Hi Odin,

I object to censorship. That's why I drilled down into the actors (human)
and messages (censored) that you referenced.

Independently of the list or the parties (so I don't think I am well
informed, but equally not biased in favor of any given actor):

It looks to me like the stipulation that the list be laser focused - on
technical Bitcoin core discussion is pragmatic.

It's an economic 'no free lunch' issue and 'signal to noise' function on
the part of the participants as best I can see.

Equally - There is not a mandate or monopoly on the establishment of or
development of Bitcoin mining software / clients etc.

So.... It might be crying wolf to call it censorship (in my raw first-look
opinion).

I know Roger Ver has put some advocacy behind Bitcoin.com serving as an
uncensored forum for the widest possible Bitcoin discussion.

Removing yourself from a channel which yields you no utility is pragmatic.

But I don't know we should pile on and slander the list, at least not on
the strength of the material provided.

Happy to hear more if you have time to share.

Regards,

Julian Smith

On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 4:55 PM, odinn <odinn.cyberguerrilla@???>
wrote:

> > I've recently unsubscribed myself from the bitcoin-development mailing
> list due to my objections to the censorship occurring there. (It's
> being framed as "moderation," but it's fairly evident that since the
> onset of the list manager's decision to begin restricting what kind of
> content appears on bitcoin-dev, this has not been "moderation"
> developed to avoid harassment or to slightly narrow the scope of
> discussion, but rather, it's simply about censorship. An example of
> "moderated" (censored) posts are shown here:
> https://lists.ozlabs.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev-moderation/
>
> Presently, the 'king' of this group of censors seems to be someone
> named Rusty Russell from Australia, rusty at rustcorp.com.au (a domain
> that redirects to https://ozlabs.org/, which shows a large procession
> of IBM employees... though I think that the core developers (and
> various other bitcoin developers associated with the bitcoin-dev list)
> by and large have decided to close themselves off to the world and to
> any ideas that make them uncomfortable.
> (Note you cannot see the censored posts described in the link above
> merely by selecting them as they have all been "scrubbed" or double
> censored - once from bitcoin-dev itself and another time on
> bitcoin-dev-moderation. You have to click again on the link in the
> scrubbed, or "moderated" message in order to see the censored material
> that has been again censored by the censors.)
>
> [I am still "watching" the bitcoin/bitcoin repository on github, and
> periodically have commented & contributed, but based on my
> observations there is negligible innovation happening there (real work
> of developing privacy, innovation, decentralized / distributed
> solutions for everyone, etc., is going to have to happen elsewhere -
> such as in DW and ABIS).]
>
> I've also unsubscribed myself from cypherpunks as it appears to have
> turned into a mosh pit of censorship, where different people involved
> with the list have encouraged the use of a system resulting in a
> "contributors to be filtered" list being published and used by various
> members of that list. While I understand that people are free to
> read, or not read, what they want, the effect of publishing what
> amounts to a blocklist - of people who you think shouldn't be listened
> to or acknowledged, or who shouldn't have their information passed
> along to others - is, to me, censorship, and isn't right.
>
> My commentary, in part, on the matter (from my last post to
> cypherpunks before I unsubscribed) was this ~ you could easily apply
> this to not only various mailing lists, but also, to fora such as
> twitter, facebook, and more (add easily censored forum / service here):
>
> "I will soon be removing myself from cypherpunks and bitcoin-dev. I am
> getting tired of being on lists that function more like ggautoblocker
> & blocktogether than a forum for freedom of expression.
>
> A reminder, I suppose, is in order, that unless we have fora that
> cannot be censored or (easily) filtered (diaspora may be a good
> example, and possibly zeronet) then we cannot express ourselves
> freely, and the extent of our ideas (and by extension, ourselves)
> cannot be said to be free at any level, or in any way, shape, or form.
>
> Free thought requires free expression."
>
>
> - --
> http://abis.io ~
> "a protocol concept to enable decentralization
> and expansion of a giving economy, and a new social good"
> https://keybase.io/odinn
> > _______________________________________________
> unSYSTEM mailing list: http://unsystem.net
> https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/unsystem
>