The cool thing is Evan never gets his feathers ruffled (well, unless he's excited about code, LOL) and is always nice and polite.
Agreed. In that vein, it might be useful to address the five latest troll-claims prominently in the OP and patiently point newbies there every time the trolls attack.
There is some reason the trolls keep pounding away here even though most of us have them on Ignore. People suggest they are targeting newbies, and that certainly might be the case although it seems that most of the newbie post action here is from troll puppet hit and run accounts. Maybe the real newbies lurk and read for a long time before wading in, in which case the trolls might actually have an audience to justify their amazing time investment.
A partly-baked draft of the kind of "permanent" rebuttal I mean - I'm sure the team can do it better:
1. See Evan's approach of pointing out what happened re the instamine (over and over and over) - it is what it is, and newbies can accept it or walk away - there is no coercion to use the coin (unlike fiat).
2. The MNs give an incentive to hold more - that is very different from "an unfair advantage to large holders". Anyone at all can join the MN (partial) owner club, whether or not they have 1000 or more coins. The concept is analogous to the now-archaic practice of banks paying interest for the use of your money - the network pays MN owners for their investment. Demonizing this practice is quite a stretch!
3. The claim that MNs are not decentralized is a semantic trick, and the implied "be afraid, be very afraid" element is a psychological trick. Consider - the American acronym-agencies allegedly spy on anything and everything. There is no particular reason to think they pay more attention to Amazon AWS than to anything else. That said, increased diversity is of course wise. As for semantic trickery, there is but one planet Earth (centralized), one Internet (centralized), one group of Dash users (centralized), blah blah. Centralization is in the eye of the beholder, but Dash grows more decentralized every day.
4. This is another "be afraid" ploy, but it is worth thinking about. The claim is that if you hold a MN (or a portion of one?) you might be harassed by future AML laws in some jurisdiction or other. True - you might - there is no way to know what witch-hunts may appear in the future. Now what - what follows from that? It is dangerous to get out of bed in the morning. It is also dangerous to remain in bed. In any case, the troll-claim here (mixing is bad) is contradictory to troll-claim 5 (not mixing is bad).
5. The "mixing is slow" claim is a useful improvement tip. It is semantically loaded though - "slow" compared to what? Regardless, it is used to assert the consequent that mixing is not the default (true, I think) and that therefore fungibility is an issue (true, I think). I seem to remember seeing suggestions for this issue such as "keep mixing running in background", but I haven't paid close enough attention to the details. I'm sure the team is working on it though.
Like this?:
Latest Clients: 12.0.55 Dash Release - see Downloads section below.
Introduction To Dash:
Getting Started GuideDash Video Series:
Learn More About DashMiscellaneous:Instamine and other complaints:1.
The "Instamine": Please see
"The Birth of Darkcoin"(now Dash), and this
interview on dashdot for more information and points of view people have about the "instamine". The first 24 hours of what was then called Xcoin had mistakes caused by an excited developer who wanted to get going, who was working a full time job and getting little sleep. Once the dust settled, everyone on board the project voted to continue despite the error.
2.
Masternode owners have "unfair advantage": The MNs are rewarded for holding coins and running a node that services the network. Anyone with 1000 coins can run a Masternode and take part in the proceeds. Anyone who doesn't have the full amount of investment needed can join one of many jointly owned Masternodes via a service or trusted group of friends. Either way, this system benefits all Dash users as well as investors in that it encourages the holding of coins (reduces volatility), secures the network and offers invaluable services.
3.
"Masternodes are centralized": Masternodes are owned and run by hundreds of people and the ownership of Masternodes and Masternode network is growing daily, as can be seen by people announcing their first, second, third, etc... Masternode in the forums as well as the Masternode count climbing on the network. Although Masternode owners are entitled to their privacy, we have been able to tell where these people are using service providers. And although at first, many choose to use a familiar and established companies, namely Amazon, the first 6 months or so, the extravagant cost of that particular company and others like it as well as word of mouth have diversified the locations of Masternodes and their service providers; not just in the USA, but all over the world. Currently, Dash has 60% the number of full, dedicated nodes that Bitcoin has with only about 1% of it's market cap. In comparison, Dash is far more secure.
4.
"Mixing makes you look like a criminal": This is another "be afraid" ploy, but it is worth thinking about. The claim is that if you hold a MN (or a portion of one?) you might be harassed by future AML laws in some jurisdiction or other. True - you might - there is no way to know what witch-hunts may appear in the future. Now what - what follows from that? It is dangerous to get out of bed in the morning. It is also dangerous to remain in bed. In any case, the claim here (mixing is bad) is contradictory to claim 5 (not mixing is bad).
[/list]
