Bytemaster and Mumble - A Proposed Solution

[CLains]

- Create a public roadmap similar to Maidsafe to keep investors in the loop. Not everyone lives on Github.

- If Dan feels the need to speak, Bitshares.tv. Max is smart enough to present it in the best way possible.

- Client voting proposals so we hear from the larger holders, not just those that have time to hang out around the forums.

- Any PR releases should be reviewed by multiple people.

- Mumble sessions for other people important to the ecosystem.

- We need a polished client and a real reason for the millions of Bitcoin wallets to use our decentralized exchange. That is what generates the PR we need to survive.

- Further development on wall features such as subscriptions provides a huge boost to delegate reporting effectiveness outside the forum.

 

Publishing without review is a bad idea in general. In the end it is up to each individual to be responsible for the quality of their own output by delegating time to different media and seeking reviews from confidants whos judgements they know they can trust.

[vegolino]

- Create a public roadmap similar to Maidsafe to keep investors in the loop. Not everyone lives on Github.

- If Dan feels the need to speak, Bitshares.tv. Max is smart enough to present it in the best way possible.

- Client voting proposals so we hear from the larger holders, not just those that have time to hang out around the forums.

- Any PR releases should be reviewed by multiple people.

- Mumble sessions for other people important to the ecosystem.

- We need a polished client and a real reason for the millions of Bitcoin wallets to use our decentralized exchange. That is what generates the PR we need to survive.

- Further development on wall features such as subscriptions provides a huge boost to delegate reporting effectiveness outside the forum.

 

[santaclause102]

BitShares Community,

I would like to thank everyone who was able to participate in our discussion on mumble this morning,  and I want to extend my hand and express my gratitude for all of your efforts at helping to form a communication bridge between the east and west. I am looking forward to many such meetings in the future, and I am honored and humbled to be a part of such a brilliant and gifted group of individuals.

That said, I would like to offer to you a proposal. This topic was discussed in our meeting, however I do not wish to imply that there was any overall consensus. Rather, I have organized a version that I would like to bring forward in order to stimulate further discussion.

We cherish the level of intellectual intimacy that we have thus far enjoyed between ourselves and one of our beloved founders, Dan Larimer. We also understand that as a community, our organization has often suffered from sudden market turmoil because it seems we have yet to figure out how to enable the free and open exchange of ideas between us, without leaving ourselves vulnerable to subjective responses from people for whom it is impossible to grasp the larger picture. This is not by means the only force at play, but I present it for purposes of illustrative example.

We discussed, in our session today, the various PR blunders that we have experienced in the past year, and the point was often raised that if a radical idea was initially proposed by bytemaster in a mumble session, the blunder would be quickly contained and not escalate very far. We observed that this was likely due to the immediate feedback he received, combined with a general human tendency to grasp the more subtle implications of words when they are spoken, rather than written on a page. By extension, whenever he brought fourth a radical idea or concept on the forums, the asynchronous delay (lack of real-time participation) combined with natural language barriers became a powerful fertilizer for seeds of doubt that would then be cast and sewn across the landscape.

In most places within the United States, it is illegal to use recording devices inside a courtroom. The reason for this is because a recording can potentially be taken out of context, and used as a tool to manipulate public opinion. The written account of an eyewitness, or an artists graphic rendering of a dramatic court scene do not have 1: 10,000 the impact of a “viral” video or audio recording. To make up for this, a high percentage of court preceedings are open to the public, so as to protect against overt or blatant foul play. Again, by no means the rule, but presented for arguments sake.

My proposal to bytemaster and to this community is that he consider continuing to hold mumble sessions with us, but that we do not record them. I do not believe that this would betray our principals, because anyone is still welcome to join and participate. What it does provide is an opportunity for all of us to continue the lively discussions that we have grown fond of, while protecting ourselves significantly against the accidental rapid dissemination of subjective misinterpretation.

Public Relations is the art of managing the spread of information, much more than placing restrictions on the source of the information. Many Hollywood actors are prone to running at the mouth and making a fool of themselves, but if they have a good publicist, the channels through which this information might otherwise be spread are carefully observed and controlled. Thus, the restrictions I am proposing are aimed at limiting the damage that might be caused by our open discussion by eliminating the opportunity for it to spread.

The greater internal PR strategy will continue to fall upon those who are working closely within his circle of trust. Perhaps they might consider advising Mr. Larimer to limit all initial presentation of his more radical ideas to to weekly or bi-weekly mumble sessions? That way we can continue to enjoy the inspiration and excitement of his wisdom and understanding, and he can continue to enjoy the benefits of personal growth through our valuable feedback.

What say you all?

I think it would be unfair to have these mumble session like before and not record them. Like before means with updates and announcements. That would be a disadvantage for all market participants that can't attend.
If mumble sessions are not recorded then they should only serve the purpose of vetting ideas. If BM wants to discuss an idea (like the addition of bingo a few weeks ago; nothing entirely new and nothing that could shake up the market if implemented) and wants feedback from the average user (and not from blacksburg devs) he can use mumble sessions as a tool for that.

[matt608]

We are an international audience and there is no way in hell to make this fair if not recorded.

 

[fuzzy]

Why not trust the community more, or spend the money to them? All the time trusting some people the community don't know.

^This....
Amazing how many people come in expecting the highest levels of trust/compensation (which might not be the case here in this specific instance) and actually get it before proving themselves...
Meanwhile, many in the community who have trudged through mud to earn trust are working with next to nothing to make things work. 

I'm done reading this stuff for the night.  *sigh*
The more I think about this, the more frustrated I get (to be honest).

[Shentist]

this is so frustrating!!

- and in my opinion this kind of decision is why BitShares looks so weak!
- the CoreDevs (people in Blacksburg) just talking to themself and then decided to do it. Rush announcment, taking it back and now needs something to fix the confusion.

This is the core problem! Was and will be, if not changed how the decisions are done.

Mumble sessions without recording - are you guys realy serious? The community is seperated over a whole planet and now i have to attend to get the information?

- the weekly mumble session is great, but maybe change the format to something like "letstalkbitcoin". Just fuzzy and bytemaster.
- just speak about stuff people are working and not stuff "will" come or "soon"
- and i would not care if it is bytemaster or a PR company, but i am sure the PR company sucks, because they dont understand a thing about BitShares and this will explode big time.

Why not trust the community more, or spend the money to them? All the time trusting some people the community don't know.

[fuzzy]

Part of the problem is that Dan runs out of stuff to say for an hour every week.  The time is not tailored to the amount of information he feels a need to share.  So sometimes we get a few more random discussion which apparently is a something of a problem. 

The proposal system is not so that we can hear from the big holders, it is so that their interests are covered.  Anyone who has enough time to post on the forums has enough time to make a proposal..

We rarely if ever have a hangout I or Dan doesn't have to actually try to end.  If I didn't, I suspect they would not end.  The problem isn't with there not being enjoy to talk about. 
At some point in the future, there will be many people who are potential developers who could come on to ask questions of Dan.  The thing about the hangouts is that it is not constrained to simply Public Relations. 

With that said, there is nothing saying it has to be an hour.  Dan could give his updates, maybe answer a question or two...or heck he could even ask the community what they think about certain issues (if done correctly it wouldn't even need to belie the end result for a line of thinking).  The community usually has some pressing questions to ask him that otherwise they would never get answered. 

Now when other developers come on more frequently, I might be more in agreement with you...because then we start having more information in specific areas of bitshares.
Over time, Dan's hangouts would naturally slow down...but this stuff is being rushed for some reason.  In fact, if you look, the trend is already moving away from Dan as the "king of the hangouts".  We have people wanting to come on frequently now and those people want to come on after Dan to try to get the attention of the audience he brings. 

To continue the hangouts at present only enables us to move more quickly toward what I agree needs to happen: a bitshares hangout ecosystem where Dan doesn't even need to join us.  Don't get me wrong, it will happen either way, but it is far more effective the way we were doing it. 

- Create a public roadmap similar to Maidsafe to keep investors in the loop. Not everyone lives on Github.

100% agreed. Maidsafe is no slouch on their execution.

- If Dan feels the need to speak, Bitshares.tv. Max is smart enough to present it in the best way possible.

Max is smart, BitSharesTV is awesome.  If Dan feels the need to speak, there should be no gatekeepers.  Of course Dan should also be able to reserve the right to refrain from answering questions he doesn't know the answer to or that the feels would be especially harmful to answer. 
As for people potentially taking something Dan says and misrepresenting it...it has nothing to do with the platform where it is stated...and will occur regardless as bitshares becomes more well-known and larger.  Nothing you can do about this.

- Client voting proposals so we hear from the larger holders, not just those that have time to hang out around the forums.

100% agree...however, we don't have that implemented yet and I doubt we will for another year at least.

- Any PR releases should be reviewed by multiple people.

100% agree--this idea of one PR rep to rule them all scares me more than anything--especially when said PR person has already effectively done the opposite of inspire confidence if his debut is any indicator of future performance.

- Mumble sessions for other people important to the ecosystem.

If Dan only goes on BitSharesTV, you can expect most every "important person" in the ecosystem to follow suit.  Don't get me wrong.  Of course I want to see Max successful...and I don't want to be a talking head.  I like organizing communities. 

- We need a polished client and a real reason for the millions of Bitcoin wallets to use our decentralized exchange. That is what generates the PR we need to survive.

Again, 100% agreed. 

- Further development on wall features such as subscriptions provides a huge boost to delegate reporting effectiveness outside the forum.

Again, 100% agreed. 

[gamey]

Part of the problem is that Dan runs out of stuff to say for an hour every week.  The time is not tailored to the amount of information he feels a need to share.  So sometimes we get a few more random discussion which apparently is a something of a problem. 

The proposal system is not so that we can hear from the big holders, it is so that their interests are covered.  Anyone who has enough time to post on the forums has enough time to make a proposal..

[hpenvy2]

- Create a public roadmap similar to Maidsafe to keep investors in the loop. Not everyone lives on Github.

- If Dan feels the need to speak, Bitshares.tv. Max is smart enough to present it in the best way possible.

- Client voting proposals so we hear from the larger holders, not just those that have time to hang out around the forums.

- Any PR releases should be reviewed by multiple people.

- Mumble sessions for other people important to the ecosystem.

- We need a polished client and a real reason for the millions of Bitcoin wallets to use our decentralized exchange. That is what generates the PR we need to survive.

- Further development on wall features such as subscriptions provides a huge boost to delegate reporting effectiveness outside the forum.

[fuzzy]

I don't see how unrecorded sessions help the matter. Share is a share is a share regardless of what medium it takes place in, or the ease at which it can be disseminated and access by others.

I think the only solution to all of this is to stop talking about whats coming, and start talking about what is.

"What is" ...is kind of elusive at present.  There are forces at work that I have only a hint of a clue about and actually I am pretty frustrated about it...if we are going to be a decentralized organization ...we need ORGANIZATION.  Organization of bodies starts with organization of thoughts...which means we have to effectively communicate.   This doesn't grow from decisions by fiat.

Over the past 16 months, there have only been a few truly consistent things: 
1)  There will be seemingly final decisions posted without ever consulting the community
2)  Chaos that ensues from said posts when everyone is forced to feel powerless and has to speculate on the potential outcome and what it means for not only their investment of money but also of time
3)  Mumble hangouts that form a two-way synchronous interaction with Bytemaster that seem to act as a buffer from these huge mistakes being made in the open without forewarning.

Stopping mumble hangouts is like taking off your shoes to run because they give you blisters.  It makes no sense...but then again, looking at number 1 and number 2 above, we can see this is a pattern.

(and mind you I am not saying this to be hateful...but to be honest)

If you want to continue the mumble updates with Dan.. let him talk about new features that were introduced in the last update and how they can be applied in different ways. This is something I have found he is good at... giving examples of applying bitshares technology to help understand it better.

This is generally what happens in mumble sessions.  As has been stated before, the only times anything other than that comes up is when Dan wants to run stuff by us like the "bingo inside the wallet" conversation that started and the community abruptly ended without fanfare (as opposed to what would have likely happened if he would have done the announcement through the blog, the forum, or a "PR" guy). 
There is absolutely no reason we cannot continue these in my humble opinion.  Saying that BitSharesTV is a better venue and "more professional" is like the president of the united states saying "we will not have press conferences, and will instead focus on 60 minutes interviews with people we hire to ask softball questions".  This is not to demean what Max does, but is simply calling a spade a spade. 

This eliminates the danger of 'fedspeak', eliminates the speculation fears.. and is simply an update on what is already currently in the open and is helping to promote its value.

Agreed.

Question time would have to be about what we currently have going on.. and suggestions can be given as well for consideration.

There is no problem in recording this.. on the contrary.. we would likely want to promote it.

Precisely.  History shows us (along with a pretty statistically significant community poll) that these have been of great benefit.  Now that we have marketing gurus coming in, some have even said they would like to use some of our content and promote our hangouts as one of the centerpieces of what we do! 

The off the record 'tell us the future' stuff kinda reeks of the same kind of 'insider trading' stuff that all of us on the outside have watched happen in places like Congress in the US where they get to hear about all thats coming before it happens and get to make moves accordingly.

100% agree.

BitShares will grow with visionary entrepreneurs, not with being told bedtime stories by daddy Dan to fuel our bitDreams... not to sound harsh but that's a fact.. and sooner we stop being afraid of the dark, the sooner all of us who have the potential to become shining beacons can start to shine instead of standing in the shadows of I3.

It is true that Bytemaster is not the only person who could be doing these hangouts.  I have reached out to every developer I can, including those who are not part of the "invictus" team who are working on 3rd party services and applications to bring them to the community, but have only had a few show interest.  (Honorable mentions here?  Hackfisher, Indolering, Taulant, Data, Cob, and Adam Ernest).

I have even reached out to Max Wright of BitSharesTV who said that he would be very interested in showing up as a guest in the future--when he lives in a timezone better suited for it. 

Over time, I fully expect the stories that unfold from our coverage of the different developers will become equally and perhaps sometimes even MORE interesting than the hangouts with Bytemaster.  At that point, it will even be safe for someone like Max to risk bringing those developers on for one-on-one interviews because they will be highly vetted and will have withstood the test of time.  Eventually these devs could completely replace Bytemaster if he so desires...but it is still way too soon.

Stan said somewhere when this all went down that bitshares is growing up.. from my current understanding and perspective on all this.. I can see that is what is happening now.

If we are growing up, we are genuinely considering cutting off our legs because of growing pains. 

This is my 'counter' proposal regarding holding meetings if there are going to be any. Hold reviews of releases as they happen. If this is how things start to happen then naturally this gives plenty of time and preparation for whatever PR Bitshares has in place to decide on or approve whatever Dan might want to say about the releases and even allow them to align their messaging for higher impact. Good on all fronts I think.

I am not sure I understand what you mean by this portion...could you please give more information?


*P.S.*   I have to apologize for inserting myself in this publicly on this topic.  I feel I have a bias due to having a delegate, however I assure you my bias does not come from me actually gaining anything monetarily--which you will see when I finally get the chance to pay for what we use. 
The fuzzy.beyondbitcoin delegate's pay is pretty much only used for paying for the things that need paid for to help provide these community services and to pay a team who helps me so I no longer have to pay out of pocket.  (btw, thanks Stan for bringing me closer to green last year)
I do feel very strongly about this, however, and also have quite bit of community organization and group moderation experience.  I believe that these hangouts are one of the few things outside our technology that has kept us alive and with such a strong community despite a media blackout on the western side. 


**P.P.S** If we MUST replace these hangouts with Bytemaster with press conferences with a "PR Professional" I suggest we have a PR professional capable of connecting with the community without stirring up a shitstorm.  I propose that the community vote for this person.  Whoever was behind this "PR" maneuver obviously is set on following the same exact trend described earlier in this post...only without the inclusion of the only tool we have for calming the storm.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

I don't see how unrecorded sessions help the matter. Share is a share is a share regardless of what medium it takes place in, or the ease at which it can be disseminated and access by others.

I think the only solution to all of this is to stop talking about whats coming, and start talking about what is.

If you want to continue the mumble updates with Dan.. let him talk about new features that were introduced in the last update and how they can be applied in different ways. This is something I have found he is good at... giving examples of applying bitshares technology to help understand it better.

This eliminates the danger of 'fedspeak', eliminates the speculation fears.. and is simply an update on what is already currently in the open and is helping to promote its value.

Question time would have to be about what we currently have going on.. and suggestions can be given as well for consideration.

There is no problem in recording this.. on the contrary.. we would likely want to promote it.

The off the record 'tell us the future' stuff kinda reeks of the same kind of 'insider trading' stuff that all of us on the outside have watched happen in places like Congress in the US where they get to hear about all thats coming before it happens and get to make moves accordingly.

BitShares will grow with visionary entrepreneurs, not with being told bedtime stories by daddy Dan to fuel our bitDreams... not to sound harsh but that's a fact.. and sooner we stop being afraid of the dark, the sooner all of us who have the potential to become shining beacons can start to shine instead of standing in the shadows of I3.

Stan said somewhere when this all went down that bitshares is growing up.. from my current understanding and perspective on all this.. I can see that is what is happening now.

This is my 'counter' proposal regarding holding meetings if there are going to be any. Hold reviews of releases as they happen. If this is how things start to happen then naturally this gives plenty of time and preparation for whatever PR Bitshares has in place to decide on or approve whatever Dan might want to say about the releases and even allow them to align their messaging for higher impact. Good on all fronts I think.

[cube]

Greenspan's professional reputation was destroyed by the 1998/ financial crisis during which the entire banking sector was discovered to be systemically insolvent.

He's not somebody we should seek to emulate.

Greenspan had a different purpose for obfuscating messages. He needed to manipulate market sentiment to the direction he wanted. It was a different ball game from what we are doing here.

[julian1]

The goal is to present full information to all parties at the same time in a more organized way -- through an outlet that is less likely to generate strong market reactions.  We share your desire to continue high-bandwidth two-way interactions, but... 

Submitted for your consideration:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedspeak

The notion of fed speak originated from the fact that financial markets placed a heavy value on the statements made by Federal Reserve governors, which could in turn lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. To prevent this, the governors developed a language, termed fedspeak, in which ambiguous and cautious statements were made to purposefully obscure and detract meaning from the statement.

...

Although it was originally believed by some that Alan Greenspan, who is generally credited for popularizing fedspeak, may have used such language unintentionally, he revealed in his 2007 book The Age of Turbulence, that the method of avoiding the issues directly when a clear message was not desired was indeed intentional. Greenspan states that the confusion, which often resulted in conflicting interpretations, was used to prevent unintended jolts to the markets as confusing statements were typically ignored.[10]

So seek the following solution:  in what venue, if any, could a Fed chairman speak freely?

Until we master fedspeak, we know of only one approach likely to work...

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=14274.msg186169#msg186169

Greenspan's professional reputation was destroyed by the 1998/ financial crisis during which the entire banking sector was discovered to be systemically insolvent.

He's not somebody we should seek to emulate.

[cube]

The goal is to present full information to all parties at the same time in a more organized way -- through an outlet that is less likely to generate strong market reactions.  We share your desire to continue high-bandwidth two-way interactions, but... 

There is no such thing as an outlet that will not generate a strong market reactions when the communicated idea has shattering effect. Sooner or later the idea will leak out and if not relayed through the original source, it could be distorted too. 

The solution is not about limiting ideas or the channel where the ideas flow.  There are great values in transparency and the free-flow of ideas.  Rather it should be how the ideas are to be taken up by the sharesholders.  We need a way for the sharesholders to VOTE on those ideas.  If the shareholders VOTE for the ideas, they will have no reason to panic or sell bts as a way to 'vote with their legs'. 

For projects deemed 'risky', you may do what Sparkles has done.  Use an independent DAC chain to test those new ideas and see how the public reacts to it.

[merivercap]

The goal is to present full information to all parties at the same time in a more organized way -- through an outlet that is less likely to generate strong market reactions.  We share your desire to continue high-bandwidth two-way interactions, but... 

Submitted for your consideration:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedspeak

The notion of fed speak originated from the fact that financial markets placed a heavy value on the statements made by Federal Reserve governors, which could in turn lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. To prevent this, the governors developed a language, termed fedspeak, in which ambiguous and cautious statements were made to purposefully obscure and detract meaning from the statement.

...

Although it was originally believed by some that Alan Greenspan, who is generally credited for popularizing fedspeak, may have used such language unintentionally, he revealed in his 2007 book The Age of Turbulence, that the method of avoiding the issues directly when a clear message was not desired was indeed intentional. Greenspan states that the confusion, which often resulted in conflicting interpretations, was used to prevent unintended jolts to the markets as confusing statements were typically ignored.[10]

So seek the following solution:  in what venue, if any, could a Fed chairman speak freely?

Until we master fedspeak, we know of only one approach likely to work...

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=14274.msg186169#msg186169

I understand the point you're making, but it probably would be better to pick another analogy because I think most of us here wouldn't  want to model ourselves after the Fed.     Silence is better than obfuscation so I hope no one here tries to master fedspeak.  There is also value in community engagement so hopefully we're thrown a bone or two every once in a while... or at least some cute puppy pics.