Welcome!

If this proposal fails, Made we can have community members select and bring forward another 3th party, just like with the logo's this will proof to be like a good thing,

IF they can only make sure Ryan Taylor isn't called the CEO of Dash, they will be off to a flying start, and who know maybe the will even communicate with the Dash community.

There is so much room for improvement.

My votes remain no.

We recognize there is discontent in the community with our PR activity. In order to move to a process that is more aligned with what the community has expressed, if this proposal passes we will move to a more network-centric system in the next couple of months.


DCG will work with several firms in building competing proposals and ask the community to vote on them. The selected firm will be getting paid by the network directly, so the communication and the expectations should be more aligned than they are now. DCG would filter firms during February/March, so the community doesn’t have to go through too many of them (also, most serious firms won’t take part in a process that is too chaotic). We would aim at 2-3 proposals to be voted in early Q2 before the funds of this proposal run out. Wachsman will be invited to participate too, but it is on them to decide if they want to. DCG will work with the winning firm in the terms of their voted-in proposal.

find out if this Jimmy Sun guy is available lol

Seems like you have already answer my question which was a bit late


Thank you!

Re: "If this proposal passes we will move to a more network-centric system in the next couple of months."

What will happen if the proposal doesn't pass?

Guessing we will still move to a more network-centric system.

Reading between the lines it sounds like we should cut Wachsman now and spend money finding a better PR firm.

Yes, but we will have a disruption in our activities of two or three months. It is not just finding, selecting and voting a new firm. When we have switched in the past, it has taken a long time for the new one to be up to speed.

As Bradley has explained in another comment, we'll have serious difficulties to close/maintain some biz dev deals. We'll suffer with our product communications. And we won't have crisis management support.

Ok, understood

Thanks for weighing in Fernando.

From reading your statement above and comparing to Bradley’s, it sounds to me like you have lost faith in Wachsman, in which case it’s time to cut them off now and start looking for a new firm.

No point in dragging things out with Wachsman if they aren’t delivering.

We haven't lost faith. In fact, I would hope they run a proposal. However, I admit that we are failing to convey to the network the value we see in them. Maybe with a different system we can do that. Or maybe we find a firm that is more liked by everyone. In any case, we would prefer this proposal to pass so we can transition to the new system in an orderly way, be it with Wachsman or with another firm.

Also, if we go out to the market, the cost is most certainly gonna be higher, so we would prefer that the network approves that directly.

Fernando, it is not about liking the new PR firm it is about getting the type of results the MNOs want. For example, more articles about Dash in widely read publications like Coindesk, Cointetegraph, and Forbes etc. Interviews on business shows like CNBC FastMoney, Bloomgerg, Fox Business etc. Interviews on popular Youtube Cryptocurrency channels. Also a PR company that will implement a strategy to counteract Dash FUD on Reddit and other social media outlets. This is what we want!!! You seem to think we want a new firm just for the sake of getting a new firm. If Wachsman were doing the things that I have just mentioned we would not be having this discussion.

You are right that 'like' is not the right word, my bad.

But I do think that there is a misalignment of expectations between parties and that dealing with each other directly should help.

Hi Fernando, thanks for replying.

I have to say honestly, your statement isn’t really changing my mind. I’m still reading very much the same message from you.

More of a ‘we would prefer’ and ‘maybe good to have during transition’ message, than a ‘must have’ kind of message.

I think now is as good a time as any to switch PR firms. Nothing much is happening during this extended bear market.

Do you have a list of possible contenders so the community can do some research?

Comon guys we cant throw core under the bus,

@fernando would you consider atleast assuring the community that DCG would consider other options as most feel let down by WPR?

Thank you

Voting Yes

It's actually a stupid thing to continue wasting treasury funds for non-performing Wachsman, a firm representing some of our competitors and many other blockchain projects.
Core loves Wachsman sooo much, they will *LOVE* to pay Wachsman out of their own (personal) pockets - and they should !!!!

Respectfully, I’m disappointed that this is the way you chose to respond. We talk about a perception issue regarding Dash in the marketplace, this doesn't help. We are kidding ourselves if we don’t think outside parties use these discussions as part of their evaluation of Dash. We sell the DAO as a key part of the network’s value proposition - the effectiveness of decentralised governance - but then we yell at each other and make snide remarks as examples of how we govern. There is always room for professional disagreements and differences of opinion, but comments like this help no one and it certainly does not advance the conversation.

How about Core finally stops perceiving and treating us no voters as uninformed, annoying troublemakers who deserve being ignored?
How about Core finally stops to ignore and belittle us no voters, who voted on this proposal in their best conscience and who have serious concerns about Dash remaining a client of this Wachsman crap firm?
When Core learns to listen and maybe even respect different opinions, then perhaps, we can start having a real healthy debate. MNO's are not your useful idiots.

Let this be a warning (that might save Core from potential future trouble), just in case Evan decides not to rescue this proposal on behalf and orders of Core:

Just in case this proposal fails, Core should NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT clandestinely and deceitfully including the Wachsman pay in a Core Compensation proposal of a future budget cycle without being explicitly approved by the MNO network. Because if only the slightest evidence of something like that should ever emerge, it will only prove to everyone how DAO voting can be bypassed and manipulated by Core at will.

Respectfully, @bradleyzastrow DCG has had ample time to fix this PR Disaster, just because we get super cheap prices for pr services from wachsman does not indicate that we get the best bang for the buck.

You get what you pay for.

Alternatively

Shit in, shit out.

We are getting a good deal here. I suggest MNOs take the time to read Bradley’s comments below and vote YES to continue with Wachsman.

The price is good, and we will need them this month because of the issue with VZ proposals.

Once the dust settles we can consider a different firm (in addition to Dash News), but now is not the time to pull the plug on core’s chosen PR firm.

"The dust will never settle", and nothing different will ever be considered by Core, as long as we fund shit like this.

As for the good deal we get, you could as well flush $7.5k/month down the toilet, it would have the exact same effect.
95% of publications are all noname sites with no visitors, let alone target groups. Impact next to zero.
We are just one of their many blockchain-related customers, so you can imagine how well we are treated by WPR.
It would make sense to run from Wachsman, even if they offered to serve us for FREE.
Even wasting time or a thought on them is pure folly.

If we paid the same monthly amount to Blockfolio for ads in the Blockfolio App, the impact would be 1,000fold, at the very least.
Clearly, the people @Core responsible for PR should have been replaced a long time ago.

There’s a significant level of discussion being had on the topic, but while I think a healthy debate is always beneficial, objectively I think we are talking through one another and this stems largely from a disconnect between expectations and reality. That’s not to say anyone’s expectations are not valid or shouldn’t be raised with Wachsman, but rather that there’s a certain perspective in which I think we also need to be viewing this proposal. As business development is a large user of Wachsman’s services, I’d like to offer that slightly different perspective then what I see with the below. For additional context, biz dev is also one of the more vocal internal critics - and we don’t hold back in giving that feedback direct to Wachman when we meet bi-weekly. I’m not here to convince you they are perfect. They are not. I’m here because I think the ROI makes sense given the cost we are paying. I think that their hearts are also in the right place. Good intentions don’t make up for results - but you can’t buy honest support and that provides tremendous value. I also think that having a gap in PR coverage is a bad idea. Even if the network decides to move to a different firm, consciously choosing to accept a gap doesn’t make sense. That hurts everyone.

Scope of Work
We see a lot of comments expressing disappointment in the output from Wachsman. However, let’s be fair and ensure we’re holding them accountable for the correct items. They are not responsible for our brand perception - we all own that collectively. Maybe we should be asking why journalists don’t want to talk about Dash. Let’s talk about the limitations we face by not paying for articles - which the crypto media is full of operations that are pay to play. Let’s also talk about the intense tribalism that exists in this space and how that filters over to literally every facet of the crypto industry. Let’s talk about how media coverage is more difficult in this crypto winter - the items that would get us huge news barely even register now. Regardless of whether it’s Wachsman or anyone else, their role is to help spread the message - they can’t force anyone to hear that message. As two recent examples: The announcement around Chainlocks got very little coverage and we were quite disappointed in the results as we felt the message was also quite timely. The feedback was that no one cares about a cryptocurrency’s plans on doing something - that was in 2017/18 - now they only really care about what has been delivered. We announced plans and ultimately that wasn’t interesting to the media yet. Additionally two recent exchange integrations got very little coverage in December. The feedback this time was that these types of integrations are also not interesting to the crypto public - they want real world, not infrastructure. I don’t think these results are anyone’s fault - it’s not what anyone wants of course, but rather it’s how the media is changing for example. Other items like the title mix-up (CEO Dash Core Group vs Dash) annoy us too. But are we really going to punish Wachsman for someone else’s error? We should be raising this issue with Wachsman (which we do) and they should be having a conversation with the journalist (which they do). That should be the extent to which we hold them accountable - we’re never going to keep a PR firm if we fire them because of the mistakes that crypto journalists make. Let’s face it, half of them are not even real journalists in this space to begin with; mistakes will happen no matter who we use. If we’re going to hold people accountable it should be those who actually make the mistake, especially when they take no further action once being informed of that mistake: the journalists. We agree there’s significant perception issues within the crypto industry surrounding Dash. For those of us on the front lines every day fighting for Dash, we would love to see this changed as much (if not more) as anyone else within the community. However, this change is not going to come from any PR firm, and it’s not fair to expect this of Wachsman.

Impact
The lack of having a PR firm directly, and negatively, impacts the network’s best interests for the entire length of time we lack one. Specifically for business development, with the budget pressures and effectively zero integration budget, PR is a key value add that is provided to partners as an offset to integrate Dash or to provide additional value like exclusivity, etc… We risk losing current partnerships that are in the active pipeline and future integrations as we lose part of our value proposition. The ability to operate is negatively impacted without a PR solution as they play a role in every single integration we have. If the PR results don’t meet your expectations, then imagine those results without anything. Regardless of one’s opinions on Wachman’s performance or whether one agrees with our opinion on the proper scope of work - I hope we can all agree that we shouldn’t take steps to hurt ourselves when we can easily avoid it. Otherwise there’s unfortunate repercussions that we need to accept. At a minimum we are suggesting that the status quo be maintained until a new PR firm is brought on board.

Value for Money
We pay $7,500 per month for the full time service of Wachman as a client. Objectively the going rate is a minimum $20k for firms that would be comparable. One way to look at it, are we getting more than ⅓ the value of a comparable firm ($7.5k/$25k)? There has not been any professional PR firm that has approached this price level, or if they have it’s been with a severely restricted level of support (i.e. 1 announcement per month). This shows how Wachman is really going the extra mile to support Dash. They haven’t cut the level of service with that price. For example, they reached out immediately and started coordinating a response when the episode with the hashpower concentration came to light. People are disappointed with the response time, but that’s not Wachsman - we needed the time to investigate properly. We’re not a charity organisation either, i get that, but bottom line is they have made a real strong good faith effort to work with us with such a low price. We will not get this same rate on the open market. It feels though we should make a good faith effort back to them.

that's ok DCG shouldn't be doing business development either.

Thanks Bradley. Some further insight into Wachsman. I generally agree. My vote remains YES.

Fighting an uphill battle at this point, clearly very divisive, but suffice it to say, I think those of you who are unhappy with WPR's performance need to seriously sit down and think about the implications of defunding WPR and also to nail down in writing *precisely* what it is you want and expect from a PR firm if we're going to get anywhere in getting "better" representation. It's easy to say such and such isn't good enough or doesn't meet your expectations, but the network needs to know what "good" even means to you and what your expectations actually are, otherwise we're just a mob chucking rotten tomatoes haphazardly.

Defunding this proposal to demonstrate your desire for better/different representation is akin to saying "I think I have cirrhosis of the liver...so I'd better rip out my liver until I get a transplant whenever one appears on the donor waiting list." Do you understand what you're accomplishing by defunding this proposal? This means we'll go from what you believe to be sub-par PR to...no PR. That means we'll have *no* PR when we're on the cusp of releasing Evolution. Does that sound like a reasonable plan?

Those of you who find WPR inadequate should have been hitting the pavement looking for what you believe to be a better replacement and encouraging them to put up a competing proposal instead of cutting out PR entirely. This backlash and show of force doesn't actually help any of us. I mean, look at what we've been paying WPR. I hope you realize that most PR firms are going to charge us a lot more for the degree of involvement that WPR has offered us so far. I guess this will be an expensive lesson for the network in more ways than one.

Yeah i agree, why push our PR out of funding and not put a competing PR budget proposal up for the network ? We are shooting ourself in the foot here.

My suggestion to those unhappy with Wachman : fund this budget proposal for now and take the time to actually look for another PR firm that will need to operate with clear objectives and answers directly to the masternode network. Then create a budget proposal for it.

Just in case you haven't noticed yet: We already had virtually *no* PR since we are with Wachsman,
except of course for the work done by Dash (Force) News. But Core is insisting it's all fine the way it is.
Core won't even allow a serious debate regarding the topic, because as far as Core is concerned, Dash is freakin
married to Wachsman. A firm delivering very little measurable results, while at the same time also representing
a dozen of competitor blockchain-projects, some of which could be considered being direct competitors to Dash.
Please just think a moment about this nonsense.
The no votes are certainly not implying that Dash should be without any PR during the release of Evolution, but
rather that it's long overdue to completely redesign our entire PR strategy from the ground up, using other firms.

Now Core, go and ask Evan or Daniel Diaz to throw in a couple hundred yes votes in favor of this never-ending
madness, so that your ridiculous delusion of having good PR can continue for maybe an additional year, all the
while Dash is sinking more and more into insignificance, because 99% of the crypto community does not even
know what Dash is. Oh wait, but we already have the best possible PR - gimme a break!

Weird to see a masternode owner refer to Daniel Diaz as being some kind of big player in the Dash community , when that same Daniel Diaz has left Dash core-team and the Dash community a long long time ago... thats certainly one not up to date masternode owner.

Anyway stay assured he's at least much bigger than you are.
Everyone knows that Daniel Diaz left Core a long time ago. This was never a secret, you sheep.
Does this imply that he must necessarily have sold the myriad of MN's he used to own, and has left no voting power available to him, and has no more ties to anybody in Core? OF COURSE NOT !!!!
How about thinking first before writing garbage.

I still think you have your facts mixed up, Daniel Diaz was our previous business development manager, he was not one of our "founding fathers" (so far i know), he did not have a myriad of masternodes and therefore also did not have a major voting power.

People who leave this community and leave Dash Core Group have a tendency to actually sell their crypto and dont participate anymore in community discussions .. which is exactly what happened here. Nothing more, nothing less.

Only trolls in the bitcointalk forum refer to Daniel Diaz as still being some kind of central figure within Dash, and thats mostly because trolls are not totally up to date with Dash current situation. Funny enough you kinda remind me of them.

Once again, "virtually *no* PR" is a nebulous statement, it doesn't define what "PR" even means to you, and doesn't explain the specific ways in which you believe WPR has been deficient. If you don't explain what you think PR is, what it means to you, and what "good" PR looks like, you might as well just say "WPR bad, hulk smash" and leave it at that. Try giving specific examples, metrics. You say "little measurable results?" Ok, what do "measurable results" look like to you? What results do you believe ought to be measured? This is what I mean, without specificity and clearly defined terms, none of us are actually contributing anything meaningful to better outcomes.

Whether or not the "no" votes are implying that Dash should be without PR is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that this is the outcome of voting to defund WPR until such a time as we can find another agreeable arrangement, and there's no telling how long that will take. That's the bed in which you have to sleep.

The rest of your post is an unhelpful emotional diatribe.

What "measurable results" look like:
How about not losing 10 ranks in market-cap, but rather gaining a few ranks?
How about accomplishing that 10% of the crypto community (at least), will know what Dash is? (or at the very least developing an effective strategy on how to achieve just that and progressively working toward it)
How about succeeding in increasing the visitors to dash.org by 10times?
I could go on and on, but you get my point.
With Wachsman, Dash is going nowhere because nobody even knows about Dash.

Marketcap ranking should be totally irrelevant to this discussion.
No amount of PR or Marketing can influence the marketcap ranking in a bear market, it will literally have no effect.

I'm surprised people still bring that up ....

Core is under the delusion that Wachsman provides Dash with the best possible PR.
NOW GO COUNT THE NUMBER OF OTHER PRE-BEAR-MARKET TOP10 COINS WHICH HAVE LOST 10 RANKINGS.
And what you will soon find out is, that Dash did worst of them all !!!!!!!!!!!!
But the irony is, that all the other top projects which were damaged (competition-wise) far less by the bear market than Dash has been, have not even a working DAO and a treasury at their disposal, but we had all the while.
I'm done wasting my time with you bunch of deluded apologetics.

Bitcoin : -81.9%
Ripple : -90.8%
Ethereum : -92.0%
EOS : -89.3%
Bitcoin Cash : -96.6%
Litecoin : -91.0%
Stellar : -88.6%
TRON : -88.5%
Cardano : -96.4%
Binance Coin : -72.8%
IOTA : -94.5%
Monero : -91.7%
Dash : -95.2%
NEM : -97.0%
NEO : -96.2%

Link : https://www.coingecko.com/en?view=all_time_high

Coinmarketcap ranks are useless as a criteria !
Referring to ranks from more then 4 years ago is even more useless !
When you look at hard data like the percentage down from ATH, then Dash is pretty much on par with the rest of the top 15 cryptocurrencies.

My point exactly!!! We are just throwing money away.

Ok, so you care about market cap ranking...which is a function of Price X Circulating Supply. Well, circulating supply is something fairly skewed for Dash since there isn't a lot of circulating supply, kind of a double-edged sword. The other issue is price. So what factors influence price? What factors that influence price can a PR firm actually meaningfully impact?

How do you measure "10% market awareness?"

What reason do you have to believe that visitors to dash.org has any correlation with increased price? Have you actually looked at the stats on visitors to dash.org over the last year?

I don't really believe you when you say you could go on and on. I think you pretty much exhausted the definite boundaries of your tangible criticisms, but sure, increase Dash awareness and exposure.

How do you know that "nobody knows about Dash?" Did you do some surveys?

Additionally, on the topic of WPR's other clients, just how many PR firms do you think even dabble in this space? Do you think that maybe there's a reason that WPR has so many other clients in this space? Why is this inherently a bad thing? Do you think it's reasonable and do you have any evidence to believe that a PR firm should only have one client in any given industry?

"Why is this inherently a bad thing?"
Because at the very top there is only a single, lonesome rank #1
Never have i said, that a PR firm must not have any other blockchain-related customer.
But if any PR firm have a few (!) other blockchain customers, they should certainly not be our only PR avenue.
And not to mention, there is a huge gap between a few and the number of blockchain customers which Wachsman is apparently representing.
If a PR firm is representing more than two other blockchain projects next to Dash, it is reason enough not to use them, except we have extremely good reasons for doing so anyway.
Such companies will accept another 30 blockchain projects as customers and will ultimately help none of them.

Ok, so do you know anything about the PR firms that the other projects are using? What their rates are? What makes them so great? What services they're providing to these other projects? Do you know anything at all about the alternatives so that you have an actual point of reference for your criticisms, or are you just demanding changes happen out of nothing?

WPR isn't our only current PR avenue. Dash News was briefly employing the help of another smaller PR outfit for a while (though have been unable to continue due to budget constraints last I checked).

So let's get this straight. You haven't provided any alternatives, but now you want more than one without having first found a replacement for WPR?

"If a PR firm is...more than two..." Ok, and this number is based on what, exactly? How does a PR company survive on two or three clients? Like I said, how many PR firms even service the blockchain space? The reason WPR has so many clients is that the answer is that there are very few even operating here.

You keep making all these claims. Where is your data?

So you are of the opinion, that someone else should do all the research work for those responsible for PR @Core, all the while they get paid fabulous salaries?
For what are we paying those people's salaries then, i really wonder?
For not even noticing the PR mess we are in or that there is a serious issue of non-performance?
Even if you would manage to offer Core the best possible PR partnerships, they would only ignore you while straight laughing at your face.

There is more than one industry out there, from which a PR firm can attract customers and easily survive. The number i mentioned is based on something called reason, because one has to draw a line somewhere.
If a PR firm decides to accept 20 customers from blockchain industry (or has the willingness to do just that), they are obviously not the right partner for Dash.
Such firm will get us nowhere. And that is exactly what we can observe while being with them.

No, I'm of the opinion that if you want to have a meaningful opinion and actually have the knowledge and wherewithal to even make the determination on what "good" PR looks like, how it functions, how it's measured, what the stipulations are in this space vs. others, etc, then you should have some idea what you're talking about, and an idea based in the facts of these states of affairs. In other words, if you don't know much about PR in this space, or what makes a PR company good--apart from merely desiring a specific outcome and expecting PR to be able to provide it arbitrarily--then what business do you have making criticisms or even voting on the topic?

We don't pay DCG to do research, we pay them to do work, and they paid WPR to support them in the work that they do. You don't like the outcomes of that support, but you also haven't apparently taken the time to determine with any certainty that those outcomes bear any relation to the support or ostensible failures of WPR. You're just recognizing an undesired outcome and deciding that WPR is responsible and that a replacement should magically appear without bothering to measure out all the steps and leaps in between or what happens as a result. It's shortsighted at best.

Appeal to Reason is a fallacy, you're just substituting buzzwords to bolster your rhetoric at this point, and repeating your assertions rather than justifying them. These aren't arguments.

My fault, i forgot that only *your* opinion is meaningful.
Get some education first about what PR is all about, you schoolboy.
Write again in a couple of years perhaps, after you have grown up, left mommy's basement and got a slight clue.

Now we've come full circle, and that was precisely my point: What *is* "PR" to you? We've seen the same term applied to numerous, completely disparate and mutually exclusive things in this discussion. So which--if any--constitute "PR" to you? If you're not willing to nail down definitions of what PR entails and how and why you arrived at these conclusions, then nothing you say means anything, it's just buzzwords and rhetoric. Defining your terms is one of the basic pragmatic necessities of any form of discourse. I'm not sure what this bit about schoolboys and basements is, though, sounds suspicious...

We have not received any services that can't be done better and more efficiently by another party. You talk like a hostage taker telling its victims what will happen if they try to leave for the exit. So over this crap. We are the worst performing investment in the top 20 projects yet we have a budget to work with. Its embarrassing. And as per your demands, I have outlined exactly what real companies do when launching product: They study the market and competitors, determine a brand campaign and then help promote that concept widely. This is like intro level stuff here. What they do not do is shotgun rando articles classifying us as a privacy coin, make sloppy references to a nonexistent CEO, or use our brand to like socialists on twitter. Time to grow up. If you want MNOs to take DCG PR seriously then they need to f****** act seriously. Quit your bitching and ransom notes and help find a solution.

Ok, what services specifically are you talking about? What other party is going to do them at competitive rates? What metrics will we track specifically that indicate that the new partner is doing a good job? How will you justify these particular metrics as meaningful vs. others? (for example, clicks, views, appearance in particular outlets, etc)

So is that Public Relations, or is that Marketing, or is it Advertising? Does a PR firm do all of those or just some of those? This is what I mean about defining your terms and equivocating.

Really the only helpful or meaningful thing you've described is seemingly random articles that contain outdated or inaccurate information. Ok, great, that's something specific and tangible that can be improved, now what else?

"Sloppy references" sounds like a whole lot of nitpicking over something that is probably inconsequential.

The accidental liking of a politician was a mistake by a DCG member, not WPR.

Sounds like a whole lot of mountains out of molehills apart from the specifically defined problem. How about some more concrete topics?

after a more through reading through the links on wachmans slides most are no name sites with little traffic. changing back to no. We can do better. Putting CNN on the front page is kind of misleading, since the rest of the links are no name sites with no real traffic and poorly written and incorrect verbiage.

ive seen a link with the actual results of Wachamanns. Its impressive. I wish Core/Wachmanns would share these results more openly so that we are not left scratching our heads as to what Wachamanns is accomplishing. Ive changed my vote to YES

Obviously, all the figures and stats reported by Wachsman are highly suspicious and not to be trusted.
Whatever Wachsman efforts are, their measurable impact is obviously next to freakin ZERO !!

After so many months and thousands of Dash wasted with them, that should be clear as crystal by now.
We have seen it over and over again.
My suspicion is, that Wachsman has accepted way too many customers than they are able to handle.
We should probably spread out our PR expenses to 3-4 smaller PR companies and closely watch their results.
Voting NO this cycle, the waste gotta end

I suspect you haven't the slightest idea what Wachsman do for Dash. I don't want to go over it again, but it would behoove you and others to educate on what a PR firm does (as opposed to an advertisement agency)

Oh please, you can ignore or twist the truth as long as you want, but it won't get us better PR!
The fact of the matter is, that Wachsman is a firm which is representing way too many blockchain-based projects.
And we are just one of their many blockchain-related customers. Please open your eyes to reality.
It doesn't require a PhD in rocket science to understand, that not all of these blockchain projects which are represented by Wachsman can ultimately come out atop.

Voting no. I still say that PR services should not be included with Dash Core funding. Wachsman should put in their own proposal and compete with other PR proposals directly.

Agreed x13. Core is becoming a monster "that is too big to fail".

How's that supposed to work? Wachsman work directly with DCG employees/managers! This makes no sense!

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. There are several proposal owners that work directly with DCG.

Voted No. I have seen only demonstrable failure from our PR and Core leadership on this. There is no accountability for the continued image problems we face. Core only sweeps this glaring issue under the carpet repeatedly in interviews. The PR and marketing team is a disaster. From not fact checking published articles with CEO in it, to using the company's brand to like socialists on social media, to claiming a few articles reposted on fringe crypto news sites as a banner year. The whole lot seems lazy and irresponsible.

Many of them became outrageously rich recently and I think its affected their passion and drive. We are investors many of which are not rich and would like to see more effort. The only way forward is getting a professional company outside of crypto, who would not divide their attention between a hundred other ICO projects like Wachsman does and would devote time to study the market. They would conduct some analysis, possibly polling and research groups and determine the best way to advertise this project. They would craft a campaign and make it unique to our brand. Then this branding effort could be given to the community to spread far and wide. This could be a real catalyst for changing our perception. But i've been on about this for a year now and it seems like I'm becoming less of a loner.

Tech doesn't always win. Plenty of examples from Beta Max to Windows to dozens of others...Psychology and perception is almost maybe even more important than function. This is why Dash is failing so hard. It only cares about 50% of what makes a success. I fear if the MNOs don't begin to examine history, understand the importance of advertising and psychology then Dash is going to merely be a project for hobbyists and dejected MNOs. Our budget will continue to dry up and eventually Core will exit and development will be non existent. This can all be averted. But something must be done.

You know there's a disconnect when there's widespread anger and disappointment from the MNO owners, yet the proposal is claiming Q4 of 2018 was the best yet.

I'm very sceptical of this data as well. Does it come directly from wachsman? Do we just take it for face value and assume there's no gamification? It's as if people have gotten 30% more interested in cryptocurrency/Dash while the price has collapsed from Q2 to Q4. User trading activity on exchanges fell off a cliff in that time or you could say user interest in reading about cryptocurrency also fell off a cliff. Another metric: According to google analytics the search for bitcoin is at an all time low i.e. it looks like we had our best quarter ever when it was least important.

I don't recognise 95%+ of the websites we're publishing on either. I hope we're not focusing on a quantity over quality strategy, but as some of the posts below have indicated that's how it appears. More communication and engagement from Core with the community is necessary if you're to keep my votes on proposals such as these. I already voted no.

Hi Ageless, Michael Seitz has been trying to post an answer for a few days, but we can't get a hold of Rango to authorize him, so I'm sharing his explanation:

“The data in the report is initially shared by Wachsman with us and then double checked by myself Michael Seitz using MeltWater and SimilarWeb, this method isn’t perfect but as most know data from external third parties isn’t perfect. We use both MeltWater and SimilarWeb to verify site traffic of reported sites. We also remove any posts that were more a result of Wachsman monitoring the news for Dash versus working to accomplish a post in a publication. In general, with news sites, it’s important to remember these are estimates by a third party (these websites aren’t required to report their web traffic to any data reporting tools) but they give us a general estimate of how we are doing. It’s also worth pointing out that we know data isn’t perfect for the reasons already mentioned but by using the same sources for every report it gives us some insight. In regards to growth and concern over quantity versus quality, this is a major focus of ours as well and is why we’ve built our PR goals with a focus on average UVPM per publication. That way if we have too many small publications it will hurt our UVPM and if we have too many large it will do the same (the small are important in some ways as well). Our plan is to also begin to measure against total monthly UVPM and try to balance growth in both average UVPM and total, this should help us so we don’t focus on too big or too small of publications. One piece of guidance we can give based off of the data is that Q4 was strengthened by a handful of posts in major publications. The CNN article with Ryan for example gained a lot of UVPM as CNN is a massive publication in terms of site traffic.”

Thanks for the reply Fernando.

I still have mistrust in the data they provided. Maybe MeltWater and SimilarWeb have defences to spot gamification but it's probably a cat and mouse game. It just doesn't make sense in the current climate that users are more interested in cryptocurrency. I wouldn't be surprised if there was specialised call centres around the world going to these website publications, where the owners of the sites are paying for the UVPM and somehow PR firms are involved in the background or something of that nature. I think we live in a world where unfortunately gamification like that is easier and easier to do. Imo the masternodes want something more in their line of sight; something they know is real and can access.

I also read your post above and I think that could really help given that the PR firm is very receptive to masternode feedback and pivoting. In that case, a big firm might not be the most suited option and we need a firm that's going to taylor fit towards what the masternodes ask for. I'm still not sure it's enough to pull my no votes right now given some of the other proposals, I'll have to see how the voting permutations are looking later on.

i.e. it looks like we had our best quarter ever when it was least likely.*

so if this is a scheduling function/handling why doesnt core put it in their operating budget if they NEED it. PR/advertising should be split tested between different agencies/ individuals. nothing wrong with competition.

also, if this is a handling function and is needed, why not hire internally for this instead of paying for connections that will leave and not propagate experience.

stuff that is contracted out should have visible deliverables. If its an internal operational need, then MNO dont need to see how the sausage is made. We judge overall results. our PR is just in the last couple days becoming visible.

Let's draw a distinction that's never been made in this discussion: what a PR firm does versus what a handler does.

A PR firm has one job: to get their client in front of increasingly large news outlets -- talking about their latest release, their latest partnership, their take on various market developments, etc. If a PR firm isn't getting their client in front of increasingly large audiences on at least a once-monthly basis, they are not doing their job.

Contrast this with a handler's job, which is to be the point person between their client and everyone who wants to talk to their client. This means responding to interview and comment requests, running interference at public events, and ensuring that their client stays on-topic during public appearances. A handler even keeps the client's hair tidy and his necktie tight.

Given these definitions, I think we can surmise that Wachsman is more of a handling firm than a PR firm. And this is likely why Dash Core Group is pleased with them -- because they're properly executing the handling job.

BUT this proposal isn't for handling, it's for PR. So I'll obviously have to vote no and encourage all other voters to do the same. If Dash Core Group comes back with a funding request for handling expenses, then that request can be evaluated accordingly.

That's basically the point that I made below several times and have made in previous iterations of the Core PR proposal, equivocation surrounding the term "PR" and expectations surrounding it. While I agree with the fact that this problem exists and should be clarified, I think it's absurd to expect Core to put up a new proposal purely for the purposes of terminological nitpicking. "Handling"--as you define it--is clearly part of the services that WPR provides in addition to others, but it is not exclusively what they do.

This message is to the Masternode Owners that always make excuses for Core's incompetence in PR. That must mean DCG has always employed the right tactics and made all the right strategic decisions regarding Marketing and PR. Well if that's the case, and DCG has done everything right, that can only mean that Monero is consistently ahead of Dash because they are a better coin than us. I mean if they can beat us in the rankings for almost a year but DCG has made no mistakes promoting Dash then the only other explanation is Monero is simply better. People have more confidence in it, not because they have not been educated about Dash, but because they have been informed, and they have compared the two, and Monero always comes out on top. I assume that is what you people are saying. Right!!!

"...that can only mean that Monero..." -- No...no...this is simply not true, and it doesn't even matter that it's not true because your conditional statement is wildly inaccurate. CMC ranking is not inherently based on anything but Market Cap, which is largely informed by irrational speculation with little to nothing to do with fundamentals. Once again, this is the result of a breakdown in communication about what DCG uses WPR for compared to your expectations about what you believe WPR ought to be doing. You're imposing your own expectations on an operation that was never meant to do what you want it to do. It's a worthwhile discussion to have about whether or not the DAO should fund the activities for which DCG employs WPR, certainly, but your assessment is a simple matter of ignorance and misapplied algorithms. You're trying to judge a flying fish on its ability to scale a tree. It's not what a fish is for, even if "flying" is in its name. This is not productive discourse, and your efforts are not benefiting the DAO.

Just going to say this here again. Wachsman is not, NOT an advertisement agency, it's a PR agency. What they do is behind the scenes, it's making connections, training DCG's spokes people, developing a DCG vision to present. It's subtle and has indeed done so much for the network. In the end, since I personally do not know any more than what I read here, or in DCG publications, I do trust Ryan Taylor's ability to assess the effectiveness of Wachsman's effectiveness. Please look at the linked publications above as well. What do we have a CEO for if we don't think he can do his job?

They have said in their description that from a PR standpoint Q4 of 2018 was their best yet and the entire report shows us advertisement metrics such as UVPM and a long list of obscure media sites. Ultimately, they're asking us to judge them based on how effective they have been marketing/advertising the Dash network. Regardless of what Wachsman do "behind the scenes" they have to be judged based on the end results of how Dash is marketed and advertised to the world.

If PR is an ongoing thing we need that core want to do then they should hire PR staff directly to DCG. In the current situation we over pay to an agency then the agency gets all the expertises and connections made by running the PR. Hire people directly you

* Save money.
* The PR people have only dash's best interest in mind, nothing else (agency has other interests).
* Accumulate the expertises and connections made in the process of doing the work.

This is a good point. Ideally, though, we would have both. You want to have internal capacity because nobody knows your project like you do. But external firms can expand your reach by leveraging their network. Also, external gives you more flexibility since changes are easier than with employees. However, regarding cost, internal doesn’t mean cheaper when you compare apples to apples.

We have wanted to develop this capacity internally in the past, but the market conditions in 2018 made us postpone plans because we have been prioritizing all delivery critical functions.

PR is all about connections, which a company builds up over time. How can we have this in-house?

By hiring PR professionals with existing connections.

Who then build up further connections over time.

There's nothing inherently wrong with Wachsman by itself. However, I do see a problem with how DCG is using this firm.

For example, In order to schedule interviews with Ryan or other DCG "executives", you have to go through Wachsman and get everyone's calendar lined up, talking points together and finally you have the interview. By that time, most people in the cryptosphere are thinking that this is way too corporate and they move on (I would too, who's got time for that BS).

This is out of scope of the proposal but I agree with a few comments in this proposal that this whole CEO, CMO, etc. titles we throw around are very off-putting and totally unnecessary. Let's focus on deliverables and less on corporate structure and titles.

I think Wachsman is only as good as the client that hires them as their firm. I could see this firm being fantastic if guided appropriately and managed properly by DCG.

Unfortunately, as MNOs, we don't know how else to show our displeasure with the performance of our Core Marketing efforts.

We can't line-item no-vote DCG Marketing since they're lumped into the overall Core salary, which we don't want to defund obviously. So, this is the next best thing . It's most unfortunate but what else can we do right now? No one's taking our feedback seriously and doing something about it.

Let me give you a real example: look how late our DCG social media post was on the 5 Year Dash Anniversary. They had a great infographic but it barely made a dent and it came out in the evening US time, which means we could have had it planned days ahead and posted so most time zones (especially US/LatAm/Europe) saw it early in the day. This is amateur hour.

I can see why this company structure is abhorrent to the anarchistic crypto audience. I was one originally myself. However, I have realized Evan's vision to have both centralized efficiency and decentralized control and decentralized mobility is beyond brilliant. DCG is indeed the network's heart but we have so many other organ-isations that make the network's body function. There is a reason companies have structure and defined responsibilities. Without them, people haven't got defined responsibilities / jobs to do. With them, people know what their part is, and can get on with the work. Why do you think Dash is able to do so much? All the other projects out there, including Bitcoin, pale in comparison to the work being done here at Dash.

Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Dash's incredible structure is possibly bigger than the theory of relativity. It's that big. It's just that the world hasn't "gotten" it yet. This takes time.

In the past I have not been a fan Wachsman and really don't know exactly what they do. But my experience with them at Money2020 was that they were the most aggressive at getting their clients in front of press. I'd say 80% of the 20+ interviews I did were Wachsman clients. The rest of what they do I have no idea what it is or if it's worth it. Just my observation take it for whatever it's worth.

DCG/Wachsman's performance is one of the biggest embarrassments in this space. There are a litany of problems, but just in the last few weeks alone:

Where is the official response to the 51% attack fud? Nothing but silence while the crypto media tears Dash to pieces.

Where is the social media push on the recent exchange integrations? The release of 0.13?

Blockfolio (1+ million users), has an amazing feed that DCG has free access to post on. I see 10x as many posts from coins with only 1% of Dash's actual accomplishments and news articles (from other groups, like Dash News, not Wachsman) every day. Despite the big news we've had just in the last 2 months, core can't be bothered to take advantage of this avenue. Last post as of today was from 24 days ago. They can't even be bothered to take 5 seconds to repost work others have done. Truly pathetic.

Why won't the crypto media that used to be favorable to Dash talk about us (except to spread fud) these days? It is directly due to their treatment by Wachsman and DCG. After YEARS of failure, they have shown they cannot handle this responsibility. Hopefully other Dash media can take up the slack, because this proposal should be voted down with extreme prejudice.

I apologize for being overly harsh with my language here. It was late and my frustration after months and months got the better of me as I started to try and list some of the reasons I am unsatisfied with core's PR efforts. I don't see the ability to edit or delete posts here, so I will say this: I don't have the visibility to know who is responsible for what as far as core PR, and I don't have a personal problem with anyone, but I am unhappy as to what I have seen recently. I am sure this proposal will pass with or without my vote, so all I can hope is that there will be some improvements and PR will be taken more seriously in the future.

i havent seen a single deliverable from wachmans, how is it possible that a PR firm actually has no PR. voting no, what a crock of shit ufortunately. find a different firm that actually has some deliverables and actually engages the media in a way we can see and measure. this should be voted down.

their results should not only be visible in a status report, they are a PR firm not a private banker.

I think there's a lot of equivocation and talking past one another that's going on in this discussion. A lot of seems to center around what WPR does for DCG and the network as a whole, and what the MNOs seem to think Wachsman ought to be doing for the network as a whole.

Over and over DCG has indicated that they are quite satisfied with WPR's performance and the support and services they provide to DCG and the impact the provision of these services has on the network. So we as MNOs need to understand just what they do for DCG and why DCG values their support and services instead of trying to impose our own personal definitions of what we think "PR" ought to be. Recognize that this proposal is not for the network as a whole, but for DCG in particular.

We also need to nail down definitions of what "Public Relations" entails vs. "Marketing" vs. "Advertising," etc, because these can all be very different things and I don't think all of us are understanding the nuances and distinctions between them.

The other thing that I don't believe my fellow MNOs are taking in to account is that the cryptocurrency space accounts for such a tiny, tiny segment of the total fintech space as a whole, and that the crypto space tends to be so frantic and insular, that it's easy to developed a skewed and warped perspective about the importance of this space and its actors relative to the larger fintech world. At the end of the day, does countering FUD on Reddit or whatever *really* matter? Or are we just over-emphasizing the importance of relatively small outlets and the opinions of amateur speculators on the long-term well-being of this project?

If you haven't noticed, DCG is a comprised largely of seasoned professionals with experience in the broader world as much as they're experienced in the crypto space, and they've moved from a purely "cryptocurrency" emphasis to a "payment system" emphasis for a reason. This is why they've been going to fintech conferences and courting interests and potential partnerships beyond the crypto space. The scope of what we're trying to do here is so much more than reddits and chatrooms, and I feel that we as MNOs due to our vantage points of being embedded in this space for so long have become myopic and ignorant of the larger business world around us.

Additionally, to address the issue of Ryan's title, I believe we absolutely benefit from having a public-facing corporate front that can directly appear for interviews and serve as a point of contact for other actors in the larger business world, and that it's entirely appropriate for the members of DCG to bear the conventional C-level titles, because that's what the larger business world expects, what seems credible and distinguished to them. We have to have ways of getting our foot in the door if we want people to listen to and understand the unique, unprecedented nature of our organization, and we need professional, experienced, friendly faces to help facilitate these interactions in ways that a horde of hundreds of disjointed, conflicting, cacophonous, often abrasive voices (i.e. we MNOs) can't.

Clearly we all believe in the structure and value of having a Decentralized Autonomous Organization, but the DAO is still developing and we haven't yet reached a stage where we can collectively do business in an efficient and amenable manner that is conducive to the existing business world. DCG facilitates that on our behalf, and they require all the tools and support and services necessary to facilitate that if we want them to do the best job they can do. This doesn't mean that they're above criticism or that some things couldn't be tweaked for improvement, but if you're going off half-cocked about how WPR is useless and people should be fired and demoted, etc, then I don't think you really understand what's going on or how or why these things are important, and it would behoove--and all of us, by extension--to really take the time to listen and understand how and why this support and these services are important.

I would hope that someone in DCG could take the time to define these terms and explain in a way the opposing MNOs could understand what "PR" means in terms of what WPR provides and why these things are important for your internal operations and performance as the public-facing, professional front of the network, because I don't think everyone's "getting it."

Your last paragraph is the crux of the problem. Whoever is in charge of hiring them never bothered to explain to the community what WPR does and give monthly reports (like all the other DAO's) on what they have achieved. We were forced to trust and believe. Bad internal PR (again)?

So what you are saying is that "seasoned professionals with experience" never make mistakes and need no oversight or accountability? So we need to blindly support everything DCG recommends and rubber stamp all of their proposals. Their are many companies and organizations that have failed that had "seasoned professionals with experience" running them. Vitalik Buterin doesn't have the title CEO and it hasn't hurt the Ethereum project but their is plenty of evidence that the "C" titles for DCG are hurting our project by spreading FUD. I am sick and tired of of people who always make excuses for DCG no matter how obvious the mistakes that they make!!! The truth is DCG is good at software development and really bad at PR and Marketing whether they want to admit it or not and we have a right as MNOs to protect our investment. Our currency is too good to have such a bad reputation!!!

Well, now we know where all those spurious downvotes are coming from. You begin with a strawman fallacy, no, I'm not saying that seasoned professionals don't make mistakes or don't need oversight or accountability, I'm saying that the opinions and perspectives of seasoned professionals should hold more weight than some stranger who happens to have a bunch of coins and no demonstrated expertise unless relevant data can be provided that controverts, as of course data trumps even expert anecdotes, assuming the data is being correctly interpreted.

I don't much care what Vitalik or Ethereum are doing. I don't believe their project is really being run particular well, never have, but it's really a false equivalency as Ethereum and Dash are entirely different use cases. There is *not* evidence that C-titles for our primary development team has hurt our project. There are some articles in which people refer to Ryan as the "Dash CEO," but this does not constitute "hurting our project" and this is also expected when you've got a project like the Dash DAO which has a structure unprecedented in human history. Honestly, it's much better that the average reader who knows nothing about cryptocurrency's first exposure to Dash is a professional presence like the one DCG provides rather than the toxic, Redditor/4Chan denizen affect that typifies some of the louder MNOs. Most of us don't really belong in any public-facing capacity. I'd rather some initial confusion/misinformation about our structure--which isn't essential for understanding the value proposition of Dash--presented in a professional package ala DCG, than exactness presented by some nitpicking neckbeard.

Clearly, though, you didn't bother reading what I wrote--as usual--as we can't even begin to have a discussion about PR/Marketing/etc--let alone whether or not DCG or WPR is performing adequately or not--until we define and agree to terms about what these words even mean, because until we do it's a pointless discussion that just ends up with equivocation, with us all talking past each other.

This money would be better spent by a LATAM PR company. Not a single publication was in Spanish.

We can only agree about the importance of the LatAm market for Dash. However, at this stage in the life of the project, we can’t renounce to the crypto space, and most of the publications are in English. We have those LatAm funds from the previous proposal earmarked for an extra push in Spanish for some announcements. We even have a team we like already, but they can’t do global, so they can’t be the only one.

I would also add that starting with a new PR firm in LatAm will take some time to get results. The region has a small amount of crypto-savvy outlets, and the more prominent outlets are still very uneducated on crypto. Even if we got the best PR firm out there, they would have to build their crypto enthusiasts amongst their reporters.

We continue to get lousy PR because we fund these kind of proposals. That is our fault not theirs.

@GlennAustin
Please consider to engage Walker Sands as a secondary PR agency in future.
They are specialized for customers from Fintech & IT Services, and despite being in the lower/modest price segment, they deliver TOP value.
Please check them out here: https://www.walkersands.com/

Thanks for the referral. I meet with other PR firms regularly because we need to be ready if at some point we need a change or can add other firms. If you have a contact there, I would appreciate any additional info. You can send to fernando@dash.org if you prefer.

I would add take a look at BTC Media for additional support. They own several crypto magazines and media platforms hit me up if you need an intro.

@fernando
I'm not directly associated with them, but they seem to have a very good reputation.
Their other webportal can be found here: https://www.walkersandsdigital.com/

Fernando you are just paying JulieSimmons lip service. Core has no intention of ever using another PR Firm. They are quite happy with the non performance of Wachsman. Their efforts have produced nothing beneficial for the Dash network so we are just paying them to do busy work. If this proposal passes that's $25,071 worth of busy work!!!

You are wasting your time, Core won't listen to you. They are under the delusion that they are doing a great job at PR despite their complete failure in that area. I am voting NO!!! I encourage others to do the same so Core finally gets the message.

You have my support, but make sure that articles that got funded through this budget proposal understand that Dash as a cryptocurrency does not have a CEO, only the Dash Core Group has a CEO.

Please make sure that articles that got the wrong impression correct that.

Ryan Taylor should be called "Dash Core Team Leader" not CEO. The CEO title only causes confusion and spreads FUD. A good PR Firm would have told Core this a long time ago!!! Voting NO!!!

How about "Executive Director". Sounds a bit more professional IMO.

"An executive director is a chief executive officer (CEO) or managing director of an organization, company, or corporation. The title is widely used in North American non-profit organizations, though many United States nonprofits have adopted the title president or CEO."

I am okay with Executive Director "Mastermined" sounds a lot better than CEO. Let's it Core will agree to the change.

Good points. Have Dash's PR ppl addressed this????? again I smh at the incompetence.

You are right about that CEO DCG/Dash mistake. We make that point constantly, but people outside our ecosystem sometimes have a hard time understanding. This happens with journalists, but sometimes even with partners in the space.

Whenever we spot this error (or any other, like the "privacy-centric" tag), we try to correct and have Wachsman reach out to the journalist again, but some news organizations don't like to amend their articles for things they see as unimportant. On a positive note, sometimes they won't correct, but get it right in the next article.

A basic point. Paying monies for anything less from PR professionals is not acceptable.

The eternal struggle: Mainstream media ignorance/activism and PR company impotence vs attention to accuracy within Dash related topics.

Where BASIC BRANDING misses the mark time and time again! The 'Chainlocks' article features an outdated Dash logo in the graphic (Dec 2018) ! It reminds me of Chael Sonnen's (MMA) outdated Dash logos (Dec 2018).
Ambassadors don't sport old Dash logos: https://i.imgur.com/EgE4djD.png

The 'Chainlocks' CryptoBriefing article appears to have less than 1200 clicks to the page. No doubt, a small proportion of those clicks are actual reads of the article.

CNN is notoriously incompetent: I simply do not expect competence and accuracy from them.

Dash has a major relentless battle online vs "premine" FUD and "centralised" FUD. This is the giant coalface. What have these PR companies done to fight on the front lines where it really matters?

voting YES.....but I smh

You are right that some mistakes and ideas that float around Dash are beyond annoying. However, it is important to note that Wachsman (and previous PR firms) only provides us with services for earned media. We never pay to the publication and we don't have editorial control. They educate journalists that don't always want to be educated or admit that need education. This job happens mostly in the background because educating publicly can be alienating to the person you are trying to win over.

Journalism? - does that even exist? ...these people are either political activists or incompetent morons who can't nail the fact (most of the time).

Not sure if some these things, are seen are reason why we should continue fund these guy's
"Dash CEO Ryan Taylor: Central Bank-Issued Cryptocurrencies Are the ‘Inevitable Future"
Dash doesn't have a CEO !, a huge mistake one our own should never make ! And how what even good promotion for Dash ?!?

"ChainLocks: Dash Upgrade To Eliminate 51 Percent Attacks"
Its that just a small crypto site

"CNN - Beyond bitcoin: the other cryptocurrencies you should know too"
But there's still risk, according to Ryan Taylor, CEO of the cryptocurrency Dash. Their value can erode over time similar to fiat currencies like the US dollar.

Again Dash does not have a CEO !

Sorry guys this is the last straw for me.

We should have a proposal to officially change Ryan's title to Team Leader.

We should do that, I don't think it requires a proposal.

Also just FWIW other job titles would also have to be changed for example CTO to teach team leader, CMO to marketing team leader, COO to operations team leader et cetera.

I don't think Core would ever make the change without a proposal passing to force them. I get the feeling these corporate sounding titles found a comfortable home in their egos and I don't see them putting the best interests of the network ahead of their pride. I hope I am wrong but I will be shocked if I am. They will ignore this just like they ignore everything else MNOs suggest to them.

that is actually very clever

Yes.....the lack of professionalism from the PR side is beyond annoying. Facts matter.

I agree voting NO!!!