Add Press Center with resources, FAQ and interviewees #139
Conversation
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There was significant work attempting to curate the best videos so that investigating journalists can quickly and easily find potential interviewees that have earned the trust and privilege through their community involvement, tangible results, competency and articulateness to represent Bitcoin and the core developers in this public manner. Additionally, the FAQ section has been organized and drafted based on the most common questions asked by the press during this latest media cycle. This is merely the first version and there will likely be more incremental changes after we actually get something available since this is a significant problem for the journalists seeking commentary, guests, etc. |
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NACK putting extremist anarchists (at least Matonis) as press contacts... |
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Luke-Jr, do you have any specific and articulable complaints based on how any of those suggested as potential interviewees have performed in media interviews or is your NACK based solely on personal politicized views? Since your original comment was directed towards Jon Matonis I will highlight the analysis for his inclusion being based on his being contacted early on directly by Satoshi, being the Bitcoin Foundation secretary and having had his writings regularly appearing in Forbes, American Banker and many other respected payments focused websites. Additionally, his interviews have been technically competent and his ability to debate issues has been above average. For these reasons we think he would represent the Bitcoin community well. All those suggested have long-term ties to the Bitcoin community, have already been published in significant media operations, appear competent and professional in their public appearances and based on Reddit comments and Bitcointalk forum threads have respect for the public appearances from many members of the Bitcoin community. After this initial version of the Press Center is implemented then the intent is to do additional research and find more potential interviewees that can competently and professionally represent Bitcoin. For example, Gavin Andresen has been a core developer for many years, Mike Hearn has been around the project for years and contributed code, Tony Gallippi runs a Bitcoin startup that has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and processed millions of dollars worth of legitimate Bitcoin payments for thousands of merchants, Trace Mayer has invested in Bitcoin startups, publicly recommended Bitcoin as a blogger since around the $2m market cap and appeared on multiple large media outlets like FOX and BBC along with speaking appearances at international investment conferences and Roger Ver been around Bitcoin for years, invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in many different startups, runs one of the largest retail Bitcoin websites, appeared on multiple large media outlets like FOX and presented at conferences. Therefore, these five also seem to have significant support from the Bitcoin community based on positive comments in Reddit threads and Bitcointalk forum posts. The only included contact with a weak case is Arwa Mahdawi and she was included solely at Saivann's insistence. In Arwa's case, it may be best to tap her for articles and not use her from the Potential Interviewees perspective for several reasons. First, she appears to be a professional journalist for the major news organizations so she can already generate content from a host/article writer perspective. Second, we have been unable to find much from her besides the Sky News interview and a Guardian article. These are work content you would expect from a journalist but we should not confuse her media assignments with her Bitcoin support. Third, she does not appear to be a very entrenched member of the community or be involved with any Bitcoin businesses. This leads to questions whether she has much financial vested interest in Bitcoin or whether her primary motivation is generating views, clicks, etc. for her media assignments. |
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Well, even though some of his Forbes pieces I agree with, Matonis goes too far in openly advocating illegal behavior like tax evasion. Roger Ver used to give interviews to places like the Daily Anarchist, though I think some of that is toned down now. |
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P.S. I give interviews. ;p |
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Never heard of Arma Mahdawi |
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I just added Jeff Garzik Concerning the Arwa's case, she don't have an involvement background (to my knowledge). But she did a nice job (see her video interview link on the preview live page). Given the fact that we need interviewees that are available within a very short delay when the press needs it, more is better than less. But I really won't fight to keep her. It only seems to be that for now, there's only advantages to keep her. |
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-1 |
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@SomeoneWeird A bit more than two characters could be nice to understand what you think about this. |
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Mike and Tony need to be switched to retain consistency with sorting by alphabetical order and last name. There is a typo in the answer to the question Is Bitcoin a bubble? Is there a high quality video interview from a large media outlet focused on Jeff Garzik to include instead of only small tangential quotes in written articles? After all, one purpose of this page is to give journalists the opportunity to view how different potential interviewees perform so they can approach the ones they think will do best for their segments and shows. @jgarzik, can you please provide a citation to one of Matonis's interviews or articles where he affirmatively advocates the use of Bitcoin for tax evasion or anywhere else where he affirmatively advocates illegal behavior because I am unaware of any instances. On the other hand and contrary to your assertion, in the linked May 2011 Russia Today interview that starts around 7:30 Matonis states 'Even with Bitcoin you will still be liable for the taxes but I think what will happen at the government level, is it will be difficult to ascertain true income and governments will not be able to use money to track identity'. In this interview, Matonis does not advocate tax evasion and to the contrary he states people 'will still be liable for the taxes'. |
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Just in this discussion we have added two more highly qualified and long-time Bitcoin community members. And we will be able to easily add more as we go along and do more research finding interviews, links, contacting others who want to be included and etc. Regarding Arwa, I think we have more than enough established members of the Bitcoin community who can competently and professionally represent the project that we do not need to be worried about lacking supply of potential interviewees. As stated earlier, we do not know how long she has been around the community or what her interests are and there could be hidden issues that could pose a significant risk such as conflicts of interest with her journalism jobs. In her case, I think we should let her gain more creditability among the Bitcoin community (even jgarzik was unaware of who she is), produce additional tangible results with interviews or articles and then revisit her inclusion at a later date. |
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Here is one example of Matonis advocating tax evasion (see his closing paragraph, which is entirely useless otherwise). |
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@sunnankar Your argument style is perhaps a bit more confrontational than required. (...but since you demanded citations…) I too am highly concerned about the inclusion of Mr. Matonis here. I am very happy that Bitcoin attracts people with many political and philosophical backgrounds, including those I disagree with, but I think people who speak for Bitcoin should be ones who can put those views aside. This is particularly the case when they view Bitcoin as being at odds with the laws and norms of major nations. It is trivial to find examples of Mr. Matonis taking radical politicized positions relative to bitcoin:
...And there are also many other supporting inaccuracies, like claiming that Bitcoin is inherently anonymous, inherently underground, or can't possibly be shut down by state power— all things that the technical folks would consider unclear or controversial if not quite flat out incorrect. Everything I've seen Matonis write about Bitcoin is highly political in this manner (In fact, I quoted from every piece of his writing I found while producing the above, save for two instances where he was quoting someone else which I initially included but removed at his request). I don't think his political views reflect the majority of Bitcoin users, I don't think they reflect those of the Bitcoin project... I would imagine that even people who share Matonis' exact politics would prefer to believe them quietly: If I were trying to bring about adverse action against the Bitcoin system, it's users, or developers I could think of no better way than to loudly argue that Bitcoin is anti this and that. While I am delighted that Bitcoin is a big enough tent to include such diversity, I think the names we extend as press contacts should be tend to be politically moderate. We want and need diversity of all kinds for Bitcoin to be a success, extolling one kind of political understanding of Bitcoin excludes others. Doubly so when the position is one that some would perceive as at odds with upright and lawful behavior: In some circles its acceptable to talk about tax havens as a moral right, but in many others it seems— well, pretty seedy. I was already concerned that I was going to have to start writing systematic rebuttal's of his these radical positions just to protect my reputation from association with them... This would be all the more difficult with one of their authors listed as an authoritative contact. I urge that it not be done. |
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NACK felons should not be on the press page |
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@pstratem A name please? Personally, I didn't watch John Matonis in interviews yet. But the examples shown above are exactly the opposite of what I consider to be the purpose of the Press Center. We want to increase Bitcoin accessibility, accuracy legitimate uses and sustainable development. I see the above Matonis claims as a threat to these goals. John Matonis is maybe involved since a long time, but that does not mean he fulfills what is required for this task, just like a lot of other people who contribute to Bitcoin by different means. |
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@pstratem +1 for removing ver |
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..Well, It seems like we might very well need Arwa after all :-) |
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I removed Roger Ver and John Matonis since they get many NACKs to make sure that those two don't block the rest of the pull request. We can very well discuss this seperately after if needed. Any other comments / ACK / NACKs about this pull request? I think that it would be nice to publish this soon while Bitcoin still have attention from the medias right now. |
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@saivann, I agree that for expediency we should revisit both Ver and Matonis later just like with Arwa. @gmaxwell makes very good points about the Bitcoin project needing objective voices to present Bitcoin from this particular avenue and most would probably agree it would be unwise to bring more undue attention than is needed as it could result in adverse action on the project. Additionally, Bitcoin appears to be 'growing up' and doing so is going to require it interacting with the financial world in a perceived legitimate way and the FinCEN guidelines are just the beginning steps toward that happening. In Matonis's case, it seems all four of the quotes are either misattributed or taken out of context with, for example, the drug cartel reference actually being a quote of Jeffery Tucker and Matonis's commentary appears to discount the drug cartel's interest in Bitcoin because of the market being small. But I think the substantive point is extremely valid. For example, in all of the interviews I have seen with Matonis is included some form of persuasive arguing instead of merely objectively presenting. And that raises questions for me on whether he could merely objectively present the Bitcoin project without entertwining his personal political or monetary views in a persuasive manner. Until we have a larger pool of potential interviewees from across the spectrum therefore I think we should stick with those who can present objectively in order to avoid unnecessary misattribution of personal views to the Bitcoin project. As the pool grows then more voices can be added which will be important to reach all the different audiences across the spectrums. |
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Are there any suggestions for other potential interviewees that we can begin researching and interviews, articles, etc.? |
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OK, this is looking good to me. Great work Saivann and others. Good feedback from everyone else, thanks. We always knew the selection of people up there would be somewhat controversial :) Re: Arwa - this was my idea. TV stations require EXTREME turnaround times on interviewees, on the order of hours from "get in touch with this person" to "they need to be on air". Given these constraints there have proven to be very few people who can appear on air and make the project look good, with the media falling back to basically random commentators like Nick Colas when they couldn't find anyone else. Trace (sunnankar) is one of those people who can meet their requirements but last time a TV channel got in touch and asked me to appear on air, it wasn't possible (not in the right country) and they had already tapped Trace multiple times before. It's for that reason that I suggested we ask her to help out despite her lack of proximity to the project - if the media had less ridiculous constraints I'd also have preferred someone more well known. But there's a shortage. Also, although it's not very important, it'd be nice if the suggestions were not 100% male. |
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I'm confident I am one of the best spokesmen for bitcoin in the world, and the masses on the forums, and in person clearly agree. Roger is "One of the if (not the) best representative speaksmans Bitcoin has." It would be a shame not to put my talent to use. Roger Ver |
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Brilliant! Let's worry about the politics of members of the community because it might reflect poorly but let's ignore the thieves and scammers in our very midst. Bitcoin will thrive and survive in spite of those who claim to speak for Bitcoin. Maybe it was developed to survive its users as well as its enemies. |
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Roger Ver, surely you can see how the media would be able to easily spin your past as "Roger Ver, spokespreson for Bitcoin, holds a conviction for selling explosives to terrorists" or something along those lines? Your response here ignoring the conviction entirely suggests (perhaps I am reading too much into it) that you might still disagree that what you did there was wrong - and for all I know, maybe you're right about that - which isn't going to help if you're put on the defensive about it either. If you give them a response like it is "more proof that the Government is an immoral, violent organization that should not be supported in any way", surely you can see this would work against Bitcoin? @Bozbo, if you know of any reason someone on the proposed list shouldn't be there, please be more specific. |
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Roger Ver, actually this is not about your ability to represent Bitcoin. So far from what I've seen (but I didn't see a ton of interviews), you are energic and you seem to provide accurate and relevant answers. But the press have no pity and you have a very bad label that they can turn against you and Bitcoin as a whole. No matter what are your skills, they won't let you defend yourself and you (we) will have no recourse. I'm also kind of disappointed that it works this way, but that is how it works. I'm sure that you want to help, but I'm not sure that you can help in that position. Regardless of how frustrating that might be. Not that you can't make good interviews and help Bitcoin on your own, it's only about associating your name (and your past) with what will look "official" to the eyes of the people. |
Add Press Center with resources, FAQ and interviewees
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The Press center has been merged. All points of contention has been adressed and the texts has been deeply reviewed. Any further change can be done via a seperate github issue. |
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Roger Ver - got nicked once for offending the King, can't have him around Jon Matonis - of the proposed, has the most financial industry experience and yet dares to think outside the obedience box; purge Victory for the powers of milquetoast, middle-of-the-road mediocrity! (this is not intended to disparage any of the spokespeople accepted, but to criticize the selection process) |
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I'm deeply saddened and shocked to see two of my favorite Bitcoin's representatives to be pushed aside for what is simply a 'political' move. Really, if someone wants to cast some shadows on Bitcoin, they just need to talk about Silkroad. |
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@Frozenlock, Both Roger Ver and Jon Matonis were pushed aside because of the arguments from Lukejr and gmaxwell as presented earlier in this thread. The Press section needed to be resolved expeditiously and that was the easiest way because those arguments were valid and additional work needs to be done to resolve the legitimate concerns raised. As saivann suggested with moving to different requests with issues; Pull request #146 contains a general disclaimer and has received an ACK from jgarzik. This general disclaimer lays the groundwork to clear up the Press's misconception about Bitcoin being a company, remove any confusion that bitcoin.org is endorsing either businesses, political or personal ideas, etc. and will implicitly resolve the arguments presented by Lukejr and gmaxwell. For example, the general disclaimer should lay the foundation for including other voices from a wide spectrum including Matonis (leaving aside the argument for including Ver since it is slightly more complicated) who is already a member of the Press at Forbes and the Bitcoin Foundation Secretary. Additionally, Matonis has deep payments experience with his corporate work at Visa and is often invited to payments conferences. The press usually wants a wide range of opinions and occasionally organizes debates. For example, I was at an investment conference where the press had setup a debate between a Republican, Democrat and Libertarian. With a general disclaimer in place if bitcoin.org continues to intentionally limit the range of ideas offered, such as not including Matonis, it is both unprofessional under journalism standards and a disservice to the press because the press wants to find individuals who will fit into the narrative or story they are crafting. If bitcoin.org hides the ball and limits the marketplace of ideas, when they exist within the community, then it only serves to delegitimize the Press Center and runs contrary to its purpose of assisting journalists in performing their role and job. As always, since Bitcoin is an open-source project, participation is greatly encouraged because it will generally lead to a better outcome so thank you for including your ideas and arguments. And please participate in the future issues and discussions. |
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The sunnankar fix is indeed a constructive way to help finding a better compromise for this question. Jon already opened an issue to discuss Roger Ver case : #145 |
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I would like to see Jeff Berwick and Jeffrey Tucker on that list. |
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bitcoinstore/Roger Ver, I want to thank you for all you have done and continue to do for Bitcoin, but I must agree that your criminal conviction history and your and Mr. Matonis' more radical political and anti-government standings and opinions are not good for a positive public perception of Bitcoin. I think the main goal is adoption by as many as possible as fast as possible. The Powers That Be in government, finance, banking, and media could easily propagandize your criminal history and radical opinions. This would turn off the majority of the people so they may consider Bitcoin bad, if not supportive of crime and terrorism. The fight is uphill enough. Lets not intentionally make it an insurmountable cliff. I hope that you and Mr. Matonis step quietly and voluntarily into the bitcoin background. If you do, I pledge to continue to support your lawful and reputable Bitcoin business enterprises. |
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When I heard about this yesterday, I thought it was a joke. It is appalling that Roger Ver and Jon Matonis, two of the most professional and eloquent public proponents of Bitcoin, would be removed from a press list, merely because they don't cater their discussion to the lowest common denominator of public perception. Yes, some out there would be turned off by their ideology. So what. Bitcoin is not so weak and pathetic that it requires only tacit, cowed spokesmen who are more like politicians than real individuals with passion and ideology and, importantly, the character to stand up for that in which they believe. Bitcoin is not so fragile that it can only be advanced by grovelling to the very people who built the terrible systems it seeks to replace. It is embarrassing to see Bitcoin reduced to sniveling permission-seekers, too cowardly to speak about the real issues and the real reasons why this technology is so important. There is not a global, passion-driven community around Bitcoin because it offers lower money transfer fees. We do this because of what Bitcoin means on a philosophical and societal level, and Roger and Jon are two of the best at conveying this sentiment in a professional, non-confrontational, level-headed manner. And now they've been censored. Bitcoin is a movement, and those trying to distil it into nothing more than a cute new technology are kidding themselves and doing a terrible disservice to this community. If you want to sell pre-packaged, politically correct PR, go work for Dwolla. |
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This is disgusting. Bitcoin is not a hierarchical organisation. It is not a company or formal organisation at all in fact. The idea that anyone here, anyone working on bitcoin, could think to censor someone because of their radical ideas - that is completely ridiculous. Bitcoin is a censorship free protocol, an open P2P network and does not have leaders or authority that can attempt to hush/censor people. If you think that it is a good idea to not include someone on the PR list because of their extreme ideas, then I would hold that your ideology is inconsistent with the philosophy that was written directly into the code of bitcoin. Furthermore, this position is also inconsistent with the community that makes up bitcoin. It's estimated that a sizeable (33% or more) portion of the bitcointalk users and bitcoin users in general are libertarians and anarcho-capitalists. If that is true, then logically that ideological group should necessarily be included in the PR list, in fact it would be folly to do otherwise if there were a willing and competent person for the job (Roger Ver for example). On the tax evasion front. I'm convinced that one of the reasons why bitcoin was invented was to evade, avoid and ignore governments and their attempts at taxation/theft. It is idiotic to ignore that as a MAJOR use case of bitcoin and if any core developer here does not realise that a huge use case of bitcoin is tax evasion, then that core developer is going to be catering to the wrong audience. Zerocoin is a great example of a project that caters towards this audience. Message to the core devs: your position is not garuanteed, the majority of the mining nodes will decide what code updates are included and for the most part, nodes do not want censorship, tyranny and statism invading this currency. Matonis is a great guy. Roger is a great guy. Furthermore, Bitcoin.org is a decent site - don't tarnish it with this kind of idiocy. Remember that since bitcoin is decentralised, if you ruin the quality of bitcoin.org, then people will just ignore bitcoin.org and use other sites for information gathering and introduction to the currency. You are market participants, not a monopoly/government - act like it. |
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what's the big deal? Jon Matonis article was published by Forbes, why Forbes can have him associated with their brand and we can't? Forbes is more anti-censorship than us now |
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The fact of the matter is, there's nothing you can do to stop Roger Ver and Matonis being associated with the bitcoin "brand". Refusing to put him on this page will do literally nothing and they'll still be speaking just as often about bitcoin. The fact of the matter is that there are no officials in bitcoin and there's no official PR team either. I've given several speeches about bitcoin and among certain communities, I am the bitcoin PR team that they experience. It's the same with certain people all over the world, bitcoin spreads in a far different way than companies spread. This is a social movement, not a company. The deal is that this post, this discussion, etc are trying to exercise central authority over bitcoin - something which bitcoin inherently opposes to the core. Like I said though, if you want to destroy the integrity of the www.bitcoin.org brand, go ahead. |
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Why are jgarzik, lukejr and Gavin so ready to preemptively whitewash Bitcoin? Self-censoring and bootlicking the media with PC bullcrap is disingenuous, because it's misrepresenting Bitcoin's origins, ethos, community and how it is used in the real world. Bitcoin is not just a protocol, it's humanity's first real chance at global financial freedom. I fail to see why they work on Bitcoin if they cannot comprehend Bitcoin's essence. If they just like the nerdy tech aspect, why not just go work for Ripple/MintChip/Bitmint? These centralized projects won't offend anyone's political bent. |
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Guys, this pull request was merged already. Take it to the forum please. |
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I'm very concerned about some rotten apples in the bitcoin community. To name a few: luke-jr, jgarzik, and gmaxwell. I'm not sure why would they always side with the government? Bitcoin community needs independent people like Mr Matonis, not transmitters of the official government policy! Bitcoin and government interests will not always overlap. I don't think I'm anarchist. I believe that law and order is a basic necessity for every society. |
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@mikehearn: We'll conduct this conversation where we damn well please. Feel free to unwatch the thread. |
French translation update
Bitcoin is getting more attention, but the lack of good press resources have a bad impact on the quality of the press coverage. We've worked hard to fix this problem. This pull requests add Press Center to the website that covers these needs. The result can be seen live here : (merged)
The Press Center adds the following content to the website :
Potential interviewees
Bring back the press mailing list that was in the home page in the previous website. Along with a nice presentation for many individual interviewees.
Facts, FAQ and Myths
To address most recurring questions in the media and fight against inaccurate myths.
Materials
Nice quality videos, pictures and quotes media can freely use.
Press coverage
To offer a reference to existing good interviews that we feel covers Bitcoin with a good level of accuracy.
The whole project was initiated by Mike Hearn and received the help and support of a team of involved people, including myself : https://groups.google.com/forum/#!members/bitcoin-press-team .