Hi Foundation members. Its come out on BCT that a user is speaking on behalf of the Dash Foundation Board members. I don't see this user as a foundation member never mind as a board member. Someone on BCT has asked the following: "Can you please explain your role on the foundation board and how you came to obtain the position?" This is a valid question...as the user masternode was speaking as an authority on Dash. Please advise... Is this user on the board? and 2, how did he become a board member? Richard
it would definitely helps if the board members would show their DCT/BCT login's on the main page https://www.darkcoinfoundation.org/about/team/ so everybody knows who is what ! and sure, they should have introduced themselves to the broader community, back in the day all went too fast as always Ed is a great asset to the community and foundation he is very involved with help and advice (Legal) + supporting Dash and pushing the project onto new Merchants, Exchanges and such
Hi thanks. I didn't know this. In hindsight, maybe we can be more transparent with who we are. I know many if you are not interested in the public exposure route I've taken. But it's important that we know who the board members are and how they get elected. Transparency is very important. I would like to know how some of this works. Thanks guys.
As for how he became a board member, he is the one who pushed for the creation of the foundation. He is very close to some big dash investors and he approached Evan about this because he believed it could help the project to have a legal entity. The initial directors, including me, were not elected and I understand that some people may feel that we are not legitimized. It is a fair comment, but you can't legally create a foundation without having the initial board of directors. And you can't have members --who would be able to vote-- until you have the foundation, so there is no way to avoid this. Our initial term is for two years, which is enough time to set up the foundation and recruit a healthy number of members.After that, elections will be held Edit: I was wrong about who approached who, Evan has told me that he approached Ed and Harold (also in the board) and they pushed it from there. It doesn't matter much, but I wanted to correct that
Btw, the bylaws are published in the website. Really boring read, but they contain a lot of important info: https://www.darkcoinfoundation.org/about/bylaws/
Hi Fernando, thanks for the reply. As a member of numerous boards and associations I can appreciate the logistics. At times it seems I spend more time with community boards then running my own company. That being said, we will need to thread lightly on these procedures moving forward. At 2% of DASH... We(my small local group of DASH holders) don't have much say and have to trust the Big hitters to look out for our common good. I think a paper describing this in an official post from the board would be helpful. I had commented the other day that I thought the board had been elected by foundation member and I apologize for this error. Edit: transparency will be of paramount importance. FYI, I have no issue with how the current "selection" process was utilized in the past.
BTW: Is there any plan on when the foundation website will be rebranded to Dash? Currently, all the texts still refer to Darkcoin.
i think it is a much bigger deal to change DRK Foundation to Dash Foundation that we think ! legal papers and all that
Sure, there are some forms to fill (and possibly get notarized). But the copy texts need to be changed, too, and that can be done in parallel. I mean, right now it says "Our vision is to ensure all people have the opportunity to realize Darkcoin’s potential." on the website's front page, and all the subpages continue with Darkcoin, prices are listed in DRK and so on. The only mention of Dash is in one blog article, so at least to new users I imagine that the situation is a bit confusing.
So the foundation was his idea in the first place? There have been some rather brutal changes that have passed through the foundation which worry me, alot, namely increasing the money supply to hire the Shadow team and changing the name to something that is not only already in use in the crypto world, but in the financial software world as well, namely by a startup that is backed by 12 VCs. IMHO these are reckless changes, and the fact this person gets to propagate these changes simply because he owns a lot of drk at the moment, worries me even more. I would really appreciate it if everyone would... 1. Keep this article in mind : https://ihb.io/2015-04-04/news/bitcoin-millionaire-olivier-janssens-expose-bitcoin-foundation-16737 2. Ask for masternode to explain his role on the foundation board and using that information put his continued position on the board up to a vote from all foundation members. 3. Please, for the love of god, fill in this section: https://www.darkcoinfoundation.org/about/meetings/
"increasing the money supply to hire the Shadow team" - Wasn't this just an idea Evan floated before the community decided against it? "changing the name to something..." -The name itself was suggested by the community (namely Oblox) and the foundation board (I believe it was Masternode himself) said that they had talked to trademark lawyers and gotten the go ahead. What more should have been done? Some people will always love the name DRK and hate the name DASH. You can't please everybody. The only thing that should have been handled better was the announcement and Evan explained why that was botched. As far as I can tell there have not been ANY changes that have gone through without the majority of the community being behind them. Being careful is fine, but I think it is more than a bit much to paint the foundation as some questionable entity as you seem to be in your post. Frankly, I don't think the fact that the foundation exists has even mattered all that much. I honestly can't think of one thing that can be clearly pinned on the foundation, good or bad, to date. If you have one please enlighten me. Edit: To be clear, I am not making light of any work that may be going behind the scenes at the foundation. I just think it is far to early to judge them especially in an overly suspicious light as that may hamper things down the road.
I think we should all take it easy sure the word "Foundation" has a bad taste in the crypto world due to BTC but that does NOT mean that the same mistakes are done over here. can we improve our Foundation and transparency, sure we can and i agree we should, and i know work is done on these parts. But as usual we are understaffed and most of the work falls in the same old busy hands as usual so please be patient and give this some time to settle in and fall into place. Sorry they have not been that verbal and transparent in public as they maybe should have been, but then , that is not their job. There is a Foundation spokesperson in place, but that person has all hands full as usual ! they are doing their part, are supportive to the Dev Team and community and we should be happy to have them
These are great discussions and where the majority of learning happens! This is all the work of volunteers that are spread out across the globe. Many have never been involved in "foundation" work. Taking a step back and take a deep breath and lets polish this up. Thus far its been pretty good work...so lets move forward and work towards polishing this up. And to fill in what Mr alpha/numeric Name askes in point 3) let us please make sure this is all transparent. Minutes a must! When possible...a vote of foundation members on more contagious issues or at minimum a discussion. Everyone on here has the same goal...to see DASH succeed and gain market acceptance.
I believe Fernando answered point number 2 in his above post. All the current directors volunteered or where asked to join by the dev team, due to special skills set needed, legal prowess for example . Their term in 2 years at which point...all future boards will be elected by foundation members. I think this is reasonable...and as long as directors are currently working for the good of our cummunity...there would be no need to go to vote at this time IMHO.
I'm not here to spill the beans , FUD, or slander. I was getting a fishy feeling, did some digging, asked some important people some important questions about a week ago, and I guess its obvious how I feel about the answers I received. If you care then get some answers. If you are overwhelmed with optimism and and have no interest, luck you!
I think you are overstating and misunderstanding the current "foundation" . Truth is the foundation as an entity plays no particular role right now. Some of the users you mention, like masternodes, are great volunteers for Dash and they contribute pro bono like everyone else. They do great things like get pro bono legal advice and promote Dash. They have helped in meaningful ways like helping us get into Bitfinex. All of this is done in their quality of volunteers not by any "foundation". Creating a first legal entity was just something that made sense at the time. In the future there may be 10 different foundations. We are really thinking of innovating with something truly decentralized, never done before in crypto, through masternode voting. So we might all end up going in a completely different direction, it is a discovery process. In the end, the people that want to help just go ahead and do it. All the active volunteers just do things period. Some of them dont have much in terms of coin some do. But they all have something in common: they act beyond the discussion forums. We don't have a defined decentralized management system yet, not even Bitcoin does, we need one. We are working on it don't get confused by the term "foundation" it truly means nothing yet. This is a hard problem but I think we have an opportunity to solve it in a really innovative way, just like we solve the full node issue. That is how we will be successful by coming up with creative solutions to hard problems. P.S. excuse typos on the phone at the moment.
Evan has just posted about the foundation in this forum, but has started a new thread: https://dashtalk.org/threads/a-word-about-the-foundation-its-mission-and-directors.4616/
Btw, you can read as to how I came about joining the board on the following thread, but I've also put my response here below: https://dashtalk.org/threads/a-word-about-the-foundation-its-mission-and-directors.4616/ "Yes, Evan knew I had access to resources that could help make this happen [the foundation]. I recommended an attorney I've worked with in the past, Harold Boo, whom has experience structuring 501(c)6 legal entities and has had interest and involvement in cryptocurrencies prior. Anyone who knows Harold knows he's meticilous, fair, and an all around solid guy. So we started the process of setting up the foundation which took a couple of months. I covered the initial legal expenses of setting up the foundation which were later reimbursed. During the initial discussions with Evan, we felt it was an obvious choice that he be on the board representing the tech. We thought Harold should be on the board being the only one of us with expertise in setting up and operating foundations and to help make sure everything runs smoothly (which he has done very well). We knew for certain there should be a privacy advocate and both Fernando and Kristov Atlas were initially recommended. I volunteered to be on the board to represent Darkcoin as an investment, as I knew many of the largest holders. And lastly we knew it was critical to make sure the community had a voice on the board to which Evan recommended Chris Rimoldi. In the end we feel we have a very balanced and fair board that represents all the aspects of the coin each with an equal voice. Tech, Privacy, Community, Investment and Foundation."
