| title | published_utc | published_url |
|---|---|---|
Re Ditto AMA livestream |
2019-06-11 05:56:52 -0700 |
A reaction to the Ditto AMA livestream. Questions were collected here.
First of all, thank you for making the video. Before I could only chat with Ditto people, now it was great to see Liz and Trey on video talking to us. The format was a good idea indeed, obviously video and audio make a much better connection. You guys look great, please keep doing what you're doing. If possible, get Trey a better camera :)
One downside of video is accessibility of information. Valuable info was shared (e.g. Consensus vs Atomic Swap comparison), and I would appreciate if transcripts of such videos are posted in the future - this would give us more text info that can be easily searched.
I realized that some of Ditto's deliverables like the foundational messaging, media training of community members and placements in media were good long term investments as they will work for Decred even if Ditto stops working for us.
Media is not necessarily the best route
I fully agree. Media is going crazy recently. Corporate censorship thrives, people get banned for no clear reasons, rules are getting more vague and the politics creep in. Even if you get on "The Media", your message might get distorted. And you never know how their machinery works, how many views you get, whether or not they have algorithms in place to suppress messages they don't want while appearing like they are not censoring. For example, the article link might work but it might work slow, or show errors on Tuesdays, or get carefully omitted in visible places like the home page, or not being linked from other articles while your competitor would get such links, omissions on Twitter or lower "amplification" via a network of partners, etc.
We should be careful with investing (money, time, energy) in mass media because it is a risky and hardly measurable investment.
In the medium term we want to attract new devs by highlighting the value proposition of working for Decred, which is like make money on the side while keeping your full time job.
Getting paid for useful work is a good thing but is not the only thing worth talking about. Working for Decred is an honor. It is a chance to contribute to free software and a system that is built to last, compared to the majority of proprietary tech that will be forgotten soon (or is even deliberately planned for obsolescence). It is a chance to make an impact and improve our finance and economics. It is a chance to work with brilliant people and learn from them every day. It is a chance to build a trail of open contributions that you can show that are not restricted by NDAs.
On top of that, it is great to get paid for that work. And on top of that, it is great to get paid in a decent currency!
I'm dissatisfied with how traditional money works and I'm glad there is a meaningful project that aims to address it. Decred has the least amount of bullshit and inefficiency of all organizations I have seen.
Ethics and ideology/values are tricky and we shouldn't push them too hard to not come as a sect, but I think we should mention it when appropriate. It is a big reason why I'm here. I guess you referred to a similar sentiment by "I get so much fulfillment from being a member of this movement" later in the vide.
move further with events
Definitely.
lower barriers for reporters
.. and people in general - we have this problem for as long as Decred (and more broadly, crypto) exists. It's great inside, but confusing and complex on the outside. It's been improving, but there's still a lot of work to do.
I'm not a developer but I have value to add
Exactly! I hope more people realize this. There is a thinking pattern that you need to be a developer or a very technical person to contribute, which is not the case.
trusting our expertise
I think a lot of distrust to Ditto came from the simple fact that people you deal with just don't know your domain. They don't understand how PR works, why it is important and how it is not a money leeching parasite. Same, if not greater distrust can be felt about lawyers, for example. This is why I advocate to speak to broader audience in proposals, and the recent block header commitments proposal is an excellent example.
It boils down to: one either knows the domain and can appreciate your skill, or does not know the domain and looks with great scrutiny/suspicion and carefully choses whom to trust. It is amplified when one has something at stake.
It was no different for development domain. Our current devs have a lot of trust now, but it took years to earn that trust by consistently delivering. I hope PR and Ditto will follow. And it's happening already - support rate for 2nd Ditto proposal is much higher than 1st.
Asia
I too would like to see worldwide PR action, but as Trey noted, their strongest area is the US. We need PR in US anyway, and Ditto is good at it. Perhaps we shouldn't try to have one PR company do all global PR - we could hire another company specialized on PR in Asia or China if they come up with a meaningful strategic proposal (hint). After all, more corporate contractors make Decred more decentralized. There is a coordination cost ofc, which is its own topic.
what are we doing with DCR
Trey's reminder about privacy of handling one's money is fully valid.
I'd like to comment on a related sentiment that I noticed a few times that there is something wrong with selling your hard earned DCR and that you should HODL else you betray us. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Decred spends from Treasury, and in return it gets value that improves Decred. It is wise to take market impact into account when spending. If all contractors start selling 100% of their pay immediately and it becomes a problem, we should consider it and adjust our spend. But there should be no explicit or implied holding expectation from contractors - this will work against Decred.
training/teaching devs, bootcamps, getting junior devs
The strategy I would vote for is to become visible to experienced and respected developers ("hacker"-like) who share Decred's values, and to let them know they can work for Decred and get paid. We can think of many ways, just a few off the top of my head: attend hacker events; connect with local communities like this; sponsor reputable projects like OpenBSD (getting Decred listed here or here would be a good signal). I want Decred to be "hacker's coin" and its development to be a strong movement.
As Dave mentioned in chats and it aligns with my observations, people who self-educate and self-start are much easier to work with and are less "risky" in terms of investing time in them.