Guys it’s time to pull your heads out of your asses…
I come back to check to see if the insanity and obsession with that horrible closed source messenger Discord has finally stopped…
I come to see a post that the Beta network is up and running and for a second I think “finally I don’t have to care about discord stopping me from trying to support a project I thought would help save humanity…”
But what is the 3rd step of trying to join and support bug finding in this software that is supposed to be a stand-alone full internet-like software…?
ENTER YOUR DISCORD NAME…
seriously…wtf…
Get This NONSENSE out of here now, how can you not understand this is just so unacceptable.
Don’t tell me shit about “promotion” and “advertisement” and “that’s where some people are”
That’s a lot of BULLSHIT excuses.
Get back to the roots of what the network stands for or just say you’re officially a shit token now.
period.
You don’t need to join discord or enter anything to be involved or run a node.
In fact, if you want, you can run a node, keep the tokens and use them for data upload if you like? Or share them with another community memember who’s building something.
The Discord bit is optional.
Use the quickstart guide, and you can get going. Just skip step for the Beta Rewards Program. As is says, it’s optional!
I dunno about that. When the beta was starting I asked a few times how to signup without joining discord and was only told “join discord” and when I stated I would not do that, the answer was either crickets or sorry, too bad. The announcement posted on this forum had no instructions for joining the beta other than on discord.
This left a sour taste in my mouth as there are some principled long-time members of this forum/community that want nothing to do with discord. I applaud @zero-ghost for calling this out.
If the situation has improved since then, that’s great. But I for one have not been motivated to try again after the way that was handled.
edit:
Just skip step for the Beta Rewards Program. As is says, it’s optional!
care to explain why only discord users should be able to participate in beta rewards?
Because the team doe not have unlimited resources. Despite the ongoing slow-motion train-crash that is the Discord bot, there is simply no other realistic way to have handled the rewards other than via Discord.
And before I get told otherwise, where was the alternative proposals AND the plan to produce, test and deploy these alternatives in a timely manner without pulling devs away from completing APIs, supporting newbies and all of the wrk detailed in the OP and the ones for months before that?
No Discord is not great, I dont particulary like its BigBrother feel either. BUT where are the PRACTICAL and TIMELY alternatives?
Sorry this is not a perfect world , but the time to moan about this was 2-3 months ago. And then only if you had a suitable alternative. We are where we are, a complex product slated for an early launch with lots still incomplete. Any manager who suggested pulling resources away to satisfy the privacy concerns of a few for a VERY short time on a non-key aspect of the overall picture should be fired immediately.
I will be critical of the team when it is called for - plenty to say on that elsewhere- but here they needed something quick - and we got the least unpalatable solution.
PS and all this is a great shame. I regard you, @danda as one of the premier brains in here. Im truly sorry you are not with us fully, testing and pointing out REAL problems cos I think you have much to offer.
Glad to see that I’m not the only one put off by Discord. I’m hoping to find time this fall/winter to fire up a test node to see if a naive user can figure it out i’m still rooting for you folks even though I don’t quite understand what you’re doing It would be great to have a secure, private, decentralized, autonomous way to store critical documents such as wills, etc.
Discord is only for Beta, it is a popular place to gather people, so it is good to attract new people and for them to interact and communicate with support, news, updates and so on.
Discord is not my favorite app to be on but for a limited amount of time and dev resources it serves a purpose, I don’t see any other platform that can do that. Also a reminder for some people that seem to confuse things, there is no need to have discord to run nodes or use clients, for those who don’t care about earning rewards related to the Beta network.
A platform is a platform. It’s what you use it for that counts and as long as you have enough liberty to be able to use it for what you intend and need, that is all that is necessary.
If it were up to me I’d be all over using every platform possible that fit that criteria. Which truly non big brother unregulated uncensored stable reliable platforms are there to choose from regardless right now? Isn’t that the aim of the network, to make a first at that? Have to start somewhere.
That being said, also not into an unbalanced approach of go here or you’re ignored. The community itself could do something to make at least this forum stay in conjunction with the happenings in discord i reckon.
Whatever works and just my two … nonos i guess for now lol. Keep up the great work folks amazing to see this project get so this far. You got this.
Why is it necessary to reward people to run nodes? Sorry- to clarify on Discord that is.
Presumed answer is to speed up roll out progress against an OCT deadline set by @Bux.
it’s not so much the running of the nodes, but trying to run nodes, and the team being able to see, through a somewhat frustrating process (which people have invested time and money into supporting), the issues. Without a reward element, we wouldn’t have been able to see issues with the payments (Nano earnings based on quotes etc). So it is as advertised, and no more or less. Testing of network token and ‘build-ability’ comes next
it’s less about deadlines, and more about plans and outcomes - without dates, without goals, without commitments, it’s hard to factor how to run anything, if everyone in Maidsafe was doing this for free and there were no shareholders, no problem (although I’d still argue there still has to be a point of delivery/fulfilment). Getting support and building enthusiasm (and therefore scale) beyond the team and the SAFE community, would range from challenging to imaginary, with nothing defined, certain or fixed. As brilliant as this network could/should be, as much as the world needs it, when you have alignment around ‘why’ - the very next question for most is ‘how’, shortly followed by ‘when’. This is the reason we’ve a plan to share with you all - the roadmap was produced a few weeks after me joining and before the beta started, we should have addressed the ‘misses’ on there sooner (and for that I do apologise, it’s unprofessional and unhelpful to all those supporting) - the strategy moving forward, understanding now far more, doesn’t feel less compelling but more, as importantly we’re able to start delivering what we set out to - and working towards the scale a network like this needs
Thank you. In this case having shareholders is working out. I knew there was a foundation but thought it was like Richard Stallman’s FSF. I knew the development was long and quite protracted and expensive but always wanted to believe it was pure David out of the goodness of his heart and unlimited funds. I am thinking its private shareholders and David has/had complete say in who the other owners are/were but maybe not. Is their identity public info as it is a matter of trust? Are there undisclosed investors? How will these ‘owners’ continue to ‘profit’ going forward- ‘owners,’ regardless owners do come with endless strings and conflicts. I think IBM was trying to do something similar to SAFE at one time. Do we know Meta or the Discord people aren’t involved. Ferreting this out isn’t always easy. There are lots of indirect ways for hostile billionaires to influence an ownership mix and they only need influence over a minority share to wag the dog. And some have a literally massive incentive to do so.
Up front the forkability is likely a saving grace, but not a guarantee as there are surely ways based around practicality to poison pill useful forking. Without regularly yanking charters to ensure firms are benefiting society I’ve long wonder why we put up with ‘owners’ even in the case of founders because organizations are made of people and you can’t own people and renting them works out to the same by design. After all, we have bonds and credit unions but in almost every instance ‘owners’ generally without expertise will try to exert influence and act like credit cards that can’t be paid off for what may amount to no actual skin in the game or contribution on their part.
Lets say I am born into inherited wealth and lets say I get a huge loan at less than inflation in part because of who I am related to and in part because of my vast associated inheritance and whats more I get the loan under a fictitious business name. And then I ‘invest’ that money in a firm and expect a big return forever. I have no skin in the game, I have made no real contribution, I may not even have good intentions. I may even be incentivised to do things like keep increasing ‘profit’ demands to kill the firm because I have a bigger investment in a competitor or I just don’t like the mission. In that case and as is generally the case with 'owners" I could not be considered a steward but rather a parasite. But when someone challenges me I will customarily that assert ‘owners’ and ‘leaders’ make organizations more efficient and effective. But what is the point when ‘owners’ and the rented people they call ‘leaders’ control everything.
I have thought of SAFE as a way to free people from ‘owners’ and ‘leaders’ because without that we are not free. I implicitly trust David. But its clear David spent his life trying to help people and the world which isn’t a formula for being made of money.
But Bux has stated elsewhere that she believes creatives must be paid. I uncharitably interpret that as parasitic unnecessary middle men must be free to gouge, enclose and censor-spin to limit of what the corrupt and captured market will bear. I am sorry, disproportionately rich people remaining rich totally abstracted from contibution while using poor starving artists as human shields is not a problem aside from getting free of such nonsense.
Appreciate that there is a couple of points here - but I have replied to your previous message re: my view on creatives.
Maidsafe has paid employees - over 18 years money has been raised, there has been content around this across years inc ICO etc - there are now circa 200 folk who put funds into Maidsafe, in order to support David and his team on their journey. Once the network is ready, we know (and David has never waived), that as there could potentially be a misalignment (private entity versus common good), that the not for profit foundation will pay out the Maidsafe shareholders (who are angel investors and not large corps etc), mission having been accomplished (more details on this for them to follow), so that the network is in effect owned by no one and also everyone (thus why it is open source as well as autonomous in its nature).
The network being functional (and hopefully given all it can to be successful), is a shared interest of all those involved, which is great as it means the focus for all is to ensure we launch and that the network can do what we all know/hope (plan for) it has the ability to do, at scale.
When you were first appointed you advised you would be contacting all shareholders with a process to exchange shares for tokens and how to best deal with the tax implications.
Have I missed this somewhere or had this still to be actioned?
Good morning - this is still to be actioned - post last week and a nod from board on rollout/launch plans, we can now confirm process and get details out to shareholders (this will either include or will advise the time that the offer from foundation for shares will be made)
