On Accountability / transparency, some discussion for ideas around governance and perhaps a tentative roadmap to something basic may help as that is part of what governance processes solve for. Decisions made in backrooms navigating conflicting goals with all good intention but without the ability for stakeholder participation are usually viewed as illegitimate to any group who do not like the decision, no matter how minority their position. Minorities can be very vocal if they feel their interests are threatened and so appear to be a bigger group than they actually are. We have seen various forum polls here over the years and one faction claiming the majority vote has validated their position, while the (alleged) minority claiming it does not. Both make a valid point - a forum poll is not really fit for purpose.
One example of state of the art in decentralised governance with researchers behind it taking centuries of lessons into account is described here, recent video here. I think this is way out of scope and reach at least for the moment, but is a good example of the type of governance system required to bring accountability and transparency to decisions where significantly large stakeholder factions/groups and interests are in play.
On this ERC20 proposal I am actually not very passionate have mentioned a few times that I am not wedded to it at all. Solving the underlying problem is way more of interest to me: Ways to quickly provide decentralised two way bridges in and out of established worldwide economies/fiat, at launch. It would be a shame if the principle way in and out of the SN after launch continued to be through the security state linked exchange Bittrex as we have now. Privacy out the window right from the start. ERC20 is just very convenient possibly decentralised solution but may not be the best, would be good to see other competing proposals as well.
I was actually pleasantly surprised to learn from you Jim that all the talk of KYC etc was only related to ERC20 proposal and not wider Maid->SN token transition as I was understanding. That was not clear at all to to me before you clarified, thank you. If MaidSafe ran off and started working on ERC20 proposals but only ones that required KYC and not decentralised bridges that may greatly sway the vote against it and reduce its appeal to Maid holders who previously supported it wasting precious time and resources. How can we tell? A slightly more formal governance system though nothing as comprehensive like I linked to above would avoid these kinds of misunderstandings, help navigate the choices better than forum polls and mega threads can. Also there would be no need for anyone to beat anything in possibly misguided attempts to address underlying problems.