Topic: [DVC]DevCoin - Official Thread - Moderated - page 307. (Read 1058956 times)

Heh, yeah. It was the first faucet test I did minus the 1 dvc fee.

No worries. It's all about the dialogue man [used with my best 60's voice]


OK.


OK. I'm in favor of rolling it over. Effectively and from what is being done now by UTB, this amounts to no real change, just a longer earnings period for those that contribute more content. I'm good with that.


I don't think I said it was pointless, just asking what the purpose was. I'm fairly resistant to change unless there's a well-thought out reason. My gut response was that just because it had been mentioned and no one threw a tantrum, well, that doesn't really justify changing the scheme.

But from what I see in your last post, by reducing the round payouts, it more equally distributes the actual quantity of coin for even low word-count contributors while extending earnings to those who have no other life (like me) than writing.

I think the post to which I'm responding did a fairly decent job of addressing my (mis)understandings of the current earnings rounds.

I see nothing objectionable or having anything inequitable. Thanks for the feedback!

Ok, it's fine, I don't object to this.  Interested to see the effect it has.

Nice update of the site. On the specifications tab, there is mentioning of a total cap of 21 billion coins. As far as I am aware, this cap is only present as a max amount of coins to be sent, not as a cap on total coins. For an overview of what I found on specs, see: http://www.devtome.com/doku.php?id=the_value_of_devcoin

Heya, was it 4 devcoins that you sent? If so, I got those - looks like it's working ok.


It's not too difficult to make it automatically update if Hypersire is using scripts etc (not sure), but one option is that he could put a link to one of the dvc countdowns which also has the active round details - http://dvccountdown.blisteringdevelopers.com so people can look up the current blocks etc. I put a deadline on there to make it more non-technical friendly, so visitors can see how long to go before the next round ends. I'm hoping that the timer will encourage the idea it's already an ongoing moving process (in seconds rather than blocks) with people checking it out wondering if it's legit.

I agree the site looks good. It's pleasant to look at and the information is bite-sized and not overly technical.

Brilliant. Will give any feedback when had a better look through. Thanks for doing this.

The payout is not limited, only the payout per round.

Edit: just to make clear, the payout has never been limited. It has always rolled over. The only difference now is that to earn the max of 75 rather than previous max of 80 per round, writing has to be of better quality with better copy, with some element of popularity incorporated.

As it's my message quoted I think it's fair that I reply. That it's you eeh isn't relevant, I wasn't making a point any particular writer's writings and I'd assume it's not my preference alone.
No they don't. Payout is calculated as 180m/shares. If the denominator is higher it must reduce others' shares in dvc. But that technically is not my point. I'd like to see thousands of shares per round. Although I would personally lower the max a lot more, the change proposed now is in the context of ratings and vetting where with the bounding it means the max will be 75 per round rather than 80 now. This implies very little difference for quality writing.

Not quite sure what you mean there. 180m is generation - miners and that can't change. Also as far as I'm aware, word counts in excess of 50k will still be rolled over to the next round as they are now. There is no net loss, only a longer tie-in and greater time distribution of payouts.

I believe that was the point of ratings, categorization and page views.
The point? 'The purpose of devcoin is to give money to open source developers for their work in as fair a manner as possible'. Although I have my own stronger views on devtome payouts and technicalities (which I've been honest about before) the adjustment is because with a bound now between <1 and >1 (rather than just 1) the max should at minimum move in line with it, resulting in max 75. In my opinion it's also to align reward with all other bounty payments where the maximum other that I know of (open transactions and a devcoin atm) is 96 shares.

I can't speak for markm so I won't. Speaking for myself I would like devtome to appeal to ALL writers and writings, and for the greatest incentive not to be reward by word count but reward for writing.

Over the months I have been involved with Devtome there have been a number of attempts (some successful, some not) to game the word count. We can pretend it's not an issue, or that all current and prospective writers are able to mutually and constructively mix money and ethics, or we can at least try to improve methods and incentives. I believe this is a start.

In reply I would like to ask you or anyone else to explain why there shouldn't be a maximum, or why 120 is better or fairer than 75? And then how administering that would work in practice in a way that is less 'pointless' than the change?

Nice design.. feedback

1) on iphone the intro page I expect to swipe the screens to see next slide.. also the icons and devcoin logo etc of each slide is cut off on the right side of screen.
2) Will you be updating the round payout info page manually or syncing sonehow ? Is there a cms to easily edit page content?

Good work!! I like the idea if a website being informative and usable to keep ppl coming back like getting round payout info.

Can we add a whats new? New bounties recrntly completed or milestones like drvcoin hitting $10 million marketcap etc?

Even though I've only recently gotten involved, I think I can see why the admins would want to find some way to better reward people producing quality work. I don't know (as in literally have no opinion informed enough to be considered) if lowering the max word count is the way to do that. Devtome is still in a community learning process around rewarding high quality work and discouraging low quality work. I think the no notability requirements are great because that lets you write about whatever inspires you, but the area between 'no notability' and 'no drivel' is very grey at this point. Some articles are clearly written for word count, not because there was something to say or the author felt inspired to say it. Some of what's on devtome is drivel to my mind, but I'm coming from the bias of a writer and editor. And with avoiding censorship and no notability requirements, it's difficult to come up with a standardized system.

Out of curiosity: Do the article rating admins have a standardized rubric they go by, or is it subjective to the admin? If it's not already standardized, I think standardization would help.


I think eeh raises a good point. If mainstream writers have support to get over any biases against free culture licenses, there's the potential for a ton of great writers to port a lot of great content to devtome. Because they don't get paid right now (or get paid very little) for creating, and devtome exists expressly to pay creators. So maybe (again, not informed enough to have a real opinion, but this is just a possibility) what devtome needs is more writers putting in 100k words, rather than a lower max word count. Advertising has been plugged a lot in this thread as the way to do that, but I think in conjunction with that, devtome needs to look safe and reliable to a non-hacker audience. Right now that's hard for a layperson to judge because of the visuals of devtome, the variability in quality, and the bias in language of a lot of the main pages toward people who understand the code of all this.

The two most immediate solutions I see are to continue to improve the quality control system and be in open communication about it (which seems like an active, on-going process as this discussion demonstrates), and to get a page up written for the layperson about earnings (which I'm drafting).

It's certainly a lot more user-friendly, and the smooth design I think will help inspire confidence. I was thinking originally that you were going to move all of Devtome's content to a new site (which seemed quite momentous), but now I see it's more of a portal site to get people into it. I think it could do with some more content, since right now it's pretty spare, and there's plenty of existing content from devtome and the thread here that can be ported.

So far it looks like the new windows installer is good (not sure if people want to test it more before it's included), so you could add the link for that:
http://media.andarazoroflove.org/Devcoin-Installer.exe

The 'where to spend devcoin' page can be updated to include:
http://altcoincards.com/
http://dvc4giftcards.us/

The 'earnings and payouts' tab can include these links:
http://www.devtome.com/doku.php?id=devtome_stats
http://www.devtome.com/doku.php?id=devtome_page_views
http://www.devtome.com/doku.php?id=devtome_analytics
http://www.devtome.com/doku.php?id=earn_devcoins_by_writing#earnings_per_word

I think the more people are able to see the backstage process for payouts right up front, the more confidence they'll have in joining the system.

I also think it should include a couple of links to where people can trade dvc for btc and dollars. Some people might want to invest in an alt currency, but a lot of writers from the mainstream-non-hacking world are just going to want to buy groceries. If they successfully pay for their groceries, then they might think, "Oh, hey, this is totally legit," and be more willing to invest in an altcoin, and dvc's reputation goes up.

What do people think about doing a 'my personal experience with devtome' sort of testimonials section? We don't want to make this all "omg devtome is srsly so awesome la di da di da!!!!" But I think people respond to genuine, short, pragmatic personal stories of success when they're trying to figure out if this is something they want to do. I wouldn't have joined devtome if not for a miner friend who convinced me it was legit. Other writers might not have miner friends, and they need something else to convince them its legit.

Another point, which might or might or might not apply to the new site: a lot of mainstream writers are not going to want to put up their material (even if they're not making money on it otherwise) under a free culture license out of fear of that license being abused. At the very least some links to places that explain the benefits of free culture licenses could be listed for writers who are afraid to release material under a liberal license. Some choices might be:

http://questioncopyright.org
http://freeculture.org/

I can add these to the "earn devcoins by writing page" (unless editing that is restricted), but I'm not sure if this level of detail is necessary for hypersire's site at its current size.

Hypersire, thanks for doing the site!

I propose the following work, done by myself, to be funded by devcoin. Please let me know if this will fit.

I will write a definitive guide for Embedded Analysis, to be published on the CCC 30C3 wiki. This would be a significant update to the same entry i wrote in 2010, which today is the first result when searching for "embedded analysis". I would refactor and release a new tool based on an Arduino which can be used to dump NAND memory (a capability not readily available to most), unlicensed and open source. I will QA and release a voltage shifting board for IO lines, unlicensed and open source with Fritzing layout files. I would release a book (25 page pamphlet will illustrations and photography) developed with a photographer and initially previewed at the Create Art & Technology Exhibition in 2011 but never formally released, CC licensed. I would donate %10 of all Devcoin from the total sum of the entirety of all this work, from now and into the future, to the photographer. All of this will be documented in the 30c3 wiki and I would be happy to put "efforts supported by Devcoin and the Devcoin community" in the first section. This work is already in progress and WILL be completed by Dec 30th, preferably Dec 26 (before the 30C3 conference starts). If not clear, all code, text and designs were or will be authored by myself, except that of the photographer as mentioned.

BIO: I am a well known hardware and software reverse engineer. I've lectured at Recon and the CCC. I make things that break things and publish them unlicensed.

Full list of work and new additions to the documentation from the 27c3:

• Initial release of Arduino based NAND Memory dumper
• Memory breakout board list and techniques
• Release of voltage regulator board for low voltage targets
• Information on workflow and aesthetic analysis
• Links to new tools
• What to do after JTAG is found
• Finding JTAG by hand
• Crude and novel firmware analysis techniques
• Release of book with illustrations on hardware hacking, in PDF form (CC Share Alike license)

I'm a writer and a researcher. Professionally and as a hobby. Devtome remains enticing because I see the direct fruits of my labor within a month. But I've been writing for almost 20 years. Of course I'm going to have times where I max out the earnings. I think I've done it twice this year so far.

1. The material is peered review (ratings, other writers challenging content, categories, views, etc.).
2. I can't just spin an existing article to receive credit.
3. Devtome forces me to be creative in my contributions.

And although I have held back some original material since it's earning royalties elsewhere, I've been very pleased to release some of my successful content here, just to be open source and support this effort. It's not about greed or maxing out the monthly round. I think the more attractive Devtome is to hardcore writers, the more attention it will draw, the more it will grow and the more word is spread to other contributors, whether they are writers or devs or graphic designers.

Admins: There is serious potential here for people who invest their efforts heavily. Don't take that away so hastily.

I'm thinking the same thing.  A better way to spread the shares out would be to have more active writers join Devtome so compete for the shares, rather than limiting the payout. 

Hi all, I am happy to report that I have finished the devcoin.org site redesign:

http://devcoin.org/

Thanks to Weisoq for his wiki page and whoever created the Devcoin press release that went out a couple of weeks ago - really saved me a lot of time compiling the content.

Let me know what you guys think - I will be sticking around as the new Devcoin web guy so I can certainly make edits and additions going forward.

1. Yes, that is me. 120 shares. Does it reduce anyone else's shares when I max out that round?

They still receive the same amount, correct? So what is the *purpose* in limiting the number of shares in a round? Last month I had zero shares. It's very, very difficult to produce that much material consistently. Someone was kind enough recently to point out one project that I had neglected to fine tune. And now I'm about 8000 words in and loving it. No hard feelings, just a better project when I finally finish it.

2. Does that mean that shares are going to be excess every round or are 180m still distributed monthly?

If so, will we be expanding then number of bounties for visibility and refinement of Devtome and DVC in general?

3. The addition of ratings, categorization and page views has made me relook some of my contributions. I've been forced to clean up even what I thought was my most well prepared material.

So what is the point of reducing it? Just so someone like myself or Raptorak can't max it out at the high end? I don't see the purpose.

Which is what markm asked in his post: Markm: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3782966. What's the purpose? He didn't say he approved of the change, just that he wasn't necessarily opposed, but his question is a good one: What's the point?

Glad it helped. It can be a little intimidating at first, but is pretty simple once you just sit down with it.

I'm curious, how have you/are you going to port all the articles/organization over?

Thank you so much for your reply.  It helped ease some of my fears.  I previously read some of the instructions on devtome and panicked when I saw the brackets/formatting and such. 

Got them. I also sent some to the address listed on the dvc countdown, and that seemed to go through fine. So did the faucet, for that matter, so I'm not sure how it correlates to the round ending, unless 'round' is being used differently in that context.