Question, has anyone ever actually sued over the MDC?
RemieV has told me that there are often threats of legal action that lawyers have been involved with, but I am still not sure if anyone has ever actually gone beyond threats.
I have more or less assumed that this project, if it ever gets flying, would be a substitute for the MDC. That is, we would only set it up when the MDC is discontinued in two years.
That's how I see it as well. However, actually organising and setting up something like this wouldn't happen overnight, even for a small challenge, so it's certainly worth thinking about now.
Edited to add: a thought just occured to me: how about if we acted as a clearing house for established challenges, like the IIG's challenge? If they won't object that is. We'll do the legwork of designing protocols, but won't actually have any contract with the challenger. We'll just let them know "yes, we think you're ready" or "no, we don't think you're ready, and here's why". Do you think people would bother asking us for our help, though, if we weren't ponying up any money?
I don't really like this idea, and I can't see the existing challenges going for it either. The whole point of this would be not to lose the publicity that the JREF challenge already has. People know they can come here for a challenge, and if all we do is point them somewhere else, there's no need for anything official to be set up here at all, we can post links to other challenges easily enough already.
I think the idea of a TDC is a really good one. Start small.
I don't think we were planning anything big. However, I don't like the idea of setting a fixed amount. The idea of putting the prize together from donations is that people can give however much they like, when they like. I certainly wouldn't expect to have as much as a thousand dollars at the start, but I would hope that it would be more than that after a few years.
But I will need help administering website things like a message forum (if we want one). I do not have the brainspace to really understand how to make a message board robust and keep it so.
I'm afraid that while I'm an evil henchthing, I have no idea about all the technical bits. There are plenty of people around that do though, so it shouldn't be all that hard to find someone. If the worst comes to the worst, I have several friends who play with computers that I could beg for help.
This is going well beyond my original conception (inspired by
Ron Tomkins 
) of a TDC -- a thousand dollar challenge -- which is perfectly fine, but I want to pitch that original concept one more time.
As I said to Jackalgirl, I don't think we're planning anything bigger. It's just that having a variable donated amount seems a better idea than fixing it at a thousand dollars, which we might not have at the start, and could have more than later.
I think, first, that it’s a mistake to consider this a “possible successor” to the MDC. Without Randi, there is no MDC. Furthermore, I don’t think it’s a good idea to have the forum produce something which is meant to, or accidentally ends up, being “confusable” with the MDC. That’s not fair to Randi, the JREF, or this forum. *wags finger*
As Nucular says, having it associated with the MDC is the whole point. The MDC has built up a lot of publicity over the years, and it would be a shame to see it all go to waste. As I said at the start, there are already many similar challenges around, with more money than we can sensibly hope to offer. The only thing that would set this apart from them would be the JREF.
Second, if you’re not going to have a cool mil, or even ten grand, then a thousand is as good as five. Why raise more than necessary? No one’s put a number on it yet, but my vote is to keep it modest.
But how much is necessary? There are people who would happily do it for nothing. There are people for whom a million isn't enough. I think by just keeping it open to donations instead of having a fixed number, as well as offering a choice of actually doing it for nothing, or for charity, you can cover all the bases. There just doesn't seem a good reason to limit the amount if we don't have to.
Third, even if more people become interested, I’d be surprised if enough folks are able to donate the time and resources to make this a big production. I’m happy to be proven wrong, but my feeling is that we can maximize participation by minimizing our goals. We should really strive to make this a tool for every member of the forum. Everyone has access to logic and reason, not so a tidy stash of Ben Franklins.
Of course. That's why I think the idea of having everything worked out no the forum is such a good idea. Very few people would be needed to look after the money and so on, the vast majority of the work would simply be people working out protocols on the forum, which they do already.
In fact, I’m picturing a standard $10 or $15 donation for everyone, so no one has any more stake or ownership than anyone else.
I don't see why this would be necessary. Firstly, I'm assuming the money would be put aside solely for the prize, as the million is now, so there is no question of anyone owning any stakes in anything. Secondly, why stop people giving however much they like? Some people won't be able to afford $10-15, but might still want to give something. And if someone decides they want to donate another million, why would we want to stop them?
Looking further ahead, having open donations offers the chance for more publicity. No-one will care if we keep saying "Look, we still have $1000", but if every now and then we can say "We now have $5000", "We now have $10,000 and still no-one has claimed it" and so on, it will be a lot more interesting.
In the end, I see this as a kind of glorified bar bet. Someone shows up here, or we meet someone personally who’s claiming powers, and we’ll have the moxy to say, “Fine. We’ve got a grand. Prove it.” It’s a way of forcing someone’s hand, of showing that we take claims seriously enough to put our own money down. And, as everyone knows, money talks. (Usually it tells me how lonely it is in my pocket with so little company, but that’s another story.)
I think that's how we're all looking at it really. However, as Nucular says, being an international forum, and offering a challenge rather than just amking a bet between friends, has to change things a bit. Not only are the legal implications different but, more importantly, the goals are different. A bar bet is irrelevant to pretty much everyone except those involved. The whole point of a challenge is to be seen by as many people as possible, and to try to educate them. While the MDC is seen by many as just a something that sits there so they can argue with woos about why they haven't taken it, I don;t think it can be seen that way by those actually running it.
