Topic: ### CWI-Thread - SpreadCoin Thread | UnOfficial Monitored Thread (Read 4230 times)

hehehe ...

and we KNOW why i called it the unofficial spreadcoin thread ...

trolling ... which is not supported here ...

would you like a namechange for the thread mate? ... ...

eitherway - i like the ideas - but i feel the direction is becoming more and more branched and skewed ...

if you would like to continue with your the new thread - and the rest of the community prefers to converse there also - ill lock this one and be done with it ...

would make it much easier to moderate as well ...

#crysx

As this thread is actually called 'spreadcoin', I've created a new thread (what? another bloody spreadcoin thread?)

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.18021096

please come and troll us there.

Semantics aside, it's a direction that starkly contrasts the current state of the the project. In its current form, spreadcoin directly serves the interest of a single individual. These concepts, regardress of where they are realized, have the potential to strengthen an entire ecosystem.

I have assumed that you didn't really read the whole thing or understand the outcome (ie you didn't get it - which is a failure of communications)



The whole point of all this was to create an easy on-ramp solution for the average Joe's family including grandparents, while removing central points of failure.

The thing about visions is you either see it or you don't  

I would not characterise these as visions but as (perfectly valid and rational) technical development directions because they don't focus on the user but on the technology/service.

For me, a vision needs to be i) user-focused and ii) something “other”.

Cheers

Graham

More longer-term, this one (an idea which DASH copied and is now called Evolution....you can trace the dates and see I posted this thought through idea several months before Evolution was announced as the future direction of DASH)....

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1sKlPh19aAGPGD-DuwPH_FMIJVbqjTzEPweKkvFS0TxY/edit#slide=id.p

Well, this one to start with

It sounds sensible until one begins to pick apart the entailments:

Firstly, it would risk making an orphan of georgem's work unless the efforts were synchronised, which is not on the table because georgem needs pretty much total freedom in order to meet his responsibilities to his Patreon funders.

Secondly, as has been recently mentioned: what vision?

Cheers

Graham

I like this fork idea where spreadcoin exists as a separate entity for georgem's tinkering and the main branch having an updated codebase that functions with a greater emphasis on coin's vision.

nah.

It all goes south when the dev thinks he knows everything - usually when there is a laser sharp focus on technical issues, whilst ignoring the end user.

yup! ...

what he said ...

...

#crysx

ISTR someone observing (correctly at the time) that Spreadcoin lacked a “public vision”.

I pondered that for a long time and eventually arrived at some conclusions:

i) a “vision” can be misleading - ANNs for pump-and-dump runs typically feature ambitious (albeit spurious) visions, presumably to draw in the punters
ii) the notion of an overall directing “vision” is untenable in the context of a peer-to-peer networked cryptocurrency
iii) a functioning Teal organisation will evolve its own vision common purpose as an emergent property of the social consensus

Visions have an unfortunate habit of vaporising when the dev loses interest (examples abound). I'd argue that they signify an elevated risk of failure, the more detailed and extensive the vision, the more damage if/when it proves vacuous.


Cheers

Graham

i agree to an extent ...

i guess most have some sort of vision for the coin / project that they have - but most devs prefer the short term btc pile up ...

we at cwi have a simple vision - that the wallets and payments are simplified so much so that any layman / laywoman can purchase pretty much anything anytime anywhere ... this simple approach means that the complexities of the systems involved need to be simplified also ...

a huge task indeed ... but is a necessary accomplishment for granite to be a good choice for payments ... as for spreadcoin - well georgem looks like he is setting his sights on the accomplishment of things that were and have been - which is not a bad thing ... i would like to see it all come to fruition also - so will see how it all comes about ...

this whole distribution to patrons only though - that will get it all undone in my opinion ... patrons / payers / customers / users alike really should have full access to the wallets - but that is up to georgem and his approach to it all i guess ...

#crysx

You know what a lot of these projects lack?

Vision.

Sure there are lots of features in there. But drill down into what they mean and it's a list of items that bring the project into the 'me too' category at best.

Even DASH's Evolution is based off my vision for making crypto easy to use and more like internet banking.

I have just seen a project with a small team do a Bitcoin core update, implement some Dash features, drop in a few other features such as sha256 merge mining and speed on down the road of independent development in less than six months.

With a handful of people with the right skills and motivation, nothing would stop SPR from doing the same.

I think the fork idea has promise.

Having said that that, some of us came to the same conclusions as you and decided that a newer core version was desirable but didn't have the stomach for the histrionics that comes with the Spreadcoin territory. We decided to take our plans to another project instead.

I have been contacted by a few people lately asking about the feasibility of a rival fork to SPR. It seems that other people have had the same thoughts.

From my perspective, I haven't got any time to be involved but I'd look on with pseudo academic interest.

From the main thread:


The vanity generator address feature is one that, as a cognitive psychologist with extensive knowledge of and experience in UI principles, I would strongly dis-recommend for adoption in any independent development effort because, in the context of WIF-serialised addresses, it is a UI antipattern.

Vanity addresses open up an opportunity to exploit the fact that human memory is in fact a dynamically reconstructive process, not a lookup table.

An agent could offer an apparent-seeming match: ShitQUjQfAHjSHnmw9Qf3W2T3YQTjTtjBf (either maliciously or inadvertently) which would be vulnerable to known limitations of attentional resources and optimisation “features” of the perceptual process to the extent that it would effectively promote the “fooling” of a momentarily-inattentive user into not double-checking the address and potentially sending coins to a destination different to that intended.

Vanity addresses are dis-recommended from a security perspective too, as they leak information about the trading activities of the holder of the privkey.

Co-incidentally, I haven’t yet managed to come up with a plausible-seeming answer to my (self-imposed) question of: what role do vanitygen addresses have in an HD-capable wallet such as Bitcoin Core 0.13.2 that offers full BIP32 functionality?

In the same arena, would anyone be up for having a go at generating the appropriate SPR BIP32 version bytes? The version bytes are hard-coded into the protocol so the prefix is common and cannot be readily (ab)used as an exploit.

Cheers

Graham

I admit to being less constructive but other than that, you reflect my sentiments exactly.

My continued interest in the different stances adopted by the disparate elements of the original inclusive Spreadcoin community is based on my respect for the perspicacity of the original community members. Broadly, if they were savyy back then about Mr Spread's take on things, then they'll be just as savvy today - possibly about things that I don't yet have a good understanding of and it behooves me to pay heed.

I (like to think that I) ask questions (of myself, of the corpus of empirical work, of knowledgeable others) in an effort to deepen my understanding of the techno-socio-econo-political phenomenon that is the shared ledger. Whenever I get “pushback” from that activity (myself including), it invariably means the vulnerability is profound and reaches right down into the foundations of the effort. (Being equally harsh with own fanciful notions helps me keep my feet closer to where I think the ground might be).

I seem to have an unfortunate facility for pressing georgem’s button. It’s not the first time I’ve encountered this in my technical career, far from it (as you might reasonably suspect).  The contradiction between the position he affects and the immaturity of his communication style is significant and not one that I ignore.

As to revitalising the original Spreadcoin project as an alternative development path (to be pursued independently of - but not necessarily excluding -  whatever georgem and his funding group decides to work on/release) ...

I’m not aware of any well-founded arguments for the continued development of the 0.8.X clone versus focusing the development on one of the clones of Bitcoin Core, so I'm assuming an underpinning Bitcoin Core implementation.

But which? Each version brings its own improvements and enhancements which are just as useful to users of a cloned alt such as SPR as they are to BTC holders. To segwit or not to segwit is the question being discussed elsewhere (c.f. Blockchain mechanic, LItecoin, et al.) Can Mr Spread's 0.8.X-hosted implementation of an overlay network be readily refactored/upgraded to be integrated with 0.13.2 or does the mass of accumulated changes to the core implementation class structure present a significant barrier in terms of technical knowledge and effort? (hint: yes, it does).

Where is the “competition” and what problems are they aiming to solve (in order to be able to mount a defence against - “why bother, just switch to a more promising horse”)

An influential PIVX member and code contributor posted this as their alt's set of attributes:


What would be required and how long would it take for an independent Spreadcoin development effort to be able to match (at least) most of those statements?

Cheers

Graham

Just as an afterhought:

I see no point in me posting on the other SPR thread now.  I'm only there because I'm interested to see what is happening and I don't want to continue to be name called for FUD and Trolling. Its rather tiresome when I feel I'm asking perfectly constructive questions.

Crysx and gjhiggins making incisive posts as usual.  Nice to see gjhiggins acknowledging Coins101's efforts too.  His research has been tireless and I can't wait to see where his ideas end up.

I'm really sad to see georgem turning on even gjhiggins now.  Less than a year ago georgem told me that gjhiggins was one of the few devs he would be happy to collaborate with and spoke with nothing other than respectful words.  I have no idea what has changed.

From various sources I have picked up on a level of paranoia on georgem's part that previous SPR team members are attempting to undermine his project.  It has even got to the point that there is hostility towards the projects that they are now involved with.  The bottom line is that some people had enough, found themselves to be the target of hostility and insults after investing a lot of time and effort and decided they had enough and wanted to work in a more constructive environment. There is no rivalry or ill feeling.  Indeed I believe several of the people in question have large SPR holdings and are still supportive of the project.

I agree with crysx that georgem is developing his ability to deliver whatever his vision is for SPR and could well deliver something amazing but to refuse to share that vision with the community and do things in isolation, indeed insisting on monthly payments to even see a preview wallet seems like a strange approach to me.

From my own point of view, the only thing I would like to understand is why georgem has recently turned on so many people who wished him well? It makes me wonder or worry that all is not well with him.  I really hope that isn't the case.