Upgrade bitcoin.org

[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.