I would recommend joining the slack group. We are still quite small (shouldnt take too much time to read) on there and it is easy to keep track of some stuff that doesnt find its way to these boards.
Exclusivity kind of goes against my principles. I'm an Open Source "militant", and where that is combined with the effort to develop something that is widely distributed and decentralized, I'm even more radical. It seems to me that the Slack group effort runs counter to all that. I would not want to do anything that undermines the positive developments seen here over the first half of this year and the consequent foundation that has been set for a self-sustaining tradition to be built upon; quite the contrary, as I would recommend that everyone do everything they can to keep that great example of successful Open Source collaboration “up front, and center”, to begin with, by keeping the ethic alive.
It is not meant to be private information, just a source for the people that are demanding more updates at times. The info there is open, however, since Rofo doesn't use the forums as much as before, Slack is now the best source of information.
Maybe I phrased it wrongly, sorry
No, I don't think you phrased it wrongly - I understand you anyway. It's just that I don't think it's suitable for me, or for the furthering of the building of a wider audience (that is if Slack is being proposed as an alternative to this board instead of an additional specific and detailed product development communication channel as it was designed to be).
I don't want to come off as stubborn or as predisposedly standoffish with regards to Slack, but, and at the risk of being seen as such, I do want to continue to argue my point. Perhaps I am not doing my best at explaining my point of view.
I think that Slack is a good idea for internal communications between key team members as they hash out the “nuts and bolts” of whatever task they may be dealing with at any given time, but I don't think it should come at the expense of wide scale dissemination of information. Every form of communication has its place, without a doubt, but when the primary objective is to achieve a widely distributed, decentralized, network and mainstream adoption, I think a priority should be given to the types of communication that reach the largest audiences, especially when dealing with aspects of the product that are common to all users (i.e. wallets, for example). Now, the actual coding being done would be something that I would consider perfect for Slack (github also functions marvelously in this regard), but as for the wider scale decision making, implementation and documentation, I think the wider community forum is a much better place for communication. There's obviously a balance to be sought after, but I think the drawbacks to the goal of building an ever larger and more stable community incurred by any narrowing of communication channels should always be kept in mind, and when in doubt, the subject at hand should be placed before the community at large.
On a more personal level, not being a coder, nor marketing specialist, etc., I don't think I have anything to contribute on a more specific level and that wouldn't be entirely appropriate here to begin with. I imagine that 99% of Noblecoin holders would say the same. Could you imagine just how cluttered the Slack group would become if everyone was forced to look for updates there? That would be extremely counterproductive for those serious devs actually working on the details. I don't see one as excluding the other, but I do see both suffering greatly if they are not used for the specific communication purposes they are each designed for.
I'm not sure if this helps any more than what I've already said, but without denigrating Slack, I think this forum still has its place, and that “place” is where the vast majority of holders get their primary and fundamental information. Of course, this is not to even mention the exposure Noblecoin gets with this thread, and that neglect of this thread, an underestimation of its worth, would also be extremely detrimental to Noblecoin's health, but that's another subject for another day.
I argue for both means of communication, not one at the expense of the other, and both appropriately used for what they were designed for. Recognizing that 99% of users are not going to be participating in specific product development, but that they do want to be apprised of what's going on and do want to take part in major decision making (think about it from the point of view of the difference between stockholders at the company's annual meeting and the developers actually working on the products on a day-to-day basis), I think that this double pronged approach, both channels used appropriately, is a win-win proposal for everyone. Again, what I think should be avoided is anything that is not a win-win double positive.
Has this helped to better explain my thinking on this?
Perhaps I'm wrong, of course, and I am open to hearing about the error in my ways.