What do we gain by paying debt off early? I don't believe debt affects current prices; I agree with smooth that difficulty and delivery schedules makes potential returns uncertain (and quite possibly negative). Market cap exceeds total hardware valuation (including perpetual mining), debt doesn't even come to play.
Paying off debt early has a couple advantages. We would be able to start saving BTC, which would help maintain seat value. We would be more nimble to take advantage of opportunities that arise. We would also have the option of paying out 100% of donations to fans.
I spend a lot time tracking down fans that go on probation. It is difficult because some have no email and only availability is through bitcointalk.org. And some do not respond easy. Until now I am keeping success but it is much work for me.
Right now we have almost 1 BTC in probation account and 376 seats on probation. This is forming a big issue.
I understand some fans do not want to sign in often. Even my account was on probation once! I could save me work and just let accounts suspend/terminate. But I think that causes backlash and speaks against the spirit of the policy.
I consider a new poll to change policy so that probation/suspension/termination is not based only on sign in but is also based on spending BTC from the donation address. That means a fan can either sign in or spend some BTC from donation address and account automatically returns to normal status. I think that would help many cases. But not all maybe.
As alternative we can consider eliminating probation/suspension/termination policy rules. I originally create them to encourage participation and protect against donating to addresses with lost private keys. But maybe that is not important.
I am sorry that you spend time tracking down these folks. I understand we are both trying hard to avoid any backlash from upset fans who have had their seats forfeited (none yet, thanks to nonnakip). I do believe that something should be in place in the event that someone dies or just plain decides to leave Bitcoin. I don't think sending BTC into a black hole once a week is particularly good for anyone. That being said, I fully support changing policy to check an address for BTC activity prior to seat forfeiture.
Perhaps even a published probation list could be useful? I understand that some folks don't publish their usernames, but for the ones that do, it could be a good reminder. Any light we can shine on the issue to help folks who might not have read the policy or just plain aren't doing their part would be helpful.
