Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] BIP Proposal: Consensus (hard fork) PoST Datastore for Energy Efficient Mining

From: Ryan Grant <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2021 13:42:22 +0000

On Fri, Mar 5, 2021 at 9:39 AM Lonero Foundation via bitcoin-dev
<[email-masked]> wrote:
> Hello, I want to start a new BIP proposal aiming to tackle some of
> the energy efficiency issues w/ Bitcoin mining. Excuse my ignorance
> given this is my first time making a BIP proposal, but is there a
> specific format I need to follow?

Hi Andrew,

I would like to discourage you from writing a BIP on this topic, as
any such proposal is guaranteed to be rejected based on prior
discussions in the community.

Please update your priors with the following:

  https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0002.mediawiki
    BIP: 2
    Title: BIP process, revised

  https://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/
    "Nothing is Cheaper than Proof of Work"
    on | 04 Aug 2015

Your topic brings up an interesting edge case, which is whether the
BIP repository is an open forum for all possible arguments that are
technically well constructed.  Obviously: no; but by what
non-arbitrary process do we decide?

I propose that the BIP Editor's role should include preserving signal
in the table of contents generated from our proposal repository, by
unilaterally rejecting - without any fuhrer comment - technically well
constructed proposals which are guaranteed to be rejected based on
prior discussions in the community, as spam.  I think this is already
how it works, but we haven't actually written down this part of the
norms.

Since censorship is always a concern, it would be appropriate to
maintain a moderation log of spam BIPs, so that observers could judge
whether the BIP Editor is misusing the BIP assignment process to
censor proposals with some merit.  Since one of the requirements for
submitting a BIP is to notify bitcoin-dev, the log is already
maintained.  Since bitcoin-dev is moderated, the moderators take on a
low level of responsibility for gauging spam proposals (and they are
pretty relaxed about it, since it is better to err on the side of
inclusion for new developers, except for obvious patent bombing).
Since the bitcoin-dev moderation log is public and anyone can
subscribe to it, protective transparency is again achieved.

  https://lists.ozlabs.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev-moderation/