Right now the community is disorganised. To make the most of our resources we need to improve the organisational model of the community so that our output is maximised and we succeed in achieving as much awareness and adoption of Bitcoin Cash as possible.We have two broad resources:
1)Funds donated by donors and sponsors.
2)A passionate and skilled community willing to volunteer to help Bitcoin Cash succeed.
We need to find a way to combine these two resources in the most efficient way possible to achieve massive awareness and adoption. So how do we do this? Below is a basic model of how this can be achieved.
What do we have now?
The current model that we have now was chucked together over the past 10 days. We reach out to the Bitcoin Cash community through some social media platforms and attempt to get them into a Slack group. To defend against trolls and bots we cannot link to the signup page publicly. This means we have to manually message the link to every person who wants to sign up. Then once they signup they are put into the lobby by default. Most discussion goes on in private channels though, which means new people joining have to be manually added to all the private channels. This takes a lot of time when you have to do this for hundreds of people. For thousands of people, this would simply be impossible. This is what I have spent a huge amount of time doing the past week and a half because I know how important it is to gather the community while we have momentum, but this is not a scalable or realistic solution for the future.
The other problem with Slack is that it is great to discussing ideas and connecting with people, but it is a terrible platform for making definitive progress on a project with a team of people potentially scattered all around the world. Valuable ideas are simply washed up the page never to be seen again. For project development and management, a communication platform with more permanence is required.
A Rough Model for Community Organisation
In the model defined in Figure 1 below, we pool the community into one major platform that is able to meet our requirements. We do this by bringing people in from all the different social media platforms (and real-world events such as meetups and conferences).The community can the self-organise into teams and develop their own projects to be submitted to the BCF. The BCF can then fund the projects that will have the most impact, and the teams can then execute the projects to increase awareness and adoption of Bitcoin Cash.
This is easier said than done though. In the next section, I will describe a detailed model of how this can be achieved.
The BCF Community Management Model
The model shown in Figure 2 uses three platforms to communicate the bulk of the information.
-Github
-Gitter
-Trello
Github is to be used as a more permanent and structured platform for project development. It can be used to create and manage different file types, make project PR updates, communicate through the Issues feature. Github is already known to work well for even larger, complex projects with very large numbers of contributors, and it is completely free to us.
Gitter is to be used as the fast and direct communication channel where things can be discussed with large numbers of people at any time. Like Slack, it is a great place to pull in new people for general discussion of ideas. You can sign up for Gitter with your Github account so no extra account is necessary and everything is linked.Gitter is also publicly visible unlike Slack, which means that anyone will be able to see all the progress we are making and can jump in at any time effortlessly. New rooms can be created for specific projects and everyone will be able to join in if they want to.
Trello will be used as a simple place for the BCF to track the progress of projects. The BCF Trello page will be public so that anyone can see which projects are actively being worked on and will have access to connect with them on Gitter and Github to join in.
The model shown in Figure 2 is detailed below.
We have to move from point 1 (a disorganised community) to point 10 (awareness and adoption of Bitcoin Cash).
1)We start with the broad, disorganised community spread all across the world, using all different communications channels and platforms.
2)We start finding the current and potential Bitcoin Cash community via multiple social media channels and direct them to the BCF Gitter community.
3)The community pools into the general BCF Gitter community rooms and are free to participate in the rooms dedicated to specific fields (e.g. Video Production or Graphic Design rooms etc.). All rooms will be publicly visible (unlike slack).
4)The community develops ideas for projects to work on and self-organise into teams of people with the relevant expertise and will to complete the project.
5)One or two leaders are chosen voluntarily to lead a project and team.
6)The leader(s) creates a separate Gitter room for the project and invites all of the team to it. The leader(s) also creates a new Github repo and invites all the team to that. The leader then notifies the BCF of the project, the room, and the repo so that they can track the project on Trello publicly, and put a link and information about the project. This is so that anyone who wants to join in or follow the project can.
7)The team discusses the project in their Gitter room and in their Github repo until it is well-formed enough to FILL OUT and submit a solid FPR (Funding Proposal Request) to the BCF. An FPR is created as the first commit to the project Repo on Github and will be a reference for anyone who wants to join the project. This FPR is then submitted to the BCF for review.
8)The BCF then either accepts the proposal or returns it back to the team with feedback on what is wrong with it. If the proposal is accepted, the funding is provided as necessary, and the project is moved into ‘Funded’ status on Trello.
9)The team then execute their project. Progress will be tracked by the BCF to make sure the teams have the resources they need and that they are progressing well.
10)If the project is successful it will be executed and will increase adoption and awareness of Bitcoin Cash.
What do we achieve with this new model?
-The community is scalable to any size.
-The community is transparent and publicly visible.
-The projects BCF is funding can be easily found and tracked.
-Low effort for new community members to join.
-Fast discussion of ideas and team development is possible.
-Slow, permanent and methodical discussion of the project by stakeholders possible.
-Minimal work required to implement and maintain.
-Can be implemented immediately
-Zero cost for everyone.
First join Github https://github.com/ if you haven’t already.
Then join Gitter at our BCF community HERE using your Github account.
Our Trello page can be viewed HERE at any time to track the BCF projects.