In the past BM has tipped people for good ideas if he implements them, after they revealed it after this exact type of exchange... I think nobody wants to commit to paying for something that turns out to be unviable or something we thought of already
I understand this concern, and for that reason, in the past I've revealed my ideas freely, not asking for any reward. I have actively participated in review and technical criticism of many proposals, and I have publicly presented and discussed several good ideas which were ultimately implemented. I have also privately discussed several potential security issues with bytemaster (in cases where I believed public disclosure might be irresponsible). However, I have never received any after-the-fact contributions when my ideas are proven sound. I have received exactly one contribution of 10 BTSX from another forum member, who I believe is not associated with I3 or dacsunlimtied, for direct person-to-person technical support with a GUI issue in a previous version of the client.
I'm not some random crank, previously unknown to this community and forum, demanding money to hear my rambling criticism of Federal Reserve macro-economic policy and the arguments in favor of returning to the gold standard. As you can see from my post history, I've made a lot of contributions to this forum. Back in March I contributed an idea which was later called FDIC, and I believe a variant of this idea (using BitUSD-denominated fees instead of BTSX-denominated fees) has since been either implemented or scheduled for implementation (posts on the topic have been a little ambiguous) [1].
Quoting another post of mine from March [2]:
Have a new transaction type which allows an address to assign its current and future CDD to another address. Thus, a single private key controlled by a pool operator can use a minimal number of bytes to vote on a block in representation of a large number of pool participants. The pool participants get the advantage of the pool, but don't have to give up control of their funds to the pool operator. You can think of this as "proxy voting" [2] (note, this is not quite the same as "proxy" in computer networking terminology). You can specify any BTS address to act as your proxy, and you can "fire" your proxy at any time (i.e. you can make a transaction at any time to assign your CDD to a different pool, or give them back to yourself).
I believe this was the first public discussion in the context of BitShares of allowing someone else to exercise your stake's control of the network without also giving them control of your funds or private keys. An idea which eventually evolved into the delegate system as currently implemented. I had many posts in that discussion, the above was one of the more insightful ones.
I wrote one small patch that was merged, and I'm working on a larger one for an issue which I think is of long-term importance, but will be low-priority for the developers. (As the concerns this patch addresses are potentially security related, I have a good reason for not publicly disclosing them, and for prioritizing it higher than my work on the specification bounty.)
I've filed many tickets in Github with highly specific, actionable feedback on clear UI issues.
I would love to put my idea out there, have the community discuss it and tear it apart. I have no problem with leaving one of my own ideas to die if close evaluation reveals it's unworkable, or if there's a better alternative. (For example, I was a staunch proponent of Dividends 1.0 but I've since realized that everyone's accountants will thank BM profusely for implementing interest as capital gains rather than income.) But the problem is that coming up with ideas, clearly presenting them and discussing them consumes a lot of my time. I find it difficult to justify that time investment when it generates no direct financial return. And I don't think it's unreasonable to point out that one reason investors bought into AGS and PTS was to give I3 funds to pay people like me.
Asking for money is awkward and makes me look greedy. But throwing my ideas out there and hoping for a reward hasn't been working; I feel like the only way I can make it happen is to ask.
[1]
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=3015.msg43870#msg43870[2]
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=3623.msg46238#msg46238