Any new thing may be a scam (especially those unannounced and unplanned) but at this time we cannot be sure.

A person's ability to communicate in English does not dictate the legitimacy of a cause (especially in another country that uses a different type of English) and neither should other things that may vary from culture to culture (such as methods of contact, website design, name confusion, etc). There are some wonderful causes where the founder can't speak English well, I'm sure. We must give people the benefit of the doubt while keeping a sharp eye. This is KarmaCoin after all. We wouldn't want others to think we're a scam, either, so it is a lesson in process for us. (That's why I'm so vocal about branding and message.. so people will give us serious consideration worldwide, including in countries where English is not widely spoken. We will have setbacks from rolling out globally as well.)

The point is that these things will come up. It's good that it's happening now because it shows us that we need a process for these sorts of things (including forum moderation, if possible) before we become more popular. This way, we can make sure that anyone using the "KarmaCoin" name in future is likely to be doing so for a legitimate reason.

Who will volunteer to create the process? We can be quick to put something down but how quick will we be to lift Karma up and "make it happen"?

And who will help to work on a solid and unified branding message so that other people will know how legitimate we are?