Topic: [DVC]DevCoin - Official Thread - Moderated - page 136. (Read 1059212 times)

So very excellent to hear from you Hunter!  I am still around so count me in to help however I can be of service.  I am for moving forward with the proposal.

Papa

I think it's all great discussion, and it's encouraging to see.

This coin is far from dead, and the price is going to do what the price is going to do for the time being. I'm still happy that people are seeing this as a good buying opportunity, as I do myself. It implies that people still believe in its mission, as I do too.

I've had some rl responsibilities hinder my ability to push forward the devcoin proposal since I took over in September, so the reason it is delayed is largely my fault. On the bright side, looking through the proposal now, there's still nothing that I would change about it, so I'm still confident that it will improve things long term (this is what I'm talking about, if you don't know: http://www.devtome.com/doku.php?id=devcoin_division_proposal).

There were some kinks in the change of leadership when I took over; a lot of admins just disappeared with the falling price, new devtome writers weren't being added by Unthinkingbit, and whole bunch of other stuff I don't have any control over was not being done - my role as "leader" felt very much like a namesake more than anything actually meaningful, and it really felt like I'd been handed a sinking ship just so it had someone to go down with it...without a manual. Maybe that's still the case, however this isn't like a stock where a company can go bankrupt and shut down (like penny stocks), the cryptocurrency is meritable in and of itself, and can be revamped as many times as we need to. As many have mentioned before, a lot of people here don't even earn devcoins because they need the money, they earn them because of its noble mission.

As for the proposed changes themselves, UTB is still in control of accounting, and doesn't want the account files changed (account.py), so instead we're going to have to implement the proposal via the ongoing bounty file, which I do control. The way the files run, however, means it's not going to perfectly divide all the divisions as expected. At the moment, what you see on something like http://dvccountdown.blisteringdevelopers.com is an imperfect estimate of the final shares, and when the account files are run, things like ratings, admin bonuses, marketing and all that are calculated by UTB and stored on his github. Once they are on there, it is "official", and final. I do my own calculations daily, but the only one that matters is the final one, which sometimes varies from mine slightly, probably because of timing. He then pushes those files to the various file custodians to be spread by the client. To implement the division proposal perfectly, it would have to be done before pushing to clients, which UTB doesn't want to do, from our last conversation. Doing it in the ongoing file means I have to predict what the final values are going to be, create normalizations on these, then the account script adds these to the final account.csv when UTB runs it. While I can make a very good guess, it's not going to be perfect. If the community still supports implementing the proposal this way, then that's what I'll do. I haven't calculated the error, but I estimate it to be around 5%, against the perfect version.

There are several other issues we face, going forward.

The first, is our exchange presence. Vircurex in particular is a problem, because it's run by the same people who run crypto-stocks, and while both were quite busy for a while, I've been hearing nothing but bad things about them for the last twelve months. Vircurex was hacked some time ago, and the owners promised to pay everyone back from the profits of trading, which was slowly working for a time. Then a few months ago, another issue they had meant they had to freeze funds, causing people to basically flee the exchange, which destroyed their trading volume. It still seems to be running ok now, but the volume is ultra light, meaning that both confidence in them is at an all time low, and there is extremely little incentive for the owners to build or invest anything more into it. The risk of putting funds on there long term is too high for my tastes. We are also listed on Cryptsy, which doesn't seem to be suffering the same fate, but being on only one and a half exchanges is disconcerting. We simply need more exchanges, which we aren't going to get until we're more interesting to speculators.

The second, is that we never managed to generate a block on the live chain, so couldn't confidently say our new client worked properly. This had repercussions down the line because people think the client hasn't changed in over a year, when it has had a lot of work done. The changes work in the test-net, but we have to convince the bigger merge mining pools to try them live and confirm all is well. One thing we could do is simply declare the new client official, and assume it works. It's not good practice to do this, but we may not have any other option without investing serious capital into mining hardware. I tried to do it with blisterpool, but p2pool just didn't pay out frequently enough to keep people interested...even when I was paying a 20% bonus in devcoins! I have had other ideas to get people to lend us their hash, but haven't had the time to actually do any of it. My time will become more available after January, which is when I can more seriously attempt the division changes again.

Devtome writers haven't been added for some time. UTB is still in charge of adding them, and I believe there is a substantial amount of work that goes into vetting new writers, which he seems to not have had the time to do. He is still around and is still doing the files, so the only thing writers can do about this is hound him until he does it, unfortunately.

Lastly, I wasn't exactly given a handbook on things when Unthinkingbit handed over the reigns, and essentially admins as they were have complete control over their assigned duties. This lack of organization is extremely difficult to problem solve, so one of the things I will address soon is who is actually still here doing their jobs. As someone mentioned, accountability has been poor, and that has to change if we have any hope of recovering. On that note, we will probably go through a mass culling of administrators in the next few rounds. Anyone who is still willing to work on devcoins (and has been), irrespective of the price are of course immune to the cull, but I suspect many haven't been bothering to do their duties as promised. I know the pay exists and is supposed to have some meaning, but to draw on the movies for a moment, I would rather have 300 Spartans than 3000 potters, sculptors and blacksmiths.

Ofcourse. We need someone who sells something valuable and accepts Devcoin for it. That's how you create a devcoin related business.

The problem is buying and buying does nothing if there's never any value added. DVC still, for all intents and purposes, has no value. It has to create it. DVC has to be treated like a business. If I opened a store locally that earned $0, people wouldn't invest. If it was profitable, they would. DVC is the same way.

Bought as much as I could when it hit 4!

Papa

Right on! First investment rule: buy low, sell high.
Something strange in the human psychology to always buy AFTER price has risen dramatically. --> Herd mentality.
So, don't be a sheep!

Seems perfectly sane to me. If one believes in DVC there could not be a better time to invest.

- Nova

Well it has taken time but we finally breached the 4 satoshi mark. All the way to the bottom now i fear.

Absolutely, positively, without a doubt, yes! This post says it all. Marketing and in the way presented is key to success, period.

Wishing the DevCoin Community a healthy and prosperous 2015!

- Nova

Call it foundation, or trust, or even a company (incorporated).

Everybody can call himself "a foundation" (as seen with ixcoin foundation)... what I am talking about is an incorporated foundation (with legal liability).

Exactly!

While it doesn't make sense for Bitcoin or other coins to have a foundation (because those coins are built like a completely trustless decentralized system),
it makes ABSOLUTE sense for devcoin to have a foundation, where leading members who handle the devcoin distribution are registered and visible with their REAL NAMES.
What devcoin needs is liability and responsibility.

It seems like the distribution of devcoins will always rely on real people who decide which user/artist gets how many devcoins each round.
To an extend this can be managed by algorithms, but NEVER 100%.

It's sad, but a very central part of devcoin is completely centralized, and has the potential to ruin the whole coin, because it goes against the very notion of a decentralized and trustless cryptocurrency system.

But this doesn't have to be a flaw.

If the distribution mechanism (new devcoins) can't be converted into some kind of trustless algorithm, than we atleast should have a true foundation, liable under law, when it comes to how those devcoins are handled and distributed.

Has this been discussed before?

People who are saying that inflation is too high, are just early investors who want to save their investment by going to such extreme lenghts like forking the coin, just to make a gain.

That's the worst kind of people we could have as supporters.

They only think about themselves, they don't care about all the other (new) people who might enter devcoin at some point in the future.

If we cut the coin supply, it means early investors (who already got millions of coins for cheap) will ofcourse enjoy it, but all the new people who enter later won't have any advantage.
So this proposed maneuver is just here to please early investors, AND NOTHING ELSE.

(But I am glad this proposition got sacked.)

There is a reason why this coin DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A BLOCK HALVING of any kind, right?

I say, let the coin specification be as it is, it's perfect.

What should be done, is create a better platform and market for the distribution of content. (music, sound, 3d, pictures, etc..)

Agreed, since the give aways have died down on the forum, so has the traffic. Just as well during the Spammer War. Less collateral damage.


You can find a ticker tape of the current buys at http://coinzen.com

- Nova

What's the approximate value of one DVC coin right now any way ?

Yeah, I used to be against this idea but looking back at BTC, that's what made it so popular. Faucets and randomized giveaways got people interested in it and helped gain value (because if I'm given a free coin, I want its value to go up so I help create new value. Millions of others doing the same thing boosts it up considerably).

On the # of shares you get for being an admin, it's equal whether it's 1 or 5. What happens is the total shares there are for the round are calculated, and the admins get x%. In other words, if you got 2 shares when there are 100 total, with 200 total you'd get 4 shares (meaning your pay is exactly the same). This helps keep admin payments steady so they don't fluctuate.

You said there is nothing you missed which was wrong. The news isnt baked in because there are too many alts and only one exchange.. but as soon as we apply it somewhere useful it may become baked in ofcourse u will always be late as an investor if you act on news that is already out there... its more of an inside look at whats coming that anyone can see from coinzen but noone bothers.. when applied correctly may finally turn the tide..

Propose a solution and others will listen that is the best way to go.. if its doable I will implement it if we all agree. Feature wise im talking.. right now im thinking how to get voting in

In the interests of equal disclosure and uniformity in the presentation of information, if you have any significant changes to announce to market then you know as well as I do that people who co-ordinate the Devcoin project are the most suitable to release this information. In the meantime, I reserve my right as an observer and investor to point out that the unitary value of DVC has only gone one way so I urge you as and when appropriate to release any changes and improvements that might make the coin more viable as an instrument of currency or value. Unlike some others who have expressed a preference that DVC be discontinued as a supposed monetary unit, I would like to see the project evolve and become successful as unlike many altcoins out there Devcoin does have an attractive ethos underpinning the project which may benefit a wide range of parties. I do though, remain firm in my view that the unit has to have a tradeable value and equalization of the demand/supply characteristics would go some way to creating a more realistic market for the coin.

Suffice to say that normally it is only robust management that can withstand a one year price depreciation graph that looks like this:

http://www.cryptocoincharts.info/pair/dvc/btc/vircurex/1-year

The three month graph which theoretically has all the recent news built in and might give a more accurate picture of recent management initiatives doesn't inspire confidence either:

http://www.cryptocoincharts.info/pair/dvc/btc/vircurex/3-months

As such, it's probably far more constructive if those associated with the leadership and development of the coin present any enhancements in the best possible light rather than requesting that disenchanted investors who legitimately comment on the one-way downhill ride of DVC speak on behalf of the Devcoin leadership team.

I wish you the very best of luck with all current and future efforts to enhance the viability of the Devcoin project and the price appreciation of the DVC unit.

since you already know it maybe you can be kind enough to explain the new format ? With it comes the ability to do what deadsea said so maybe you can infer on how this is possible. Thanks