Upgrade bitcoin.org

[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