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Archived [OBSOLETE] LMP - PIVX.org Squad

1. Does that mean you're completely ruling out some things that were mentioned or even popped as more important in this thread alone?:

- Security/stability: Updating the entire tech stack at least to the "latest stable possible" (considering outdated core) versions of both server daemons and Symfony + Node packages?
- Security/stability: Fixing a few of existing bugs or things mistreated by the server migration alone?
- "Hit by the truck" scenario: Completing and updating technical documentation, writing more step-by-step migration and maintenance guidelines, preparing custom .deb packages?
- Marketing: Landing pages templates with instructions how to utilize them /or/ proposing integration with one of the existing out-of-the-box web creators?
- Marketing: Refactoring news flashes to pull from beforementioned medium.com's account?
- Marketing: Campaign imagery offered by Meerkat?

2. You yourself seemed to be extremely happy with Web2Discord bridge once it was initially created and made alive; but then again - time flies, things change. It's your call.

3. Please note that the support alone does not happen only Discord's #support channel alone. I mentioned in the initial text it's more aimed towards the technical team alone; more of consultancy than "support" if you prefer the term.
- I myself have supported @Sparrow, @shorn and @Liquid369 technically and programmatically entirely for free, during my free time and without any formal or non-formal obligation to do so with things related to PIVX.org, Symfony and UNIXes.
- I have supported PIVX Labz' developers (and still do) in technical/architectural decision making process and word of advice; that includes Vue.js being a choice for MPW and organisational/structural refactoring happening.
- I have supported yourself and MANY OTHER members around, often pro-actively (which - as I understand - is nowadays punished and not rewarded) and aimed to do so even more intensively during the duration of this very proposal.

4. Even after I left, there were various discussions about plenty *broken* structures/marketing messages in the PIVX.org structure which is still burdened by Chris' initial designs.
Again in my initial text I stated working on block explorer OR said restructuring. Let it be and *at least* redesigning/restructuring the home page to fit the current state of affairs much more/better than it currently does. Mind that site was built with @furszy commiting like a machine gun in mind and focused on promoting the desktop client. Times changed. I believe I don't even have to elaborate on that.

If you think those things don't provide value because "the website isn't viewed a lot (SEO-wise)" - you are wrong. Even if it's not hitting the radar of regular bread eaters (that's a WHOLE DIFFERENT point of discussion), it is A BUSINESS CARD used by @Jeffrey/@guapic (and others involved) during various business integrations they discuss. And you probably know this yourself - there are meetings to which you really should be wearing at least Rolex watch; not to mention Patek Philippe or Audemars Piguet.
Screenshot_select-area_20231114092011.png



...and last but not least: You asked why is this proposal happening under Labz. Short answer being - because both me and Meerkat ARE Labz team members since the dawn of time; actually since Labz were still called PIVX Undeground. Why is it posted by me and not Labz then? I live by the schedule; I wanted to get this done and confirmed ASAP to be able to "move some energies around" using Snappy's narrative. JSKitty was busy and could sit to that only within the next few days. We shared the tasks. #teamwork


Then finally and concluding: if you look around - each Labz dev is getting pretty much fixed 30k PIV per capita per month and just continues working on their deliverables spending their time most efficiently at given tasks. Here you are getting TWO Labz devs (yes, don't forget that aside from design alone Meerkat is a front-end developer) for the 75% of the regular price; just as a "welcome back gift".

This proposal again is not selling you exact TODOs; those are (as we see) being shaped and discussed, then it's our job to fit as many of them within the 1-month-timeframe as possible.
This proposal is selling you two full-time devs for a month, where one of them is a designer and a front-end dev and the other is a architect, sysadm, devops and a full-stack dev.
 
Mind again: those /OR/s can be executed entirely differently. They were just gathered by observing "what's currently on the plate and needs urgent attendance".

You believe there are other, more important, key-value components that need to be done and/or executed ASAP? Labz team need a hand on MPW? You want to get back to other projects you once envisioned? Let's discuss, prioritize and judge how much of it can be fit in the given timeframe.

As you have probably noticed - I (and we) are both open and agreeable on many different aspects here + we have the very same goal of "improving things" in mind.

tl;dr, Time is money. Dedication is priceless. TODOs are to be discussed.
 
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It is difficult to add further to the topic as Kyeno has already covered pretty much every point I wanted to make (I would just be parroting), but I think we can put extra emphasis on the proposed resolutions to the hit-by-a-bus scenario, by putting a vast amount of focus in to docs + simplifying setup + simplifying CMS.

As long as that is chipped away at and steps are removed from the process (via automation, scripting, documentation), everything else is a permanent 'plus' for PIVX.org, it remains the most design-impressive, and literally blockchain-integrated website (web-app) in the cryptosphere, not many have the luxury in which the core parts of the blockchain and network are tightly integrated in to the first page every PIVian sees, our simple issue is just knocking down the setup time-cost, and I know @Kyeno is already happy to do so, I would think anything anymore static than the current site would be a downgrade in first-impression quality: if we get PIVX.org as-is, to be easily maintainable (with time, nothing is so linear) then every step removed is a step to removing this barrier to maintenance.

Labs has always had the 'agility-first' approach to new apps, it may be a different paradigm than some years back when this site was made, but Labs is lucky to have it's micro-services built in a way that makes them easy to deploy by anyone that knows some 'nix terminal basics and a manual, the only thing stopping PIVX.org from getting there is delays and interruptions to efforts to improve said setup time.

So perhaps simply we all agree on, and focus on primarily:
- Improving the agility of the setup (at every layer possible, chopping out and automating every step that can be done), nuking the idea of PIVX.org being a locked-out codebase-for-Symfony-brainiacs (heh).
- Modernise the first and most important pages to mirror the "current" ecosystem of PIVX, which now has new economics, MPW, PIVCards and dozens of new Exchanges/Merchants/Stores at it's forefront.

Hindsight makes all vision of the past clear, but all that matters is what we do next: do we nuke what we have and start over again, or do we dust off and finally quick-setup-ify a codebase - which still stands, even after years, to be one of the best designed first-impressions that any designer or user has had the luxury to see?

It is easy to forget our luck when we're sat right on top of it - or in PIVi's own words of wisdom: "You wouldn't know a gold mine if you were sittin' on it, dipshit!"
 
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I think we need to take a high level view to better understand the main issue.

First, you've stated your income expectations are typically $40,000 USD per month combined for you and Meerkat, but with the 'Christmas / Welcome back gift' 75% discount, you are only expecting $10,000 USD. (45,000 PIV x 0.22 $USD/PIV) / (0.25) = $39,600 (I rounded to $40K for simple math.)

Your normal rate equates to $480,000 per year, which is a huge amount for living in Poland.

Now, don't get me wrong. I totally get that in the contracting world, you are never working each and every day. There are always gaps in between contracts. But, during those gaps, you have to focus on getting the next contract for example, or simply get caught up on all the non-billable activities (which can be significant) that your clients expect to always be current. I appreciate this because other than the first 2 years of my career, I was always an independent contractor. In fact, I would be willing to accept that on average, only 75% of your standard 'work week' is billable. That means you and Meerkat could make as much as $360,000 USD per year combined.

Further, just because you live where the cost of living is lower, does not mean you should be charging less. Everything is done remotely these days, and you should charge what the market will bear. A husband-wife team making $360,000 USD in Poland is amazing. The Internet is indeed the 'Great Equalizer'. More power to you both.

So, what does that mean for PIVX? It means we have a choice.

Choice #1: We commit to fund you and Meerkat combined every month and fairly compensate you at $30,000 USD per month combined. ($360,000/12)

or

Choice #2: We build a relationship where you can work for PIVX during those 'gaps' between more conventional contracts, at a steep discount.

We all know that Choice #1 is impossible. MNOs can vote down a proposal at any time. Plus, $30,000 is approx 135,000 PIV per month at current rates which is a full 30% of the monthly budget. Regardless, I doubt we have enough work to employ your skills continuously every month.

That leaves Choice #2 as the only way forward.

However, by definition, that means you will often not be around, and will be committed to other clients. They may verbally/contractually require that you do NOT work for other clients while working for them. Or, there may be a blatant conflict of interests preventing you from helping PIVX during such a contract. That could be for months or even more than a year at a time. During those periods, PIVX is stuck. We can't make changes to the site. We absolutely need to avoid that.

You have stated that there are other professionals out there that could help. Well, given all the above, they would also demand high rates that are not feasible for PIVX. It is unlikely that they will offer a discount, because they don't 'bleed purple' like you and Meerkat do. Developers at that skill level are not interested in a 1 month contract at a 75% discount.

This is why I believe we need to replace the PIVX.org tech stack with a MUCH simpler one. We can't get there instantly, but I believe we can come up with a plan to get there.

The approach I envision is this:

Phase 1: Since Kyeno/Meerkat are currently available, add content we need right now, that is an immediate value-add.

Phase 2: In parallel with Phase 1, resolve the 'Hit by a Truck' and/or 'Hired by another client' scenarios by transferring basic edit/deploy knowledge to another PIVian. Same as you, I believe Liquid would work well in this capacity. But, it looks like we are loosing him. Ugh.

Phase 3: Begin migrating sections of the site to 3rd party services. (Example, host our News/Blog entries on Medium just as many other sites do.)

Phase 4: Begin migrating PIVX specific dynamic sections to 'micro sites' similar to toolbox.pivx.org and docs.pivx.org. (Example: The pivx.org/proposals page.)

Phase 5: Decide on a new tech stack for PIVX. Should be a common CMS, but not WordPress please. With dynamic data moved to micro sites, we have more options.

Phase 6: Migrate the PIVX.org site (static now) to the new CMS tech stack.

Phase 7: Create a deploy script that pushes PIVX.org to IPFS too.


Summary:

The above logic identifies the root cause of the issues here. That is, we can't afford to pay Kyeno and Meerkat their market rate full time every month, and we don't have that much work for them either. In turn, that means they are not always going to be available, but we need to always be able to support the website. Further, we need the PIVX.org website to be far more agile and easy to maintain, such that it can be properly leveraged as a marketing tool etc.

The only way to close that gap, and resolve the need for continuous support, is to transition the PIVX.org site to a completely new CMS tech stack.

If anyone disagrees with this, I would be happy to hear how these issues can be resolved. For those that agree with this, it should then be clear that investing funds to maintain the current tech stack (Fixing bugs, or doing security upgrades and software updates etc.) is a waste, as we will be moving away from it. As such, there is no sense on me commenting further on those suggested efforts.
 
Hey... You got your calculations ENTIRELY WRONG. And it's a game changer.


First and foremost, quoting myself:
Then finally and concluding: if you look around - each Labz dev is getting pretty much fixed 30k PIV per capita per month and just continues working on their deliverables spending their time most efficiently at given tasks. Here you are getting TWO Labz devs (yes, don't forget that aside from design alone Meerkat is a front-end developer) for the 75% of the regular price; just as a "welcome back gift".
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I never said 75% discount, but 75% of the regular price. That by rough math means... 25% discount. 2x 30k PIV = 60k PIV. 45k of 60k is 75% *of that value*, not the discount rate. Fair and simple.


Second, quoting you:
First, you've stated your income expectations are typically $40,000 USD per month combined for you and Meerkat
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In which Universe and when exactly did I ever state that? Man, I'd honestly WISH to have this kind of combined income. Truly!
Maybe one day, but most definitely not as a contractor; maybe as a company owner or a shareholder of something significantly profitable.


Then:
How do you know/assume that we are still living in Poland?
How do you know our current costs of living?
Then again - what difference does it make? Should we bill or be paid less than, say, Americans or Germans because we are Polish?
With modern world narration I could easily take this as an act of racism and inequality.

Also 2x $6,000 per month (aka 30,000 PIV at current rate) is a perfectly normal, mid-range rate even for much simpler positions in said Poland alone. Just try any recruitment/offer site.
I both worked for and was proposed WAY ABOVE that level multiple times; even during my last contract that.

The proposed rates are at this level EXACTLY BECAUSE:
1. We bleed purple.
2. Every other Labz dev bill exactly that.
3. I have my own, personal reasons to prefer lower wage and much more calm working environment over a higher wage and corpo work.

Still after calculating that + the taxes + our living costs + taking in a factor that after each proposal cycle the PIVX value crashes for a while (obviously, when people cash out)... we STILL decided to throw in a discount... just to be fair.


Then again, this proposal was also about "testing the grounds" for us as well. If this would've ever gone smooth (as it initially did), we both would have no problem refraining from other contracts and simply continuing to build here, making the team certain it has both devs + des' at hand. Very much same goes towards the Labz, as (believe it or not) our capabilities, usefulness and potential stretch above and beyond maintaining/expanding/reshaping PIVX.org and there can be MUCH MORE added value within the projects under that hood as well... quite obviously.
 
First - sorry I misread the '75% of' as '75% off'.

Second, I guess you didn't read my feedback.

Anyways, even with lower numbers, the logic still stands. We need to spend where we get added value. We need to be more decentralized with control of the website. We need to simplify our infrastructure. We need the Community to get more involved. We need to be more agile. We need to support the DAO.

Further, your proposal has a lot of vaguely defined effort. We don't know how much it will cost or how much will get done etc. Also, things that should be separated into different proposals, are not.

You do great work Kyeno, but you are often biased towards over complicating things. For example, I suggested we link Medium for our News/Blog articles. You took that as an opportunity to add more complexity to the PIVX.org site with; "I can even (probably) fetch that feed and auto-update something on our site from it for that matter to fit the 'current marketing need' even nicer." when that undermines the entire goal of making things LESS complex, and removing infrastructure we would need to maintain.

Also, you often underestimate the amount of work involved, (easy to do - I do it as well) and get extremely stressed trying to meet deadlines, causing health issues.

As such, please make your proposal smaller, simpler, and with specific line items you will complete that are an immediate added value to PIVX. Then I can support it.
 
Kyeno said:
OK. Feel free to downvote this proposal.
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@Eric_Stanek I can't help but think your grilling of a proven purple blood has led for him not want to work for us now and is asking for his proposal to be voted down. I know I am very blunt with things but you have personally attacked his code saying he's done it so he's the only one who can do it. When the real reason is someone has offered to do it for free but they don't understand the code which is superior to most other sites in crypto. Code is code. You either understand it or you don't.

Your disagreements with devs cost us 2 lifelong core devs that were working for nothing compared to what they could of been getting. Your now problem with keyno and meerkat and not making the code simple enough for people you can control and work for free just seems like you want another notch on your belt. What is your problem? Are you that narcissistic you can't help it?

In labs discord we have had discussions to make it so everyone including liquid gets paid due to the lack of funding yet you continue to be the problem that always gets mentioned. You may control a huge amount of votes but recently which I always said would happen you need to now start working with in cooperation with the rest of the community and masternode votes. Your votes are not the guaranteed pass now so are you now clinching at power? If I don't agree no ones having anything?

@Kyeno we want you and meerkat helping us expand. Just like we want @Liquid369 and everyone else who wants pivx to succeed and continue working to make pivx better.
 
Wow. That's really rich coming from you.

Please read my feedback. Both you and Kyeno have proven you skimmed over stuff.

If we had allowed RZ and Furszy to dictate the rewards remain the same, no one would be being paid this cycle, or since Feb 2023 for that matter. NOTHING that @Jeffrey has accomplished would have been possible, and MPW would not exist either. Well .... it wouldn't be anywhere near it's current mature state anyways. In fact, I bet PIVX would be DEAD right now if the rewards had not changed.

I sincerely wish RZ and Furszy were still here. But, not unless they listened to the DAO, which is the MNOs AND the Community, and increased the rewards. That would have meant involving other team members, instead of isolating them too. They decided not to make those changes, which is their right, but there are always consequences to decisions.

Re: "but recently which I always said would happen you need to now start working with in cooperation with the rest of the community and masternode votes"

What? Are you kidding me? You have been saying that forever, yet 95% of the time, if you actually vote at all, you have voted the exact same as me. Plus, my number of votes (and I presume yours) has remained unchanged for years. So, all that has changed, is someone else is voting too. Great! More people should vote!

How about sticking to the points I made, and point out where my logic is incorrect. Kyeno did - he spotted a bad math error I made. I apologized. Unfortunately, it didn't change the logic.

I am totally cool with Kyeno and Meerkat working on PIVX. It is my opinion that we need the 'line items' to be better defined and the scope to be limited. I am allowed my opinion.
 
Eric_Stanek said:
Wow. That's really rich coming from you.

Please read my feedback. Both you and Kyeno have proven you skimmed over stuff.

If we had allowed RZ and Furszy to dictate the rewards remain the same, no one would be being paid this cycle, or since Feb 2023 for that matter. NOTHING that @Jeffrey has accomplished would have been possible, and MPW would not exist either. Well .... it wouldn't be anywhere near it's current mature state anyways. In fact, I bet PIVX would be DEAD right now if the rewards had not changed.

I sincerely wish RZ and Furszy were still here. But, not unless they listened to the DAO, which is the MNOs AND the Community, and increased the rewards. That would have meant involving other team members, instead of isolating them too. They decided not to make those changes, which is their right, but there are always consequences to decisions.

Re: "but recently which I always said would happen you need to now start working with in cooperation with the rest of the community and masternode votes"

What? Are you kidding me? You have been saying that forever, yet 95% of the time, if you actually vote at all, you have voted the exact same as me. Plus, my number of votes (and I presume yours) has remained unchanged for years. So, all that has changed, is someone else is voting too. Great! More people should vote!

How about sticking to the points I made, and point out where my logic is incorrect. Kyeno did - he spotted a bad math error I made. I apologized. Unfortunately, it didn't change the logic.

I am totally cool with Kyeno and Meerkat working on PIVX. It is my opinion that we need the 'line items' to be better defined and the scope to be limited. I am allowed my opinion.
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I'm going to ignore pretty much all of that and point @Kyeno "I am totally cool with Kyeno and Meerkat working on PIVX."

Let's focus on that and forget the past. See how it goes then continue from there. Like I said previously let's move on from past "disagreements" and focus on pivx.
 
I have a lot to say about this but I'm not good at putting it into words and will keep it simple.

There are changes and things needing attention on the current website which include adding, removing tweaking, fine-tuning, bug-fixing, etc. These things should be done.

There is no value for the web2discord bridge. There are not enough hands on deck to answer on discord. It should go away completely or instead be connected to an ai like pivi and if pivi can't resolve the issue for the user, direct the user to discord for advanced support.

Snowflakes and fireworks are cute but not worth paying for when there are more pressing needs.

IMHO, whether you call it a web-app or website is irrelevent. From a users point of view, PIVX.org is basically a static website with a few dynamic elements. Looking forward into the future, the website should be able to be moved easily to any webserver/vps regardless of chosen OS with any popular webserver stack (lamp/lemp) and these servers should be easily maintainable and updatable with common commands (sudo apt-get update for example) and not require any special server spec to run on so long as it can handle the intended or expected traffic. The future website should also use a popular css framework (bootstrap, tailwind come to mind) which makes it much easier for someone trying to come up with their own new template. This would also allow micro sites to use the same ui elements and styling making all pivx related sites more uniform in look and feel.

I passionately disagree on linking the news to the medium website. Most every CMS can easily handle blogging aka news. What happens when medium starts to charge users or gets bought or taken over by some other entity? Additional any CMS would also be capable of providing an rss feed. This has been talked about in the past and many do not see the value in it. Adding an RSS feed allows exchanges and crypto monitoring sites to show recent developments to new eyes. Using coinmarketcap.com for example, an RSS feed could fill in this "News" section.

Screenshot_2023-11-15_08-57-26.png
 
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I know I went off topic, LOL. Not looking at price or whatever is going on with explorer, stuff needs to get done and if @Kyeno / meerkat is the best or only viable option at this moment this proposal should pass. But serious thought should go into what happens next.
 
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There is no question @Kyeno bleeds purple... I don't understand why doubt his proposal like he is a scammer or something. Just because you have a alot of votes doesn't mean you are the budget accountant, making sure every PIV is properly spent. In light of the current price bump a second proposal can probably be done, but some here think they are entitled to be bosses of some kind. I don't blame Kyeno for not wanting to. Yes the Poland comments were out of line and unnecessary and
 
I have to disagree with the proposed stack a bit.
LAMP? Static sites? Come on guys. Let's get real!

I believe we should dumb it down even further, just to make sure everybody (and their dog) can manage it.
We should migrate to Microsoft Windows Server with IIS as a webserver and MS SQL database.
This gives a nice graphical user interfaces with drag&drops for managing everything around.
No hardcore tech stack whatsoever!

Then we should move everything to Wordpress template that's using Foundation or Bootstrap CSS and jQuery-only for everything.
This way we would have at least 5-10 people in the team able to manage without issue.

I also believe that as an OpenSource project we should refrain from using ANY part of the Adobe Creative Suite and migrate everything to GIMP and OpenOffice immediately.
Otherwise we're plain hypocrites and we force designers and content creators to heavily overpay for their tools.

Please share your thoughts.
 

Pending Submission - LMP - PIVX.org

Name: LMP - PIVX.org Term: 1 Cycle Cycle Amnt: 20,000 Total Amnt: 20,000 Author: Kyeno, Meerkat Receiver: Kyeno, Meerkat Address: --TODO-- Created: 2023-11-16 Status: Pending Submission Vote Hash: --TODO-- Preamble Driven by intense discussions and suggestions that happened on the previous...
forum.pivx.org forum.pivx.org
 
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