pull down to refresh
Is it "yours" though? I think this is the crux of the issue and the reason why I refer to this as a people excellence vs product excellence kind of thing.
Yes, the repository is, quite literally, our workplace. We encourage other people to also make it their workplace. We are happy for people to follow along or constructively contribute, but people that don’t work there are guests. We expect some minimum decorum from our guests. We handle disagreement well, and disagree among each other often enough, but someone standing in your office repeatedly shouting crackerbarrel talking points at you without making an effort to understand their discussion partners’ view points doesn’t cut it.
However, the privilege of writing a comment on a pull request seems to be taken away from some people now; to my knowledge this happened twice or thrice this month on higher profile people, including a former maintainer?
I’m not sure who you mean when referring to a former maintainer. I’m aware of ariard getting banned recently, and BitcoinMechanic being banned for a day to cool off. I support the former moderation action and the latter seems perhaps a tad heavyhanded, but 24h pass quickly.
[…]is this truly the noise that needs to be filtered for the greater good of Bitcoin? Or is this for the greater good of the maintainers?
I don’t think anyone is making claims about the moderation being for the benefit of Bitcoin, IMHO the moderation is for the benefit of all participants in that pull request. Collapsing repetitive and vacuous comments improves the signal ratio of the discussion and makes it easier for people to catch up to the content of the discussion.
I'd beg everyone involved to harden their skin in times of controversy, not engage in ad-hominem, but also not fight fire with fire in that regard: silencing people, especially former colleagues that didn't leave but were removed, carries across a bad vibe to the public. Perhaps, in an effort to find a middle ground, the moderation rules can be made much more explicit and reduced in scope?
IMHO, Bitcoin Core contributors generally have tough skin, and most don’t seem to have trouble sticking to "criticizing ideas instead of people". Working in public can be rough and frequently being wrong in public is humbling. That doesn’t mean that we need to subject ourselves to gratuitous abuse, or that it should be required for us to read dozens of crackerbarrel quality comments on every controversial topic to keep abreast of discussions.
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Alright. I don't really disagree with conflict arbitrage by rules and timeouts in principle. It's a tool.
However I can't help but feel that the spirit of
CONTRIBUTING.md and the spirit of what you're saying aboveYes, the repository is, quite literally, our workplace
are a bit different. Specifically this:
First, in terms of structure, there is no particular concept of "Bitcoin Core developers" in the sense of privileged people. Open source often naturally revolves around a meritocracy where contributors earn trust from the developer community over time. Nevertheless, some hierarchy is necessary for practical purposes. As such, there are repository maintainers who are responsible for merging pull requests, the[release cycle](/doc/release-process.md), and moderation.
The way I read it is: it's everyone's workplace that wishes to contribute (after all it's the integration tree?) but for practical reasons, not to protect the workplace of maintainers, maintainers/moderators are needed.
That means that this sounds more like a narrative issue, and maybe a little of a philosophical issue. But, since this narrative is literally the basis to temp ban people from the entire org, meaning both
bitcoin/bips AND bitcoin/bitcoin, perhaps it's an idea to think this through a bit more and fix the narrative (and I'd beg y'all to reconsider doing incrementally larger bans, especially when the increment is an order of magnitude).The current narrative will not only upset a bunch of people, I also worry that it will be used against maintainers. I really don't want that to happen (or actually for that sentiment to grow even further, because let's be real: it's already there) because in the end we all benefit from broad support on BIPs and Bitcoin Core: collaboration beats competition and eroding collaboration seems unnecessary - even in the face of adversity.
I’m not sure who you mean when referring to a former maintainer.
Yes, my bad for misformulating, apologies: a former org member.
I support the former moderation action and the latter seems perhaps a tad heavyhanded, but 24h pass quickly.
Alright. I don't really care too much about the
who, but very much about the why and the how long. Bans are always subjective, echo chambers don't help either. I think discussion like dariosor's question helps so I was truly happy to see that happening.IMHO, Bitcoin Core contributors generally have tough skin
Maybe. But look at
meta#18 once more, and now read it as your own future ban report instead of that of someone you really dislike. How much of it would you say is precise and fair interpretations in rationale? And how much is a stretch?I've discussed this with many bitcoiners f2f the past couple of days, because I needed to be sure it wasn't just me overlooking something. Most of the people I asked to read the drama think among the lines of "there's something fishy going on here". Even if that's not true (which is what I personally subscribe to), that's still how it's perceived right now, at least in the circles I move in nowadays. Please, if you can get any validation for that signal from elsewhere, don't ignore it.
Bottom line, I truly don't intend to shoot the messenger here, nor do I want to escalate this towards you personally. Therefore, thanks for hearing me out. I hope that this will be discussed much more and that you will be granted a lot more (hopefully at least a bit constructive) feedback than just my walls of text.
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However I can't help but feel that the spirit of CONTRIBUTING.md and the spirit of what you're saying aboveYes, the repository is, quite literally, our workplaceare a bit different. Specifically this:First, in terms of structure, there is no particular concept of "Bitcoin Core developers" in the sense of privileged people. Open source often naturally revolves around a meritocracy where contributors earn trust from the developer community over time. Nevertheless, some hierarchy is necessary for practical purposes. As such, there are repository maintainers who are responsible for merging pull requests, the [release cycle](/doc/release-process.md), and moderation.The way I read it is: it's everyone's workplace that wishes to contribute (after all it's the integration tree?) but for practical reasons, not to protect the workplace of maintainers, maintainers/moderators are needed.
Sorry, but it’s a bit unfair to get hung up on just the first sentence when I wrote three that belong together:
Yes, the repository is, quite literally, our workplace. We encourage other people to also make it their workplace. We are happy for people to follow along or constructively contribute, but people that don’t work there are guests.
Maybe I should have said that the repository is a place where work is being done, but either way, I think it’s accurate. People are free to demonstrate in the street in front of a business, but if the rally is in the business’s office, it’s crossing a line.
Maybe. But look at meta#18 once more, and now read it as your own future ban report instead of that of someone you really dislike. How much of it would you say is precise and fair interpretations in rationale? And how much is a stretch?
Let’s just agree to disagree on this one. I don’t think that the bans were due to the position of the posters, but due to their behavior. Overall, the pull request is a magnitude more readable than last year’s iteration, so I would say moderation is quite the win.
Most of the people I asked to read the drama think among the lines of "there's something fishy going on here".
To be honest, it often seems to me that most bitcoiners are a tad too paranoid, especially when they perceive a party as "the man". And I guess to many Bitcoiners "Bitcoin Core" is now the man in some contexts. :shrug: We have been getting this sort of animosity for years as thanks for our contributions to Bitcoin Core.
Bottom line, I truly don't intend to shoot the messenger here, nor do I want to escalate this towards you personally. Therefore, thanks for hearing me out. I hope that this will be discussed much more and that you will be granted a lot more (hopefully at least a bit constructive) feedback than just my walls of text.
I appreciate the levelheaded conversation.
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I appreciate your contributions Murch! Zero moderation is not practically feasible without a tragedy of the commons situation. I'm sorry that the alternative inevitably puts every action under a microscope for public airing of the grievances. We're all just passionate about the project.
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proposalsare presented as a (symbolic?)announcement, but okay, we still have the repository. There will be a chance to reply to things; flag up concerns on a platform that has many eyes.