Roger Ver and Jon Matonis pushed aside now that Bitcoin is becoming mainstream

[majamalu]

We also must play ball and give campaign contributions on a corporate scale so things are seen our way.  This is how the system works.

Exactly. That's how BitTorrent grew into what it is today. Oh wait...

[Luke-Jr]

We also must play ball and give campaign contributions on a corporate scale so things are seen our way.  This is how the system works.

Exactly. That's how BitTorrent grew into what it is today. Oh wait...

It should probably be pointed out that BitTorrent has survived mainly because the public faces only used it legally and never promoted illegal use...

[jbreher]

  We are just lobbying for our freedom to use Bitcoin.

One does not simply grovel lobby for freedom. The two approaches to life (serfdom vs. freedom) are antithetical.

[charleshoskinson]

One day we are going to destroy the central currencies of this world. But we have to wait and be patient. Our time will come

[majamalu]

We also must play ball and give campaign contributions on a corporate scale so things are seen our way.  This is how the system works.

Exactly. That's how BitTorrent grew into what it is today. Oh wait...

It should probably be pointed out that BitTorrent has survived mainly because the public faces only used it legally and never promoted illegal use...

And that's the reason why they have never tried to fight it. Oh wait ...

[abbyd]

We also must play ball and give campaign contributions on a corporate scale so things are seen our way.  This is how the system works.

Exactly. That's how BitTorrent grew into what it is today. Oh wait...

It should probably be pointed out that BitTorrent has survived mainly because the public faces only used it legally and never promoted illegal use...

Uhhm not exactly - there was a HUGE ARMS RACE (ie. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1989931) between
BT users, ISPs, and content "owners". I don't remember the exact order that these measures/countermeasures were implemented:

* Malicious/spying host blacklisting
* Fake torrents / honey pots
* Port blocking
* Port randomization
* Insane litigation / grandma arrests
* VPNs
* Changes to host discovery (DHT, UDP or something?)
* Trackers takedowns / jail for webmasters
* ISP bandwidth throttling
* Protocol encryption
* Media campaigns from both sides

In the end, I don't think anybody really cared what BRAM posted on his blog or whatever.

I hope we won't have to use such measures to secure bitcoin...

John Matonis speaks about this subject quite eloquently.

[gweedo]

Also didn't BitTorrent's Bram Cohen offer free copyrighted porn so people would beta test his software? I don't know if it is true or just a legend of the tech world.

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

Jon has a piece today on Forbes on this topic:

Bitcoin Foundation Expands Global Media Opportunities

However, being against dissenting viewpoints on regulation, being unwilling to confront any form of taxation, or being anti-financial privacy does not make one a neutral bitcoin advocate as some have suggested. Those positions are the worst sort of bias because from the outset they wrap ideology in what is politically correct and easily digestible by the masses. Furthermore, it can be disingenuous and manipulative.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2013/04/22/bitcoin-foundation-expands-global-media-opportunities/

[pelleb]

Instead of discussing who should be on this list, I think it's much more pertinent to discuss if we need that list.

I think it is a grave error to list representatives there. Regardless of the disclaimer, these are going to be considered representatives.

Lets just leave the politics out of bitcoin.org and remove it. I have created a pull request here, which I hope will put the whole issue to rest:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.org/pull/152

This is nothing against anyone on or off the list. It's just that this is a bad move and is bad for the community and the project as a whole.

[mikegogulski]

I think an idea that should be considered is to take the collection of all Bitcoin-community people who have done media already, and invite them each to opt in or out. If Garzik, Maxwell, Luke et al. want to do "strategic messaging visioning" or whatever-the-fuck, let them do it by persuading the folks who are already talking to the media about Bitcoin, rather than just drawing exclusionary lines. There should be dozens of people on that list, not a hand-picked few.

At the same time, I think removing the list entirely is a profoundly bad idea. If doing this right is too difficult for the people at it now, the correct response is not to just abandon the effort, but to get people who can do it properly involved.

[Arto]

What "community?"  I don't seem to have a say how it is maintained so I guess I am not part of the so-called "community?"  Someone has the keys to the web site and ultimately decides what goes up there.  Right now the ultimate authority is the listed domain owner which is an ISP in Finland.

This is a good question. I wondered about where the buck stops, too; looking into it a little bit, my current understanding is that the source code for the Bitcoin.org website is hosted at https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.org, wherein it is at the moment largely maintained by Saivann Carignan. This authority was apparently delegated to him by Gavin Andresen fairly recently.

From the discussions at GitHub, it's a bit unclear at this point whether or not Saivann speaks with Gavin's approval in his confident decisions to exclude Matonis and Ver, or his decision more recently to reject Pelle's proposed resolution to the matter. Perhaps Gavin might be so kind as to clarify these matters.

[Arto]

People ask these sorts of questions all the time and I never see any kind of coherent answer.  This enforces the perception that early adopters are controlling things and some people are hesitant about getting involved in bitcoin.  The whole Github thing is unclear.  Why would an issue like this be resolved in a site that resolves issues with software code?  This is strange to say the least and nobody seems to have an answer as to who has the ultimate authority to post things at Bitcoin.org.

It is not unusual to host website source repositories on GitHub and to use the provided issue tracker and pull requests to facilitate collaboration in developing a website. To programmers (I am one myself), it's all just code, even if non-programmers might perhaps be inclined to draw sharper delineations between a website versus software as such.

That doesn't mean that GitHub tickets are necessarily the most appropriate place for questions of basic policy, of course. GitHub is perhaps better suited to matters regarding mechanism (the "how") than policy (the "what" and "why"). Where such matters ought to be discussed is in and of itself a question of developer policy, however. In this case, it was certainly to all our benefit that the OP raised the matter here on the forums, ensuring that it is now getting the attention it merits.

As for your other questions, I don't have the answers. Hopefully somebody does.

[adam3us]

Maybe you should have someone like Adam Back who developed hashcash be a contact, since he talked with Satoshi, understands what Satoshi was trying to do, and has both understanding in the technical topics and an ability to speak with other humans without making everything offensive.

Ha coincidentally found this thread when I was googling my name (not something I am normally in a habit of doing) because I talked to a journalist a few weeks ago and I wanted to check if he mangled my technical explanation or worse; btw he didnt mention my name, even better, win!)

My exchange with Satoshi was early but very brief.  I understand the tech ok and much of the precursor tech with various ecash technology.  Theres a lot that happened since Satoshis paper in altcoin so I am in catch mode for a bit.

But I am not a good public speaker - I am allowed that luxury because I'm a crypto geek not an ex-CEO. 

There are people who are masters at sounding cool, moderate, responsive and informative when faced with Bill O'reilly type verbal rough ups, and while covering controversial topics.  ie Politicians and professional PR & and spokespeople.  Rick Falkvinge is very impressive.  Or for example watch Kim DotKom in this interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF48PjCtW4k  Awesome "Well you have to understand blah blah.."  sounds so reasonable.  (Yeah ok it a friendly interview, but there are a few talented people who are amazing at sounding more reasonable than the presenter under fire). 
Kristinn Hrafnsson holds his cool really well - and given the wikileaks controversies he gets to face up to the worst of it.

I always find Matonis fun, and his mix of ex-hushmail CEO and ex-VISA exec background seems hard to match in terms of bridging credentials.  He does like to push the libertarian angle which is amusing to crypto-libertarian types but might not always look so amusing or bitcoin credibility inspiring to the business people and regulators, but he's still really good.

The main media do seem to more enjoy sensationalizing about the fringe users doing naughty and titilating things with bitcoin that they could just as well use paper notes in the snail for.  Bitcoin isnt even anonymous for example as Shamir et al showed with their statistical analysis paper on the bitcoin public ledger - its less anonymous than paper cash - you dont get that kind of transparency and flow analysis with paper cash or physical banks handling of paper cash.  And as far as that goes HSBC were found guilty of laundering getting on for a trillion dollars ($880 bil) and accepted paying $1.2 billion fine.  Thats probably a slap on the wrist at their scale.  No one went to jail, no one had banking licences revoked etc.  Barclays did something similar.  Maybe the regulators should start with real problems, they say HSBC laundering covered mexican drug cartels and even terror funding.

I always thought Ian Brown does pretty well for a tech guy - you see him on Al Jazeera sometimes for tech commentary.

Also I gotta write code, man, and stop getting sucked into blathering about politics fun though it is.

Adam

[blockgenesis]

What "community?"  I don't seem to have a say how it is maintained so I guess I am not part of the so-called "community?"  Someone has the keys to the web site and ultimately decides what goes up there.  Right now the ultimate authority is the listed domain owner which is an ISP in Finland.

This is a good question. I wondered about where the buck stops, too; looking into it a little bit, my current understanding is that the source code for the Bitcoin.org website is hosted at https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.org, wherein it is at the moment largely maintained by Saivann Carignan. This authority was apparently delegated to him by Gavin Andresen fairly recently.

From the discussions at GitHub, it's a bit unclear at this point whether or not Saivann speaks with Gavin's approval in his confident decisions to exclude Matonis and Ver, or his decision more recently to reject Pelle's proposed resolution to the matter. Perhaps Gavin might be so kind as to clarify these matters.

Most of this is right. I am Saïvann, and I speak on my own without Gavin instructions, hoping to allows him to stay concentrated on the code. He's already busy enough.

However to make things clear, I didn't close/reject Pelle's suggestion (issue still open). Nor did I reject Roger or Matonis forever. I pushed the Press Center without them simply because people didn't agree on them. To allows these discussions to happen seperately without blocking the whole project. And before we really had an opportunity to go any further on these matters, this thread appeared and created interference with various unverified claims and drama. Though it also generated interesting points of views. I'm reading everything, but I can't satisfy everyone.

Meanwhile, I'm keeping things on hold until it calms down. And I'm trying to see what can be done to achieve a better consensus. Dropping all the interviewees list is a drastic change and is likely to create more outcry and confusion if we do it right now. And I still believe that we can find a better solution.

[marcus_of_augustus]

What "community?"  I don't seem to have a say how it is maintained so I guess I am not part of the so-called "community?"  Someone has the keys to the web site and ultimately decides what goes up there.  Right now the ultimate authority is the listed domain owner which is an ISP in Finland.

This is a good question. I wondered about where the buck stops, too; looking into it a little bit, my current understanding is that the source code for the Bitcoin.org website is hosted at https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.org, wherein it is at the moment largely maintained by Saivann Carignan. This authority was apparently delegated to him by Gavin Andresen fairly recently.

From the discussions at GitHub, it's a bit unclear at this point whether or not Saivann speaks with Gavin's approval in his confident decisions to exclude Matonis and Ver, or his decision more recently to reject Pelle's proposed resolution to the matter. Perhaps Gavin might be so kind as to clarify these matters.

Most of this is right. I am Saïvann, and I speak on my own without Gavin instructions, hoping to allows him to stay concentrated on the code. He's already busy enough.

However to make things clear, I didn't close/reject Pelle's suggestion (issue still open). Nor did I reject Roger or Matonis forever. I pushed the Press Center without them simply because people didn't agree on them. To allows these discussions to happen seperately without blocking the whole project. And before we really had an opportunity to go any further on these matters, this thread appeared and created interference with various unverified claims and drama. Though it also generated interesting points of views. I'm reading everything, but I won't be able to satisfy everyone.

Meanwhile, I'm keeping things on hold until it calms down. And I'm trying to see what can be done to achieve a better consensus. Dropping all the interviewees list is a drastic change and is likely to create more outcry and confusion if we do it right now. And I still believe that we can find a better solution.

As I understand you only got involved because you were able to supply better graphics for the website.

What I don't understand is how you became the arbiter (and instigator) of what is a decidedly divisive debate in the bitcoin community? Are you even equipped to be involved in this decision? Maybe stick to graphics unitl you establish some credentials in the bitcoin world?

tl;dr you've been played for your naivete by some schemers.

[gmaxwell]

I also saw a comment by Gavin that said someone was not a "core developer."  Is there a list of "core developers?"  Who decides who is and who is not a "core developer.?"  That Guardian story/video said those guys living in the abandoned office building were the developers.

It's listed right on the Bitcoin.org site, click developers.

Obviously Satoshi is not so active anymore.

What I don't understand is how you became the arbiter (and instigator) of what is a decidedly divisive debate in the bitcoin community? Are you even equipped to be involved in this decision? Maybe stick to graphics unitl you establish some credentials in the bitcoin world?

tl;dr you've been played for your naivete by some schemers.

Please spare some patience and some courtesy for people who are spending their time trying to improve things. I think he's been doing a good job listening trying to balance various views and he does not deserve the hostility being directed at him in this thread.

[theymos]

This is a good question. I wondered about where the buck stops, too; looking into it a little bit, my current understanding is that the source code for the Bitcoin.org website is hosted at https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.org, wherein it is at the moment largely maintained by Saivann Carignan. This authority was apparently delegated to him by Gavin Andresen fairly recently.

Bitcoin.org's content is managed by the Bitcoin-Qt dev team. As such, Gavin is the ultimate authority of what stays in the GitHub repository. However, the domain is owned by Sirius, who is independent of the dev team and the Bitcoin Foundation. (He was given the domain by Satoshi.)

[Gavin Andresen]

As such, Gavin is the ultimate authority of what stays in the GitHub repository.

Mmm.  And I'm working hard to try to delegate that authority, so can y'all please just work it out?

[charleshoskinson]

Do we really know if Satoshi isn't working anymore? He could be reading this message right now......

[charleshoskinson]

I have a suspicion that a colleague of mine might be Satoshi, but its just speculation.