I believe all of us with our full name are running the very same risks you have. Actually for a few of us in IT & Finance it’s much more difficult to expose ourselves then any other profession.
Lately some of us took it even a step further and cardanized our social media profile (private and even professional!). It’s an another level of commitment surprisingly very few peope took.
One difference I see is that Ambassadors also have the title “Cardano Ambassador” attached to their actions. They should act as role models and have to take full accountability & responsibility for their actions as they officially represent the Cardano venture on a different level then anyone else from the Community. It’s just impossible to have the same level of responsibility & accountability with a nickname versus your full name. An incident last month showed how important this is.
Second issue might be once performance based incentives will be put in place (they really should be!) and there is any form of ADA compensation for the work of Ambassadors, you can’t legally pay peope on a nick name for tax and other compliance reasons.
Finally any current or future potential conflict of interest is much easier to identify with a full name vs a nick name.
Don’t get me wrong, I fully acknowledge & enjoy your work, your articles a very well written and bring a fresh perspective and believe you absolutely deserve the Ambassadorship, but such roles should come with certain expectations & limitations (which also reduce risks), where anonymity is just not accepted.
I am surprised how the Cardano Community Team was fine with this, but it’s not the first time they surprise.
To reveal your full name was one reason you left the GoC back then after a week, I hope you will change your mind this time or maybe I am just wrong and anonymity is all fine and the above reasoning is weightless.
For the record you are not the only anonymous Ambassador.
You’re right, my reasons for choosing to use a pseudo-anonymous account could apply to just about anyone. It’s just a personal choice how you deal with that. I also think your arguments about asking ambassadors to use their real name are valid, but do think there’s more to them.
For instance, while my account name is clearly not my real name, the actual identities for none of the other people that were selected to be an ambassador or own social media or forum profiles have been verified in a formal way either. It’s quite easy to either make up a real-sounding name or even adopt the name and profile picture of someone you downloaded on the internet (a phenomenon called catfishing).
If the Cardano Foundation were in fact to give incentives to ambassadors in the future and would need to to KYC for regulatory purposes, I think just assuming the name of a social media or forum account is the person they think it is probably isn’t enough, I would think they would need to do some sort of ID verification similar to what regulated exchanges use. Which can be done for accounts that are pseudo-anonymous for the public as well, as long as these accounts are ok with doxxing themselves towards the Cardano Foundation.
Either way, I think in an ambassador program it is particularly important to recognize what ambassadors are contributing to the community and beyond, instead of what they aren’t.
@_ilap: Do youy want to convince yourself, us or both?
Convince myself or others of what? I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything, just gave my reasons for using a pseudo-anonymous account, as that was being questioned.
I just noticed you added this and to be honest I am flabbergasted that you feel the need of doxxing me for no reason at all. Behavior like this is exactly why I have no intentions of attaching my real name to cryptocurrencies in general and exactly why I had no intentions of even attaching my pseudo-anonymous name to the Guardians of Cardano initiative.
Let me be very clear:
I have never considered myself a Guardian of Cardano, and thus never ‘left’ the GoC.
I did receive an invitation to your Telegram channel that was discussing how to deal with the Parsons situation, a topic on which I was writing a Hackernoon article at the time.
It wasn’t until after joining the Telegram channel I found out that your group consisted of the people that constituted the GoC at that time.
I never contributed to the actual research, you guys deserve all the credit for that. I did ask you guys to review the article for correctness, for which I acknowledged you underneath the article.
My participation in the channel only constituted of trying to find out what the GoC really was about, what the long-term vision for the group and/or movement was, how you defined ‘being a Guardian of Cardano’ and discussed these matters with you.
After I realized your definition of being a Guardian of Cardano and vision more or less included a role for a closed group, I left the Telegram channel.
I find it incomprehensible why you seem to keep dragging this up over different channels, and why I can only speculate about your motives, I have the feeling that this is the direct result of me being critical on your Cardano Social Council spin-off that initially started with a discussion of multiple members of your group, yourself included, publicly soliciting for a position on the GoC board. I want to point out that my opinion on that was consistent with what I wrote about the topic from the get-go. Notice the last paragraph of this segment on the first article I wrote on the GoC that you even reviewed yourself:
I respect what you did with the initiative and do feel you have good intentions for Cardano, but find it very counter-productive that doxxing people is the way you apparently want to achieve things.
If your point was to elicit me to be transparent about the above, this is my stance. I hope we can put things to rest now and focus on actual productive matters, like creating educational content on Cardano and spreading awareness in a constructive way.
I added this as it relates to the context and I understand it´s especially difficult for you to reveal your name and you have been through this once already and hope you would change your mind for a second time would it be needed.
The rest of the flippant speculation and your complete misinterpretation of my good intentions I will not reflect upon as it´s completely off topic and has nothing to do with this thread and what I meant to say about the importance IMO of non-anonymous Ambassadors for Cardano.
Please let´s not make another boring, endless & useless GoC story distraction about the valid question submitted to the Community Management Team about the potential need of KYC of Ambassadors to strengthen their responsibility & accountability of their actions, allow for future monetary compensation and management of risks (such as conflict of interests).
Well i guess you hit the nail on the head belowsearcher. “If the Cardano Foundation were in fact to give incentives to ambassadors in the future and would need to to KYC for regulatory purposes, I think just assuming the name of a social media or forum account is the person they think it is probably isn’t enough, I would think they would need to do some sort of ID verification similar to what regulated exchanges use.”
Why didn’t Cardano foundation do it at this stage? Surely due diligence should be done for any important position that reflects the professional and honourable value and important’s that Cardano strives for? The successful marketing in the environment and potential future maturity of Cardano needs accountability.
I personally can’t believe that a Cardano foundation team @tom.kelly and @maki.mukai would think that it is fine to let Ambassadors stay anonymous and sorry have a monkey as their profile picture?
Cardano is all about decentralization and not this attitude of some of the Cardano Foundation team of centralization and selective social interaction. I certainly don’t think for one minute that @Nathan_Kaiser approves of this as this is not what CH would approve of. In fact Charles Hoskinson is all over the show in name and person, what makes our ambassadors more important than him?
I would also like to thank everyone for their kind words, support and recommendations. I’m honored to have been able to represent and be a part of the community with my past, but also future, contributions.
Regarding the above raised privacy concerns… I believe that everyone should have the option to being able to contribute, whilst remaining private/anonymous, and regardless of full name disclosure. This is everyone’s right and freedom, and should be respected accordingly. True intent lies within someone’s actions/contributions after all.
Anyway, I think this is getting too off-topic and should be discussed elsewhere, in a new topic, if any.
Looking forward to help build a strong and vibrant (worldwide), but in particular, Japanese community. I hope for your continued support and collaboration. Let’s make this happen.
Good luck to all the new ambassadors!
(EDIT: I’m currently not an Ambassador any longer, and now work for the Cardano Foundation as a Community Manager based in Japan)
No problem in congratulating all Ambassadors that are not anonymous. This is important issue that can not and will not be swept under the carpet. As an Ambassador you make yourself accountable to the community as you are our accredited representative.
Cardano is not a game. I am bewildered that the basic criteria of an Ambassador is not even adhere to.
I can understand it might seem that way, but that is not what the Ambassador program is about. If you read the Ambassadors page on Cardano.org, it says: “Within the Cardano community, we have some very active members. These are people who are recognized as going above and beyond what a normal community member might do, by offering regular, consistent, and positive contributions to the project. We call these special people the Cardano Ambassadors.”
As such, ambassadors are just very active community members that are acknowledged by the Cardano Foundation for making regular, consistent and positive contributions to the project. Nothing more, nothing less.
I do find it ironic that some people seem to be claiming this cannot be done under an anonymous account. You do realize that arguably the biggest and most important contribution in the entire cryptocurrencies space was actually done by an anonymous person; Satoshi Nakamoto?
While we understand some of your concerns, at this point in time, we do not find it necessary to have full identities of our Ambassadors. We are respecting every individual’s decision to stay anonymous, granted they are fulfilling the criteria of producing good work for the Cardano community.
Our main focus at this time is to help grow awareness of the Cardano project around the world and this first group of Ambassadors are doing just that. In the future, there may require more identification, but for now, we would like to celebrate the great blog posts, translated content, moderation and meetups happening around the world!
Not claiming it can’t be done. Stating it should not be done.
Firstly Satoshi Nakamoto? started something without a community. He then disappeared into thin air and hasn’t come back You do realize your argument is void.
Well like you said the Ambassador program is 1st. “Within the Cardano community" and 2nd “acknowledged by the Cardano Foundation”
Here in lies the route of the problem. Two seperate entities The Cardano community which would logically and importantly want to know who these special people are? I do find it ironic that you state that “As such, ambassadors are just very active community members that are acknowledged by the Cardano Foundation for making regular, consistent and positive contributions to the project. Nothing more, nothing less.”
As stated in the Ambassadors program it state 4 important roles
Meetup Organizers
Moderators
Content Creators
Translators
and then goes on to Quote " Furthermore, this program will help raise awareness and promote the Cardano project around the world."
You clearly have not read or caught the essence of what the Ambassador program is about.
It is also clear that the CF seems to think that it is the controlling arm of the community which is not the ethos of Cardano or it’s founder.
I’m sorry you feel that way but the community team is not trying to control anything. We are merely trying to give recognition where it is owed.
We have created open nomination forms to allow anybody to be nominated for the program. From there, we use objective criteria to determine whether someone qualified based on their actions. This is also why we say the ambassador badge is earned rather than appointed, because someone must complete certain tasks to become an ambassador.
We have always reiterated that we’re open to suggestions too so we do encourage the dialogue to remain open. And to respond to the one concern, we are allowing ambassadors to remain anonymous if they wish to do so. We have direct lines of communication with them through private messages so they are not completely anonymous, but would like to remain so to the public.
Then @maki.mukai you should not call it Cardano Ambassadors as it is misleading and been untruthful. Ambassadors are known in their community and around the world. How can you support the argument that you allow an ambassador to remain anonymous to the public? the very people you wish encourage to be part of Cardano.
Also you are promoting centralization by stating that only certain people have direct line of communication?
Unbelievable that @Nathan_Kaiser this is CF marketing and Community team approach where it could have been so open and simple.
The Community Team is building a Program or two designed for the Community without involving the Community for open consultation. I think @knysna has some pretty valid criticism here. You simply ignored or didn’t respond to Community feedback for the Ambassador Program and have shown no intention to openly work together on it with the Community. Is this not centralization? You cherrypick the Community questions you are comfortable to respond to and ignore others.
I have said it already and will say it again that there is an urgent need to hire top talent (2-3 people) with proven professional successful career into the Community Management Team to strengthen it as its current aching weakness is an opportunity for others to exploit.
Regarding anonymity of Ambassadors is this the official standpoint from the CF & Nathan as well?
You should have made a KYC, have an NDA signed and also some terms & conditions that has to be accepted along the official title as a risk mitigation strategy & setting expectations from both sides on the relationship. I am pretty sure 90%+ of the guys wouldn’t have had any issue supporting this approach.
Just one unlikely scenario, you enable any Ambassador now to use the title “Cardano Ambassador” (as it has been officially granted & veritable on the Cardano website) and accidentally / intentionally perform any kind of misconduct, false play that might damage the brand and in which case of anonymity and / or no legal agreement you will not be able to pursue any legal claims / charges, which right of you would otherwise have a deterrent effect.
@knysna is also right about how powerful such a title might be in a particular context and maybe “Cardano Community Worker” would have been more appropriate and have the “Cardano Ambassador” granted after Community consensus & long term proven value and clearly recognized and unquestionable solid ethical & moral standards to minimize risks and make the title scarce and truly special.
Anyway point has been made loud & clear about our worries, concerns and risks of Ambassador anonymity, forces of centralization & Community Team performance.
Please note @tom.kelly and @maki.mukai. I am part of the community and an investor in Cardano. Please change the title from ambassador as it is not truthful and will make a mockery of Cardano. I will follow this up further an advise that CF get professionals in to interact with the community as a whole.
You as CF team members at the moment are behaving in away that is contrary to all that Cardano stands for. You have shown a paper trail of unprofessional behaviour and one can only surmise a hidden agenda or a partial/biased approach.
Not every Ambassador is anonymous . I think as a community we can accommodate few that wish to preserve their anonymity/privacy, and judge them based on their work. Ambassador title can be revoked in case of infringement. It may also be helpful not to think of “Ambassador” as a special title but as more work and more responsibility for those who choose to take it on. All Ambassadors are running on their own energy right now, let’s not make it harder for them then it needs to be.
Sean, everyone is running here on his own energy, I don’t even see why this worth to mention!?
You clearly didn’t get the issues we have communicated above regarding Anonymity and other topics.
I think this entire Community Management is the weakest Achilles heel of Cardano, it’s just miles away from the level, maturity & standard set by the rest of the project
Please don’t always be so defensive with constructive criticism, we have the very same goal and core incentives to let Cardano succeed also on the Community level and whenever we see something sloppy, risky or poor quality we try to raise awareness and have a constructive debate.
Behavior like this is exactly why I have no intentions of attaching my real name to cryptocurrencies in general and exactly why I had no intentions of even attaching my pseudo-anonymous name to the Guardians of Cardano initiative.
You do realize your argument is void.
. I think as a community we can accommodate few that wish to preserve their anonymity/privacy, and judge them based on their work. Ambassador title can be revoked in case of infringement. It may also be helpful not to think of “Ambassador” as a special title but as more work and more responsibility for those who choose to take it on. All Ambassadors are running on their own energy right now, let’s not make it harder for them then it needs to be.
