Bitcoin Forum

I need to write this up, but this should take care of the problem. Stay tuned. Coming likely tomorrow.

No, no, no: to do it right, you "accidentally" slip a hint to a reporter a month before you launch....


(to the humor-impaired:   ;)   )

I think you're right. If you ever "lose it" with programming, you might consider PR. ;)

Announcements about announcements are bad, mmk?

mkay. Just trying to ease people's mind over the pandemonium this has caused, mkay?

mkay  ;)

fyi..saying "this should take care of the problem." without saying what this or the problem actually is.

If anything, you made people more nervous

Thats why Gavin was making fun of you.

The problem is the uproar caused with the launch of a "Bitcoin Foundation" - a move toward centralization of something supposed to be decentralized. (See 50 plus pages here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=113400.0))

And Gavin isn't making fun he's having fun ;)

Yup, I've been reading and responded at least 2-3 times on every page, so that means 150+ responses just in that thread.

I would not say its an uproar, its more like Atlas and a few haters. You will agree once you see the amount of members and donations.

Some people like Hazek actually bring up good points with certain issues in the foundation we need to work out and fix.

The haters are trollers say "ahhh foundation centralization ahh" when the smart people actually have good points and want to make it better.

So basically, your creating an announcement to ease the nervousness of the trollers...

TBF has far more noise around it than it deserves from both sides. Please stay in your thread or have your own sub forum.
I really had enough announcements and talking for a bitcoin-year now. When is bitcoincard coming? When is bitcoinwireless coming? When will my hair-dresser accept bitcoin? I don't care about announcements of announcements about committees dedicated to the discussion of designing foundations or not. Just do it.

You may have been reading, but perhaps not hearing? It's not "haters". What is there to hate upon? Everyone that would be reading this forum would likely want Bitcoin's success, so why oppose something supposedly working in that direction? It's because of actual concern, not trolling. Even you yourself said you agree with hazek about cause for concern, so I'm not really sure how we're not connecting:

We just added instant banking transfers from 27 new countries on BitInstant.com

UK, Poland, South America, ect..

No announcement yet because testing

Feel free to give it a try  ;D


Sure, but no one knows what your announcement is so the connecting will happen there  ;)

Sub'd and eager!

I would if Chile was on the list.

Is this the big October announcement?

+1

As an official TBF hater and troller who just can utter a mere "ahhh foundation centralization ahh", I just wanted to add some art to this thread:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Narcissus-Caravaggio_%281594-96%29.jpg/198px-Narcissus-Caravaggio_%281594-96%29.jpg

I don't think everyone questioning this is a troll.

I've met Charlie and Gavin both in person. 

Gavin gave me his card but when I emailed him regarding a huge project that would help Bitcoin I got no response.

Charlie's "open offices" are not as open as he always mentions.  I had tried to meet with him recently regarding this pro Bitcoin project and the offices were always too busy.  I believe I tried meeting with him in person for about a week before I gave up.

MTGOX?  Used them before.  They leaked my info and wanted more.  I know better then to get GOXXXED.

Who helped me with this pro Bitcoin project?  BitPay was super friendly and available.

I'm a reasonable guy.  I'm not sure where the hesitation comes from with Charlie and Gavin but it's enough to have me wondering about their motives.  My project was very well funded (in the millions) and would of helped Bitcoin grow...there was no money in it for me but maybe some money for BitInstant.

Additionally, so I don't come come off like a total prick... haha...

I'd like to add that I'm very thankful for Gavin's work on the Bitcoin project and BitInstant is a great service that I enjoy very much.  Perhaps this is all a misunderstanding.

I feel really neutral about this foundation. Good for Gavin if it pays him a salary.
As far as I'm concerned it's definitely not the face of Bitcoin or whatever, Bitcoin never had and never will have a face.

I'm personnally not criticizing this venture, grown-ups make the corporations they want after all, with the goals they want to pursue and aren't accountable to this community. On the other hand I'd appreciate this being treated as it should, a service announcement, not something that's going to bring "great stability to Bitcoin". I find it a little weird that one day Gavin wants to be demoted from his global mod position, and the next one he yells at hazek for wanting to move the TBF thread into service announcements.

Still, I wish the foundation, and Gavin personnally, good luck and much success!

This is simply not true.

Forgive us if you try to come during meetings, ect.. but we also have a business to run.

However, people are here all day and just show up, everyone is always invited.

If you wanted to stop in, just do the same, or email rachel@bitinstant.com to do so.
Your claim is inconsistant with what you said, and simply does not make sense.

PM me directly because I have no idea who you are.

-Charlie

Link? All the TBF-stuff went TLDR too fast.
Moving TBF to service announcement sounds like a good step to calm the waves a bit although I understand it hurts each and every service provider to see his baby being moved out of the spot light. instawallet for example was granted that prestigious spot forever while others get moved quickly.

I suggested before to have some consistent rule for that and maybe this case makes my suggestion clearer. Lets move all service announcements to that forum after a predefined time please. My suggestion would be two weeks.

Stand back everyone, I've got this one:

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/27760289.jpg

Somehow he sounds just as trustworthy as gavinmarkjonpatrickcharliepeter.  :o

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=113509.0 shows that only a half of bitcoiners support TBF. And more than a quarter against it.

Only half?  That seems like quite a lot of support to me.

True. But a quarter shouldn't be called "a few" too.

Do we get to guess for a month what this latest announcement will be? 

I am guess that it will be an announcement of the formation of the new

Hazek/Atlas Total Economic Revolution Society

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

 ;D

I actually had your direct email.  We went back and forth quite a few times before I gave up.  You always told me to call before I actually stopped in.  Once I got as far as being outside of your offices and calling as we agreed on a time for me to show up...no one answered.  I also tried coming in the morning but you said before 9 am was too early.  We have a string of failed emails but BitPay was ready to Skype with me so no worries.

I'm grateful for BitInstant.  I really do enjoy your service.  Your open office NYC meetup thing was also a very nice gesture to the community.  But let's be honest...you said yourself that you have no idea who I am so why would you say I'm lying?

Yeah, but Atlas has like 400 accounts...

Ever hear of selection bias?  This poll is self selected.  Until you've done a valid random sampling with a neutral question, don't pretend that you have some valid insight into the moods of bitcoiners in bulk.

Is it possible to devise a more neutral question regarding the issue?  ???

Well, three or four people have suggested that "foundation" will be confused by people to mean "the part of a building that keeps it from sinking into the ground" rather than "organization".  Context makes that one abundantly clear, but context is not sufficient to completely disambiguate "support" meaning "endorse, approve" vs. "support" meaning "give funds to (by donating or joining)".

So? How would u paraphrase the question?

See kids? If you have something against The Bitcoin Company, it just means you're dumb.

Still not sure who you are, please email me.

Thanks for the nice comments, but I feel bad we did not get to meet.



You are exactly what Im talking about

I would say that if the something you have against the BF is dumb, it means you're dumb, and most of the frothing I've seen has been dumb on an epic scale.  "Haters and trollers" doesn't seem to be an inaccurate term for most of them.

Maybe dumb is too harsh.  Maybe they are just too imaginative, and don't have any experience with organizations, or the governance structures they use.  Heh, I'm even nervous writing that, because I expect it to be quoted but not understood.  To be clear, all groups and organizations above the totally informal level have internal governance of some sort, it doesn't mean that they necessarily have or seek power over others.


Heh, that part is harder to do.  Avoiding biased language is much harder than spotting it.  For what it is worth, I don't think that "support" will cause much skew in the results, but the amount will probably be non-zero.  Maybe something more like "Do you think that the Bitcoin Foundation, as described by their initial bylaws (include the link), is a good idea?"  Potential answers could be along the lines of:

1) Yes.
2) There are some minor changes that I would like to see discussed, but they are within the capabilities of the bylaws.
3) There are some major changes that I think would need to be made before I could approve of it.
4) There are huge changes that need to be made, they should start over.
5) I don't think this is a good idea in the first place, they shouldn't do it.

This wouldn't be perfect, but I think it would be more useful than the current poll.  Note that nothing can prevent self-selection bias here on the forums.  You can't make people take polls, so those with stronger opinions would be over-represented to some unknown (but probably very large) extent.

Because I'm less than thrilled about bitcoin development team being in bed with two biggest bitcoin businesses? It helps to avoid conflict of interest, isn't it? You're a businessman Charlie, and I don't trust you, shall the situation arise, to act in the best interest of the community.

No, the merits of the argument have nothing to do with it. In fact, this is the first time you've even made a point from what I've read.

Your comment was exactly the type of comment that looks like trolling/hating. It was a response where you twisted my words around for your agenda.

What you should have done, was stated your position like you just did in the more recent comment

You don't trust me thats fine. Obviously, you dont understand the structure and how the foundation works if you think you need to trust me at all.

From bitcoin.org website :

Developers

Satoshi Nakamoto
Gavin Andresen
Pieter Wuille
Nils Schneider
Jeff Garzik
Wladimir J. van der Laan
Gregory Maxwell

Besides Gavin and Jeff, who already did, I'm very interested in hearing the opinion of all team members about the Foundation, and how they envision the future of bitcoin.

This was my second comment ever regarding the The Bitcoin Corporation, don't make it look like I was here for three days dribbling from my mouth.


Lightly spirited joke, sorry. Your comment reads in vein of "must be a terrorist if wants privacy". And no, I'm just regular supervillain who wants bitcoin project to stay independent, undo the wrongdoing of fiat currencies, remove the power of governments to keep population by the balls by financial means. But you have a business Charlie, you're the one who has an agenda.


Again, who's holding the steering wheel now, Charlie?

The rest r supposed to be Satoshi Nakamoto.

That's a good one.  ::) ;D

Maybe - just maybe these dumb people you're referring to have had first hand experience with organizations and the quality of their ''internal governance of some sort'' ?

No, it does not mean ''that they necessarily have or seek power over others''. It is not necessary that they actively seek power over others for certain negative outcomes.

In addition I'd like to mention that the objections raised against TBF cover more aspects than this single point.

Oh, I'm well aware of that.  I think I've read every single post on these boards regarding the foundation, including (I'm ashamed to admit) the ones from people that I have on my ignore list.  I didn't bother doing much more than laugh at the suggestions that the foundation would make the moon explode, or sterilize dissenters, but I read the posts.
Yes, that is humorous hyperbole, but with just about the right amount of insane to be representative, in my opinion.

The real danger is that the foundation will sputter and stall without getting much done, not that they will do too much, or do the wrong things.  I haven't seen even a single post about a meaningful threat that could possibly come from the foundation.  I've seen lots of handwaving, lots of vague insinuations, lots of paranoia.  Nothing else of note.

You're so right! Against TBF = handwaving, vague insinuations, paranoia. For TBF = enlightened.

Thanks for your time. Nothing more to say to you.

The guys wearing tinfoil hats never consider that everyone thinks they are crazy because they are crazy; it is always part of some grand scheme to suppress them.  You seem to be assuming that because I disagree with you, I'm working for "the man" and trying to stifle legitimate dissent.  I'm not, I just point out crazy when I see it.

See, unlike some people, I made my judgments of those posts based on the contents of the posts, not on their support of the foundation, or lack thereof.  If it makes you feel any better, most of the support for the foundation is vague too, but those guys aren't crapping up the forums.

I personally have not seen even one single post that was anti-foundation that wasn't full of nonsense (gox is going to pay Gavin to steal all of our coins!), or vague claims (someday, in the future, the foundation might be so big that it may do or say something that isn't good for the community).  If I missed one, please do point it out to me.

You make it sound as if people who use past events (historical evidence) as a guide for future outcomes are quacks?

Of the 6000 years of documented history that is backed by archaeological evidence, shows that human nature has changed very little at its core.

Greed & Fear
Death & Tax's