[ANN][DASH] Dash (dash.org) | First Self-Funding Self-Governing Crypto Currency

[eduffield]

Evan, not sure if my message went through so posting it here. Here's an edit of the media release with some more information about price and supply. Hope it's okay...

http://pastebin.com/qD7MLXeN

Looks fantastic, I just submitted it for release. Hopefully it'll go out soon. It costed $125, which I will reimburse myself from the bounty fund. Thanks for writing this up!

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[eduffield]

I think it is Kyle Hagan. not 100% though.

Yeah, I fixed that. Thanks,

[darkproton]

check this out
http://www.wired.com/2014/04/grams-search-engine-dark-web/
seems the anons are growing

[AlexGR]

Very low volume, DarkCoin does not get pumped/dumped, DarkSend not FULLY (getting there!) completed yet...I think the price stability is not so complicated as you guys are making it out to be.

Volume is generally quite good with DRK, being consistently in the top10 of cryptsy. Currently we are behind Litecoin/BTC.

Last 24hrs

DOGE/BTC    Dogecoin    844 BTC   
BC/BTC    BlackCoin    591 BTC   
WC/BTC    WhiteCoin    302 BTC   
FLT/BTC    FlutterCoin    263 BTC   
POT/BTC    PotCoin    156 BTC   
LTC/BTC    LiteCoin    132 BTC   
DRK/BTC    DarkCoin    98.0 BTC   
ZET/BTC    ZetaCoin    56.9 BTC   
VTC/BTC    VertCoin    32.4 BTC
DOGE/LTC    Dogecoin    32 BTC
AUR/BTC    AuroraCoin    31.1 BTC

It's usually closer to 40 BTC.

...and it'd still be top-10 cryptsy even with 40 BTC 

[AlexGR]

Guys, when almost half of the entire 1st years worth of mining is created by a couple of people in the first 24 hours and you don't fix it by relaunching or airdropping to others, THIS PRICE ACTION IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU WILL GET.  All those who whined that airdropping would hurt the price of the coin..... well wake up.  The 10% instamining is hurting the price of the coin!  It's not rocket science people.  Supply and demand.  And when a few guys have 1000X the amount of Darkcoin that everyone else has, it will make it very hard for that coin to move higher and stay higher even with increased adoption.  Simple Econ 101.

You are not factoring in the distribution that has already taken place and is continuing to take place.

Some people complain of dumping by early instaminers, others complain about 50% held by "instaminers" - like that percentage has remained static since day 1. But both accusations can't be true at the same time.

An additional source of irrationality is the price complain: If instaminers dump cheaply => then others can benefit by the coin distribution on the cheap. After all prices are lower than DRK mining costs (opportunity cost vs other coins).  Yet the same argument is again used to say that the future price is doomed. How can all these be simultaneously true at the same time?

As I see it:

If instaminers are dumping, their percentage goes down and the overall distribution is improved.
If instaminers are holding, coin distribution remains as it is right now and price goes up due to very low inflation compared to other coins

If instaminers are suppressing the price below its fundamentals then its bad for the short-term price, good for long term price and good for fair distribution.
If instaminers are not suppressing the price then the price has great prospect for meteoric rise as demand escalates but also a questionmark for price suppression in the future if the bagholders sell.

We can't have "the coin is unfair", "instaminers have 50%", "instaminers are suppressing the price", "the price will always be low due to instaminers selling", "the coin will always be unfair because instaminers will (always) hold 10% of the coin" simultaneously. As you say, econ 101.

[raze182]

I would like to submit my branding proposal as well as my analysis of the current situation for DARKCOIN. I wanted to drop a word to the developpers but I will finally post on the thread.

CLICK http://silver47.eu/indexdark.html

Please note:

- The page displays great on IPAD but needs to be fixed for smartphones.
- I do not have outstanding photoshop skills. I'm a manager. Be kind !
- I'm still working on it. Say it's 80% complete.
- I'd like to start a wallet card production. The one you'll see on the page.

I saw a few users talking about DRK branding. I do not think the actual design looks so bad but I agree it should be somewhat refined. As a professional I wish I could help the Darkcoin startup to succeed.

Marketing is often reduced to publicity and advertising. Yet marketing is a much deeper and complex discipline. The first step for any group or brand is to refine their position as much as possible. This is called positioning. Positioning is kind of a social science where sociology and psychological data must be combined in order to find the best position and penetrate the public. Every detail has to be think about. No matter how good is a product in terms of quality/features/techniques, if the positionning is bad/wrong then your chances of success will be most likely compromised. You wouldn't your tree to grow at a slant.

Let's take an example with Dogecoin. Cute meme + Comic MS font + Humor and optimism. And wow. Dogecoin naturally found his public. Let's say mostly 15 - 25 years old, belonging to the internet generation and feeling at ease with everything related to computers. That was the perfect position. DOGECOIN developper Jackson Palmer just created something for people who looked like him and they are tens of millions out there. Dogecoin could really become a giant if no critical errors are made from the devs.

Now everyone supporting DRK need to remember Dogecoin do not have any special feature. The most advanced and performant do not necessarily win the game. That's the deal. This is exactly why department stores are full of junk. Bad for the environnement. Bad for health. But still much profit. Those companies are investing big money into marketing. They'll use the science of behaviorism. They'll end knowing the average man better than he knows himself. They will use the right word, the right color, the cutest mascot for your kids. Marketing strategies if unscrupulous are a powerful weapon of mass control. Contemporary marketing as used by big companies isn't much different from war propaganda.

Right now many altcoin startups are runned by good coders and informaticians. Even professionals for some of them. But when it comes to selling their products they lack so much of common sense. This is not meant to be contemptuous as it is hard to excel in every discipline. I am myself not very tech-friendly and never mined a single coin. I'm running windows 8 on my PC. Fair enough ! Enough talking and let's take a look at DARKCOIN.


What elements currently makes Darkcoin identity ?

First Darkcoin do have an unconventionnal and rebellious side. The currency name as well as anonymity feature plays a big role in that.

Secondly Darkcoin can be characterized by its low total coin supply. 22 millions of coins suggest that Darkcoin could become very high priced. This is for people like me who think that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies will become mainstream sooner or later and change the world as we know it.

Refining the current position :

The current DARKCOIN position is interesting but need to be soften in order to convince more ordinary users to join the party. Darkcoin still look very obscure and DARK oriented. Let's open the COIN side a bit more. The visual identity of Darkcoin should respectively reflect those two sides. Being Dark and mainstream in the same time is what we should target, as we logically need to aim as large as possible.

Also, take in consideration the following : Having a sophisticated coin is great and we currently are on top of our own segment, but do not put all your hopes on this single aspect. This world is running fast and another more technically advanced coin could emerge. The risk of being outdated is very high. For example, anonymity could become a pretty common feature in the future. For this reason we have to stay welcoming and polyvalent.

From now, what public are we aiming ?

I think we mainly have two profiles of users here :

First, there's the one which is primarily caring about the anonymous aspect. No matter the reason, may be ideological (freedom activist, ...) or more practical (buying drugs, nuclear bombs, whatever). This is not our business. For them, let's say the use of Darkcoin is more related to the "DARK" part.

Since this is the only cryptocurrency having this feature now, those people can be taken for granted.
 
Secondly, there is the one which are not caring that much about privacy but will look at Darksend as a good feature. These people can be the typical users of most of the cryptos out there. For those ones, we have to attract them with a good packaging. There's no secret. We have to look the best and show a lot of activity. From this point of view we must compete with the other regular altcoins in the crypto-scene.

To summarize what have been said above :

- The "DARK SIDE" is naturally part of our identity. Yet we do not know how long anonymity will be an exclusive feature to Darkcoin.
- Darkcoin must remain welcoming and attractive to everyone.
- Being expensive will lead Darkcoin to become a store of value and a medium for high priced transactions.


This is for the basis of our position. Now the design part need to be made in accordance.


LOGO

I think the current D symbol is genuine. The oblique bar is here to remind us that DARKCOIN remains unconventionnal. I suggest keeping the D with the slant bar as a symbol and as a logo.

We have to distinguish the logo from illustrations and artwork. Bitcoin itself do have many variations. We have no obligation to stick on a single coin model. But let's make the symbol clear. The D is the perfect symbol for a real world currency. This should definitely not look to fancy IMHO but suggesting a strong and solid currency.

COLOR THEME.

I suggest switching to a different color combination. I chose dark tones (mostly black) + metallic GOLD.

Black for the DARK side. No further explanations needed here.
GOLD for the expensive side. DRK being also a store of value.
I opted for a clean, corporate looking identity. Because it is a currency, and ultimately an expensive one. So far this kind of visual identity is not used by any competitor. This is an unique segment. Darkcoin can be classy and secret at the same time. I bet on this position.

If you want a currency which cost 1000$/unit, then better start to give it a more expensive look. Suggesting a value, even if not real yet, is having the work half done. We definitely do not want to looks like a casino chip (I'm not saying this is currently the case) or looking very fanciful like I saw in the design contest.

This is basically all I wanted to say to the community and I really hope this will make it.
I currently hold only 800DRK. But I'm convinced this coin can grow x 1000. Let's make the right choices !

My adress if you feel generous XgtB7p19sByoGbX19Mp8bM859W8JBk26SJ. As it took me my week-end to set all the things up !

It's really nice to be here. P2P projects really are a unique experience.
Stay in touch.

Looks good! Very professional. But just in case you didn't know, the community has recently chosen a new logo and we're in the process of finalizing a new color scheme.

https://www.darkcointalk.org/threads/blue-vs-b-w-logo.268/

[louiseth1]

STATEMENT FROM SUCHPOOL.PW ABOUT DATABASES ISSUES ON 2014-04-19

Dear users,

Today we have had a quite noticeable interruption in our services.

Please take a look at the statement we posted online, detailing the situation and what has been done to ensure the smallest loss possible.

http://suchpool.pw/docs/statementdb.pdf

If you have any questions, you may contact us at admin@suchpool.pw (Make sure to mention which pool it is about, your username, your deposit address) We will verify and credit what has to be credited if applicable.

Thanks for mining with us!

[LimLims]

[This post is not related to discussion above!]

I'm stepping down from my role in the Darkcoin team, which means I'll be passing on this marketing/branding effort to the community & the devs. I wish you the best of luck with it!

I'd planned that next steps would involve selecting a colour palette, then writing a branding guide, then getting a new wordpress template crowdsourced. You may wish to take a different approach.

I volunteered myself for this role not because the work interested me, but because there was an obvious & dire gap to be filled, and the devs either didn't seem aware of this, or had other priorities. Now the gap is there again, and somebody else will need to fill this role. My suggestion to the devs is that Darkcoin needs a marketing team headed by someone with training & experience (i.e. someone with a professional portfolio). I hope they take the marketing side of things seriously and find someone with qualifications. Again, I must stress the importance of not watering down this criteria to something like, "well, I hired a marketer once", or "I can write HTML and operate Wordpress".

Taking on a branding / marketing role was a learning experience for me, and I took some wrong steps. In retrospect, polling the community for every decision was the wrong approach. Lacking a marketing professional on the team, I felt obliged to pass decisions on to the community, but I'd do it differently next time. Far better if the marketing team be given a degree of autonomy so they can progress with work unhindered. Community input IS important. It should be used judiciously, when feedback or focus groups are required -- the community should not be dictating the design / branding / marketing direction.

Choosing a marketing team is somewhat analogous to choosing a psychologist: If you take your time and find someone who "gets" you (and perhaps only then), you'll see progress & improvement that was simply not possible before. And there will always bee a large percent of doubters who think the whole idea is bogus and you can do just as good a job yourself. But at the end of the day, these are not skills you can learn on the fly; they require years of training, experience, and (perhaps most importantly), talent.

Put the initial effort into recruiting the right people, and things will fall into place from there.

[battbot]

I personally think the blue/white scheme looks great.  Helps put peoples mind at ease about the word "dark," allowing them to see darkcoin mainly as a coin which offers anonymous transactions - a highly desired and uniquely innovative feature.

[dadon]

[This post is not related to discussion above!]

I'm stepping down from my role in the Darkcoin team, which means I'll be passing on this marketing/branding effort to the community & the devs. I wish you the best of luck with it!

I'd planned that next steps would involve selecting a colour palette, then writing a branding guide, then getting a new wordpress template crowdsourced. You may wish to take a different approach.

I volunteered myself for this role not because the work interested me, but because there was an obvious & dire gap to be filled, and the devs either didn't seem aware of this, or had other priorities. Now the gap is there again, and somebody else will need to fill this role. My suggestion to the devs is that Darkcoin needs a marketing team headed by someone with training & experience (i.e. someone with a professional portfolio). I hope they take the marketing side of things seriously and find someone with qualifications. Again, I must stress the importance of not watering down this criteria to something like, "well, I hired a marketer once", or "I can write HTML and operate Wordpress".

Taking on a branding / marketing role was a learning experience for me, and I took some wrong steps. In retrospect, polling the community for every decision was the wrong approach. Lacking a marketing professional on the team, I felt obliged to pass decisions on to the community, but I'd do it differently next time. Far better if the marketing team be given a degree of autonomy so they can progress with work unhindered. Community input IS important. It should be used judiciously, when feedback or focus groups are required -- the community should not be dictating the design / branding / marketing direction.

Choosing a marketing team is somewhat analogous to choosing a psychologist: If you take your time and find someone who "gets" you (and perhaps only then), you'll see progress & improvement that was simply not possible before. And there will always bee a large percent of doubters who think the whole idea is bogus and you can do just as good a job yourself. But at the end of the day, these are not skills you can learn on the fly; they require years of training, experience, and (perhaps most importantly), talent.

Put the initial effort into recruiting the right people, and things will fall into place from there.

sad too see you go but good luck with your future endeavors

[dime]

Guys, when almost half of the entire 1st years worth of mining is created by a couple of people in the first 24 hours and you don't fix it by relaunching or airdropping to others, THIS PRICE ACTION IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU WILL GET.  All those who whined that airdropping would hurt the price of the coin..... well wake up.  The 10% instamining is hurting the price of the coin!  It's not rocket science people.  Supply and demand.  And when a few guys have 1000X the amount of Darkcoin that everyone else has, it will make it very hard for that coin to move higher and stay higher even with increased adoption.  Simple Econ 101.

You are not factoring in the distribution that has already taken place and is continuing to take place.

Some people complain of dumping by early instaminers, others complain about 50% held by "instaminers" - like that percentage has remained static since day 1. But both accusations can't be true at the same time.

An additional source of irrationality is the price complain: If instaminers dump cheaply => then others can benefit by the coin distribution on the cheap. After all prices are lower than DRK mining costs (opportunity cost vs other coins).  Yet the same argument is again used to say that the future price is doomed. How can all these be simultaneously true at the same time?

As I see it:

If instaminers are dumping, their percentage goes down and the overall distribution is improved.
If instaminers are holding, coin distribution remains as it is right now and price goes up due to very low inflation compared to other coins

If instaminers are suppressing the price below its fundamentals then its bad for the short-term price, good for long term price and good for fair distribution.
If instaminers are not suppressing the price then the price has great prospect for meteoric rise as demand escalates but also a questionmark for price suppression in the future if the bagholders sell.

We can't have "the coin is unfair", "instaminers have 50%", "instaminers are suppressing the price", "the price will always be low due to instaminers selling", "the coin will always be unfair because instaminers will (always) hold 10% of the coin" simultaneously. As you say, econ 101.

Decent post AlexGR. Good points made against people who are whining (legitimately) about all factors while refusing to see that the situation is a moving function and not a static one.

However, another point is that money is proportional. Unless there is an ultimate authority that binds some scarce resource to some amount of drk, it will always be.

The truth of the situation is that a lot of people who got coins the first day have likely sold, or dumped. Let's be honest and just say that they didn't give shit away, because no one did (with the exception of chaositec). But not all the big holders dumped. And the sheer magnitude of the "1st day" mistake is huge. I've been mining drk at about 50 MH/s for 2 months now for about 3k coins.

If someone were to buy into the coin, what would be a good number? I'm going to suggest 1k coins, because they're interested in the possibility of a master node. What would we need to get someone to come "buy in" to dark? About 1.5k btc at current prices. This is NOT an easy thing. This is a relatively substantial amount of drk and someone would need to believe quite a decent amount to put in this much. How many of these people could we possibly average per day? Based on everything you see here, how many buy-ins would be a "good amount" to expect or hope for?

Let's say 1. And I think that's being generous. It would be huge to have 1 person a day buy 1.5btc worth of drk. I mean really buy in, not holders day trade, etc. Someone who owns 0 drk, to come in and buy 1000 drk. This is the equivalent of someone mining drk at 1GH/s per day. And yet, even if we had this amount of buy-ins, there is|was enough instamine from the FIRST DAY to dump the same amount, for 2000 days or about 6 years.

Look at the blockchain. Look at the first N blocks from the first day. It's just 500 every other second.. 500, 500. In the 10 minutes it took me to write this post, there were more 50x more dark generated than I could mine with 50MH/s in two months.

I've been here long enough to read all the history. It was a mistake, etc. We can get past it, etc. And I believe those things, as well as in drk. But just admitting it is not the be all and end all of the situation. It's just something that everyone will have to judge when weighing the risk vs rewards. But just because YOU (not you specifically, just generally talking about those of us who have been here a while) have thought about and dismissed the problem does not make everyone else who still brings it up a troll.

Also, one last point, about the "top riches list". There's no evidence that list is close to what the true distribution is. Before there was GPU mining and pools, everyone used the miner from the wallet and so each system they ran it from likely had different wallet addresses. Any number of those large wallets from the first day could (and likely do) belong to a small group of people.

[eizh]

I've been here long enough to read all the history. It was a mistake, etc. We can get past it, etc. And I believe those things, as well as in drk. But just admitting it is not the be all and end all of the situation. It's just something that everyone will have to judge when weighing the risk vs rewards. But just because YOU (not you specifically, just generally talking about those of us who have been here a while) have thought about and dismissed the problem does not make everyone else who still brings it up a troll.

Actually the particular individual ("peteycamey") who started the latest discussion comes in here like clockwork every week or so and says exactly the same thing (in the same juvenile manner). He's already seen these thought-out response from AlexGR and others. But he never responds, disappears, repeat. Yes, that right there is a troll. Dictionary definition of one.

[dime]

I've been here long enough to read all the history. It was a mistake, etc. We can get past it, etc. And I believe those things, as well as in drk. But just admitting it is not the be all and end all of the situation. It's just something that everyone will have to judge when weighing the risk vs rewards. But just because YOU (not you specifically, just generally talking about those of us who have been here a while) have thought about and dismissed the problem does not make everyone else who still brings it up a troll.

Actually the particular individual ("peteycamey") who started the latest discussion comes in here like clockwork every week or so and says exactly the same thing (in the same juvenile manner). He's already seen these thought-out response from AlexGR and others. But he never responds, disappears, repeat. Yes, that right there is a troll. Dictionary definition of one.

I agree. However, I think it's a fair point that he brings it up in a discussion that someone else started by saying that it's a conspiracy that the price is being held done. In that case, it wasn't him starting it. He was just giving an answer to other people who didn't know about the instamine and "schooling" them.

He's annoying, and a broken clock. But he's right twice a day. He's the other half to the cheerleaders who drone on and on like drk is the second coming of jesus.

I dislike both, but personally, I'd rather hear him repeat uncomfortable truths than listen to idiots marketeers say "11 super fast secure algorithms!!!omg" or "logo!logo!logo! omg we need press releases".

[dadon]

.......

[jakecrow]

[This post is not related to discussion above!]

I'm stepping down from my role in the Darkcoin team, which means I'll be passing on this marketing/branding effort to the community & the devs. I wish you the best of luck with it!

I'd planned that next steps would involve selecting a colour palette, then writing a branding guide, then getting a new wordpress template crowdsourced. You may wish to take a different approach.

I volunteered myself for this role not because the work interested me, but because there was an obvious & dire gap to be filled, and the devs either didn't seem aware of this, or had other priorities. Now the gap is there again, and somebody else will need to fill this role. My suggestion to the devs is that Darkcoin needs a marketing team headed by someone with training & experience (i.e. someone with a professional portfolio). I hope they take the marketing side of things seriously and find someone with qualifications. Again, I must stress the importance of not watering down this criteria to something like, "well, I hired a marketer once", or "I can write HTML and operate Wordpress".

Taking on a branding / marketing role was a learning experience for me, and I took some wrong steps. In retrospect, polling the community for every decision was the wrong approach. Lacking a marketing professional on the team, I felt obliged to pass decisions on to the community, but I'd do it differently next time. Far better if the marketing team be given a degree of autonomy so they can progress with work unhindered. Community input IS important. It should be used judiciously, when feedback or focus groups are required -- the community should not be dictating the design / branding / marketing direction.

Choosing a marketing team is somewhat analogous to choosing a psychologist: If you take your time and find someone who "gets" you (and perhaps only then), you'll see progress & improvement that was simply not possible before. And there will always bee a large percent of doubters who think the whole idea is bogus and you can do just as good a job yourself. But at the end of the day, these are not skills you can learn on the fly; they require years of training, experience, and (perhaps most importantly), talent.

Put the initial effort into recruiting the right people, and things will fall into place from there.

Thanks for your work LimLims. Agreed on all points as well!

[AlexGR]

first N blocks from the first day. It's just 500 every other second.. 500, 500. In the 10 minutes it took me to write this post, there were more 50x more dark generated than I could mine with 50MH/s in two months.

I've been here long enough to read all the history. It was a mistake, etc. We can get past it, etc. And I believe those things, as well as in drk. But just admitting it is not the be all and end all of the situation. It's just something that everyone will have to judge when weighing the risk vs rewards. But just because YOU (not you specifically, just generally talking about those of us who have been here a while) have thought about and dismissed the problem does not make everyone else who still brings it up a troll.

I agree that the issue exists and it's not to be dismissed, however I feel its effect, as we go forward, is reduced in intensity considerably due to the market distribution. I've seen far too many 5-figure DRK dumps to believe that instaminers have their stash intact.

Btw, Evan brought up an interesting issue about Blackcoin. It was mined in a few days and then it was over. Yet not many are complaining about "Blackcoin scam" and "unfairness" of early adopter advantage.

If early mining advantage was such a blocker for future prospects then coins like Blackcoin would be dead alright. Everyone would be "oh, this was mined so quickly, I didn't get to ride the train". There is not even a chance to mine it, but rather to buy from existing bagholders (directly or by mining something else), unlike DRK were there are another 18m max coins to be mined.

Why do we consider the distribution via the market, in the case of initial-PoW / PoS after mining, as something that works, but DRK distribution something that is problematic? It doesn't logically compute / it is irrational. Right now people are mining Whitecoin and after a few days of instamining it'll be over... For years... Whoever got it, got in, and that's it. The next ones have to buy in and they can't mine anything.

PS. I can relate to the mining curve. I must be around 300-350 mined DRKs with my cpu/gpus since late January.

[luke997]

I'm sick of the trolls bringing up this whole instamine bagholder myth.

If this was even 10% true, you would have seen instant dump into the 120BTC wall @ 0.00125 which was there for days. It wasn't touched.
Or the walls @ 0.002 before Darks bought with stolen BTC from Poloniex were dumped over 2 months ago. Again that didn't happen.
So stop spreading FUD.

These are simple facts. Subject closed. All trolls on ignore.

[dragonseer]

I do have one suggestion that could help the perception of Darkcoin - here is the twitter bio:

DarkCoin aims to be the first privacy-centric cryptographic currency with fully encrypted transactions and anonymous block transactions. These features are a wo

These features are a what? World first? 

I wouldn't wait for twitter to make their bios longer 

[peteycamey]

He's already seen these thought-out response from AlexGR and others. But he never responds, disappears, repeat.

1. there is not 1 logical answer to decreasing the number of coins.

2. I always respond quoting.

3. when I respond I am a troll if I dont respond you say I dissappear.

4. I am not a troll, I am one of the top darkcoin miners and highly worried about darkcoins unfair distribution.

[TanteStefana]

[This post is not related to discussion above!]

I'm stepping down from my role in the Darkcoin team, which means I'll be passing on this marketing/branding effort to the community & the devs. I wish you the best of luck with it!

I'd planned that next steps would involve selecting a colour palette, then writing a branding guide, then getting a new wordpress template crowdsourced. You may wish to take a different approach.

I volunteered myself for this role not because the work interested me, but because there was an obvious & dire gap to be filled, and the devs either didn't seem aware of this, or had other priorities. Now the gap is there again, and somebody else will need to fill this role. My suggestion to the devs is that Darkcoin needs a marketing team headed by someone with training & experience (i.e. someone with a professional portfolio). I hope they take the marketing side of things seriously and find someone with qualifications. Again, I must stress the importance of not watering down this criteria to something like, "well, I hired a marketer once", or "I can write HTML and operate Wordpress".

Taking on a branding / marketing role was a learning experience for me, and I took some wrong steps. In retrospect, polling the community for every decision was the wrong approach. Lacking a marketing professional on the team, I felt obliged to pass decisions on to the community, but I'd do it differently next time. Far better if the marketing team be given a degree of autonomy so they can progress with work unhindered. Community input IS important. It should be used judiciously, when feedback or focus groups are required -- the community should not be dictating the design / branding / marketing direction.

Choosing a marketing team is somewhat analogous to choosing a psychologist: If you take your time and find someone who "gets" you (and perhaps only then), you'll see progress & improvement that was simply not possible before. And there will always bee a large percent of doubters who think the whole idea is bogus and you can do just as good a job yourself. But at the end of the day, these are not skills you can learn on the fly; they require years of training, experience, and (perhaps most importantly), talent.

Put the initial effort into recruiting the right people, and things will fall into place from there.

You really did us all a great service, and I for one am so glad you stepped up.  I'd try to help out with this, except I get too emotionally involved.  I'm too "I want it my way"  LOL.  If I'm not in charge, I can not go read stuff and stay calm, LOL.  So I know it must be a hard job.  I too hope someone will step up to take over your very large shoes.  They'll be hard to fill!

Thanks again!