Dash World: Failure or Success? (Warning on Dangers Lurking)

[GreyGhost]

Dash World started on 06/04/16 with DASH @ $7.13 and grew to $9.36 @ 5:30 AM ET, on July 30, 2016. This represents:

• 31.28% increase in DASH price over 3 ½ months, a 107.24% increase on yearly basis
  
• $2,230.00 increase in USD value of each masternode
• $14,021,953.93 increase in DASH market cap
  We’ve also seen:
• 15.53% increase in the number of users on https://www.dash.org/ despite the site being neglected (more about it later)
• Strides into mainstream media, discussed elsewhere (SpectroCoin on International Business Times, here or Evan in EconoTimes, here)
• d10e success, a Dash World’s initiative we’ve also supported financially, etc.

I could easily present our work as a success but the truth is: I failed. It was somehow rooted in deeper issues Dash faces. (not an excuse) When everything is hunky-dory it's almost pointless to point out the dangers lurking beneath the shiny surface. I will try anyway.

#1: Failure to Expose Failures

NOTE: I strongly delineate "business core" from the "core developers," the people that are actually making this project possible, the people I admire and respect. Not a single word here is addressed at them.

Dash World has been shunned by the core business from the very start, almost as a nuisance. This illustrates what I’m talking about: “We did not select Vanbex neither were they working officially with the team,” Daniel Diaz says to @helso regarding the Wachsman PR proposal. (here) Our business developer in charge does not know that DGBB is the only official way though which Dash makes decisions??

(they ignored Marketing & SEO audits (here), did not communicate properly etc., I should’ve risen a BIG RED FLAG but I failed to do so. I was also wrong not to rise hell regarding Dash’s website that was a bottomless pit swallowing up big chunks of money without anything to show for ages, such a failure also rendered my web creation / IM / SEO knowledge useless)

I guess Daniel thinks “D” in DGBB stands for Daniel’s Governance If so, it’s a small wonder he made you pay:

• $2,000.00 for Fox Tail Marketing, 09/2015 report (here)
• $1,269.55 to El Passion - payment + wiring fees
• $ 600.00to the local designer that took over work (03/2016, here)
• $3,130.45 USD remaining budget, see 04/2016 - Core Team Report here. On 06/2016, Monthly Report stated the work has been handed over from @TheDashGuy to the project team: “General layout and design are ready - there is a need to work on remaining details of the design, prepare content, images,“ they stated. (here) And yet, after claiming the “design is ready”, they asked, and were given, another $10K for the “website design” (already turned out to be $12,111.14):
• $8,843.24 (955.170 DASH), proposal here)
• $3,267.90 (352.970 DASH), proposal here)
  ===========================================================================
• $19,111.14 spent. (development still needs to be paid) Remember:
• $ 5,000.00 were spent on "the website design" back in 10/2015 (proposal here)

TOTAL $24,111.14 has been spent for the “website design” without even having the design ready, not to mention “a professional, fancy website.” I would not dare suggesting someone is running a cute little scam, robbing you blind as the budget is looted but ask yourselves, is forking out a staggering sum of $24,111.14 in total for “website design” without having a website (or the design) for over a year a prudent business practice?

Another Waste

Lamassu – an open source project – added support for ETH FREE of COST. Yet, we paid $67,830.53 to have DASH supported (with $48,450.37 due coming; Lamassu development costs 51.87% of ALL the money ALL the core developers are receiving as their salaries).

Zach Harvey, Co-founder of Lamassu wrote that “Lamassu has also made their software more adaptable to future cryptocurrencies and Ethereum tokens such as Zcash and Digix,” free of charge. (source

Let us analyze the Lamassu ATM “success”:

• Lamassu, Inc. has 168 ATMs in total (source), admittedly a paltry number;
• ONLY one (1) out of 168 has DASH enabled so far (source);
• Daniel wrote: “As there are no known Dash wallet services available via API (ala Coinapult, bitgo), a Dash node must currently be run for each machine.” (source)

Ponder the meaning of this last statement. An ATM operator must spend $6,000.00 for the “Douro” and in a return he or she gets these options:

• BTC transactions for FREE;
• ETH transactions for FREE;
• Zchas transactions for FREE;
• Digix transactions for FREE but if an ATM operator wants to add
• DASH transactions it must spend an additional $9,360.00 (!) for the masternode. How many operators will be ready to do so?

I hope Lamassu issues will be resolved and it will end up being a success, but at what cost?

We spent or will have spent, a total of $116,280.91 or an equivalent of a Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet. (MSRP at $101,700.00 so we’d have $14,580.91 left to create a website (design and development)



Once Lamassu project is done (hoping no new website design proposals) what we will have for these $140,392.05 splurged?

• One (1) ATM working with DASH
  
• the website that simply refuses to design and builds itself.

The Waste Continues

As a result, because you – the governing body of the Dash Project, the masternode owners – have been reckless with your money and negligent in evaluating the proposals, the business core has lost its collective marbles and are churning out proposals you rubber stamp and pay without any due diligence, making a mockery of the process. I will briefly comment on only one that I understand better than the others, pr-fall-camp-201608 (here and here)

Daniel wrote: “I hope the results can speak for themselves. This is why we insisted in doing a trial run ahead of any public statements on our part.”

@TroyDASH said it best (here): “These "press release" services get articles posted all over on these various sites, but I am clicking on these examples, all 24 of them, they all have zero comments, zero or near-zero likes, zero ratings, zero tweets or social media shares, view counts in the low to mid hundreds (if there is a view count displayed at all), of which a chunk may be bots. There is nothing that indicates that anyone has actually read these, not to mention cared about anything they read. Can't we do better than this?”

We will have spend additional $24,000.00 for "work” that has “zero comments, zero or near-zero likes, zero ratings, zero tweets or social media shares,” so I went through the pain of examining success of the trial period. Out of 551 referring websites that brought users to https://www.dash.org/ not a single visitor, from of these trial run pages. landed on our website, not a single one!

Such approach the "trial run" shows is not only another colossal waste of money but also represents spamming which negatively reflects on Dash. Ponder DASH / Tigo link, here, and truncate it to:
http://www.wfmj.com/story/32473349/
http://www.wfmj.com/story/
to see that that page is almost non-existent, it lingers alone, not linked from any other page on the website. Google operator
cache:http://www.wfmj.com/story/32473349/...franchise-opens-in-panama-for-worldwide-sales shows you that you pay for something existing only as a sole, isolated page regurgitating an irrelevant press release.

Do you need more? That page (and many others have similar metrics) has a "value" of 1 / 100 (1 out of 100 max) BUT a spam score of 4/17 on Moz; in Moz's lingo it means that 7% of all sites with “4 flags” are penalized by Google. We are paying for irrelevant presence on aggregate, mostly spamming pages / sites that would, on a long run, only harm the website (https://dash.org/) they link to.

It boggles the mind that we're letting such waste go, not only not sanctioned, but praised in gushes of self-congratulating statements coming from the people responsible for such a waste.

#2 Failure to Engage with the Community

When I wrote the Dash World proposal I was excited over the enormous creativity our community posses. @alex-ru, @Raptor73 & @tungfa were of big help but I did not manage to engage the others.

It's no secret I'm not the biggest fan of the "Dash Nation" where so much of the said "creativity" was used but the truth is that all that noise and the efforts involved with the DN do not produce results. Only 0.04% of all visits to dash.org site came from Dash Nation. See for yourselves:


My failures to fight the waste and to properly engage the community brought me to my biggest failure.

#3 Failure to Properly Present the Vision

I deeply believe in a need for the "micro-economy of Dash" so I followed what Evan wrote: “One of our top priorities from a business development perspective is to improve direct access to our network for end users,” (source) and developed an idea -- Dash & Telegram integration (a proposal, currently facing a crushing defeat is here) -- that excited me beyond words. I'm aware I did a sloppy job in presenting the proposal with several blunders but I was tired, excited and anxious (I'm asking my friends to put almost a million dollars into the project whose business developer in charge does not seem up to the task and is usurping our governance.

However, I truly believe that if we:

• present the Dash Project to dozens and perhaps 100s of serious investors all over the world each would have an option of investing $936,000.00 into 100 MNs
  
• create a prototype for such an application and reach out toward
• 100 millions ++ Telegram users and
• thousands of specialized services as described in the proposal...

... that we'd move Dash toward "an end user."

My friend in the Monte Carlo's wealth management fund has received the proposal and his team is now evaluating it.



Conclusion and Call to Action

I am calling the masternode owners and / or community members to:

1. request a 3rd party FULL AUDIT of the business expenses, especially those I outlined herein;
2. DE-FUND the PR Fall Campaign (Aug) proposal (here) because of the reasons I outlined herein;
3. DE-FUND the further Lamassu ATM development, for the reasons I outlined herein at least until these never-ending "open issues" are resolved;
4. create a set of rules for all proposals that would have to have clearly outlined goals, objectives, delivery milestones etc., and bring accountability back into this project before it's too late;
5. demand some REAL TRANSPARENCY from the people steering a boat representing a $60M ++ market value that produces a budget of now staggering $69,722.64 a month, money that can not be wasted but used with the utmost respect, efficiency, transparency, care and business acumen.

Thank you for your time.

 

[UdjinM6]

You can't really claim that price/market cap increase was the result of Dash World only or you'd have to admit that price drop also was/will be the result of it. That either a) cumulative effect or b) not a result of any actions but pure market speculation.
Regarding operator's cost to add Dash to ATM: Dash node is not equal to Dash Masternode, no need for $9k. I could however agree that results of Dash ATM development are .... unclear to me, let's say it that way for now, but I barely follow progress there (if any).
Can't comment on anything else really but I also think that we are moving towards "pay fo everything as a corp" from "ask volunteers/bounty hunters for help as much as you can" a bit too fast...

 

[Ryan Taylor]

@GreyGhost: There is so much misinformation, double counting, incorrect allocations, and even applying today's exchange rates to historical expenses that the mischaracterizations can only be intentional.

The amount of spin required to turn ~$1,900 into $24,000 requires an incredible lack of understanding, abundant creativity, or both.

I would have been more than happy to have a call on these topics if you had questions and I would still like the opportunity to do so at your convenience. I wish you'd approached anyone on the core team before publishing wild accusations of incompetence and waste that are simply untrue.

I sincerely hope that once corrected, you will have the decency to acknowledge as such as publicly and vehemently as the accusations.

EDIT: Just adding some personal advice on this one, too... You might consider saving this content for later and taking it down for now until we can clear things up for you. Otherwise, I fear you may risk damaging your own credibility for no gain. But that's advice you are free to take or leave.

 

[Miner237]

Is the Lamassu proposal with Ira also bringing us a DASH clearing house to use with any CTM systems? If we had an exchange that would supportd api DASH buys from fiat accounts the atm project would be much closer to end would it not?

 

[TaoOfSatoshi]

Dash World started on 06/04/16 with DASH @ $7.13 and grew to $9.36 @ 5:30 AM ET, on July 30, 2016. This represents:

• 31.28% increase in DASH price over 3 ½ months, a 107.24% increase on yearly basis
  
• $2,230.00 increase in USD value of each masternode
• $14,021,953.93 increase in DASH market cap
  We’ve also seen:
• 15.53% increase in the number of users on https://www.dash.org/ despite the site being neglected (more about it later)
• Strides into mainstream media, discussed elsewhere (SpectroCoin on International Business Times, here or Evan in EconoTimes, here)
• d10e success, a Dash World’s initiative we’ve also supported financially, etc.

I could easily present our work as a success but the truth is: I failed. It was somehow rooted in deeper issues Dash faces. (not an excuse) When everything is hunky-dory it's almost pointless to point out the dangers lurking beneath the shiny surface. I will try anyway.

#1: Failure to Expose Failures

NOTE: I strongly delineate "business core" from the "core developers," the people that are actually making this project possible, the people I admire and respect. Not a single word here is addressed at them.

Dash World has been shunned by the core business from the very start, almost as a nuisance. This illustrates what I’m talking about: “We did not select Vanbex neither were they working officially with the team,” Daniel Diaz says to @helso regarding the Wachsman PR proposal. (here) Our business developer in charge does not know that DGBB is the only official way though which Dash makes decisions??

(they ignored Marketing & SEO audits (here), did not communicate properly etc., I should’ve risen a BIG RED FLAG but I failed to do so. I was also wrong not to rise hell regarding Dash’s website that was a bottomless pit swallowing up big chunks of money without anything to show for ages, such a failure also rendered my web creation / IM / SEO knowledge useless)

I guess Daniel thinks “D” in DGBB stands for Daniel’s Governance If so, it’s a small wonder he made you pay:

• $2,000.00 for Fox Tail Marketing, 09/2015 report (here)
• $1,269.55 to El Passion - payment + wiring fees
• $ 600.00to the local designer that took over work (03/2016, here)
• $3,130.45 USD remaining budget, see 04/2016 - Core Team Report here. On 06/2016, Monthly Report stated the work has been handed over from @TheDashGuy to the project team: “General layout and design are ready - there is a need to work on remaining details of the design, prepare content, images,“ they stated. (here) And yet, after claiming the “design is ready”, they asked, and were given, another $10K for the “website design” (already turned out to be $12,111.14):
• $8,843.24 (955.170 DASH), proposal here)
• $3,267.90 (352.970 DASH), proposal here)
  ===========================================================================
• $19,111.14 spent. (development still needs to be paid) Remember:
• $ 5,000.00 were spent on "the website design" back in 10/2015 (proposal here)

TOTAL $24,111.14 has been spent for the “website design” without even having the design ready, not to mention “a professional, fancy website.” I would not dare suggesting someone is running a cute little scam, robbing you blind as the budget is looted but ask yourselves, is forking out a staggering sum of $24,111.14 in total for “website design” without having a website (or the design) for over a year a prudent business practice?

Another Waste

Lamassu – an open source project – added support for ETH FREE of COST. Yet, we paid $67,830.53 to have DASH supported (with $48,450.37 due coming; Lamassu development costs 51.87% of ALL the money ALL the core developers are receiving as their salaries).

Zach Harvey, Co-founder of Lamassu wrote that “Lamassu has also made their software more adaptable to future cryptocurrencies and Ethereum tokens such as Zcash and Digix,” free of charge. (source

Let us analyze the Lamassu ATM “success”:

• Lamassu, Inc. has 168 ATMs in total (source), admittedly a paltry number;
• ONLY one (1) out of 168 has DASH enabled so far (source);
• Daniel wrote: “As there are no known Dash wallet services available via API (ala Coinapult, bitgo), a Dash node must currently be run for each machine.” (source)

Ponder the meaning of this last statement. An ATM operator must spend $6,000.00 for the “Douro” and in a return he or she gets these options:

• BTC transactions for FREE;
• ETH transactions for FREE;
• Zchas transactions for FREE;
• Digix transactions for FREE but if an ATM operator wants to add
• DASH transactions it must spend an additional $9,360.00 (!) for the masternode. How many operators will be ready to do so?

I hope Lamassu issues will be resolved and it will end up being a success, but at what cost?

We spent or will have spent, a total of $116,280.91 or an equivalent of a Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet. (MSRP at $101,700.00 so we’d have $14,580.91 left to create a website (design and development)



Once Lamassu project is done (hoping no new website design proposals) what we will have for these $140,392.05 splurged?

• One (1) ATM working with DASH
  
• the website that simply refuses to design and builds itself.

The Waste Continues

As a result, because you – the governing body of the Dash Project, the masternode owners – have been reckless with your money and negligent in evaluating the proposals, the business core has lost its collective marbles and are churning out proposals you rubber stamp and pay without any due diligence, making a mockery of the process. I will briefly comment on only one that I understand better than the others, pr-fall-camp-201608 (here and here)

Daniel wrote: “I hope the results can speak for themselves. This is why we insisted in doing a trial run ahead of any public statements on our part.”

@TroyDASH said it best (here): “These "press release" services get articles posted all over on these various sites, but I am clicking on these examples, all 24 of them, they all have zero comments, zero or near-zero likes, zero ratings, zero tweets or social media shares, view counts in the low to mid hundreds (if there is a view count displayed at all), of which a chunk may be bots. There is nothing that indicates that anyone has actually read these, not to mention cared about anything they read. Can't we do better than this?”

We will have spend additional $24,000.00 for "work” that has “zero comments, zero or near-zero likes, zero ratings, zero tweets or social media shares,” so I went through the pain of examining success of the trial period. Out of 551 referring websites that brought users to https://www.dash.org/ not a single visitor, from of these trial run pages. landed on our website, not a single one!

Such approach the "trial run" shows is not only another colossal waste of money but also represents spamming which negatively reflects on Dash. Ponder DASH / Tigo link, here, and truncate it to:
http://www.wfmj.com/story/32473349/
http://www.wfmj.com/story/
to see that that page is almost non-existent, it lingers alone, not linked from any other page on the website. Google operator
cache:http://www.wfmj.com/story/32473349/...franchise-opens-in-panama-for-worldwide-sales shows you that you pay for something existing only as a sole, isolated page regurgitating an irrelevant press release.

Do you need more? That page (and many others have similar metrics) has a "value" of 1 / 100 (1 out of 100 max) BUT a spam score of 4/17 on Moz; in Moz's lingo it means that 7% of all sites with “4 flags” are penalized by Google. We are paying for irrelevant presence on aggregate, mostly spamming pages / sites that would, on a long run, only harm the website (https://dash.org/) they link to.

It boggles the mind that we're letting such waste go, not only not sanctioned, but praised in gushes of self-congratulating statements coming from the people responsible for such a waste.

#2 Failure to Engage with the Community

When I wrote the Dash World proposal I was excited over the enormous creativity our community posses. @alex-ru, @Raptor73 & @tungfa were of big help but I did not manage to engage the others.

It's no secret I'm not the biggest fan of the "Dash Nation" where so much of the said "creativity" was used but the truth is that all that noise and the efforts involved with the DN do not produce results. Only 0.04% of all visits to dash.org site came from Dash Nation. See for yourselves:


My failures to fight the waste and to properly engage the community brought me to my biggest failure.

#3 Failure to Properly Present the Vision

I deeply believe in a need for the "micro-economy of Dash" so I followed what Evan wrote: “One of our top priorities from a business development perspective is to improve direct access to our network for end users,” (source) and developed an idea -- Dash & Telegram integration (a proposal, currently facing a crushing defeat is here) -- that excited me beyond words. I'm aware I did a sloppy job in presenting the proposal with several blunders but I was tired, excited and anxious (I'm asking my friends to put almost a million dollars into the project whose business developer in charge does not seem up to the task and is usurping our governance.

However, I truly believe that if we:

• present the Dash Project to dozens and perhaps 100s of serious investors all over the world each would have an option of investing $936,000.00 into 100 MNs
  
• create a prototype for such an application and reach out toward
• 100 millions ++ Telegram users and
• thousands of specialized services as described in the proposal...

... that we'd move Dash toward "an end user."

My friend in the Monte Carlo's wealth management fund has received the proposal and his team is now evaluating it.



Conclusion and Call to Action

I am calling the masternode owners and / or community members to:

1. request a 3rd party FULL AUDIT of the business expenses, especially those I outlined herein;
2. DE-FUND the PR Fall Campaign (Aug) proposal (here) because of the reasons I outlined herein;
3. DE-FUND the further Lamassu ATM development, for the reasons I outlined herein at least until these never-ending "open issues" are resolved;
4. create a set of rules for all proposals that would have to have clearly outlined goals, objectives, delivery milestones etc., and bring accountability back into this project before it's too late;
5. demand some REAL TRANSPARENCY from the people steering a boat representing a $60M ++ market value that produces a budget of now staggering $69,722.64 a month, money that can not be wasted but used with the utmost respect, efficiency, transparency, care and business acumen.

Thank you for your time.

What's the hate on you have for Dash Nation? The concept is doing fine. Even if I could only attract 5 people to Dash, it would be a success. I've engaged far more people than that, you can be sure. It's not coming out of Dash or your pocket, either. So what's the problem? You seem very bitter about this subject. Why?

 

[fible1]

I don't have the information or interest needed to speak about the financials, I am seeing results so this is flying below my radar right now. I also understand that better accounting tools are on the way for next month so i can wait.

GG does make two very valid points that have bothered me for a while although I decided not to say anything, I am not sure how much was invested, but the website has been on hold for a long time (is it over a year now?). I'm not sure what type of website takes that long to build, and the fact the work has handed of to TheDashGuy, who is a talented guy nonetheless, but not finished by the contractor and kept on hold for so long is strange to me. I would like a more detailed explanation please.

The other issue I see is that I agree with @UdjinM6 we are starting to move away from a volunteer community to a corporate model very quickly, which I am not saying is bad, but we have to create the transparency tools to do this right. Unlike GG, I do not suspect any foul play, in my experience, stuff sometimes gets paid for, and is sometimes sidelined because you have to focus on even more important stuff. This happens often enough in large enough businesses. Still, it is important to be extra communicative with the community when these things pop up.

I have kept up with ATM development, and it seems legit to me. It sucks we could not get integrated for free, but I understand that the back end tools where not there in the default methods of integration.

What this episode shows is that the core business team needs to make an effort to be OVER-communicative, beyond the normal course of information distribution to stakeholders in other internet companies, because we have more at stake financially than most other governance communities you may experience with online. I'm really not gonna sue someone if I get kicked outta my Warcraft guild, but Dash is a different story.

I am also sad that GG did not feel supported by us or the core business team as he put himself on the line with his friends looking to better Dash. Perhaps this was judged as not worth the time, and to be honest, I am one of the people who thought that, but every effort must be made by the core business team, within the bounds of reason, to support these one off's by serious community members and stakeholders. I see an ever growing slice of the rewards pie going to the core teams projects; it's hard to complain given we are doing so well, but part of the ethos of this community is decentralized management and participation, we should be supporting these projects, within reason, even if we think they might not work too well, because we may be wrong, but more importantly, because this is who we are as a community.

As we grow, there is a need to professionalize how we do things, but we must stay supportive of the outsider, and mean deviating projects.

I thank both GG and the core business team, you guys are doing a hard job in a hard place, and it is because of people like you that we will make it or not. Whether you guys realize it or not, you are both in the same boat, we are all in the same boat, and our fortunes will the same. I hope fences can be mended, things can be adjusted as needed, and we can move forward without hurt feelings.

Pablo.

 

[demo]

@GreyGhost

A nation needs money to be spend on research.
Do you know how much money is spend aimlessly on research, in a real nation?

Dash is a nation.
So consider the money spend as money for research purposes.
Dash community did their research, and they failed.
They should forget the money they spend.
Its time for new research.

 

[camosoul]

Dash World has been shunned by the core business from the very start, almost as a nuisance.

I figured this out real fast... Only certain people are supposed to have access to the piggy bank. You gotta play politics above all else. Government is more honest and trustworthy, and I think my opinion of government is clear.

DGBB is the only official way though which Dash makes decisions??
I guess Daniel thinks “D” in DGBB stands for Daniel’s Governance If so...

Zach Harvey, Co-founder of Lamassu wrote that “Lamassu has also made their software more adaptable to future cryptocurrencies and Ethereum tokens such as Zcash and Digix,” free of charge.

Let us analyze the Lamassu ATM “success”:

• Lamassu, Inc. has 168 ATMs in total (source), admittedly a paltry number;
• ONLY one (1) out of 168 has DASH enabled so far (source);
• Daniel wrote: “As there are no known Dash wallet services available via API (ala Coinapult, bitgo), a Dash node must currently be run for each machine.” (source)

Ponder the meaning of this last statement. An ATM operator must spend $6,000.00 for the “Douro” and in a return he or she gets these options:

• BTC transactions for FREE;
• ETH transactions for FREE;
• Zchas transactions for FREE;
• Digix transactions for FREE but if an ATM operator wants to add
• DASH transactions it must spend an additional $9,360.00 (!) for the masternode. How many operators will be ready to do so?

I hope Lamassu issues will be resolved and it will end up being a success, but at what cost?

Once Lamassu project is done (hoping no new website design proposals) what we will have for these $140,392.05 splurged?

• One (1) ATM working with DASH
  
• the website that simply refuses to design and builds itself.

I don't think it's possible to say the following part enough

As a result, because you – the governing body of the Dash Project, the masternode owners – have been reckless with your money and negligent in evaluating the proposals, the business core has lost its collective marbles and are churning out proposals you rubber stamp and pay without any due diligence, making a mockery of the process.

They're like fat kids in a candy store with blank checks from Obama... There are no consequences for being compete fucktards, so fuctardation rules...

You can't really claim that price/market cap increase was the result of Dash World only or you'd have to admit that price drop also was/will be the result of it.

I could however agree that results of Dash ATM development are .... unclear to me, let's say it that way for now, but I barely follow progress there (if any).

@GreyGhost: There is so much misinformation, double counting, incorrect allocations, and even applying today's exchange rates to historical expenses that the mischaracterizations can only be intentional.

The amount of spin required to turn ~$1,900 into $24,000 requires an incredible lack of understanding, abundant creativity, or both.

I would have been more than happy to have a call on these topics if you had questions and I would still like the opportunity to do so at your convenience. I wish you'd approached anyone on the core team before publishing wild accusations of incompetence and waste that are simply untrue.

I sincerely hope that once corrected, you will have the decency to acknowledge as such as publicly and vehemently as the accusations.

EDIT: Just adding some personal advice on this one, too... You might consider saving this content for later and taking it down for now until we can clear things up for you. Otherwise, I fear you may risk damaging your own credibility for no gain. But that's advice you are free to take or leave.

He spins left, you spin right... The truth is somewhere in the middle.

What's the hate on you have for Dash Nation?

Don't play SJW. I think he may have done a bit of spinning, but there are still very big questions unanswered, some of which there simply cannot be a legitimate explanation...

I don't have the information or interest needed to speak about the financials, I am seeing results so this is flying below my radar right now. I also understand that better accounting tools are on the way for next month so i can wait.

It is, after all, very rough beta...

Version zero.12.zero.58 - and basically the first attempt at accounting...

There is so much fucking pork barreling going on... It's interesting to see that I outlined exactly this kind of bullshit with the proposed system, and it was selected specifically because it could be abused in this fashion.

-_- <-- my surprised face.

 

[TanteStefana]

I agree with everything fible1 said. Especially that I am disappointed that GG feels Dash World was not supported by the core team and treated like an annoyance. This is highly disappointing. The Dash Core team has an obligation to the network to work alongside other contractors on behalf of the network. Although I do feel numbers are exaggerated in your complaint, as per babygiraffe's post, I also feel Lamassu has treated Dash badly. I would hope we remember this in future dealings with them.

As fible1 said, we are all in this boat together, there is no room for false pride or egos. If any of the core team is looking here, I would kindly request that you begin USING all this research Dash World has provided on how to increase SAS - or whatever it's called. I saw the report, but don't understand that stuff at all. But if we have a team working on website design, they should be using this information to improve Dash.org's search standing.

GreyGhost, I seriously don't understand your proposal. It seems to me you want more investors buying more Masternodes, but I don't understand to what end. And why isn't the Evolution messaging not going to be good enough. I'm quite certain the plan is to have messages attached to payments through the network. In what way would these messages be different?

 

[GreyGhost]

I derive no pleasure in berating the project into which I've put so much time, money and energy, bringing my friends and associates to invest and work for and also the project so many worthy people are putting their work and trust into.

Brief comments to your comments:

@UdjinM6 -- I did NOT take the credit. I said "I could easily present our work as a success but the truth is: I failed." And yes, I realize I misread node need for the ATM but it does not change my opinion that spending $100K for 1 working ATM so far in the system with 168 working ATM is insane;

@fible1 -- your comments are lucid. I'd put all my money in the hypothetical tyrannical corporate DASH ruled by Evan and the core developers but none, not a penny in the project ruled by its current business people. Given the synergy, the jury is out. I do not suspect any fraud either, only incompetence. My colorful language represents my true concerns but I was / am fully aware that the timing is wrong and it would not produce any change regarding how the governance is conducted. My howl might resonate with the "silent majority" for I am sure I am not the only one who sees dangers lurking beneath this otherwise great project. Alas, I do not want to spend my time being Savanarola, especially as the price is going up and lulls us all into complacency;

Many a clique runs many a successful company producing great income for their shareholders but they do not call themselves "decentralized". That's my pet peeve.

@babygiraffe -- I was deliberately and "abundantly creative" when I used the other day's exchange rate for some of the past expenses, for dramatic purposes. After all, is it wrong to assume the DASH received for the work not yet delivered is not held i.e. that it has not been spend? I was trying to match the abundant creativity you yourself employed when asking for the money or the creativity used to ask for the same design all over again:

September 2015: “We are in need of a new more professional looking website that is directed at attracting new users and optimized for conversion, with call to actions and proper landing pages. To makes this happen we are starting the website redesign with a professional graphic designer this is a onetime
June 2016: “This proposal will provide initial funding for professional graphic designers to create the visual design"
and my favorite "fancy design" (3rd money request) but am too lazy to find the exact quote at the moment...

@TaoOfSatoshi -- there's no "hatred" for Dash Nation at all. I always expressed admiration for your work and energy, both publicly and privately. Only that I believe it is a wrong approach to try to squeeze anything and everything under some imaginary nation's sky. It splits the audience and confuses an user. But no point of arguing over totally opposite opinions.

@camosoul -- I love how you put things Sometimes you've gotta calla spade a stinking pile of horseshit.

I received one private comment from a valuable member of community: "Since long I have given up dedicating much of my time to that community, because, after some point, I really felt excluded when only the "core" ideas and efforts received general approval and incentives, to the detriment of other contributions from other community members."

I think that statement, presented in a calm, precise manner that eludes me, reflects the silent majority thinking and the dangers lurking beneath what I call the shiny surface.

I worry, I really do. Is that wrong? At least I had guts to admit I was a failure, something you will never ever hear from the "people in charge". Not that I am calling them a failure, not at all, but a tiny mistake here, a little incompetency there were evident. Even if ALL my numbers were wrong (they were not), even if I was malicious (which I am not) and even if the tone of my "warning" is wrong let us ask ourselves, would ANY organization of $60M ++ market cap or whatever is today since the price rise, tolerate a business team that is not able to deliver a simple website for over a year while it keeps asking the money for design, once, twice, trice... sold?

@TanteStefana -- your reply came as I was typing my own. The idea is to have some grown up money put, say a million USD into 100 masternodes. The portion of their income pays for the development of the project I outlined. This unburdens the DGBB so it does not have to pay for everything and brings the money for development of what we might call auxiliary products built around Dash.

At the moment, to the joy of all of us holding DASH, it is like a von Neumann, self-replicating machine that serves only one purpose, to create more of itself. (big MNs holders get so much DASH that they can create more MNs and get even more DASH but none of this goes into any conceivable economies, and is not aimed at that proverbial "end user" we need for the mass adoption)

 

[camosoul]

I derive no pleasure in berating the project into which I've put so much time, money and energy, bringing my friends and associates to invest and work for and also the project so many worthy people are putting their work and trust into.

I lost all kinds of face when the "community" made complete asses of themselves back in Jan/Feb... I just plain do not talk about DASH to anyone anymore. Did I bail and sell all my DASH? No. Because I've been stabbed in the back much worse than that, and the premise of DASH is still valid, even if there is a fishy smell coming from some of it's people. I can count the number of people in Crypto that don't stink to high heaven, on one hand...

I have some pretty harsh criticisms, but that doesn't equate to "hate." The SJW mentality is so entrenched that some can't understand there is more going on... The slightest criticism, or a harsh one, regardless of how valid, are "mean" and "offensive." Which is why I choose the demeanor I have. I'm going to be accused of it either way, may as well cut the bullshit and tell it like it is. I'll save my manners for people who deserve it. I won't be finding those people in Crypto, so, lets fuck shit up!

Which is also an attractive quality in business. I take no bullshit, I cut through bullshit, I never, ever dish out bullshit, and it's obvious, because I have zero tolerance for bullshit. Sissies might not like me, but sissies don't matter, because they're sissies.

@camosoul -- I love how you put things Sometimes you've gotta calla spade a stinking pile of horseshit.

The DGBB doesn't call the shots. And, frankly, that's a good thing. Most MNOs are fucking idiots. While I don't like the obvious crony-ism and pork-barreling, it beats handing the asylum over to the patients...

Unlike a few names that could be recalled by those of us who have been here from the beginning, I can make objective decisions even when I'm annoyed. Those who have hated on me, marginalized me, stabbed me in the back, etc., are all still working to make me rich(er). Albeit in a Cerebral Palsy kind of way, the idea is sound. With a premise as good as DASH, even dickheads can't help but succeed as long as they keep moving.

Lets also keep an objective head about the fact that DASH's DGBB is a first ever concept, and was bound to not work very well (Did you see that? I split the crap out of that infinitive!). I, personally, think it's broken-ness is a Godsend, because the absolute fucking retards that are the MNOs shouldn't be in charge, so it's a good thing they're not. If these people were on the board of directors of a company, that company would have all it's investors abandon ship immediately. If the governance system blindly takes marching orders from the king, is it really a system of governance? Zero consequences for fucking up? How will they learn? If they're not fit to rule over their own excrement, it's probably a good thing. But, it does demonstrate that the DGBB is moot in definition and function. Not by any design flaw (tho it has many), but in content of it's participants. Who, also, don't have to participate as part of the PoService.... Yeah... What a clusterfuck. It's like Cancer that has AIDS.

They'll vote up pretty much anything as long as the proposer "sounds nice" and blows some sunshine up their asses... It's all based on feelings because facts mean nothing to those who don't comprehend what the fuck is going on.

It's an entire school of Dorys. Just keep swimming... Lets not even call them MNOs anymore. It's "The Dorys." Or maybe "The Corkys." Nah, Corky is/was way smarter...

I think that statement, presented in a calm, precise manner that eludes me, reflects the silent majority thinking and the dangers lurking beneath what I call the shiny surface.

This is the shit you can get away with when dealing with ponzi-head cryptotards, but real, grown-up business-people are artists in detecting this bullshit and avoiding it like the plague that it is. I had a devout Catholic cuss at me after he looked at these people and saw how they behave! The ones that aren't utterly clueless, are ardently anti-business! Does anyone in the DASH core, devs or business, have the first fucking clue how important Vendors are? That "the user experience" is about them, too? How can vendors USE it if it's hostile to vendors? USERS! It's not just the ponzi-traders... DASH actually ahs the ability to be useful in real life business! Just because no other coin can make that claim, DASH should ignore it's own feature set and make absolutely zero effort to make itself user-friendly to that entire half of the economy thus far neglected by design by other cryptos? HELLO!? WAKE UP, FUCKERS! Those vendors who looked at Crypto already and turned away are not going to be reeled in by DASH continuing to go out of it's way to look like the duck, and quack like the duck, that they've already rejected.

There are proposals being submitted simply because they know The Dory's will vote for anything that's described as shiny... We've even got a satire proposal (URA) that is hilariously not all that far off from real proposals, but most MNOs can't even tell how sadly similar it is... I intend to make one of my own, because DASH needs to be embarrassed into growing up. Someone actually commented that 5 DASH wasted is a lot... Really? If you think $50 is a lot...

 

[Ryan Taylor]

@GreyGhost, the June 2016 budget isn't even for a website. It is to fund graphic design for the Evolution product. These are completely different things. The title of the proposal is (and this is a direct cut and paste):
Evolution Development - Graphic Design
You clearly position this expense as something to do with our website.

This is not the only factual error... far from it. Let me point out a few more:
1) $2,000 for Fox Tail Marketing... this was a marketing expense. I don't see how that could be more clear. Again, it has nothing to do with the website. I don't know all the details, but my understanding is that these were traditional ads (like banners) last fall. We tested it to measure the effectiveness of a small-scale ad campaign. It was discontinued the following month as we found more cost-effective approaches. So this had absolutely nothing to do with the website design. Marketing.
2) $3,130.45 USD remaining budget - remaining budget is just that... unspent monies. You counted it as "spent".
3) $1,269.55 + $600.00 + $3,130.45 = $5,000.00 - Does this number look familiar? That's because you counted this AGAIN later in another line item referencing the proposal that was the source of those funds.
4) Then, you added some completely unrelated Evolution funding requests (and revalued them higher based on the current exchange rates... NOT when the requests were made)

So, by counting unrelated expenses, unspent budget, double counting expenses, double counting our remaining budget, AND revaluing budget proposals at current rates, you have managed to inflate the actual expense from ~$1,900 to ~$24,100.

I remain available to offer corrections on the remainder of your post.

 

[TheDashGuy]

LOL DANIELS PIGGY BANK IS AT IT AGAIN!

I'm telling you guys, the only way Dash will succeed is to shakeup the core team and get people's feet warm. The whole idea of having a single PAID CORE TEAM that isn't voted out based on merit is absolutely ridiculous.

Daniel has no formal programming knowledge and we are letting him lead the entire project, essentially displacing Evan. Get your shit together before you all waste your investment. We need decentralized staffers, not a single CENTRALIZED team in control of everything.

Back to Steemit where I can atleast get paid some money for my words, instead of yelling at the wall in this echo chamber of boredom. Btw nice forums you guys paid $8k for, so active these days!

>.>

Stop wasting everyones time and the precious money from Daniels piggy bank and start fixing Dash governance from the top down please. That means hire a goddamn press consultant too or host an video interview submission competition and hire the VERY BEST of the bunch over a 3 month period and get yourselves a real speaker because none of these nerds have ANY social skills, and news flash, social skills are more important than programming skills if you didn't know that go check and REAL company, the nerds get put into closets and they let the social faces do the talking.

God you guys have so much shit backwards around here its sad. I used to love this project now I'm just disappointed by it. Price means nothing when the entire thing is controlled by a moron and some nerds. You never know when it will all come crashing down.

/rant

 

[itscrazybro]

LOL DANIELS PIGGY BANK IS AT IT AGAIN!

I'm telling you guys, the only way Dash will succeed is to shakeup the core team and get people's feet warm. The whole idea of having a single PAID CORE TEAM that isn't voted out based on merit is absolutely ridiculous.

Daniel has no formal programming knowledge and we are letting him lead the entire project, essentially displacing Evan. Get your shit together before you all waste your investment. We need decentralized staffers, not a single CENTRALIZED team in control of everything.

Back to Steemit where I can atleast get paid some money for my words, instead of yelling at the wall in this echo chamber of boredom. Btw nice forums you guys paid $8k for, so active these days!

>.>

Stop wasting everyones time and the precious money from Daniels piggy bank and start fixing Dash governance from the top down please. That means hire a goddamn press consultant too or host an video interview submission competition and hire the VERY BEST of the bunch over a 3 month period and get yourselves a real speaker because none of these nerds have ANY social skills, and news flash, social skills are more important than programming skills if you didn't know that go check and REAL company, the nerds get put into closets and they let the social faces do the talking.

God you guys have so much shit backwards around here its sad. I used to love this project now I'm just disappointed by it. Price means nothing when the entire thing is controlled by a moron and some nerds. You never know when it will all come crashing down.

/rant

You don't have to be a programmer to contribute. Daniels work (business development) is incredible just as yours is (web design). Business Development is a huge part of the project and one of the most important at this stage. Without partnerships with 3rd party service providers then there is no Evolution and our currency is way less usable. You are doing exactly what you say he does by not acknowledging others work and instead bagging on it.

I think the pattern that I am seeing from every complaint around here is that the core team is not being open and co-operative with the community. I don't doubt that they are doing incredible work but maybe take some time to keep the community up to date with progress. Example being we have heard nothing about how d10e went, which we as a community funded you to go to. All we would need to know is, was it a success? a failure? did you meet some new potential partners? Just give the community something, we did fund it so we deserve to know if these types of things are working or not?

 

[kot]

Dear All,
Thank you for your comments and opinions - they will be respectfully taken into the consideration.As I am on vacation and still have poor Internet access, let me share the information I have about the project, communication, cooperation etc. Just some simple facts. Let me also share my feedback and my personal opinion about the project and discussion. I will be happy to discuss the core team projects after my return (as you can see, Ryan is available to provide a detailed information about finances).

First of all, it is quite surprising to me that the topic which was created to summarize the DashWorld project (at least I guess it was the idea of it) became a place for blaming the core team for almost everything (also for the project failure). I don't understand this... A person who decides to submit the project to the system is the person responsible for the project execution. Period. PM of the project (every project, not only this one) has to be sure that all of the resources needed for successful execution are secured, goals are achievable, team and necessary tools are available.
It was not the case in my opinion. When the DashWorld project was submitted to the budgeting system, I have suggested to GG that the project is not fully prepared for execution and should be postponed a little (here). He made a lot of assumptions about people being immediately available to the project, without agreements with interested parties. Nevertheless, it was a very complex project, with extremely ambitious goals and I was really full of respect to @GreyGhost that he decided to execute it (I had my doubts but every project is different and I am not an oracle to predict the result).

There is a suggestion in previous posts that the project was not supported by the core team. I have a different opinion. GG was invited twice to the weekly core team calls and we have had a good discussion about the DashWorld project, his plans and how could we support him in parallel with all main core team responsibilities. All necessary information and access rights were provided to GG to successfully execute the SEO part. We have been working very closely with Kevin and Lisa on the marketing part and responded to every request they made (according to my best knowledge). Our guys were available to them and to editors for interviews etc. We were working with them in preparations to d10e as well. So, I do not think that the core team was not supportive - I think the opposite. If anyone expects that the core team should control and participate every project, makes a wrong assumption. It is simply impossible and would be bad for the project.

About the core team communication in general. Let me remind one of my previous posts. I believe that level of communication is quite good but it simply does not meet expectations of people who spend most of their productive time on the forum. These people will never be satisfied, no matter what we would do. At the moment we have:

• monthly budget report (example: https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/may-2016-monthly-budget-report.8886/unread )
• monthly report with the list of all projects driven by the core team, with information about the status (example: https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/april-2016-dash-core-team-monthly-report.8913/unread )
• detailed reports form the most critical projects driven by the team (example: https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/fiat-gateways-project-status-update.8901/ )
• status updates from the projects driven together with external vendors (example: https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/electrum-dash.8265/#post-93164)
• official announcements of strategic goals and direction (example: https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/v12-release.5888/ or https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/dash-2016-roadmap.8068/)
• budget proposal announcements: https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/april-2016-budget-proposal.8480/unread
• some of us are present on daily basis on the forum and answer the questions

This is quite good reporting and communication in my opinion (even considering high corporate standards). Are you able to find this level of professional communication in any crypto-project? Of course we can do better (there is always area for improvement) - I just doubt that we would be able to satisfy those, who are unsatisfied at the moment.
Yes, there are some issues, we are dealing with. And we will fix them - I am pretty sure about that. There is no perfect project on the planet and every project has areas for improvements. Our project too. . However, if you look at the Dash project e.g. from this year only - the progress and achievements are impressive (at least they are impressive to me).

As a PM I am very satisfied with the working budgeting/voting system. It is not perfect neither but it works on the advantage of the project. I agree that we should work on the professionalization of the project and we are doing this as a team (we requested good tools for collaboration, accounting, we work on the formal processes). It just won't happen in one or two weeks and needs support from the community too. You need to remember that we are not a company with millions of dollars in budgets and hundreds of employees. But in open-source and crypto space we are really good. And will be better.

 

[rustycase]

That's a good thing, if any pattern in complaints is recognized, as long as it is not weighed against the silent majority ! lol Seen that done before !
I am quite pleased with progress in DASH development and the most recent increase in trading value should offer some degree of increased funding to continue those improvements.
All good !
rc

 

[camosoul]

This is the shit you can get away with when dealing with ponzi-head cryptotards, but real, grown-up business-people are artists in detecting this bullshit and avoiding it like the plague that it is. I had a devout Catholic cuss at me after he looked at these people and saw how they behave! The ones that aren't utterly clueless, are ardently anti-business! Does anyone in the DASH core, devs or business, have the first fucking clue how important Vendors are? That "the user experience" is about them, too? How can vendors USE it if it's hostile to vendors? USERS! It's not just the ponzi-traders... DASH actually ahs the ability to be useful in real life business! Just because no other coin can make that claim, DASH should ignore it's own feature set and make absolutely zero effort to make itself user-friendly to that entire half of the economy thus far neglected by design by other cryptos? HELLO!? WAKE UP, FUCKERS! Those vendors who looked at Crypto already and turned away are not going to be reeled in by DASH continuing to go out of it's way to look like the duck, and quack like the duck, that they've already rejected.

I'm quoting myself to point out that this is ignored. You won't even address it. It's like Kryptonite to your imagined Superman selves. Pretend it's not there!

Business Development is a huge part of the project and one of the most important at this stage. Without partnerships with 3rd party service providers then there is no Evolution and our currency is way less usable.

There are none! There are no partnerships. There are no retailers lined up and ready to go. There hasn't even been an effort to do it.

First of all, it is quite surprising to me that the topic which was created to summarize the DashWorld project (at least I guess it was the idea of it) became a place for blaming the core team for almost everything (also for the project failure). I don't understand this... A person who decides to submit the project to the system is the person responsible for the project execution. Period. PM of the project (every project, not only this one) has to be sure that all of the resources needed for successful execution are secured, goals are achievable, team and necessary tools are available.

He admitted his faults.

You've been called out and caught red-handed. Are you seriously going to pretend all of the things he pointed out have just disappeared?

No shit, business development is the most important aspect of DASH. It's the thing that DASH can do that no other crypto can. So... Where is it? Why do you marginalize, shun, and actively undermine all who aren't part of the crony team? Why has so much money disappeared into pork projects with no results, but I couldn't even get properly re-imbursed for 1% of what you've wasted on absolutely nothing? Where are your retail partners lined up and ready to go? Have you even tried? You did everything you could to get rid of what I had to offer. Where's yours? I left you guys to it, and all you did was gather rope to hang yourselves. Your constant craving for power and control might have been written off as over protectiveness in the beginning, but now... You've nullified the DGBB (it's not even part of the PoService).

You're so accustomed to being ponzi-head community organizers that you haven't the first clue how to deal with real business in the real world, and aren't even trying.

 

[camosoul]

Evolution Development - Graphic Design

This is the one nit you managed to pick out of that giant stack and call it a point made?

You've ignored Lamassu, again... Where'd that money actually go? You're not the only people with contacts, ya know. Find someone at that organization that even knows DASH exists. I dare you.

Business development? Where's the beef?

Why have you made this into an us-vs-them dynamic? This started out months ago as good ideas and suggestions, and all you've done is push back and lie. We're supposed to be on the same team, but you flat out reject all that aren't already part of your cabal...

 

[rustycase]

@fible1 ... Volunteers can be a wonderful attribute, yet I don't think a business concern should be reliant upon them.
Someone doing good work should be paid.

... Golly-gee ! I DO like that Porsche Cabriolet ! Could we paint DASH logos on it ?


rc

 

[demo]

Why do you marginalize, shun, and actively undermine all who aren't part of the crony team? Why has so much money disappeared into pork projects with no results, but I couldn't even get properly re-imbursed for 1% of what you've wasted on absolutely nothing? Where are your retail partners lined up and ready to go? Have you even tried? You did everything you could to get rid of what I had to offer..... You've nullified the DGBB (it's not even part of the PoService).

WAKE UP STUPIDS!

THATS WHY REVERSIBLE TRANSACTIONS ARE NEEDED. Reversible transactions should be prohibited of course for interpersonal transactions and should only be allowed within a predefined (and voted) time frame and as a result of a political decision (a vote).

YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO TAKE THE MONEY BACK, FROM ANY PORK PROJECTS OF THE BUDGET THAT HAVE NO RESULTS AT ALL!
YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO TAX THEM!

Dont you see reversible transactions (as a result of a political decision) coming, as a necessary feature of the winner digital cash of the future?
You must be blind....