Folks, the Coin-Holders Petition is not a threat to the credibility of the Community Governance Panel. Zcash’s governance process is not such a fragile flower that it needs to be protected from hearing the opinions of the coin-holders.
On the contrary, attempting to discourage the coin-holders from expressing their opinions undermines the legitimacy of the process by allowing onlookers to question if the coin-holders wanted to say something that we didn’t want to hear. That’s not the case. The Zcash governance process, which requires — among other things — the Zcash Foundation board and the Electric Coin Company to jointly sign off on the use of the trademark, is robust. The Foundation’s earlier call for others to gather different measurements of the community’s opinion was a good idea, and still is.
The risks of the Coin-Holders Petition being attacked are overblown. Everything can be attacked, including all of the other sentiment collection processes that we are using, and including every conceivable other process that anyone could invent. But that doesn’t mean they are illegitimate. Everything has trade-offs, but the benefits sometimes outweigh the drawbacks, and in my opinion the benefit of respecting and including the voices of the coin-holders far outweigh the drawbacks. If you’re curious why I think this, please see my earlier post, in which I set out that and three other reasons why it is good and right that we as a community listen to and respect the voices of the coin-holders.
Let’s please dial down the alarmism and the uncharitable misrepresentation of each other. Those are real threats to the legitimacy of the governance process. The simple act of encouraging coin-holders to speak, and of listening to them respectfully, is not.
P.S. If you disagree, and you think the drawbacks outweigh the benefits, that’s fine. Good and reasonable people often disagree with one another about such complex trade-offs. If you agree, and you think coin-holders petitioning is good, here are instructions to participate.
[Dear moderators: this is a post about governance not about the Coin-Holders Petition. 
—Zooko]