Sex & Drugs & Gridcoin
OK now I'm joining @erkan in his criticism of the current Gridcoin problems, please dont downvote me to oblivion.
Now to Preface
Firstly
I believe in the purpose of Gridcoin and how it supports science through rewarding people for sharing the unused power of their computers to compute calculations required by scientists worldwide. BOINC is brilliant but to expand beyond the established user base, encouragement is required to offset the cost of electricity required to support the projects.
Secondly
I also personally do not give a damn about anybodies personal belief's, in that you can believe what you like as long as you don't push it in anybodies faces, don't try and "convert" anybody and generally don't affect other peoples with it.
Thirdly
I understand this is a dangerous argument to make on a crypto based site. (and yes Steemit's audience is still cryptobased and needs to expand if it wants to be successfull, but that's another subject)
And the Meat
So my criticism today is not about anything Technical, mainly as I do not feel qualified to comment on the robustness of the Gridcoin backend.
My Criticism today is more around the governance, branding and marketing of Gridcoin of which much has been made recently. As I see it Gridcoin stands out from other cryptocurrencies as it is Philanthropic and does not waste energy and computing power like the Proof of Work coins and its very existence is predicated on advancing science.
To put this succintly, Gridcoin has no Governance structure and therefore has no rules on behaviour or what face that Gridcoin shows to the world. I consider this a major blocker to Gridcoin becoming more widely accepted as anybody looking at the coin has no idea of what the coin really stands for and the direction it is heading.
Now branding has been a point of discussion recently leading to such things as the new logo (great work by the way), and branding has a huge impact on how something is percieved in the wider world. Currently all discussion is open and spread over multiple platforms, unfortunately this has led to some problems as you would expect from any open Internet discussion.
The issues caused by these, being polite, "discussions" have been as follows:
Bitchfest's and Flamewars:
Come on guys, I don't care whether you believe you are right or wrong but doing this in open GRC channels just pollutes the channel. Any new user seeing this is going to be turned off straight away which is a loss for GRC and more importantly Science.Drugs & Advocacy:
OK, call me names but I can't believe that I have to tell grown ups this.The discussion of drugs (yes including cannabis), including; giving advice on how to cultivate, make, imbibe or even general advocacy is highly controversial and is completly unrelated to the purpose of GRC.
I don't care what your poison is, but linking GRC to drugs which are illegal in many countries harms the legitamacy of GRC and the good work that it does. You have other forums to discuss this. Use Them!
Yes, I know you argue we support developing drugs to fight disease but from a publicity perspective this is a completly different ball game, think general publicity not your own opinion. Gridcoin is not about legalising your pet drug of choice recreational or otherwise.
"Censorship"
Firstly, there is a reason for the quote marks. Secondly, this is as close as I am getting to the current DramaGRC should be open in as far as its goals, its roadmap/strategy, its code and its rules & ettiquette.
However for those actively supporting and actively working on the project at least some rules and ettiquette should be followed. Unfortunatly this does not exist, which I believe has led to the current problems as there is no strategy and no governance for when things go wrong. As such people have had differences of opinion on what should be done.
Extremly simplified an example is:
Some have decided issues are lower priority as long as they are not public knowledge.
Others have decided that issues must be sorted as a priority and public knowledge is irrelevant.
How to fix this
We seriously need to start building at least a basic governance structure including what is and isn't acceptable to publically release and what is and isn't acceptable to discuss on publice GRC channels.
This document can be voted on by the in-built GRC voting mechanism, as can be moderators for our public communication channels. Moderation appointments should be time limited with an ability of a recall through vote. You know like Democracy.
People who break said rules could be banned from public GRC channels (like the rest of the internet for those who say it's not possible), reinstatement upon a vote if required.
Now I am drunk (see pick you poison above) and I know I had further points but can't remember them. Also my agument will have holes in it but the gist is correct.
@guk, people thinking that some centralized, structured governance will solve issues like this still don't understand crypto. Even if we had a Central Gridcoin Committee with unlimited powers (on paper), how do you think such a committee would be able to prevent anyone from posting on Steemit or Reddit? Such ideas are unworkable (to put it mildly) and usually create even worse problems in the end.
Let me use a simple analogy - how many times have you seen posts like "Bitcoin is dead" during last few days, in the context of Bitcoin forking issues? Plenty of times, right? Now, did you see anyone from "Bitcoin governance" banning and deleting such posts? You didn't. Because the idea of Bitcoin is much bigger than a few poorly written posts.
Want to help Gridcoin? Begin with yourself. Align your images. Correct your typos. Don't rely on some centralized governance (which doesn't even exist), rely on yourself and your own high-quality content.
I understand crypto fine thank you. I also understand that there is a cultural element to the crypto community based in its history, that any centralisation is bad, hence why I said it was a dangerous argument to raise.
As to your other points, I would not and did not suggest a "Central Committee with unlimited power". Any overarching system of rules and governance has to be by consent of the community, we already have the basis for a system in-place with the in-built voting system.
What I am suggesting is that any rules, and the moderators who could enforce them, would be voted in or out. The key thing is that the community at large has the power, anybody voted into any role is basically an administrator, if they abuse there position they could then be removed at the will of the community. I don't have all the answers, that is why it is a discussion.
Of course any rules and such can only be applied to official GRC channels, the examples of Steemit and Reddit that you give are a case in point. I would expect that we would not try and censor opinion on these social media platforms as they are not official GRC channels and as such are opinion pieces. However instead we should be able to show a professional face that represents what GRC stands for on any official channels and accounts, these include but are not limited to:
etc etc.
This stuff is the basics of Branding and Marketing. If someone joins one of our official channels , what impression do you want them to go away with?
As an example if someone joins our IRC channel in the middle of a flamewar or in the middle of a completly offtopic discussion on drugs they are much more likely to take away a negative opinion of GRC. Like the saying says, "first impressions".
I apologise if you think my post doesn't come up to your standards with regards typo's, images etc. but as I pointed out I created it whilst drunk and was very much a braindump.
One last thing, writing the post off as "More low quality nonsense" on one of the aforementioned channels does you no favours. The issues raised are real and I am making realistic suggestions on how to improve things, just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean it is low quality or nonsense.
Well, I think this comment is actually better than the article itself, if it's of any comfort to you.
You know that Ronald Reagan (I think) ironical quote on federal government: "ah, the great things we could do, if we only had more power" (paraphrased). That's how every enthusiastic official feels, but it backfires almost every time. I think I'll rather have some off-topic chat in IRC than a rigid system of rules and governance, thank you. I guess if the crypto can handle Potcoin ("network and banking solution for the marijuana industry"), it can handle some off-topic ganja chat on some IRC channel. To be 100% clear, I don't like it too, therefore I am not on IRC very often. But no doubt, some would say that posting articles on Steemit with tags #Gridcoin and #drunk is more detrimental to Gridcoin's image than some IRC ramblings. We can argue over it forever. Dead-end alley.
No worries, to people who get downvoted and stuff, I can re-post their content elsewhere (ideally with their permission).
E.g. I posted my articles which were downvoted (copy) massively to here and also more places to come. Spreading out is a good strategy...
Spreading out high-quality content is a good strategy indeed. Unfortunately, spreading out low quality nonsense is far more common.
erkan, if your posts were as well written and structured as this people would take you a lot more seriously. Notice how this post isn't just a bunch of c/p of chat messages. They also list the issues and then provide suggestions on how to fix them. Consider structuring your next post like this and people might be less hostile to what you are saying.
guk, the biggest hole I see in this plan is that banning people for breaking the rules will definitely be seen as censorship by some. But I like where the idea is going and thanks for the constructive feedback. I would also totally agree with items 1 and 2 of your post being very toxic and inappropriate for the Gridcoin community. Take my litteral 2 cents as an upvote.
Drugs? What are you talking about?
I guess you've not joined the Gridcoin IRC channel when certain members are in mid flow chatting about drugs, it's even leaked onto mumble. Any call to take it to off-topic is generally ignored, it hardly shows a professional face which is what branding and publicity is about.
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STOPWeed is the healing of the world while alchol is the distruction-bob Marley