.

[qwk]

I want one mother fucker here to step forward if you even contributed more then $500 in bit coin at the time that you gave it.

We have our first VIP member: smart1985. Thank you!

2011-08-29, BTC was around $9, so that's $450

From August 2012, BTC was usually above $10, so here's a list of mother fuckers:

New VIP donator: eb3full. Thanks!

New VIP donator: MemoryDealers. Thanks!

New VIP donator: augustocroppo. Thanks!

New VIP donator: dustintrammell. Thanks!

[1715118863]

1715118863

[1715118863]

1715118863

[farlack]

How much of that 350k is being sent back to your bank account so you're not accused if stealing funds? We're not 9 years old and stupid enough to believe you found a company that doesn't even have a website to build forum software for 350,000. Sounds like one of those ill give my friend the job type deals. I'll await the oh he scammed me messages.

[Welsh]

I would like to ask some questions and also express some of my views on the matter in hand.

Obviously, a big issue is the automated ad auctions, why do we need this? Haven't you expressed enough times already that the forum doesn't need any more money, yet you are 'investing' in a module which is going to increase the income of the forum. Another question, is what do you plan on doing with this money that you have gained from this new auction module? Do you plan on keeping the new forum software up to date and fixing vulnerabilities with it or do you plan on paying staff members with it or anything else? Isn't the new automated auction going to run into problems too?

 

You can still donate 10/50 BTC for Donator/VIP status. It isn't really emphasized anymore though because the forums doesn't really need more donations. The amount is not being changed, because 10 BTC has always been 10 BTC, and the dollar amount is irrelevant. Theymos had thought about adding smaller increment donations, however did not because no more money is needed.

Here's a quote from a staff member stating that the forum no longer needs money, and let's be honest even though you are spending a awful lot on this forum software you will still have a lot left over. Now, why would you want to focus on this and implement this into the new forum if you don't require any donations, because ad revenue is basically a donation to the forum but you pay staff members a percentage of it.

Another question: Why did you pick James Wang to develop the software for that amount of money? It seems that a lot of others at the forum would be willing to do what you are asking him to do for much less, and maybe these people are more qualified. I want to know why you didn't communicate to the forum about this, why couldn't users at this forum get involved and create a open source forum software between each other. Gweedo is more than qualified for this along with several other programmers at the forum.

I've decided not to create an official announcement thread today. But I will answer some questions.

If this project really is open source then why are you not answering all our questions? You have to convince us that this is a good idea because lets face it there hasn't been much communication between the administrator team and the community. Even staff members are ill informed and are not sure what is being done.

According to CrunchBase Slickage Studios have 4 employees and founded in 2012. Surely, in 2 years there isn't enough past work present to show they are the company for the job. Established companies or well known people which have done big projects are normally the people to hire because the big projects are normally known by a lot of people. But, such a newly created company which has I personally have never heard of and I'm sure others haven't either are now working on a one million dollar project, which will probably turn out to be more because of vulnerabilities found and other issues. How long are Slickage studious going to continue support after the software has been handed over.

What I don't like about this whole thing is we don't even know if they are capable of doing this, it seems either not a lot of research was done or you like to gamble. If you have reasons why Slickage Studios is the right company for the job then please send us some references so we can have a look personally too. In many peoples eyes I can understand why they think you might want get the money out of the forum and into your pocket by hiring someone who you personally know or have a mutual friend. I have seen the IOS apps that they have posted and I'm less than impressed, their design and functionality are not impressive one bit. All I do know about him is that he learned was learning Python in March 2009.


James, I have a question. You have tweeted previously on twitter this:

Why are you working on a startup? Is it for the money? If it is, you're doing it wrong.

If that's your philosophy then why are you requiring 1 million to start this? Or do you lie much? 

Also another tweet:

I am going to become obsessed with security pretty soon.

You tweeted this on march 2013, I hope you have done your home work in less than a year my friend.

I'm also glad we are hiring Wang because he is always productive.

I was texting whales to Julie all weekend. LOL

I have nothing against Wang or Theymos, but you have stated that you have been transparent and are doing the best for the community yet we have not had many answers or have we been involved in any of the decisions (Although I strongly disagree with this), maybe normal users like me shouldn't be included in the decisions but donators and people who have helped you ie. the staff should at least have a say in this.

[farlack]

Naturally, clients that are pleased with our work will suggest us to others and so on. Basically what I'm trying to say, was that we didn't have a need to build out the website.

So what you're saying is, you started up a company, with no website, but somehow found million/billion dollar businesses to buy code from you, without previous work, (because everyone knows everyone gets a NDA so they just have to trust you...) and you don't need to build your website and or portfolio because you're so busy with work, you can take the time out of the day to earn some chump change to build forum software? And the only way these million/billion dollar businesses know about you is word of mouth? So theymos knows the admin of a major site such as walmart, bank of america, how about chase bank who referred you to him? I'm highly sliptical pun intended!

[augustocroppo]

From August 2012, BTC was usually above $10, so here's a list of mother fuckers:

New VIP donator: eb3full. Thanks!

New VIP donator: MemoryDealers. Thanks!

New VIP donator: augustocroppo. Thanks!

New VIP donator: dustintrammell. Thanks!

 

That looks a long time ago... At that time I donated to the forum because I was under the impression the forum development plan was being followed since 2nd November 2011:

The forum's software has proven to be insufficient for our needs. In particular, the general architecture of the code is both insecure and difficult to modify, and the moderation facilities are limited. Therefore, the forum is accepting bids for the job of delivering software that meets the requirements listed below.

I don't care whether you build the software from scratch or just create a bunch of modifications for some already-existing software. There are benefits and drawbacks to both methods which will be considered in relation to the rest of your bid.

I assumed the new forum software development was about to start and Michael was able to manage the project. This is a post made on 7th September 2012 which made me confident the money about to be donated would be used to improve the forum:

Sorry for the delay. Many people have submitted very good bids (some privately). I've been procrastinating because I'm not sure how to choose among the candidates. It requires a lot of thought.

I fixed some of the most serious problems in SMF, so I'm not in as big of a hurry as when I started this topic.

And do NOT leave MySQL.  There's a reason why its the MOST SECURE DB in the *Nix world.

LOL

After my donation I expected a candidate to be chosen. That, of course, did not happen in a reasonable period of time. It was never mean to happen. I was straightly duped into a money grab scheme perpetrated by Michael under the disguise of "donations".

This is the last post by Michael in that thread:

5500+ BTC

I think theymos is trolling us.  

Nope. You can verify the forum's balance:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155000.0

All of it is available for this project. However, I now want to be more closely involved in the software creation process than I did when I started this topic. I'm probably not going to pay people large amounts in advance (and certainly nowhere near 5500 BTC).

[qwk]

This is the last post by Michael in that thread:

I'm probably not going to pay people large amounts in advance (and certainly nowhere near 5500 BTC).

Well, he wrote "probably"
But I hear you, claiming not to pay anywhere near 5500 BTC in advance, which where something like 600K USD at that time, and throwing 350K USD at someone now just doesn't compute.

[augustocroppo]

This is the last post by Michael in that thread:

I'm probably not going to pay people large amounts in advance (and certainly nowhere near 5500 BTC).

Well, he wrote "probably"
But I hear you, claiming not to pay anywhere near 5500 BTC in advance, which where something like 600K USD at that time, and throwing 350K USD at someone now just doesn't compute.

Not just merely "throwing 350K USD" at some random start-up company, but also ignoring all offers made by various forum participants since 2011.

[escrow.ms]

I want one mother fucker here to step forward if you even contributed more then $500 in bit coin at the time that you gave it.

They donated it for forum software which they never got till now.
Also

sure it's worth millions now but at the time that 5500 coins was worth less then 100k.

True,but point is, theymos didn't used those 5500 BTC or 100k on time.

I feel like its super hypocritical that some of you are assigning 2 different values to the same money.

They are assigning 2 different values because theymos is giving 1 Million Dollars not XYZ Amount of BTC
 and please check bold text, you are one of those "Some".

this million dollar software is getting bought with $20k worth of donations. your getting a great deal.

How do you know that software really worth 1 Million dollars? it's not even created yet, It's will be a forum software not some NSA's new surveillance software.

Ps: It won't be first forum software built on node.js , check
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/nodebb-the-discussion-platform-of-the-future
https://github.com/designcreateplay/NodeBB

[SaltySpitoon]

I would like to ask some questions and also express some of my views on the matter in hand.

Obviously, a big issue is the automated ad auctions, why do we need this? Haven't you expressed enough times already that the forum doesn't need any more money, yet you are 'investing' in a module which is going to increase the income of the forum. Another question, is what do you plan on doing with this money that you have gained from this new auction module? Do you plan on keeping the new forum software up to date and fixing vulnerabilities with it or do you plan on paying staff members with it or anything else? Isn't the new automated auction going to run into problems too?

  

You can still donate 10/50 BTC for Donator/VIP status. It isn't really emphasized anymore though because the forums doesn't really need more donations. The amount is not being changed, because 10 BTC has always been 10 BTC, and the dollar amount is irrelevant. Theymos had thought about adding smaller increment donations, however did not because no more money is needed.

Here's a quote from a staff member stating that the forum no longer needs money, and let's be honest even though you are spending a awful lot on this forum software you will still have a lot left over. Now, why would you want to focus on this and implement this into the new forum if you don't require any donations, because ad revenue is basically a donation to the forum but you pay staff members a percentage of it.

Another question: Why did you pick James Wang to develop the software for that amount of money? It seems that a lot of others at the forum would be willing to do what you are asking him to do for much less, and maybe these people are more qualified. I want to know why you didn't communicate to the forum about this, why couldn't users at this forum get involved and create a open source forum software between each other. Gweedo is more than qualified for this along with several other programmers at the forum.

I've decided not to create an official announcement thread today. But I will answer some questions.

If this project really is open source then why are you not answering all our questions? You have to convince us that this is a good idea because lets face it there hasn't been much communication between the administrator team and the community. Even staff members are ill informed and are not sure what is being done.

According to CrunchBase Slickage Studios have 4 employees and founded in 2012. Surely, in 2 years there isn't enough past work present to show they are the company for the job. Established companies or well known people which have done big projects are normally the people to hire because the big projects are normally known by a lot of people. But, such a newly created company which has I personally have never heard of and I'm sure others haven't either are now working on a one million dollar project, which will probably turn out to be more because of vulnerabilities found and other issues. How long are Slickage studious going to continue support after the software has been handed over.

What I don't like about this whole thing is we don't even know if they are capable of doing this, it seems either not a lot of research was done or you like to gamble. If you have reasons why Slickage Studios is the right company for the job then please send us some references so we can have a look personally too. In many peoples eyes I can understand why they think you might want get the money out of the forum and into your pocket by hiring someone who you personally know or have a mutual friend. I have seen the IOS apps that they have posted and I'm less than impressed, their design and functionality are not impressive one bit. All I do know about him is that he learned was learning Python in March 2009.


James, I have a question. You have tweeted previously on twitter this:

Why are you working on a startup? Is it for the money? If it is, you're doing it wrong.

If that's your philosophy then why are you requiring 1 million to start this? Or do you lie much?  

Also another tweet:

I am going to become obsessed with security pretty soon.

You tweeted this on march 2013, I hope you have done your home work in less than a year my friend.

I'm also glad we are hiring Wang because he is always productive.

I was texting whales to Julie all weekend. LOL

I have nothing against Wang or Theymos, but you have stated that you have been transparent and are doing the best for the community yet we have not had many answers or have we been involved in any of the decisions (Although I strongly disagree with this), maybe normal users like me shouldn't be included in the decisions but donators and people who have helped you ie. the staff should at least have a say in this.

First about ad auctions, yes the forums no longer needs donations because it is now self sufficent because of the Ad Auctions. Staff are paid based on advertising revenue, but as you said a bit later in your post, we were not in the loop either, so no staff members had any say on that feature, nor do I understand why it would be one of the first things to be implemented. Sure, for a million dollars revamp everything, but I would have thought more important features would have come first.

Theymos did discuss who to pick for creating the new forum software, but with people he trusted and thought were qualified, privately. He said that Wangbus was recommended to him by Warren, who's opinon he valued. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=81508

I don't know the details as to why Wangbus in particular was picked over others, but we the public also don't know their qualifications, which I'd hope Theymos got before hiring them. Maybe their NDA that they are talking about is something incredibly major. Theymos was aware that they were a new company and that the $350k downpayment would be used to hire more people. There weren't any kickbacks for Theymos. If he wanted to embezzle money, I'm sure he could have thought of a far easier way than to introduce this kind of controvercy.

[Welsh]

First about ad auctions, yes the forums no longer needs donations because it is now self sufficent because of the Ad Auctions. Staff are paid based on advertising revenue, but as you said a bit later in your post, we were not in the loop either, so no staff members had any say on that feature, nor do I understand why it would be one of the first things to be implemented. Sure, for a million dollars revamp everything, but I would have thought more important features would have come first.

Theymos did discuss who to pick for creating the new forum software, but with people he trusted and thought were qualified, privately. He said that Wangbus was recommended to him by Warren, who's opinon he valued. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=81508

I don't know the details as to why Wangbus in particular was picked over others, but we the public also don't know their qualifications, which I'd hope Theymos got before hiring them. Maybe their NDA that they are talking about is something incredibly major. Theymos was aware that they were a new company and that the $350k downpayment would be used to hire more people. There weren't any kickbacks for Theymos. If he wanted to embezzle money, I'm sure he could have thought of a far easier way than to introduce this kind of controvercy.

I respect that the staff are getting paid because of all the hard work they put in for this website to function correctly, but spending money on a automated auction system sounds silly to me, this isn't going to get more adverts to be displayed it's just a fancy system which is only going to benefit Theymos so he doesn't have to post now and then the auction.

Of course there are some promising features being discussed for example two factor authentication but, that is still pretty standard in most forum these days, this feature has been requested for a long time now and we should of had it implemented sooner he has the money to pay someone to implement this into a simple machines forum, yet he hasn't. That's something which I would support spending money on, but even that doesn't cost a lot for someone to implement. It's just ridiculous that one of the only mentioned features has no benefit to the community.

I hoping theymos has made a wise decision, but even then he hasn't got by it the right way. The staff should of been involved in such discussions and decisions even asking the communities feedback as we as Bitcoin users rely on trust, I don't understand why this has been kept a secret from A) the public b) the staff. Also, I don't quite understand why we can't see what James Wang sent to Theymos, considering he's a business owner I would of thought he would want to advertise as much as possible but, he has not given out anything.

I see the staff are making more effort than Theymos himself in trying to resolve the issues that the forum is having, you can slowly see the community getting tired of all this secrecy and there has already been people leaving the forum. Even Tysat a moderator (which I respect highly because of his high workload and friendliness) doesn't quite understand what is going on and looks like he doesn't support the decisions being made.

We have a wonderful community yet if these decisions keep on happening I fear that there will be drastic changes but, all it takes is a little communication and community involvement. Thank you SaltySpintoon for trying to answer everyone's questions even though you don't fully understand yourself because of the lack of communication, although it does seem Maged and maybe Badbear knows a little more than you do.

[SaltySpitoon]

I respect that the staff are getting paid because of all the hard work they put in for this website to function correctly, but spending money on a automated auction system sounds silly to me, this isn't going to get more adverts to be displayed it's just a fancy system which is only going to benefit Theymos so he doesn't have to post now and then the auction.

Of course there are some promising features being discussed for example two factor authentication but, that is still pretty standard in most forum these days, this feature has been requested for a long time now and we should of had it implemented sooner he has the money to pay someone to implement this into a simple machines forum, yet he hasn't. That's something which I would support spending money on, but even that doesn't cost a lot for someone to implement. It's just ridiculous that one of the only mentioned features has no benefit to the community.

I hoping theymos has made a wise decision, but even then he hasn't got by it the right way. The staff should of been involved in such discussions and decisions even asking the communities feedback as we as Bitcoin users rely on trust, I don't understand why this has been kept a secret from A) the public b) the staff. Also, I don't quite understand why we can't see what James Wang sent to Theymos, considering he's a business owner I would of thought he would want to advertise as much as possible but, he has not given out anything.

I see the staff are making more effort than Theymos himself in trying to resolve the issues that the forum is having, you can slowly see the community getting tired of all this secrecy and there has already been people leaving the forum. Even Tysat a moderator (which I respect highly because of his high workload and friendliness) doesn't quite understand what is going on and looks like he doesn't support the decisions being made.

We have a wonderful community yet if these decisions keep on happening I fear that there will be drastic changes but, all it takes is a little communication and community involvement. Thank you SaltySpintoon for trying to answer everyone's questions even though you don't fully understand yourself because of the lack of communication, although it does seem Maged and maybe Badbear knows a little more than you do.

For a million dollars, I'd expect the forum software to have all of the features we could ever want and more. I don't disagree with having an automated Ad system, however I would have thought far more things would take precident. I also hope Theymos made a wise decision, frankly, the community has no idea what is going on, Theymos could have spent $1M to get $10M worth of features, I dont think there is room to critize content yet, because we haven't seen the content to be produced. We can somewhat criticize his decision making process, but we also don't know how many people he spoke to about it, and who they are and their levels of expertise on the matter. For all we know Theymos may have contacted the world's authority on forum software, and they may have pointed him to Slickage. What we can undoubtedly criticize is the lack of transparency that is going on. While the community isn't entitled to know everything that is going on behind the scenes, it probably would have been a good idea to hold an official Q&A and fill us in on what he could prior to now.

Moderator's aren't employed by Theymos, we are welcome to question his every decision and flat out disagree with him at any point we want. Of what I know of him, I like the guy and expect that he would have done a better job handling this than he has, however I will be giving him the benefit of the doubt until he gives me reason not to. If the work produced is subpar, then I'll complain then. Theres no point in complaining now, the money has been spent, we can either support slickage and try and help get things done in the form of suggestions, or we can continuously badger them and slow whatever work is being done. I move that we withold badgering until after they have proven themselves incompetent. If they prove themselves competent, then we will have no reason to complain.

[Welsh]

For a million dollars, I'd expect the forum software to have all of the features we could ever want and more. I don't disagree with having an automated Ad system, however I would have thought far more things would take precident. I also hope Theymos made a wise decision, frankly, the community has no idea what is going on, Theymos could have spent $1M to get $10M worth of features, I dont think there is room to critize content yet, because we haven't seen the content to be produced. We can somewhat criticize his decision making process, but we also don't know how many people he spoke to about it, and who they are and their levels of expertise on the matter. For all we know Theymos may have contacted the world's authority on forum software, and they may have pointed him to Slickage. What we can undoubtedly criticize is the lack of transparency that is going on. While the community isn't entitled to know everything that is going on behind the scenes, it probably would have been a good idea to hold an official Q&A and fill us in on what he could prior to now.

Moderator's aren't employed by Theymos, we are welcome to question his every decision and flat out disagree with him at any point we want. Of what I know of him, I like the guy and expect that he would have done a better job handling this than he has, however I will be giving him the benefit of the doubt until he gives me reason not to. If the work produced is subpar, then I'll complain then. Theres no point in complaining now, the money has been spent, we can either support slickage and try and help get things done in the form of suggestions, or we can continuously badger them and slow whatever work is being done. I move that we withold badgering until after they have proven themselves incompetent. If they prove themselves competent, then we will have no reason to complain.

I personally think a good start would be to look at the thread Viceroy created a while back: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=244678.0

There's some solid feature suggestions and discussion among the community there and I think there are some respectable members who contributed some good ideas. I see where you are coming from and understand a lot of us were to quick to judge. (Guilty) although, even if this decision was a good decision on the behalf of Theymos I still believe there could of been better communication between Theymos and the staff, it seems that you and Tysat had no involvement in this decision, I don't know what you specialist in and if you would have had any good feedback to provide to Theymos on the decision but, I'm sure on of the staff members would of suggested asking the community because that's where the money came from in the first place. The lack of transparency was a bad decision but I'm hoping the forum software will not be and I will be eagerly waiting for the release.

Theymos, could of contacted people privately but, no one has expressed this as of yet.

[Wangbus]

We will do our best. I've completely surrendered my public presence and dedicate immense efforts toward this project. For clarification, I use Twitter for thoughts that encompass our maker/hacker community here. The comment about security was about messing with Yubikeys. Assuming I'm a newbie at anything is a valid concern which is why I need everyone to survey our work in the future. This is definitely a test that most software companies probably don't need or want to do. But I'm very excited to be closely work with this community in the future to develop this product. Like SaltySpitoon mentions, let's stay positive about things everyone.

[SaltySpitoon]

We will do our best. I've completely surrendered my public presence and dedicate immense efforts toward this project. For clarification, I use Twitter for thoughts that encompass our maker/hacker community here. The comment about security was about messing with Yubikeys. Assuming I'm a newbie at anything is a valid concern which is why I need everyone to survey our work in the future. This is definitely a test that most software companies probably don't need or want to do. But I'm very excited to be closely work with this community in the future to develop this product. Like SaltySpitoon mentions, let's stay positive about things everyone.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against you or your company personally, but I wouldn't say I'm positive about much of this. Logistics were handled poorly so my expectations aren't quite that if had everything been handled ideally. That said, I don't know about you, your company, nor what you and Theymos have already worked on, so I have no say on your work quality. This should be a good opportunity for you guys to build something fantastic to put on a resume and your website. That way your next clients wont be just looking at a NDA. I'll applaud when its done and fantastic, or yell if its crap. Whats done is done, so might as well let you get to work so you can prove everyone wrong (or hopefully not right).

[gweedo]

let's stay positive about things everyone.

Easy for you, you just got the pay day of a lifetime to build open source software, which most of will probably help out with. So yeah lets stay positive.


The correct way to handle this theymos for the future is to do the lowest costing yet highest yield.

[leckey]

I'm sorry but anyone, anyone, trying to justify spending ONE MILLION DOLLARS on forum software should have their internet access revoked... among other things. Absolutely ludicrous.

[leckey]

let's stay positive about things everyone.

Positives: I imagine the forum will be quite decent after the work is done.
Negatives: The fact the sum of money involved reminds me of a scene from Austin Powers.
Negatives: Seriously, one million dollars? (more?)
Positives: Wangbus can hire an awful lot of hookers, and buy an awful lot of cocaine now.

[escrow.ms]

Any information about tax?

[tysat]

Any information about tax?

This is a great question!  We're dealing with large amounts of money now and the government doesn't like not getting its cut.

[gweedo]

As a freelancer I know that, Wangbus will have to give Theymos his corporation's w-9 form, if they haven't done that already. That really should have been done before the transfer of the $350K.