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As we all know any form of crisis has its positive aspects as it may unleash forces that allow to create new things. In the last months Quark experienced problems due to
a) an unclear development perspective and
b) a decrease of the hashrate
I and many others don´t believe that Quark will recover from waiting and doing nothing, but I also believe that the community has the potential to create something on the basis of Quark that raises it´s value. I am convinced that we need a project that involves massive redistribution and work on long but also mid-term perspectives. We are currently discussing different approaches to cope with the “technical” issues in this thread. In this thread I want to present a proposal how the Quark community (any maybe other communities) can interact and take decisions in the future and I want to invite everyone to add thoughts & to develop or improve the idea.
As you may see, the post is somewhat long, so if you like, grab a coffee and read or jump to whatever paragraph you like
Taking stock: Community starts with Communication
As we all know communication is the key to the development of a solid community. As most coins, Quark established several forums at the beginning. One of the reasons why they failed in my opinion, was the inability to gather people in one place. Many people were active on 3 forums + Reddit, but for most people this led to confusion and people stopped contributing as the community got smaller after a grand hype in December. Beside the fact that some people simply leave the community because they had no interest in Quark anymore, there were other reasons why people were and are not contributing:
a) there is a lack of structure
b) there is small revenue (especially when activity is getting lower [talking to yourself kinda seems senseless])
The second argument is crucial as inactive platforms will get inactive faster, which causes more people to leave and so on. Beside the hashrate issue that was already addressed on the other thread, the relevance of the community can´t be underestimated. Traders come and go, but a real community stays and can keep things up when everything looks bad. Actually I feel that is what currently happens, but the core community is not as big as it could be.
The Quark community has a Foundation (with me being associated) that has theoretically the ability to structurize discourse and set incentives, but the structure is neither transparent nor democratic with respect to the rest of the community. This is why I believe that an improvement of community structures is necessary and will eventually contribute to the value of the currency itself.
Quark Development: Paying developers - easy as that
Probably the shortest bullet point: If we want good developers I believe they should get paid. This raises their stakes and own interest in the currency. However, I neither believe that this payment should happen via a massive premine (as has been carried out by many currencies) nor as one single payout, but as a payment on a regular basis (e.g. quarterly) after reporting the work that has been done (see also Expense allowance below). Also development shouldn´t be kept in the hands of a single person that has no obligations towards the community as it contradicts the idea of decentralization.
Quark Foundation: Structure creates trust
Cryptocurrencies are decentralized (at least most), insofar it may sound incoherent to call for more structure (which usually includes centralization). However, if you think twice, in the early years all cryptocommunities are somehow based on the actions and initiatives of a few individuals only - they are not really decentralized. They mostly depend on people who haven´t been elected and will take their decision independently from a community vote (which also usually doesn´t exist). This is the reason why cryptocommunities like Bitcoin or recently Doge created Foundations who can moderate between the community and the people who work on the code and infrastructure. Maybe at a later moment this will change, but for now a solid, transparent and democratic structure is necessary to get things done.
In the Quark community there are several taskforces that were working independently but keeping a vivid exchange between members. Most of this happened via mail and internal forums because it was more convenient than on a forum, but I believe this needs to be changed to make all of our work transparent to everyone and allow for more participation (in many cases people wouldn´t even know that “things were moving” - this is alarming in my opinion).
I suggested in different discussions to unite the taskforces under the umbrella of the Quark Foundation
This alone won´t be enough. The Foundation needs to be recreated as a solid part of the community. E.g. currently it is not transparent how people become part of the Foundation. Basically people from the Foundation agree on who else can become part of it where those who are members are people who actually work actively on infrastructure and community. I propose the Foundation to rather be a group of people who are long-term supporters who want to participate in decision taking but not necessarily are nerds like me who spend a lot of time in a hopeless venture like this
So being part doesn´t necessarily need people to actively participate all of the time: funding or simply gathering is also support and helps a lot. While I don´t think the Foundation can be recreated in one move, I suggest the following first steps, with more to follow, supported/carried out by the Foundation:Quark Foundation: Financial contribution allows for voting
1. Everyone can become member of the Foundation by paying an equivalent of 20-200 USD (or X) in QRK (10 different levels = up to 10 votes) as deposit
2. Yearly contribution depends on the level and is 20% of the current cost for one level.
3. Members can leave the foundation at any moment and will receive their funds within 4 weeks after leaving (to prevent leaving to sell Quarks for quick profits/panic selling).
4. Leaving and Staying is rewarded:
Leaving before first year ends >> deposit refunded -30%
Leaving before 2nd year ends >> deposit refunded -15%
Leaving before 3rd year ends >> deposit refunded -7.5%
Leaving before 4th year ends >> deposit refunded -3%
After 5th year >> + 10% reward on deposit
After 6th year >> + 15% reward on deposit
After 7th year >> +20% on deposit 20% (no yearly contribution from 7th year on)
Quark Foundation: Everyone can become member of the board
Everyone who is part of the Foundation can become elected member of the board. The election is publicly carried out by all members of Foundation. The foundational board covers the departments and by that integrates the current teams:
1. Core development (former QuarkFoundation)
2. Public Relations (former QuarkPress & QuarkLabs)
3. Project development (former QuarkPlanet)
4. Support & Promotion (former QuarkUniverse)
+ 2 Treasurers with multisig keys
Quark Foundation: Expense allowance & Infrastructure
1. The yearly contribution is used to
a) pay an expense allowance to the representants of the Foundation and
b) support infrastructure (server cost etc.)
2. Expense allowances are paid quarterly after members handed in a report of their work.
3. The money is controlled by two treasurers with multisig keys. They report quarterly on the current finances.
Quark inc.: ROI projects
Whereas the Quark Foundation cares for the core functionality of Quark there can be projects that are only based on Quark and that can therefore be handled independently from the Foundation. Quark inc. (working title) would be a group of people who invest in projects that allow for revenue.
1. In Quark inc. you can buy shares for 1000 QRK a piece. You can buy as many shares as you like.
2. The Quark inc. has two treasurers who are also moderators of the Quark inc. forum.
3. The percentage of shares you hold in relation to the whole amount gives you an equivalent of votes on the Quark inc. forum.
4. On the forum, everyone can propose a project and Quark inc. holders can vote for or against them. If a project reached a quorum of 25% and the mayority of pro votes it reaches development status.
5. In development status the project initiator needs to layout his ideas and present a business plan within 30 days. If he_she fails to do so the project is cancled. If the work is handed in correctly it needs to reach the quorum of 25% and the mayority of pro votes to get funded.
This way people can develop projects together with the community and have the whole process as transparent as possible.
Quark Forum: Rewarding community creators
Beside a functional currency & hashrate support + trader recognition the ability to create a successful community relies heavily on community builders. Currently those people who work their ass of on forums and email lists aren´t rewarded. Bounties are also usually rather paid to those who carry out projects, not to those who initiated debates to get projects going. A renewed forum with a feedback system can reward those who actively participate in discussions and get positive feedback from others. The forum may replace the old forum (forum.qrk.cc) and parts of what Reddit and BTCtalk are used for at the moment.
We are currently testing a forum that allows not only feedback but already supports a credit system that can be translated to cryptocurrencies. (If you are a PHP coder, your help is much wanted)
1. Members of the forum get credits for agreement depending on the rank of the people who agree or disagree with an opinion
2. First 20 (or X) Members are paid on a monthly basis from a faucet that is loaded by donations (I suggest ~5000 QRK monthly)
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I wont get more into detail as I know this was already a long read but just to be clear on the costs of all this: I believe that we need to raise an estimated amount of ~ 2 Million Quarks for this kind of reforms. I know, this are not peanuts but a substantial amount of money. However, raising this amount can be a crucial motor to the value of the currency and it´s infrastructure. It also means a better distribution which will diminish the risk of large dumps and insofar creates trust between members.
I know that there are large holders listening: If everyone of us donates 5-10% of our QRK this won´t affect us a lot financially (especially since none of the large wallets can dump without causing the exchange rate to drop substantially), but it will allow getting things done and at the same time to get more people into the community.
I´d personally give all my Quarks into this project and buy an equal amount from the market. How bout you?
As I mentioned, feel free to comment on whatever aspect you like. I am interested in any sort of discussion