[COMMUNITY DISCUSSION] Should @HNS twitter be community-operated for marketing purposes or remain inactive indefinitely?

[Chjango]

Opening up this topic for an informal discussion since there's been ephemeral conversations about this happening over Telegram.

In my personal view, I view Twitter as an effective marketing tool to address a crypto audience. Crypto Twitter is where most new retail investors look to to find information they can't get elsewhere. Keeping the @HNS handle inactive indefinitely is leaving the opportunity to speak to that audience on the table.

From a decentralization perspective, the factor that matters most is whether the protocol—and the governance over that protocol—is sufficiently decentralized. Whether or not a Twitter handle is communicating updates about said protocol ranks much lower on the list of factors.

There were concerns raised [1] [2] about the inactivity of @HNS being perceived—to the detriment of Handshake—as Handshake being a "dead project" or a "ghost chain". You and I know that this certainly isn't the case; but this is the reality of the optics.

From a market standpoint, there are 99,999 other projects vying for retail attention. And retail pays attention to Twitter. If we care about Handshake price, then it should be competing for some of that attention. If it remains inactive indefinitely, then, at least for the short run, Handshake runs the risk of not being discovered while we're in the heat of a DeFi and dWeb summer.

That's my vote. Would love to hear your input, and looking forward to having a constructive discussion. The fact that we're having this discussion merits a healthy ecosystem already.

Onward!

[smcki012]

The last confirmed owners were Caleb Chen and Andrew Lee of PIA VPN/London Trust Media. Caleb managed the Tweetdeck and had all the credentials in his name. If it has exchanged hands, it was done purposely. And likely this entire process is probably a public charade to make it seem decentralized.

[Chjango]

I agree with this generally but what sorts of community members do we want? Do retail investors add value to the community as a whole or are they there to attempt to extract value? (and then get dumped on by insiders)

For HNS, we don't have the luxury to choose imo. If we were in a bear market with a lot less competitors, it would be another story. (Have you seen the number of domain name projects popping up like mushrooms since the bull market started? They're much better funded and centrally operated and taking mindshare away from Handshake, despite being inferior products.) The other thing is, when HNS gets listed on major exchanges—which is the mecca that we're all aiming for—it will inevitably drive both retail and whales onto Handshake, and it would be out of anyone's control who does what with the coin.

That being said, every class of community member is valuable and has utility for the project; not just developers. Investors have their value because they lend much-needed liquidity to the coin as well as lend capital to bootstrap early projects building on top of Handshake (especially absent a centralized treasury). Retail has its value because they're the ones who either undervalue or overvalue a project and thus, when they do overvalue a coin, they pay a premium for it, which itself is the best form of "marketing" for a coin. If you look at the meteoric price rise of any DeFi coin, it's retail and investors who are the driving forces behind such price action (see: forward price-to-earnings on investopedia). Developers are certainly critical for the adoption of Handshake because they're the ones making everything fundamentally more valuable, assuming you're building something necessary which will make usage easier, but in the backdrop of this bull market, I think we need to be more pragmatic, less ideological.

[Chjango]

Someone or any organization should not have the control& respect the genesis statements.

If I can not get access to the link as other got then this is a closed source project and only the foundation is director nobody else. There is no working around this problem.

Conflict: I still did not get the answer about the transfer of access.

I had been transferred access to tweet from the account. It started when a few people on twitter commented that the inactivity of the account is shedding a bad light on Handshake, which seemed like a problem with a straight-forward solution: start tweeting from the account and demonstrate how vibrant and active the community really is.

The framework I'd been using for tweeting is, based on the suggestions in this thread to:

• tweet only dev-related stuff

The framework I'd used for RT'ing is:

• extremely permissive RT'ing of all relevant (not spammy) mentions of HNS as well as testimonials from people who independently discovered Handshake based on the merits of the project

In general, I'm in agreement with @troq's suggestion to only RT (w/o comment) specific accounts no more than once a week. Those accounts can be listed on handshake.org, and anybody who wants "in" can open a PR to get it. This seems to be the most lightweight option that will allow all the directors (and future directors) on this thread to act like a DAO (without a blockchain or smart contract involved), to dictate what should be RT'd, and relegate the responsibility of the account's custodian to hitting the button to highlight the things we all want to highlight.

[tiMaxal]

not sure when i was made 'against' https://github.com/handshake-org/handshake-web/issues/14#issuecomment-846350246 - my only response has been rather 'on-the-fence' ..

While only having started becoming part of this community a month or so ago, one of the things that appealed was the brevity and apparent non-politicisation of 'official' social media; keep it simple and keep it true, and if it is going to kept going moving forward, keep it active within the month if not the week. Perspective of a recent 'outsider' :-).

[DIPMR]

@brandondees that's a fair point, but what should be used for community consensus. The @hns handle is becoming active again without consensus, rules, or transparency.

@DIPMR not sure what you mean by genesis promises and how it relates to the twitter handle becoming active again.

Promise: "True decentralization, no official singular Foundation, Committee, Corporation, or entities in permanent unitary control of the protocol." - handshake.org The links attached to the Protocol makes it a part of protocol and "1 person/entity" has control over it. I learned most of the tech from "learnhns.com' & Boyma's presentation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h505L7A_Z8g&t=9s), uploaded in March,2019 , even before the genesis but there is nothing mentioned about it.

Don't know what kind of analysis to do here but it's pretty clear and obvious that tweets are biased.

[DIPMR]

I had been transferred access to tweet from the account. It started when a few people on twitter commented that the inactivity of the account is shedding a bad light on Handshake, which seemed like a problem with a straight-forward solution: start tweeting from the account and demonstrate how vibrant and active the community really is.

--This raises many questions in itself. Who (person/group/foundation/etc) transferred it? Can I get the name and where was it discussed? I see only 2 Tweets talking about HNS not tweeting or anything like that and there are not many responses to that tweet to call it a healthy discussion. Core of this project is to remove the MITM but I see the irony here by appointing a MITM at will and that too without even thinking about anything. If founders passed the right then I even question the founders and doubt who they are and why they are founders in first place.

In the end whoever has the access has the power and he/she/they is MITM.

[kibagateaux]

If we were in a bear market with a lot less competitors, it would be another story. (Have you seen the number of domain name projects popping up like mushrooms since the bull market started?

These aren't competitors. They aren't trying to replace the root zone they are making siloed namespaces, a lot of the time they aren't even related to DNS and just wallet utilities like ENS. Our only real "competitor" is ENS and even then they are a complimentary technology. Do you see them worrying about all the people forking their code? No, they just keep building because they know they are the best out there.

when HNS gets listed on major exchanges—which is the mecca that we're all aiming for

No that is NOT the mecca. HNS is trying to replace the DNS root zone, not get listed on exchanges. You have failed to make and logical or convincing argument how shilling to retail investors helps us achieve Handshake's goal. Reiterating -> Handshake's goals, not your own goals.

If you look at the meteoric price rise of any DeFi coin, it's retail and investors who are the driving forces behind such price action

DeFi is an entirely different asset class which is not comparable to HNS first off. Second, they have fundamental value backed by revenue generation, cash flows, and DAO treasuries none of which Handshake has. Third, DeFi adoption happened long before price appreciation. I've been heavy DeFi user since mid-2019 when no one was talking about it on twitter, all the tokens were sub $50M marketcap or didn't exist yet, etc. and I can tell you for a fact that price movement didn't do anything for their success, they were successful and so they became valuable. You don't even repost memes from HNS official twitter which is crypto marketing 101 so you're not even emulating the most basic tactics used by these communities, you're just pushing your own narrative.

[agaamin]

Lol. I think before we decide what to do with the social media assets of handshake, we should seek to arrive at a process/system on how we can arrive at a consensus on various topics in the HNS community.

In the long run there will be all kinds of people in a community such as Handshake. There will be those who want to contribute to and evangelize open source tech like Handshake and those who want to create innovative products, services and businesses out of them and even some who may just want to buy and sell TLDs or Tokens to make money.

All of them are perfectly acceptable manifestations of a movement. In a diverse community it would be great if we can develop a mechanism of arriving at a consensus on various issues.

What would that consensus look like ? Flat Voting systems or Weighted voting systems or some other method maybe. How can such a consensus be implemented?

It might help us manage and accommodate different views and still keep moving forward. Decisions on what to do with various assets and aspects of HNS can be made after that so that there are no heartburns in hindsight.

Cheers Sajan

[DIPMR]

I had been transferred access to tweet from the account. It started when a few people on twitter commented that the inactivity of the account is shedding a bad light on Handshake, which seemed like a problem with a straight-forward solution: start tweeting from the account and demonstrate how vibrant and active the community really is.

--This raises many questions in itself. Who (person/group/foundation/etc) transferred it? Can I get the name and where was it discussed? I see only 2 Tweets talking about HNS not tweeting or anything like that and there are not many responses to that tweet to call it a healthy discussion. Core of this project is to remove the MITM but I see the irony here by appointing a MITM at will and that too without even thinking about anything. If founders passed the right then I even question the founders and doubt who they are and why they are founders in first place.

In the end whoever has the access has the power and he/she/they is MITM.

----------Still waiting on the details. It's been a while and a response will help to clear the blockage to understand this ecosystem and foundation better to make better decisions. @Chjango

[smcki012]

There is always the nuclear option of just getting the account suspended permanently and moving on. There is no need for a Twitter account to rally a community -- we already have one. Twitter is tiny compared to other sites like TikTok, etc.

Instead of continuing this charade where the DWeb Foundation members try to claim social legitimacy, I think it's best they stop this now before it devalues their non-profit efforts to build the community before theirs even exists.

This isn't Tezos or Ethereum -- and the less voices arguing and trying to centralize clout, the faster HNS grows. If those in control of the account can't see that, they shouldn't have been given access by Caleb Chen of London Trust Media anyways.

We all agreed on a document (Andrew Lee, Andrew Lee, Caleb Chen, Zipkin, myself and others) that the account would be permanently forfeited to prevent Namebase or anyone else from centralizing control.

Be mindful of the replies in this thread and people's ulterior motives. They just want something to fight for. But the more this goes on, the less the account even matters.

[HandshakeJezebel]

I’m against any centralized control or controllers. Just like the founders killed the original Foundation, we should stay the course, and execute @HNS twitter. I vote for a Gravestone... communicating that Handshake is a leaderless, decentralized, utility for public good.

[alchmind]

Interesting discussion about centralization or centralized controllers - so should anyone who has a significant following on Twitter posting about HNS be asked to shut down their accounts or be regulated in what they say as well?

If we just shut down the @HNS account then others posting about @HNS would have much more clout with less twitter competition.

[smcki012]

If we just shut down the @HNS account then others posting about @HNS would have much more clout with less twitter competition.

Yes, that is the very essence of decentralization. There is no brand or entity that is formally "HNS". Only for-profit, non-profit, or community contributors with their own prerogatives and communities. That is emergent governance.

[skyinclude]

I saw a lot of "competing namespaces" (i know people say that they are not competitors - but I would say any namespace taking mindshare away from hns is a competitor - direct or indirect) use the inactive HNS twitter as a reason to call HNS dead.

My vote is to make it a bot / formula (if there is a way) that can be done to share all the amazing things in the community so it doesnt turn into a spam machine. maybe with the $hns tag. If there is a tool that allows the community to vote and what is approved is posted to the official HNS.

HNS is an amazing project - but without marketing or even using a marketing asset is built up - and linked on official websites and exchanges - seems like a waste of potential to get more people to know Handshake.

At the very least a pinned message at the top of the account explaining why it isn't active - very clearly.

"This Twitter account is not active, as like bitcoin, there is no centralized authority"

[johnnywu-namebase]

I'm against using a bot since it'd be really easy to hijack the content, and I'm very much against deleting the @HNS account outright. While I can get behind freezing it and pinning a Tweet on @HNS that shares why the account is not active and to visit $HNS and #HNS for the latest news, I don't think this really makes sense either because then what about the Handshake LinkedIn group, the Handshake Facebook page, the Handshake Instagram page, the Handshake subreddit, the Telegram group, etc? To freeze just the Twitter account and not any of the other platforms that are also ran by individual community members seems kinda... weird?

I'm leaning heavily toward's @troq's suggestion:

An alternative to keeping the twitter handle and homepage static would be to make both of them extremely permissive. ie @hns could RT any project supporting Handshake with a budget of one tweet a week per project. RT namebase, hnsfund, dweb foundation, handy browser, shakedex, bob wallet, etc. Each project can tag @hns to indicate which tweet they'd like to have RT'd that week. Tweets putting down other projects and misinformation should not be RT'd but anything positive can be fair game.

In addition, I think @HNS should be regularly RTing positive Handshake memes since they can be super helpful in educating and oboarding newcomers. Our community seems to regularly look to Bitcoin for inspiration, and their Twitter account also posts memes (see: https://twitter.com/Bitcoin).

The same can be done for the homepage. Instead of linking to only bob wallet and the handshake_hns telegram, handshake.org could link to all the projects listed above in random order (each project should submit a pr to be added). This would help Handshake come across as a vibrant, decentralized community (which it is) instead of a ghost town while also remaining neutral.

Other decentralized projects' community pages already do something similar to this (see: https://www.arweave.org/get-involved/community and https://bitcoin.org/en/community).

[nlydv]

Having just now seen this discussion for the first time, and neither being entirely clued into the specifics of the account's origin or developments nor giving the time to read every comment here word for word, here are my thoughts:

It appears there are two main categories of solutions proposed:

• Kill it
• Mimic

Either we kill it, and whatever perceived future risk the @hns handle holds, or we try to structure the account in a way that mimics Handshake's (or blockchain's general) modes of decentralization at various levels (code, networking, community, etc.).

The latter is difficult because Twitter. The former is undesirable because... Twitter.

If we're trying to optimize for decentralization, weighing the socio-political parameters of one specific facet of Handshake's public face on its own, its pseudo-official Twitter account, is futile. Governance in the abstract when aiming for democratic/decentralized principles (at least in this context) should be cohesive.

Obviously others have also discussed the related topics of the subreddit, other channels, and the public links to and from them, but the Twitter is special because it undoubtedly has the highest potential for public outreach/discovery.

What about GitHub? Is the @handshake-org account—being a centralized host of the website, the actual code, and the only thing that's agreeably, officially Handshake—supposed to be a standard for other public channels? Does putting that level of trust in Microsoft, however far removed and mitigated by git and open collaboration, draw a line on what is acceptably decentralized while balancing convenience and practicality (i.e. is this what we theoretically want to mimic)?

I'm not asking all that to be critical of the use of GitHub at all. Just positing questions in an armchair philosopher kind of way. The point though is that, since there is an actual substantive debate over the Twitter account, it's probably better to consider/develop Handshake's entire public-facing structure, community governance (or lack thereof), social consensus mechanisms, etc. as a whole and then apply it to specific facets.

I don't have specific ideas for who, what, when, where, or how; just the why. Perhaps some non-permanent federated-style of independent working groups, maybe just a non-binding document outlining desired social practices for community members. Hell, I don't know.

But I can't see how we can efficiently progress Handshake without some overarching... principles? organization? guidelines? ... some overarching social structure, in some form... at least in the short-term. To do nothing and/or leave it to the incoming public (whether individuals, organizations, companies) to vie for influence over the public face of Handshake will not be good in the long-term.

This Twitter thing, the struggle to figure out Brave integration, other misc. interactions with other communities, and the ever-looming possibility for a sudden influx of unsavory/bad actors co-opting the technology to propagate extreme ideologies, general ill will, or even illegal activities, in the process cratering Handshake's reputation. Adopting "radical decentralization" can only raise these barriers to progress.

If it's not clear, I'm opposed to killing the Twitter account. That is a rash decision to make without a more holistic consensus on how to guide Handshake's future on the social layer—layer 2, if you will—after which, if it's decided that it must die, then we can write a eulogy, pin it to the top of its timeline, and send it down the river styx.

...

ok, this meandering unloading of thoughts has concluded.

[pinheadmz]

https://twitter.com/HNS/status/1426647182581579783

Should we close this issue now?

[DIPMR]

I don't think we found any kind of consensus on this issue.

[smcki012]

Yes we have. It's clear HNS doesn't need the Twitter account to succeed or get adoption (i.e see the community efforts for the Namecheap integration).

Any further pushing on this matter from new community contributors/members with no context on the chain's history should be seen as an attempt at social governance capture.

We're not stupid.

[DIPMR]

Everyone/anyone can think whatever they can about anything. This thread already contains ugly facts of ownership transfer. If we don't want to do anything about this then the best thing is to delete this thread. Not commenting or not doing anything is not gonna change anything about it.

[skyinclude]

Yes, lets close this case - but someone on Twitter commented they could make a Bot

https://twitter.com/AGreenDCBike/status/1426889381634363398

not sure if they are saying they can make it - or suggest someone else make it?