fiat (from the contest, I converted BTC to dollars immediately - I'm conservative!).  That's well under a months salary.

My hours contributed are probably a few hundred by now.

I also have 375 MSC rewarded, which if I cashed out would be worth quite a lot I believe at current rates?  But unless I cash them out I can't use them to pay my bills & can only guess at their future value.

Not trying to be flippant but the assertion that us developers are wealthy enough already to quit full time work just isn't true.

Thanks!

My apologies zathras, thank you for your valuable input, you have no idea know how much it is needed with these conversations! I guess I didn't consider that others did not see Bitcoin as a savings account like I do (I pull money from my coins as necessary for expenses and spending and don't worry about the price. Doing this has served me very well, and I do recommend it, though of course, I'm not a professional financial advisor. I believe this will be the majority tendency in the future).

 To you, as a veteran of the process thus far, does upping the bounty size work better or worse than having a preconfirmed salary in terms of motivation and results? Not only to the person with the salary but to those without as well, the whole system.

What would you like to see

No apologies necessary at all . It's a difficult topic with lots of differing views.

There are ongoing discussions in the Dev mailing list on how we can make devs spending more time on the project a reality - have you seen those?

Thanks

vokain  You  have just heard it from the horse's mouth and yet you still continue to advocate your severely subjective tunnel vision on what you think devs want and what their incentives are..Devs have real life problems; rent, families, bills et.c they need to have a way to deal with these real life responsibilities. Devs want a salary that is going to deal with these problems at the same time they will be further incentivized / motivated by the bounty system, where they can save their mastercoin/bitcoin earnings for the long term. Most of these devs have family responsibilities similar to JR's situation. Also most of the developers who have developed software for mastercoin so far have proved that they are worth their salt. The same cannot be said for new developers and for them the bounty system might be more appropriate.

I don't think a developer is Going to jump out to demand a salary explicitly as this will seem very arrogant and entitled, but it is what they WANT! for full time commitment. This full time commitment is very important to the project speed...You are comparing your situation to the developers and not everyones situation is the same. It is pretty clear cut that mostly everyone supports a salary base for the devs. Its saddening to see such a project be hindered by a few people without the clear objective vision to discern what is the appropriate incentive to keep the projects engine running. This should not be political at all, it should be a no brainer. And I think this is what happens when when you put people without the managerial track record or business organization skills in positions of power like the mastercoin board and be able to determine its future/fate. Just because someone is a great dev doesn't mean that they are going to possess the inclination for good business/managerial skills necessary to make good decisions as a board member to increase efficiency of a project. Like I said before...We are dealing with centralized issues while trying to solve decentralized problems...I think Arguing that we do or don't need salaries is futile and it really should be a NO BRAINER!..Unless of course the reasoning is coming from a subjective point of view.

[Faraday]

So it looks like all Mastercoin threads have been moved to the Alternate cryptocurrencies board. This makes it much harder to find the Mastercoin topics than when they were on the Project Development board. At the same time it may introduce Mastercoin to a new audience so I guess it has a positive side to it. Are there plans to create our own forums for Mastercoin? mastercointalk.org 

[Voodah]

So it looks like all Mastercoin threads have been moved to the Alternate cryptocurrencies board. This makes it much harder to find the Mastercoin topics than when they were on the Project Development board. At the same time it may introduce Mastercoin to a new audience so I guess it has a positive side to it. Are there plans to create our own forums for Mastercoin? mastercointalk.org 

I think the consensus was to stay here at bitcointalk.

It may still not be defined though.

[littleblue]

I only heard the tragedy, did not see any progress.

[ripper234]

FYI, I edited the homepage to make StackExchange and Quora our official support channels.

This is now at the top of our homepage:

[DGulari]

FYI, I edited the homepage to make StackExchange and Quora our official support channels.

This is now at the top of our homepage:

The StackExchange link you provided is garbage.  It is just a general bitcoin Q&A which has little or nothing to do with MSC.  Further, it is a poorly organized system.  It is merely a long list.  Nobody will use it because you must read 50 questions before landing on a topic of interest.

Quora is also garbage.  The landing page invites one to 'sign up' for an account.  Do you think I've got time to sign up for another 'account'.  I click the back button of website which first ask me to 'sign up for an account' - faster than it takes for the page to load.  Pure junk.  This has nothing at all to do with MSC.  Why is it featured at the top of the MSC web page?  If you continue to pile worthless crap at the top of the page - you will destroy the usability of MSC.  Now you've wasted another 30 minutes of my concentration bandwidth.  I doubt I'll be visiting mastercoin.org again as I'll recall there is nothing but meaningless crap found there. 

Can't somebody prepare a decent website for Mastercoin?

[littleblue]

FYI, I edited the homepage to make StackExchange and Quora our official support channels.

This is now at the top of our homepage:

The StackExchange link you provided is garbage.  It is just a general bitcoin Q&A which has little or nothing to do with MSC.  Further, it is a poorly organized system.  It is merely a long list.  Nobody will use it because you must read 50 questions before landing on a topic of interest.

Quora is also garbage.  The landing page invites one to 'sign up' for an account.  Do you think I've got time to sign up for another 'account'.  I click the back button of website which first ask me to 'sign up for an account' - faster than it takes for the page to load.  Pure junk.  This has nothing at all to do with MSC.  Why is it featured at the top of the MSC web page?  If you continue to pile worthless crap at the top of the page - you will destroy the usability of MSC.  Now you've wasted another 30 minutes of my concentration bandwidth.  I doubt I'll be visiting mastercoin.org again as I'll recall there is nothing but meaningless crap found there. 

Can't somebody prepare a decent website for Mastercoin?

+1

[ripper234]

+1000 Ron for restating your stance on this it is much appreciated, however is this going to be implemented immediately without any resistance? I know JR is on board I am not sure of the others. If not, do we deserve to know the board members that have opposing views to this??

I'm building consensus. I can tell you that i think David and I are pretty close in our opinions even though we might have slow differences, and I had a great talk with Antony yesterday so I think he's on board.

J.R. is as usual the more reserved of the bunch.

I don't remember what other board members think about this ... a lot of them have been too quite IMHO due to their time constraints and schedules.

FYI - I haven't told this to most of the board yet - but I've starting negotiating bringing in an additional board member to help with the load! He suggested it and I fully support his nomination 1000%.

I won't reveal his identity right now, I think it's only fair we discuss this internally before I plaster his name all over bitcointalk. I already introduced him to David.

So it looks like all Mastercoin threads have been moved to the Alternate cryptocurrencies board. This makes it much harder to find the Mastercoin topics than when they were on the Project Development board. At the same time it may introduce Mastercoin to a new audience so I guess it has a positive side to it. Are there plans to create our own forums for Mastercoin? mastercointalk.org  

I expected more from theymos and bitcointalk moderator. We began an open dialog weeks ago to try to find a solution, and didn't expect this one sided action without any prior communication with us. Oh well.

Luckily I just started the effort dedicated to migrating us to Discourse.

I believe it's the best platform for us (I asked this on Quora just to be sure).

In the meantime - can someone with a bit of free time set us up with a Diaspora account?
I want to get us more official support, but let's start with something.

If you have any expenses setting this up, let us know.
Normally this would have been Aric Fadida's task as Head of IT, but I haven't heard from him in a few days (it's holidays and he has some family obligations right now), so I'm putting this out there.

So it looks like all Mastercoin threads have been moved to the Alternate cryptocurrencies board. This makes it much harder to find the Mastercoin topics than when they were on the Project Development board. At the same time it may introduce Mastercoin to a new audience so I guess it has a positive side to it. Are there plans to create our own forums for Mastercoin? mastercointalk.org  

I think the consensus was to stay here at bitcointalk.

It may still not be defined though.

I'm assuming the role of benevolent dictator for this specific task (not generally).
Bitcointalk isn't working. Not for me at least.
I can't keep up with the conversation, and that's bad.

I am planning to get this started on Discourse and compete for our community's attention.
If the Discourse forum picks up, I plan to spend my own attention over there rather than here.

Let the community decide where they want to be by action, not by voting in a poll

The StackExchange link you provided is garbage.  It is just a general bitcoin Q&A which has little or nothing to do with MSC.  Further, it is a poorly organized system.  It is merely a long list.  Nobody will use it because you must read 50 questions before landing on a topic of interest.

Quora is also garbage.  The landing page invites one to 'sign up' for an account.  Do you think I've got time to sign up for another 'account'.  I click the back button of website which first ask me to 'sign up for an account' - faster than it takes for the page to load.  Pure junk.  This has nothing at all to do with MSC.  Why is it featured at the top of the MSC web page?  If you continue to pile worthless crap at the top of the page - you will destroy the usability of MSC.  Now you've wasted another 30 minutes of my concentration bandwidth.  I doubt I'll be visiting mastercoin.org again as I'll recall there is nothing but meaningless crap found there.  

Can't somebody prepare a decent website for Mastercoin?

Bitcoin StackExchange is a general purpose StackExchange for crypto-currencies, by design. Mastercoin is on topic there.
I am btw the founder of Bitcoin StackExchange - I posted the original idea to start it a few years ago.

Currently it's not seeing a lot of MSC activity. Let's take over and change that - StackExchange is a great platform for Q&A, for many reasons.

Follow specific tags on Stack Exchange on Quora to suit your interests. I recommend go reading about "why StackExchange is good" before forming an opinion that it isn't. Bitcoin StackExchange isn't the first Q&A site I started on that platform, funnily enough I also founded and owned a "Stack Exchange 1.0" website called Draw3Cards. It is dead now due to lack of attention, but it was the best site in the world at the time to get answers on questions regarding Magic: the Gathering (not I am not related to Mt. Gox).

Quora is even better than Stack Exchange for many reasons that you can find on Google (and on Quora).

If you do not wish to sign up to these sites, you don't have to.
Still I would like to use these sites as a Q&A and support platform for Mastercoin.

If anyone is opposed to this, they're free to create a new dedicated thread somewhere to discuss this, or just not use these sites.

I follow Voluntaryism.


FYI we are building a decent homepage for mastercoin, it's just taking a bit of time just like everything else. However serving as a support forum is not one of the design goals for that site.

[Luckybit]

BTW I just wanted to let you guys know there are a lot of unanswered questions about Mastercoin on Quora.

If you have a bit of time, you can jump in and help answer them, and even get some bounty as part of the Documentation Contest.

I answered some of them.  

By the way take a look at Bettermeans http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAlnMWlvw9g
It's the best project management software I've seen for incentivizing development, organizing and communicating. I advise that the Mastercoin foundation take a close look at it and consider implementing it in addition to Discourse which I also favor for similar reasons.