Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Tree-chains preliminary summary

From: Alan Reiner <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 14:02:03 -0400

I would echo the need for some kind of moderation. 

I believe Peter Todd is an extremely intelligent individual, who has a
lot to offer the Bitcoin community.  He has a firm grasp of a lot of
really deep Bitcoin concepts and his *technical* insight is generally
positive.  Technically.  But the way he communicates on this list is
*extremely* corrosive and breeds hostility.  It makes it a scary place
to discuss things, with frequent, public ridicule of everything posted. 

I agree that I would rather have a friendly environment to discuss
technicals, even if it means losing additional technical insight. 
People who would explicitly insult other contributors intelligence and
character on a public list should be subject to some kind of negative
reinforcement.   Maybe there's solutions other than outright banning.

-Alan

On 03/25/2014 01:37 PM, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 9:49 AM, Peter Todd <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> For someone with 'Chief Scientist' as their job title, I'm surprised you
>> think so little of hard evidence and so much of idol worshipping.
> Peter, take this unprofessional, personal crap off-list.
>
> Mike's anecdote of hostility is not an isolated one.  Just today, a
> bitcore developer commented on "Peter Todd's ..apocalyptic vision
> and... negative view on bitcoin" which turned off some other
> developers from participating more interactively.
>
> As I commented on IRC, open source projects are no strangers to people
> who simultaneously (a) make useful contributions and (b) turn
> potential contributors away with an abrasive or hostile attitude
> toward others.  It's an unsolved problem in OSS, that I saw for 15+
> years in the Linux kernel community.
>
> For this list, as Mike suggested on IRC, introducing an openly stated
> moderation policy may be the one route.
>