[ANN] For those who care to know

[Tuck Fheman]

e.g. I don't know if the bot is trustless or it's able to run away with my tips.

It is not able to run away with your tips to my knowledge.  The system was largely built to be trustless as @kuro112 @Freebieservers and @hybridd roll that way.  They work with gamers...who also tend to be a demographic full of little hackers who like to cheat and gain substantial advantages using a whole slew of the most cutting edge attacks in the space (for some odd reason), so I am confident that their skillsets are very competent in accomplishing this.  Of course that doesn't mean people are not allowed to test and attack it...I mean its going to happen anyway. 

Interestingly, the only person on this forum who could potentially steal from you would be a moderator who reads your pms and grabs your security code (because it is sent to you via pm on this forum)

And that's exactly why 2FA will be worked on, from my understanding.

[fuzzy]

e.g. I don't know if the bot is trustless or it's able to run away with my tips.

It is not able to run away with your tips to my knowledge.  The system was largely built to be trustless as @kuro112 @Freebieservers and @hybridd roll that way.  They work with gamers...who also tend to be a demographic full of little hackers who like to cheat and gain substantial advantages using a whole slew of the most cutting edge attacks in the space (for some odd reason), so I am confident that their skillsets are very competent in accomplishing this.  Of course that doesn't mean people are not allowed to test and attack it...I mean its going to happen anyway. 

Interestingly, the only person on this forum who could potentially steal from you would be a moderator who reads your pms and grabs your security code (because it is sent to you via pm on this forum)

[fuzzy]

(2) add to the website some educational materials explaining how the bot works (both from the user perspective and the cashflow perspective) so that we can properly judge what risks are involved in running the bot and also find out what other businesses can be built using this concept

We will have a Q&A Section built over time to address these issues.  Please everyone remember that the bot has only been being used for approx 3-4 weeks now...and also please know that I advocated for @BunkerChain Labs to get the community (and freebie's team) all working together  to help with his project. 
The reason I did this was because I am patient and willing to work with freebies team to ensure BTS gains in a way that strengthens our entire ecosystem.  Because they were busy over there (thank you again to all community members who jumped in to help test because data is a busy busy man), the bot has been a "little bit" on the backburner for a week...which was fine to me because the community has done a wonderful job at documenting their own problems with the platform. 

[fuzzy]

I think even those who find the tipbot impact unfortunate and unbecoming are appreciating your intentions and efforts.

Fuzzy, your team's  efforts are massively appreciated....and you've accomplished a great deal! The tip bot is a fabulous tool with a variety of applications. Can it be refined? Perhaps. Can the supporting info be improved, probably. But that takes nothing away from the accomplishment. You guys have established that you can work effectively to deliver something of value to the community. Really well done!! Please keep going, this is only the beginning.

Yes, @fuzzy , to overcome this "crisis" just two small things are needed:
(1) switch to private messages (or mentions) - assuming the testing period is over and the desired public awareness has been achieved
(2) add to the website some educational materials explaining how the bot works (both from the user perspective and the cashflow perspective) so that we can properly judge what risks are involved in running the bot and also find out what other businesses can be built using this concept

e.g. I don't know if the bot is trustless or it's able to run away with my tips.

@jakub you are awesome man.  I appreciate you giving constructive feedback openly for all to see.  This makes me know your intentions are true.  For more details as to why I am frustrated you can go to the following thread and read through.  You will see that Fav didn't see it as important to ask if the open beta was over.  You will also see that I did try to keep much of it to private pms until I was ignored by him.  Have you ever heard the saying: "don't contribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence"?  Well combining all this information will begin to give you a picture of why I began tipping into the realm of suspecting malice. 

[jakub]

I think even those who find the tipbot impact unfortunate and unbecoming are appreciating your intentions and efforts.

Fuzzy, your team's  efforts are massively appreciated....and you've accomplished a great deal! The tip bot is a fabulous tool with a variety of applications. Can it be refined? Perhaps. Can the supporting info be improved, probably. But that takes nothing away from the accomplishment. You guys have established that you can work effectively to deliver something of value to the community. Really well done!! Please keep going, this is only the beginning.

Yes, @fuzzy , to overcome this "crisis" just two small things are needed:
(1) switch to private messages (or mentions) - assuming the testing period is over and the desired public awareness has been achieved
(2) add to the website some educational materials explaining how the bot works (both from the user perspective and the cashflow perspective) so that we can properly judge what risks are involved in running the bot and also find out what other businesses can be built using this concept

e.g. I don't know if the bot is trustless or it's able to run away with my tips.

[Ben Mason]

Fuzzy, your team's  efforts are massively appreciated....and you've accomplished a great deal! The tip bot is a fabulous tool with a variety of applications. Can it be refined? Perhaps. Can the supporting info be improved, probably. But that takes nothing away from the accomplishment. You guys have established that you can work effectively to deliver something of value to the community. Really well done!! Please keep going, this is only the beginning.

[CLains]

I think even those who find the tipbot impact unfortunate and unbecoming are appreciating your intentions and efforts.

[Xypher]

@fuzzy
The most important piece of information is a clear explanation how this tipbot operates.
Its official website offers me no clue how to use it and how the tips find their way from the sender to the recipient.

Having done a lot of guessing, I now suspect the tipbot distributes the tips off-chain  - is this correct?
(So the sender first needs to deposit a UIA with the bot's BitShares account, then call the bot to send the UIA to someone, and then the recipient has to withdraw the tip to their BitShares account  - is this correct?)

I admit I haven't read all the existing forum threads about the tipping, so all I currently know is this:
(1) People on this forum have started sending tips to each other in the form of some strange UIAs
(2) The forum has become harder to use because of the automated posts generated by the bot.

And to be able to judge the value added by the bot I'd like to know this:
(1) What is the actual workflow needed to send a tip from person A to B?
(2) How does this bot earn its revenue? Is it a viable business model that can be replicated elsewhere?

I have to admit fuzzy I was confused for the reasons jakub mentions here. I very much appreciate your efforts, and your intentions and reasons for creating the tip bot, that was never in question in my mind.

I was further confused by the process you used to fund the development of the bot, it seemed like some sort of investment that anticipated an ROI, but the ROI was not clear to me ASIDE FROM it being a worthy but open ended investment in YOU. Had you posted even a small portion of your OP here to explain your motivation for the bot I may have been less confused.

Never-the-less, jakub's questions still remain unanswered. I would hate to see the effort scraped. With a few minor tweaks the impact on the forum can be eliminated so I say just do it (minimize font size or better yet move acknowledgements to PMs). If a HOWTO post is published as a sticky somewhere in the forums it will surely help eliminate some of the confusion.

Lastly I'm sorry your efforts and the motives for them were so misunderstood. It feels doubly awful when what you believe is a good and virtuous thing is perceived as the opposite. I truly hope your OP will help the community understand better and they will come around as a result. Go, get away from here and have some fun playing with Jerico & get the positive affirmation you need and deserve from your family.

IMO he just needed some time off.
He'll bounce back with 2x the strength and fortitude.

[Thom]

@fuzzy
The most important piece of information is a clear explanation how this tipbot operates.
Its official website offers me no clue how to use it and how the tips find their way from the sender to the recipient.

Having done a lot of guessing, I now suspect the tipbot distributes the tips off-chain  - is this correct?
(So the sender first needs to deposit a UIA with the bot's BitShares account, then call the bot to send the UIA to someone, and then the recipient has to withdraw the tip to their BitShares account  - is this correct?)

I admit I haven't read all the existing forum threads about the tipping, so all I currently know is this:
(1) People on this forum have started sending tips to each other in the form of some strange UIAs
(2) The forum has become harder to use because of the automated posts generated by the bot.

And to be able to judge the value added by the bot I'd like to know this:
(1) What is the actual workflow needed to send a tip from person A to B?
(2) How does this bot earn its revenue? Is it a viable business model that can be replicated elsewhere?

I have to admit fuzzy I was confused for the reasons jakub mentions here. I very much appreciate your efforts, and your intentions and reasons for creating the tip bot, that was never in question in my mind.

I was further confused by the process you used to fund the development of the bot, it seemed like some sort of investment that anticipated an ROI, but the ROI was not clear to me ASIDE FROM it being a worthy but open ended investment in YOU. Had you posted even a small portion of your OP here to explain your motivation for the bot I may have been less confused.

Never-the-less, jakub's questions still remain unanswered. I would hate to see the effort scraped. With a few minor tweaks the impact on the forum can be eliminated so I say just do it (minimize font size or better yet move acknowledgements to PMs). If a HOWTO post is published as a sticky somewhere in the forums it will surely help eliminate some of the confusion.

Lastly I'm sorry your efforts and the motives for them were so misunderstood. It feels doubly awful when what you believe is a good and virtuous thing is perceived as the opposite. I truly hope your OP will help the community understand better and they will come around as a result. Go, get away from here and have some fun playing with Jerico & get the positive affirmation you need and deserve from your family.

[jakub]

@fuzzy
The most important piece of information is a clear explanation how this tipbot operates.
Its official website offers me no clue how to use it and how the tips find their way from the sender to the recipient.

Having done a lot of guessing, I now suspect the tipbot distributes the tips off-chain  - is this correct?
(So the sender first needs to deposit a UIA with the bot's BitShares account, then call the bot to send the UIA to someone, and then the recipient has to withdraw the tip to their BitShares account  - is this correct?)

I admit I haven't read all the existing forum threads about the tipping, so all I currently know is this:
(1) People on this forum have started sending tips to each other in the form of some strange UIAs
(2) The forum has become harder to use because of the automated posts generated by the bot.

And to be able to judge the value added by the bot I'd like to know this:
(1) What is the actual workflow needed to send a tip from person A to B?
(2) How does this bot earn its revenue? Is it a viable business model that can be replicated elsewhere?

[Riverhead]

They say there is no such thing as bad press. One thing is for sure: Everyone knows about the tip bot now . Sure, the implementation can use some polish based on user feedback but that's hardly a reason to pack it all in. Heck, Dan can't even post what his favorite color is without long threads about wasting time, why that's a horrible color choice, and why are we talking about colors?!?!?!

The current reaction is somewhere between the best case scenario of universal love and acceptance and the worst case scenario of no one even knows it exists.

Go kick some ass in cs and come back Monday with a refreshed outlook.

[fuzzy]

Awhile back I wrote a message to bytemaster after finding out that Gentso stole such a large sum of money from our community for something that I was whole-heartedly backing and trying to help along--CryptoSmith.  The pm contained a message saying (and I paraphrase here) "giving capital to people who have proven themselves over and over again is a far better choice than giving it to someone with a sweet-talking one-liner".  Then I said something to the effect of "imagine what I would have done if I would have been trusted with that funding."

At this point, BM, who is obviously pretty damned busy asked me to hand out his BROWNIE.PTS, saying I would have all I need.  I was conflicted at this juncture for multiple reasons...but much of it was because I felt like it was an "unfair advantage" within our community to be the sole distributor of Dan's token.  So instead I focused on bringing in a team who could help me even the playing field by making it easy to send tokens directly from the forum and in a way that left a transparent record with the forums as the archive.  Most people are unaware of this, but I had the intention for quite some time (and in no way due to the attacks I received for accepting it in the first place) of stepping down from this glorious post to give back this role to BM...but only after it had been made very easy for him to distribute on his own. 

However, I was intent on also ensuring others can create their own token and send it in a similar fashion---because why should BM be the only one able to distribute his own token to those who work and provide value to our community?  Is he the ONLY community member who can create a token that will end up having value in the future?  The answer is an obvious no. 

Now the bot is running pretty well and only really needs some UI polishing and a few other small things...so it is now possible for BM to pass out tokens easily on his own.  Because of that, I feel comfortable stepping down from this post and giving it back to him.  In fact, I sent him the following messages just a few days ago:

I would like to know if your idea to give me brownies to help coordinate and build onto the bitshares community was worth it.  I have taken these funds (and a large large sum of my own money) to help ensure the construction of a system that allows you to Disintermediate ME out of the equation--though admittedly I did use some brownies to test and help pay for some of the extra stuff (like the construction of the Guest List tool).

And...

It is very easy now for you to simply fund your sharebits.io account and pass out tokens wherever you feel necessary using simple syntax on the forum.  Alternatively, you will be able to share tokens natively on twitter and reddit through the BitShares accounts on those platforms and will be able to use URL links (and every platform that supports URLs--which is pretty much the entire web up to and including email lists) to send any tokens of your choosing.  In short, because you trusted me...I got something built that would make it easier for you (and everyone else) to distribute their own tokens.  Ask yourselves how many people you know in the bitshares space who would have done the same. 

I thank you for your trust and hope you have walked away from this one with a sense that trusting people doesn't always backfire---when you trust the ones who have sacrificed and proven they deserve it. 

However, it seems that now because of this Poll the entire project might be forced out of our forums...which is one of the MAIN REASONS it was built. 

Regardless, you have now all been informed of my intentions and also that I am backing out of distributing Brownies from now on.  With that said, it looks like I might be out of the realm of passing out tokens to community members altogether because to be frank this tool made the job SO EASY that I refuse to go back to sending them via the wallet and keeping track of them via a spreadsheet. 

Have a good day everyone and @fav i'd love to know all these people who complained so I can at least face those who attacked me and this project.  Seems that there are many who don't want these tools added for some reason...and I deserve to know who provoked you to post the poll (especially with such a blatantly biased slant). 

@bytemaster sorry for this post to have been the way it was.  I seriously thought I would be able to announce it with a smile and a few fistbumps/highfives/brownies thrown my way...but apparently things can never be so easy.  So my victory post turns into something completely different now...one of regret for even helping.  I suppose it would have been better after all if I had just stuck to using brownies for my own enrichment and not thought the community would actually be stunned and thankful for this move.