Bootstrap the Litecoin Community Crowdfunding System

Xinxi · March 31, 2021, 2:08pm

I like your proposal. Yes, I think we should use this forum.

Lite_Diss · March 31, 2021, 2:37pm

Then… (my mind trying to propose something simple… kiss… kiss… )

why don’t we create a discourse category for it? something like:

Crowdfunding

To mimic Monero CSS, they have this workflow that we could translate into tags:

Ideas
Funding required
Work in progress
Completed tasks

Searing · March 31, 2021, 6:56pm

pretty sure the list above would look lame in that the only task I know of besides the very lame litcoin block card which they insist will work and any account in the usa i make says pending…and the very, very worse game I’ve ever seen web wise litebringer LTC game they have mimblewimble only which MAY do something after 3 years and only real update in that time period…probably 4 years by the time it is done.

So they would only show the 3 above…and would not be a good look IMHO

no development money…developers go to projects the pay them before launch …so this is the
progress you get on no cash IMHO.

Brad

Lite_Diss · March 31, 2021, 7:17pm

I’m confused. Isn’t creating an ecosystem the only way we can achieve progress and make developers work on ltc rather than anything else?

Searing · March 31, 2021, 10:42pm

i knew some developers back in the day…they would develop new sh*tcoins for a cut of the

premine or ICO or whatever…there are not enough of them…and they don’t really work

for free anymore like back in the day. If you have the skills to program at the level of an LTC

or BTC developer…you certainly can build your own sh*tcoin if you wanted as well…that

is or was the easy part…keeping the sh*tcoin up and working etc…was the issue to get your $$$

sounds harsh, but heard this more than a few times about lack of BTC and LTC devs that are

not crypto whales with no need for money and have the skills and time

brad

Lite_Diss · April 2, 2021, 5:16pm

Draft for CSS

We could start using a Monero CSS proposal’s like skeleton on this forum. And find a way to build a CSS that fits this community.

For improvements, I think should consider:

To not have a repository of ideas
We should use Discourse forum as much as possible, including writing a simple plugin
People should be able to contributed not being a developer
An idea could be implemented by more people than the author
We could integrate it to the gitlab/github workflow
We could have more contributions from ppl outside our community, including discourse/gitlab plugins developers

I think we could do better than the example below, but this is way better than nothing.

[css] <- if we choose to write a discourse plugin to better display the proposal.
---
layout: fr # i don't know what's the use for it
title: Bootstrap the Litecoin Community Crowdfunding System
author: Xinxi
date: August 31, 2019
amount: 45
milestones:
  - name: Submit proposition to review
    funds: 0% (0 LTC)
    done:
    status: finished
  - name: Crowdfund the idea
    funds: 0% (0 LTC)
    done:
    status: finished
  - name: Create a spec to the system
    funds: 0% (0 LTC)
    done:
    status: unfinished
  - name: Develop the system
    funds: 0% (0 LTC)
    done:
    status: unfinished
  - name: Two-year maintenance
    funds: 0% (0 LTC)
    done:
    status: unfinished
payouts:
  - date:
    amount:
  - date:
    amount:
  - date:
    amount:

# Introduction

The Litecoin team have been doing very well. Besides regular updates of the Litecoin Core repository, we activated SegWit in 2017, which helped Bitcoin greatly with its SegWit activation. [...]
---

[/css]

Lite_Diss · April 7, 2021, 1:54pm

litecoin-ccs

I am trying to understand how can we build the ccs using external api’s (discourse and gitlab/github).

Xinxi · April 14, 2021, 7:53am

Here is the portfolio performance:

ltcbuddy · April 14, 2021, 1:33pm

I wired up a quick prototype that uses github actions and github pages to run a fully github hosted solution at GitHub - ltcbuddy/lccs_proposals and GitHub - ltcbuddy/lccs_site.

I just threw a small static site together to show that it could be done and to hopefully show you the promise of how the system could work. Obviously, the static site code (a jekyll static site) would need to be worked on. I just didn’t want to spend more time on it if it was going to be dismissed. If you see the promise, then I can finish the static site. The hard part of wiring up the notifications between repos based on user interactions seems to work pretty reliably.

spirobel · April 20, 2021, 4:58pm

Im interested in integrating litecoin with discourse. I did some discourse plugins already. It took a while to learn.
you can see some examples here:

You can also take a look at the code on my github account: spirobel · GitHub
I also recently did a closed source integration of discourse and discord that is used by a larger discord server. I think the knowledge gained might help with this integration as well.

I agree with monero when it comes to the importance of fungibility of a cryptocurrency, but I disagree with their choice in forum software.
I also think that their ways of proposing ideas is too cumbersome and infeasible for non technical users.

I think it would make a lot of sense to have a litecoin discourse integration. It would enable a lot more than just crowdfunding in this forum. Just off the top of my head:

ltc payments for vip subscriptions
Discourse Subscriptions - plugin - Discourse Meta
ltc tipping for forum users
forum based marketplaces

But I can not write this for free bros. I held 267 eth once but got rekt with margin trading in 2014 lol. So I am basically back to zero. So if I write this I need some cryptos in return. Either ltc or xmr I can not accept fiat. Maybe we can find a solution that is fair to all.
thaaanks,
Spirobel

Lite_Diss · April 20, 2021, 5:35pm

I love to see the effort that @ltcbuddy made and I think using github/gitlab is a great milestone to improve our community. I also think github/gitlab have a great API that we could use on our benefit. The only problem is that github/gitlab are made for developers. “Forking/Branching”, for example, are not easy.

As I said, I think writing basic and maintainable discourse plugins are a way to achieve an ecosystem broader than the development tasks.

I would love to see @ltcbuddy, @spirobel and @Xinxi combining efforts to make this happen.

But first things first, let’s launch LTC-CCS!

ltcbuddy · April 20, 2021, 10:49pm

I tend to agree that GitHub is not what casual users are going to want to use to create proposals. They’d have to create a separate account and navigate using the GitHub GUI. My heart’s not very into that design, but I see the merits of how it is a pretty good managed solution that technical users can work with natively. I was surprised that the Monero system was, in effect, a wrapper around GitLab content management. But, it makes sense as a clever use of existing tools. I thought to myself, “That’s pretty easy looking, I bet I could wire that up”. I didn’t think I’d get paid anything anyways, so if my work doesn’t get used, I’ll be fine with that. Maybe it helps move the process along.

Lite_Diss · April 21, 2021, 3:54pm

I think we definitely need to use github or gitlab (like monero). It’s the standard way developers communicate nowadays. Git itself is an awesome tool and github/gitlab have a powerful API. Also, you have done a great job connecting the hooks to generate a static jekyll website.

I think we definitely need a well written roadmap to this project, so we could make everybody work (and get paid, if ppl are willing to). With @spirobel help, we could do much better than Monero’s CCS and integrate the Crowdfunding project (using github/gitlab) to our litecointalk community. That’s powerful.

As I said before, the simpler the better. I think we must start a category ‘Crowdfunding’ to list ‘Ideas’ and ‘ongoing projects’ here on discourse.

@spirobel do you think we could access discourse as an json API? Do you know a good plugin to do that?

Lite_Diss · April 21, 2021, 4:18pm

Also, I have published the effort that I made to publish this image here:

I am not concerned about creating a functional website, but to make the wireframe of the functions we need.

spirobel · April 22, 2021, 5:43am

Its certainly possible to access discourse via an api. You would most likely use this:

its super easy to use. But I would suggest for a moment that we step back for a minute and think if this is really the best direction to take. For example if you look at this proposal in the monero ccs:

thats a very non technical task. People that dont know about git and gitlab could work on it. But they cant, because git is a barrier for them. I personally love git and I am also currently working on an electron app to make it easier for non technical people to use git. But that is not trivial.
I looked at your proposal and created a quick mockup with categories and subcategories (could also be done with tags) in my dev instance:
https://cidian.social/c/community-crowdfunding-system/6
the appearance could easily be changed with a themecomponent to look more like the monero ccs. look for example at this (notice the card like appearance at the top):

But the big technical question is how are people going to vote for and fund ideas. I think this is really the hard part. Theoretically we could use the built in poll feature of discourse like:

Do you want this?

yes
no

0 voters

but the issue is that people can easily create sockpuppet accounts and fund their own ideas this way.
I think the solution is to only give people the power to vote that donated money. This could be realized as I mentioned before by integrating discourse with the ltc wallet. Thats what I am going to do.
I will take this subscriptions plugin and add ltc as a payment method Discourse Subscriptions - plugin - Discourse Meta
And then instead of getting a subscription people get the amount they donated tied to their discourse account. And they can use this amount to vote for stuff they want.
Please tell me if this makes sense to you!
I also think it has the added benefit that people can use discourse and ltc to sell digital products as subscriptions. Thats an amazing feature that I want to use myself (because I want to sell my code and video tutorials as a product. But I dont like fiat lol )

Lite_Diss · April 22, 2021, 5:40pm

We agree about git. Also agree that we could use categories and/or tags, both have some advantages and some drawbacks.

I think people can have power to vote and also think sockpuppets are not that much of a big deal. Voting system will only make the proposals more visible. Apart of that, the proposal still need to be funded.

1 - Idea: At first stage, we have an ‘Idea’ that will receive comments on forum and will became more mature. Voting allows people to demonstrate it is indeed a necessary feature/task, also ppl can comment on the general structure of the proposition and detail it. This “Bootstrap” is a good example.
2 - Funding period: After the discussion and voting, the funding period will begin. Propositions will start to receive funds and can start to meet certain milestones.
3 - Work in progress: People will work on propositions and begin to receive as they complete milestones described on the proposition. This step can or can’t be attached to gitlab/github, but I don’t think the use of it must be mandatory. Although it would be nice to have an easy connection to retrieve infos: project_name: translation; git_api: https://gitlab…;
4 - Completed tasks: Projects/milestones that are completed, public reviewed and can have funds unlocked. I think this is more complicated that the voting system itself.

ltcbuddy · April 24, 2021, 11:38am

Kinda thinking about it, the CCS doesn’t concern itself as much with the management of the lifecycle processes as it does with creating a website that pulls together the status of the various proposals. It out sources the content management to git and lifecycle tracking to github/gitlab. You can get close to that by making sure to tag forum posts appropriately. I think there is a fundamental problem with how the funding all goes to LTC foundation controlled addresses. It’s a well-known problem that other ideas, like Mike Hearn’s Lighthouse, tried to avoid by using native features of the cryptocurrency being used. I don’t want to be a jerk, but you can see the problem in action here. We’re collaborating on this and trying to get feedback, and all we get is a post now and then about how they are playing stock market with the funds that were donated.

Xinxi · April 24, 2021, 11:55am

The foundation has its own constraints. That’s why it did not try to do everything in house but created this market between donors and the contributors.

By playing with the stock market I guess you mean fund management. It’s a necessary step to lower the risk and make this project successful.

spirobel · April 24, 2021, 9:42pm

Thats a good point. I understand that @Xinxi has a duty to be diligent with the funds that were donated, but the issue is that right now ideas are not being proposed, money is not flowing and people are not working to move ltc forward that would like to.
This could be fixed very fast. Look at for example the categories I setup in my dev instance as I explained in Bootstrap the Litecoin Community Crowdfunding System - #36 by spirobel

I assume you mean the marketplace category https://litecointalk.io/c/market-place/11 right?
It could be improved by a little bit more moderation. Similar to: marketplace - Discourse Meta but still there is the issue: who is going to benefit the community if there is no incentive for it?
A quick fix might be this: setup an ideas category were people can pitch their ideas on what they could do to move ltc forward. Instead of giving 5 LTC to random users that signed up before a certain date you could give money to people that pitch an idea and execute on it.
This would be a good start but still it does not solve the underlying issue:
The centralization of the decision making on what to spend funds on with the foundation. This is how I would solve this problem:

spirobel:

I think the solution is to only give people the power to vote that donated money. This could be realized as I mentioned before by integrating discourse with the ltc wallet. Thats what I am going to do.
I will take this subscriptions plugin and add ltc as a payment method Discourse Subscriptions - plugin - Discourse Meta
And then instead of getting a subscription people get the amount they donated tied to their discourse account. And they can use this amount to vote for stuff they want.
Please tell me if this makes sense to you!
I also think it has the added benefit that people can use discourse and ltc to sell digital products as subscriptions. Thats an amazing feature that I want to use myself (because I want to sell my code and video tutorials as a product. But I dont like fiat lol )

Xinxi · April 25, 2021, 6:59am

People have donated for this project. It is now my responsibility not LF’s responsibility to finish the project.

You guys come to help. I appreciate it, but there would be a contractual relationship between me and the one chosen by me. I am delegated by the donors to finish the job so I will make all decisions on how to manage the funds and allocate them properly.

If you guys want to finish the project collectively, that’s fine. But eventually, I will be responsible for the failure or success of the project.