Dear community,
I am writing this list to bitcoin-dev mail list, but to prevent potential
censorship I am sending CC to lightning-dev mail list, in order to leave the
current moderator(s) without an option not to publish the letter and not to
leave the topic “under the cover” (sorry Lightning friends for spamming your
list with this off-topic).
A day before yesterday I sent a post to bitcoin-dev referencing the publication
of the new Bitcoin scalability and privacy protocol, which had already received
a broad reaction across the bitcoin community with literally no
critical/negative responses after ~25k of reads [1]. I am not the first-time
writer to the mail list and had developed things like RGB smart contracts [2],
rust lightning implementation named LNP [3], multiple bitcoin libraries and
software [4], [5], during three years was a main contributor to rust-bitcoin
[6] etc, etc. The post was clearly not spam and received support from known
community members like Giacomo Zucco [7]. Bryan Bishop knows me since 2019 when
I was presenting Storm protocol on the stage on Scaling Bitcoin in Tel Aviv -
and he was writing a transcript of it [8]. Thus, I am not a random unknown guy
or a known spammer - and the post can be easily checked for not containing any
scam promotion.
Nevertheless, I next day I see other e-mails getting released to bitcoin-dev,
while mine - was not. It is not a problem, but since we already had an incident
in the past where Bryan reported the failure of his software, me and my
colleagues from LNP/BP Standards Association started asking questions about
whether this post ever got to Bryan.
What happened next was very unexpected. I am giving the core of the
conversation over Twitter after in Annex A - with the purpose to showcase the
problem I’d like to address in this e-mail. From the discussion, it is clear
that bitcoin-dev mail list lacks clear explicit moderation (or peer-review)
policies, which must be applied on a non-selective basis. Also, Bryan Bishop,
as the current moderator, had abused his powers in achieving his agenda based
on personal likes or dislikes. The conversation went nowhere, and the post got
published only after a requirement from Peter Todd [9].
In this regard, I’d like to propose the following:
- The bitcoin-dev mail list must have a clear moderation (or pre-publication
peer-review policy). It can be proposed and discussed in this mail list and,
upon agreement, must become public and obligatory.
- Bryan Bishop, who was acting for a long time as moderator, must be
appreciated for many years of unpaid work, and replaced with the new moderator
who should be selected from a list of potential candidates (again in this mail
list) using the criteria “least votes against”.
- The role of the moderator(s) must be purely executive of the policies,
without any personal preferences.
- A dedicated mail list should be created (“bitcoin-dev-unmoderated”) which
will publish all submissions without moderation. It may contain spam and only
people interested in the auditing bitcoin-dev main mal list non-censorship will
be reading it. However, if they will notice that some non-spam e-mails were
censored, they can announce that publicly. In this case, the failing
moderator(s) should be removed and replaced.
- The incentive to work as a moderator should be reputation-based.
With that, I rest my case.
Kind regards,
Maxim Orlovsky
[1]:https://twitter.com/lnp_bp/status/1664329393131364353?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQyg
[2]:https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2023-April/021554.html
[3]:https://github.com/LNP-WG
[4]:https://github.com/BP-WG
[5]:https://github.com/mycitadel
[6]:https://github.com/rust-bitcoin/rust-bitcoin/graphs/contributors?from=2018-12-31&to=2022-04-12&type=c
[7]:https://twitter.com/giacomozucco/status/1664515543154544645?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQygandhttps://twitter.com/giacomozucco/status/1664731504923095041?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQyg
[8]:https://scalingbitcoin.org/transcript/telaviv2019/wip-storm-layer-2-3-storage-and-messaging
[9]:https://twitter.com/peterktodd/status/1664742651835367424?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQyg
Annex A:
- @kanzure just like to check that our submission to bitcoin-dev hasn’t got to
spam
<https://twitter.com/lnp_bp/status/1664649328349069320?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQyg>
- A few mods are reviewing it
<https://twitter.com/kanzure/status/1664680893548572677?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQyg>
- Oh, so a peer review is required to get to bitcoin-dev mail list? Never read
about that requirement anywhere
<https://twitter.com/lnp_bp/status/1664695061462777858?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQyg>.
Seems like bitcoin-dev mail list requirements are now specific to the author
:)
<https://twitter.com/dr_orlovsky/status/1664695668475142144?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQyg>
- Not the greatest email to pull this over. I'll double check but pretty sure
the antagonization is boring me.
<https://twitter.com/kanzure/status/1664705038315409420?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQyg>
- Not sure I understand what you are saying. Can you please clarify?
<https://twitter.com/dr_orlovsky/status/1664705280393859103?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQyg>
- You are boring me and these antics don't make me want to go click approve on
your email.
<https://twitter.com/kanzure/status/1664705509147004946?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQyg>
- Are you the person to approve emails for it?
<https://twitter.com/phyrooo/status/1664732932068589568?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQyg>
- Yes
<https://twitter.com/kanzure/status/1664733107096899585?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQyg>
- It appears that people boring @kanzure is going through a dedicated review
procedure on bitcoin-dev mail list. Good moderation! Very clear policy!
<https://twitter.com/dr_orlovsky/status/1664706165790461959?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQyg>
- What are you even doing. How does this behavior suppose to get people to help
you?
<https://twitter.com/kanzure/status/1664706931083329536?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQyg>
- I am not expecting you to help me - and never asked. I expect you to openly
declare moderation (or peer review) policy and follow it.
<https://twitter.com/dr_orlovsky/status/1664719295123685381?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQyg>
Since “if you get me bored I will not click an accept button” is not a
moderation policy which I expect from bitcoin-dev mail list. Probably not just
me.
<https://twitter.com/dr_orlovsky/status/1664719786633310209?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQyg>
- Yeah I mean I don't think these tweets are likely to get me to
enthusiastically resolve your problem... I dunno man. What's even going on
here.
<https://twitter.com/kanzure/status/1664735139065208833?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQyg>
- Bitcoin mail list clearly lacks explicit moderation policy. The same mistake
like with rust-bitcoin 1+ yrs ago. I am fine with peer review. Moderation. But
only explicit - not just “the way I (dis)like this guy”
<https://twitter.com/dr_orlovsky/status/1664736404931321859?s=61&t=9A8uvggqKVKV3sT4HPlQyg>
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