It is misleading to imply that this ban is chiefly related to review of OP_CTV.

There has been a history of ariard posting off-topic and otherwise disruptive comments in several Bitcoin projects’ repositories over the past years that have previously led to bans by several organizations. Most recently, ariard has been making off-topic on BIPs pull requests. Requests to stick to the proposals at hand and to limit himself to constructive contributions prompted further meandering comments about unrelated topics containing insults and legal threats by ariard. ariard’s on-going disruptive and unwanted contributions have prompted requests for moderation action by several contributors recently. The situation was starting to incur a toll on other contributors time. To curb the disruption he was banned from the repositories of the bitcoin organization (notably including the Bitcoin Core code base and the BIPs repository).

Obviously, constructive contributions would be welcome, and he is welcome to make security disclosures through the appropriate channels any time. A more detailed explanation by the moderator that took action can be found in the bitcoin-core/meta repository.

"First and foremost, I do not like to use the word “politics” as it has a lot of cultural and historical connotation, and I’m always careful when I’m using such wording."

It's politics, rude and naked. I would compare a bitcoin softfork as something like an amendment to the US constitution, possibly even more difficult. Yes, there's going to be a lot of politics. And there's going to be a lot of amendments proposed that are not great for the US. And everyone is going to be accusing each other of black hatting.

To state my bias up front, if they are trying to slow down CTV, I align with chaincode. I am YAGNI on CTV.

However, everyone should play fair. However, if no one is playing fair, how can you play fair? That would appear to be the dilemma, in the eyes of those core devs (including those at chaincode) who control the politically important github account(s?).

I was at a bitdevs nyc meetup recently at the chaincode office, and I did feel a distinctly anti-CTV vibe. I'm not an expert, but I have followed the covenant wars enough to feel like more than just an interested bystander.

To keep this from getting too long, and also to respect chathan house rules, I will try to channel the vibe briefly.

The vibe WRT to the merits of CTV was something like "YAGNI, or at least you aren't going to need it yet." More germane to this kerfluffle, the vibe WRT to reviewing CTV on github was something like, "the bitcoin repo is not a place to politically debate the merits of CTV or any softfork. The ideal is that the github repo should be a place for technical review (bugs/errors on patches) only, having established political consensus in other channels." Delving bitcoin was mentioned, as in the rebuke you linked to.

"Github not an appropriate place to debate politics of softforks" may not be true historically, maybe not not even now. Maybe it's more of a work in progress and "we are trying to shift the communications so that..."

but I think "people in the room" would like it to be true now. I think there may also be people who for whatever agenda (maybe a bad one) want you blocked, and yeah that sucks if they are hiding. IDK if chaincode is "in control" of the github in question, my feeling is "probably to some extent but it's complicated." Whoever is running that account, one thing I think "people in the room" feel is, it's turning into a shitshow and it's putting undue stress on those who just want to do cool collected code review.

IE, I think the moderation policies are largely being driven by exhaustion and burnout, and not primarily driven by politics or anti ctv sentiment, although by and large chaincode DOES lean anti CTV but without being too obvious about it (to avoid getting sucked in to the war). Maybe you're collateral damage. Maybe it's targeted, someone doesn't like you. IDK.

Sorry you got your account blocked for the review. As someone who myself has been blocked a few times in various stupid internet troll wars (not that this is one of those, it's not, CTV is important) I encourage you to, in addition to registering the action in the appropriate channels, also use it to your advantage as a cooldown. If it's anger, anger must be channeled appropriately. If it's frustration, realize that those across the table from you are probably also frustrated.

This would probably be a different post if I wanted CTV. I would be more heated myself. I would be more worried about the future of bitcoin.

But even then, you just have to stay cool. Don't feed the trolls. Don't be a troll. Try to empathize and find common ground, even when things seem unfair.

Also you're not wrong. This is bitcoin and only the paranoid survive.

Thanks for surfacing this, and thanks for caring about CTV.

related https://github.com/bitcoin-core/meta/issues/16#issuecomment-2822009565

it appears you're banned for 30 days for getting that bip "off track" https://github.com/bitcoin-core/meta/issues/16#issuecomment-2822278376

and you've responded by threatening litigation https://github.com/bitcoin-core/meta/issues/16#issuecomment-2822446541

I'd appreciate way more step by step screenshots of what has happened please. this is interesting stuff...

From a user on Bitcoindiscord.com

It appears they "Broke their own moderation policy. Not obvious spam, banned, and no meta issue."

"Second to last bulletpoint here: https://github.com/bitcoin-core/meta/blob/main/MODERATION-GUIDELINES.md#moderation-transparency. If ariard is banned, given there is no issue in https://github.com/bitcoin-core/meta/issues, the moderator who banned him has broken the moderation transparency policy.

There are a string of hidden comments in https://github.com/bitcoin-core/meta/issues/16 relating to it."

I'm not sure either party in this case is guiltless.

Another comment on the situation from a Bitcoin Discord community member:

"The moderation rules are fucking ridiculous. They explicitly don't allow " not general criticism, or criticism of individuals or groups. Even the smartest people can have ideas that don't work out, and people with good intentions can make decisions that backfire. It does not add a lot of value generally to speculate about peoples motives or capabilities when discussing the merits of their ideas, and doing so will be considered off-topic in technical discussions." You can't be critical of an idea that is self serving for a company, you can't be critical of an idea because someones only interest is in using it to scam you apparently can't be critical of chaincode labs at all Fucking. Useless.

Delving Bitcoin has already banned me for commenting that a specific proposal to bundle a LNHANCE type set of BIPs together was an inappropriate bundling for a litany of explicit reasons. That apparently isn't technical enough. They will only accept positive constructive feedback about the proposal, not feedback that the proposal is inehrently inappropriate. The trouble is, those with control over the github community and delving bitcoin are the same small group of tight knit devs in a club. They don't want to hear dissenting oppinions from anyone, they aren't interested in having their biases illustrated for them. They frequently take this out on any dissenter, regardless of merit. A common example being Luke. For example as relates to taking over his own repo and translations from him. They use broad moderation policies like those cited above as an excuse to silence any criticism at all. It's just about getting a handful of people in their little club to assent that Luke is a troll, or I am a troll, or whoever is telling them that we need a flag day fork is a troll - and they can dismiss them. Including and regardless of active development activity as we see in both the Luke and Ariard examples. Ideas aren't discussed on merit, as the moderation policy pretends to enshrine - what happens is if you hurt someones feelings or you propose an idea the club doesn't like, you're removed. We see it time and again. the LOT true debate being another prime example. Or the blocksize wars debate over UASF All of that discussion was entirely silenced by Core. all code and technical discussion, silenced. once the IRC meeting was had and the idea shot down by the little club in spite of active and reasoned opposition, that's that. in every. single. instance. Core devs even use it, as noted, to impact consensus decisions!

It's totally inappropriate. A power grab by a development community that by design has none. These policies should be revoked. The core dev team need look no further than its own practices for why engagement is faltering. I don't feel welcome to engage there"

re "It’s unclear if Chaincode is just not doing politics to block advances on CTV, as they might be disagreeing with that consensus proposal and they wish to prevent progress by all means."

did you mean "just doing politics" ?

If so, I would agree, and I would also align with their politics, and I would also say they are trying to have a light touch commensurate to their power in the space but with an issue becoming so heated it's hard to find the appropriate level of "light" so to say.

"Honestly though this whole situation just reminds me of and reinforces how cooked the core org is. Removing all discussion from the repos and pushing Delving Bitcoin, a forum with even worse moderation, or an email list which is anything but reliable these days isn't exactly a great look." ~ a Bitcoin Discord user

Not a good look is it. I guess they must really want CTV