Julian,

Julian Smith:
> Hi Odin,
>
> I object to censorship.

Do you? It's great that you have the opportunity to be here to say
that you do, because this is what happens when you aren't censored.
But if you do object to censorship you wouldn't take a defensive
posture in favor of censors and prefaces it by saying you 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.

Hardly pragmatic at all. (Pragmatists consider thought an instrument
or tool for prediction, problem solving and action, and to censor
others or, to put it another way, to have a handful of people limit
discourse arbitrarily and define what ideas can be considered in a
forum which may influence a protocol that might be utilized by
millions or billions of persons, should certainly not be described as
a "pragmatic" course.) Dictatorial would be a better word for the
method that has arisen. In fact, it is utterly and completely focused
on censorship, plain and simple. Without getting too heavy into the
details of it all, the list of so-called "moderated" posts range from
a request for rejection of someone's own post, to suggestions of how
to correct memory problems in bitcoind process(es), to a discussion of
Check Lock Time Verify proposal (BIP 65), to my own statement in a
post that "It is entirely possible that the restrictions
you have put in place may lead to people not submitting significant
and meaningful ideas to this list that they would otherwise have
considered providing in the absence of the new list policy," to an
important question from xor ~ "How are you planning to reach consensus
if you don't allow people to vote
"yes" (+1) for something?", to a post from Gavin Andresen in which he
wanted to "discuss requirements common to any
scale-up-by-allowing-more-on-chain-transactions proposal," and a final
post from me before I unsubscribed (which was also censored), in which
I stated that "I will soon remove myself from the bitcoin-development
mailing list. I do not wish to continue to contribute to a community
list whose managers have made censorship of its members their business."

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

Then you see poorly, and we do not see eye to eye.

>
> 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).

It is censorship.

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


I would not advocate for Bitcoin.com, in fact I recommend users do not
utilize it; I do know that bitcoin.org maintainers do the best they
can and do get out good information, timely alerts, and posting of
events (and will put up or take down wallets based on information from
the community or from the wallet developers) and I respect what
bitcoin.org does for the most part. I realize each source
(whatever.com or .org) has an operating bias based on who is working
on the process of maintaining it.


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

You seem to like the p-word. Are you certain you do not use it
excessively? Would you like some pepper with your pragma?


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

It's curious that you've implied here that I have "slandered" an
entire damn list. I have simply made factual statements with respect
to the censors.

>
> Happy to hear more if you have time to share.
>
> Regards,
>
> Julian Smith

Cheers,

- - Odinn

>
> 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."
>
>
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- --
http://abis.io ~
"a protocol concept to enable decentralization
and expansion of a giving economy, and a new social good"
https://keybase.io/odinn