Hey fuz, maybe it makes sense to clear up your intentions about the mumble server. As I understood it, it would be a cool thing to always have someone there so a newbie can come and ask something. Which doesn't hurt if you are working something on the computer anyway... I suspect people here on the forum rather think it is a community chat (which it also is). But I guess they always go out of the chat again if they dont find anybody there... Maybe it would make sense to announce again what it is (also) there for?
There are many individuals who do not frequent the forums on a regular basis, and bitShares holders who do not know why bitShares is so different from most other crypto-projects. This is certainly here for them too.
But since it was brought up, lets dig in and try to shed some light on this entire project.
On Fanboy-ismI originally wanted to start a show similar to Adam B Levine's "letstalkbitcoin" and be a fanboy for bitShares. After a conversation with Adam, he made a good point that I believe we all would do well to remember "It's dangerous to be a fanboy of one specific technology" (paraphrasing here).
The Vote and People's VoiceFor this reason, rather than name it what I wanted to name it, I decided it would be best to let the community give their opinions on the name and then give them another opportunity to vote on said names. The name voted on was "Beyond Bitcoin". This is the name that was not too long after also chosen for a conference to be held in Las Vegas. I am unsure whether this was done because of the results of the community vote I put up, or not...but it is what it is. To my knowledge Beyond Bitcoin was chosen by the community for a show at least a good week or two before the announcement of the conference.
Enter Team ViralWith that said, not long after a thread on "Team Viral" was posted (I believe, by CLains). In it he sought out volunteers to help market the technology we all find so much promise in, but that is not given the buzz that similar, less passionate, crypto-projects have received from the mainstream crypto-community. We had some steam at the beginning, but to be honest when we initially had a difficult time finding a time to meet up I began thinking of alternative and more inclusive approaches to form a foundation for our communication/coordination efforts.
The VisionIn the background I was acquiring a web-domain (for a Blog), twitter, youtube, G+, and subreddit account for "Beyond Bitcoin". These were acquire with the intent of giving anyone who wanted to use them a platform to build something without having to worry about paying up-front the initial charges and time/effort that normally stays people's hands. The vision was that we would start out with the bitShares community and bring in other people from the crypto-space, using Google Hangouts as the platform and the Subreddit to enable a platform for the community to ask and vote up/down questions in the days prior to an interview. This way it was not tied centrally to my opinions on what are important questions. The intention was to enable competition to flourish in the space of the Q&A so no single person would feel afraid to ask questions that although often pertinent, might seem offensive to the guest. In short, it was a way to take the heat off of a single person so the likelihood of "fanboy-ism" would not as easily creep in. It would also be a way to protect the actual interviewer (whomever that is/will be) from the fear of hurting their community standing for asking an "unpopular" question.
Mumble, the Open Source VOIP ServiceAs I invited people to join Google Hangouts, I soon found many people didn't want to be on camera. This is understood as many people have wall-flower tendencies (and I do too!). There were also issues with this because if I close my computer or shut it down, I must then re-open the hangout and reinvite everyone. In short, we needed a way to keep a service always up and running so availability is there without requiring the continued efforts of a central entitiy--in this case myself and my laptop.
So I thought back to my gaming days and the times when I was in the military and far away from family and friends who, though they loved me, had completely different schedules and were not always able to interact with me via the traditional channels. I used Team Speak at the time to keep in contact with my little brother and best friend and did the same with my wife who was working in overseas. This was perfect because we had a central location and could keep logged in at all times, even if we were afk. When I was homesick, I could look in the client and see my bro and my friends were still there...and sometimes when I was too busy to chat I could still listen to them in the background as though they were in the other room.
It was my hope that using this Mumble server would enable people from the crypto-space to interact with one another and have meetups/conference that are not hindered by geographic and financial hurdles (not everyone can afford $1000 bucks for travel and entrance fees to conferences). It was also meant as a means for people to easily meet new friends so they could then form more interconnected relationships (getting skype id's, g+, twitter, fb handles...etc).
ConclusionBeyond Bitcoin is a platform I have paid for and intend to give for free to the community and any other Bitcoin 2.0 community that wishes to use it to actually innovate and collaborate to find ways to keep power from becoming centralized in the space. It is my gift to you guys and the movement and I hope that eventually I can walk away and know that it will not require I even post here. Until that day, I will be focusing on working as hard as I can with the spare time I have to build up the infrastructure and do the background lifting that goes into something like this.
It is starting with this forum as a test ground because I have by chance found myself here as opposed to any of the other altcoin forums (even the other ones I hold stake in). There has to be a reason for this...and my personal opinion is that this community sees something that most others do not (yet).
I sincerely hope you will feel free to use the Mumble Server and stay in there even when you are afk. Invite people you know in the crypto space--even people outside of bitShares' community. Help to teach each other about this space, use it as a place where concepts that are too difficult and/or time consuming to explain/explore on the forums can be explained more efficiently. Then use the forums to post a more succinct and polished version of the consensus determined.
This is for you...and although I will accept anonymous tips for this (as I do for any of my ideas or work), I will NEVER expect them. Of course, there are limits to what I can do...so the community must at some point in the future determine how valuable this service is to them and decide to help it fly or let gravity take it down.
Sincerely,
Fuz
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