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It's interesting that I'm on exactly the other side - it seemed halfway interesting until I realized there's some kind of cryptocurrency involved (and only figu

It's interesting that I'm on exactly the other side - it seemed halfway interesting until I realized there's some kind of cryptocurrency involved (and only figured that out while reading this comment). The org stuff looks interesting - the crypto stuff makes me more suspicious of it's present and future because of the possibility of a money grab.

tinkerrr 9y ago
Instead of such a knee-jerk reaction to crypto, perhaps you can ask if the crypto token involved makes sense in this use case. If it doesn't, like in 99% of the cases, you can dismiss it then. Colony, IMHO, is one of the few projects where it does make sense to have a token.
- orcdork 9y ago
  Being suspicious or cautious, particularly considering the amount of people expressing the same sentiment in the comments, is not a knee-jerk reaction.
  - jdjeiiie310 9y ago
    Especially when it’s been shown crypto currency can be expropriated and no one cares Oh boy another platform that can be gamed by a minority for their overwhelming benefit
    - KuhlMensch 9y ago
      What is the example of cryptocurrency expropriation you are referring to?
- iakh 9y ago
  Can you help me understand why a token makes sense in this case? It seems just as easy to implement this concept as Colony SaaS.
  - bmelton 9y ago
    If it's like Assembly, the coins/tokens themselves don't have value _per se_, they just represent ownership. Basically, in this case, it's acting more of a ledger to represent equity than as the commodity it's typically used as. An example: UserA posts a great idea, and wants help to implement it. UserA is an MBA, has a business plan, a rough idea of execution, etc., but is not a programmer, or a graphic designer, or anything like that. UserA realizes she needs help, so she posts bounties - with features relative to the importance of the success of the project. "Need a landing page" might be a feature, with tasks broken out like "design a logo", "build a wireframe in Sketch", "convert Sketch wireframe to React frontend", etc. Each of those tasks will have a value, represented by Ether. UserB, a graphic designer comes up with the perfect logo, which is worth 100 ether. User C, a frontend developer picks up the wireframe task, gets consensus, and then bangs out the React work, for a total of 250 ether. Other work gets done and an MVP is launched. The MVP was built, and a total of 5,000 ether were distributed as bounties were claimed and completed. User B has gone on to do a bunch of other graphic design tasks, and has a total of 600 ether, while User C left the project after completing the frontend work. The project's MVP launches, and makes $10,000 in profit. Because UserB has 600 ether, and 5,000 ether have been issued, UserB's share entitles him to ~12% of the profits, so he is disbursed a payment of $1200. UserC's share entitles him to $500. As the project grows, UserB takes on more and more work, and more and more ether are issued. UserC doesn't ever come back on, but is still entitled to profits on the work they've done, though their share of ether will keep being diluted as the project goes on. Hopefully I've been able to illustrate that the coin in this case is used not as currency itself, but as a representative stake in ownership.
    - mgkabar 9y ago
      Yeah, this seems very similar to how a Colony is envisioned to run, with a few extra considerations: Each colony's native tokens act as a representation of equity as described above (more or less), entitling holders to a 'rewards' disbursement periodically - but they also may be employed by the colony for mechanisms of governance in the case of token-weighted voting. Additionally, whenever someone makes an amount of tokens, they also are awarded an equal amount of reputation, which cannot be transferred and which decays over time. This score also confers influence in the colony for voting and dispute resolution, if the members of the colony wish to make their voting reputation weighted, or some combination of reputation and token-weighted. Finally, to claim rewards, a user needs to have both reputation and tokens - this means that tokens themselves don't immediately entitle one to rewards; only those who actually contribute meaningful work to the colony (as evidenced by their reputation score) are entitled to proportional rewards.
kibwen 9y ago
Seconded. I help to manage an open organization (an open source project, non-revenue, so thankfully no need to worry about profit sharing) and it's often damn hard. I was hoping to see a platform with tools specifically tailored for distributed organizations to make collaboration and communication easier. But as soon as I see anything related to cryptocurrencies, it puts me on high alert. I don't pretend that it's fair, but there's too many scam artists at large looking to exploit suckers for a quick buck to be anything other than cautious.
heroprotagonist 9y ago
I was exactly the same. I read this comment, then went back and looked again and saw: > One organization should not be beholden to, or have to trust another, in order to confidently conduct their business. > > That’s why the Colony protocol is built as open source smart contracts on the Ethereum network. In one breath, "We shouldn't have to trust any other organization" and then immediately after it's "built on the Ethereum network". I wish this was not a requirement.
- AgentME 9y ago
  The Ethereum network isn't an organization. It's decentralized without anyone having full control over it.
  - heroprotagonist 9y ago
    Ethereum lost my trust when they suggested a soft fork to make transactions with a specific account invalid, eg, the DAO fix. It showed both that a) code as contract is still too hard when even core contributors can't get them right, and b) the dev team is willing to shunt the underlying principles under the right conditions (eg, financial ones) A central team that is willing to de-authorize specific transactions through control of the code base is at conflict with a decentralized network. Sure, the network didn't have to go along with it, but they also probably wouldn't have performed the change on their own, either.

tinkerrr 9y ago

Instead of such a knee-jerk reaction to crypto, perhaps you can ask if the crypto token involved makes sense in this use case. If it doesn't, like in 99% of the cases, you can dismiss it then. Colony, IMHO, is one of the few projects where it does make sense to have a token.

orcdork 9y ago
Being suspicious or cautious, particularly considering the amount of people expressing the same sentiment in the comments, is not a knee-jerk reaction.
- jdjeiiie310 9y ago
  Especially when it’s been shown crypto currency can be expropriated and no one cares Oh boy another platform that can be gamed by a minority for their overwhelming benefit
  - KuhlMensch 9y ago
    What is the example of cryptocurrency expropriation you are referring to?
iakh 9y ago
Can you help me understand why a token makes sense in this case? It seems just as easy to implement this concept as Colony SaaS.
- bmelton 9y ago
  If it's like Assembly, the coins/tokens themselves don't have value _per se_, they just represent ownership. Basically, in this case, it's acting more of a ledger to represent equity than as the commodity it's typically used as. An example: UserA posts a great idea, and wants help to implement it. UserA is an MBA, has a business plan, a rough idea of execution, etc., but is not a programmer, or a graphic designer, or anything like that. UserA realizes she needs help, so she posts bounties - with features relative to the importance of the success of the project. "Need a landing page" might be a feature, with tasks broken out like "design a logo", "build a wireframe in Sketch", "convert Sketch wireframe to React frontend", etc. Each of those tasks will have a value, represented by Ether. UserB, a graphic designer comes up with the perfect logo, which is worth 100 ether. User C, a frontend developer picks up the wireframe task, gets consensus, and then bangs out the React work, for a total of 250 ether. Other work gets done and an MVP is launched. The MVP was built, and a total of 5,000 ether were distributed as bounties were claimed and completed. User B has gone on to do a bunch of other graphic design tasks, and has a total of 600 ether, while User C left the project after completing the frontend work. The project's MVP launches, and makes $10,000 in profit. Because UserB has 600 ether, and 5,000 ether have been issued, UserB's share entitles him to ~12% of the profits, so he is disbursed a payment of $1200. UserC's share entitles him to $500. As the project grows, UserB takes on more and more work, and more and more ether are issued. UserC doesn't ever come back on, but is still entitled to profits on the work they've done, though their share of ether will keep being diluted as the project goes on. Hopefully I've been able to illustrate that the coin in this case is used not as currency itself, but as a representative stake in ownership.
  - mgkabar 9y ago
    Yeah, this seems very similar to how a Colony is envisioned to run, with a few extra considerations: Each colony's native tokens act as a representation of equity as described above (more or less), entitling holders to a 'rewards' disbursement periodically - but they also may be employed by the colony for mechanisms of governance in the case of token-weighted voting. Additionally, whenever someone makes an amount of tokens, they also are awarded an equal amount of reputation, which cannot be transferred and which decays over time. This score also confers influence in the colony for voting and dispute resolution, if the members of the colony wish to make their voting reputation weighted, or some combination of reputation and token-weighted. Finally, to claim rewards, a user needs to have both reputation and tokens - this means that tokens themselves don't immediately entitle one to rewards; only those who actually contribute meaningful work to the colony (as evidenced by their reputation score) are entitled to proportional rewards.

kibwen 9y ago

Seconded. I help to manage an open organization (an open source project, non-revenue, so thankfully no need to worry about profit sharing) and it's often damn hard. I was hoping to see a platform with tools specifically tailored for distributed organizations to make collaboration and communication easier. But as soon as I see anything related to cryptocurrencies, it puts me on high alert. I don't pretend that it's fair, but there's too many scam artists at large looking to exploit suckers for a quick buck to be anything other than cautious.

heroprotagonist 9y ago

I was exactly the same. I read this comment, then went back and looked again and saw: > One organization should not be beholden to, or have to trust another, in order to confidently conduct their business. > > That’s why the Colony protocol is built as open source smart contracts on the Ethereum network. In one breath, "We shouldn't have to trust any other organization" and then immediately after it's "built on the Ethereum network". I wish this was not a requirement.

AgentME 9y ago
The Ethereum network isn't an organization. It's decentralized without anyone having full control over it.
- heroprotagonist 9y ago
  Ethereum lost my trust when they suggested a soft fork to make transactions with a specific account invalid, eg, the DAO fix. It showed both that a) code as contract is still too hard when even core contributors can't get them right, and b) the dev team is willing to shunt the underlying principles under the right conditions (eg, financial ones) A central team that is willing to de-authorize specific transactions through control of the code base is at conflict with a decentralized network. Sure, the network didn't have to go along with it, but they also probably wouldn't have performed the change on their own, either.