This poll probably needs a small introduction as not everyone may be aware of the existence of the private section of this forum (the ‘lounge’) that I mentioned in the thread title.
As described here by @maki.mukai, this Cardano Forum has three trust levels; ‘new’ (L1), ‘basic’ (L2) and ‘regular’ (L3). The Cardano Foundation chose this setup to prevent the forum from being spammed, but also to give regular users some privileges in being able to maintain and moderate the community. Rewarding community members for being active also could be seen as an incentive to participate in a constructive way.
The lounge is a private section of the forum that is only visible for Level 3 forum members, and thus a place where ‘regular’ members can converse. Whether a private forum is a desirable function on the forum of a cryptocurrency community has been debated a few times but has particularly been discussed after the recent chain of events that led to the resignation of Cardano Foundation Michael Parsons. The concerns about the functioning of the Cardano Foundation’s chairman was first voiced on the lounge (link; only visible for L3 forum members) and was the breeding ground for the Guardians of Cardano initiative that spearheaded the community movement that requested a change of direction from the Cardano Foundation.
To get a better idea for how many of you are aware of the existence of this private forum and opinions about whether or not it is desirable and/or has added value I set up the poll below. It would be great if anyone that read this can just answer the poll questions. Thanks!
Question 1: Were you aware that a private section on this forum existed before reading this post (and before you became a lounge member if you already are)?
Yes
No
0voters
Question 2: Do you feel there should be a private section on this forum?
Yes
No
Not sure
0voters
Edit: Making the questions a bit more visible and rewording 2 sentences to clarify them a bit.
Welcome everyone and congratulations when you participated in this poll. It means that you have actively contributed to this/our community with your opinion. That’s the true value of the community it’s made of.
And apart from regular visits, there are many ways to contribute to a lively and interesting forum. You can mark posts of other members with a “like”, and you can (should) also write comments. Or even better, open your own topic to discuss with the community. That’s what a forum is for.
Discourse is the forum software and it provides multiple levels of membership, based on experience and requirements from several thousands of communities. All together created 3.6 million posts in the last 30 days. 3000 of them were created in this forum, due to the active contributors.
New users start at level 0 and have some limitations mainly to actively contribute. This should prevent spam and users who only join to place a question, expect a quick answer for free and then never appear again. Trust level 1 can be easily achieved by simply spending 10 minutes in the forum and reading through some existing threads and posts. (see more details here)
I consider this a very useful mechanism because a vibrant and organic grown community is formed by as many as possible active and contributing members and also it fully aligns with this forums rules There are a lot of badges you can earn. Who is really interested in the forum rules, and clicked on the previous link, will get one directly, because it distinguishes someone who cares about a good togetherness in the forum.
The motivation of people to actively participate is therefore very important. Without them, we would not be able to see a lot of valuable content. And also the “read only” members, who do not want to participate, would suffer from it and would not visit the forum any more.
Then we can also simply have a noreply mailing list or a telegram announcement channel, where all click the “hail jesus” button when god send some message. But this is not an organic and real decentralized behaviour.
Now to the question if there should be a private section: in my opinion clearly yes. for a certain selection of topics where the trust level system is a good selector for contribution. And as a big motivation for people to get there.
I have built up my ADA holding since buying my first coins a year ago. I would therefore welcome being able to ask the occasional serious question in a more private and trusted setting.
Keep the private section since it does add some ‘reward’ in the sense that only people who are true Cardano believers and frequent Forum attendees can discuss things w/out too much noise from others.
And if an issue is sensitive, it’s the responsibility of those who raise it to bring it up in the appropriate forum section, rather than curtail the choices of others.
I love transparency, but it’s not necessary all the time under all conditions.
From my experience, if you really believe in the project…
If you make reasonable contributions and if you are intellectually curious about Cardano, you will always find support among the members. By extension you will be invited to the private section.
I came to this space led by my research and became a part of the community.
I am eternally thankful to all the great members who really helped me understand Cardano’s ecosystem (I had to start somewhere).
Cardano seems to attract some of the smartest people I have come across in crypto. For me the conversations with software engineers/developers have been the most insightful.
Now I am doing my part to educate and help others understand Cardano.
I am elderly, an Australian pensioner, with modest means. Literally all my assets are in ADA. I like to have an inside track on what’s going on. For example, finding Daedalus difficult I am keen to use Yoroi, but feel I would be safer if I wait for Trezor to work with Yoroi and buy that. So I am sweating on this happening. Maybe I will find this out in due course, but no clue on why it hasn’t happened yet has emerged. Do you understand my curiosity? It is quite innocent.
I understand your curiosity and your frustration with Daedalus or timelines.
That being said, if your concern is safety of your funds, you will be just as secure with a paper wallet as you would be with Trezor or Ledger. All they do is store your keys on an electronic chip and allow you to sign for transactions offline.
This is a good feature but in terms of security they are no more secure than your paper wallet.
As to why certain things haven’t happened: I can’t tell you as I don’t have the view of the insiders here. But if I were to guess, I’d say it’s because of priorities. Maybe also because of compatibility. Building a network at this stage should take priority over providing an extra avenue of storing funds.
Maybe the product will change significantly as a result of introducing Shelley… so much that they would have to expend time, effort and money to redo hardware wallets.
If that were true I’d wait till Shelley is out before offering hardware wallets.
Are you ok with not touching your ADA for a while?
If the answer to the above questions is yes then you can create a paper wallet on a secure computer and forget about hardwallets for a while.
Yoroi is a hot wallet and I would not hold my funds there.
If you like it more than Daedalus (I wouldn’t blame you) then the safest course of action is to hold your funds on Daedalus paper wallet and wait till Yoroi introduces hardware/paper wallet support.
The next best option (if you only want to use yoroi) is to save your key words in a secure place, and delete yoroi extension from your chrome. This will delete your private keys and effectively make your funds go cold.
This option isn’t as secure as paper wallet as you have traces of your private keys in your machine, but it’s better than a hot wallet.
But Yoroi plus Trezor is the best combination for me. So I shall keep my Windows laptop (only used for ADA) turned off until Trezor happens. You are right - I don’t need access to the elite lounge after all!
The majority of threads should be (and are btw) in the public forums.
But for things like introduction with personal details (that are not indexable by search engines), meetups, polls or the suggestion box it is really nice to have some kind of separate area.
