if not you, who should we elect?
But it would be good to have some planned numbers how you want to use the funds.
First off, thank you for your kind words. The nature of this project makes it difficult to evaluate how valuable it is to the community--save, perhaps the number of people in attendance at hangouts), so feedback helps me recognize it is considered valuable and
appreciated.
As for your questions. I have placed a rough outline of my plans in part 2 (Value Proposition) and sublevels 2a-2g. The only problem with giving specific numbers at this point is that this initiative is really unique in two distinct ways: 1) It has literally never been done before in the cryptosphere. 2) BitShares itself is completely unique to the cryptosphere--so it makes it very difficult to give details with respect to how much funding will go where and at what point in the future that funding will be dispersed--because much of that will depend on events and community opinion in times well into the future (and therefore very difficult to predict). For this reason, even though I would love to give exact numbers, I feel doing so would currently be disingenuous.
However, this is not to say that it isn't an important question. Since I cannot give numbers I would keep an open record on who is paid and why they are paid. Additionally, in the future when we have the wallet that enables transparent polling/voting, I would like to use that functionality to help gauge the community's opinions on hot topics and potential paths moving forward. Unfortunately while bitshares itself is in Beta and lacking most of the functionalities that I feel are
absolutely necessary for proper expansion of the ecosystem, my hands are tied. I
could use the forum for polls, but I am not
really comfortable basing hot topic decisions that effect everyone here on forum-based voting due to sybil attack exposure.
I want to be honest here with everyone and say that, at present, I have the opportunity to step away from this project and work for double what I am making right now at my current job (which means I would be investing a large portion into BTS and its sharedropped chains and paying down some small student loans). If I were to step away, I would spend my free time working on a cert as a Cisco Certified Network Administrator (CCNA) so I could eventually get an even higher paying job than the opportunity currently standing in front of me--this would mean that I could easily make $60,000 a year (and if I even put 10,000 of that into bitshares, it would make me BTS rich pretty quick).
The problem is...I truly love what I am doing here. I love organizing our community and it fulfills me to be able to help facilitate this unique experience--especially knowing that every other ecosystem seems to lack such consideration for their potential investors. If I could do this free indefinitely, and know that I could help protect my family from the dangerous times I see approaching in my country (I live in the "Land of the Free, home of the NDAA"), there would be no question which course I would take. Unfortunately the harsh reality dictates that I begin taking all the factors into consideration.
Now don't get me wrong. If I don't get a high paying delegate,
it will not stop me from doing the weekly hangout for BTS (and PLAY), but it will keep me from being able to expand into the areas I outlined above. It will force me to keep this as a severely limited part time hobby as I begin having to take more responsibility to work on building my family's safety-net.
I hope this gives an honest assessment of the situation and an overview of the factors behind my current reasons for approaching the community. More importantly, I hope this outlines why I am reserved in providing specifics so early in the game (because it is still very early in the game--even though it doesn't feel like it to those who have been here for over a year now.)