Add several independent voices to the Press Center page #162
Conversation
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NACK, Matonis publicly encourages using Bitcoin for illegal activity and makes statements effectively daring governments to ban Bitcoin (such as claiming they can't do it). |
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AGREE on adding Jon Matonis. Governments will intervene no matter what, as they have done with every single online payment system before (including PayPal) bar none. You know what their criteria for intervention is? Size. That is all that matters to them. When Bitcoin gets to 5-10 million users they will do something. Regardless of who is on the bitcoin.org press page. They couldn't care less about what people like you, me or any random blogger says. |
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@flix1 Government regulation is fine, the problem is only if they decide to ban it outright. |
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@aantonop Strongly suggest that the other press contacts be added first, otherwise it defeats the point of my suggestion. |
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@emansipater I hope others would you like to suggest additional press contacts. To me it is not so much about any individual as it is about opening the Press Center to a more diverse group, even through this broken process. Can anyone suggest someone who also has language proficiency beyond English, for example? If anyone suggests a candidate, I will be happy to make the necessary additions and push some more changes into this pull request. |
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@luke-jr offtopic, we are not arguing government regulation. |
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There are currently already eight people listed— its more than a screen-full on my system. As I've commented before, I think we need to be listing moderate voices. The press will find more extreme views, no doubt about that, but we don't want to be in a position where views like that are expressed as being fundamental to Bitcoin. An ideal primary press contact for bitcoin.org is someone who is saying the things that just about everyone involved with Bitcoin agrees with— even if thats a little boring. FWIW, I hear from Jon that he is already receiving too many media requests. Perhaps this makes leaving him out more palatable for folks who aren't moved by the leave-the-politics-out-of-it arguments? |
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ACK |
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ACK. |
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@gmaxwell Too many people on the list? Let's make the photos smaller then. We need more diversity of opinion, not a narrow set that fits someone's idea of what is politically appropriate. |
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Although Jon Matonis seems like an obvious candidate, the alarming thing is that the press reps aren't being chosen in a more community driven way. |
@aantonop, in answer to your call for non-Anglo-American candidates, the obvious potential Finnish-language candidates would be:
All three aforementioned gentlemen fluently speak English as well. As I recall, all three were interviewed in this widely-quoted Bitcoin report on Finnish TV last year, this report including the first affirmation from a central bank that Bitcoin was legal to use: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vYH1JH73pw (with English subtitles) |
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ACK for a more community driven decision process (preferably off GitHub). I'm also fine with Matonis. |
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I think it would be very interesting to get somebody like Song Hongbing (宋鸿兵) of Beijing China to represent Bitcoin for Mandarin speakers in Asia. He is already "tweeting" about it on weibo.com (Chinese Twitter) and is a well known publisher of Currency Wars《货币战争》(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_Wars). I think he's at about 1.6 million followers on Weibo. Whether he's interested or not, I don't really know, but I'm sure it wouldn't be very hard to figure it out. Here is his Chinese "wiki" http://baike.baidu.com/view/1183123.htm |
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Is anyone willing to second one of the proposed press representatives introduced above, to be added to the page? I will contact them, get approval, write them up and push a new commit to this pull-request, if others agree to nominate them. Finish Speakers: Henry Brade, aka Technomage. He operates the foremost Finnish-language Bitcoin site, exchange, and community at Bittiraha.fi and is frequently interviewed by the Finnish media on Bitcoin-related topics. He's the self-evident first point of contact for Finland. Vili Lehdonvirta. He is a virtual currency researcher, presently a Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute. He is often quoted by Finnish media on Bitcoin-related topics. Mandarin Chinese: Any others? |
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aantonop, I second the suggestions for all three; Martti, Henry and Vili. The interviews and quotes have always appeared to be competent and professional from those three. It would be good if you could find particular interviews and post the links so other community members can assess. Regarding Matonis, I think he would make a fine addition because he is competent, professional and already a member of the press with Forbes. MISATTRIBUTED AND INACCURATE REMARKS ABOUT MATONIS WARNING We should keep in mind that in our discussions we want to make sure that we only make assertions that are truthful and it would be wise to do so with credible and verifiable sources. |
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@sunnankar Thank you for pointing out the correct alphabetical order. I will adjust the commit accordingly. Question for the group - There are now several recommendations for FInnish, Spanish, and Mandarin speakers. This creates an interesting problem - we have some nominated press contacts who speak languages other than English, French and Spanish, the three languages with site-wide translation. This is likely to continue to be the case, and it is a good thing - the site could have press contacts in languages other than English, before it has a full translation in those languages. I see the normal progression as: (1) add the press contact people first Press contacts come before translator-volunteers if that assumption is correct, therefore it makes sense to add the non-English speaking press contacts to the main (English) press page. Question for the group - would it make more sense to have a single press contact page with all the worldwide contacts in the English language section first, then gradually move (or copy without removing from English page) those contacts to dedicated pages as those translations are done? I would like to add the Spanish, Finnish and Mandarin speakers into this pull request. I can either insert them alphabetically into the existing list and add some indication of languages spoken for each contact, or make one list of contacts grouped by language, assuming all the existing contacts go under "English" and the new additions create three new groups below: Spanish, Finnish and Mandarin. |
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Note: I have only attributed to Matonis what he has actually said/done. |
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@luke-jr Duly noted. I also note you did not repeat or repost any of the misattributed quotes, which is great. The stated purpose of the Press list (quoting from the page itself) is: This list of potential interviewees has been curated by Bitcoin community members with the intent to include individuals possessing a wide spectrum of experience, ideas, and geography Can we now move towards achieving the goal of expanding the list to include a greater diversity of geographies, languages, experiences and ideas, as proclaimed in this page? I believe that your comments were heard. Some agreed, some did not. The overwhelming consensus as I see it above is to add Matonis. I see two objections and seven positive endorsements not counting mine. I believe that settles the issue of community vetting for Matonis. I am offering some additional constructive changes and I think we are making some good progress. I would like to see some more non-English native speakers and some good ideas on how to organize a bigger press list that helps the global press get high quality quotes and interviews. I would appreciate more nominations or format suggestions. Thank you |
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@sunnankar I stand by my statements and I supported my views with specific hyperlinks. I've been in communication with Jon and the only complaint he brought to my attention was that that two of the things I quoted were in fact him quoting other people. It wasn't obvious at all to me that he was repeating other people in those instances (out of the four I cited), and I corrected the posting within 15 minutes of receiving his email. (I would also note that his repetition and apparent support of those comments would have equally supported my view— but no need to split hairs, the other quotes stand on their own just as well and there is no ambiguity about the level of support there.) I don't think the hyperbole and legal threats are productive. I hope we can engage in future discussion civilly and with mutual respect, as I understand how people can become worked up in an argument. But if you seek to continue along your current trajectory, take heed: I will not be cowed by your coercive behavior. As you are well aware defamation in the US has no legs at all especially in the case of a public figure and when the views expressed are a clearly an earnest opinion. As you are also aware, California has powerful anti-slapp law and that malicious prosecution to silence criticism and public discourse is not likely to work out well for the plaintiff.
I think it's a little unfair and unproductive to discourse to open a new pull request and summarily ignore the views expressed by other people on the old one in order to declare "overwhelming consensus", especially in an environment which has been chilled by hostility, ad-hominem, and threats of legal prosecution which would rightfully discourage the prior commenters from following the storm front to repeat their argument in each new venue. |
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@gmaxwell you retraction was duly noted. No need for anyone to threaten anyone, you are right. I don't want another sidetrack argument over the choice of forum , voting rules, ad-hominems etc. We can leave the issue open for discussion as long as you like. Other devs can easily follow from pull request to pull request. After all, this is your chosen forum and tool, and the rest of the community is at a distinct disadvantage. You have the home-field advantage, so I do not think you are discouraged. You also have the "Merge" button, so I doubt you are as powerless as you feel. I will hope for the best and encourage more discussion. Any suggestions on how to mix multiple press contacts for the world press, @gmaxwell, I would appreciate your input? Any other nominees for English speaking press contacts? Any preference as to how to indicate spoken languages? Little flag icons or text below the photo like "Speaks: English, Francais, Magyar" ? Or separate sections per "primary" language? |
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ACK. A list of potential interviewees without him is a joke. |
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This discussion is a distraction, and will only serve to derail and divide the developers from themselves and the user community; it is likely also partially fuelled by an unfortunately well-funded echo-chamber. The answers to this question are already in the other pull (#152) and attempting to re-do it here and build false consensus when a large set of non-overlapping users has already commented in the other is pointless and a waste of time. NACK, there's little point in accepting direction from armchair revolutionaries until they prove they won't melt into the background when the regulators catch up with us. In the meanwhile the moderates aren't interested in presenting contentious viewpoints to the public at large. NOTE: Beware availability bias, for those of you insisting that Matonis is some kind of representative for Bitcoin. |
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@midnightmagic i was brought here by this discussion that @aantonop started, and i'd have to disagree with you you that it's going to divide developers. i'm here now and i'd like to help out if i'm needed, i think that's the opposite of what you're suggesting. it really doesn't make sense to decide on representatives on a github thread, it should be open sourced to people beyond devs. if there isn't this kind of mechanism, then one should be created. we'd be defeating the purpose of bitcoin by emulating the very institutions that spawned it's existence (doing shit behind closed doors). i don't know who runs this site, and it doesn't even matter to me. bitcoin is an open source technology, having representatives is sort of a joke... the software sorta speaks for itself anyways. but if there are representatives, they should be decided in a more open forum, a more democratic way, and that's just not going to happen in a github thread. @aantonop it does seem a bit rash to throw somebody in without following some protocol for approving representatives. i'm down to help you guys out and get involved. feel free to throw things at me. |
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If you can engineer actual crypto and secure software, you are in fact needed already and should be participating in the development of bitcoind, especially in the areas of script testing, implementation, and non-fork wishlist items. This pull request is divisive because the issue has already been hashed to death and this brand-new pull request is thus contentious and a source of frustration, especially since it comes from a user who's been registered with Github for quite some time and thus should know better. Therefore, opening this new pull request is a poisonous act, IMO, and in my opinion has a non-zero probability of being a deliberate political ploy. It would thus be a destructive pull request, and should be immediately punted to avoid endless now multithreaded argument. What happened to the hydra? Moderates don't want to be associated with radicals. Let the radicals fork and see how far they get without the support of the moderates. To me, it really seems to be that simple. Ultimately, the primary source material is the source code. The source code is written by the devs. The devs control the website. If the devs don't want Matonis speaking for the source code they write and the website they own, what kind of an idiot would try to force it on them and pretend it's not a divisive, destructive act to do so? All the people getting rich off Bitcoin right now don't suddenly deserve a voice on bitcoin.org because they bought a hoard of Bitcoin off someone or invested in it in some fashion. Use of the tool doesn't magically confer steering privileges, and none of our voices are suddenly more important just because we suddenly care how the project is being run. Neither does our combined, collective, and vast experience writing software somehow magically convert into a leadership role in the bitcoin project. tl;dr Punt this pull request. There is a significant probability it is a destructive political ploy. |
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midnightmatter: You are basically saying that a subset of the developers should make this decision without outside interference. If that is the case, then they should not have pretended to require pull requests, they should not have pretended this was an open process and they should not have said that all that was missing was community interest. All of the claims of openness have been shown to be lies. If you want to just come out and say "we make this decision without any concern for the community and the whole pull request process is a charade", then go ahead and hit "Close". It's your reputation that will be (more) damaged, by such a move. The devs picked this forum as the correct process for nominating individuals. I am making a good faith effort to use the process and discovering that the process was a sham. So far, 10 for, 3 against, for the specific entry for Matonis, and a lot of hand waving without much constructive input for the other candidates. "It's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes". Is that the process? Just say so and I'll go away. |
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did you count my ACK? |
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I expect we will continue this charade until you agree to a fair process or shut it down arbitrarily. My proposal is ahead 16 votes to 6. Also I have veto'd jgarzik, based on my veto power as endowed by devs @luke-jr and @gmaxwell. At this point, we can either remove both my candidates and jgarzik, based on your veto rule, or we ignore vetos and add my candidate. Which will it be? |
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Counting votes, after trolling specific audiences for votes on outside forums, just makes a vote even more meaningless. As we see here, the loudest voice -- i.e. the person who posts the most -- just drowns out everything else. Would prefer to keep bitcoin.org largely ideology-free and neutral. |
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Summarizing the rules again:
This is the current rule set? Just checking before I try to follow it and you change it again. |
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Ooops, posted too soon. New rules:
All with this line delivered with a straight face: "Would prefer to keep bitcoin.org largely ideology-free and neutral.". By that I assume you mean whatever ideology-free and neutral means to you, which is of course bot impossible and naive. |
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@aantonop frickin hilarious! too much sense. why won't you devs submit to a real vote with the entire community? afraid what they'll say? we could end all this back and forth BS in short order if you'd allow it. or more simply, just let matonis and ver in. |
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We're past adding Matonis, Ver or anyone else through this process. Even if they were added, the entire process has lost all credibility (didn't have much to start with) and the developers involved have show themselves to be without any scruples when it comes to respecting the "process" they made up (and made up again and again as needed). Even if one or two candidates were added now, the damage has been done - the Press Center is a list that should be determined as broadly as possible, with as much input from the community and as little exclusion as possible. None of those things are possible within this process any longer. It has been shown to be a complete joke. It's also not ok to keep the existing list. Every single one of them has been tainted, not of their own fault, but by the inconsistencies exhibited by the decision process. |
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@aardeem Thanks, 16-7 for the proposal. |
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ACK |
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Ok, It's time to continue working on real things. We have already spammed everyone enough. I cannot spend more time on this. So if you still disagree, please answer with a concrete alternative and do the hard work that comes with it instead of disrupting the work of others, because it's not going anywhere. It has already been made clear that bitcoin.org is not run by votes. Bitcoin.org used to work with mutual respect and consensus between developers and with the input of the community. Trying to invite people to have an open and respectful debate here was my mistake. I didn't expect so much threat and hostile discussions. Bitcoin.org is a technical reference for bitcoin. So it should be no surprise that some interviewees don't fit in that category, regardless of how good they are in their respective approach. Jon Matonis deserves his recognition by the whole community for everything he has done and what he is doing everyday. But that doesn't mean what he does is appropriate in all cases and circumstances. This is just common sense. A link on bitcoin.org is not what will prevent anyone to make interviews, especially not Jon. If you want to make something different happen, just do it. I would be happy to see this happening, and perhaps even participate myself. I've said before that a community-driven open-to-everyone press center would be great. And it should be obvious after these discussions that bitcoin.org is not, and won't be the right place for this. I've already made it clear that I wouldn't make a change without a good consensus. And no good consensus has been achieved. This issue already caused too much trouble to anyone, including Jon Matonis. |
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Thank you for playing Tropico 5 |
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Salvann, this isn't over. Unless you want the world's smallest bitcoin foundation, you guys need to learn to accept that members have rights and their voices should be listened to |
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@saivann Thank you. Your hard work at creating dialogue speaks volumes to people like me even if you can't win over those with fundamental differences. Please don't feel that your time on this issue was wasted. People like me appreciate the time you put into Bitcoin.org and I wouldn't want you to feel disheartened. Take a break, do something in real life, and remember that a few angry voices don't speak for everyone. Your contributions are extremely helpful to Bitcoin. |
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@ThanatosHoldings Please work on a solution for the people you disagree with instead of thinking they don't have the same rights than you. And respect people who actually work extremely hard to do the impossible. @emansipater Thanks, yeah, I need to sleep :) . If people complaining here don't start working on this before I do, I might take this on my own to see if I can provide an interesting solution to everyone.. |
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@salvann None of us want that to happen. We are just telling you to honor your commitments. If you open something to a vote, then accept the vote. If you don't want to risk losing, then call it soliciting feedback. Learn PR skils |
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I'd just like to be another "sycophant" and express my support for @saivann and the other developers. The way @aantonop et al are handling this is completely unreasonable. I'm not even sure he really has a purpose other than to cause a strink. The incendiary rhetoric and uncited emotional claims coming from @aantonop are totally inappropriate for a pull request. While I welcome newcomers to Github, it's appalling that he, not a stranger to the open-source ethos, would recruit people to sign up here and abuse the pull-request system like this. Of course his "votes" outnumber the others, because they aren't going around on reddit and bitcointalk linking to this PR with fear-mongering anti-summaries of what's going on and instructing people to sign up and post "ACK." While the process and current selection of press contacts could probably use some improvement (along with anything else created by humans), we've made a good first step. |
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Inappropriate for a pull request? Entirely! The whole idea of nominating politically charged positions on github was idiotic. I didn't pick it. This wasn't a code discussion. I wouldn't dream of handling a real pull request like this. But this was a political debate and power play from the very beginning, not a real pull request, not a code change, not a development discussion. It is completely disingenuous (but convenient) to pretend otherwise. |
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I have banned JuniusBell from this repository. That kind of threatening behaviour is unacceptable and will result in an immediate ban. Any further trolling or abuse will also result in bans. I have a no tolerance policy against that kind of crap on forums I'm an admin for - we keep it civil or we keep it out. I didn't read the whole thread but I think there were suggestions for other people, separate pull requests for each person are the way to go. So far the vast majority have been unproblematic. At some point we might need to better organise the page though (eg by language). The solution to these disputes is the same one I proposed in the last discussion. There are a lot of people for whom Bitcoin and politics are synonymous. Those people have to accept that many others don't feel the same way, what's more, many of those people don't want to be associated with the other peoples politics. That isn't debatable, it's just a fact. Therefore the correct fix is to create a new community specifically for people who see Bitcoin as a route to libertarianism, anarchism or whatever floats their boat. Call it the Monetary Freedom Project or something else. With a name, a website and a well defined mission it will be easier to gather people together and focus those discussions. Then you can have your own flamewars over whether people who think child porn laws are oppression should be on your own press page. Call it the Silk Road solution. We long ago evicted people who were openly trading drugs from the bitcointalk forums because that kind of thing was totally unacceptable and a lot of people didn't want to be associated with it. Some people engaged in massive dramas and trolling, but DPR did something different - he created his own community and made the whole issue moot. Then he imposed his own rules on that community too, which created another round of trolling and dramas. Such is the circle of life on the internet. This is a repeat of that prior situation. If you aren't interested in creating a new website where "statists" aren't welcome, please don't open more pull requests or comment further on this issue, because there's no chance for consensus here. |
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+1 to aantonop proposal, and -1 to devs and bitcoin foundation dirty tactics. |
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If you look up thread you can see that he was threatening to find and inflict violence on people he disagreed with. The issue is not unusual views. The issue is when you have promote ideas that risk making other people uncomfortable or causing them actual problems. Look, it's not all that complicated. Imagine some developers wife knows her husband is involved with this online money project called Bitcoin and beyond that doesn't really know much. She switches on the TV and there's some guy up there saying that Bitcoin is brilliant because it lets you buy drugs anonymously and will lead to the overthrow of the state. Guess what, the vast majority of people are not cool with that. So that's probably going to lead to an argument that didn't need to happen, and presuming the developer thinks his wife's happiness is more important than his hobby project maybe we'd lose a valuable contributor. Now imagine instead of the developers wife, it's a regulator who that guy is applying to for permission to run a new Bitcoin exchange. And yes you need permission. If you don't have it your bank accounts get closed and you might go to jail, so don't bother turning this into an argument about the merits of the regulations, just accept they exist. Now imagine that the regulator saw the same TV show. Maybe they went from being on the fence about whether to approve, to thinking this is just a complicated money laundering scheme -> permission denied, now maybe there won't be an exchange in that country for the forseeable future. These are the sorts of scenarios we're trying to avoid. Nobody really cares what people say on little community-made documentaries that preach to the choir, but yes if Trace was going on BBC News and saying he thinks Silk Road is great because it'll make for a more peaceful world then I'd be quite disappointed and maybe be thinking he shouldn't be on the list either. That's exactly the kind of radical position we're trying NOT to have Bitcoin become permanently associated with because it will lead directly to problems growing the ecosystem. So far it seems he hasn't done that. A good example of this seems to be Mike Gogulski. He has unusually extreme political views even for this community, but you wouldn't know it from seeing him appear on the various videos that are out there about Berlin. He just talks about Bitcoin in a neutral and reasonable way, which is exactly what we need. Do you see now why I think having a separate movement for freedom-via-monetary-means would be a good idea? If Trace or Jon goes on screen and says, "I am a Monetary Freedomist and our movement believes that via online cryptocurrencies and anonymizing networks we can bring about a more peaceful world", well, it's still not amazing but at least now it's clearly delineated from Bitcoin itself - Joe Developer can argue, "Hey those guys have their own views on what this all means but that's not the same thing as what I'm working on". |
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As one of the sheep so recruited, to my foolish sheep brain, this is a Having read every word he's written with incredulous thanks that someone And, as a sheep again, I believe that any process that would reject him |
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"There are currently already eight people listed— its more than a screen-full on my system." -- @gmaxwell Anyone want to start a chipin to get gmaxwell a bigger monitor, or perhaps a page-down button? "The State has the authority to collect taxes. That isn't theft." -- @luke-jr What authority the state claims is illegitimate. Much like the authority being exercised in this censorious and shameful process. "Trying to invite people to have an open and respectful debate was my mistake." -- @saivann Don't underestimate yourself here, sir. Perhaps this is just what it took for you to become comfortable with your newfound powers as cliqueish autocrat. ACK |
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"Trying to invite people to have an open and respectful debate was my mistake." -- @saivann And I plan to do it again. But I won't be naive and think everyone is willing to be constructive and respectful. |
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So far the press coverage in 2013 has been much more positive than in 2011. I think a big part of that is because this time, our community was much bigger and it was easier for the press to find people to talk about Bitcoin, and the people who talked about it made sure to emphasise the positive parts. It was still too hard for them though, I had several conversations with journalists where they expressed frustration that it was so difficult to find information and people who really understood Bitcoin ... hence the idea of a press center. Whenever I brought up the idea, every journalist I spoke to thought it was a great plan. In other words I disagree that it's a waste of time. Practical experience so far suggests otherwise. (for those reading along, I replied to your other points on the pull req you opened). |
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@mikehearn Simple easy access to basic information is extremely important. It's hard enough to understand how Bitcoin works for a journalist new to it. I think bitcoin.org should be a common ground with press resources that we can all agree on. Yes that means extreme viewpoints don't belong there, but Bitcoin is supposed to be decentralized anyway. If a journalist wants to find someone like Jon they will do so just fine on their own and if you want to put those voices in one place create a press center for your community and how it uses Bitcoin. Note how there is the San Jose conference, and Amir's Europe conference, with totally different outlooks on Bitcoin. There is nothing wrong with that and Bitcoin benefits from that diversity. |
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My thinking has evolved. NACK NACK NACK to this and every other attempt to add or remove people via consensus, democracy or autocracy. Ref: #152 (comment) |
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Yeah #152 had it right. They should end this failed experiment at politics-via-github. It has resulted in smearing the reputation of some developers and calling to question the integrity of anyone who remains on that press page despite the obvious conflicts of interest. |
Add several more press contact to the press center, starting with Jon Matonis, in anticipation of the rush of media for the bitcoin conference, and to better serve the diverse needs of financial, technology, business and consumer media from around the world.
I suggest there be at least four more press contacts (50% more) and that there be more information about areas of coverage for each press contact, beyond just a title.
Additionally, it would make a lot of sense to add people who speak several languages other than English, preferably representing languages from areas of rapid bitcoin growth such as Mandarin, Russian, Spanish, German etc etc. I do not want to draw too many conclusions from the names and faces, but I have a feeling that English is well represented... If XInhua wants to do a story, who is there to help them?
Thank you for your consideration