Add Paxful Sponsorship #2485

Merged
merged 21 commits into from Jul 12, 2018

Conversation

Projects
None yet
@wbnns
Member

wbnns commented Jun 30, 2018

This updates the Buy Bitcoin feature of the site as part of a new sponsorship agreement with Paxful, a leading P2P exchange. Since the Bitcoin Foundation sponsorship ended in 2015, Bitcoin.org has been self-funded by the domain owners and by community donations.

This quarterly sponsorship (which can potentially be renewed) will help bolster and catalyze several efforts:

  • Achieving 100% translation coverage across the site, including the developer documentation
  • Expanding and updating existing developer documentation and other related material
  • Expanding and updating the site in general to be more comprehensive and helpful, based on contributor and community feature requests and feedback
  • New opportunities to compensate active contributors for their time and efforts
  • Increased financial security to cover server, hosting, legal and other administration-related expenses for the foreseeable future

Live preview: https://bitcoin.cryptopelago.com/

This is scheduled to be merged on Thursday, July 12th (0:00UTC).

Cc: @Cobra-Bitcoin

@wbnns wbnns self-assigned this Jun 30, 2018

@Cobra-Bitcoin

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@Cobra-Bitcoin

Cobra-Bitcoin Jun 30, 2018

Contributor

ACK.

For transparency, the sponsorship amount is $20k USD / month. This allows us to be much more aggressive in getting good quality content produced and translated, and funding efforts to add new functionality and features to the site.

Things we could spend the extra money on include:

  • Getting a completely new and modern "What is Bitcoin?" video made (narrated in different languages)
  • Develop a translation portal (on translate.bitcoin.org or something) with a built-in rewards system. The idea is that when new content is added to bitcoin.org, translators are automatically alerted about it (something like "New strings to translate"), then they can translate to their language, and the content is reviewed by other translators and automatically merged into the site. Once merged, the translators get paid.
  • Including more live information about the Bitcoin network, such as the current block, recommended fees, current difficulty, block version information, etc.
  • Rewarding existing contributors and and encouraging more activity on the project by launching more bounty programs. Also need to be better publicise information on bounties to the outside world (out of Github).

These and other potential features are all important in making Bitcoin.org a comprehensive and useful site, across different languages and cultures. I think this arrangement with Paxful helps us a lot. It's also good for new users to be pointed to a P2P exchange to buy Bitcoin.

Contributor

Cobra-Bitcoin commented Jun 30, 2018

ACK.

For transparency, the sponsorship amount is $20k USD / month. This allows us to be much more aggressive in getting good quality content produced and translated, and funding efforts to add new functionality and features to the site.

Things we could spend the extra money on include:

  • Getting a completely new and modern "What is Bitcoin?" video made (narrated in different languages)
  • Develop a translation portal (on translate.bitcoin.org or something) with a built-in rewards system. The idea is that when new content is added to bitcoin.org, translators are automatically alerted about it (something like "New strings to translate"), then they can translate to their language, and the content is reviewed by other translators and automatically merged into the site. Once merged, the translators get paid.
  • Including more live information about the Bitcoin network, such as the current block, recommended fees, current difficulty, block version information, etc.
  • Rewarding existing contributors and and encouraging more activity on the project by launching more bounty programs. Also need to be better publicise information on bounties to the outside world (out of Github).

These and other potential features are all important in making Bitcoin.org a comprehensive and useful site, across different languages and cultures. I think this arrangement with Paxful helps us a lot. It's also good for new users to be pointed to a P2P exchange to buy Bitcoin.

@crwatkins

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@crwatkins

crwatkins Jun 30, 2018

Contributor

I'm not opposed to sponsorship, however my first impression, without giving it too much thought, is that this layout is not just sponsorship, but rather is promotion, as Paxful is being added in front of, and in lieu of, our neutral listings. Our mission statement includes:

  • Remain a neutral informative resource about Bitcoin.

Which I believe is undermined by the elevation and promotion of a single entity, at the expense of others. I believe that we should strongly display our sponsorships for reasons of both transparency and appreciation, but I don't believe we should be promoting based on sponsorship. The proposed positioning here looks a bit too much like the pay-to-play situation that other less neutral sites employ. I would think that sponsors should be listed in a sponsors area, and of course be listed with their peers, but also specifically called out there as a sponsor.

Contributor

crwatkins commented Jun 30, 2018

I'm not opposed to sponsorship, however my first impression, without giving it too much thought, is that this layout is not just sponsorship, but rather is promotion, as Paxful is being added in front of, and in lieu of, our neutral listings. Our mission statement includes:

  • Remain a neutral informative resource about Bitcoin.

Which I believe is undermined by the elevation and promotion of a single entity, at the expense of others. I believe that we should strongly display our sponsorships for reasons of both transparency and appreciation, but I don't believe we should be promoting based on sponsorship. The proposed positioning here looks a bit too much like the pay-to-play situation that other less neutral sites employ. I would think that sponsors should be listed in a sponsors area, and of course be listed with their peers, but also specifically called out there as a sponsor.

@harding

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@harding

harding Jul 1, 2018

Contributor

Thank you for opening this PR to public discussion before making the change.

To add a visual to @crwatkins's concerns, this is the neutral page currently at bitcoin.org/en/buy

2018-07-01-14_11_46_170148096

This is the same URL after this change:

2018-07-01-14_13_32_890936587

That's in addition to the prominent link on the home page.

I'd request that:

  1. Any paid promotion on the site should be labeled as such where the link occurs. IANAL, but this may be required by law in some jurisdictions and is good ethics even when not.
  2. Retain the previous neutral content and give Paxful a separate new URL on the site.
Contributor

harding commented Jul 1, 2018

Thank you for opening this PR to public discussion before making the change.

To add a visual to @crwatkins's concerns, this is the neutral page currently at bitcoin.org/en/buy

2018-07-01-14_11_46_170148096

This is the same URL after this change:

2018-07-01-14_13_32_890936587

That's in addition to the prominent link on the home page.

I'd request that:

  1. Any paid promotion on the site should be labeled as such where the link occurs. IANAL, but this may be required by law in some jurisdictions and is good ethics even when not.
  2. Retain the previous neutral content and give Paxful a separate new URL on the site.
@achow101

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@achow101

achow101 Jul 1, 2018

Contributor

I do not think that we should be advertising Paxful like this. This reads more as an advertisement than as a sponsorship. For sponsorships, there should really only be a small, non-intrusive banner that says that Paxful is sponsoring bitcoin.org. This banner can have a link to another page. However we should not be replacing the entire Buy Bitcoin page with effectively an advertisement for Paxful. As this PR is currently, I strongly NACK it.

Contributor

achow101 commented Jul 1, 2018

I do not think that we should be advertising Paxful like this. This reads more as an advertisement than as a sponsorship. For sponsorships, there should really only be a small, non-intrusive banner that says that Paxful is sponsoring bitcoin.org. This banner can have a link to another page. However we should not be replacing the entire Buy Bitcoin page with effectively an advertisement for Paxful. As this PR is currently, I strongly NACK it.

@buzztiaan

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@buzztiaan

buzztiaan Jul 2, 2018

i'll also voice my opinion that this is just too much advertising , totally -not- in benefit of bitcoin but only in benefit of paxful

i'll also voice my opinion that this is just too much advertising , totally -not- in benefit of bitcoin but only in benefit of paxful

@harding

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@harding

harding Jul 3, 2018

Contributor

@wbnns @Cobra-Bitcoin this PR seems to still be scheduled for merge within 12 hours. Is that still the plan despite the opposition? Do you plan to make any changes prior to merge to address any of the feedback?

Contributor

harding commented Jul 3, 2018

@wbnns @Cobra-Bitcoin this PR seems to still be scheduled for merge within 12 hours. Is that still the plan despite the opposition? Do you plan to make any changes prior to merge to address any of the feedback?

@crwatkins

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@crwatkins

crwatkins Jul 3, 2018

Contributor

NACK (to be clear, per my comments)

Contributor

crwatkins commented Jul 3, 2018

NACK (to be clear, per my comments)

@harding

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@harding

harding Jul 3, 2018

Contributor

I took some time to look up what seems to be the related U.S. legal code to paid endorsements. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but I have the following concerns related to the code and to the good ethics it attempts to mandate. All quotes below come from the above link:

an endorsement means any advertising message (including verbal statements, demonstrations, or depictions of the name, signature, likeness or other identifying personal characteristics of an individual or the name or seal of an organization) that consumers are likely to believe reflects the opinions, beliefs, findings, or experiences of a party other than the sponsoring advertiser, even if the views expressed by that party are identical to those of the sponsoring advertiser

I think the content on the proposed revised /en/buy page meets this definition of an endorsement.

Endorsements by organizations, especially expert ones, are viewed as representing the judgment of a group whose collective experience exceeds that of any individual member, and whose judgments are generally free of the sort of subjective factors that vary from individual to individual.

Although Bitcoin.org is privately owned and says so on the /en/about-us page, it also claims in the same paragraph to be an independent open source project, which is borne out by the large number of contributors. So I think there's an argument here worth considering that Bitcoin.org is currently an organization and that the endorsement on the proposed /en/buy page will be viewed as representing the judgment of the group of contributors rather than just the domain owner.

Therefore, an organization's endorsement must be reached by a process sufficient to ensure that the endorsement fairly reflects the collective judgment of the organization.

If the above argument is considered reasonable, then applying this part of the regulation is clear: the process this organization uses to reach collective judgement is the PR discussion, and based on historic policy. this PR currently has enough NACKs from well-established contributors to make endorsement unwarranted.

If the PR is merged despite those NACKs, I think that represents "Practices inconsistent with these Guides [that] may result in corrective action by the Commission under Section 5..."

When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience), such connection must be fully disclosed.

I see this as meaning that whether or not the above argument holds about Bitcoin.org being either an organization or an individual, it's legally required that the paid promotion must be obviously disclosed.

The link above provides not just an example of this but ten detailed examples that I think makes clear the necessity to disclose the financial motivation of this new content where visitors to the site will see it.


Note, to be clear, I'm not threatening any legal action related to this but simply pointing out that if this PR is merged as-is, it might expose the site to a significant liability. More importantly to me is that this regulation seems to provide a framework for good ethical actions that we should attempt to follow because it's the right thing to do, not just because it's the law.

Contributor

harding commented Jul 3, 2018

I took some time to look up what seems to be the related U.S. legal code to paid endorsements. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but I have the following concerns related to the code and to the good ethics it attempts to mandate. All quotes below come from the above link:

an endorsement means any advertising message (including verbal statements, demonstrations, or depictions of the name, signature, likeness or other identifying personal characteristics of an individual or the name or seal of an organization) that consumers are likely to believe reflects the opinions, beliefs, findings, or experiences of a party other than the sponsoring advertiser, even if the views expressed by that party are identical to those of the sponsoring advertiser

I think the content on the proposed revised /en/buy page meets this definition of an endorsement.

Endorsements by organizations, especially expert ones, are viewed as representing the judgment of a group whose collective experience exceeds that of any individual member, and whose judgments are generally free of the sort of subjective factors that vary from individual to individual.

Although Bitcoin.org is privately owned and says so on the /en/about-us page, it also claims in the same paragraph to be an independent open source project, which is borne out by the large number of contributors. So I think there's an argument here worth considering that Bitcoin.org is currently an organization and that the endorsement on the proposed /en/buy page will be viewed as representing the judgment of the group of contributors rather than just the domain owner.

Therefore, an organization's endorsement must be reached by a process sufficient to ensure that the endorsement fairly reflects the collective judgment of the organization.

If the above argument is considered reasonable, then applying this part of the regulation is clear: the process this organization uses to reach collective judgement is the PR discussion, and based on historic policy. this PR currently has enough NACKs from well-established contributors to make endorsement unwarranted.

If the PR is merged despite those NACKs, I think that represents "Practices inconsistent with these Guides [that] may result in corrective action by the Commission under Section 5..."

When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience), such connection must be fully disclosed.

I see this as meaning that whether or not the above argument holds about Bitcoin.org being either an organization or an individual, it's legally required that the paid promotion must be obviously disclosed.

The link above provides not just an example of this but ten detailed examples that I think makes clear the necessity to disclose the financial motivation of this new content where visitors to the site will see it.


Note, to be clear, I'm not threatening any legal action related to this but simply pointing out that if this PR is merged as-is, it might expose the site to a significant liability. More importantly to me is that this regulation seems to provide a framework for good ethical actions that we should attempt to follow because it's the right thing to do, not just because it's the law.

@theymos

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@theymos

theymos Jul 3, 2018

Contributor

Paxful is a good site IMO, but you can't just remove the links to the exchange list, etc. That makes bitcoin.org less accurate/useful. And I agree with others that the sponsored content has to be more transparent. Maybe put the Paxful stuff above the old stuff with a "sponsored" tag on it.

Contributor

theymos commented Jul 3, 2018

Paxful is a good site IMO, but you can't just remove the links to the exchange list, etc. That makes bitcoin.org less accurate/useful. And I agree with others that the sponsored content has to be more transparent. Maybe put the Paxful stuff above the old stuff with a "sponsored" tag on it.

wbnns added some commits Jun 20, 2018

@wbnns

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@wbnns

wbnns Jul 3, 2018

Member

Hello, based on the additional feedback, I've added a blog post (screenshot attached) detailing the supporting sponsorship, for additional clarity and transparency.

Regarding previous links, a link to the exchanges directory which contains links to the same sites that were on the original buy bitcoin page (as well as other additional options) remains available to website visitors via the sitewide dropdown menu.

This is still scheduled to be merged at 0:00UTC, as this was the agreed upon time as per the sponsorship. However, if the above changes are not sufficient, then @theymos and @Cobra-Bitcoin, please let me know.

blog-post

Member

wbnns commented Jul 3, 2018

Hello, based on the additional feedback, I've added a blog post (screenshot attached) detailing the supporting sponsorship, for additional clarity and transparency.

Regarding previous links, a link to the exchanges directory which contains links to the same sites that were on the original buy bitcoin page (as well as other additional options) remains available to website visitors via the sitewide dropdown menu.

This is still scheduled to be merged at 0:00UTC, as this was the agreed upon time as per the sponsorship. However, if the above changes are not sufficient, then @theymos and @Cobra-Bitcoin, please let me know.

blog-post

@harding

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@harding

harding Jul 3, 2018

Contributor

This is still scheduled to be merged at 0:00UTC

$ date -u
Tue Jul  3 20:48:59 UTC 2018

It took you three days to make your first response to feedback, but you're only giving people three hours notice before merge to consider your response and evaluate your changes? That seems unfair.

Contributor

harding commented Jul 3, 2018

This is still scheduled to be merged at 0:00UTC

$ date -u
Tue Jul  3 20:48:59 UTC 2018

It took you three days to make your first response to feedback, but you're only giving people three hours notice before merge to consider your response and evaluate your changes? That seems unfair.

@harding

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@harding

harding Jul 3, 2018

Contributor

Hurried review due to unreasonable time constraints based on current tip commit da78c94:

  • Strong NACK for the legal and ethical reasons given above due to there being no disclosure of the paid relationship near the Buy Bitcoin link on the / page, no disclosure on anywhere on the /en/buy page, and no disclosure near the Paxful link on /en/exchanges

  • Strong NACK on the wholesale replacement of useful content on the /en/buy page with sponsored content. Some people probably linked to the page expecting it to continue to provide a neutral resource about how to buy bitcoins. You are violating the trust those users placed in you (and the people who trust them by following their links) by usurping the expected content with a paid promotion. (This criticism also applies to the Buy button on the homepage, but at least most of that page's content remains in place [for now].)

  • I restate my opposition you rushing reviewers into evaluating your changes.

  • I'm also opposed to your implication by "if the above changes are not sufficient, then @theymos and @Cobra-Bitcoin, please let me know" that you'll only consider feedback for the domain co-owners. If you want to maintain Bitcoin.org as the open source project the blog post claims it is, you need to consider feedback from your other contributors.

Contributor

harding commented Jul 3, 2018

Hurried review due to unreasonable time constraints based on current tip commit da78c94:

  • Strong NACK for the legal and ethical reasons given above due to there being no disclosure of the paid relationship near the Buy Bitcoin link on the / page, no disclosure on anywhere on the /en/buy page, and no disclosure near the Paxful link on /en/exchanges

  • Strong NACK on the wholesale replacement of useful content on the /en/buy page with sponsored content. Some people probably linked to the page expecting it to continue to provide a neutral resource about how to buy bitcoins. You are violating the trust those users placed in you (and the people who trust them by following their links) by usurping the expected content with a paid promotion. (This criticism also applies to the Buy button on the homepage, but at least most of that page's content remains in place [for now].)

  • I restate my opposition you rushing reviewers into evaluating your changes.

  • I'm also opposed to your implication by "if the above changes are not sufficient, then @theymos and @Cobra-Bitcoin, please let me know" that you'll only consider feedback for the domain co-owners. If you want to maintain Bitcoin.org as the open source project the blog post claims it is, you need to consider feedback from your other contributors.

@achow101

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@achow101

achow101 Jul 3, 2018

Contributor

I agree with @harding. We should maintain the neutrality of the /en/buy page and instead do something else which shows Paxful's sponsorship without overtly advertising them and breaking neutrality. Again, I NACK this PR as it currently stands.

Contributor

achow101 commented Jul 3, 2018

I agree with @harding. We should maintain the neutrality of the /en/buy page and instead do something else which shows Paxful's sponsorship without overtly advertising them and breaking neutrality. Again, I NACK this PR as it currently stands.

@theymos

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@theymos

theymos Jul 3, 2018

Contributor

NACK. At the very least there needs to be a "SPONSORED CONTENT" tag next to any sponsored content.

Contributor

theymos commented Jul 3, 2018

NACK. At the very least there needs to be a "SPONSORED CONTENT" tag next to any sponsored content.

@wbnns wbnns added On Hold and removed Merge Scheduled labels Jul 3, 2018

@wbnns

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@wbnns

wbnns Jul 3, 2018

Member

This PR is now on hold pending further updates.

Member

wbnns commented Jul 3, 2018

This PR is now on hold pending further updates.

wbnns added some commits Jul 3, 2018

@Cobra-Bitcoin

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@Cobra-Bitcoin

Cobra-Bitcoin Jul 4, 2018

Contributor

I think this discussion is a small symptom of a wider problem about how people perceive bitcoin.org and what it should be doing, similar to the horrible press center debates and the controversy around neutrality in our aggressive response to controversial hard fork attempts.

This pull request was specified as "merge scheduled" not because it needed to be secretly merged without discussion, but because a contract had been signed for a starting date, and the details negotiated with lawyers and Paxful's marketing team. The pull request was live so that feedback could be obtained, and then acted upon, in ongoing private negotiations. Had this entire discussion and proposal taken place in the open, it would have been dismantled and made commercially nonviable by the differing opinions of multiple contributors, who would have chipped away at the sponsorship until it made no sense for any business to take the deal (low placement, non-visibility, etc).

I think we all want what's best for bitcoin.org, but sometimes people are just too restrictive on what the site can do, which means they either stop contributing when something they don't like happens, or they are too conservative even in situations when the benefits far outweigh the cons. These types of deals usually don't last forever, but the good that can come from the extra money does.

Contributor

Cobra-Bitcoin commented Jul 4, 2018

I think this discussion is a small symptom of a wider problem about how people perceive bitcoin.org and what it should be doing, similar to the horrible press center debates and the controversy around neutrality in our aggressive response to controversial hard fork attempts.

This pull request was specified as "merge scheduled" not because it needed to be secretly merged without discussion, but because a contract had been signed for a starting date, and the details negotiated with lawyers and Paxful's marketing team. The pull request was live so that feedback could be obtained, and then acted upon, in ongoing private negotiations. Had this entire discussion and proposal taken place in the open, it would have been dismantled and made commercially nonviable by the differing opinions of multiple contributors, who would have chipped away at the sponsorship until it made no sense for any business to take the deal (low placement, non-visibility, etc).

I think we all want what's best for bitcoin.org, but sometimes people are just too restrictive on what the site can do, which means they either stop contributing when something they don't like happens, or they are too conservative even in situations when the benefits far outweigh the cons. These types of deals usually don't last forever, but the good that can come from the extra money does.

@decentralizeduser

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@decentralizeduser

decentralizeduser Jul 4, 2018

This is not a neutral position and is setting a precedence in regards to sponsorships/promotions that has so far by the comments here is being received negatively. NACK

This is not a neutral position and is setting a precedence in regards to sponsorships/promotions that has so far by the comments here is being received negatively. NACK

@harding

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@harding

harding Jul 4, 2018

Contributor

a contract had been signed for a starting date, and the details negotiated with lawyers and Paxful's marketing team.

Constraints like the merge date that restrict the range of options that can be considered in a PR should've been mentioned in the PR description. Traditional policy on this repository is that scheduled merge dates are advisory and are moved back if critical feedback is received.

The pull request was live so that feedback could be obtained, and then acted upon, in ongoing private negotiations.

And feedback was provided. I happen to think some of that feedback was excellent---all the problems raised on this PR are problems that people are going to raise on social media if this PR is merged.

Had this entire discussion and proposal taken place in the open, it would have been dismantled and made commercially nonviable by the differing opinions of multiple contributors, who would have chipped away at the sponsorship until it made no sense for any business to take the deal (low placement, non-visibility, etc).

Differing opinions from multiple contributors is the strength of an open source project, not its weakness. In reviews of this PR, several serious potential issues have been identified. If those opinions are not addressed here, they may be addressed elsewhere, perhaps in a way that would be more harmful to Bitcoin.org and Paxful. For example:

  1. A lawsuit that could cost Bitcoin.org and Paxful money due to not complying with FTC regulations (or similar regulations in other countries)
  2. A worsening of Bitcoin.org's reputation among the people who would otherwise link to this site, and who would then be more likely to link to Bitcoin.org competitors (even those that are otherwise worse in ethics)
  3. A campaign of social media criticism, letter writing, or boycott against Paxful for supporting unseemly and possibly unethical advertising on Bitcoin.org
  4. A fork of Bitcoin.org to provide the same content unencumbered by the heavy-handed advertising, which could attract many of the links and contributors Bitcoin.org would otherwise receive

These types of deals usually don't last forever, but the good that can come from the extra money does.

Any good the extra money can do needs to be weighed against the risk of downsides. Up to a quarter of a million dollars per year is a lot of money and can do a lot of good, but I think it's still far less valuable than the reputation Bitcoin.org has developed over the years among Bitcoin advocates as a source of trustworthy information and neutral recommendations---a reputation that I suspect this deal could destroy quite quickly.

Contributor

harding commented Jul 4, 2018

a contract had been signed for a starting date, and the details negotiated with lawyers and Paxful's marketing team.

Constraints like the merge date that restrict the range of options that can be considered in a PR should've been mentioned in the PR description. Traditional policy on this repository is that scheduled merge dates are advisory and are moved back if critical feedback is received.

The pull request was live so that feedback could be obtained, and then acted upon, in ongoing private negotiations.

And feedback was provided. I happen to think some of that feedback was excellent---all the problems raised on this PR are problems that people are going to raise on social media if this PR is merged.

Had this entire discussion and proposal taken place in the open, it would have been dismantled and made commercially nonviable by the differing opinions of multiple contributors, who would have chipped away at the sponsorship until it made no sense for any business to take the deal (low placement, non-visibility, etc).

Differing opinions from multiple contributors is the strength of an open source project, not its weakness. In reviews of this PR, several serious potential issues have been identified. If those opinions are not addressed here, they may be addressed elsewhere, perhaps in a way that would be more harmful to Bitcoin.org and Paxful. For example:

  1. A lawsuit that could cost Bitcoin.org and Paxful money due to not complying with FTC regulations (or similar regulations in other countries)
  2. A worsening of Bitcoin.org's reputation among the people who would otherwise link to this site, and who would then be more likely to link to Bitcoin.org competitors (even those that are otherwise worse in ethics)
  3. A campaign of social media criticism, letter writing, or boycott against Paxful for supporting unseemly and possibly unethical advertising on Bitcoin.org
  4. A fork of Bitcoin.org to provide the same content unencumbered by the heavy-handed advertising, which could attract many of the links and contributors Bitcoin.org would otherwise receive

These types of deals usually don't last forever, but the good that can come from the extra money does.

Any good the extra money can do needs to be weighed against the risk of downsides. Up to a quarter of a million dollars per year is a lot of money and can do a lot of good, but I think it's still far less valuable than the reputation Bitcoin.org has developed over the years among Bitcoin advocates as a source of trustworthy information and neutral recommendations---a reputation that I suspect this deal could destroy quite quickly.

@crwatkins

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@crwatkins

crwatkins Jul 4, 2018

Contributor

I agree with @Cobra-Bitcoin and honestly believe that we all want what's best for bitcoin.org, and I try to remember that all the time. Folks are raising a fair amount of well articulated concerns about the situation, some very specific which I don't see us addressing. For example (perhaps the most specific) @harding has raised some legal questions. It seems we are ignoring those and I would be interested in knowing why (e.g. is he just wrong? does it not apply? is he being "too conservative"?). Even I have raised concerns about a conflict with our mission. Am I confused? Am I being too restrictive?

People (all of us!) contribute heavily to this site and I believe that we do it because we like what is happening. It should be no surprise to anyone that people that are no longer happy with what is happening will stop contributing. Let's say hypothetically that we had someone that spent a lot of time reviewing exchanges. A link from the homepage to Buy Bitcoins to one single exchange that paid for placement would pretty much alienate that person.

Contributor

crwatkins commented Jul 4, 2018

I agree with @Cobra-Bitcoin and honestly believe that we all want what's best for bitcoin.org, and I try to remember that all the time. Folks are raising a fair amount of well articulated concerns about the situation, some very specific which I don't see us addressing. For example (perhaps the most specific) @harding has raised some legal questions. It seems we are ignoring those and I would be interested in knowing why (e.g. is he just wrong? does it not apply? is he being "too conservative"?). Even I have raised concerns about a conflict with our mission. Am I confused? Am I being too restrictive?

People (all of us!) contribute heavily to this site and I believe that we do it because we like what is happening. It should be no surprise to anyone that people that are no longer happy with what is happening will stop contributing. Let's say hypothetically that we had someone that spent a lot of time reviewing exchanges. A link from the homepage to Buy Bitcoins to one single exchange that paid for placement would pretty much alienate that person.

@wbnns

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@wbnns

wbnns Jul 4, 2018

Member

This PR has been updated to include the following based on additional feedback from users:

  1. A link to the blog post in the Buy Bitcoin page copy detailing the Paxful Sponsorship
  2. A notation below the "Buy Bitcoin with Paxful" button that this is Sponsored Content
  3. The addition to the page of more ways users can buy bitcoin, with links to the exchanges directory and Coin ATM Radar, for example.

Preview: https://bitcoin.cryptopelago.com/en/buy

Cc*: @Cobra-Bitcoin @theymos

*Because they are the domain co-owners, to keep them abreast of the change.

Member

wbnns commented Jul 4, 2018

This PR has been updated to include the following based on additional feedback from users:

  1. A link to the blog post in the Buy Bitcoin page copy detailing the Paxful Sponsorship
  2. A notation below the "Buy Bitcoin with Paxful" button that this is Sponsored Content
  3. The addition to the page of more ways users can buy bitcoin, with links to the exchanges directory and Coin ATM Radar, for example.

Preview: https://bitcoin.cryptopelago.com/en/buy

Cc*: @Cobra-Bitcoin @theymos

*Because they are the domain co-owners, to keep them abreast of the change.

@harding

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@harding

harding Jul 4, 2018

Contributor

Strictly feedback on content: shouldn't the "Bitcoin" in the "Buy Bitcoin" link on / and multiple places on /en/buy be a lowercase "bitcoin"? AFAIK, Bitcoin.org has always used lowercase bitcoin for the currency and uppercase Bitcoin for the protocol. I haven't used Paxful, but I assume they facilitate selling the currency.

Contributor

harding commented Jul 4, 2018

Strictly feedback on content: shouldn't the "Bitcoin" in the "Buy Bitcoin" link on / and multiple places on /en/buy be a lowercase "bitcoin"? AFAIK, Bitcoin.org has always used lowercase bitcoin for the currency and uppercase Bitcoin for the protocol. I haven't used Paxful, but I assume they facilitate selling the currency.

@harding

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@harding

harding Jul 4, 2018

Contributor

This PR should probably also close #1139 . It'd be interesting to hear why several contributors from that discussion have seemingly changed their views. For example, @theymos seems to generally support this PR, but on that issue, he wrote:

When there is only one or two huge funders, then bitcoin.org contributors will have a conflict of interest toward maintaining the funding arrangement. When the Foundation supported bitcoin.org, it was even very common for people to think that bitcoin.org was owned by the Foundation.

@Cobra-Bitcoin also wrote several things of interest on that issue. For example, from the PR description, it seems like the plan to run this prominent advertisement on Bitcoin.org continuously for as long as the sponsorship lasts, but Cøbra previously wrote:

Ads wouldn't run all the time, they would run for short bursts and allow us to dynamically control our savings and budget to meet needs

He also seemed to oppose the single-large-sponsor model previously, which seems to argue directly against his previous comment in this thread about being unwilling to make changes because a contract was previously signed:

Exclusive dependence on organizations/donors introduces new risks, such as having to worry about certain changes annoying them, and constantly preparing to find a sponsor if the current one doesn't work out.

I know I'm being aggressive in arguing against putting this prominent advertisement on the site, but I think it's the case that creditability once lost is hard or impossible to regain---and appearing to place the desires of advertisers over users is an easy way to lose creditability quickly. In that context, I think it makes sense to consider the matter slowly and methodically, including reviewing the more dispassionate perspectives we held when advertising and large sponsorships were only theoretical concerns.

Contributor

harding commented Jul 4, 2018

This PR should probably also close #1139 . It'd be interesting to hear why several contributors from that discussion have seemingly changed their views. For example, @theymos seems to generally support this PR, but on that issue, he wrote:

When there is only one or two huge funders, then bitcoin.org contributors will have a conflict of interest toward maintaining the funding arrangement. When the Foundation supported bitcoin.org, it was even very common for people to think that bitcoin.org was owned by the Foundation.

@Cobra-Bitcoin also wrote several things of interest on that issue. For example, from the PR description, it seems like the plan to run this prominent advertisement on Bitcoin.org continuously for as long as the sponsorship lasts, but Cøbra previously wrote:

Ads wouldn't run all the time, they would run for short bursts and allow us to dynamically control our savings and budget to meet needs

He also seemed to oppose the single-large-sponsor model previously, which seems to argue directly against his previous comment in this thread about being unwilling to make changes because a contract was previously signed:

Exclusive dependence on organizations/donors introduces new risks, such as having to worry about certain changes annoying them, and constantly preparing to find a sponsor if the current one doesn't work out.

I know I'm being aggressive in arguing against putting this prominent advertisement on the site, but I think it's the case that creditability once lost is hard or impossible to regain---and appearing to place the desires of advertisers over users is an easy way to lose creditability quickly. In that context, I think it makes sense to consider the matter slowly and methodically, including reviewing the more dispassionate perspectives we held when advertising and large sponsorships were only theoretical concerns.

@theymos

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@theymos

theymos Jul 4, 2018

Contributor

After the changes, it's much better.

For example, @theymos seems to generally support this PR, but on that issue, he wrote:

There is still a potential for bias here, but I feel that it's less of a problem in a simple tit-for-tat advertisement arrangement like this rather than a long-term sponsorship where the sponsor gets little or nothing of actual up-front value. And after the changes, it will be clear to everyone that this is just an advertisement; nobody will think that Paxful owns bitcoin.org, as people often did with the Foundation sponsorship.

I like this form of advertisement more than #1139, since it is less obtrusive overall, though I still think that plenty of income would be possible by using more out-of-the-way areas like the footer or left/right boxes next to content. And although I don't consider advertising to be opposed to bitcoin.org's mission, whether or not advertising is worthwhile at all is a legitimate question.

Contributor

theymos commented Jul 4, 2018

After the changes, it's much better.

For example, @theymos seems to generally support this PR, but on that issue, he wrote:

There is still a potential for bias here, but I feel that it's less of a problem in a simple tit-for-tat advertisement arrangement like this rather than a long-term sponsorship where the sponsor gets little or nothing of actual up-front value. And after the changes, it will be clear to everyone that this is just an advertisement; nobody will think that Paxful owns bitcoin.org, as people often did with the Foundation sponsorship.

I like this form of advertisement more than #1139, since it is less obtrusive overall, though I still think that plenty of income would be possible by using more out-of-the-way areas like the footer or left/right boxes next to content. And although I don't consider advertising to be opposed to bitcoin.org's mission, whether or not advertising is worthwhile at all is a legitimate question.

@Cobra-Bitcoin

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@Cobra-Bitcoin

Cobra-Bitcoin Jul 5, 2018

Contributor

The updated version is much better. ACK.

@harding Your argument has shifted to now being against the advertisement itself, even after the concerns you raised have been addressed. I don't think this type of advertising will make bitcoin.org "lose credibility". We're not promoting an ICO here, Paxful is a well respected and trusted P2P site to buy bitcoin. Users understand the need for advertising.

Bitcoin.org has always had an issue with not enough active content production. Even when good contributors were active, there would be long periods were the site wouldn't get anything new added. There's so much more to teach new users about Bitcoin. For example, there's not much in depth and comprehensive information about how to secure bitcoins (break down all the common phishing, hacking, and social engineering scams), things like this could allow us to get a video series produced to explain that to new users. We could pay professional translators to translate the site fully. We can create active directories of merchants and places to spend bitcoin. We could contact accountants and pay them to write in depth articles about tax issues with Bitcoin across multiple jurisdictions. We can better explain fluctuating fees (to prepare users) and have fee estimation tools. Rather than wait around for volunteers to produce content, we can proactively find intelligent and knowledgeable people and reward them for producing good and useful content. If promoting a well known trusted P2P exchange prominently allows us to do these things, then it's worth it.

Most likely this could have been handled better by being a more open process though, but I'm sure that would have made it so there would never be any sponsorship at all. When you look at our mission, the good this sponsorship will do will go directly to meeting most of those objectives. People raised a lot of concerns about replacing neutral content on the buy page, and clearly displaying that it's sponsored content, both of those have been addressed.

Contributor

Cobra-Bitcoin commented Jul 5, 2018

The updated version is much better. ACK.

@harding Your argument has shifted to now being against the advertisement itself, even after the concerns you raised have been addressed. I don't think this type of advertising will make bitcoin.org "lose credibility". We're not promoting an ICO here, Paxful is a well respected and trusted P2P site to buy bitcoin. Users understand the need for advertising.

Bitcoin.org has always had an issue with not enough active content production. Even when good contributors were active, there would be long periods were the site wouldn't get anything new added. There's so much more to teach new users about Bitcoin. For example, there's not much in depth and comprehensive information about how to secure bitcoins (break down all the common phishing, hacking, and social engineering scams), things like this could allow us to get a video series produced to explain that to new users. We could pay professional translators to translate the site fully. We can create active directories of merchants and places to spend bitcoin. We could contact accountants and pay them to write in depth articles about tax issues with Bitcoin across multiple jurisdictions. We can better explain fluctuating fees (to prepare users) and have fee estimation tools. Rather than wait around for volunteers to produce content, we can proactively find intelligent and knowledgeable people and reward them for producing good and useful content. If promoting a well known trusted P2P exchange prominently allows us to do these things, then it's worth it.

Most likely this could have been handled better by being a more open process though, but I'm sure that would have made it so there would never be any sponsorship at all. When you look at our mission, the good this sponsorship will do will go directly to meeting most of those objectives. People raised a lot of concerns about replacing neutral content on the buy page, and clearly displaying that it's sponsored content, both of those have been addressed.

@harding

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@harding

harding Jul 5, 2018

Contributor

@Cobra-Bitcoin said:

Your argument has shifted to now being against the advertisement itself, even after the concerns you raised have been addressed.

I don't see my argument as shifting one bit. I raised two concerns in my first comment on this PR. My first concern about the link to Paxful not being labeled as sponsored content has been partially addressed by labeling three of the five sponsored links on this site as "Sponsored". I think the remaining sponsored links (on the / page and the /en/exchanges page) should also be labeled.

My second concern was, "Retain the previous neutral content and give Paxful a separate new URL on the site." This hasn't been addressed at all; instead the previous content has been hidden below the new Paxful content. For a demonstration, here's exactly what the /en/buy page looks like in my browser (Firefox on Linux) using all my regular default settings:

2018-07-05-07_03_46_913364576

Additionally, I responded to your argument that the divergence of opinions in an open source project makes the site weaker by showing how the multiple opinions presented in this issue by multiple contributors is working to make this a healthier and more productive sponsorship for both Paxful and Bitcoin.org. I then further developed my response by digging up some old comments you and Theymos made that seemed to me to diverge from your current opinions, trying to show again that multiple opinions give us a chance to consider all the possible negative outcomes.

Finally, I mentioned part of the reason I'm so passionate about this issue: "that creditability once lost is hard or impossible to regain." I guess I might as well disclose the rest of my reason too: because several people have emailed me asking me to maintain a fork of Bitcoin.org if this PR is merged as it was Tuesday evening,[1] and I really don't want to do that. I'd rather we return to previous level of dissatisfaction where people complain about Bitcoin.org but there's no other site that's quite as good, so they link to Bitcoin.org. That's much better IMO than a fork that results in dilution of search engine link weight, duplicate work for maintainers, and the general unpleasantness that's likely to result from a fork. (Not to mention, I'm lazy and also just don't want the extra work.)

So, again, I'm asking you to take the feedback provided in this PR seriously and attempt to resolve all the concerns described by all the contributors. That's not a request for concessions, but a request that you consider looking for alternatives that can allow Bitcoin.org to promote Paxful without making paid promotions look like natural promotions (my concern 1), without hijacking existing content (my concern 2, a concern of @achow101), without making the site look less neutral (@crwatkins concern), and not calling an advertising arrangement a sponsorship (@achow101). IMO, a great way to accomplish that is for you to turn the tables and ask we critics for suggestions about how to provide Paxful with $20,000/month in value without compromising the things we value about Bitcoin.org. I don't know if that will work, but it seems to me that it's the most promising way to have a reasonable chance of making everyone happy.

[1] I don't know if the more recent changes satisfy them, although I suspect not.

Contributor

harding commented Jul 5, 2018

@Cobra-Bitcoin said:

Your argument has shifted to now being against the advertisement itself, even after the concerns you raised have been addressed.

I don't see my argument as shifting one bit. I raised two concerns in my first comment on this PR. My first concern about the link to Paxful not being labeled as sponsored content has been partially addressed by labeling three of the five sponsored links on this site as "Sponsored". I think the remaining sponsored links (on the / page and the /en/exchanges page) should also be labeled.

My second concern was, "Retain the previous neutral content and give Paxful a separate new URL on the site." This hasn't been addressed at all; instead the previous content has been hidden below the new Paxful content. For a demonstration, here's exactly what the /en/buy page looks like in my browser (Firefox on Linux) using all my regular default settings:

2018-07-05-07_03_46_913364576

Additionally, I responded to your argument that the divergence of opinions in an open source project makes the site weaker by showing how the multiple opinions presented in this issue by multiple contributors is working to make this a healthier and more productive sponsorship for both Paxful and Bitcoin.org. I then further developed my response by digging up some old comments you and Theymos made that seemed to me to diverge from your current opinions, trying to show again that multiple opinions give us a chance to consider all the possible negative outcomes.

Finally, I mentioned part of the reason I'm so passionate about this issue: "that creditability once lost is hard or impossible to regain." I guess I might as well disclose the rest of my reason too: because several people have emailed me asking me to maintain a fork of Bitcoin.org if this PR is merged as it was Tuesday evening,[1] and I really don't want to do that. I'd rather we return to previous level of dissatisfaction where people complain about Bitcoin.org but there's no other site that's quite as good, so they link to Bitcoin.org. That's much better IMO than a fork that results in dilution of search engine link weight, duplicate work for maintainers, and the general unpleasantness that's likely to result from a fork. (Not to mention, I'm lazy and also just don't want the extra work.)

So, again, I'm asking you to take the feedback provided in this PR seriously and attempt to resolve all the concerns described by all the contributors. That's not a request for concessions, but a request that you consider looking for alternatives that can allow Bitcoin.org to promote Paxful without making paid promotions look like natural promotions (my concern 1), without hijacking existing content (my concern 2, a concern of @achow101), without making the site look less neutral (@crwatkins concern), and not calling an advertising arrangement a sponsorship (@achow101). IMO, a great way to accomplish that is for you to turn the tables and ask we critics for suggestions about how to provide Paxful with $20,000/month in value without compromising the things we value about Bitcoin.org. I don't know if that will work, but it seems to me that it's the most promising way to have a reasonable chance of making everyone happy.

[1] I don't know if the more recent changes satisfy them, although I suspect not.

@Cobra-Bitcoin

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@Cobra-Bitcoin

Cobra-Bitcoin Jul 5, 2018

Contributor

My first concern about the link to Paxful not being labeled as sponsored content has been partially addressed by labeling three of the five sponsored links on this site as "Sponsored". I think the remaining sponsored links (on the / page and the /en/exchanges page) should also be labeled.

The buy bitcoin button redirects to the buy page, which mentions the sponsorship. And personally, I don't consider the link on the exchanges page a sponsorship, since we should probably mention Paxful on that page anyway, irrespective of any sponsorship arrangement (smaller P2P exchanges like Hodlhodl are on there). The link on the exchanges page is likely to stay in place, even after the sponsorship ends. A new URL is reasonable idea though, and something that Will could discuss with Paxful.

I guess I might as well disclose the rest of my reason too: because several people have emailed me asking me to maintain a fork of Bitcoin.org if this PR is merged as it was Tuesday evening

The pull request has changed significantly since Tuesday. I don't think most people would find the current state of the pull as being egregious enough for someone to warrant a fork. What are you going to do when the sponsorship ends and you are stuck maintaining a clone? It could possibly end in a few months. It's more accurate to call this an experiment, since there's nothing to suggest it could be a really long lasting arrangement. Even if it doesn't last long, it can bring in enough money to make it possible for us to fund efforts to improve the site for a long time.

So, again, I'm asking you to take the feedback provided in this PR seriously and attempt to resolve all the concerns described by all the contributors. That's not a request for concessions, but a request that you consider looking for alternatives that can allow Bitcoin.org to promote Paxful without making paid promotions look like natural promotions (my concern 1), without hijacking existing content (my concern 2, a concern of @achow101), without making the site look less neutral (@crwatkins concern), and not calling an advertising arrangement a sponsorship (@achow101). IMO, a great way to accomplish that is for you to turn the tables and ask we critics for suggestions about how to provide Paxful with $20,000/month in value without compromising the things we value about Bitcoin.org. I don't know if that will work, but it seems to me that it's the most promising way to have a reasonable chance of making everyone happy.

I think these are worthy concerns, and something that should be seriously considered before merging this pull request. It's up to the author and maintainer of the site to determine how to proceed here. Though from what I've seen, Will has been very active in responding to critical feedback. Personally, in light of how this discussion has gone and discussions around a fork, I think it might be better to spend a little more time figuring things out, both with Paxful and with everyone else here in this discussion. The last thing we need is people linking to some clone version of bitcoin.org, and harming our SEO and helping bitcoin.com, because of a disagreement like this.

Contributor

Cobra-Bitcoin commented Jul 5, 2018

My first concern about the link to Paxful not being labeled as sponsored content has been partially addressed by labeling three of the five sponsored links on this site as "Sponsored". I think the remaining sponsored links (on the / page and the /en/exchanges page) should also be labeled.

The buy bitcoin button redirects to the buy page, which mentions the sponsorship. And personally, I don't consider the link on the exchanges page a sponsorship, since we should probably mention Paxful on that page anyway, irrespective of any sponsorship arrangement (smaller P2P exchanges like Hodlhodl are on there). The link on the exchanges page is likely to stay in place, even after the sponsorship ends. A new URL is reasonable idea though, and something that Will could discuss with Paxful.

I guess I might as well disclose the rest of my reason too: because several people have emailed me asking me to maintain a fork of Bitcoin.org if this PR is merged as it was Tuesday evening

The pull request has changed significantly since Tuesday. I don't think most people would find the current state of the pull as being egregious enough for someone to warrant a fork. What are you going to do when the sponsorship ends and you are stuck maintaining a clone? It could possibly end in a few months. It's more accurate to call this an experiment, since there's nothing to suggest it could be a really long lasting arrangement. Even if it doesn't last long, it can bring in enough money to make it possible for us to fund efforts to improve the site for a long time.

So, again, I'm asking you to take the feedback provided in this PR seriously and attempt to resolve all the concerns described by all the contributors. That's not a request for concessions, but a request that you consider looking for alternatives that can allow Bitcoin.org to promote Paxful without making paid promotions look like natural promotions (my concern 1), without hijacking existing content (my concern 2, a concern of @achow101), without making the site look less neutral (@crwatkins concern), and not calling an advertising arrangement a sponsorship (@achow101). IMO, a great way to accomplish that is for you to turn the tables and ask we critics for suggestions about how to provide Paxful with $20,000/month in value without compromising the things we value about Bitcoin.org. I don't know if that will work, but it seems to me that it's the most promising way to have a reasonable chance of making everyone happy.

I think these are worthy concerns, and something that should be seriously considered before merging this pull request. It's up to the author and maintainer of the site to determine how to proceed here. Though from what I've seen, Will has been very active in responding to critical feedback. Personally, in light of how this discussion has gone and discussions around a fork, I think it might be better to spend a little more time figuring things out, both with Paxful and with everyone else here in this discussion. The last thing we need is people linking to some clone version of bitcoin.org, and harming our SEO and helping bitcoin.com, because of a disagreement like this.

@achow101

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@achow101

achow101 Jul 5, 2018

Contributor

This is better, but it still reads as an advertisement and less as a sponsorship. The entire /en/buy page is still an advertisement for Paxful. The page is titled "Buy Bitcoin with Paxful" with "Paxful offers you many ways to buy and sell bitcoin" underneath. I think that this URL should still be used generically "Buy Bitcoin" instead of a (almost) Paxful centric page. IMO Paxful should get their own page where we can do whatever advertising, but that should be linked to from the Buy Bitcoin page, not completely taking it over, even with the original content still there. A better design would be to have the original page with a smaller banner (or whatever) at the top the points out Paxful and links to a Paxful specific page.

Still tending to NACK this.

Contributor

achow101 commented Jul 5, 2018

This is better, but it still reads as an advertisement and less as a sponsorship. The entire /en/buy page is still an advertisement for Paxful. The page is titled "Buy Bitcoin with Paxful" with "Paxful offers you many ways to buy and sell bitcoin" underneath. I think that this URL should still be used generically "Buy Bitcoin" instead of a (almost) Paxful centric page. IMO Paxful should get their own page where we can do whatever advertising, but that should be linked to from the Buy Bitcoin page, not completely taking it over, even with the original content still there. A better design would be to have the original page with a smaller banner (or whatever) at the top the points out Paxful and links to a Paxful specific page.

Still tending to NACK this.

@wbnns

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@wbnns

wbnns Jul 5, 2018

Member

Hello, thanks everyone for the feedback.

I've tried to make additional changes to comprehensively accommodate various people's suggestions while at the same time highlighting Paxful who has worked hard to support P2P (a very difficult path in an era of authoritarianism and centralization).

It's disappointing that volunteer work has been a key ingredient for so many multimillion-dollar Bitcoin companies yet so few contribute to support volunteers. I would argue that hiring volunteers, and taking them away from their volunteer projects - which many of them do - does not count. It is a form of exerting control over those projects.

We have an opportunity to more aggressively buck the trend and support people in a number of ways through improvements that have previously been suggested with this additional funding, or rescind and resign to the uncertainty of the status quo, at the risk of being dogmatic.


@harding I've made a number of changes based on your feedback alone to improve the page to try to find a fit that is more compromising, despite the lack of acknowledgment. At this point I think we've reached the line of making changes to achieve compromise and doing whatever it is that you want. Please give other people a chance to contribute feedback to the thread so we can work to see if it's still possible to distill a compromising path forward in addition to the one you envision.


@buzztiaan @crwatkins @decentralizeduser Please let me know if you all think the current, revised page that clearly denotes the sponsorship is OK so we can potentially try things out with Paxful and use the proceeds to make other areas of the site better.


@achow101 Let's update the page header and description to what it was previously on the old page - would that be an acceptable change to allow you to be OK with seeing if this could be beneficial to the project?


Thanks again to everyone who has spent time to share their thoughts.

Member

wbnns commented Jul 5, 2018

Hello, thanks everyone for the feedback.

I've tried to make additional changes to comprehensively accommodate various people's suggestions while at the same time highlighting Paxful who has worked hard to support P2P (a very difficult path in an era of authoritarianism and centralization).

It's disappointing that volunteer work has been a key ingredient for so many multimillion-dollar Bitcoin companies yet so few contribute to support volunteers. I would argue that hiring volunteers, and taking them away from their volunteer projects - which many of them do - does not count. It is a form of exerting control over those projects.

We have an opportunity to more aggressively buck the trend and support people in a number of ways through improvements that have previously been suggested with this additional funding, or rescind and resign to the uncertainty of the status quo, at the risk of being dogmatic.


@harding I've made a number of changes based on your feedback alone to improve the page to try to find a fit that is more compromising, despite the lack of acknowledgment. At this point I think we've reached the line of making changes to achieve compromise and doing whatever it is that you want. Please give other people a chance to contribute feedback to the thread so we can work to see if it's still possible to distill a compromising path forward in addition to the one you envision.


@buzztiaan @crwatkins @decentralizeduser Please let me know if you all think the current, revised page that clearly denotes the sponsorship is OK so we can potentially try things out with Paxful and use the proceeds to make other areas of the site better.


@achow101 Let's update the page header and description to what it was previously on the old page - would that be an acceptable change to allow you to be OK with seeing if this could be beneficial to the project?


Thanks again to everyone who has spent time to share their thoughts.

@harding

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@harding

harding Jul 5, 2018

Contributor

The buy bitcoin button [on the /en homepage] redirects to the buy page, which mentions the sponsorship.

And that satisfies my main concern about the reader knowing the content is sponsored before they make any financial decisions based on that content. But I also think it's both kind to the reader and good UX to inform them about sponsored content before they make any decisions related to it, including the decision to click an internal link.

For example, imagine Alice visits Bitcoin.org to learn about this Bitcoin thing she's been hearing about, and maybe she's interested in buying some. She loads the /en home page, sees the three main links (Get Started, Choose Wallet, and Buy) and decides to click the Buy link to see how hard it is to buy ("because," she thinks rationally, "if it's hard to buy, I'm not interested, and so I can skip learning about it"). On the /en/buy page, she discovers that link she clicked was a paid promotion.

If she thinks about it, she probably appreciates the disclosure of the paid relationship as it helps her take other content on the site (that isn't labeled as an advertisement) more seriously. But while that applies to content, it doesn't apply to links. Every link she sees after clicking the Buy Bitcoin link is one she's going to wonder whether or not it leads to more paid promotional content that will waste her time if she's looking for neutral information about Bitcoin.

On the other hand, if the Buy Bitcoin link on the /en page is labeled as an advertisement, then Alice will trust that links not labeled as advertisements lead to neutral content, so she'll be more likely to browse the site for a longer period of time, learn more about Bitcoin, and come to regard the site as the asset we all consider it. If she then decides she wants to buy bitcoin, I think there's a good chance that she'll remember that one sponsored link that she saw on the homepage, and a similarly good chance that she'll be interested in seeing what it says given that the site was otherwise considerate of her time.

I don't consider the link on the exchanges page a sponsorship, since we should probably mention Paxful on that page anyway

I understand that, and I don't feel as strongly about an advertisement label there as I do on other parts of the site. However, I think it's best to try to eliminate the risk of future accusations of favortism or pay-to-play listings.

Perhaps an alternative to labeling the Paxful listing on the Exchanges page could be to appoint a special arbiter for that particular change who would be clearly neutral, rather than leaving the decision up to the regular site maintainer who could be perceived as benefiting from the sponsorship through being able to spend more money on things he thinks are important. Specifically, split just that commit (currently d5c48ec) off into a separate PR and say that "Whatever X decides about this PR, whether to merge or close it, is the final decision on this matter for the calendar year 2018." The regular maintainer would then perform the actual merge or close. As for person X, I nominate Luke Dashjr , who I think would be acceptable to @Cobra-Bitcoin (and probably others), who has a long history of contributing to this site, and who has a very strongly held moral code (even if it isn't quite the same as my own). Also important, he hasn't been involved in this issue so far (which is why I didn't @ mention his GitHub username).

If that commit is split off today, it can be given time for review, have a final decision made by the arbiter, and be either merged or closed by the regular site maintainer before we wrap up discussion on this PR---allowing some small progress to be made amidst all this talk.

Edit: to be clear, GitHub didn't show me @wbnns's post above about chilling out until I clicked submit on this post.

Contributor

harding commented Jul 5, 2018

The buy bitcoin button [on the /en homepage] redirects to the buy page, which mentions the sponsorship.

And that satisfies my main concern about the reader knowing the content is sponsored before they make any financial decisions based on that content. But I also think it's both kind to the reader and good UX to inform them about sponsored content before they make any decisions related to it, including the decision to click an internal link.

For example, imagine Alice visits Bitcoin.org to learn about this Bitcoin thing she's been hearing about, and maybe she's interested in buying some. She loads the /en home page, sees the three main links (Get Started, Choose Wallet, and Buy) and decides to click the Buy link to see how hard it is to buy ("because," she thinks rationally, "if it's hard to buy, I'm not interested, and so I can skip learning about it"). On the /en/buy page, she discovers that link she clicked was a paid promotion.

If she thinks about it, she probably appreciates the disclosure of the paid relationship as it helps her take other content on the site (that isn't labeled as an advertisement) more seriously. But while that applies to content, it doesn't apply to links. Every link she sees after clicking the Buy Bitcoin link is one she's going to wonder whether or not it leads to more paid promotional content that will waste her time if she's looking for neutral information about Bitcoin.

On the other hand, if the Buy Bitcoin link on the /en page is labeled as an advertisement, then Alice will trust that links not labeled as advertisements lead to neutral content, so she'll be more likely to browse the site for a longer period of time, learn more about Bitcoin, and come to regard the site as the asset we all consider it. If she then decides she wants to buy bitcoin, I think there's a good chance that she'll remember that one sponsored link that she saw on the homepage, and a similarly good chance that she'll be interested in seeing what it says given that the site was otherwise considerate of her time.

I don't consider the link on the exchanges page a sponsorship, since we should probably mention Paxful on that page anyway

I understand that, and I don't feel as strongly about an advertisement label there as I do on other parts of the site. However, I think it's best to try to eliminate the risk of future accusations of favortism or pay-to-play listings.

Perhaps an alternative to labeling the Paxful listing on the Exchanges page could be to appoint a special arbiter for that particular change who would be clearly neutral, rather than leaving the decision up to the regular site maintainer who could be perceived as benefiting from the sponsorship through being able to spend more money on things he thinks are important. Specifically, split just that commit (currently d5c48ec) off into a separate PR and say that "Whatever X decides about this PR, whether to merge or close it, is the final decision on this matter for the calendar year 2018." The regular maintainer would then perform the actual merge or close. As for person X, I nominate Luke Dashjr , who I think would be acceptable to @Cobra-Bitcoin (and probably others), who has a long history of contributing to this site, and who has a very strongly held moral code (even if it isn't quite the same as my own). Also important, he hasn't been involved in this issue so far (which is why I didn't @ mention his GitHub username).

If that commit is split off today, it can be given time for review, have a final decision made by the arbiter, and be either merged or closed by the regular site maintainer before we wrap up discussion on this PR---allowing some small progress to be made amidst all this talk.

Edit: to be clear, GitHub didn't show me @wbnns's post above about chilling out until I clicked submit on this post.

@decentralizeduser

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@decentralizeduser

decentralizeduser Jul 5, 2018

Thanks, I find the latest changes satisfactory with the sponsored content noted underneath, I hope to see the sponsorship funds go to good use on the website.

Thanks, I find the latest changes satisfactory with the sponsored content noted underneath, I hope to see the sponsorship funds go to good use on the website.

@harding

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@harding

harding Jul 5, 2018

Contributor

@wbnns

Please give other people a chance to contribute feedback to the thread so we can work to see if it's still possible to distill a compromising path forward in addition to the one you envision.

I'd be very happy to do so. Can you commit to an earliest possible merge date, i.e. a point before which you absolutely will not merge this? If so, I won't comment further on this PR for 50% of the time between when you commit to the earliest possible merge date and that actual minimum date/time, up to a maximum of one week.

Contributor

harding commented Jul 5, 2018

@wbnns

Please give other people a chance to contribute feedback to the thread so we can work to see if it's still possible to distill a compromising path forward in addition to the one you envision.

I'd be very happy to do so. Can you commit to an earliest possible merge date, i.e. a point before which you absolutely will not merge this? If so, I won't comment further on this PR for 50% of the time between when you commit to the earliest possible merge date and that actual minimum date/time, up to a maximum of one week.

@achow101

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@achow101

achow101 Jul 5, 2018

Contributor

I find the latest changes to be acceptable. I would prefer the section on Paxful to be smaller, but it's okay as is.

Contributor

achow101 commented Jul 5, 2018

I find the latest changes to be acceptable. I would prefer the section on Paxful to be smaller, but it's okay as is.

@crwatkins

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@crwatkins

crwatkins Jul 6, 2018

Contributor

Perhaps I'm a bit biased because of my experience of a decade or two in dealing with vendor neutral interoperability testing, demonstrations, and very large conferences and exhibitions. In that environment, it is super clear to me what is vendor neutral. I'm comfortable with one part of the organization taking a million dollars from the largest vendors for a single huge booth while the other part of the organization (the vendor neutral part) is listing those vendors in the same neutral representation with all of the other vendors. It's very similar to the advertising vs. editorial departments in journalism. To me, this really doesn't seem nearly as hard as we are making it, but maybe that's because it seems to natural to me. If we claim to be neutral, that's what I think of as neutral. If that doesn't apply here, maybe someone could explain that to me (I'm being sincere and not the least bit sarcastic. I have great respect for everyone currently involved in this conversation).

I see that this opportunity provides us with some useful funding, but so would a whole lot of other undesirable options available to us; I really don't see that as any kind of compelling argument to violate our own mission statement nor have I heard anyone explain why this particular presentation is actually required to achieve such sponsorship (one way or the other).

If you promote one vendor over the others on your site, then all of those other vendors will certainly think twice about sending anyone to your site. It's not necessarily because they are mad, or upset, or because of spite, or anything like that; it just doesn't make business sense to risk sending their customers or potential customers to a site that is going to promote their competitors over them, which is exactly what we are doing in the current branch. I have a nice big beautiful monitor and all I see in my window is a promotion (not sponsorship, but a promotion) when I click on Buy Bitcoins (the rest is below the fold).

My original comment and very simple recommendation (and NACK) still applies accurately to the proposed content; sorry for all this extra verbiage.

Contributor

crwatkins commented Jul 6, 2018

Perhaps I'm a bit biased because of my experience of a decade or two in dealing with vendor neutral interoperability testing, demonstrations, and very large conferences and exhibitions. In that environment, it is super clear to me what is vendor neutral. I'm comfortable with one part of the organization taking a million dollars from the largest vendors for a single huge booth while the other part of the organization (the vendor neutral part) is listing those vendors in the same neutral representation with all of the other vendors. It's very similar to the advertising vs. editorial departments in journalism. To me, this really doesn't seem nearly as hard as we are making it, but maybe that's because it seems to natural to me. If we claim to be neutral, that's what I think of as neutral. If that doesn't apply here, maybe someone could explain that to me (I'm being sincere and not the least bit sarcastic. I have great respect for everyone currently involved in this conversation).

I see that this opportunity provides us with some useful funding, but so would a whole lot of other undesirable options available to us; I really don't see that as any kind of compelling argument to violate our own mission statement nor have I heard anyone explain why this particular presentation is actually required to achieve such sponsorship (one way or the other).

If you promote one vendor over the others on your site, then all of those other vendors will certainly think twice about sending anyone to your site. It's not necessarily because they are mad, or upset, or because of spite, or anything like that; it just doesn't make business sense to risk sending their customers or potential customers to a site that is going to promote their competitors over them, which is exactly what we are doing in the current branch. I have a nice big beautiful monitor and all I see in my window is a promotion (not sponsorship, but a promotion) when I click on Buy Bitcoins (the rest is below the fold).

My original comment and very simple recommendation (and NACK) still applies accurately to the proposed content; sorry for all this extra verbiage.

wbnns added some commits Jul 9, 2018

@wbnns wbnns added Merge Scheduled and removed On Hold labels Jul 9, 2018

@wbnns

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@wbnns

wbnns Jul 9, 2018

Member

Hello, a new merge date has been scheduled for this PR on Thursday, July 12th @ 0:00UTC.

Member

wbnns commented Jul 9, 2018

Hello, a new merge date has been scheduled for this PR on Thursday, July 12th @ 0:00UTC.

@harding

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@harding

harding Jul 10, 2018

Contributor

I think this PR has feedback that is not only unresolved, it has not even received a response by the supporters of the PR. I also think it's unfortunate that the only people who seem to support this PR (rather than just finding it acceptable) are the same people who privately negotiated the deal and who will be deciding how to spend the money.

I think both of those are red flags that merging this PR as-is may not be the best thing for Bitcoin.org.

Unless discussion starts back up again, I guess that's all I have to say about this matter.

Contributor

harding commented Jul 10, 2018

I think this PR has feedback that is not only unresolved, it has not even received a response by the supporters of the PR. I also think it's unfortunate that the only people who seem to support this PR (rather than just finding it acceptable) are the same people who privately negotiated the deal and who will be deciding how to spend the money.

I think both of those are red flags that merging this PR as-is may not be the best thing for Bitcoin.org.

Unless discussion starts back up again, I guess that's all I have to say about this matter.

@wbnns

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@wbnns

wbnns Jul 10, 2018

Member

@harding

Hey, sorry to hear that you feel that way. You've been commenting way more than anyone else without any acknowledgement of our efforts to try to work together with you. As previously mentioned, a lot of changes have already been made based on your feedback, alone.

Member

wbnns commented Jul 10, 2018

@harding

Hey, sorry to hear that you feel that way. You've been commenting way more than anyone else without any acknowledgement of our efforts to try to work together with you. As previously mentioned, a lot of changes have already been made based on your feedback, alone.

@wbnns wbnns merged commit bf93b6e into master Jul 12, 2018

2 checks passed

continuous-integration/travis-ci/pr The Travis CI build passed
Details
continuous-integration/travis-ci/push The Travis CI build passed
Details

@wbnns wbnns deleted the wbnns-paxful branch Jul 12, 2018

@crwatkins

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@crwatkins

crwatkins Jul 12, 2018

Contributor

For the record, I remain opposed to having a Buy Bitcoin button which goes to essentially an advertisement for our sponsor with the neutral content hidden for many users below the fold.

Contributor

crwatkins commented Jul 12, 2018

For the record, I remain opposed to having a Buy Bitcoin button which goes to essentially an advertisement for our sponsor with the neutral content hidden for many users below the fold.

@buzztiaan

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@buzztiaan

buzztiaan Jul 12, 2018

lol wtf, you even add -promotional tracking- to the sponsored link? wtf

buzztiaan commented Jul 12, 2018

lol wtf, you even add -promotional tracking- to the sponsored link? wtf

@buzztiaan

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@buzztiaan

buzztiaan Jul 12, 2018

it will be sad to no longer be able to give bitcoin.org to people as reference without confidence for their privacy, security and financial safety , quite sad

it will be sad to no longer be able to give bitcoin.org to people as reference without confidence for their privacy, security and financial safety , quite sad

@Biersteker

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@Biersteker

Biersteker Jul 16, 2018

When a neutral source of FOSS information gets in bed with commercial parties, all neutrality goes out the window. This kind of actions are completly against any kind of ethics we should want or desire. For me this is the last straw. The complete insanity of greed (which this is, current sponsership would net 80k yearly for an informational site, to which many people selfishly contributed and none will benefit from this action) . Personally, I will revoke any links to bitcoin.org from here out and am not able to consider it a neutral source. This is way out of line for any opensource project and a spit in the face to all ppl that have contributed during the last years. I strongly advice to reconsider this PR.

Biersteker commented Jul 16, 2018

When a neutral source of FOSS information gets in bed with commercial parties, all neutrality goes out the window. This kind of actions are completly against any kind of ethics we should want or desire. For me this is the last straw. The complete insanity of greed (which this is, current sponsership would net 80k yearly for an informational site, to which many people selfishly contributed and none will benefit from this action) . Personally, I will revoke any links to bitcoin.org from here out and am not able to consider it a neutral source. This is way out of line for any opensource project and a spit in the face to all ppl that have contributed during the last years. I strongly advice to reconsider this PR.

@chris-belcher

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@chris-belcher

chris-belcher Jul 17, 2018

I'm inviting readers here to contribute to the bitcoin wiki instead.

It's an old site with a long history, it has fairly good SEO rankings for many keywords, and most importantly it fits with the open source ethos that motivates many contributors to bitcoindotorg. The owners of the bitcoin wiki are theymos, warren, and luke-jr.

I'm inviting readers here to contribute to the bitcoin wiki instead.

It's an old site with a long history, it has fairly good SEO rankings for many keywords, and most importantly it fits with the open source ethos that motivates many contributors to bitcoindotorg. The owners of the bitcoin wiki are theymos, warren, and luke-jr.

@rikur

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@rikur

rikur Jul 17, 2018

tNACK.

Did you at all review and consider the reputation Paxful has and how it will make bitcoin.org look for promoting it? A lot of people have been scammed using their services -- not exactly something you want to promote to newcomers to Bitcoin.

If you absolutely have to get a sponsor, at least get one with as flawless of a reputation as possible. I'm saying if because I think a lot of the improvements mentioned could be crowdsourced and I can also personally pledge to chip in to cover the server costs. Just curious: why is Github hosting not an option? Do they inject tracking JS or cookies?

rikur commented Jul 17, 2018

tNACK.

Did you at all review and consider the reputation Paxful has and how it will make bitcoin.org look for promoting it? A lot of people have been scammed using their services -- not exactly something you want to promote to newcomers to Bitcoin.

If you absolutely have to get a sponsor, at least get one with as flawless of a reputation as possible. I'm saying if because I think a lot of the improvements mentioned could be crowdsourced and I can also personally pledge to chip in to cover the server costs. Just curious: why is Github hosting not an option? Do they inject tracking JS or cookies?

@videah

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@videah

videah Jul 18, 2018

I will no longer be recommending bitcoin.org as a source. This should not have been merged and taints the entire sites reputation.

videah commented Jul 18, 2018

I will no longer be recommending bitcoin.org as a source. This should not have been merged and taints the entire sites reputation.

@buzztiaan

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@buzztiaan

buzztiaan Jul 19, 2018

The 'Discover more ways to buy bitcoin' could be a bit bigger and slightly more obvious that there is trailing content underneath.

The 'Sponsored Content' under the link out could maybe be placed such that it shows the entire upper blob is sponsored content.

I can agree with the layout as-is , as these are nitpicky things. Also, with the included markings, i don't have too much an issue with it. I understand its not a lifelong agreement, so it would be changed back when the quarterly(?) sponsorship ends.

The 'Discover more ways to buy bitcoin' could be a bit bigger and slightly more obvious that there is trailing content underneath.

The 'Sponsored Content' under the link out could maybe be placed such that it shows the entire upper blob is sponsored content.

I can agree with the layout as-is , as these are nitpicky things. Also, with the included markings, i don't have too much an issue with it. I understand its not a lifelong agreement, so it would be changed back when the quarterly(?) sponsorship ends.

@kek-coin

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@kek-coin

kek-coin Jul 19, 2018

The precedent being set here is that serious concerns by long-time contributors are second to private negotiations with a sponsor, and that someone speaking up about others' concerns going unanswered/ignored is doing something bad. @wbnns I am very disappointed in the way you have acted in this discussion towards the volunteers that help maintain this website, when it is completely obvious that you have been the one pushing an agenda more so than anyone else.

I will no longer be recommending bitcoin.org as an informational source, and will seek out alternatives to recommend instead. Furthermore, when I come across any recommendations of bitcoin.org I will be informing people of its unreliability in the face of a bag of money, referencing this discussion and its bypassing of proper review/ignoring of feedback.

Of course the owners and maintainers of bitcoin.org are completely free to do with the site as they see fit, as I am completely free to call bullshit.

P.s. you guys should change the "Bitcoin.org is community supported." to "Bitcoin.org is commercially sponsored." in light of these developments.

kek-coin commented Jul 19, 2018

The precedent being set here is that serious concerns by long-time contributors are second to private negotiations with a sponsor, and that someone speaking up about others' concerns going unanswered/ignored is doing something bad. @wbnns I am very disappointed in the way you have acted in this discussion towards the volunteers that help maintain this website, when it is completely obvious that you have been the one pushing an agenda more so than anyone else.

I will no longer be recommending bitcoin.org as an informational source, and will seek out alternatives to recommend instead. Furthermore, when I come across any recommendations of bitcoin.org I will be informing people of its unreliability in the face of a bag of money, referencing this discussion and its bypassing of proper review/ignoring of feedback.

Of course the owners and maintainers of bitcoin.org are completely free to do with the site as they see fit, as I am completely free to call bullshit.

P.s. you guys should change the "Bitcoin.org is community supported." to "Bitcoin.org is commercially sponsored." in light of these developments.

@rikur

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment

rikur commented Jul 19, 2018

@wbnns @Cobra-Bitcoin how was this sponsorship needed on top of the current donations?

https://www.blockchain.com/en/btc/address/3FkenCiXpSLqD8L79intRNXUgjRoH9sjXa

harding pushed a commit to harding/bitcoin.org that referenced this pull request Jul 19, 2018

Revert "Merge pull request #2485 from bitcoin-dot-org/wbnns-paxful"
This reverts commit bf93b6e, reversing
changes made to 87168d2.

Removes the Paxful ad
@wbnns

This comment has been minimized.

Show comment
Hide comment
@wbnns

wbnns Jul 19, 2018

Member

@rikur Hello, this enables the site to have a healthy reserve while at the same time pressing forward more aggressively on several of the other mentioned initiatives.

Member

wbnns commented Jul 19, 2018

@rikur Hello, this enables the site to have a healthy reserve while at the same time pressing forward more aggressively on several of the other mentioned initiatives.

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment