can we actually get a fucking plan going?
I have some thoughts, some of them are contradictory. But the good news is the game is fun and the site is just a front end to an sql database, so solutions are not impossible.
I think moving forward the role of trust is going to be a very sensitive issue. Even if everyone agreed on some particular person as being trustworthy to fit a role and that person was willing, the game and players have been burnt badly by trust and newcomers will either be aware of this and satisfied with the solution or will simply stay away.
Even something as simple as maintaining a git of a text file to-do list of things needed to get CK on track would require trusting someone with merge authority. Even that text file would be massively helpful though. I don't think its fair to directly ask specific well-known players with excellent reputations if they would be willing fit a role like that, but if willing ones did exist that would be massively helpful to know.
It seems like Risto had an arrangement with the fellow who coded the site that includes expectations extending into the future. As I see it, that money arrangement is irrelevant to the future of the project at this point. I'm wondering, and someone might already know the answer, would he be willing to hand access of the current github over to someone else and then be completely free of any expectations to be invlolved with CK , atleast by any of us.
I keep hammering on git, but this project needs a lot of work right now and it is a miraculous workflow management system with the ability to achieve a reduced trust scenario. Git would even be helpful to flesh out ideas enough to conclude CK is impossible fix if that were the case, but I don't think it is.
I think perhaps moving to something like being hosted within etherium or similar projects is potentially a good path forward. Simple is likely best so even though there is likely a hacky way to have masternode type bullshit providing both the front end of the database as well as the database itself being pointed to by a DNS server, that is definitely not as simple as moving to an etherium like platform.
It would be preferable by everyone I am guessing to not have to resort to a restart. I've been playing around with ways to have 'M' (or is it 'm'?) calculated in a way that would make people's debts whole. Part of me thinks it would benefit the project to remove its association with lovely, lovely monero. That was a brilliant plan on risto's part, if it had worked out it would have brought lots of interest to xmr but xmr is doing great without it and I'm not sure but perhaps it would polarize people about getting involved with the game. It would be lovely to take advantage of FFS but I don't think that's fair to ask honestly. Some of my ideas on how to calculate a new M look like:
where
C = (Value of outstanding debts using spot prices)
oQ = total quantity of oldM
nQ = current total quantity of newM (should this be fixed or allowed to to fluctuate? both ways have interesting effects)
S = spot price of XMR
newM = price of 1 unit of ... well... newM
newM = ((C + (oQ * S)) / nQ) + (S / (1 + (S * .01)))
This would have some strange effects. In theory, as I understand it at least, it creates something like the opposite of a fractional reserve, which would be used to pay down C and (oQ * S). Basically it would be impossible to buy oldM, and your house valued in newM would be worth significantly less in terms of USD, but you would over time if things worked well be able to withdraw your oldM from the stash generated by reverse fractional reserve effect (hopefully managed by smart contracts or multi-sig rather than humans). Anyway this would pay down (oQ * S) as well. So what we would be left with (assuming anyone is playing the game) would after time be
newM = (0 + (total value of unconverted oldM) / nQ) + (S / (1 + (S * .01)))
or
newM = ((total value of unconverted oldM) / nQ) + (S / (1 + (S * .01)))
The idea of (S / (1 + (S * .01))) is that even though it is tied to monero's price, it is much less affected by xmr's volatility, and the interested but less financially well-off folks could play and the price would be (a lot) more stable. And if the game took off there would be an increased demand for newM for which people rush the gates to pay a premium for, which makes that poor fellow rich but not as vulnerable to price drops in xmr (heaven forbid).
It's not fully fleshed out but I'm playing with it.
I am definitely not in the same league as the best mathematicians in this room so please excuse me, but as I see it, this would create the opposite of a fractional reserve which could be used to make everyone whole, while also reducing effects from volatility of xmr pricing.
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