Upgrade bitcoin.org

[blockgenesis]

This thread is now 3 weeks old at the foundation and it gained some interesting discussions. It's now time to ask feedback from the community :

Given the mission of the foundation :

- Standardizing Bitcoin
- Protecting Bitcoin
- Promoting Bitcoin

I think we need a strong website with high quality presentation for the following purposes :

- Help develop sustainable Bitcoin ecosystem everywhere in the world, in all languages.
- Publish official specification, documentation and recommandations.
- Present a good summary about Bitcoin that is contextual to the visitor category interests.
- Try to put a end on the "cannot get to explain Bitcoin correctly" problem that happens once every minute in the world.
- Protect Bitcoin better against "misunderstandings, misinterpretations and misrepresentations" (from the Foundation mission statement)

But lets go concrete. I built what could be the seed of the next bitcoin.org :
Edit : Made it, after a month of work, there is the new bitcoin.org http://bitcoin.org/

The entire previous website content has been recycled. You can notice the following improvements.

- The "Some things you need to know" page, that gives good practises to users and prevent common mistakes about Bitcoin.
- The "Support Bitcoin" page to attract more resources for the bitcoin project and the foundation
- More visibility to the foundation everywhere.
- A contextual presentation of Bitcoin for each user category (Individuals, Organizations, Developers, Enthusiasts)
- The "How it works" page that tries to give the shortest and simplest explanation possible (a real challenge).
- A more complete and representative history in the "About" page and updated statistics.
- An improved "Choose your wallet" that helps new users to get started with ease.
- A language menu bar and the /en/ prefix so that the website can be translated in many language by the community and/or professionnals.
- A vocabulary page that can help confused people to get back their happiness.

Any thoughts and comments are appreciated

[1715320004]

1715320004

[Mike Hearn]

FYI, I have worked with Saivann on this and it's been somewhat reviewed by other developers also.

See it as the beginning, not the end. In future I'd like to add in an FAQ based on the wiki version, and have more in depth articles for merchants and miners. But for now I think this is a huge and much needed upgrade.

[hazek]

I'm really happy and excited to see this. My first impression is that I see a lot of much needed changes with regards to the content which is excellent! I don't particularly like the design however, the layout I think is very good just not the graphics. But this can be easily improved upon with a hired designer.

I'm now going to spend however much time is needed to look through everything and comment more in depth later.

[theymos]

I like the general layout, but there are many grammatical errors.

[hazek]

I like the general layout, but there are many grammatical errors.

And many typos. Can I somehow correct them myself? I'm a github noob.

[timmolter]

I love the new layout. And I especially like seeing Multibit first on the client list. I remember first trying the "default" client only to get very frustrated, but when I later tried out MultiBit it was smooth sailing.

[hazek]

The "Get started" button could be called something else, like "Learn more" because someone new already gets started by clicking "Choose your wallet".

[fizzisist]

I like the general layout, but there are many grammatical errors.

And many typos. Can I somehow correct them myself? I'm a github noob.

Hit the "Fork" button on the Github page. Then, edit the files, either by checking it out on your computer or by editing them directly on the Github website. Then, commit the changes (make sure to include log messages briefly explaining what you did). Finally, submit a "Pull Request" from your fork.

As for the website, I like it a lot. One thing that confuses me though is pointing to weusecoins for the "Get Started" links. While I love weusecoins, shouldn't this information be self contained? Something like the http://174.142.20.146/en/choose-your-wallet]Choose Your Wallet would make a much better "Get Started" page, I think.

[fizzisist]

The "Get started" button could be called something else, like "Learn more" because someone new already gets started by clicking "Choose your wallet".

Haha, posted at the same time as me.

[Mike Hearn]

Yeah just fork it on github. I already went through and fixed a lot of typos and grammatical errors (Saivann is a French speaker), but I can well believe I missed some as it's a big site.

[mareo87]

i like the current website design just add more information

[hazek]

The "Get started" button could be called something else, like "Learn more" because someone new already gets started by clicking "Choose your wallet".

Haha, posted at the same time as me.

Hehe and thanks for the instructions.

[blockgenesis]

Mistakes and typos : if you don't get to play with github, please tell us what you found (and clearly say the page where the typo can be found). It will be fixed in a very short delay. I am not a native english speaker myself and Mike already did a good job at improving the texts so that it sounds less confusing.

Graphics : If there is something specific about the graphics that you don't like, don't hesitate to be more descriptive. Maybe that I can improve some of them. Most of the graphics are 24 hours old so I didn't have time to refresh my mind.

Get started / Learn more : Right, I see! Get started goes to weusecoins where there is concrete resources for merchants and people that want to buy things with Bitcoin, which is something bitcoin.org will probably delegate because of its "official" status. So the real purpose here was not really to give "more information" but "more ways to get started with using bitcoin". Do you feel that "Learn more" is still appropriate in that case? Or is there a better way to say this?

I also see this project like a beginning. I would like bitcoin.org to become more dynamic with continuous improvements over time.

Thanks for your feedback!

[Garr255]

i like the current website design just add more information

+1

Sorry but this new one just looks too unprofessional. Clean it up and do a better job specifying when you'll be linked off-site and maybe they'll use it!

[misterbigg]

Any thoughts and comments are appreciated

That is a REALLY NICE looking website! Let me offer my advice:

1) Pay a PR firm that is web-savvy to review everything and offer suggestions on improvements

2) Go to http://www.scribendi.com, submit the prose on the site, and pay to have them edit the grammar and wording. It's super cheap, and could result in an improvement.

Although this new site looks great, I am confident that people who specialize in advertising messaging could take it to a whole new level. My grandmother doesn't know what "P2P" stands for or even what it means. "Digital currency" is also something that if you ask the average putz on the street will not understand. This sentence must appear prominently on the front page:

Bitcoin is money!

If you could only get across ONE concept to readers about Bitcoin in the fewest possible words this would be it.

[misterbigg]

i like the current website design just add more information

Sorry but this new one just looks too unprofessional.

Hell to the no. From a usability perspective the new design is orders of magnitude better. There are far fewer links, and much less irrelevant information. The front page of Bitcoin.org needs to to answer these questions clearly and succinctly:

What is Bitcoin?

What can I do with it?

Where can I learn more?

Where can I get some Bitcoins?

How do I spend Bitcoins?

The goal of any site redesign should be to get the user excited about Bitcoin and begin participating. Everything else just intimidates people and takes attention away from the most important things. Marketing 101!!!

I like how the new site has a "Choose your wallet" button. And it's in a different color. Arguably this is the single most important action since getting a wallet is the pre-requisite for almost all Bitcoin activities. I would move all those buttons on the right, to the left, since the left side is the more prominent position and there is no chance that the browser window will be too narrow to see these buttons.

Remove from the front page anything that might confuse a normal person. Like the word "protocol."  Find the word "protocol" on Amazon.com's front page, I challenge you.

"Bitcoin is a currency, a protocol and software." - terrible sentence. Right out of the starting gate someone has to hold in their head that Bitcoin is not one thing but three. Automatically some people are going to get lost. Not everyone knows what "software" is, and you don't need to know that Bitcoin is also software. You just need to know that you can get a free wallet "app" from your smart phone's "app store."

Consider removing the navigation bar from the front page, while leaving it on all the other pages. There's 7 links in that nav bar and every single one of them will, when clicked by a new user, take them to an unimportant page. Especially "About."

Looking at it more closely, there's TWO nav bars, one for clicking on Bitcoin is for "Individuals", "Organizations"... this is another distraction and its in the worst place for it because the top is prime real estate. Sure, I like developers as much as the next guy but they can scroll down to find their link, we don't have to hold their hand and give them part of the top of every page on the entire site.

"Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority" - another terrible sentence. I am certain that many will read this and walk away thinking that Bitcoins are not "backed by anything" or "secured by any government." While it is true that Bitcoin technology is decentralized, I highly doubt that will be a selling point for any significant fraction of site visitors.

Here's a selling point I thought of:

"Bitcoin is like a bank that puts a live teller in your living room available 24/7 and you can do whatever you want with your money and your account can never be closed or denied"

I guess my conclusion is that this site redesign looks very nice and is a strong first step to a renovation but needs a lot of work in the text and the marketing messages.

[Mike Hearn]

It's worth thinking about the goals of the site.

Right now, I don't think trying to on-board your mother and her dog is the right goal. Bitcoin isn't ready for these people yet.

The goals of the Bitcoin website should be to:

• Explain what Bitcoin is, to people who are already interested.
• Explain how to get started, for people who already want to.
• Describe what's great about Bitcoin
• Answer and rebut many common myths and objections that surface frequently

The new site hits all of these goals except the last one, which can come later anyway.

Whether we like it or not, Bitcoin is still quite nerdy and needs more time to mature and grow.

[phatsphere]

I really like it, although it needs some cleanup for the design. However, instead of developers, I would focus this top menu on "merchants". I.e. to capture the attention of them right there.

[Gabi]

It is awesome, finally a decent website 

My suggestion? Put more things on the homepage

[misterbigg]

It's worth thinking about the goals of the site.

Right now, I don't think trying to on-board your mother and her dog is the right goal. Bitcoin isn't ready for these people yet.
...
Whether we like it or not, Bitcoin is still quite nerdy and needs more time to mature and grow.

My opinion is that the site should have the broadest appeal to the least technical people. The decision on whether or not to get "on-board" should be left up to each visitor, not bearded developers (figuratively speaking).

Every time Bitcoin appears in the press there's going to be a link to Bitcoin.org for more reading. Shouldn't the site cater to them? The technically minded already know how to dig through the site. I think making the front page as easy to understand as possible, and to guide them through the process for getting involved in Bitcoin is a worthy goal for the site.

[blockgenesis]

For those who think the new website is not professional, I'm curious to have your opinion on a version with much less icons :
http://174.142.20.147/en/

In fact, I created a lot of icons this weekend in order to see if it would improve readability. But to some point, I asked myself if it was just too much because we have a lot of titles. So the above link gives you a idea of what it looked like 3 days ago. Perhaps we should keep it simple?

Also if you add negative comments, please be more descriptive so that it turns out to be constructive. It can be hard to find out exactly why you dislike the website if you don't give more details.

[deepceleron]

I will take on "en/how-it-works.html". I was just going to fix the fragment sentences and the sentences that start with a conjunction, but upon reading the content, it really could be better, so a refactorization is in order. This is the first stopping point for a new user - they will have no concept of what this new "network money" is, where it is stored, or how it can be uncounterfeitable. The illustration is non-illustrative.

[theymos]

I submitted a pull request with English fixes. Additional problems that I didn't fix:
- Anonymity and freeness of transactions are overstated.
- I don't think MyWallet should be included without a lot of warning. It's no more secure than an EWallet unless you're using the browser plugin.

[blockgenesis]

I will take on "en/how-it-works.html". I was just going to fix the fragment sentences and the sentences that start with a conjunction, but upon reading the content, it really could be better, so a refactorization is in order. This is the first stopping point for a new user - they will have no concept of what this new "network money" is, where it is stored, or how it can be uncounterfeitable. The illustration is non-illustrative.

This part is really tricky. I think we should do all that we can to keep away from unnecessary technical details there otherwise it will immediately turn into something complicate and drown people in confusion. I think that we need a page with a very quick overview, with as much understandable, concise and accurate words as possible. And so far, this page was the candidate for this task.

As for the details, we can create more pages with much detailed content. A complete FAQ is already needed for this.

Thanks for your work,

[fizzisist]

It's worth thinking about the goals of the site.

Right now, I don't think trying to on-board your mother and her dog is the right goal. Bitcoin isn't ready for these people yet.

The goals of the Bitcoin website should be to:

• Explain what Bitcoin is, to people who are already interested.
• Explain how to get started, for people who already want to.
• Describe what's great about Bitcoin
• Answer and rebut many common myths and objections that surface frequently

The new site hits all of these goals except the last one, which can come later anyway.

Whether we like it or not, Bitcoin is still quite nerdy and needs more time to mature and grow.

I agree.

[BitPay Business Solutions]

under Organizations, why are you sending people to weusecoins to get started?  there's nothing there for merchants.

send them to bitpay.com

[misterbigg]

Am I the only person who thinks that bitcoin.org should be for "the masses" instead of "Freaks and Geeks?"

Bitpay?

[prezbo]

under Organizations, why are you sending people to weusecoins to get started?  there's nothing there for merchants.

send them to bitpay.com

I don't think bitcoin.org should have any connection to for-profit businesses.

[misterbigg]

I don't think bitcoin.org should have any links to any for-profit businesses.

Why not? As a Bitcoin investor, anything that drives more customers into Bitcoin adoption is a good thing. If traffic to a for-profit business on bitcoin.org means more people buying Bitcoins and more liquid markets, that's great!

Perhaps your objection is that it gives the for-profit business an advantage? Probably, but that could be solved. Just allow any established business to list themselves on the website and display the links in a random order through client side java-script.

[FlipPro]

I can help with this.

The design looks a little bit cheesy to say the least.

[blockgenesis]

under Organizations, why are you sending people to weusecoins to get started?  there's nothing there for merchants.

send them to bitpay.com

Perhaps we could redirect them more directly there : http://www.weusecoins.com/merchant-tools.php
(You are listed there too ;-) )

So far, this version of bitcoin.org delegates all promotion to weusecoins (except for wallets). This is something that can be discussed in the future however. But I think that a formal website from the foundation should stay as neutral as possible.

Also, weusecoins will be multi-language and will often have a translated version available for each language that will be supported by bitcoin.org in the future.

[BitPay Business Solutions]

Perhaps we could redirect them more directly there : http://www.weusecoins.com/merchant-tools.php
(You are listed there too ;-) )

good idea!

[prezbo]

I don't think bitcoin.org should have any links to any for-profit businesses.

Why not? As a Bitcoin investor, anything that drives more customers into Bitcoin adoption is a good thing. If traffic to a for-profit business on bitcoin.org means more people buying Bitcoins and more liquid markets, that's great!

Perhaps your objection is that it gives the for-profit business an advantage? Probably, but that could be solved. Just allow any established business to list themselves on the website and display the links in a random order through client side java-script.

I think bitcoin.org should be about the protocol and as such should not have any connection to any bitcoin business. I agree that a website with all this information would be useful/necessary, but I would rather see a different domain dedicated to that.

[proudhon]

The "You need to know!" section is a much needed addition.  Fantastic work!

[Daily Anarchist]

Love the new site! Can we scrap the part about telling people to pay their taxes? Perhaps a more neutral position can be taken on the issue.

[blockgenesis]

Am I the only person who thinks that bitcoin.org should be for "the masses" instead of "Freaks and Geeks?"

I think it should serve content both for technical, business and normal people. Bitcoin is likely to interest a lot of different classes of people. And this is why I made the "For Individuals / Organizations / Developers / Enthusiasts" menu. Because each of these people live in a different world, have different needs and speak a different language. And I think we should try to find the best balance between "easy-to-understand for noobs" and "concrete-detailed-content". Sometime separating the two.

[deepceleron]

"Foundation" and "get started" are links to other sites, but they appear equal in the site hierarchy to sub-categories. Main-menu style links should be consistent and not launch another web site without the destination being apparent.

[proudhon]

Love the new site! Can we scrap the part about telling people to pay their taxes? Perhaps a more neutral position can be taken on the issue.

I think it's a useful disclaimer and as it's worded is about as neutral as you can get.  As it says, it's up to you to pay your taxes.

[Vitalik Buterin]

I can offer up Bitcoin Magazine's pages on wallet options, common misconceptions and terminology (part 2) for the site - we have a pretty detailed description of the various wallet options out there, as well as vocabulary lists. Just give credit/link back to us on the page and you can copy over and modify how you see fit.

You can also just link to these pages as well as WeUseCoins, the wiki and other stuff in some kind of "Further Reading" section.

[misterbigg]

Am I the only person who thinks that bitcoin.org should be for "the masses" instead of "Freaks and Geeks?"

I think it should serve content both for technical, business and normal people. Bitcoin is likely to interest a lot of different classes of people. And this is why I made the "For Individuals / Organizations / Developers / Enthusiasts" menu. Because each of these people live in a different world, have different needs and speak a different language. And I think we should try to find the best balance between "easy-to-understand for noobs" and "concrete-detailed-content". Sometime separating the two.

Phew...thank heavens I'm not the only one. Sure, serve content to everyone but focus everything "above the fold" of the home page towards the lowest common denominator of user - people who are non technical and have no idea about digital money. The navigation could be easily misunderstood. I didn't even realize it was a navigation bar until a little bit of fiddling. Someone might read it and think that Bitcoin is only for individual organizations, developers, and enthusiasts.

[blockgenesis]

"Foundation" and "get started" are links to other sites, but they appear equal in the site hierarchy to sub-categories. Main-menu style links should be consistent and not launch another web site without the destination being apparent.

+1, but..

I just found it more cumbersome to write a page about the foundation to respect that rule. So if you see a solution where the foundation has the same level of visibility without the side-effects, I would love this.

Get started seemed important to me. Because weusecoins is a concrete list of wallets, payments processing services and merchants that accept Bitcoin. (And it is friendly). That brings us back to the question of promoting such services by ourselves.. And I don't think that a lot of people will agree, me the first. However, perhaps it can be merged somehow with "Choose your wallet", and then weusecoins would have a good visibility there. Two members on the forum said it was confusing. What do you think?

[bittenbob]

Im surprised not to see WalletBit under wallets. WalletBit is an eWallet and merchant solutions website. We have the "What is Bitcoin?" video on our homepage and are more than willing to help new users understand more about Bitcoin. At the very least I think we should have a link on the site.

[misterbigg]

I think bitcoin.org should be about the protocol and as such should not have any connection to any bitcoin business. I agree that a website with all this information would be useful/necessary, but I would rather see a different domain dedicated to that.

The reality is there is only so much "mental bandwidth" available to customers. A single website that acts as a portal to the entire target audience (individuals, merchants, developers, speculators) performs better than splitting it up to different domains. It's easy to understand why, only one URL to advertise. And when anyone writes about Bitcoin, there's just one place to go to instead of two.

Thinking about it more, listing all the established commercial entities somewhere on bitcoin.org is a good idea, because it shows that Bitcoin has commercial backing.

So, yeah of course WalletBit should be shuffled in there somewhere. And everyone else.

[blockgenesis]

Im surprised not to see WalletBit under wallets. WalletBit is an eWallet and merchant solutions website. We have the "What is Bitcoin?" video on our homepage and are more than willing to help new users understand more about Bitcoin. At the very least I think we should have a link on the site.

The consensus on the current "choose-your-wallet" page is very fragile. The only thing that seems to have enough acceptance is to only display online wallets that cannot use, lose, steal their user funds like blockchain. For the other category (walletbit - paymium - coinbase), most probably that an "acceptable level of insurance" needs to be discussed.

Also, promotion of any businesses on bitcoin.org does not generate a lot of enthusiasm so far for many legitimate reasons. Just like bittorent.com does not link to specific BitTorrent businesses. I think a complete website should be entirely dedicated to the promotion of good e-commerce / wallet / merchants. So far weusecoins does this to a certain degree and we link to it everywhere. And if something friendly and more extensive is done, I will (and I think other will agree) gladly put a lot of visibility on it.

Yet I think that the real reason why we have to list Bitcoin wallets at all is that the default client is not suitable for most users.

[notig]

this may be just personal preference........ but I want bitcoin.org to look and feel a LOT like the heroku website.

www.heroku.com  . So slick and gorgeous.

[blockgenesis]

I submitted a pull request with English fixes. Additional problems that I didn't fix:
- Anonymity and freeness of transactions are overstated.
- I don't think MyWallet should be included without a lot of warning. It's no more secure than an EWallet unless you're using the browser plugin.

Thanks for the commit. I will let Mike review it.

But wait.. concerning blockchain, as far as I know, blockchain stores an encrypted version of the wallet on their server and send it to the browser and the decryption only happens within the browser on client side. Which means if someone hacks blockchain, or if blockchain disappear, they won't be able to steal the Bitcoins. The plugin only increases the security, by having the javascript pre-loaded so that any potential malicious javascript injected into the website wouldn't be able to sniff the decryption keys during a time. If I'm not mistaken, this is much more secure than traditional e-wallet. And on the matter of computers failures and viruses, this is even more secure than software wallets because you have a remote copy of your wallet without the traditional risks of a online backup.

[theymos]

Thanks for the commit. I will let Mike review it.

But wait.. concerning blockchain, as far as I know, blockchain stores an encrypted version of the wallet on their server and send it to the browser and the decryption only happens within the browser on client side. Which means if someone hacks blockchain, or if blockchain disappear, they won't be able to steal the Bitcoins. The plugin only increases the security, by having the javascript pre-loaded so that any potential malicious javascript injected into the website wouldn't be able to sniff the decryption keys during a time. If I'm not mistaken, this is much more secure than traditional e-wallet. And on the matter of computers failures and viruses, this is even more secure than software wallets because you have a remote copy of your wallet without the traditional risks of a online backup.

If blockchain.info is hacked, the attacker can easily change the JavaScript so that all MyWallet users send their bitcoins to the attacker. This is a little better than EWallets because you need to actually visit blockchain.info to be affected and using the plugin can prevent it, but it's still much less secure than a regular client IMO.

[blockgenesis]

Thanks for the commit. I will let Mike review it.

But wait.. concerning blockchain, as far as I know, blockchain stores an encrypted version of the wallet on their server and send it to the browser and the decryption only happens within the browser on client side. Which means if someone hacks blockchain, or if blockchain disappear, they won't be able to steal the Bitcoins. The plugin only increases the security, by having the javascript pre-loaded so that any potential malicious javascript injected into the website wouldn't be able to sniff the decryption keys during a time. If I'm not mistaken, this is much more secure than traditional e-wallet. And on the matter of computers failures and viruses, this is even more secure than software wallets because you have a remote copy of your wallet without the traditional risks of a online backup.

If blockchain.info is hacked, the attacker can easily change the JavaScript so that all MyWallet users send their bitcoins to the attacker. This is a little better than EWallets because you need to actually visit blockchain.info to be affected and using the plugin can prevent it, but it's still much less secure than a regular client IMO.

I know that we tend to take security of online wallets very seriously (and we should). But we should not forget to look at them in a relative way. I'm not the one who will decide of this in the end, however I think that blockchain is needed there. Because it is more secure for some, less for others (depending on the use and on the technical skills of the users).

However this makes one thing clear : We should bring people to the extension and present it like an absolute security requirement.

[mareo87]

this may be just personal preference........ but I want bitcoin.org to look and feel a LOT like the heroku website.

www.heroku.com  . So slick and gorgeous.

i like the design in heroku. design influence credibility if a website looks like it were design in 1995 than ppl would trust less that website. generally speaking

[mareo87]

Am I the only person who thinks that bitcoin.org should be for "the masses" instead of "Freaks and Geeks?"

Bitpay?

i agree that bitcoin.org should be upgrade and provide more information for the "freaks and geeks"

but at the same time i believe that weusecoins.com should be the place to go for "the masses"

and bitcoinfoundation.org is for corp. and business ppl to go to.

each of this 3 website should have their own scope of audience and role to provide information to the general public

[herzmeister]

I love the new layout. And I especially like seeing Multibit first on the client list. I remember first trying the "default" client only to get very frustrated, but when I later tried out MultiBit it was smooth sailing.

Multibit will complain on most newbie machines that "No Java found". Which is tedious to install too. So it's not quite recommendable for beginners either.

[Mike Hearn]

We should just bundle the JRE with MultiBit to simplify such things. Or compile it to native code with a tool like Excelsior JET.

[deepceleron]

I love the new layout. And I especially like seeing Multibit first on the client list. I remember first trying the "default" client only to get very frustrated, but when I later tried out MultiBit it was smooth sailing.

Multibit will complain on most newbie machines that "No Java found". Which is tedious presumptive and dangerous to install too. So it's not quite recommendable for beginners either.

I fixed the quoted text for you. There was a new Java release 10 days ago fixing critical security holes, and already there is another vulnerability disclosed. When that's patched, the next one will be used...

http://blog.fireeye.com/research/2013/02/yaj0-yet-another-java-zero-day-2.html#more

http://www.zdnet.com/java-zero-day-malware-was-signed-with-certificates-stolen-from-security-vendor-7000012079/

http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2013/Feb/135

And before you say "this only matters if you use a browser plugin", no:

http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2013/Feb/12

[Mike Hearn]

Yes, it only matters for the browser plugin (which is rightfully being disabled by browser makers).

By definition, you cannot have a security hole in a library in an installed program because the entire thing runs at the same privilege level as the app - unless it allows for remote exploits. However we don't know of any such bugs in MultiBit/bitcoinj, I'm not even sure how we'd write one, given that it doesn't download or run any code.

Java security bugs get a lot of attention because so many people have their browsers set to run Java applets automatically, so it's an escape from the browser sandbox. If you explicitly install the app, it's no different to any other app runtime (.net or whatever)

[herb]

I think it would be nice to have well produced documentary style video that gives the definition of money, a brief history of money, a brief overview of how bitcoin works, and why bitcoin is better than the currency we currently have. This should be posted front and center on the home page. The video at weusecoins is very well done but it's too short to convince people. There needs to be more info about the FED and the USD. Check out this video promoting gold... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyV0OfU3-FU. Something along those lines would be nice, just replace the words "gold & silver" with "bitcoin". Documentary style videos seem to be very effective at turning public perception.

[blockgenesis]

I can help with this.

The design looks a little bit cheesy to say the least.

Feel free to prepare and suggest improvements on the design.

[Herodes]

..snip...

blockgenesis, great post. Don't know if you're associated with the foundation or not, but surely, bitcoin.org could be the full time job of at least one person. I don't think that the wage needs to be all that high, we just need one person that's super motivated and interested in bitcoin, and that actually does a good job. The foundation has enough resources to make this happen, no ?

[blockgenesis]

blockgenesis, great post. Don't know if you're associated with the foundation or not, but surely, bitcoin.org could be the full time job of at least one person. I don't think that the wage needs to be all that high, we just need one person that's super motivated and interested in bitcoin, and that actually does a good job. The foundation has enough resources to make this happen, no ?

Thanks! I'm a member of the foundation and I don't know that much about theirs resources yet. But so far it seems like bitcoin.org could be managed in team the same way than bitcoin-qt is developed.

[sega01]

Re: http://174.142.20.146/en/

I am really liking what the new bitcoin.org site is becoming. The wording, style, and everything seems helpful for both newcomers and developers. A formal Bitcoin specification-type document that's been fully formatted would be awesome, for sure :-). Maybe something RFC-style.

Great job everyone!

[blockgenesis]

Re: http://174.142.20.146/en/

I am really liking what the new bitcoin.org site is becoming. The wording, style, and everything seems helpful for both newcomers and developers. A formal Bitcoin specification-type document that's been fully formatted would be awesome, for sure :-). Maybe something RFC-style.

Great job everyone!

Absolutely! This website is only a start. I would also link to see more and more high quality content. And I have in mind to have it translated to many languages. So that Bitcoin can better expand in every possible countries (this is decentralization).

[blockgenesis]

Thanks for your feedback and pull requests. We have already many updates completed based on them. I'm keeping the website always up-to-date with all recent commits. Feel free to provide more improvements.

[jim618]

It's looking good blockgenesis.

A minor comment: the MultiBit website is best served up as https://multibit.org rather than http.
I remap all the http to https but it is a bit smoother for the user to specify the https directly.

[deepceleron]

Here's my new "how it works" to give time for everybody's useless comments before I check in the source.

http://we.lovebitco.in/how_it_works.html

I created the content with a few goals:

• Efficient use of language,
• 100% accurate, no misleading analogies,
• Starting simple, read as long as you want before you feel you can trust Bitcoin,
• Technical info in sidebars, in the style of "For Dummies" books.

I also noted a bug in the site template - the buttons have images with alt-text that duplicates what the buttons say, creating a mess when images don't load or are disabled. The alt should be simply "icon" or something that reflects the picture.

[hazek]

Here's my new "how it works" to give time for everybody's useless comments before I check in the source.

http://we.lovebitco.in/how_it_works.html

I created the content with a few goals:

• Efficient use of language,
• 100% accurate, no misleading analogies,
• Starting simple, read as long as you want before you feel you can trust Bitcoin,
• Technical info in sidebars, in the style of "For Dummies" books.

I also noted a bug in the site template - the buttons have images with alt-text that duplicates what the buttons say, creating a mess when images don't load or are disabled. The alt should be simply "icon" or something that reflects the picture.

Good effort but it's just not ".. a very short and concise summary of the system.". For regular users I think this needs to be way shorter and way simpler.

[deepceleron]

Making things suck for the benefit of noobs is why we have Windows 8. Read this board and see how many questions could be answered in a five minute read. I answer the question "how it works" though, which may not be the first link a curious reader needs.

If you want to make it more accessible, read the above while picturing it as a script for a weusecoins-style video with corresponding graphics.

"Some Bitcoin words you might ear" also has some terms that use "new user" as an excuse for inaccuracy.

[herzmeister]

I think there need to be some grammar fixes:

* Bitcoin has its own unit
* it is valued independently on the merits of its usefulness and scarcity.

[blockgenesis]

Here's my new "how it works" to give time for everybody's useless comments before I check in the source.

http://we.lovebitco.in/how_it_works.html

I created the content with a few goals:

• Efficient use of language,
• 100% accurate, no misleading analogies,
• Starting simple, read as long as you want before you feel you can trust Bitcoin,
• Technical info in sidebars, in the style of "For Dummies" books.

Nice work. Though I think we can't make this the default starting point. This is a known rule when creating website : if we fail to explain things to the user within a few seconds, then we just lose these visitors. Period. We can gain full attention of our visitors only if we succeed to explain things in a very concise way first. And only then, more extensive content can be added (and is in fact very needed in my opinion). But it should never be the starting point otherwise the website will do the opposite of what we want : it will confuse or scare people.

I am not against adding this content as "the long/extended version" of how it works. We could add a link at the bottom of the page saying something like "Want to read more, see the extended version of this page, or Bitcoin wiki..". And if we don't do that, I think that all points in your texts must end up somewhere at least in the future.

Also if we go in that direction, I will comment your texts and prepare a list of suggestions. I think your general approach and texts are good. The geek facts bubbles is a good idea.

[SgtSpike]

This is amazing, well done.  I've been waiting for an update like this to the bitcoin.org page for quite some time.

When can/will it go live?

[deepceleron]

I think there need to be some grammar fixes:

* Bitcoin has its own unit
* it is valued independently on the merits of its usefulness and scarcity.

http://garyes.stormloader.com/its.html

Possessive = no apostrophe.

it's =  only used as a contraction of "it is".

edit, I just found two more "it's" in the page, thanks. I didn't run a spell checker either, so I just caught the word "aboout" too...

[blockgenesis]

This is amazing, well done.  I've been waiting for an update like this to the bitcoin.org page for quite some time.

When can/will it go live?

Thanks!

It's up to the developers I guess. So far, this project gained their attention and I've adapted the content to a lot of feedback already. I think it's just a matter of time before it is considered mature enough to be used.

As Mike said earlier, this is only a starting point. We are probably not going to wait for the FAQ to be complete before publishing the first version.

At least two issues that remain are :

1. The design (many people seemed to say that the current design needed improvement, but didn't go into details).
2. Blockchain/my wallet (there is so far as many people that wants blockchain in the "choose-your-wallet" page then people that wants to remove it)

[herzmeister]

I think there need to be some grammar fixes:

* Bitcoin has its own unit
* it is valued independently on the merits of its usefulness and scarcity.

http://garyes.stormloader.com/its.html

Possessive = no apostrophe.

it's =  only used as a contraction of "it is".

I know, that's why I posted the corrected version already. 

[calian]

I would change the word Vocabulary. Terminology sounds better.

[SgtSpike]

This is amazing, well done.  I've been waiting for an update like this to the bitcoin.org page for quite some time.

When can/will it go live?

Thanks!

It's up to the developers I guess. So far, this project gained their attention and I've adapted the content to a lot of feedback already. I think it's just a matter of time before it is considered mature enough to be used.

As Mike said earlier, this is only a starting point. We are probably not going to wait for the FAQ to be complete before publishing the first version.

At least two issues that remain are :

1. The design (many people seemed to say that the current design needed improvement, but didn't go into details).
2. Blockchain/my wallet (there is so far as many people that wants blockchain in the "choose-your-wallet" page then people that wants to remove it)

I think the design is excellent myself, but I don't really have an eye for graphical things.  I would add that I am a huge proponent of blockchain.info, and definitely would like to see it stay as a wallet listed on the site.

[novusordo]

I'd remove the random vertically-scrolling text on the sides. It's a neat effect, but it also makes the page unnecessarily complicated, and Bitcoin is complicated enough to understand for noobs already. We want people to go to this site and think "Oh, this is simpler than I thought it would be!"

Also this:

I would change the word Vocabulary. Terminology sounds better.

[potato5491]

Really nice site. As a newcomer to bitcoin I found this offers an appropriate level of detail. A few suggestions for you to consider are below.

Home page:
Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority: managing transactions and issuing money are carried out collectively by the network. Through many of its unique properties, Bitcoin allows exciting uses that could not be covered by any previous payment systems.
->
Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority, transaction validation is carried out collectively by the network. Through its unique properties, Bitcoin permits many exciting applications not possible with traditional payment systems.

About page:
As of February 2013, here are some statistics. -> Below are some statistics (valid at the time of writing, February 2013).

Vocab page:
Some Bitcoin words you might ear -> Some Bitcoin words you might hear
And I suggest that the current Private Key entry in the vocabulary (see below) should note that in the case of eWallets, they hold the private key.

Private Key

A private key is a secret piece of data that proves your right to spends Bitcoin from a specific Bitcoin address through a cryptographic signature. Each Bitcoin address has its own unique private key. Your private keys are stored by your Bitcoin wallet software in your computer. Private keys must never be revealed as they allow you to spend Bitcoins for their respective Bitcoin addresses.

[just1nmc]

Sorry if this has come up before, but there doesn't seem to be information about buying bitcoins?

On the "How it works" page, it says "So all that is left to do that this point is to buy a few Bitcoins and to keep them safe."
It seems like half the trouble people run into is actually purchasing their first bitcoin; could a link be added there?

[blockgenesis]

I have made a bunch of little design polishing for those who didn't like the current design. More gradients, less extreme contrasts, some colors are less bright, some icons that were too abstract were replaced or improved, it is now easier to notice that the top menu is a menu. Etc.. No major change there. But a lot of little improvements.

Before you comment, make sure that you empty the cache of your browser correctly. Otherwise you will most probably see deprecated styles.

Here are comparing before/after screenshots :

(deleted)

[blockgenesis]

I would change the word Vocabulary. Terminology sounds better.

I changed it, then I questioned what I see, and reversed it..

Don't you feel that "terminology" means the same, but is just less common speaking?

Terminology sounds more "scientific" but less "everyday words" to me.

[blockgenesis]

Some Bitcoin words you might ear -> Some Bitcoin words you might hear
And I suggest that the current Private Key entry in the vocabulary (see below) should note that in the case of eWallets, they hold the private key.

Ah, good point. Thanks!

I am not answering each comment, but I read them all and keep notes.

[blockgenesis]

Sorry if this has come up before, but there doesn't seem to be information about buying bitcoins?

On the "How it works" page, it says "So all that is left to do that this point is to buy a few Bitcoins and to keep them safe."
It seems like half the trouble people run into is actually purchasing their first bitcoin; could a link be added there?

Totally true. Unfortunately, I doubt that bitcoin.org will be the right place to do promotion because of its official status. I think there is a need for a nice website to promote wallets, exchanges, merchant tools, merchants, and everything around this. Weusecoins already does this to a certain degree and we link to it. The wiki also contains a lot of information, but just cannot have the same qualities than a friendly website.

[jim618]

I would change the word Vocabulary. Terminology sounds better.

I changed it, then I questioned what I see, and reversed it..

Don't you feel that "terminology" means the same, but is just less common speaking?

Terminology sounds more "scientific" but less "everyday words" to me.

Another possibility you could try is 'Glossary' (which has the advantage of being a little shorter).

[marcus_of_augustus]

Just a suggestion, but you might ask one of the legal minds that loiter around here to pass an eye over it ...

e.g. ... claiming to "issue money" has been known to provoke the full fury of the state machinery.

Maybe disclaimers and etc. ... unless it is being hosted in an "undisclosed location" the site needs to be mindful of the jurisdiction of its hosting to the legal claims it is making on the web pages at a minimum.

[blockgenesis]

Just a suggestion, but you might ask one of the legal minds that loiter around here to pass an eye over it ...

e.g. ... claiming to "issue money" has been known to provoke the full fury of the state machinery.

Maybe disclaimers and etc. ... unless it is being hosted in an "undisclosed location" the site needs to be mindful of the jurisdiction of its hosting to the legal claims it is making on the web pages at a minimum.

Extremely interesting, is there any one here with enough legal knowledge to give good advises and do a revision of the texts?

I wanted to proceed this way -> Build the site -> Improve it through feedback -> Technical revision -> Legal revision

This is indeed a very important point and I would appreciate to have help on this.

[Mike Hearn]

Can you cite that please? I don't think there's any issue (pun intended).

There are specific laws that govern the issuance of currency. They impact organizations that issue backed currencies that are pegged to some other currency, and are intended to increase confidence (by letting people know that if the issuing org goes bankrupt they can still cash in their beenz/flooz/etc).

Although Bitcoin is issued, Bitcoin has no issuer. So there's no problem. Besides, you can't talk about currency without talking about where it comes from.

[just1nmc]

Sorry if this has come up before, but there doesn't seem to be information about buying bitcoins?

On the "How it works" page, it says "So all that is left to do that this point is to buy a few Bitcoins and to keep them safe."
It seems like half the trouble people run into is actually purchasing their first bitcoin; could a link be added there?

Totally true. Unfortunately, I doubt that bitcoin.org will be the right place to do promotion because of its official status. I think there is a need for a nice website to promote wallets, exchanges, merchant tools, merchants, and everything around this. Weusecoins already does this to a certain degree and we link to it. The wiki also contains a lot of information, but just cannot have the same qualities than a friendly website.

That's true. Could we put in a link to http://www.weusecoins.com/getting-started.php on the "How it works" page as a temporary solution? That way the readers at least know that weusecoins has information about buying bitcoins.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Can you cite that please? I don't think there's any issue (pun intended).

Although Bitcoin is issued, Bitcoin has issuer. So there's no problem. Besides, you can't talk about currency without talking about where it comes from.

Good pun, there is indeed an issue ... but I could be wrong. I don't have any problem with discussions of the issuance function or describing where the Bitcoin currency comes from.

Specifically, I saw that the current wording claims the network is  "... managing transactions and issuing money ...",  surely safer (and more correct) to say "... managing transactions and issuing Bitcoin ..." or "... managing transactions and issuing currency ..."?

I would advise to just stay as far away as possible from referring to bitcoin as "money" and you don't need to anyway. Anywhere you feel inclined to write "money" just substitute "Bitcoin". If nothing else it is unnecessarily pretentious anyway and opens it up to claims of false advertising/prospectus if the whole project collapses.

[blockgenesis]

I just got the same advise in the legal section of the forum. I've updated the page, thanks!

[Atheros]

Would someone please define for me what the problem with the existing website is?

And what is this new website's target audience?

[blockgenesis]

Would someone please define for me what the problem with the existing website is?

And what is this new website's target audience?

The answer is in the question, the previous website did have a restricted target audience. Being more developer orientated.

The new website aims to be accessible for the general public. And have a few specialized content for each user category (individual, organization, devs, enthusiasts), because each of those speak a different language.

Just refer at my initial post for the list of enhancements.

[blockgenesis]

Another possibility you could try is 'Glossary' (which has the advantage of being a little shorter).

Good one. But I don't see one that has a real advantage over the other. And there is already a bunch of links that points to vocabulary (and vocabulaire in the french version). So unless there is a real problem with "vocabulary", I would concentrate on other priorities. Like adding more extensive contents and making sure that our texts don't present legal risks.

[blockgenesis]

deepceleron : What are you thinking about my idea to add your content as the "extended How it works" page? I saved your work in order to adapt it later.

[Atheros]

The answer is in the question, the previous website did have a restricted target audience. Being more developer orientated.

The new website aims to be accessible for the general public. And have a few specialized content for each user category (individual, organization, devs, enthusiasts), because each of those speak a different language.

Just refer at my initial post for the list of enhancements.

Well then the Bitcoin Wiki is superior.

Let us review.

- Help develop sustainable Bitcoin ecosystem everywhere in the world, in all languages. The wiki is already multilingual.
- Publish official specification, documentation and recommandations. The wiki already has a working specification and documentation. If it needs a better specification then the wiki is the perfect place for it.
- Present a good summary about Bitcoin that is contextual to the visitor category interests. The wiki has links on the right hand side that are clear, and range from 'Introduction' for the newbies to 'Software' and 'Mining' for the more knowledgeable to Developer Info and the RPC reverence for developers.
- Try to put a end on the "cannot get to explain Bitcoin correctly" problem that happens once every minute in the world. Again, the wiki has a good introduction.
- Protect Bitcoin better against "misunderstandings, misinterpretations and misrepresentations" (from the Foundation mission statement). The wiki already has a myths page as well as a host of other resources.

So far the Wiki meets all of your goals. I think that you don't like the current bitcoin.org website because it is not an information resource but at least it is professional and attractive and it links to the Wiki in important places. People complain that they don't understand Bitcoin not because there are not clear and understandable resources available but because those people are intellectually lazy.

[blockgenesis]

Well then the Bitcoin Wiki is superior.

Ah, I see. You think that the current website aims to replace the wiki? It's not the case. We still link to it everywhere. And it is indeed a nice and precious resource.

Comparing the website against the wiki is meaningless, both achieve different goals. The wiki can go much more in depth. The website is more accessible for the masses and is a better place for a concise and accessible presentation. (And not everyone understand how softwares and finance works, it's not a matter of laziness).

I do like the current website (and recycled all its content BTW).

[Atheros]

We can indeed try to improve what we have. Thank you for trying.

I understand that you do not intend to replace the wiki.

[blockgenesis]

We can indeed try to improve what we have. I do not think we should not so thank you for trying.

I understand that you do not intend to replace the wiki.

If you have any suggestion or specific feedback (positive or negative), I will take it into account. For sure it can't please everyone. But I'm always trying to get the best possible result and to take all feedback. The website has already been reviewed, fixed and improved by many people.

[dr_nix]

You might also want to consider hiding your computer's IP address so that it cannot be logged using a tool like Tor.

To me this reads as if Tor is the tool that is used to log ip addresses.

I'd change this to:

You might also want to consider hiding your computer's IP address so that it cannot be logged by others. You can use a tool like Tor to accomplish this.

[blockgenesis]

You might also want to consider hiding your computer's IP address so that it cannot be logged using a tool like Tor.

To me this reads as if Tor is the tool that is used to log ip addresses.

I'd change this to:

You might also want to consider hiding your computer's IP address so that it cannot be logged by others. You can use a tool like Tor to accomplish this.

Ah, that's right. Thanks! Will fix it!

[hazek]

A few minor suggestions (I'll highlight what I changed):

From the how it works page:

The basics for a new user:

As a new user, you only need to choose a wallet that you will install on your computer or on your mobile phone. Once your wallet is created, you have your first Bitcoin address and you can create more whenever you need one. You can disclose one of your Bitcoin addresses to your friends so that they can pay you. The same way, you can pay your friends if they give you their addresses. In fact, this is pretty similar to how email works. So all that is left to do that this point is to buy a few Bitcoins and to keep them safe. As a user, you are not required to understand the rest of the technical details.

As a new user, you only need to choose a wallet that you will install on your computer or on your mobile phone. Once you have your wallet installed, it will automatically generate your first Bitcoin address and you can create more whenever you need one. You can disclose one of your Bitcoin addresses to your friends so that they can pay you or vice versa, you can pay your friends if they give you their addresses. In fact, this is pretty similar to how email works. So all that is left to do at this point is to get some bitcoins and to keep them safe. In order to start using Bitcoin, you are not required to understand the rest of the technical details.

Blockchain:

The entire Bitcoin network relies on the blockchain. The blockchain is a shared public transaction log, in chronological order. All confirmed transactions are included in the blockchain with no exception so that new transactions can be verified to be spending bitcoins that are actually owned by the spender. The integrity of the blockchain is enforced with cryptography.

The entire Bitcoin network relies on the blockchain. The blockchain is a shared public chronological log of all past transactions. All valid transactions are included in the blockchain with no exception so that it can be verified the new transactions are spending bitcoins that are actually owned by the spender. The validity of the blockchain itself is determined with cryptography.

Transaction:

A transaction is a transfer of value between Bitcoin addresses that gets included in the blockchain. Bitcoin wallets keep a secret piece of data called a private key for each Bitcoin address. Private keys are used to sign transactions, providing a mathematical proof that they come from the owner of the addresses. The signature also prevents the transaction from being altered by anybody once it has been issued. All transactions are broadcast between users and confirmed by the network in the following minutes, through a process called mining.

A transaction is a transfer of bitcoins between Bitcoin addresses. Bitcoin wallets keep a secret piece of data called a private key for each Bitcoin address. Private keys are used to sign transactions, providing a mathematical proof of ownership for the bitcoins being sent. The signature also prevents the transaction from being altered by anybody once it has been carried out. All valid transactions are broadcasted between users and confirmed by the network through a process called mining in the following minutes.

Mining:

Mining is a distributed consensus system that is used to include and confirm waiting transactions in the blockchain. It enforces a chronological order in the blockchain, protects the neutrality of the network, and stops different computers disagreeing on the state of the system. To be confirmed, transactions must be packed in a block that fits very strict cryptographic rules that will be verified by the network. These rules prevent any previous block from being modified because it would invalidate all following blocks. It creates the equivalent of a competitive lottery that prevents any individual from easily adding new blocks consecutively in the blockchain. This way, no individuals can control what is included in the blockchain or replace parts of the blockchain and roll back their own spends.

Mining is a distributed consensus system that is used to include new transactions into the blockchain thereby confirming they are valid. It determines a chronological order in the blockchain, protects the decentralization of the network, and allows different computers part of the network to agree on the state of Bitcoin. In order to be confirmed, transactions must be packaged into blocks that fit very strict cryptographic rules which allow the network to determine the validity of those blocks. These rules prevent any previous block from being modified because doing so would invalidate all the following blocks. Mining also creates the equivalent of a competitive lottery that prevents any individual from easily adding new blocks consecutively into the blockchain. This way, no individual or a small group of individuals can control what is included into the blockchain or replace parts of the blockchain and roll back their own spends or spend bitcoins they don't own.

[evoorhees]

I really like the layout and much of the content of this new site, however I do not like the graphics/design work. I think it looks less professional than the current design of bitcoin.org.

Bitcoin.org deserves utterly brilliant graphic design. It should be stunning. I'm willing to put up the funds to make this happen, up to $8,000. Can whomever is in charge of this new site version get in touch with me if they'd like to take my offer? Evoorhees on skype is probably best.

[hazek]

Can whomever is in charge of this new site version get in touch with me if they'd like to take my offer? Evoorhees on skype is probably best.

Erik I 100% agree with you. However it's open source development, so all you have to do is hire a good designer and point him towards: https://github.com/bitcoin-org/bitcoin.org and then make sure his work gets pulled.

[blockgenesis]

Can whomever is in charge of this new site version get in touch with me if they'd like to take my offer? Evoorhees on skype is probably best.

Erik I 100% agree with you. However it's open source development, so all you have to do is hire a good designer and point him towards: https://github.com/bitcoin-org/bitcoin.org and then make sure his work gets pulled.

Indeed, feel free to do the work and take feedback. I created this one with absolutely no idea about how it would be received.

If you provide the graphics and a design that receive a better general opinion on this forum than the one I did, I will be wiling to integrate the graphics and re-code the site to fit the new design. Unless it's really fancy and complicate, I will be able to reproduce the design with a good accuracy in HTML/CSS.

BTW, I am also listening if anyone want to be more specific about what are the problems with the current design. I can try many improvements. But I need specific feedback.

[xcsler]

Take Erik's money and make the webpage look something like this...
http://www.apple.com/itunes/
I think they know what they're doing when it comes to marketing. 

[blockgenesis]

A few minor suggestions (I'll highlight what I changed):

Thanks!

Some of these parts have been reviewed many time, so I included many of your changes but not them all. If you feel that one is especially important, don't hesitate to add comments about them so that everyone can discuss. I will explain why I felt we should keep the current version for these specific cases.

I also made a few reformulation that (I think) cover the reason for a few changes you suggested while still being compatible with other rules, such as the length of the sentences, the bold summary that must stay short and single-lined, the width of the paragraphs, etc..

[hazek]

A few minor suggestions (I'll highlight what I changed):

Thanks!

Some of these parts have been reviewed many time, so I included many of your changes but not them all. If you feel that one is especially important, don't hesitate to add comments about them so that everyone can discuss. I will explain why I felt we should keep the current version for these specific cases.

Yeah I felt that pretty much all of my changes were important. Right now the way you left is quite confusing and some of the terms such as ".. integrity of the blockchain is enforced.." are just plain wrong. Also I thought, and please don't take offense, right now some of those sentences simply sound French. I tried to change the flow a bit and clean them up even if I made them slightly longer. And I'm sure someone else could do an even better job at that than me, but as it is right now it's pretty awful (grammar and mainly style wise).

[blockgenesis]

Yeah I felt that pretty much all of my changes were important. Right now the way you left is quite confusing and some of the terms such as ".. integrity of the blockchain is enforced.." are just plain wrong. Also I thought, and please don't take offense, right now some of those sentences simply sound French. I tried to change the flow a bit and clean them up even if I made them slightly longer. And I'm sure someone else could do an even better job at that than me, but as it is right now it's pretty awful (grammar and mainly style wise).

You can review what I've done with them, live and on github. And report what you feel is still wrong.

Concerning the "integrity of the blockchain is enforced by cryptography..", I wonder why you think this is wrong. Each block contains a signature that prevents any change in its own content _and_ in the content of all previous blocks. As such, the blockchain can't be corrupted or changed in any way. The same way, we also use a Merkle tree to share the blockchain with no risk of corruption just like torrent, thanks to cryptography. That is what I wanted to materialize in one sentence.

[blockgenesis]

Take Erik's money and make the webpage look something like this...
http://www.apple.com/itunes/
I think they know what they're doing when it comes to marketing.  

Apple.com have no layout design :-) It's just a white page. And I think that the reason for this is obviously that they have plenty of magnificent pictures of their cute stuff and they want to draw 100% of people attention to it. In our case, Bitcoin is immaterial and we don't sell a product.. So it seems to me that we can't do the exact same thing.

[hazek]

Yeah I felt that pretty much all of my changes were important. Right now the way you left is quite confusing and some of the terms such as ".. integrity of the blockchain is enforced.." are just plain wrong. Also I thought, and please don't take offense, right now some of those sentences simply sound French. I tried to change the flow a bit and clean them up even if I made them slightly longer. And I'm sure someone else could do an even better job at that than me, but as it is right now it's pretty awful (grammar and mainly style wise).

You can review what I've done with them, live and on github. And report what you feel is still wrong.

Whoops, I only checked what you changed at http://174.142.20.146/en/, I'll take a look at github.

Concerning the "integrity of the blockchain is enforced by cryptography..", I wonder why you think this is wrong. Each block contains a signature that prevents any change in its own content _and_ in the content of all previous blocks. As such, the blockchain can't be corrupted or changed in any way. The same way, we also use a Merkle tree to share the blockchain with no risk of corruption just like torrent, thanks to cryptography. That is what I wanted to materialize in one sentence.

Two reasons:

1) No where in Bitcoin can any type of enforcing be found, all there is is validation. Each peer for itself validates that the rules it is coded to follow are followed within transactions, blocks and the blockchain. But because the entire network validates the same rules on the same piece of data at the same time an illusion of enforcement can be seen when in reality all nodes are doing their own independent validating and through clever design continuously arrive at the same result but they just as well may not (say if a temporary fork happens).

2) Enforcement of integrity is also too definitive and too strict. We all know very well that an >50% attacker will follow the rules and yet is able to perpetrate fraud in the form of double spends i.e. compromising the integrity of the blockchain.

For these two reasons I think it's accurate to say "The validity of the blockchain itself is determined with cryptography." instead of "The integrity of the blockchain is enforced with cryptography.".

[whitenight639]

I havn't read all of this thread and I'd like to help,


When I first looked into bitcoin I read lots of stuff that put me off saying it was a ponzi scheme and just made up money etc,
I looked into it again some months later and came accross this site which had all the answers i needed to be a Bitcoin groupy lol


https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ


It's a very good FAQ for n00bs, please consider linking too it or answering some of the same questions or using there content if thats allowed.

[alexkravets]

Gorgeous new logo was just up voted to the top on /r/Bitcoin reddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1a03gu/as_a_3d_artist_this_is_my_take_on_the_bitcoin/

[deepceleron]

This is a known rule when creating website : if we fail to explain things to the user within a few seconds, then we just lose these visitors. Period. We can gain full attention of our visitors only if we succeed to explain things in a very concise way first. And only then, more extensive content can be added (and is in fact very needed in my opinion). But it should never be the starting point otherwise the website will do the opposite of what we want : it will confuse or scare people.
...

The problems with the site design that make it not ready for prime-time:

A. The actual content is small - it has merely:
  1. Four pages of bullet points for individuals - enthusiasts.
  2. One page of Bitcoin terms and one page of "sort of" how it works
  3. A "you need to backup your wallet" page  
  4. Pages of off-site links

B. It has a sparse design that has little in the way of box model or templates for rich content creation. I had to repurpose the only box in CSS, used as a table-of-contents elsewhere, to do anything interesting (geek facts shown at http://we.lovebitco.in/how-bitcoin-works/). This will make adding pages with structured content more difficult and less uniform. The menu doesn't allow much room for expansion or deep content either, and in appearance it also says "not much here".

C. The redesign apparently has the same mission of weusecoins.com, but doesn't do it as well.


What bitcoin.org should be is a home page for the reference Bitcoin client, the Bitcoin protocol, for promotion of the currency as a viable system, and only as a sub-mission be a gateway to other resources. Every other third-party wallet, service, and merchant site has a home page, Bitcoin as a client that runs virtually 100% of the backbone of Bitcoin sites and nodes needs one.

Inclusion of some third-party sites and services will result in the omission of others, thereby creating a perception of recommendation or trustworthiness; it may be better to omit all third party references and defer to other directories of services.

As an example of a modern site that is simple, but does not lack content for the benefit of the noob:

http://www.ubuntu.com/

[Mike Hearn]

Yeah I felt that pretty much all of my changes were important. Right now the way you left is quite confusing and some of the terms such as ".. integrity of the blockchain is enforced.." are just plain wrong.

Well, I'm a native English speaker and don't see anything wrong with phrasing it in such a way. The difference between "enforcing integrity" and "validation" is the sort of thing philosophers can argue about

I think we can wordsmith the site all day, but at some point it needs to launch. It's good enough for v1.

[blockgenesis]

Gorgeous new logo was just up voted to the top on /r/Bitcoin reddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1a03gu/as_a_3d_artist_this_is_my_take_on_the_bitcoin/

Very nice, indeed. But not really adapted to small size. Was there some sort of official logo/brand decision in the past for Bitcoin?

[alexkravets]

I'm not sure anything can ever be "official" about Bitcoin, at best perhaps somehow endorsed by Butcoin Foundation, I posted the link here as an FYI, because the artist granted all rights into public domain use, people and even Bitcoin.org can simply use it where ever if they like it. I already used it for a YouTube
Background for a Btcoin educational interview http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BZH0xJg4LQo

Cheers ...

[blockgenesis]

I did some important changes in the design : http://174.142.20.146/en/

[blockgenesis]

..

As said earlier, this is only a start. I completely agree on adding more extensive content. But we must start somewhere in order to get there, this new bitcoin.org already add a lot of content over the previous one. And my goal is to go much further in the future.

[Mike Hearn]

The latest designs are looking significantly better, this is great!

[misterbigg]

I just popped in to check the website redesign since it started. The changes are great!!! I like that there are fewer colors, and that it is more obvious which items can be clicked.

[hazek]

I just popped in to check the website redesign since it started. The changes are great!!! I like that there are fewer colors, and that it is more obvious which items can be clicked.

I agree, it's starting to look a lot better.

[theymos]

The "choose your wallets" page is too wide.

https://i.imgur.com/WFEM0Di.png

[blockgenesis]

The "choose your wallets" page is too wide.

https://i.imgur.com/WFEM0Di.png

This is visible only for low resolutions (1024x768 and mobiles). And that specific CSS style is actually made for them, so that the "description bubbles" don't render outside of the page (and prevent visitors to read half of them). While it's not perfect, I think it's better than the problem it solves. Though if you have a better solution to this, I am interested.

[blockgenesis]

I just popped in to check the website redesign since it started. The changes are great!!! I like that there are fewer colors, and that it is more obvious which items can be clicked.

I agree, it's starting to look a lot better.

Nice to hear.

I tried to address what I read in all feedback I received.

Nothing prevents us to continue improve it. I think next major improvements will target extending and improving the content (and that will address a few other previous feedback).

But at least, I think we have something more serious now.

[defxor]

"And much more!" in a bullet list sounds like something from daytime tv shop channels. Besides that - great!

[fizzisist]

"And much more!" in a bullet list sounds like something from daytime tv shop channels. Besides that - great!

Agreed. Do you have an idea to improve it?

[blockgenesis]

I think there needs to be a better description of exactly what the Bitcoin foundation is, how it is structures, and how it fits in within the Bitcoin software.  If it is a non-profit then the tax returns should be posted.   Also, they post e-mail addresses and ask people to contact yet I had tried that in the past and nobody ever answered.  When I have seen those questions on here the responses have been rather defensive.  There seems to be a lot of questions arising over conflicts of interest so this is going to come up more and more.

The other issue is that when people download the software they are shown a number of ads and it is unclear what is actually being downloaded.  It is very easy to click one of these ads and think you are downloading Bitcoin when it is actually something else like pkzip.

Good points, thanks!

[Herodes]

I think there needs to be a better description of exactly what the Bitcoin foundation is, how it is structures, and how it fits in within the Bitcoin software.  If it is a non-profit then the tax returns should be posted.   Also, they post e-mail addresses and ask people to contact yet I had tried that in the past and nobody ever answered.  When I have seen those questions on here the responses have been rather defensive.  There seems to be a lot of questions arising over conflicts of interest so this is going to come up more and more.

The other issue is that when people download the software they are shown a number of ads and it is unclear what is actually being downloaded.  It is very easy to click one of these ads and think you are downloading Bitcoin when it is actually something else like pkzip.

Good points, thanks!

Excellent points. Defensiveness is also NOT a good sign. Any humble intelligent man should tolerate to be asked hard questions and be mistrusted. Trust is built over time. Nobody should take such issues personal.

Maybe most of the guys are just busy as well ?

[Headsaflame]

Hello everyone! Great work on revitalizing the bitcoin brand!  I have felt it was long over due.

I started working on my own revamp of the site before I was directed to this thread. I think if we all work together we can get something really great. 

Here's what I have so far:
http://forrst.com/posts/Rebranding_of_Bitcoin-Ft5

I'm working on an updated version, but with the double-bar "B" graphic, and a slightly different layout.

Any suggestions?

[alexkravets]

This is just awesome.  I love the implied speed in the new horizontal lines of the logo

[Headsaflame]

Thanks!

I posted this on the bitcoin reddit, and have had quite a mix response on the horizontal lined "B".

I'm still working on this, trying to brainstorm better options.

I'll keep everyone updated on what I have.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1akwtj/bitcoin_branding_update_attempt_1/

[blockgenesis]

Yep, I think I also prefer your logo over the last ones, very nice work!

Really, if you want to give help with the design, feel free to contribute, fork my code and propose improvements.

The current design might be published meanwhile because the pull request is already being reviewed and received enough good feedback, but that should not prevents us to improve it if we end up with something that people and developers think is be better.

Your design is neat. The two things I see is that I predict some resistance if we go further into "promotion" with bitcoin.org and the design needs to handle extensive content (more pages are to come). There are also technical restrictions, like the searchbar, that cannot work as we are using static files. (And there is probably other considerations with translation and else).

[sounds]

What languages should be translated first? I have lots of international contacts and I'd be happy to focus on a translation effort for one language.

[blockgenesis]

Before we go with community translations, I'm currently discussing about how it can be done right. There are some considerations. Like potential inaccuracies in translations or translations that don't get updated often enough. So it's most likely that the english texts are going to be proof-read many times in the future before being published (and translated). Some translation guidelines are also needed.

Personally, I want the website to be translated in as many languages as possible (as long as each transaction is accurate and good quality). So you can count on me to come back about this if nobody opposes to this idea.

Thanks for offering yourself!

[blockgenesis]

"And much more!" in a bullet list sounds like something from daytime tv shop channels. Besides that - great!

Agreed. Do you have an idea to improve it?

It might make sense to put the What is Bitcoin video there. So that this page gives a warm welcome, and not just grey bullets texts.

However, a video there creates "a box in a box in a box", and it's a box near the buttons with a lot of white space between.. I am not satisfied with the result yet..

[teste]

Hi,

I think the new users who discover bitcoin for first time usually want to know where he/she can spend the bitcoins. I know exist many directory listing sites that show places that accept bitcoin, but I think all sites database is closed.
I think we should have a listing of places that accept bitcoin with a open database (openstreetmap.org is great for this). They already have the key payment:bitcoin (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:payment). I think exist now only three places on osm with key payment:bitcoin.
You could request this data from openstreetmap and show the places information on a page in bitcoin.org. I think a button with (places that accept bitcoin) should exist on main bitcoin.org page.
You could create a form with predefined fields and a map to insert places location/info and send to openstreetmap server.
I think It's important add the data to openstreetmap because all other apps like GPS ones can use it.

What do you think?

Obs: Sorry for repeat (I think) many times. My English is really bad.

[blockgenesis]

Making such an index might in fact represent a full-time job, or requires a little community to build the project and share the task of keeping resources up-to-date. This is something I can't do myself but I would love to see this happen. So, feel free to do it.

There is already pretty extensive lists of merchants on the wiki and http://bitcoinnavigator.com/

We already link to the wiki. However if a nice website 100% specialized on this task is created, I think it's worth giving it more visibility.

The same is true for merchants tools, wallets services, and else.

[blockgenesis]

After a complete month of feedback and improvements, there it is! Our v1.0 is alive.
http://bitcoin.org/

I should come back soon with translation guidelines.

If you want to make new improvements, feel free to fork the github repository and take the feedback of the community about your changes.

[jgarzik]

Great job!  Looks nice, very informative.

[SgtSpike]

After a complete month of feedback and improvements, there it is! Our v1.0 is alive.
http://bitcoin.org/

I should come back soon with translation guidelines.

If you want to make new improvements, feel free to fork the github repository and take the feedback of the community about your changes.

So excellent.  Well done, good sir.

[Headsaflame]

Why are we using static web pages for this? We could easily build the site on wordpress or drupal and have communities, link directories, multiple translations, search capability, development blogs, etc.

What's stopping us from taking this to the next level?

Good work on the redesign by the way, it is far superior to what we had before, and the content is very well done.

[Gabi]

I think that some of the content of the invidduals/organizations/etc pages should be put on the homepage

[Ichthyo]

Why are we using static web pages for this? We could easily build the site on wordpress or drupal and have communities, link directories, multiple translations, search capability, development blogs, etc.

Well crafted static web pages are superior in any relevant way. They are easier to keep running and sane, they are easier to replicate, they require less processing power to serve, they have a greater longevity, they are way harder to attack and compromise.

The only argument for dynamic pages is when you really need frequent updates done by a lot of different people, or when you need a forum or when you need to sell some goods or services. None of this applies here.

What's stopping us from taking this to the next level?

<rant>
this isn't the next level. this is the deterioration and commercialisation of a great achievement (the world wide web). You have been lured into believing that you need a shitload of blinking and beeping shiny advertisement crap in order to have a happy life. This isn't true. In fact you don't need any of this crap, rather it sucks away the most valuable good you have, which is your life time
</rant>

         

[grue]

intentional? (the buttons are outside of margin)

[HostFat]

The link to Bitcoin Wallet (android) is:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.schildbach.wallet&hl=fr
You have to cut the &hl=fr

[dr_nix]

Before we go with community translations, I'm currently discussing about how it can be done right. There are some considerations. Like potential inaccuracies in translations or translations that don't get updated often enough. So it's most likely that the english texts are going to be proof-read many times in the future before being published (and translated). Some translation guidelines are also needed.

Personally, I want the website to be translated in as many languages as possible (as long as each transaction is accurate and good quality). So you can count on me to come back about this if nobody opposes to this idea.

Thanks for offering yourself!

Congratulations on the upgrade of your work to bitcoin.org!

About the guidelines and the translation process there are the following issues I see:
1) The translations must be kept up-to-date
2) The quality must be high

As I understood this project is set up this way (on github where pull requests are invited) to be able to translate everything, including things like urls and rewrite rules thereof. But there are downsides to not using a tool like transifex: Especially issue 1) becomes a problem I think.

Is there an easy solution to let translators know which sections in the source (English) have been updated since their last translation efforts? Maybe a very detailed summary should be written every time something changes in English? I've noticed in bitcoin-qt that sometimes a wording in the source changes only slightly but results in a big difference in meaning. If you don't know there has been such an update it is very easy to miss it when you compare a source and its translation side by side.

Regarding the quality issue (2): Should we maybe require a small team per language, so that we only let a language go live if there are at least say three people vouching to look after the translation?

Surely there is some experienced web developer here who has managed a high-profile multi lingual website?

I'd be very happy to contribute the Dutch translation, I've done also the bulk of bitcoin-qt so I can make them consistent.

[lonelyminer (Peter Šurda)]

Just wanted to say that I think the upgrade is a major improvement. I'm not a usability expert though so I can't contribute much.

[misterbigg]

The upgrade is a major improvement.

But bitcoin.org (which should be bitcoin.com, duh!) should have as it's primary goal to drive users to purchase bitcoins.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Well done, looks better than i expected and the diction is concise and meaningful ... let's keep it that way.

[labestiol]

But bitcoin.org (which should be bitcoin.com, duh!) should have as it's primary goal to drive users to purchase bitcoins.

Not sure it should drive users to buy, but it should certainly help those who want. Could you put a link to this page in the resources ?

Thanks for the good work

EDIT : Could you publish a btc address ? You deserve some tip

[grue]

The upgrade is a major improvement.

But bitcoin.org (which should be bitcoin.com, duh!) should have as it's primary goal to drive users to purchase bitcoins.

bitcoin.com and bitcoin.net are taken by domain squatters.

[hazek]

Love the redesign, and I especially love what you did with mobile and ewallets links.

[Herodes]

The new site is excellent, very informative!

Under 'Some things you need to know':

Under 'Be careful with online wallets', perhaps there should be a word or two about two-factor identification, which is safer than only a username and password?

Under 'Use an offline backup for savings'

Perhaps there should be a link here to a noob guide about how to secure the offline backups properly.

[blockgenesis]

intentional? (the buttons are outside of margin)

Yes, but most people apparently don't like it. So it's most likely to be changed in a near future, if we get to do it correcty without eating too much space in texts.

[blockgenesis]

Before we go with community translations, I'm currently discussing about how it can be done right. There are some considerations. Like potential inaccuracies in translations or translations that don't get updated often enough. So it's most likely that the english texts are going to be proof-read many times in the future before being published (and translated). Some translation guidelines are also needed.

Personally, I want the website to be translated in as many languages as possible (as long as each transaction is accurate and good quality). So you can count on me to come back about this if nobody opposes to this idea.

Thanks for offering yourself!

Congratulations on the upgrade of your work to bitcoin.org!

About the guidelines and the translation process there are the following issues I see:
1) The translations must be kept up-to-date
2) The quality must be high

As I understood this project is set up this way (on github where pull requests are invited) to be able to translate everything, including things like urls and rewrite rules thereof. But there are downsides to not using a tool like transifex: Especially issue 1) becomes a problem I think.

Is there an easy solution to let translators know which sections in the source (English) have been updated since their last translation efforts? Maybe a very detailed summary should be written every time something changes in English? I've noticed in bitcoin-qt that sometimes a wording in the source changes only slightly but results in a big difference in meaning. If you don't know there has been such an update it is very easy to miss it when you compare a source and its translation side by side.

Regarding the quality issue (2): Should we maybe require a small team per language, so that we only let a language go live if there are at least say three people vouching to look after the translation?

Surely there is some experienced web developer here who has managed a high-profile multi lingual website?

I'd be very happy to contribute the Dutch translation, I've done also the bulk of bitcoin-qt so I can make them consistent.

Github clearly is awesome to track updates in files. So I would say, yes, it's a little geek, but it's very efficient. I didn't go with transifex because this is only .html files so most of the content is only pure human readable texts to translate. As long as a translator doesn't touch the rare tags (<a></a>), then everything is ok. And even if it happens, it's easy to fix.

The second reason is that the structure of the site might actually needs to be adapted in some cases. And this setups makes all translated version independant of each other. So that if only one translation is not up-to-date, it won't prevents us to add more content in all others. All the opposite of a software that only have a few dialogs and fallback to english when nothing else is available, the website contains long texts and I think this would not give a good result.

Also, someone does not necessary needs to be a github expert to contribute. In the worst scenario, simply downloading the .html files, translating them and sending them back by email can do the trick. Github pull request only saves us time and allows us to work more efficiently.

Indeed, I think that having a more than one translator for each language (at least one native translator and another native speaker to review) sounds pretty good. However, I have almost no experience at leading such things. So any help will be appreciated.

[blockgenesis]

But bitcoin.org (which should be bitcoin.com, duh!) should have as it's primary goal to drive users to purchase bitcoins.

Not sure it should drive users to buy, but it should certainly help those who want. Could you put a link to this page in the resources ?

Thanks for the good work

EDIT : Could you publish a btc address ? You deserve some tip

I'm also not 100% sure about this, I'm keeping the idea. Clearly, this is going to be something new visitors will always search for.

You're right!! I added a donation address in my signature :-)

Thanks!

[blockgenesis]

The new site is excellent, very informative!

Under 'Some things you need to know':

Under 'Be careful with online wallets', perhaps there should be a word or two about two-factor identification, which is safer than only a username and password?

Under 'Use an offline backup for savings'

Perhaps there should be a link here to a noob guide about how to secure the offline backups properly.

Ah, good idea for two-factor!
I also had in mind to work some specific guides with advises and tips for important subjects like this one.

[RoxxR]

<Facepalm>
Of all clients, are you seriously pushing new, unsuspecting users to Multibit, which relies on Java, has coin-eating bugs and lacks wallet encryption?

[blockgenesis]

The upgrade is a major improvement.

But bitcoin.org (which should be bitcoin.com, duh!) should have as it's primary goal to drive users to purchase bitcoins.

I think many people will be against this. Because Bitcoin is vulnerable to speculation and if it grows too fast, it won't grow strong. And then, with a weak economy, bad things will happen, us being pointed as evil for users mistakes.

Also, bitcoin-qt that builds the backbone of the network is still experimental. I think that the recent chain fork should remains us all this. Bitcoin might be a very strong protocol, but its implementation is still fragile for the huge value that is exchanged through it. I think the very highest priority is to help Bitcoin development first by making sure that the Foundation gets enough funds to pay existing and new developers.

So basically yes, developping Bitcoin is great. But there might be strategic steps that are more likely to succeed in the long term.

[blockgenesis]

<Facepalm>
Of all clients, are you seriously pushing new, unsuspecting users to Multibit, which relies on Java, has coin-eating bugs and lacks wallet encryption?

Everyone on bitcoin-dev kind of agreed that no wallet is the right one. Multibit has been the one because it is a lightweight client. Most new users will get stuck with Bitcoin-Qt taking a complete day to sync, and it will be worse in the future. Though I am not aware myself of the coin-eating bug you refer too. If that is still accurate, then for sure it is a serious concern.

[misterbigg]

The upgrade is a major improvement.

But bitcoin.org (which should be bitcoin.com, duh!) should have as it's primary goal to drive users to purchase bitcoins.

I think many people will be against this. Because Bitcoin is vulnerable to speculation and if it grows too fast, it won't grow strong. And then, with a weak economy, bad things will happen, us being pointed as evil for users mistakes.

This is so condescending that it is borderline insulting. Give people as much rope as they want. But include a big disclaimer.

Also, bitcoin-qt that builds the backbone of the network is still experimental.

Which is so sad. In 4 years they couldn't produce an official 1.0 release? What does that tell us?

I think the very highest priority is to help Bitcoin development first by making sure that the Foundation gets enough funds to pay existing and new developers.

Then sell advertising space on bitcoin.org to exchanges.

[DoomDumas]

Gratz, nice work !!

Very interresting.. much more attractive.  Keep up the good work !

[dave111223]

intentional? (the buttons are outside of margin)

Yes, but most people apparently don't like it. So it's most likely to be changed in a near future, if we get to do it correcty without eating too much space in texts.

I think if you rounded the white background corners by 2 or 3px it might make it look better with the buttons.  Right now it looks weird because the round corner buttons are overlapping the square corner background.

[blockgenesis]

This is so condescending that it is borderline insulting. Give people as much rope as they want. But include a big disclaimer.

Maybe I don't explain myself correctly. But what I mean is that there is a point where marketing decreases the quality of the information. We need Bitcoin users that are well informed and that play well with Bitcoin. Both to actually protects us and to protect those users, and thus, the Bitcoin economy that is already enough volatile. Growing, yes. But growing strong.

I didn't say that it's necessarily a bad idea to let people find exchanges right from bitcoin.org . I'm just raising concerns so that if we do it, we try do to it well.

[blockgenesis]

Gratz, nice work !!

Very interresting.. much more attractive.  Keep up the good work !

Thanks all! I'm glad you enjoy it, indeed let's continue!

(and thanks for the donations by the way, someone already sent me a full BTC! Very appreciated)

[jgarzik]

Small request:

On the "Choose Your Wallet" page, put the name of each client underneath each icon.

It is annoying to hover the mouse over each icon, just to find the names.

[blockgenesis]

Small request:

On the "Choose Your Wallet" page, put the name of each client underneath each icon.

It is annoying to hover the mouse over each icon, just to find the names.

Will see what I can do. At the same time that I will improve the warning button.

[misterbigg]

Maybe I don't explain myself correctly. But what I mean is that there is a point where marketing decreases the quality of the information. We need Bitcoin users that are well informed and that play well with Bitcoin. Both to actually protects us and to protect those users, and thus, the Bitcoin economy that is already enough volatile. Growing, yes. But growing strong.

Meanwhile, as the residents of the ivory tower proclaim "slow, conservative growth" as the best path for Bitcoin (promising an official version 1.0 "sometime later this decade") certain factions have other plans:

[blockgenesis]

Meanwhile, as the residents of the ivory tower proclaim "slow, conservative growth" as the best path for Bitcoin (promising an official version 1.0 "sometime later this decade") certain factions have other plans:

Not quite sure you understand.. Stress testing is also what devs do. And SatoshiDice is a business with a concrete market, not pure "buy Bitcoin" speculation.

[misterbigg]

Stress testing is also what devs do. And SatoshiDice is a business with a concrete market, not pure "buy Bitcoin" speculation.

What I'm saying is that although the developers and associated foundation feel that slow and conservative growth is best, SatoshiDICE meanwhile is pumping its service and trying to get as much volume of transactions into the block chain as possible.

So even if some consensus is for slow and conservative growth, there is already one business which does not throttle its growth at all. There will certainly be more. Given that there are commercial interests which will inevitably add fuel to the fire, does it still make sense that we should try to control Bitcoin's growth by structuring the message to discourage casual users?

[blockgenesis]

What I'm saying is that although the developers and associated foundation feel that slow and conservative growth is best, SatoshiDICE meanwhile is pumping its service and trying to get as much volume of transactions into the block chain as possible.

So even if some consensus is for slow and conservative growth, there is already one business which does not throttle its growth at all. There will certainly be more. Given that there are commercial interests which will inevitably add fuel to the fire, does it still make sense that we should try to control Bitcoin's growth by structuring the message to discourage casual users?

We can't control Bitcoin growth, and we shouldn't. We can however avoid contributing to potential failures, and help preventing them.
Which means, giving as much accurate informations to the user and help sustainable economies to develop.

[misterbigg]

We can't control Bitcoin growth, and we shouldn't. We can however avoid contributing to potential failures, and help preventing them. Which means, giving as much accurate informations to the user and help sustainable economies to develop.

Now this, I can agree with 100%

[paraipan]

I would like to participate by translating the new bitcoin.org page to Spanish, but I don't know to who may I speak with for the purpose, thank you.

[Gabi]

Small request:

On the "Choose Your Wallet" page, put the name of each client underneath each icon.

It is annoying to hover the mouse over each icon, just to find the names.

Definitely this! At first i tought they were just icons, i was like "nice, and where are the links?" Put the name of the clients, their description and the link in the page, without having to hover the squares.
Omg, i just noticed that the squares with the ? aren't "new, still to unveil clients" but warnings, important warnings. Nonono, not good, why are they so hidden?


And well, fix the problem grue reported, the three squares going outside the white background. Is it intentional? Well anyone looking at that page will think "oh look they misplaced the three buttons, they go outside the white background

[blockgenesis]

I would like to participate by translating the new bitcoin.org page to Spanish, but I don't know to who may I speak with for the purpose, thank you.

I will give instructions soon. A few technical improvements are still required from my side, and it should not take long.

[paraipan]

I would like to participate by translating the new bitcoin.org page to Spanish, but I don't know to who may I speak with for the purpose, thank you.

I will give instructions soon. A few technical improvements are still required from my side, and it should not take long.

I understand and thanks for the fast reply.

Btw, if the site has a unified language file we will be able to translate to many other languages, with the help of bitcoiners on Rugatu.
To give you an example: http://www.rugatu.com/questions/6222/translate-into-your-language

[blockgenesis]

..

I will definitively work on most of these points in the next days.

[blockgenesis]

I understand and thanks for the fast reply.

Btw, if the site has a unified language file we will be able to translate to many other languages, with the help of bitcoiners on Rugatu.
To give you an example: http://www.rugatu.com/questions/6222/translate-into-your-language

This indeed looks good. But in practise, I fear this will end up being harder to work with as bitcoin.org is not a unified webapp, but a website with changing and extensive texts. I wouldn't want a out-of-date translated version to half show english content. And using variables when the files are already almost pure easy-to-translate texts sounds more complicate to me (and might be a nightmare to build with jekyll at a first glance), while giving us less flexibility to adapt the website for specific language needs.

I think I can provide something that will be easy enough to work with for anyone, while being technically efficient.

[rme]

I would like to participate by translating the new bitcoin.org page to Spanish, but I don't know to who may I speak with for the purpose, thank you.

I can also help in the Spanish translation. Contact me via MP if I can contribute.

[blockgenesis]

I would like to participate by translating the new bitcoin.org page to Spanish, but I don't know to who may I speak with for the purpose, thank you.

I can also help in the Spanish translation. Contact me via MP if I can contribute.

Just.. awesome!

[paraipan]

...

This indeed looks good. But in practise, I fear this will end up being harder to work with as bitcoin.org is not a unified webapp, but a website with changing and extensive texts. I wouldn't want a out-of-date translated version to half show english content. And using variables when the files are already almost pure easy-to-translate texts sounds more complicate to me (and might be a nightmare to build with jekyll at a first glance), while giving us less flexibility to adapt the website for specific language needs.

I understand, the updating will be handled the same way Bitcoin developers do, always leave new content clearly delineated so that everyone can catch up and translate.

Whatever solution you find is fine by me.

[blockgenesis]

I think that weusecoins and bitcoin.org are now ready to call for translations.

Here is the thread : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=159129.0

[paraipan]

I think that weusecoins and bitcoin.org are now ready to call for translations.

Here is the thread : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=159129.0

Got it

[paraipan]

I have a few questions, who is responsible for merging pull requests? Why is this one still pending?

[blockgenesis]

I have a few questions, who is responsible for merging pull requests? Why is this one still pending?

Because this pull request is.. 4 days old.

I asked on this pull request why the PGP key was removed in the first place. I think it's a good question to answer before everything.

There is no "one master". Any change that is controversial or non-trivial must get at least one ACK from developers. Sometime more depending on the importance of the change.

[paraipan]

I have a few questions, who is responsible for merging pull requests? Why is this one still pending?

Because this pull request is.. 4 days old.

I asked on this pull request why the PGP key was removed in the first place. I think it's a good question to answer before everything.

There is no "one master". Any change that is controversial or non-trivial must get at least one ACK from developers. Sometime more depending on the importance of the change.

Ok, got it.

It's quite odd that Satoshi's pgp key was removed in the first place, and now I see someone makes a pull request to add it back, key is ok I checked, and it stays there for days without being merged. Satoshi's key was never placed on bitcoin.org, didn't know that and sorry for the trouble.

[blockgenesis]

Ho, we are already on TV, through a old IE8 browser filmed with a cheap cell camera : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaOsM3RUNG8&feature=youtu.be&t=1m

But hey, here is a big incentive on improving the main page!!

[deepceleron]

I've just HTML-ized the Satoshi paper. It should be fairly portable.

http://we.lovebitco.in/bitcoin-paper/#start

[Herodes]

When I go to a site, for instance opera.com, what I want is to download the browser, and that's what I get. They autodetect what OS I'm running, and I get a big fat download button.

Why do we not have the same on bitcoin.org ?

As it happens, due to the forced network upgrade, I now wanted to upgrade a bitcoin node I have running on a VPS, and I went to bitcoin.org to get the official daemon. And I had to click on resources, then on 'Bitcoin wallets' before I could find what I was looking for, and before that I clicked around frenetically to find what I was after. People are not interested in reading all that stuff, they just want to download the client right away, so I think there should be a big fat download button on the frontpage, just like opera has. If the level to entry is too high, we'll surely lose some users. Perhaps there could be a 'tip'-mode implemented in the standard client, that would give new users some tips.

I mean - when people buy a new gadget, they just unpack it and try to figure out how it works, only if they don't get it to work, they go and read the manual, so I really do think we should make the download procedure easier for new users.

Also - who's determining and checking all the non-official clients, how do we know that nefarious code is not sneaked into any of these and that all of a sudden thousands of bitcoins are swiped away ? Perhaps rather than listing all the different wallets, there should be a link to a wiki page about 3rd-party wallets, with a warning on it.

A technical user might say that those interested will easily find what they're looking for anyway. But the impatient user might just leave the site and say that he didn't find any software to download.

Opinions ?

[Gabi]

I agree that the download page is a bit unclear right now.

The clients are "hidden" under the symbols and all these ? ? ? looks like clients still to unveil rather than important warning (under mobile wallet at first glance i suppose that bitcoin wallet is ready and there are 2 more clients still to unveil while under web wallets there are 4 clients to unveil)

[blockgenesis]

I've just HTML-ized the Satoshi paper. It should be fairly portable.

http://we.lovebitco.in/bitcoin-paper/#start

Nice work!

[blockgenesis]

When I go to a site, for instance opera.com, what I want is to download the browser, and that's what I get. They autodetect what OS I'm running, and I get a big fat download button.

Why do we not have the same on bitcoin.org ?
..

This has been discussed before. Bitcoin-Qt is not suitable for most users (downloading the whole blockchain does not make sense, and it will get even worse with time). My initial design had the nice download button with OS autodetect, and most of people disagreed.

However, I plan to try to make it more visible from the "choose your wallet" page with a "download" button or something..

[blockgenesis]

I agree that the download page is a bit unclear right now.

The clients are "hidden" under the symbols and all these ? ? ? looks like clients still to unveil rather than important warning (under mobile wallet at first glance i suppose that bitcoin wallet is ready and there are 2 more clients still to unveil while under web wallets there are 4 clients to unveil)

Yeah BTW, what would you put instead of the ? to bring people attention to them so that they hover with the mouse, see the warning and click to show them?

[Herodes]

This has been discussed before. Bitcoin-Qt is not suitable for most users (downloading the whole blockchain does not make sense, and it will get even worse with time). My initial design had the nice download button with OS autodetect, and most of people disagreed.

Did anyone think of the fact that most people disagreed is because most of the people that voiced their opinion is advanced users that care very much about bitcoin, and probably have good tech knowledge ? How will they be able to see how things should be from the 'not that interested - but still interested'-user point of view ? Heck, for most people on this forum, if you had to telnet into a remote machine and do a reverse ssh-tunnel to get the software, they would still do it.

If the Bitcoin-QT client is not suited for most people, then people could chose something else, but how do we do that, and how do we not favour one client over the other, and how the heck do we verify that some of the clients don't turn evil at one point and steal all the coins ?

Before any client is linked to from the official page, then it should well be ensured that there's nothing nefarious in it. What's to stop someone from making a slick client, building up a nice fan base, and then all of a sudden implement some sneaky feature that steals coins or send coins to the wrong address ?

What we need is someone to verify the integrity of a client, and then for a subsequent release a review of the diff for that new release. The easiest way to do this would be to remove all 3rd-party clients from the main site and rather link to a review site of some sort, I'm sure some would be willing to run that.

The more clients we get, the larger is the chance for something to go pear shaped at one point.

The information at bitcoin.org is great, but if you just want to get started, there should be a 'lazy quick-start guide' of sorts. We don't need to make the barrier to entry too high. Not that I don't think ppl who are really interested will not find their way, but imagine we have 10K visitors. With a big fat download button with OS-autodetect on the frontpage, all of these 10K visitors will immediately see that they in fact can download the software.

However, the more difficult we make it, ie. browse to one section, then a subsection, and then a subsection again, and then what client to chose ? And is it safe ? So many questions, not easy.. Then I guess a certain percentage of that 10K visitors rather give up and go to youtube to see failvids.

[Gavin Andresen]

Bitcoin is not a single product any more, so a "Download Now!" button doesn't make sense any more.

Just like bittorrent or linux aren't single products. And if you visit bittorrent.org or linux.org... guess what?  No download button.

[Herodes]

Bitcoin is not a single product any more, so a "Download Now!" button doesn't make sense any more.

Just like bittorrent or linux aren't single products. And if you visit bittorrent.org or linux.org... guess what?  No download button.

I think bitcoin, while sharing many properties with bittorrent and linux, is a more serious issue. We store value in our bitcoins. Therefore, helping the userbase of informed choices, and making sure that nothing nefarious sneaks in is important imo.

[paraipan]

Bitcoin is not a single product any more, so a "Download Now!" button doesn't make sense any more.

Just like bittorrent or linux aren't single products. And if you visit bittorrent.org or linux.org... guess what?  No download button.

I think bitcoin, while sharing many properties with bittorrent and linux, is a more serious issue. We store value in our bitcoins. Therefore, helping the userbase of informed choices, and making sure that nothing nefarious sneaks in is important imo.

Have to agree with Gavin, Bitcoin is a protocol so the main bitcoin.org page have to stay somehow neutral and present all available clients without bias. Value comes from a large userbase so having clients adapt for everyone's needs seems the most reasonable choice.

[Herodes]

Bitcoin is not a single product any more, so a "Download Now!" button doesn't make sense any more.

Just like bittorrent or linux aren't single products. And if you visit bittorrent.org or linux.org... guess what?  No download button.

I think bitcoin, while sharing many properties with bittorrent and linux, is a more serious issue. We store value in our bitcoins. Therefore, helping the userbase of informed choices, and making sure that nothing nefarious sneaks in is important imo.

Have to agree with Gavin, Bitcoin is a protocol so the main bitcoin.org page have to stay somehow neutral and present all available clients without bias. Value comes from a large userbase so having clients adapt for everyone's needs seems the most reasonable choice.

I see neither of you adress the security issue, is this not a concern ? Or should this be an exercise merely left to the user ?

[blockgenesis]

I see neither of you adress the security issue, is this not a concern ? Or should this be an exercise merely left to the user ?

That is why web wallet have a warning before user can actually see them. The rest of the wallets are open source. And enforcing an update in a short delay into users to inject malicious code cannot be done (at least, not in an efficient way)

[marcus_of_augustus]

I see neither of you address the security issue, is this not a concern ? Or should this be an exercise merely left to the user ?

If bitcoin.org offers security recommendations for users bitcoin.org is taking on a responsibility for other people's personal computer security.

It is a bit unfair to expect them to do that.  They should limit themselves to pointing to relevant material imho.

[Gabi]

I agree that the download page is a bit unclear right now.

The clients are "hidden" under the symbols and all these ? ? ? looks like clients still to unveil rather than important warning (under mobile wallet at first glance i suppose that bitcoin wallet is ready and there are 2 more clients still to unveil while under web wallets there are 4 clients to unveil)

Yeah BTW, what would you put instead of the ? to bring people attention to them so that they hover with the mouse, see the warning and click to show them?

Nothing, i would just put the warnings there, without having to hover/clic anything.
I would put everything directly on the page. The clients descriptions and the warnings. The descriptions and warnings are short so they won't make the page too long

[Armando]

Sorry for bumping up old thread, but I think that the site should have "buy bitcoin" button near "choose your wallet" with link to https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Buying_bitcoins or similiar page. Right now newcomer will have impression, that he should mine his bitcoins and it is the only way to get them.

Exchanges and exchangers are playing very important role, so they should be listed in good position. For most of people it's fastest and easiest way to get bitcoins, for example I never used mining, but purchased fair amount of coins in 2012