There's some very good discussion going on here, so thanks everyone! I'm very grateful to all those who speak their mind and have their say!! As long as we 'play the ball, and not the man', then I welcome ALL opposing opinions to mine, and I respect passion too
Personally, I think I'm quite open minded, and long ago I realised listening to the opinions of smart people is 'smart', and it's better to stay flexible and open to being convinced that someone else has a better plan. Values & goals tend to be fixed, but I always think it's better to have some flexibility with strategies & tactics!
We're doing OK so far, and learning how to make decisions and get things done efficiently & effectively as a 'Starfish' community *could* be the biggest challenge we face, and if we work out ways to do this then ORA will have a great future. I'm optimistic we can! I feel lots of goodwill and sincerity from intelligent thoughtful people here, so thank you ALL!
My position hasn't really changed, and I'm still in favour of keeping the left over stakes in trust while we come up with 'clever' ways to continue with the distribution until we reach the original goal of 3000 unique people. ORA has real 'value' now, and we're giving it away FREE, so who doesn't think it's possible to find ~2,100 unique people and give them a genuine freebie, with no strings attached?
I'm in favour of continuing until we reach 3k stakeholders for many reasons:
- Every new stakeholder is a potential 'doer', and ORA needs people doing things
- It's a great marketing tool - 'who wants some free money?'
- It could be a while before nio finishes the ORA software, so it'll give the community something to focus on so we don't fall off the radar
- We can ask people to do useful things for a stake e.g. promo stuff (I've got lots of ideas, I bet others have too)
- We can make the anti-sockpuppet measures more stringent, but generate something useful, like a blog post
- ~880 'looks' small (like 73 or 137) - '3,000 stakeholders' has more marketing appeal
I know many of us have been conditioned in the alt coin crypto world to feel time is moving ultra fast, and we see new coins born, rise, decline & die in a few months almost, but ORA will be different, and it has to be, because we're a long way from having our finished software. nio might be able to give us a rough estimate, but from reading his posts, and his development documents so far, I'd say he is being smart & very comprehensive with his approach, so I'd be very surprised if he rushed something out in the next little while. That's just my opinion, but it feels like we're talking months and not weeks before we have ORA software up & running, so we have lots of time to come up with ideas on how to reach 3000 unique people.
Here's a new distribution idea off the top of my head.
Short story competition, minimum 1000 words "Satoshi & BCNext on a road trip together"
How many sockpuppets would write more than one entry?
Would it really matter if someone wrote two or more entries?
Could we use the submitted short stories to add some benefit to ORA (website of all the stories with ORA branding)?
Would a few people bother to write 1000 words for 166,666 ORA assets (do some people write stories for fun for FREE as a hobby)?
Would running a short story competition be fun?
Would it keep us occupied and bumping this thread while nio beavers away on the software?
Obviously we wont get ~2K new registrations from people on this forum, and Mac Red has finished his work, and maybe we don't use the original webapp either, but I think we can collectively come up with some really clever ways to get more stakeholders, and generate some good outcomes for ORA, especially marketing. Obviously the task is still to eliminate sockpuppets, but I think that's possible, especially if we raise the bar a bit, and ask people to 'do something', like write blog post, or contribute to a wiki. I think with some creativity we can come up with lots of great ideas that make the ORA community & eco-system much stronger.
I'm not in favour of giving existing stakeholders a top-up, but if we do, then what I said yesterday is relevant. I don't think it's wise to discriminate against ORA stakeholders who sold their stake. The idea of a stakeholder top-up came once we realised getting 3000 people using the registration webapp was not going to happen, but I've always been advocating we see every stake as an 'opportunity' to further the cause of ORA.
I am concerned about the consequences on the price of a big dump for loyal supporters who have PAID for ORA, and thanks to those who have highlighted that. That is a very valid point.
Maybe it is better to decide this sooner rather than later. NXT voting system wont be live for a few more weeks. We *could* use another method, but forum polls aren't reliable IMO. We could do this maybe. Get the options, start a thread, and then ask that people vote in the thread with a post AND 4-5 lines why they're voting that way. It wouldn't be perfect, but we could see which users were original stakeholders.