Sex & Drugs & Gridcoin

OK now I'm joining @erkan in his criticism of the current Gridcoin problems, please dont downvote me to oblivion.

Now to Preface

Firstly

I believe in the purpose of Gridcoin and how it supports science through rewarding people for sharing the unused power of their computers to compute calculations required by scientists worldwide. BOINC is brilliant but to expand beyond the established user base, encouragement is required to offset the cost of electricity required to support the projects.

Secondly

I also personally do not give a damn about anybodies personal belief's, in that you can believe what you like as long as you don't push it in anybodies faces, don't try and "convert" anybody and generally don't affect other peoples with it.

Thirdly

I understand this is a dangerous argument to make on a crypto based site. (and yes Steemit's audience is still cryptobased and needs to expand if it wants to be successfull, but that's another subject)

And the Meat

So my criticism today is not about anything Technical, mainly as I do not feel qualified to comment on the robustness of the Gridcoin backend.

My Criticism today is more around the governance, branding and marketing of Gridcoin of which much has been made recently. As I see it Gridcoin stands out from other cryptocurrencies as it is Philanthropic and does not waste energy and computing power like the Proof of Work coins and its very existence is predicated on advancing science.

To put this succintly, Gridcoin has no Governance structure and therefore has no rules on behaviour or what face that Gridcoin shows to the world. I consider this a major blocker to Gridcoin becoming more widely accepted as anybody looking at the coin has no idea of what the coin really stands for and the direction it is heading.

Now branding has been a point of discussion recently leading to such things as the new logo (great work by the way), and branding has a huge impact on how something is percieved in the wider world. Currently all discussion is open and spread over multiple platforms, unfortunately this has led to some problems as you would expect from any open Internet discussion.

The issues caused by these, being polite, "discussions" have been as follows:

1. Bitchfest's and Flamewars:
   Come on guys, I don't care whether you believe you are right or wrong but doing this in open GRC channels just pollutes the channel. Any new user seeing this is going to be turned off straight away which is a loss for GRC and more importantly Science.

2. Drugs & Advocacy:
   OK, call me names but I can't believe that I have to tell grown ups this.

   The discussion of drugs (yes including cannabis), including; giving advice on how to cultivate, make, imbibe or even general advocacy is highly controversial and is completly unrelated to the purpose of GRC.

   I don't care what your poison is, but linking GRC to drugs which are illegal in many countries harms the legitamacy of GRC and the good work that it does. You have other forums to discuss this. Use Them!

   Yes, I know you argue we support developing drugs to fight disease but from a publicity perspective this is a completly different ball game, think general publicity not your own opinion. Gridcoin is not about legalising your pet drug of choice recreational or otherwise.

3. "Censorship"
   Firstly, there is a reason for the quote marks. Secondly, this is as close as I am getting to the current Drama

   GRC should be open in as far as its goals, its roadmap/strategy, its code and its rules & ettiquette.

   However for those actively supporting and actively working on the project at least some rules and ettiquette should be followed. Unfortunatly this does not exist, which I believe has led to the current problems as there is no strategy and no governance for when things go wrong. As such people have had differences of opinion on what should be done.

   Extremly simplified an example is:
   Some have decided issues are lower priority as long as they are not public knowledge.
   Others have decided that issues must be sorted as a priority and public knowledge is irrelevant.

How to fix this

We seriously need to start building at least a basic governance structure including what is and isn't acceptable to publically release and what is and isn't acceptable to discuss on publice GRC channels.

This document can be voted on by the in-built GRC voting mechanism, as can be moderators for our public communication channels. Moderation appointments should be time limited with an ability of a recall through vote. You know like Democracy.

People who break said rules could be banned from public GRC channels (like the rest of the internet for those who say it's not possible), reinstatement upon a vote if required.

Now I am drunk (see pick you poison above) and I know I had further points but can't remember them. Also my agument will have holes in it but the gist is correct.