I think it goes a little bit like this. If you have a lot of money, you spend a lot of money. If you have a little money, you make damn sure that every cent counts.
Not that I don’t want the fund to have capital, but I like that the Peercoin community is prudent in its spending (for instance not paying domain squatters for domains etc).
I think it goes a little bit like this. If you have a lot of money, you spend a lot of money. If you have a little money, you make damn sure that every cent counts.
Not that I don’t want the fund to have capital, but I like that the Peercoin community is prudent in its spending (for instance not paying domain squatters for domains etc).[/quote]
you dont have a lot of money if you spend it ;D
Any word on the QR code Cybnate? I’d like to get this to my designer so he has time to work on it, but I want to wait so we can include a working QR code in the banner.
My main interest is with the voting or decision-making process. Does everyone carry an equal vote, or should people with special skills and insights be entitled to more say?
Extreme example: do two newcomers to the forum outvote Sunny King, simply because there are more of them?
My feeling is that decisions should be taken by not by popular ballot, but by “developers” or a panel of trusted members, following a community debate.
Sorry Sentinelrv, had to attend to a few things IRL. Had some issue providing sharing a project with River333 which we can’t solve in short term as Sigmike didn’t allow for adding fundraisers in peer4commit.com. So It took some time for me to test and try things a bit. Just have to hope he can add that functionality soon. Based on that assumption I’ve created a project for the Fund which came with the QR code for this standard address: http://imgur.com/sY8W4Su Just tested it, so it should be good.
[quote=“RobertLloyd, post:24, topic:2522”]My main interest is with the voting or decision-making process. Does everyone carry an equal vote, or should people with special skills and insights be entitled to more say?
Extreme example: do two newcomers to the forum outvote Sunny King, simply because there are more of them?
My feeling is that decisions should be taken by not by popular ballot, but by “developers” or a panel of trusted members, following a community debate.[/quote]
Appreciate your concern. The voting process is also my main concern, but I’m keen to not establish a fund with only a select number of people but have it owned by the community. I think the community is strong enough to withstand the opinion of a few newbies and we need to be open to fresh ideas to some extent. Greatest risk is that people don’t care and don’t vote. Core community members should make sure that people do vote when proposals for larger fund requests are up for voting.
As I share your concern, but don’t want to go with only select people, I propose that for proposals >250 PPC at least 5 core community members must vote to make the results valid. I would define core community members as those who have active accounts since 1/1/2014 and karma >20, but we can tweak that a bit. The alternative is to name all core members, but then we will have to define a process for voting new people in or deleting members who are no longer active. Then it start to look like a Board or managed fund, which I don’t think we want.
The current charter requires voters to be a member for at least three months and have karma of +5. When there are reasons to believe that things are rigged or accounts are created by non-community members the fund keepers will raise their concern and we will find a way to deal with it, possibly to the extent to declare votes as invalid and add aliases to the blacklist.
Never thought this would be easy…
[Edit: Removed odd unicode character at the end of the QR link - BR]
I start with my apologies for this very long post, but I hope you will take the time to work your way through it.
Like to start to say thanks for all your feedback on the proposal for the marketing fund. Have been working on it and some items required some hard work and scenario thinking. I’ve made a few changes and enhancements to the charter as a result of that. Below a summary of the enhancements and an updated version of the entire charter. Hope that works for you all. And my apologies for any legal wording, I tried to keep it as simple and clear as possible while still allowing for a smooth functioning of the fund.
Next Steps:
River333 and I propose to provide you with the opportunity to give any further feedback in the next 2 days or so. When no substantial feedback is received, both of us will put our name up for the role of Fund Keeper and you will be invited to vote according to the protocol in the charter. Others may wish to put their names up too. When at least two fund keepers have been voted in, the Fund will officially launch and be opened up for donations. Once donations exceed 20 PPC the fund will start assessing submissions and will act according to the charter from there on.
Summary of charter changes based on your feedback
Community need to vote for the fund keepers
This is to cover some potential legal issues with fund ownership. The fund keeper is only assigned to execute the processes as described in the charter. Therefore paragraphs about the role of the fund keeper and voting process are now added.
Voting process
To prevent newbies from running wild and exhausting the fund by their sheer numbers some protections has been built in for larger submissions. That includes the concept of Peervoters. See charter. There is also an emergency brake for the Fund. A Fund keeper can chose to step down which may put all or controversial submissions on hold. This may enable community to vote for charter changes and ask submitters to re-submit based on the new protocol/charter.
Donations and fund transfer
Added paragraphs about the irreversibility of donations and fund transfers except in the case of fund closure. Have added a protocol around fund closure in the event the Marketing Fund is not a success, core community doesn’t see the value or has a better vehicle in place for Marketing or no fund keepers can be found in the future.
Donation are to the Fund and not to specific submissions. Submitters can always go on their own and request donations directly via e.g. peer4commit.com
Charter changes and disputes
Have added paragraph for a protocol for charter changes to allow improvements to be made by the community. Also added a protocol for disputes (learning from the peer4commit issues we had).
Added scope of the Marketing Fund
See Scope of Marketing Fund paragraph in charter.
Will see if I can produce a signed and/or verified PDF of the template and charter once finalised, so copies can be distributed outside the Peercointalk forum.
V2.1 - 24 June 2014 (updated)
— FINAL DRAFT PROPOSAL FOR ESTABLISHING A MARKETING FUND —
[size=12pt]TEMPLATE FOR SUBMISSIONS:[/size]
By submitting a proposal the submitter agrees to the Marketing Fund charter as below or linked to. All proposals need the following details. Fund keepers will not accept proposals without these:
1. Submission need to be lodged in the designated Marketing Fund child Board on peercointalk.org. The title of the thread must start with [MF].
2. Peercointalk.org account and email/contact info for submitter applying for the Fund
3. Submission date
4. A short description of the project with your goals very clearly specified (three sentences max.)
Please make an outline so it’s easy to see what your basic plan is.
4b. Long description as needed
You can of course describe your plan in full, link to other information etc.
5. Specify the target audience
Which group are you aiming your project at? Please keep in mind that “everyone” is NOT a valid group to be aiming at.
6. Budget
Be as specific as possible. Provide costs in dollars/pounds/euros, etc. estimated per day/print run/product, etc. as per your proposal. Budgets with recurring costs should cover for at least 3 months of operation.
Vague or incomplete budgets will not be accepted for a vote at discretion of fund keeper(s)
7. Specify deadlines
No project can be without a specific time limit. We need to know when you plan to either implement it, or when a project is supposed to go live.
8. Metrics need to be specified
How are you going to check how many people you reached? This is needed to be able to see how successful you are in your aims.
9. Turnaround times
Requests will be turned around in 7-10 days for smaller requests. Larger ones (e.g. 250 PPC+) may take up to 14-17 days to allow community to discuss and the voting process to happen. Extensions over 17 days of discussion time can be allowed at discretion of fund keepers or on request of community or submitter(s). Reasonable requests will be granted automatically. Extensions will be communicated in the same thread as the submission by the fund keepers. Submissions which exceed the available funds will be put on hold and won’t be voted for until adequate funds are available.
10. Payments
Payments will be in PPC and to an address provided by the submitter in the proposal. Proof of ownership of that address may be required.
[i]
[size=14pt]Charter Marketing Fund[/size]
Scope of Marketing Fund
The Marketing Fund is established by the Peercoin community for the purpose of increasing the awareness, visibility and promotion of Peercoin to the world. It is focussed on finding new users and investors and keeping existing users and investors.
The Marketing Fund is not meant to fund developments of applications or Peercoin related services, but can be used for the promotion of those services when clearly in the interest of the Peercoin users and investors.
Submissions for the fund
Submissions are only valid when submitted according to the template for submission included in this charter.
Voting and Voting eligibility
There are two types of votes;
“Voters”
Only community members with an active account created more than 3 months before the voting occurs and with a karma>4 may vote. Those are called ‘Voters’. Voters can be added to a blacklist by the community. This may occur when the Voter is misbehaving, or is not behaving as a contributing member to the Peercoin community, spamming, has a purposely created account or has not been contributing for more than 3 months in a row. Adding voters to the blacklist will be done at discretion of fund keepers. The fund keeper may seek advice via a thread in peercointalk.org or r/Peercoin before adding voters to a blacklist.
“Peervoters”
For the purpose of voting on submissions requesting significant funding another type of voter has been created. These voters are core community members. Core community members have active accounts over 6 months with >49 posts and karma >20. Those are called ‘Peervoters’. Peervoters can only added to the blacklist when at least 5 other core community members request this. Peervoters do have an equal vote weight to Voters except when voting for Very Large Submissions. See Voting Process. Fund keepers will assume Peervoter status during their role even if they don’t match the criteria.
Voting process
Donations to the Fund
Donations are irreversible and donations can’t be assigned to a specific submission. Donors are encouraged to provide a return address in case the fund is closed and funds need to be returned. See paragraph about Closure of Fund.
Payments
Payments from the Fund are irreversible. Rejected or returning payments from submitters will be dealt with as new donations to the Fund. This includes any profits from approved proposals donated to the Marketing Fund.
Role of the fund keeper
The fund keepers will hold the private key to the Fund. The Fund is held by at least two fund keepers via multi-sig when practically available to them. The fund keepers will ensure that processes in this charter are followed before any funds are transferred. This includes related processes as maintaining a blacklist of voters, inviting voters to vote, inviting submitters to submit proposals and advertising the Marketing Fund as they deemed fit.
The fund keeper is a voluntarily role and is chosen by the community. The fund keeper does not own the funds and is only assigned by the community to ensure the processes in this charter are adhered to. Any costs required for the Fund (e.g. advertising) will be submitted in a similar way as other proposals applying for the Fund. When a Fund keeper can’t agree for personal reasons to an approved submission which followed process in this charter properly, the fund keeper shall step down.
The fund keeper won’t allow submissions for voting if the required funds are not available in the Fund.
Appointing fund keepers
There will be at least two fund keepers and maximum 3 fund keepers. Fund keepers will be appointed according to a similar voting process as Very Large Submissions. Fund keepers will automatically step down after 6 months, but can apply for a further 6 months term without constraints. In all cases voting will occur.
Large and Very Large Submissions may be put on hold at discretion of remaining fund keeper if there is only one fund keeper left.
Fund keepers can step down at any time at their discretion. It is preferred to receive timely notice in order to find another suitable candidate and follow the required voting process.
Charter changes
It is recognised that the community may wish to change this charter for a variety of reasons, e.g. changing legislation, unforeseen circumstances, process improvement, errors, etc.
Proposals for charter changes will be submitted in the same way as Very Large Submissions process and voted for accordingly.
Disputes
The fund keeper will resolve disputes by default where possible. The fund keeper may choose to consult community or start a voting process at their discretion.
In principle the fund doesn’t accept any responsibility or damage repair payments to any Party, e.g. resulting from the inability to meet any deadlines in this charter or other agreed deadlines, any action or inactions by the fund keeper or others involved.
When any Party does think processes in this charter has not been followed appropriately or they have been unfairly duped in any other way by the Fund, both parties will have the opportunity to plead for their case publicly and without restraints during at least 1 week and thereafter request the fund keeper to start a voting process. The voting process will be similar as for Large Submissions or Very Large submissions depending on the issue or value at stake in the dispute at the discretion of the fund keeper. The outcome of the voting will be binding and final for all Parties involved.
Closure of Fund
The following reasons may lead to the closure of the Fund:
Remaining funds after closure
Funds will be returned to the donors where they have provided return addresses. Returns will be made based on their share of the remaining funds or as close as reasonably possible by the fund keeper.
When funds can’t be returned, voting will occur based on the process for a Very Large Submission on where the remaining funds will be transferred to. When the number of voters required is inadequate and remains inadequate after reasonable attempts to request to vote, the fund keeper or if not available, a Peervoter chooses from the following in that order:
— END OF PROPOSAL FOR MARKETING FUND —
Edit: updated based on RobertLloyd’s feedback, see post below.
If the Peercoin community does not do marketing as soon as possible, PPC will must be abandoned in the next future and die for silence in the market, and the newbies after you will hello you and ask: NXT crates POS and you know it, do you?
Agree, River333 and I can only facilitate with ideas and establishing a dedicated Marketing Fund, but the community still has to come up with good proposals for the marketing.
I wished I could properly translate the proposed Marketing Fund charter for you and others into Chinese, but I can’t. Hope someone can help with that when the Fund launches and no more changes will be made.
@Cybnate Translating some important informations into Chinese and posting at the PPC Chinese community(diandianbi.org, and my username as ‘khitan’) is not a problem. If I think it is a exciting news I will do it as I usually did. As a volunteer of the community, I just try my best to promote the development of Peercoin at China as all the volunteers in China. We also set up our fund and rise up PPCs for marketing and reward those who pay their effort for Peercoin. But our fund is very limited, just hundreds of coins. I think the foreign community and the China community communicate too little, not that active as other altcoins. The China community is planning a activity in several days just for making more people know about Peercoin, and it will be very wonderful if we got support from the foreign community. All you ppcers, welcome to the China community diandianbi.org, and we have a QQ chat room (QQ group ID:253299871) for proposal discussing of marketing. Sorry for my poor English.
Cybnate, the marketing fund banner with QR code has been submitted to my designer. I’ll post it here as soon as it’s completed.
It is fine to me. Thanks Cybnate.
Thanks all of you guys.
It’s a great proposal. We definitely need to be more organized and get this happen.
Just like Harvey and Khitan said, we, the Chinese community, are doing some promotion work on our own. I am happy to say that we have more hardcore ppcers are emerging and the community is growing. Most of them claimed that they are holding ppc for the long run after knowing more about PoS technology.
We need to create a solid plan to earn trust.
Hi, Cybnate & River
I am reading though the draft, am about halfway though. I thought I would give my thoughts/comments so far, and continue the second half, later in the week
My comments are inserted in bold
Note that some of the numbering does not match your latest draft, as I was working from your original draft
[quote=“Cybnate, post:1, topic:2522”]— DRAFT PROPOSAL FOR ESTABLISHING A MARKETING FUND —
[size=14pt]Introducing the Peercoin marketing fund[/size]
After submitting your plan, the community will consider it by the parameters posted below and discuss it for at most one fortnight, in which time we can ask you to clarify points that are not clear or would need changing. Then the community will vote**. If your submission is accepted arrangements will be made on payment if that is not part of your proposal.
The bit about one fortnight conflicts with Point 9 below (Turnaround times), so I suggest you amend to “between one and three weeks”.
Can you rephrase the last sentence of the above paragraph (starting “If your submission…”), as it does not make sense, at least not to me.
[size=12pt]FORMAT FOR PROPOSALS:[/size]
Proposals need the following details. We will not accept proposals without these:
Suggest you put “and/or” between each contact selection
I wonder if this is this necessary, since the date of submission will be the date they post it
[b]I am not sure about “accepted costs as CPM/CPC and CPA”, as it is seems too specific. How about changing it to: “Be as specific as possible. Give costs in dollars/pounds/euros, etc. estimated per day/print run/product, etc. as per your proposal”
Suggest changing “sloppy” to “vague”[/b]
Suggest changing the emphasis to “timescales” and “duration”, rather than start and end dates, as some proposals may be freestanding as to when they can start
Success might not be in terms of people (e.g. it could be revenue, press releases, etc.), so suggest generalising the emphasis to “How will the success of the proposal be measured”
I would suggest changing the times to 7-14 days, and 14-21 days, to tie in with weeks
Suggest changing to “mentioned” to “provided by the submitter”.
— END OF PROPOSAL FOR MARKETING FUND —[/quote]
Cybnate, what do you think of this? I asked my designer to make it 750 pixels wide instead because Fuzzy is going to be making it so images won’t auto-shrink above 600 pixels. You might want to test out the QR code by sending 1 PPC to make sure it works…
Thanks Sentinelrv. I’ve tested the QR and that works perfectly fine with my phone (just checking the address)
Regarding the design, I’m not into those dark themed designs honestly. Would be great to use the Peercoin colours green and gold a bit more to give it a bot more appeal. Is there an option to add some colours to it?
And I like to hear what others think about the subtitle. Somehow it sounds a bit odd to me: A marketing fund for a secure and sustainable future. I think the fund contributes to that but it is not it’s primary goal. That is promoting Peercoin. Thoughts?
[quote=“Cybnate, post:35, topic:2522”]Thanks Sentinelrv. I’ve tested the QR and that works perfectly fine with my phone (just checking the address)
Regarding the design, I’m not into those dark themed designs honestly. Would be great to use the Peercoin colours green and gold a bit more to give it a bot more appeal. Is there an option to add some colours to it?
And I like to hear what others think about the subtitle. Somehow it sounds a bit odd to me: A marketing fund for a secure and sustainable future. I think the fund contributes to that but it is not it’s primary goal. That is promoting Peercoin. Thoughts?[/quote]
There’s a time counter, so if I start asking for changes, it’s going to cost me more money. What if the subtitle was gold instead of white? Is that enough extra color to spice it up? The gold, green and white QR code stand out much better against a darker background.
About the subtitle, I was just going to have it say “Marketing Fund,” but the problem with that is that the font would have to be large to fit the width of the Peercoin logo above it. A longer subtitle could still use a smaller font, so I went with what is in the banner. About the word future, what the subtitle means is a secure and sustainable future for Peercoin, now that there’s a marketing fund setup and money is coming in. If it would make it clearer, I could have him change it to “Marketing Fund for a Secure & Sustainable Cryptocoin.” I just thought talking about Peercoin’s future made more sense. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.
We could also make it more direct and obvious sounding so everyone immediately knows what it means: “Marketing Fund for Peercoin Advertising & Promotion.”
Changing the font colour might do the job.
I still have a hard time with the black background. To me black has a high geekiness factor. In this phase we need new users which are likely less geeky than the people we have around now. But maybe I’m wrong and does black has a coolness factor attracting younger people.
And maybe best to separate the slogan from the Marketing Fund and have it relate to Peercoin where it belongs.
Somehow the Marketing Fund message doesn’t jump out in the banner. Shouldn’t marketing Fund and its own slogan be the main title and Peercoin be secondary?
Best to wait until we hear some others chiming in and hear what they think. I’m just one voice.
Yes, I think I like that better. See my previous post.
Is this any better?
