Using the term "Master Protocol" #18
Conversation
I'd like to make a proposal to you my friends. Lets begin talking about the "Master Protocol" and "Mastercoins" separately, preferring first to explain the Master Protocol to the public / new users. "Bitcoin" (the protocol / network) and "bitcoins" the digital currency has the same issue and I see from the updates to the Bitcoin wikipedia article they are getting better at explaining the difference between the two right up front. "Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer payment network and digital currency with a public transaction log". The other confusion this avoids is that of existing Bitcoiners thinking the Master Protocol / Mastercoin is an "Alt-Coin", by which most people mean either that it has its own "alternative" blockchain or that it is an "alternative" competitor to Bitcoin. Neither of these assumptions is correct in the case of the Master Protocol / Mastercoin project. Thus if we want to save ourselves many hours of explaining this project isn't an "Alt-Coin", I humbly suggest we stop introducing it with a term that has "coin" in it and instead start by explaining the cool "Master Protocol" features and then explain that it works on top of the Bitcoin Protocol and even has a "digital token" for users to access these cool features.
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As a novice user, I agree this change would make it more clear that the MasterCoin protocol is a transaction protocol rather than an alt-coin. Honestly, I think it would provide more clarity if the MasterCoin Protocol could be disambiguated from any term which could be confused with the growing list of alt-"coins". As I have come to understand it, "Mastercoin" is ostensibly the fund-raising mechanism and first currency implementation on an advanced bitcoin-derived transaction protocol thus a more useful term would be descriptive of its nature rather than its fund-raising vehicle. I suggest something like: MasterCoin Transaction Protocol (MCTP) with a specific and enduring emphasis on referring to the protocol by its acronym, MCTP, rather than MasterCoin so that novice users meet the spec as MCTP rather than incorrectly presuming it is yet another alt-coin as most MasterCoin-naive users unfortunately will. |
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Exocyst, Thanks for the note. I agree having users meet the Protocol for the first time would help reduce confusion. I've also thought through a lot of potential acronyms using the words metadata, transfer, protocol, and so forth. However when floating these terms there seems an equal amount of worry about confusion when it comes to rebranding that is significantly different than has been used before. Thus the best solution I've been able to get a broad consensus on is simply the "Master Protocol". It keeps the same root word so the existing branding of websites, and other community infrastructure is still useful, but it changes the defining word from that of a "coin" to a "protocol". We can come up with a clever acronym for "M.A.S.T.E.R." in order to convey a deeper meaning and avoid name space disruption. For example, "Metadata Archived by Standard Transaction Embedding Records Protocol" in short the "MASTER Protocol". I look forward to thoughts from others. I've also posted this suggestion to the Mastercoin Facebook page and it has been broadly agreed that it would be a positive move in the right direction. https://www.facebook.com/groups/mastercoin/ I hope this suggestion finds consensus with the community. Suggestions for improvement are welcome. |
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Added some commits with formatting and spelling fixes to the "Terminology" section of the spec. |
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Best suggested acronym yet: Metadata Archival of Standard Transaction Embedding Records |
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Acronym updated to "Metadata Archival of Standard Transaction Embedding Records" |
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The acronyms confuse me ... must it be an acronym? Why not just go Ron Gross On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 8:40 AM, David Johnston notifications@github.comwrote:
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Personally I really dislike acronyms, they are way too cheesy. I would really like to avoid those. |
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Yeah. FYI I am personally not for this change - I don't think it really adds anything significant, and I'm quite happy with the current name. I have started a separate email thread with the board to get their consensus on this. If the rest of the board agrees I am willing to support this change, but not before. |
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I agree that Metadata Archival of Standard Transaction Embedding Records might sound awkward, but it does serve the intended purpose of disambiguating the protocol from the ever expanding realm of alt-coins. It's important to remember that if this project is to truly capitalize on its potential, the current user base probably represents a teeny-tiny fraction of the eventual user base. I think successful "branding" strategies generally focus on how the naive public will receive the brand rather than historical continuity. (For example, Kentucky Fried Chicken switched to KFC when it went global.) |
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Ron, I know that some people like acronyms and others don't, that's why I picked an acronym that is the same as the current root word "Master". So if you don't like the acronym, you are free to go on using the name, same as ever. Maran, Agreed its a bit cheesy, but when someone makes a negative comment about what they think "Master" means or implies (in the context of centralization) at least there is a technical answer to counter that the term as we interpret it, actually has some technical relationship to what the protocol does. Ron, I'm not sure in your last comment if you are referring to the acronym or the general request to describe the project first and fore most as the "Master Protocol". If its the former we can discuss more, if its the later we already had a long board thread on the topic where the board members were in favor of using the term "Master Protocol" to avoid confusion with alt coins. Since that thread I've posted on the project's Facebook to a positive reception, and taken comments on Reddit and finally been taking comments here on Github. We can take this question to the Foundation Board for a vote, but in my mind its really a community decision and the vast majority think it would be positive. We can hold a poll next if you like. |
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Ah ok David, sorry for stirring up old decision ghosts :) I guess the vacation I took last week was enough to make me forget the result of the previous discussion we had on that, and let my own initial gut feeling resurface. I'm voting Yes on this change now, regardless of acronym or no acronym (I prefer it not to be an acronym though). David, you can merge it. |
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Thanks, no worries. Vacations are good to re charge. It won't let me auto merge due to some conflict. So I'll re-fork and make a new pull request and merge it. |
Already discussed. See details here. OmniLayer#18
I'd like to make a proposal to you my friends. Lets begin talking about the "Master Protocol" and "Mastercoins" separately, preferring first to explain the Master Protocol to the public / new users. "Bitcoin" (the protocol / network) and "bitcoins" the digital currency has the same issue and I see from the updates to the Bitcoin wikipedia article they are getting better at explaining the difference between the two right up front. "Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer payment network and digital currency with a public transaction log". The other confusion this avoids is that of existing Bitcoiners thinking the Master Protocol / Mastercoin is an "Alt-Coin", by which most people mean either that it has its own "alternative" blockchain or that it is an "alternative" competitor to Bitcoin. Neither of these assumptions is correct in the case of the Master Protocol / Mastercoin project. Thus if we want to save ourselves many hours of explaining this project isn't an "Alt-Coin", I humbly suggest we stop introducing it with a term that has "coin" in it and instead start by explaining the cool "Master Protocol" features and then explain that it works on top of the Bitcoin Protocol and even has a "digital token" for users to access these cool features.
I also fixed some inaccurate language in the legal section.