This is a great for a short FAQ.

I had some questions to which answers were difficult to find. I want to understand the trustlessness and privacy aspect of using BitShares through the combo of the BitShares 2 light client and Openledger.info as the API provider (or any other site that hosts such an API). I'd be thankful for any input on these matters.

It is just trustless. You are always the only one in control of your private keys/accounts.  OpenLedger and all service providers runs just another full node on the network and APIs interacts directly with the blockchain.  They also run a delayed full node that ensures user transactions never goes into a fork.

Regarding trust, as far as I know it's the same as running your own full node and API then using the Light client or web wallets option to add any node and connect through it.

Same happens with web interfaces like openledger,  maker dao, bitcash and every service running over the blockchain, into the DEx (decentralized exchange), web wallets just interacts with their own or any user specified  full node

Regarding privacy, accounts and their operations are all open in the blockchain. It's the same as for bitcoin,  or web browsing, is up to you to make your connections private.
Also, Stealth transfers/Blind accounts/Private mode seems to be pretty close. There's even a recent Stealth light client release for beta testing (had no time to follow this feature  last weeks though, updates are appreciated)

/* There's still something to remark about hosted wallets. One of their benefits (plus all the ones they can choose to bring to users, and that's a lot), is being able to access your  accounts from everywhere while still being the only one in control of keys. But there's still a little trade off that's being worked on: private keys resides only on your browser's cache until you make a backup. Web wallet users should backup their keys just after creating an account in case they miss access to that computer, or if cache is cleaned, before a backup is done. Please correct mi if I'm missing something here.  Peermit is working on a promising 2FA implementation for example. You can have  2FA providers who you only need to trust  the funds (active keys) you want to, without compromising the ownership of your account (owner keys). A mail confirmation could be enough to approve a transaction from any device without messing with keys, wallet backups or seed brain keys. You could fund that account from the funds in your secure light wallet). Also remember to lock your account when you leave a public machine, and if your want to ensure privacy over your accounts clean browser cache, as password only prevents operations (remember you are not logged in anywhere really,  you just bring your encrypted keys to talk with the blockchain through the interface. */

1. Regarding the above use environment, which of these are known (even if just minimally, but to the extent of being able to identify users) to API provider site?
- wallet name   #I guess wallets works is client side only, clarification would be great.
- account name # yes, they are public
- transactions # they are also public
- addresses # yes just public addesses
- account password # client side
- private keys # client side
- brainkey # client side

2 - Don't know about seed brain key entropy. Regarding devices and connections,  it;'s not bad to assume that your device or even SSL can be flawed. For big stake always use your most secure device (or even an offline one with xeroc new script to sign offline).

3 - If you keep using open source reviewed clients or or web wallets that should not be a problem.

4 - Don't think so for just an API provider. Web wallets requires some renown/trust in this regard.

I haven't talked about bitars except for elmato for a while with you guys. fran2k, etimarcus, dragonar, etc: I missed last meetups. A warm welcome to you @hcf27 , nice to see what you are doing.

I support this petition.  I'd also choose having the ARS bitasset available on the network instead of an uia in cases like this one.
It aims to open a lot of bridges to a large community, to let people take bitars and bitusd as their own in argentina. Not just for one or a few business and their users. This would be like a distributed official BitShares2 introduction to Argentina.  For me that means all fees should go back to the network, and  asset creation fee could also come from the network, accordingly.

A committee worker proposal sounds good to me for some specific bitassets at this price.

@bitcrab thanks for your input. Sorry but trading is not my strength and you have experience here: what parameters would you like to be able to change? I'd like to know specially the ones regarding forced settlement.

/*
btw, I still see traders surprised by the existence of forced settlement. Shouldn't  we prioritize working to introduce traders into that function through the UX, as a part of the game, or what am I missing?. It is something new for the most ,and it would be a shame to have users being surprised, scared, angry, or confused because of one misunderstood function.
*/

I support this, both the suggestions and the way they are sound propositions instead of just passively criticizing.

@ccedk
These are some simple changes that are mostly about removing some stuff and not actually paying for development of new features.
I think these changes would make the user experience for first time users much much better.

- Host your exchange at openledger.info (right now it is a redirect)
- You could limit your GUI to just OPEN.BTC trade pairs
- Remove unnecessary buttons like a lot of the options on the vertical menu
- Make the Deposit/Withdraw button more prominent by moving it to the top menu.
- Remove deposit and withdraw options from other providers
- Limit the openledger users to a single account
- Add a trollbox
- Add a favicon
- integrate your homepage in to the exchange itself.
- Merge CCEDK and openledger into one.

I'd also like to suggest 2FA.
Xeroc, svk, I guess you don't accept LOVE? Someone, how much to make something like this happen on OpenLedger?

The funding could be split 50/50 between openledger and(if) a bitshares worker is approved? This would help openledger to gain track as 2fa is a must for an exchange, and 50% from the network because this feature would be free libre to use as we want.

Most users who are not adept to cryptography and just want to use the market may take an year  to get used managing their keys and cleaning caches. The ones who don't actually stay away because of the lack of 2fa.
Even light wallet and power users would greatly benefit with a day to day 2fa wallet.

- Host your exchange at openledger.info (right now it is a redirect)

- integrate your homepage in to the exchange itself.

you could use another brand for the DA(Conglomerate), when needed, and let OpenLedger be the dex, maybe?

Make voting as easy as possible! Think like you are a user.
If we really think voting is important, why not let our users know it better?

1. Make a "Vote" link on the top of GUI, like this:
Dashboard | Explore | Trade | Transfer | Vote!

2. Put something better than this on the top of voting page:
"Since you own a LARGE amount of stake of the system/company, your opinion is VERY IMPORTANT. Your voting will improve/secure the system and make your stake more valuable. If you don't vote, others/attackers may vote against what you want, thus your stake may become less valuable."

3. Make the GUI of voting page simpler
[IMPORTANT] The order of roles/voting options are important, show the most important role/voting option on the top.
[IMPORTANT] Don't use tabs, Use DIV's with a "hide details/show details" button

4. show more attractive description of the roles, for example
* Committee member: committee members make important decisions to maker the system work better / more secure / more valuable.
    [BETTER] show a link "More info" to a document page in a new window.
    [IMPORTANT] show a button "Become a committee member!". It's very simple, just one click then you can become a committee member, right? And the cost is as cheap as 2 BTS, far far less than a transfer.
** Make a list of active committee members, sort by number of votes for her
** Make a list of inactive committee members or all committee memebers, sort by activity, the one who updated their votes most recently shows on the top. And an option to sort by weight.
** Use list view instead of card view.
** show the opinions of each committee member in the list. use different color to indicate. for example <green>1.4.10 <red>1.4.11 <grey>1.4.12, and a link on each item to the detailed proposal page, and a small tip show short description when mouse in stopped on it.
** Make a "support" button on every member, shows whether you supports him, able to change your decision by one-click

* Make a list of active committee proposals, with a button to support/decline if the user is a committee member, or a link "become a committee member to make decision" if the user is not a committee member

* Witnesses: witnesses are contributors that sign blocks, like the miners in Bitcoin. A witness earn 1.5 BTS for every block she signed.
    [IMPORTANT] show a link "More info" to a document page.
    [IMPORTANT] show a button "Become a witness!", link to a "how to" page

* Paid contributors/contributions/workers: we pay for "some good word here" contributors/contributions.
** show a link "Become a paid contributor!"
** show a list of current paid contributors, what they are doing or want to do, how much their got paid, etc
** Make a "support" button on every contributor, shows whether you supports him, able to change your decision by one-click


* Proxies: proxies are [soem attractive words here]
**  a link "Become a proxy",
** show a list of top proxies

[To be continued]

  to everything, voting shares are the foundation of DPOS. A deeper (and catchy) integration of voting into the user experience may help to unfreeze some of these great proposed features we have for instance.  Current functionality would improve a lot with a wider committee tweaking blockchain parameters.

At some point there'll be simpler wallets/interfaces for all those potential users who doesn't want to get involved in the consensus process, but now it's like having the the "Mine" button in the early bitcoin wallet, its where the whole system relies, where  user's confidence relies. I think we need it to be as simple, interactive, informative and fun as possible.

and for Cass proposals!

By the way my primary node is now running with 2.0.151209 and backup node is with 2.0.151215. I'm able to switch in a few seconds but won't switch so soon.

Same for witness rnglab

witness rnglab updated

It's been completely stable after witness withdraw fee was raised!

OT: witness rnglab was just left behind at previous maintenance interval, it's #24 from 23 signing witnesses now, please consider voting rnglab.

Ok it seems I finished portuguese translation. I dont know why but it appears some random Russian and Spanish strings to translate when they weren't supposed to exist.

Thanks Akado for notifying this issue. In some cases Transifex collects strings from its own delivered translations. It's fixed now.

We can just ignore those kind of strings if they appear again.