# Peercoin and information transparency

**URL:** <https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/t/peercoin-and-information-transparency/761>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [November 17, 2013, 4:39pm UTC](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/t/peercoin-and-information-transparency/761 "2013-11-17T16:39:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 14\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Ben](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/df788c/32.png) [@Ben](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/u/Ben)\
**Post date:** [November 17, 2013, 4:39pm UTC](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/t/peercoin-and-information-transparency/761/1 "2013-11-17T16:39:10Z")

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After reading the on-going saga of taint, Coin Validation and the Bitcoin Foundation, and then shaking my head in disbelief, I started to think about ways that the Peercoin community can avoid blowups like these in the future.

I know there Sunny has made a statement about not wanting to ever have a Peercoin Foundation, and I’ve see John and others on the forum here bring it up as well, so I’m heartened by that. The main question though, and it was hinted to on the “Coin Validation” thread here, is how do we avoid getting ourselves into a situation where a “Peercoin Foundation” / “Peercoin Consortium” could potentially arise…

I’d like to propose that we start down the path to 100% transparency by taking an immediate step: eliminating the concept of a “private” board.

Strategically, while I see the usefulness of an “invite only” section on the boards to reducing the potential for conversation topics that spiral out of control, are we better off making the current “Private Members Section” public? It appears to me that a lot of the (current) discontent with the Bitcoin Foundation is that they’ve been discussing ecosystem-wide changes behind closed doors, so to speak.

If the “Private Members Section” was renamed “Volunpeers Forum” and opened up, I doubt anyone who wasn’t interested in helping would spend too much time trolling the boards. We could employ a heavier-handed moderation, if we stated up front that tangential conversations to the original topic would be moved/removed.

This may be a utopian vision, but think of the goodwill that could be generated by ensuring Peercoin remains open-source, with an open-community and 100% transparent from “Day 1”. The best way to engender trust is to let the World see that there is nothing _not_ to trust.

I’m the new guy here, and I don’t want to give off the impression that I’m blasé about asking for a change of this magnitude, considering that the current set of Volunpeers have done such an awesome job building this up. I was initially attracted to Peercoin because of its design, but I’ve reached the conclusion that it is worth supporting because of the passion and drive that I see from you guys.

Just my 0.02 PPC

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**Author:** ![Sentinelrv](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/user_avatar/discourse.peercoin-library.org/sentinelrv/32/24_2.png) [@Sentinelrv](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/u/Sentinelrv)\
**Post date:** [November 17, 2013, 5:26pm UTC](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/t/peercoin-and-information-transparency/761/2 "2013-11-17T17:26:45Z")

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I wholeheartedly agree with this. I’ve never liked the idea of a private board, where the rest of the community is closed off and can’t see what’s going on. It creates separation instead of inclusion. It prevents new people from getting involved and sharing ideas freely. We need to show people that we have nothing to hide. That will go a long way in gaining their trust.

I personally have stuck to the Peercoin General Discussion board because the private nature of these boards limits their activity. Barely anything gets done here, so I need to resort to getting help and feedback from General Discussion. If it were opened up to the public, these specific boards would help organize a lot of development activity in different areas.

The only reason I’ve found for having a private area is to protect certain information, like our media email list and a discussion we had about domain names we could use, so nobody stole them before we could obtain them. Is there another solution to protecting this information than storing them in a secret area?

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**Author:** ![Ben](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/df788c/32.png) [@Ben](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/u/Ben)\
**Post date:** [November 17, 2013, 7:34pm UTC](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/t/peercoin-and-information-transparency/761/3 "2013-11-17T19:34:40Z")

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If it’s info like that, I don’t see a reason that we can’t keep one forum locked to those who would need that info, if it’s not operational for the website or marketing efforts (and only things like that list), however, I’d prefer to see it open to everyone.

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**Author:** ![Sentinelrv](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/user_avatar/discourse.peercoin-library.org/sentinelrv/32/24_2.png) [@Sentinelrv](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/u/Sentinelrv)\
**Post date:** [November 17, 2013, 7:54pm UTC](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/t/peercoin-and-information-transparency/761/4 "2013-11-17T19:54:47Z")

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This also goes in line with this thread…

[http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=926.0](http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=926.0)

We could make an announcement that due to the secrecy and closed doors approach of the Bitcoin Foundation, we plan to open up our forum and be completely transparent to everyone in the community.

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**Author:** ![system](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/uploads/default/original/2X/3/3a68710d99d0495cf7ad748373c541ebb5f2f3bb.png) [@system](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [November 17, 2013, 10:30pm UTC](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/t/peercoin-and-information-transparency/761/5 "2013-11-17T22:30:19Z")

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Given how easy it is to access the private boards (apply to become a Volunpeer, wait a couple days, and you have access), yes there is not much sense in making them locked out from the public. I do like the idea of having dedicated boards for Social Media, Research, etc. to streamline the discussions, but at this point keeping them private isn’t of much use.

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**Author:** ![Sentinelrv](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/user_avatar/discourse.peercoin-library.org/sentinelrv/32/24_2.png) [@Sentinelrv](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/u/Sentinelrv)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2013, 8:55pm UTC](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/t/peercoin-and-information-transparency/761/6 "2013-11-18T20:55:25Z")

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Fuzzy, JBT, what do you guys think?

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**Author:** ![Fuzzybear](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/user_avatar/discourse.peercoin-library.org/fuzzybear/32/92_2.png) [@Fuzzybear](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/u/Fuzzybear)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2013, 9:17pm UTC](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/t/peercoin-and-information-transparency/761/7 "2013-11-18T21:17:02Z")

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Yeah I was a little reluctant to make a private board for this reason, but at the time there were topics that we wanted to discus in private.

I think that is what PM’s are for now that we are a bit better organised. (thanks to JBT for that)

I would suggest a compromise.  
The use of the private board can still remain for Peercoin Activist members,so they are the only ones who can post in it. But we make it viewable by all… so everyone can see what we discussing, and we can keep important threads on topic and uncluttered etc.

How’s that sound?

As you said its easy enough for anyone to become a peercoin activist so if someone wants to get involved it should be that simple but lets us guide those that want to get more involved from those just looking for help say?

Fuzzybear

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**Author:** ![system](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/uploads/default/original/2X/3/3a68710d99d0495cf7ad748373c541ebb5f2f3bb.png) [@system](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2013, 9:18pm UTC](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/t/peercoin-and-information-transparency/761/8 "2013-11-18T21:18:48Z")

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[quote=“FuzzyBear, post:7, topic:761”]Yeah I was a little reluctant to make a private board for this reason, but at the time there were topics that we wanted to discus in private.

I think that is what PM’s are for now that we are a bit better organised. (thanks to JBT for that)

I would suggest a compromise.  
The use of the private board can still remain for Peercoin Activist members,so they are the only ones who can post in it. But we make it viewable by all… so everyone can see what we discussing, and we can keep important threads on topic and uncluttered etc.

How’s that sound?

As you said its easy enough for anyone to become a peercoin activist so if someone wants to get involved it should be that simple but lets us guide those that want to get more involved from those just looking for help say?

Fuzzybear[/quote]

+1

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**Author:** ![Sentinelrv](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/user_avatar/discourse.peercoin-library.org/sentinelrv/32/24_2.png) [@Sentinelrv](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/u/Sentinelrv)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2013, 9:33pm UTC](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/t/peercoin-and-information-transparency/761/9 "2013-11-18T21:33:02Z")

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That sounds good. It creates a motivation for people to want to volunteer. They’ll be able to see things that are going on without them and will want to join up so they can participate. One question, is it possible we could have a separate board for all the individual blogs and move them over from the main private board? Then we can use the main private board for more important stuff. Right now it’s too cluttered. If people don’t know about the volunteer link on the main website, we could create a sticky thread on the main private board that explains how people can gain access to post.

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**Author:** ![Ben](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/df788c/32.png) [@Ben](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/u/Ben)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2013, 10:41pm UTC](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/t/peercoin-and-information-transparency/761/10 "2013-11-18T22:41:39Z")

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+1, nice compromise and a way to both stay transparent and provide oversight.

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**Author:** ![Fuzzybear](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/user_avatar/discourse.peercoin-library.org/fuzzybear/32/92_2.png) [@Fuzzybear](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/u/Fuzzybear)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2013, 11:00pm UTC](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/t/peercoin-and-information-transparency/761/11 "2013-11-18T23:00:41Z")

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ok peercoin Activist board is now publicly readable but only members allowedto write in it. If you spot any bug or exceptions please let me know.

There is a new Privateboard only visible to members of the group where all personal blogs have been moved to.

Fuzzybear

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**Author:** ![Sentinelrv](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/user_avatar/discourse.peercoin-library.org/sentinelrv/32/24_2.png) [@Sentinelrv](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/u/Sentinelrv)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2013, 11:05pm UTC](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/t/peercoin-and-information-transparency/761/12 "2013-11-18T23:05:38Z")

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Is there a reason why the blog board needs to be private? I was going to use it to let people know what I’m working on, but not if nobody can see it. Maybe another board ONLY reserved for important or private information? Also, I would suggest making an announcement about opening the forum up to everyone.

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**Author:** ![Fuzzybear](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/user_avatar/discourse.peercoin-library.org/fuzzybear/32/92_2.png) [@Fuzzybear](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/u/Fuzzybear)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2013, 11:28pm UTC](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/t/peercoin-and-information-transparency/761/13 "2013-11-18T23:28:30Z")

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> [@Sentinelrv](#):
>
> Is there a reason why the blog board needs to be private? I was going to use it to let people know what I’m working on, but not if nobody can see it. Maybe another board ONLY reserved for important or private information? Also, I would suggest making an announcement about opening the forum up to everyone.

True …personally i think everything should be open… i’ll set it as that

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**Author:** ![JustaBitofTime](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/90db22/32.png) [@JustaBitofTime](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/u/JustaBitofTime)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 3:17am UTC](https://discourse.peercoin-library.org/t/peercoin-and-information-transparency/761/14 "2013-11-19T03:17:42Z")

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If something needs to be private, we can always use PM.