What is on Your Mind?

That is not a true statement.

You can transfer Bits to anyone, anytime, for any reason here.

All we did, which was agreed to by the advisory team, as I recall, was to replace Bits with the "Thank You" system, for individual posts.

---------- Post updated at 06:42 ---------- Previous update was at 06:36 ----------

OK, let's define "folding", per the web site:
So, people run some distributed computing software at home and they will run this software (fold) for some amount of Bits. Then, the person doing the folding gets credit with the folding project team.

How does the person donating the Bits to the folder get any credit with the folding team? How does the site get credit for participation?

---------- Post updated at 06:50 ---------- Previous update was at 06:42 ----------

Maybe you mean that we create a forum folding team?

---------- Post updated at 06:53 ---------- Previous update was at 06:50 ----------

To keep this idea going, I created a folding team for the forums:

What's next?

Ah. I thought I only saw that because I was a forum advisor, like other people's bits.

Yah... All these features, plugins and custom code can get confusing, especially since we don't document them as well as we should.

The payee receives the bits from the payer for folding a work unit. First the payee signs up as a team member to the payer's team, then folds and the points are credited to the folding team's total. The payer then pays the payee in bits. There is no credit for the site as a whole, but this is a way to be able to use bits as virtual currency.

OH, I think I get it now.

If I have a lot of Bits, I can create a team in my name (which I did already in the forums name), and then I can pay another person in Bits to fold and my team gets folding credit. Others could use their Bits to support the site team, if they wanted, or they could support any team they wanted, including their own.

What should be the Bits to Folding credit "exchange rate"?

Or, do we just create a "market" where the folder advertises to the forums:

Neo, that is exactly the plan. We could start with an initial fixed amount, but then it will take a long time to know the lowest price for which someone is prepared to fold. An auction type model would then be better, but then this would need to be supported through screens and matching functionality. So the ultimate solution may not be trivial.

There's a minor hitch in the plan, though: This just moves bits between people, something we could already do for free. As it stands, I don't think bits are going to become valuable unless gracious volunteer commits to always honor x work for y bits to provide some foundation for the system. Or other automated systems are put in place to convert bits into guaranteed work or services. The games and lotteries are sort of what I mean but they don't do real work. The emergency forum's closer. Any thoughts on my idea about shell logins?