Loomio
Tue 5 Feb 2019 2:31PM

Giveth.one PR strategy

L Loie Public Seen by 150

We have the opportunity to make a clear and cohesive stance to our friends who want to use Giveth.one, and here on this thread you can see and discuss all the pieces that are worth considering. This came from a document contributed to by all.

Please interact with and add new proposals/decisions on the side!

The Timeline:

  • Nov 5th Satya as representing the DApp team proposed on this loomio moving Giveth to galaxy.giveth.io and more “galaxy” branding in general. ‘The DApp should adopt a new name/brand and move to a new domain’ was more popular until Griff added a 3rd option: “The DApp should stay at beta.giveth.io and the Giveth website content can include both the DApp and Galaxy”, and then that took the large majority (multiple ppl changed their votes).
    • He then closed the poll and provided this conclusion: “We could either give up, or we could go for more autonomy (and expected friction). We decided the second because we believe the potential is too enormous. 

As such the Dapp is going to its own domain with its own branding, positioning, team and entity this year. I hope the people controlling the breaks can live with this blasphemy - or alternatively come up with solutions that would solve these issues.”
    • Earlier in the discussion he also responded to Kris: “If the team wants to keep Giveth.io as its main entry, then we will have no choice then to adapt a new name and build a brand around that.”
  • Without any further community discussion, Dec 6th dapp website is put up at the giveth.one domain
  • Dec 7th they register Giveth.one twitter handle. There has been no affirmative communication with Giveth community about using this name, no approval.
  • Dec 31st a video and Medium article written by Grace is published announcing the launch of Giveth.one. The Giveth community was not consulted about making the statements about them in this article. (Including endorsement-implying photos of Griff and Jordi.)
  • Jan 2nd Vojtech says some things in Riot in response to the community, including “Both dani and griff did warn us we should run this by the community in a loomio. Full disclosure that was never my plan, I never intended to do any loomio like that ever especially after the last few. “
  • In a conversation btwn Loie, Vojtech & Griff on Jan 23rd, we heard this:
  • Griff: “Basically dude, the only way it will work to use the name is if you do a loomio.” Loie: “If you did a loomio and got the answer you didn’t want to hear, would you abide by it?”
    Vojtech: “I want to disclose, that I cannot answer this question…”
    • Vojtech: “We want to avoid community media onslaught, we’re not at the loomio stage yet. If the advice is strong from giveth.one team, i will go with that over the loomio”
    • Vojtech said (his words) that as a team they decided he will be a dictator/CEO type of leader. (They’ll have no governance amongst themselves.)
    • Griff suggested one of the possible parameters for using the brand (if the community chooses this) would be that the DApp team agrees to submit any blog posts to be reviewed/filtered by us and Vojtech said that sounds safe enough to try. The conversation didn’t account for other non-blog comms like tweets, videos, in person statements, etc.
    • Vojtech wants to onboard a bunch of charities, like now. Or super soon, before major user turn-offs are remedied. Griff said that’s a deal breaker for him.

Other points to consider:

  • Onboarding users (for example to a poor UX product) is comms too. There are lots of things that affect the public’s opinion of Giveth besides blog posts.
  • Throughout Nov/December/January the main story re:funding was that RSK was maybe going to give them funding to continue, but already they were in debt by ~$40,000 and not sure if anything would continue, so we agreed during a (comms? gov?) meeting to postpone any strict brand decisions until funding is clear.
  • That moment has come. RSK is now saying they WILL continue to fund them, and the DApp team is gearing up for press releases and partnerships.
  • Vojtech will be giving a 90 minute demo/workshop on the Giveth DApp at EthDenver.
  • There are plenty of instances approaching us nearly every day which will benefit GREATLY from having brand clarity. Vojtech has made an effort to hear our perspectives on this and he is now awaiting some response from us.
  • Griff has been spending personal funds FAST on Giveth. The burn rate is around 20 grand/month.
  • The DApp team being paid by RSK(or anyone else for that matter) to develop on this DApp can be a big win for us, lifting a financial strain. Preserving a good relationship may help us to not throw away this gift.
  • They are the current experts on this DApp! If we somehow fractured the relationship to not be able to work with them, we would take a big loss on this.
  • The people of the DApp team are our friends.

  • They are still working towards Blockchain For Good, and a core value of Giveth is to support anyone who does that.

  • They can use a different name, or have parameters on how they use the name, and still work with us, still be a part of our community and us be a part of theirs. At least, nobody has ever made an ultimatum against this.

D

Dani Wed 6 Feb 2019 5:25PM

9 - All communications must go thru our filter process (this means tweets, blog posts, overall strategy for speaking events, etc) → someone or a comittee of someones will probably need to take on the duty of being the liaison for this, checking all of the proposed comms against a ledger we decide upon and determining if they get the pass or not.
5 - DApp team only uses Giveth name in the way that, say, DAppNode or BrightID uses it. As a nod to the incubator/parent project it arose from.
0 - Grace is not allowed to do communications. Maybe throwing fire here, but this has been expressed by several people and the fact is that trust with her comms has been seriously broken.
0 - Griff asks Grace to take down the photos of him in the Medium post, as they make it seem that we are more excited about this than we actually are.
0 - DApp Team does not use Giveth name or logos.
0 - All blog posts must go thru our filter (process TBD) before they can publish anything with Giveth name
0 - DApp Team is allowed to use the Giveth name and logo without any restrictions focusing on building the platform and community around it.
0 - DApp team, if using Giveth name, agrees to give 5 hours a week of their time to comms with Giveth community (and the aforementioned liaison) around the brand and getting approval/guidance on any communications they wish to do.

My strongest stance is that unified messaging is paramount, if we are using the same name we need to be consistent and supportive across the board. This will be a precedent setting decision for how the Giveth name is used going forward. Dapp Development and Decentralized Governance are separate aspects of the same overall goal to a shared audience so the communications process must be defined and adhered to by all.

V

Vojtěch Šimetka Tue 5 Feb 2019 4:00PM

I have added new option as all the other ones seems very conditional:

DApp Team is allowed to use the Giveth name and logo without any restrictions focusing on building the platform and community around it.

V

Vojtěch Šimetka Fri 8 Feb 2019 3:10AM

Dear friends,

Thank you very much for taking your time and expressing your opinions on the Giveth.one branding in the loomio and during the unicorn meeting which I just now watched very carefully on youtube. We wanted to keep using the Giveth name so that we can continue our mission with minimal disruption. It has opened many doors for us and over the time gained quite some sound even outside the crypto space. For that I want to thank you and everyone who was bold enough and talked about Giveth to those inside, outside or new to the crypto community.

I am certain I speak for all of us when I say we all deeply love Giveth and what it represents. Our intentions are and always will be to make it successful. To keep Giveth open and accessible for anyone so that they can become part of the community and use what we build. To make a meaningful impact and bring change where it is needed the most. Each one of us is contributing as best as we can and according to our beliefs. Some just started, others have been here since beginning. But I am proud of where we got in the more than 2 years of existence and my involvement.

We (formerly Giveth.one) will continue in this mission, for now under the Blockchain 4 Humanity, and later on under another more suitable and less restrictive name. It is in both of best interests to maintain clear brand identity but allow for close collaboration. Being with b4H will allow us to stay very close to the first users of the platform and put a well known name behind it. We of course want to continue collaborate with Giveth, where opportunities exist. And I am sure there will be plenty chances to do so!

So from the practical side:
- I have already renamed the Github repository adequately. All the repositories that originate in Giveth and we had to modify are forks of the original repos with appropriate links https://github.com/blockchain4humanity
- During February I will modify the giveth.one website to serve as crossroad guiding users to both Giveth and b4H . Later this year we can discuss and potentially transfer the domain.
- During February I will close/rename the twitter account and the telegram group as well as figure out what to do with the Medium account and the article.
- For the time being my Tinder profile will continue to say “Co-founder at Giveth.io”

Once again thank you very much for taking your time and helping me to find best way we can continue. Let’s build the better future together.