Other potential interviewees for the press center

[cillianobriain]

Is it worth making a list of other potential contacts for the press center on the http://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-for-press page?

This is separate to the issue of whether Jon Matonis or Roger Ver should be included. I'm thinking of gathering suggestions for other people who may be suitable to be included on the press page.

I haven't contacted anyone yet or even know if they would be interested but to start I will suggest some names below:

Vitalik Buterin - head writer at the bitcoinmagazine.com. Writes well and has a good understanding of bitcoin and bitcoin related topics in my opinion.

Peter Šurda - writes the http://www.economicsofbitcoin.com/ blog. Could discuss the economic aspects of bitcoin.

I'm sure there are many others. What do others think? Is it a good idea to suggest other potential candidates to grow the list? What other potential candidates would be good to be included in the list?

[sunnankar]

cillianobriain, I am not sure whether a list of other potential contacts should be developed until the issue is resolved of whether a political ideology test should be used as a standard or not.

This issue is being discussed in the other threads, however, those in favor of using a political ideology test have suggested a 'cooling off' period so, for now, the issue appears to have been put in stasis. Plus, since we do not know what the political ideology test is it is therefore impossible to determine whether Vitalik, Peter or any others may be a good suggestion or not. And why do the work without knowing without a reasonable certainty whether it will be accepted? We spent hours getting and reviewing content, links, articles, etc. to assess the competence and professionalism of both Roger and Jon done only to have it stuck based on a political ideology point.

Additionally, if a political ideology test is to be used then we will need to come to a consensus on what the test should be and how it should be applied.

[cillianobriain]

Perhaps you are right.
Best to wait till the criteria for inclusion are more fully developed before making a list of other potential candidates.
I'm not sure of the standard Github procedure, should I close this issue now and it can be re-opened at a latter date?

[sunnankar]

Unfortunately, the criteria for inclusion, if it contains a political ideology test, will likely be arbitrary and capricious in its application. There would be lots of issues such as which politics should it be designed to appease, Africa, the United States, Pakistan or Argentina along with how the test should be applied.

Since the topic is already being discussed in other threads and will likely be ongoing since the burden is really on jgarzik, gmaxwell and LukeJR to provide the reasoning and logic for why the test should be included and jgarzik has already suggested pausing the issue therefore I think it might be best to close this issue and either start a new one once it is determined whether to use a political ideology test, what the test should be and how it should be applied or reopen this one.

[saivann]

More interviewees is good. I think that the logical way to do this would be to open a thread dedicated to make a list of interesting interviewees in the press team : https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/bitcoin-press-team so that we can gather all required materials and autorization for each interviewees. We can make a seperate pull request for each new interviewees, to give a chance to anyone to express either agreements or disagreement.

Roger Ver and John Matonis are being blocked not only because of developers opinions. Other contributors also expressed that they didn't want them included. The general opinion from the community is divised right now.

[luke-jr]

FWIW, after working with Vitalik Buterin on the Magazine for a few months, I don't have any objections to including him.

I do think anyone being considered for the press page should probably be informed on how difficult dealing with the press can be - I think others can elaborate on that point better than myself, however.