Dan Romero on Warpcast

Dan Romero pfp

What should we do with egregious examples of squatted channels? I'm going to call this individual out since it's clearly squatting — @0xg — is sitting on a bunch of city channels and not actively building communities: /denver /la /losangeles /nyc /newyorkcity /newyork /sanfrancisco (Also the multiple variations of city names with no activity is clear squatting and when there are active communities in /los-angeles /sf /new-york.) A few other thoughts: 1. We have a no squatting policy for fnames and we allow ENS for a name that isn't governed by that policy. 2. We never advertised channels as something you buy and own forever. Has been centralized and experimental since we allowed anyone to create a channel last December. 3. I'm sympathetic to someone who is good faith trying to build a community, but that's not squatting. 4. Squatting is squishy, know it when you see, not deterministic. 5. Ultimately, squatters are massive negative externality on the network. It's parasitic, anti-social behavior.

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Channel Guy pfp

I purchased them fair and square, in accordance with the set terms and conditions and with good purpose ; not for you to come up with some derogatory word for your customers who are your largest participants. When I purchased these channels it was at a point in the growth of Farcaster where people were just casting into the stratosphere and there was no way to unify and conversate for collective interests. What sort of “founder” takes to their platform like this? You don’t know me . I don’t know you. I was and remain and early supporter. You can just message me instead of acting like a piece of shit and buy them or we can make friends and maybe do something nice. I have resisted tons of offers on them from people that want to privatize them in the interest of keeping them open forums for people to link. How about a thank you.

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Pichi 🟪🍖🐹🎩 🍡🌸 pfp

Pichi 🟪🍖🐹🎩 🍡🌸

Refund them and take them back.

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Jonny Mack pfp

pro-rated refund and reclaim

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Ayush Garg pfp

i think the guy is from nyc, lives in new york city, and works from new york

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Jarrett pfp

Refund with warps based on how long is left of the original 1 year they paid for Squatted for half a year? 1250 warps

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shazow pfp

Some ideas: 1. Make all channels have some random non-colliding namespace (e.g. random suffix like /denver-9871 or namespaced under the creator or something else) but allow "blessed" pointers from a non-namespaced version that is managed by the client (warpcast), so /foo would be a pointer to /foo-1234 and the pointer can change (while /foo-1234 can keep the existing audience etc). 2. When you make channels decentralized, have a decentralized namespace option like ENS? (Could even be a subdomain.) Then could pre-reserve ones for well-behaved channels. IMO #1 is better, but could be some hybrid solution maybe.

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zoose pfp

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meta-david🎩 | Building Scoop3 pfp

meta-david🎩 | Building Scoop3

Seize the channel. No refund. If they complain, ban them. Anyone else who complains/backs them, ban them too. Choose violence.

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Ben 🟪 pfp

1. Create a public list of suspected squatters and their channels. 2. Let people on the list make their case in public about their intentions for the channels. 3. Community votes on whether or not to revoke ‘ownership’.

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eirrann | he/him🎩🔵 pfp

eirrann | he/him🎩🔵

I say pro-rated refund question to which I have no answer: are there topics with such broad appeal and applicability like these city names, and words like /art, that someone shouldn't be able to "own" the channel? I recognize the need to have an engaged person or group to properly cultivate any channel, but some things seem too general to be 'owned'

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raulonastool.eth 🎩 🏰 pfp

raulonastool.eth 🎩 🏰

Refund for sure. But it's probably better for the channel name to be expired than taking ownership of it. This should also come with some update to the channel creation process, which requires further approvals or proof before creating a channel for cities or brands.

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Jacob pfp

@0xg are you active? if not, can you add some mods to these channels?

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Satoshi Tomatomoto pfp

Satoshi Tomatomoto

I'd contact him giving him the choice between either actively moderating all of those channels or having them taken away. Now that the channels are literally unusable by anyone who hasn't been made a member, it's not unreasonable to expect channel owners to regularly grant membership based on some reasonable criteria.

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tyler ↑ pfp

Not sure I'd do it (expensive), but for discussion: full refund & reclaim. If you're unexpectedly taking something from someone, an above and beyond approach would be a sort of return to the previous state. This disallows any sort of "Merkle scammed me" argument. Pro-rated refund is a sort of penalty for squatting (a potential net benefit); full refund allows them to buy back the channel again if they so desire (which may be a massive negative effect, I admit). This all assumes good faith on their part, which isn't always the case, so there's that.

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Chinmay 🕹️🍿 pfp

Chinmay 🕹️🍿

Refund in full, if Warpcast can take the financial hit. It's easier accounting that way. Put the channel back in the general domain. Also, I'll be giving up my /product-hunt channel. I don't use it and it's open for anyone who wants to take over.

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typeof.eth 🔵 pfp

typeof.eth 🔵

Looking at Usage Policy: > Warpcast may remove your channel and will NOT refund your warps if: > ... 2. You squat a channel without using it. If the channels are expiring soon, might be better to wait, but it looks like y'all have been explicit about not allowing squatting. Longer term, I wonder if the move would be to namespace channels under their owner (kinda like NPM orgs) or give them unique IDs and allow for duplicate names, since the issue with squatting is really just taking the name. This solution definitely comes with its own set of problems, though.

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Jason pfp

NY and LA have thrived despite the squatting. What does above/below the fold mean for channels? Hidden in search some way due to inactivity By the sounds of it that may not be enough

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Ran Domero pfp

@randomerror.eth

/crypto is very fucking egregious squatting pls stand up to the investor class squatting our fucking chanels and shit

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Thibauld pfp

My ultimate dream would be that you implement some sort of harberger tax on channels... and let the free market do the rest! https://medium.com/@simondlr/what-is-harberger-tax-where-does-the-blockchain-fit-in-1329046922c6 For example, you could set a (completely subjective) minimum amount of channel activity required to be able to disable the harberger tax on your channel (i.e. great channel owners pay the tax in kind by being great channel owners). If you're not a great channel owner (activity below threshold), then you have no choice but be subject to the harberger tax and anyone who thinks they can do a better job can pay to become the new channel owner. Honestly that would be SICK! I'd love to see it.

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