You replies is a series of hyperbolic statements and you keep ignoring the reasons and responses I have already provided.
Sorry to read that. I don't mean to ignore your reasons, but I seem unable to understand them.
Anyone can look at the news coverage, discussions, and the way governments are responding to see there is confusion over who the Foundation represents.
Point me to it, please. The news coverage, the government responses, I just don't see it.
The discussions, well, I see them over here at bitcointalk, and that's it. Where else?
I really beg you to give me directions, how are we supposed to have a vital discussion here as long as I'm unable to verify/falsify your claims?
Probably one of the main reasons for our misunderstanding here is, I don't use twitter, facebook, reddit, I don't listen to podcasts or watch youtube videos. Sorry, I might just be a little too old for that kind of entertainment. I want my sources in written text, longer than 140 characters, in full, plain old English or German sentences. I prefer my sources without "likes", "+1s", or any other kind of popularity contest hodgepodge.
By the way, that's one of the things the Bitcoin Foundation Forum offers.
As I have explained several times, Marco Santori was pressed and he claimed that the purpose of the Foundation was to represent their constant members but that is not what the web site says.
I don't see where the Foundation's website claims otherwise, maybe the following statement comes closest:
Allowing the community to speak through a single source will enable Bitcoin to improve its reputation.
Anyone can listed to Lets Talk Bitcoin and hear Andreas explains the various reasons why the Foundation is not open and is essentially a black hole where you send your money.
Is there a transcript available somewhere? I don't intend to watch those videos (or are these audio? in that case, I don't intend to listen).
I could be mean and say "Hey, Let's Talk Bitcoin is not open", because I'd have to watch those videos, which for me would be even more of a hassle than for you to get a Bitcoin Foundation membership. But I won't, that'd be ridiculous.
As for the forum specifically the only answer I have seen is that they want to keep some strategy secret.
I've never ever seen
that answer.
In this thread, for example, there's been the wild guess from RodeoX, and that doesn't even come close to what you're implying:
[guessing] Some of the discussions are kept away from the public not because the public is not welcome, but to plan without tipping our hand to decision makers in the government and hostile industries. As banks, payment processors, and trigger happy regulators better understand bitcoin they are likely going to fight harder. We don't want them to have access to all our plans. [/guessing]
I'm going to help you out with a little insight. I don't intend to break the privacy of the Foundation's members, so I'm just going to quote my very own posting over at the BF forum (The topic was "
Why are we behind a paywall?"):
I could imagine a single or a few subforums being public / read only.
But for most of the forums, I guess the paywall, as you call it, makes it a lot easier to discuss matters that may or may not be embraced by the "general public".
Think of discussions about regulation issues. If those were public, bitcointalk users would probably dismiss whatever "we" come up with. And that might actually hurt the process.
For other topics, I could imagine "inviting" specific people over for a read/write account.
I can think of a lot of examples here, like (in no particular order), press, politicians, bankers, business people, alt-coin developers, etc.
On a side note, managing a public forum would require a lot more effort, bandwidth, moderation etc., and why would the Foundation want to provide that? Bitcointalk already does that, and like it or not, they're doing a pretty good job.
Conclusion: the paywall is necessary, at least for the major part of the forum.
Individual guest members would be a nice idea, a read-only public area probably not so much.
Yes, I expect public access to forums when groups claim to be open and transparent and claim to represent people outside of their constituent membership.
Well, then let's just agree to disagree, I'm not going to argue.
I am and have been a member of several interest groups in my life, and most of them have been "membership only" for major parts of their work.
For the moment, as long as I don't see any substantial reasons for your position, I'm going to keep mine.