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The Monero Moon CCS proposal - March 2022

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WHAT: The Monero Moon is a free weekly news publication created in 2018 in an effort to keep the Monero community up to date on all the latest news and developments related to Monero. I aim to achieve this by aggregating all the relevant information into one convenient location in an easy-to-digest format. I sift through the noise so you don’t have to. I also endeavour to cross promote other Monero initiatives as much as possible, while also encouraging others to participate in or support the Monero project.

The Monero Moon is independently published by myself on Medium. I have already published 32 issues. View previous issues 1-32 on The Monero Moon page (www.medium.com/themoneromoon). I am in the middle of trialing different newsletter platforms such as Ghost and Substack, however am yet to make the switch to a different platform.

Weekly readership has been varied, and it has appeared that readership increases the more social media promotion gains traction.

Issues from 2018 regularly had on avg 1.5k views per issue, and issues #12 (closed) to #32 (closed) have averaged 1.2k views per issue. The number of views appeared to be correlated to the price of XMR, meaning the higher the price or the more upwards trajectory the price showed correlated to view count. The most views a single issue has received was approximately 2.5k views (issues #22 (closed) & #27 (closed))

WHO: I am John Foss. Like many of you, I am a firm believer and supporter of the Monero Project. I have previously written Monero articles on Medium, a couple of How To Buy Monero Guides for the Monero.How website, and wrote Your Guide to Monero, and Why It Has Great Potential back in 2018 which I posted to r/cryptocurrency and had over 25k views and received 1.5k upvotes. Besides that, I have been following Monero for a fair while now, generally hanging out on r/xmrtrader and Twitter, and I also occasionally venture over to the IRC channels.

WHY: As Monero continues its journey, I believe it is extremely important for everyone (community members and outsiders looking in) to be able to closely follow along with all the latest news and developments surrounding Monero, whether it's the latest community update from the developers, or if Monero was featured in a large media publication. And I believe The Monero Moon will help bridge that gap. I believe that the Monero Moon will be extremely beneficial for the growth and adoption of Monero as the newsletter will continue to help spread awareness.

THE PROPOSAL AND MILESTONES: As stated in my previous CCS, as Monero grows in popularity, it takes more and more time to put together an issue from start to finish. It currently takes me about 10 hours of work per issue. This involves me researching and collating the information, writing it up, then publishing and promoting it via social media platforms.

I am proposing to publish The Monero Moon for 2 XMR per issue from 16th of March until late July 2022, or whenever the CCS is complete. At the current exchange rate of approximately $163USD per XMR based on the 20 day moving average, that comes out to ~$326 per issue which I believe is fair compensation. For example, 1000 readers is equivalent to ~0.32c per read. The milestones are straightforward, for every 6 issues I publish, payment is released. This comes out to 3 milestones in total.

Milestone 1: Publish issues #34 (closed) through #39 (closed) - 12 XMR

Milestone 2: Publish issues #40 (closed) through #45 (closed) - 12 XMR

Milestone 3: Publish issues #46 (closed) through #51 (closed) - 12 XMR

There may be periods where I miss a week due to life commitments, however I will endeavour to cover all the recent news in one big bumper newsletter issues, and this will still just count as one issue. The newsletter issues will carry on from previous publications. Additionally, at the end of this period of 18 issues published I will re-evaluate whether I shall continue the newsletter.

Cheers, John Foss

Edited by John Foss

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Merged by luigi1111luigi1111 2 years ago (Apr 17, 2022 6:38pm UTC)

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  • John Foss changed title from TheMoneroMoonCCSproposalMarch2022 to The Monero Moon CCS proposal - March 2022

    changed title from TheMoneroMoonCCSproposalMarch2022 to The Monero Moon CCS proposal - March 2022

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  • As an occasional reader of monero moon, I have to thank you for the work you have done and your contribution to the dissemination of news related to monero.

    I have been an occasional and non-regular reader, mainly due to the lack of consistency in the publications.

    Since there are at least two other weekly monero news publications, one of which is self-financing as well as being of high quality, I decide not to support the proposal.

  • As someone who has been in the Monero Community since 2020, I found out that your work under monero.how (mostly the guides you wrote) was very helpful in order to know how to use the tools properly. So, let me just start this comment by saying your work, so far, is great!

    Nevertheless, regarding this specific subject, as a reader of Revuo Monero and a casual Monero Moon, I think there's not enough "core readers" or even Monero members in the world to start monetizing newsletters. Even you are saying that there's 1.2k average readers. On the other hand, there's three Monero-related weekly newsletters (and one in Spanish); so, I am not saying this proposal is "bad" (for whatever reason), don't get me wrong. I am just stating that maybe this is not the right time... yet.

    I am grateful our communities have funded you before, but I am dubious about the CCS being the right channel to seek for further funding to be assigned to your endeavor moving forward. Please, take my opinion in the best way possible because I just want to give you a constructive critique about this subject.

  • Dear John, as a twitter follower and a casual Monero Moon reader I thank you for your work.

    I think there are already too many newsletters for Monero Moon to get the official Monero Core Team stamp and get financed by CCS.

    I can think of 3 weekly newsletters and a monthly one. Have you tried to reach out to them and maybe join forces towards a bigger newsletter with a wider reach? Until then, private sponsors and donations seems the way to go...

  • If this does not get merged, perhaps the fans of Monero Moon could persuade the curator to setup his own wishlist page (example) using this https://github.com/plowsof/flipstarter-waas-wip , It only requires that you run a docker compose file and uses minimal resources as remote nodes are used.

  • It would be nice if you are paid the remaining 6 XMR from your old proposal https://ccs.getmonero.org/proposals/john-foss-the-monero-moon.html

  • The Monero Moon is my #1 (closed) source of Monero information and I enjoy reading every issue. There are like 2 or 3 other Monero newsletters now and it's getting kinda overwhelming to read them all. As @Nacho_Monster suggested, it might make sense to join forces with them to create even more content, reduce duplicate content between newsletters and wider reach.

    Monero needs a well curated newsletter. No matter how and where - using CCS, privately on some other platform, or as beer donations - I'd help fund it.

  • I support this proposal, in principle, mainly as the community can decide if it is worth their Monero once it has moved to the funding required stage.

    The quality has been good throughout the existence of The Monero Moon and keeping these sorts of initiatives in the community is important, regardless, as the ecosystem is strengthened the more people and the more resources are pointed to outreach/news/communications.

    The only advice I would give would be to perhaps think about making the newsletter less frequent, and then apply your time to writing about the most important/interesting issues that have emerged in the community during that time. This would also perhaps reduce the strain on yourself time and effort wise and also provide an opportunity to lower the overall XMR request. Just my two cents though, so up to you in the end.

  • Author Contributor

    Thanks for the feedback midipoet and everyone else (even if a few commenters in this CCS have dubious comment histories opposing proposals such as monerokon and haveno). I don't usually venture into IRC or here onto gitlab often.

    Reddit feedback I have received can be read here -

    Reasons for a weekly newsletter are:

    • A lot can happen in a week in monero.
    • It reduces the research load (e.g. I only have to research one week instead of two)
    • It fits in better with my weekly 9-5 work routine. scheduling one day off per fortnight is unlikely to be possible for me at the moment.

    I strongly believe in the importance of continuously pushing out Monero marketing content to keep it relevant. While the having the best tech and community is important, we need to also make sure the world knows what's going on.

    The Monero Moon is the longest running Monero newsletter, I'd argue The Monero Moon is the most comprehensive newsletter, and I would be very surprised if the Monero Moon wasn't the most read newsletter.

    I also want to point out that some of the commenters

    I'm happy to reduce the XMR amount requested to the current moving average price. Regardless, I just want to point out that my previous CCS was funded at a higher USD rate, so once the XMR price dropped I was working for considerably less in dollar terms, and have happily worn it.

    Anyway, I hope the individuals can please decide upon this CCS proposal within the next 7 days and let me know whether or not it will be moved to funding. That way I can organise my time in the working weeks moving forward.

    Cheers to everyone that has shown The Monero Moon some love. I enjoy writing it!

    John!

    Edited by John Foss
    • I think there needs to be a "reckoning" at some point regarding the number and organization of community newsletters, but it doesn't need to be done immediately.

    • @luigi1111 I would like to know why do we have a comments section, reactions with emojis, community meetings — that are nowhere to be found because that workgroup has no leaders after it got split to space — and reddit threads in /r/Monero if at the end of the day the maintainer will simply merge requests ignoring all prior comments, or rather, neglect to join the debate, to try and find middle grounds with all parties involved?

      Was it because @johnfoss67 posted a reddit thread seeking engagement that never came through beyond few comments on reddit, and additionally played a passive aggressive line in his latest Monero Moon issue? Was luigi feeling guilty for potentially "cancelling" a Monero contributor?

      Sadly, this may be the last Monero Moon issue for the time being as the Monero Moon’s CCS proposal for funding has not been approved. Thank you to all the people who have supported and donated to The Monero Moon. Further information regarding this matter can be found here. In the meantime, please enjoy this issue and with a glass of Barolo!

      Emoji count, this proposal got downvoted 7-5. Three (3) comments opposing it, just one (1) in favor, yet you moved this to funding required stage, really?

      Now Monero, the project, will end up with not one, not two, but three (3) weekly Monero newsletters:

      2/3 are proprietary, closed source; Moon is on Substack. LocalMonero's source code is not readily available with the help of public git repositories, anywhere. All the while, Revuo Monero's repository is publicly found here.

      Last I checked XMR wasn't big enough to have so many newsletters. This does not even mention Monero Observer, which pushes news out on a daily and monthly basis, with Monero Observer Blitz. Saturated much? The "reckoning" had to take place now; but to each its own.

      Note: I am not posting this comment to try and get John's CCS cancelled, much less have those funds reallocated to me or Revuo Monero. I am simply leaving a written record that I, rottenwheel, will not pursue future funding for Revuo Monero issues with CCS's help until there's further input from Luigi or Core Team, if that makes sense. It is clear, not only to me, but other Monero-related projects, like Monerujo, XMR Radio, et. al., that we seem to be in the same vein of thinking the CCS is centralized on the whims of a single pair of hands; the rest is an outdated illusion.

      Thanks.

      Edited by rottenwheel
    • Maintainers don't keep in consideration troll comments and sockpuppet accounts when making decisions, otherwise the CCS would be easy to game by malicious individuals like yourself and your friends/puppets. You have been trying for some time to sink projects/individuals you don't like. You can make your puppets upvote/downvote whatever you want, but this crowdfunding platform is not managed by machines, but by humans, which are not idiots ;)

      You are a known toxic individual that cannot be even trusted to post meeting logs. Nobody cares about your opinion, as you can see.

    • @erciccione Nowhere in my prior comment did I tag you, nor did I really solicit your opinion or anyone else's other than Luigi's, Core Team's, or John's. I truthfully do not know whether you have developed some crush on me by now, but I certainly do not appreciate your cancelling tone, based on unfounded accusations that I have debunked not once but twice in this repository; one was in Haveno's CCS proposal, in case you don't remember or chose not to read it back then.

      I am not a "malicious individual" just because I do not agree with your antics. You can keep calling my "friends" puppets all you want; but until you can prove they are actually my alternative accounts and I have some mental illness to keep talking to myself in this repository, I will greatly appreciate if you quit cluttering this repository with your defamatory nonsense. At least you got Chris Sky cancelled from speaking at Monerotopia with your famous reddit threads. Great victory right there, buddy.

      Last I checked you are not some kind of God to know what others care about or not, so kindly refrain from using absolutes like "Nobody cares about your opinion."

      Don't you have some Code of Conduct to bake into your "decentralized" exchange so no one is toxic and everyone takes criticisms gracefully? You clearly showed a whole lot of that in your CCS proposal's comments; pretty much the classic Ciccione stamp: "if they don't follow my imposed guidelines, they are wrong and I am right." Besides, don't you have some code to bake for Haveno? Some front-end UI to deliver? Piece of advice: get back to work. This is not even your CCS. Mind your business.

      Edit: You can keep pulling your cancelling campaigns off in social media, Twitter, Reddit, anywhere else. Here, I would like to think we come to discuss CCS ideas, not throw ad hominems at each other in hopes of getting the other "cancelled" as you clearly show yourself inclined to at every opportunity you have at hand, or berating them by saying "Nobody cares about your opinion." If you cannot comment on the issue at hand, or the CCS idea, just proceed with the usual modus operandi of attempting to cancel someone for a personal grudge or hearsay of what A or B person did in the past, best if you spend that time more wisely, like delivering what you promised the community you would. Expect no responses from me moving forward. Thanks.

      Edited by rottenwheel
    • I was merely trying to explain why you and your puppets' concerns have been disregarded once again, hoping that you'll learn something out of it and will stop polluting CCS proposals. I have no interest in anything you have to say.

      Feel free to summon your minions for some very mean downvoting session if you deem it necessary :P

      Edited by erciccione
    • we seem to be in the same vein of thinking the CCS is centralized on the whims of a single pair of hands; the rest is an outdated illusion.

      @rottenwheel this raises an important point, but it is not clear what parts of the CCS you think should/should not be (de)centralised.

      It would also be good to hear from those you believe are in agreement with you on this as well.

      From my own perspective, the "funding required" stage should be decentralised (and it seems to be still), but i also believe the gatekeeping to the "funding required" should remain centralised (ie. by Core).

      As far as understand it, the comments section are to discuss issues, raise suggestions, and to provide feedback to ideas - not to gatekeep what does and what doesn't get moved to funding stage. The rules of the CCS state:

      (...)
      3. The community discusses the pros and cons of the proposal, and offers feedback and critique.
      4. The proposer changes the proposal (if necessary), utilizing the feedback and critique of the community.
      5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 as needed.
      6. After the Core Team has determined that the community has reached loose consensus, the MR is merged, and funding begins.
      (...)

      Now, i guess you could argue that loose consensus is emoji/comment majority, but this can obviously be gamed, so some other manner for appraising loose consensus is required. Having Core being an arbiter for this seems sensible, no? Also, Monero (afaiu) has always worked on weighted voting. Some votes are worth more than others - this is one method used to guard against sybil-type attacks.

      That is my opinion, though - but perhaps a reddit thread on the topic might be worth it?

    • @midipoet Good points. I will personally err towards focusing more on comments, emoji reactions, reddit threads and the missed community meetings. If Core the maintainer of turn is there to hinder potentially nefarious actors that will post anything and it will swiftly get moved to funding required stage, that is reasonable. Furthermore, for all recent CCS proposals, the process has been tiresome because it always gets derailed into this odd dynamic: If someone posts a comment not favoring the proposal, there are few individuals quickly jumping the gun, calling them sockpuppets or worse yet, seems like we all should favor everything just because it is XMR-related and let donors vote with their money. I cannot emphasize enough how wrong I think that approach is: we should strive to bring more voices in for one, for two, we should stop behaving like kids in kindergarten. "He said this, he said that; he did this, he did that" elsewhere, in the past. An attempt to invalidate an argument with ad hominems flying left and right. When it is not ignored because apparently it doesn't fit the bill with the people that pat each other's back, it is simply "cancelled" on vague, unfounded claims.

      At the end of the day the reason most if not all CCS proposals get fully funded is precisely because once such get moved to funding required stage, it is receiving a Core Team "stamp of approval", if that makes sense; it is because it has "passed" the community "vetting process". If we are to just claim we are not "gatekeeping" anything and letting donors vote with their money, we might as well scrap all the so-called democracy around here and not welcome comments, since diverging points of view will get downvoted and slandered into oblivion. Plenty of newsletters and social media will echo it has been moved to funding required stage and it is a snowball effect from there. Momentum is easy to come by when one gets a proposal merged, do you think it would be the same case if it were not coming out of the CCS? Separate funding platform?

      As for those other parties chiming in, I don't think that is necessary, in my humble opinion. Writing is on the wall. Feel more than welcome to go over the following two links. One is Monerujo's SideKick CCS proposal that got closed by m2049r himself because it stagnated, didn't get moved to funding required stage after a couple community meetings and some "unsolved" issue with the hourly rate; few days after, funding.monerujo.app was born. Few weeks after, not only that but a handful of other features got fully funded; no CCS was involved. The other is a rant I posted after #274 was rejected, both BF and Luigi got tagged.

      Ultimately, you can see the startling difference between allocating funds through the system we've been working with for years and launching our self-hosted wishlist (thanks @plowsof). I would go over how finances are doing for Revuo Monero while exclusively rolling issues out every week, based on donations only, but I don't even want to think about it. I will explore other venues and try to amplify reach on my own. I do not want to make a Revuo CCS currently because I do not think we need 3 weekly newsletters, because I want John to push his 18 issues out, because I want to find alternatives for Revuo and because at the end of the day, I do not agree with this proposal being merged in the first place; there was no acknowledgement of comments, downvotes. While those two other outlets are closed source, I volunteered my time to pick Revuo up, fork the repository. I have been polishing the UI/UX for weeks, I am pretty much "working for free". Revuo is self-hosted, autonomous. Domain and VPS are owned by me. No Substack. I would like to think a FOSS, self-hosted weekly newsletter would've gotten more awareness and financial support, since it seems to be more aligned with Monero's ethos. Kicked it off with LocalMonero all January, then from February on it's been all me, single-handedly keeping it up every week. I digress, though. This is not a self-pity contest and not just about me either, just a needle in the haystack.

      Will say it for the last time: I am not trying to "reject" or redirect Monero Moon's allocation. It is not about me, Revuo Monero or other entities. It is about the fact some people are more inclined to explore other paths for funding their initiatives because of the issues laid out before and my original comment. A bit concerning that the famous system we take pride in and are known for, could be failing before our eyes, or rather, has been missing to deliver its promises for a while, effectively making potential proposals dive into alternatives.

      My two cents. Thanks for reading and participating. Rant over. Phew.

      Edited by rottenwheel
    • @rottenwheel Interesting point about Monero Observer being closed source. Is this true? It should be open sourced then (as stated in the CCS rules) , im sure @escapethe3RA would oblige. I'm just wondering why this was never addressed

    • @plowsof Just for clarification purposes, in my prior comment I was not talking about Monero Observer, just Monero Moon and Monero Standard, since those two fall under weekly timeframes whereas Observer falls under daily and monthly.

      Regardless, it is indeed a revealing observation of yours; thanks for bringing it up. To this day, I have not seen any public git repository related to Monero Observer's website yet it has been funded a couple times, one of those, funds have been disbursed to escapethe3RA. Similar situation with Monero Moon.

      Don't know about others, but looks like we could reevaluate the past and present decisions taken with these CCS proposals, since not only there is no public repository that you can audit, but we don't even know what license their code would be under (read: is it a permissive license or not?) Sitting on nothing, apparently. Quote from CCS rules below:

      All work must be licensed permissively at all stages of the proposal. There is no time where your work can be licensed under a restrictive license (even as you're working on it). Your proposal will be terminated if this is not remedied.

      As for Monero Moon, it's worse: it was first found on Medium and now on Substack. Neither are open source, last I checked.

      Granted, these are not programs or services, rather just newsletters, but still allocating funding through the CCS, so I think rules apply to all proposals equally. Might be opening a can of worms. Perhaps needs further clarification.

      Unfortunately, Core Team hardly ever chimes in here. Community Workgroup has been up in the air no one holding the helm since most contributors flocked to Space. So, I guess we won't find out where do we stand, or will we? :)

      Edited by rottenwheel
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  • luigi1111 mentioned in commit 6eeebefa

    mentioned in commit 6eeebefa

  • merged

  • Contributor

    I'm happy that you got the chance to see how much financial support your newsletter is going to receive.

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