Announcing my resignation from the ZOMG

[mistfpga]

@dontbeevil

Agreed, we need her on ZOMG & be part of Zcash.

strong disagree mate. she lost me at that tweet.

@buildwithrust

I am willing to work towards a fix, even if it includes a shakeup in ECC and ZF leadership.

you want to roll the dice against the proven track record of the ZF, on the hope we need sarah? We havent been told the problem yet.

EDIT: Changed grammar I agree with you @buildwithrust

[buildwithrust]

Well I am much more happy with ZF than the ECC right now, but you are right that more context would be helpful.

[zancas]

It seems to me that omitting @ZcashGrants from the list of “most powerful pillars” is… ehh… a significant oversight?

[buildwithrust]

@Souptacular

It appears to me that within them there are personalities that hold influence over the direction of Zcash in ways that are a net negative for adoption and the chance for community input

I agree with this. I know numerous FOSS developers that are fascinated by ZIP 224 but are dissuaded from contributing from Zcash due to the the harmful influence and control of a few ECC leaders

[tromer]

@buildwithrust

I know numerous FOSS developers that are fascinated by ZIP 224 but are dissuaded from contributing from Zcash due to the the harmful influence and control of a few ECC leaders

This is important. Names aside (we had quite enough ad hominem for one day), can you say what concerns or risks those developers are worried about? What would they like to do in Zcash-land and how specifically would it be foiled by said influence?

[zorg5]

Social justice DDOS attack? https://twitter.com/hasufl/status/1351312926699892737?s=20

[jmsjsph]

Sexism? SJL has the biggest balls on ZOMG.

@Souptacular

It also may not be my place to take lead on addressing these specific issues because someone from an underrepresented community that is directly feeling the effects of these biases may be better to address them

SJL earned the most votes. She fights the biggest government agencies and corporations on our behalf. She is never afraid to say exactly what she thinks.

Please refrain from calling the community sexist on her behalf because it is highly offensive and detracting.

@holmesworcester

Her leaving is a huge loss, and I share Hudson’s sense that this loss is happening due to sexism, specifically because I’ve seen reactions to her from multiple people over the past year that were suspiciously and sometimes tragicomically out of sync with or disproportionate given the content of what she was saying and that—taken together—I can’t explain in any other way.

Possible Explanation: She defends unpopular beliefs fervently.

[zancas]

If any of my behaviors/posts etc. were offensive to you, then I unreservedly apologize.

I was an enthusiastic supporter of your candidacy (though I couldn’t vote).

I disagree with you on at least some things. That’s a major reason I hope you will stay.

I need principled intelligent people to disagree with me, how else can I learn?

If you leave, I believe my understanding of Privacy-In-The-Zcash-Verse will be impoverished as a result.

I disagreed with your position on zecwallet funding… but I don’t think your Reasons are without merit! Please stay, do the hard work.

[zancas]

I want @sarahjamielewis on @ZcashGrants BECAUSE I often disagree with her, but I usually understand her perspective. I think that’s actual diversity.

Then again what I want is… well they don’t call it two zats for nothing.

[zancas]

If @sarahjamielewis executes on her declared intent, then this topic seems urgent:

Protocol For Emergency ZOMG Updates

Apparently the composition of the @ZcashGrants might abruptly change. What (if anything) does ZIP 1014 say about that? Even if there’s a clear protocol in the ZIP, the community needs to have a space to discuss the (sudden) shift. That’s why I propose this fresh Governance Topic. Apologies in advance if 1014 is superseded.

[dontbeevil]

@mistfpga

strong disagree mate. she lost me at that tweet.

Fine, lots of people voted for her. There are many stupid tweets from others in Zcash who contribute to Zcash, she answered all of that during her candidacy!! I don’t know why people bring that again

[mistfpga]

• Bug-hunter faces jail for vulnerability reports, DuckDuckPwn (almost), family spied on via Nest gizmo, and more • The Register
• Security researcher faces jail time for publishing software vulnerabilities | TechRepublic
• To Disclose or not Disclose: The Ethics of Vulnerability Disclosure | by Paul Crews | Medium
• Dangers of Reporting a Computer Vulnerability - Schneier on Security

@dontbeevil

Fine, lots of people voted for her.

yeah, i think i would have prefered those who voted on 1014 to be those to vote on who enacts it.

[buildwithrust]

@tromer

@buildwithrust

I know numerous FOSS developers that are fascinated by ZIP 224 but are dissuaded from contributing from Zcash due to the the harmful influence and control of a few ECC leaders

This is important. Names aside (we had quite enough ad hominem for one day), can you say what concerns or risks those developers are worried about? What would they like to do in Zcash-land and how specifically would it be foiled by said influence?

The FOSS developers I am thinking of care deeply about autonomy and decentralization. ECC appears to hold quite a few development meetings in private and there is a great deal of uncertainty regarding transaction fees, network privacy, future shielded pools, and whether or not transparent transactions will eventually be dissalowed on the network.

For true FOSS projects, one has the autonomy to build solutions freely and users can choose to use it or not. In Bitcoin it is clear that miners have a voice and no single corporation has undue influence on what Bitcoin is. The fight over the Zcash trademark demonstrated that both ECC and ZF care deeply about controlling the definition of Zcash. This is problematic when outside developers, even with community support have a different vision for Zcash and want to retain that name.

This is a huge problem when different developers have plans that rely on key decisions such as fees, network privacy, and shielded pools are given little transparency into future protocol changes and timeline. Network effect matters to a lot of developers, so submitting a pull request, being denied a merge by the trademark owners and deciding to launch a fork (without the Zcash name) is not a viable solution for most.

The development community would benefit from open discussion about all major protocol changes and guidance from the trademark owners about the key areas I identified.

Right now I am testing a commercial application for use of the encrypted memo field. I have fee algorithm preferences but what I really need is fee enforcement on the protocol level.

@buildwithrust

Lets revisit this and create a new ZIP where creating privacy leaks cannot become a competitive advantage. We need a solution that includes protocol level enforcement in order to both product user privacy AND create a level playing field for developers that want to build useful things on Zcash

In the meantime I have no choice but to build redundancy by storing data on another chain in case Zcash does not prove sustainable for my use case. What should be a marketing opportunity for Zcash will be abstracted away because I have I cannot read the minds of the trademark owners or blindly trust that they will allow for the changes that need to be made to be merged into Zcash.

[mistfpga]

@zancas

Finally… whether, or not, @sarahjamielewis suffered from discriminatory behavior, diversity on the ZOMG is something I believe that the community should place a high value on.

Please @sarah report it to @mods there is no place for this here. we have one very strong disagreement. but I wouldnt want to see you victimised.

[buildwithrust]

@Protocol For Emergency ZOMG Updates

(if anything) does ZIP 1014 say about that? Even if there’s a clear protocol in the ZIP, the community need

Diversity of opinion indeed makes us stronger.

[Souptacular]

Yes you are correct! ZOMG is the third pillar for sure, but we are so new and have funded so few initiatives our true power hasn’t been built up yet imo.

[Souptacular]

@jmsjsph

Please refrain from calling the community sexist on her behalf because it is highly offensive and detracting.

It is not on her behalf, she can think for herself. I’m calling it out myself and will learn in the process if people believe I am right or wrong about my assumptions.

[Shawn]

@zancas

whether, or not, @sarahjamielewis suffered from discriminatory behavior, diversity on the ZOMG is something I believe that the community should place a high value on.

@mistfpga

Please @sarah report it to @mods there is no place for this here.

Please note that Sarah’s original post does not address sexism directly, the follow up posts by Hudson and Holmes do bring up the topic of sexism.

I certainly hope that Sarah did not feel discriminated against while on the ZOMG, and if she felt discrimination by other ZOMG members (including myself) then I hope she would feel compelled to post it.

I’m on the ZOMG and did not personally witness any discrimination by other ZOMG members towards Sarah, but I cannot speak to Sarah’s perspective.

[Souptacular]

I just saw this tweet from Sarah, which made me start to rethink my OP in this thread.

Sarah Jamie Lewis

I regret that I brought up sexism first in a list of things that were problems when the focus should be on what she actually typed. Now it has detracted from her main point. My apologies everyone.

[zancas]

I believe that compassion is a general solution to the problem the suffering that our actions can intentionally and unintentionally cause in others.

I am concerned that the invocation of sexism (first by @holmesworcester in this thread, if I recall correctly (IIRC)) can lead to an environment of second-guessing the unknowable intentions of the other.

It’s widely understood that even our own intentions are often mislabeled and misunderstood… much less the intentions of someone else!

If we frame our discussion where a nebulous accusation of ill-intent on the part of another can be used to justify courses of action… well then… there’s a famous way of describing that called “thought crime”. Indeed ascribed unknowable intention is a fantastically useful political tool, because… after all, I can at any time be delegitimized by an accusation of some impure thought.

For example, suppose that I believed that @alchemydc was not very-representative of unheard perspectives. Perhaps I would then seek to justify arguing against his assumption of a role on the ZOMG. A potent argument would be that sexism is corroding the value of the ZOMG… and @alchemydc is male so…

For What It’s Worth, I am in favor of an outsider. If @ml_sudo was still available and interested, and I could vote, I would vote for her… but it wouldn’t have anything to do with vague notions of sexism.

So… long and short I am pro-diversity, AND if people are being accused of harmful behavior, let’s be specific:

Who did what to whom?