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the primary issue of the existing press center on bitcoin.org was that because it was embedded in a site with other content and multiple conflicts of interest, there was a perceived need to control access and preserve some sense of "moderation". That was misguided and ended up causing a crisis of leadership, an uproar from the community and a running battle on github pull requests.
After a long and protracted argument, which admittedly got heated on all sides (I am not too proud about some of the things I said or the way I said them), it appears that the press center will be removed from bitcoin.org. It was too political to b housed in such a prominent community site.
What I am offering is to do the work (in the next week) to produce a site that has no other purpose than to be a neutral and inclusive press center, geared towards functionality and offering a powerful tool for the world press. My experience in press relations has guided me to add many features currently missing from the press center, simple things that journalists need. For example:
- Filters for language spoken
- Multiple resolution pictures and a press-kit for each representative
- A standard attribution blurb, short and long bio
etc.
I will be putting together the platform and then inviting people to fill it as inclusively as possible with press contacts. The process for nomination is TBD, but it will err towards inclusion and will not have any veto wielding powers.
This solves the main problem that led to the call for a user group. Though that negates the need to do the user group right now, I still plan on doing it at a slower and less urgent pace. In the mean time, I am liberating the press center and giving the control to the community at large.
Another thing happened today: Sirius who is the actual owner of the domain dropped in after the week long debate and said he thought the concerns were valid and the press center should not live in bitcoin.org. That probably settles the issue. In a power game, the big kahuna just spoke.
More to come soon.
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bitcoinpresscenter.org, a redesigned fork of the press center, inclusive policy, will launch before monday
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After a break-through on the press center issue, I will be distracted for a few days because I am FORKING the press center.
bitcoinpresscenter.org will be the inclusive press center that does not live on bitcoin.org. More info to follow, site up by Monday
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I would support clear rules, clear and transparent process and broad inclusive participation by the community. Basically, the exact opposite of the bitcoin.org management.
@gmaxwell is much more comfortable with rule by decree, as he has demonstrated on the bitcoin.org Press Center debacle. He cannot be trusted with a "community" process because he treats it like peasants petitioning the king. Just go check out the pull requests on bitcoin.org to see how it works: He keeps changing his mind on what the criteria are, applying them any way that supports his predetermined decision, no matter how inconsistent and transparent.
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Luke-jr is one of the people controlling the Press Center and advocating against Matonis for being too "radical".
These people are making Press Relations decisions.
Wake up and smell the takeover. They (luke-jr, gmaxwell and jgarzik) think they are much much more than developers, they lord over bitcoin.org and make PR decisions now.
Clueless and dangerous
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What a great idea!
I will be driving up and down the bay from San Francisco to San Jose for the conference. I have 3 empty seats in the car and I'm expensing the gas as a business expense.
Anyone wants a ride, I can pick up in SF.
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I think a common approach to this problem is to have a method by which proposals can be put forward, support can be measured for the proposals, a threshold above which proposals are put to a public ballot, and then a threshold of participation/voting needed to pass a motion. Then with the backing of this many people and the records of the debate, an way forward can be agreed (e.g. someone do coding, someone approach the press, someone make a new website)
Yes, that's what the initial rules propose. I had a 1% of membership approval threshold for putting a resolution to vote, but the number is just a placeholder. In fact, I can see a better way would be a dynamic system where the "difficulty" of passing a resolution adjusts to keep the number of votes at a manageable level. Kinda like the hashing difficulty. The way that bitcoin has developed over the past few years has been very much based around - if you have an idea then code up a git pull request, show that it provides benefit and then it will eventually get adopted into the code. This works if the people coming up with the ideas also have the ability to code them. Of course, I presume the purpose of the user group would be to do more than just git pull requests to the bitcoin source
Actually, code is the one thing this community will NOT have authority over. That's the only area the core developers DO have authority. This community would have less authority, less expertise and no need to be involved in core code. Leave that to the devs. This is more about advocacy, education, world-press relations, local chapters, newbie support, local business support etc. Do you have an example of where the 'will of the community' is being ignored?
Do you have examples of where the community was consulted on an issue in anything more than a "let's pretend we haven't made the decision already" manner? I see a lot of ad-hoc projects that are very interesting and useful. Then I see a few organized and centralized entities which have a lot of power and no accountability. I see nothing in between |
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I wish you all the best for the user group, but I do fear that it will just become a very high maintenance (counting votes, managing membership) version of existing bitcointalk argument threads.
Will
I think it might be necessary to set a higher threshold for proposals to come to vote, to counteract fringe trolling. But at least this group will have a clear and transparent process. Rage quitting is what happens when you have no voice or way to be heard (or at least then it is justified). More voice, better process, clear and transparent rules make for less impotent rage. Bitcointalk is great - but fills a different need. It is the town square. I want a ballot-proposition mechanism and local user chapters. I think nothing like that exists and there is both room for and need for it. Don't tell me how it will fail (or do, I'll ignore it), tell me how to make it succeed. What needs to be done differently to overcome the issue you highlight? |
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I have a hard time explaining myself. Sorry. It was not about being a face to bitcoin but being a force for your vision that you are pushing on this thread. That was my simpleton solution. Everything else you do is is good and I am glad you are involve in so many projects, with or without me :-)
I totally get what you're saying. You have to be the change you want to see. You are correct, and I am trying to do that. I think this organization can pull in more individuals who are willing to work together towards these goals, explicitly and in an organized way. |
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I just knocked up this quick design, I would probably need to move some stuff about of-course.  Owen this is strikingly different from the existing designs, really nice! Can you please adjust it to match the template? If you want to release the design to the community, we can add it to the openpaperwallet repository. Thanks! |
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Organizations exist to represent individuals working toward a common goal. There needs to be a clear cut agenda with solutions beyond the reach of the individual that require the efforts of the collective organization. The agenda needs to be more than “equal representation” and “caretakers of the organization's maintenance and internal finances.”
Why don’t you come up with a list of bullet points for the organizations agenda first and pitch organizational structure/membership dues later.
Go right ahead and help me make the agenda. I do not want to dominate the agenda or set "my" agenda. Here are some of my ideas: - Offer local chapter support for new bitcoin users - Encourage bitcoin software development for a robust and diverse bitcoin software ecosystem - Offer free classes, tutorials, after school programs and university guest lectures - Create and promote bitcoin educational materials - Offer local members as teachers, mentors, speakers for local events - Coordinate community bitcoin events such as conferences, meetups and seminars - Help local businesses adopt bitcoin with member technical and educational resources Just off the top of my head. |
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Instead of putting $1000 in your 501, why not start a youtube channel and push your talent so the world can see. Promote bitcoin the way you see fit and have a clear vision of what you want. Sure crowdsourcing for idea and membership on a thread or on reddit is fun, but without the professional tools and $$ it it will be painfully slow. So why not have much more visibility? get a little cam or your iphone, a microphone and just hit the streets and ask people stuff.. Then you talk about bitcoin. You should watch some Tv evangelist shows. You don't have to believe but the tools of communication are the same if you want to be a bitcoin evangelist. As soon as you do this you create a brand and the "laws of attraction" will start kick in.
The concept of bitcoin is so big it is hard for all of us to let go the old paradigm. In the end bitcoin will define itself as it is math, without the need for PR. I understand we are not there yet.
One effort does not contradict the others. I am not interested in just being a "face" for bitcoin and I am capable of more than one thing at a time. Here are the projects I'm currently working on: - Open Paper Wallet - massively successful, created more than 20 creative commons licensed designs for the whole community - going into production - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155847.0;all- SafePaperWallet.com - opening in a couple of weeks to sell retail paper wallet kits - Open Bitcoin Store - helped 60 new stores launch in the first week - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=161264.0;all- btcprice.info - serving thousands of SMS alerts on bitcoin price changes for free - Let's Talk Bitcoin - I am a host and contributor, bi-weekly shows - bitcoin 2013 conference - speaking about bitcoin neutrality and interviewing people. Also giving 4 interviews to the press (booked so far) - Open Bitcoin User Group - this project - Bitcoin book - proposals are out to publishers this week. As you can see, I can keep up with multiple projects, lead them and make them successful. Give me solutions or give me support, it's all welcome and appreciated. Tell me it can't be done and I will keep going right past you ;-) |
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This is a great design, but it wasn't submitted to the competition. Will you be licensing it for use in the project? |
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A quick update on Open Bitcoin Store.
There are now 64 stores fully deployed. Five or more stores are launched each day using the simple launch wizards.
We've got the process down to 16 seconds from form-to-store. Anyone can now be a bitcoin retailer, or at least try their business and sales skills, with no risk, no cost, no technical skills and no effort for the setup.
The project now has 16 volunteers helping with technical support, as well as half a dozen store owners who hang out on IRC daily. We're building a community, not just a bunch of stores
Join us!
openbitcoinstore.com
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Also check out openbitcoinstore.com
It's a fully featured bitcoin-enabled (bitpay) WordPress store, that you can launch and host free in less than one minute.
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BOUNTY CLOSED This project now moves to the implementation phase. We have a repository ( https://github.com/openpaperwallet/openpaperwallet) with almost a dozen open sourced, standardized and beautiful designs. Thank you all for contributing. Next steps: - Software for QR printing (bitaddress.org clone) - Website - Production print-run - Pre-sales - Re-seller kits and retail sales
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The press and "traditional" institutions will seek out "representatives" of bitcoin. You can't stop them, you can't tell them they're not representative. Instead of finding representatives, I want them to find a vast association of users, with local chapters. No "representatives" other than the users themselves. If the users want to elect spokespeople in different geographies or disciplines they will. If they'd rather express themselves via Wiki, they will. If they want to nominate an intelligent Q&A Eliza bot, they will. I'm not suggesting replacing the current crop of board members who "represent" bitcoin, with a new crop of elected board members who "represent" bitcoin - as you will see in my proposal, the board members are only caretakers of the organization's maintenance and internal finances. If you want to call them something else, we can. In fact, if a board is too odious, let's run the organization with a lawyer as executor of the bylaws. Someone who isn't even remotely related to bitcoin, but only acts as a legal custodian. Again I am open to all suggestions - don't mistake this proposal for one that replaces one board with another, that would be a waste of time. My main model for this are organizations like the Silicon Valley Linux User Group, or many of the other chapters that exist around the world: http://www.svlug.org/about.phpFittingly and amusingly, they decided (internally) to stop electing "Presidents" and "Vice Presidents" in 1999 and instead only elect functional roles, like webmaster and events manager. The people in these roles do not have any authority or policy making power. They just run the stuff based on an ad-hoc group of volunteers who help them. But the members ultimately direct the group through votes and meetings. That is the kind of association I'm looking to build. |
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how about you start a thread that asks people what they want. obviously you want some proper spokespeople for bitcoin that have a varied opinion compared to the elite elected members of bitcoinfoundation.
so instead of starting a whole new organisation purely to get members to vote for an elite elected few spokes people. how about just ask anyone and everyone if they want to become spokes people. to show off their skills and then paste their info in the media section of this forum or even request a totally new "topc" to be made on this forum. then the whole population of this forum can see the variety themselves and grab names/videos, statements that take their fancy. and use those contacts within their own projects/ local contacts with media/own websites.
Franky, The press center debacle is just a symptom, not the problem I am trying to solve. The bigger problem is a complete lack of accountability in the organizations that either claim or are widely seen as representing bitcoin. The press center debacle is only the latest example of that lack of accountability turning into tone-deaf decisions. We fix the press center, and next week it is problems with the conference. Then what? We fix the conference, then it is problems with who talks to regulators (or if they should talk to regulators) and cuts "deals" for bitcoin. The week after that, one of these tone-deaf non-representatives ends up tstifying in front of Congress "on behalf of bitcoin". It will keep going on, and while some will say that this is not a problem or that they don't really represent anyone, that's not realistic. That's why I felt the need to launch a user organization that is inclusive, transparent and much more representative. Patching the symptoms is not enough. This proposal strikes at the root of the problem - a handful of unaccountable organizations and their offshoots claiming to represent us. |
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