Hi Shawn.
What specifically was a violation of the code of conduct? What triggered this response?
While the issues raised aren’t pleasant, they are valid and I don’t see ad hominem attacks.
Hi Shawn.
What specifically was a violation of the code of conduct? What triggered this response?
While the issues raised aren’t pleasant, they are valid and I don’t see ad hominem attacks.
Hi Josh,
The posts above were flagged and as a Mod I have to respond to those flags.
Specifically, I feel the conversation had moved beyond normal respectful discourse regarding the quality of decisions made while Amber was on the ZCG to impugning her personal character by bringing allegations of unethical conduct and collusion.
I issued the highlighted warning for everyone to please be respectful of one another by keeping the discussion civil, non personal, and on topic. I feel there is plenty of room within the CoC as written to discuss the merits of decisions made while not going after the personal character of other users.
I don’t like having to step in with these situations but as a Mod I too have to abide by the CoC which states:
Moderators shall:
Foster a community that encourages the bigger picture of Zcash aka: building a censorship resistant system where people can safely transact.
Maintain a welcoming community by taking necessary action towards all community members–including moderators–who choose not to follow these standards.
If you or @peacemonger feel that my moderation in this situation is disproportionate or inappropriate please feel free raise the issue with the ZF (cc @Dodger) who owns these forums and to whom I report to as a contractor.
First, I appreciate your work and the challenge of moderation.
As the person who received the phone call, and after hearing privately from others involved at the time, her comments had merit.
I believe that this action is censorship and antithetical to the values of Zcash where free speech is core. Ironically, the actions taken by leaders in this community outside the forum and referenced by her were attempts to censor speech.
We need to be able to call each other out on activities that hurt one another and the project. We need to shine sunlight on these things, even if we disagree, without fear of retribution. More speech, not less. I hope the forum can be the place to do that.
Having already said repeatedly that censorship was never my intention, I really don’t know what to do with the ongoing accusations about my intentions. What I did was exactly what you’re advocating for: calling out an action I thought was harmful to the project and making clear my own position that I don’t condone personal attacks, which staying silent could have implied.
I was not on the phone call you’re talking about and actually have no idea what was said, and so I resent being accused over and over regarding the contents of it.
This is why we need to keep these conversations open and in the light of day.
Thank you for the thoughtful feedback Josh.
I’m glad that this subject of what is considered a “personal attack” and how it should be moderated is coming to light again. The last time this happened I felt it was left somewhat unresolved due to my leaving the forums immediately afterwards. The solution at the time was to ask the parties to take the accusations to a different venue.
Now that I’m back I have a little different perspective than I had then. So, in the interest of honesty and transparency I’ll walk you (and everyone else reading) through my thought processes when moderating these kinds of issues.
This is going to be a long post so please bear with me.
First of all I feel it’s important to point out that the three posts in question (1,2,3) were not censored in any way. The system gives several options when resolving a flag including ignore, edit, hide, delete, ban, or ask the author to edit the post. If the intent was to censor then I could have done so by choosing one of the edit, hide or delete options, but as you can see the original posts and their original content is still fully visible and unaltered.
What I believe you are referring to when stating that “this action is censorship” is the warning that I posted and what it means with regards to future posts that have not been written yet.
The primary intent of the warning when I was writing it was for the two parties to tone it down, keep on topic, and treat each other with respect. As Zerodartz said so eloquently:
But I acknowledge the fact that in that warning I used terms like keep it “non-personal" and to avoid “personal attacks” which can be interpreted differently, more on that later.
I am saddened to hear this but honestly it’s completely out of scope for moderators to be a judge or jury of those offline arguments, behind the scene texts, phone calls, screenshots, Twitter feuds, etc… that occur between the Zcash forums varied membership. Moderators can only fairly weigh and take action regarding things that occur here on this forum.
We need to look at this “calling out” from an outsider’s perspective. Bearing in mind that one user’s “calling out” (depending on how it is done) is what the person being targeted could consider “defamation”. This is an extremely important point because this is an open public forum and there are users here who go by their full real names or commonly known pseudonyms that are tied to their real-world names. Everything posted here will show up in Google and could potentially have a damaging impact on that person in the future.
If you or others want to use this forum in this way then we need to have a serious conversation about what is considered a “personal attack” because of the knock-on effects I mentioned above.
This forums CoC (which is in part verbatim based off of the Zcash GitHub CoC, written by @daira and Sean Bowe) are both unclear on what precisely constitutes a “personal attack” and from a moderation perspective this can be an issue because it leaves room for interpretation. Without clear direction then the moderator gets stuck in an impossible (and frankly, quite stressful) position where both keeping an accusation up, editing it, or taking it down will offend one, the other, or both parties.
I’m going to use a boxing analogy to help illustrate a few examples of how I have been interpreting CoC with regards to personal attacks. In traditional boxing “above the belt” is fair game, “below the belt” is not and then we have the “grey area” which I have been interpreting as a moderator to also be “below the belt”.
In this illustration I think we would agree the items on the left side are unambiguous. The right side is the grey area I was referring to because it’s not specifically defined in the CoC but I believe are the kinds of things that would be viewed by the targeted individual and by the public as an attack on, or defamation of, their personal character.
This also begs the question: Is this forum is the best place to host these kinds of “call outs” or should users be directed to take the accusations to another platform? Would these kinds of discussions be acceptable in the Zcash GitHub repo where the similar CoC applies? I’m not sure that potential upsides of having such a back and forth “run its course” (with moderators turning a blind eye) outweigh the downsides. It’s a terrible look for new users who are excited to sign up, learn about, and get involved with Zcash, to then see the representatives from the core institutions in Zcash slinging mud at each other. In my opinion there needs to be far more effort on bridging the gaps between the edges of our community rather than focusing on the gaps themselves.
I hope this post helps you understand the factors, considerations, and challenges I and other moderators face when reviewing flags or issues raised by members of our community. I am not perfect and I don’t claim to have the perfect solution for every situation that occurs, I am fully aware that I can make a mistake and am willing to correct that mistake.
As I stated when I came back to moderating:
Please feel free to call me out here, in private, or contact the Zcash Foundation directly if you feel my moderation is lacking.
Thank you - Shawn
Moderation is hard, few have the chops. Excellent post describing your process. At the end of the day, its up to ambimorph and peacemonger to hash this out.
As an aside, I think as the bull run kicks into gear your probably going to need help with moderation, I would seriously consider looking for some help before the “fun” starts.
This discussion began in the thread titled “What Has Gone Wrong?” Amber became the focus of it because some of her actions and decisions certainly didn’t go right, and because somewhere along this discussion, she announced her run to be re-elected for ZCG. And also because she asked. Btw, removing Josh’s comments from their original thread (and moving them here) is not an example of good moderation, but it is another example of “what has gone wrong” as it resembles attempts to minimize this conversation’s impact on the current ZCG election.
Reducing this to “personal beef” misses the point entirely. This isn’t about two people; it involves many more. It’s worth mentioning that initially, the idea was to cancel others who participated in the Zcash Media grant discussion in an “unacceptable” way—not just me. Fortunately for several community members such as myself, that agenda deflated after the conversation with Josh. (Thank you.)
If discussing one’s actions feels like a personal attack, perhaps the issue lies with the actions themselves. There’s no way or need to sugarcoat bad behavior when exposed—it’s not meant to feel good. The expectations to keep these secrets and turn the other cheek don’t make any sense. Shifting the focus to tone or personal offense only distracts from the actual problem. The focus should be on accountability, not tone policing.
I’m not as good at playing victim and clutching my pearls as some of the other main characters in this story, so maybe some missed the part about Amber’s "confidant” Zooko, after speaking with her, trying to get a community member fired for participating in an off-forum discussion about a mismanaged and now withdrawn ZCG grant. If they wanted to defend ZM’s work, they could’ve done so by showing evidence of why it was worth $1M. They could have engaged in a public debate and presented their reasons for supporting it. But instead, they used every channel available to them to intimidate and manipulate the people they disagreed with. Since there seems to be some confusion about what a personal attack is - what Amber and Zooko did was a personal attack. “Retaliation” is also a good word for it. They crossed a line, and no amount of deflecting and top-notch virtue signaling change that.
We should protect this space for free discourse, not use the Code of Conduct against people with valid concerns. Sadly, I’ve never encountered censorship to this degree anywhere else. It’s disappointing. I can’t believe this comes down to a debate about free speech, on this forum of all places. *smh That’s fine. If I get kicked off for this, I’ll live and sleep just fine. I’d prefer to keep it here, but if the forum can’t handle these discussions, there are other platforms. I intend to continue to speak plainly. Like most of us, I’m not here to help lay the foundation for another corrupt, ineffective system. We already have one of those. If censorship continues, the conversation will simply move somewhere else.
ZCG is the only organization that continues to receive direct funding, which means ZEC holders like me are effectively taxed to support it. I have the right to call Amber’s candidacy for ZCG into question here, and any ZCG candidate, running for one of the seats that grant the power to allocate community resources, should be prepared to face criticism for their voting record.
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Beyond the clear indication of her inability to manage conflicts of interest, Amber’s ZCG voting record is not great. For example, she refused to vote to cancel the grossly overpriced Zcash Media grant despite abundant feedback from contributing community members that have something she doesn’t—relevant professional experience. She’s also repeatedly dismissed the need to focus on early adopters and user research, arguing against the product adoption curve, presented and explained to her multiple times—ignoring the expertise of contributors who understand these basic, widely-accepted principles of product adoption. If she doesn’t have any relevant professional experience and can’t base her decisions on professional feedback, community input, or data provided to her, what guides her decisions to approve or deny six-figure grants that are supposed to drive Zcash adoption—gut feelings? Her “confidant”? Anecdotal evidence? This lack of experience, combined with the apparent lack of desire to learn and absorb input from others, is a disqualifying trait for anyone entrusted with ZCG responsibilities.
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We deserve leadership that seeks feedback and makes decisions in the community’s best interest—not their own. And we deserve better stewardship of community resources.
Zcash isn’t anyone’s personal playground—it’s a public good built by many highly skilled, committed, talented individuals, most of whom don’t get nearly enough credit for the actual work that went and goes into building and promoting Zcash. The fact that a handful of people still think they can play politics and manipulate community discourse across platforms through censorship and intimidation without any accountability is a problem worth noting. Understandably, they don’t like it thrown back at them. It changes the dynamics of punching down. If we are not allowed to discuss that here, perhaps the forum is failing its purpose just like the handful of legacy gatekeepers that have kept Zcash stagnating for years. Zcash is growing and thankfully not every emerging voice is going to sing along with the same old tunes.
Politics has been at the heart of Zcash for years… why are you so surprised now? Even with new organizations in play, it’s the same players on the field. Do the same thing and expect different results… and then we wonder why nothing changes.
I feel a compulsion to weigh in here with some disjointed thoughts and perhaps bring down the temperature a bit. While I don’t know either @peacemonger or @ambimorph well on a personal level, I see both as eminently reasonable and intelligent people who are coming at this from a position of good faith - trying do what is best in your perception for Zcash.
To lay my cards out on the table, I came out pretty hard in favor of the 2nd Zcash Media grant. Hindsight being 20/20, I probably shouldn’t have. At the time, I was very impressed with the first set of videos Zcash Media came out with, especially the Dobbertin reveal. Natasha and David evidenced impressive storytelling and video production skills, producing some of the most compelling and clear content I’d seen in the crypto world. The Dobbertin reveal video in particular was riveting. At the same time, there were some pieces missing, particularly in terms of the visibility and impact of the content which, from what I now recognize was a standpoint of naivete, I assumed would just naturally fall into place given the strength of the material.
The content stemming from the more recent Zcash Media grant has been…OK. The videos look nice and a have a professional sort of vibe, but they don’t do a whole lot more than bestow a faint imprimatur of professionalism on our humble project to whatever small trickle of people comes across them. I think the host format was an obvious mistake, and as much as I like and respect David, he was not the right choice to serve that role. I lost interest in the longer videos before finishing any of them. I’m just one random guy, but I’m also someone who was predisposed to take a positive view of the content, thinking well of the producers and being passionately interested in Zcash. That does not bode well in terms of grabbing the people we actually need to persuade. So clearly, none of this was going to meaningfully move the needle in terms of evangelizing and educating on behalf of Zcash.
So granting that, at the time of the debate, my recollection is that the most prevalent and loudest of the objections to the grant were less about the approach itself and more about the question of timing (should we be releasing content in a bear market?), confusing and abstract theories about “innovation adoption”, and a lot of opposition to the idea of even devoting substantial resources to marketing and meaningful outreach beyond this tiny walled garden under any circumstance. It’s still clear to me as it was at the time, that we should be putting a lot of time, energy and $$$ into exactly that regardless of market conditions. In retrospect we could and should have gotten far, far more bang for the 7 figure budget and as that became clear, reallocating those resources would have been a wise if somewhat wrenching decision. But that said, I don’t recall any alternative proposals that were comparable in scope or in vision and it wasn’t obvious (at least to me) that there was a better use for that money at the time. I think ZCG spending $1m+ on a marketing campaign, even after the fallout from Zcash Media, is not at all an intrinsically bad idea.
So yes, I understand and empathize completely @ambimorph’s reasoning at the time. Likewise when certain people in the community were incensed and confrontational about how all this played out, it’s only human nature to look for support.
All of this is to say I think several things are simultaneously true:
Ok one last thought: To this point, the Zcash community has been dominated by engineering types, which is not a bad thing. But one thing we have been sorely lacking (but clearly not completely absent!) is content area specialists in marketing/PR. That is a skill and area of expertise every bit as much specialized and valuable as coding. ECC has been hitting its stride more and more in this arena but there is still a great deal to be desired and a huge amount of lost time and lost ground to make up for. I don’t claim to be any kind of special expert here, and we need to spend more time listening to and deferring to folks with actual experience and track records in building communities and promoting stuff.
Ok, let’s all be friends now!
<3
I would appreciate if you would stop asserting lies about me. I did not try to get you fired. I had nothing to do with “that” (insofar as anything like that happened at all, which I doubt—I think it’s yet another unfounded accusation) other than the peripheral act of having expressed alarm and disgust at your unprofessional behaviour with Zooko and with Twitter, which falls under the free speech you keep mentioning. I did not tell him or anyone else to “try to get you fired”. Period. Please desist accusing me of this.
As per my voting record, yes I did not vote to cancel the ZM grant in progress, largely because it’s a bad precedent. Grantees need to feel they are in a safe contract. Also we had an upcoming checkpoint for reevaluation already planned with the team during which we were probably going to cancel, so there was no need to accelerate.
And yes, I was one of the people who did not vote for your grant. How much of your wrath towards me comes from that, I’ll never know. I do not think our marketing efforts should be focused on the power users already using Zcash because they are true believers. I think we should be focusing on people who need Zcash but don’t know it yet. I hope the new marketing hire at ECC will have a broader and larger vision.
I like both @ambimorph and @peacemonger and think they have made substantial contributions to the ecosystem. I see 2 main underlying problems that contribute to the conflict here.
I don’t have much to suggest right now in the way of solutions. But, i think this squabble is just a downstream outgrowth of these deeper problems.
I could connect these problems to my experience with free2z. Our grant was a small number of people (ZCG) granting a small number of people (2Z Inc) a fairly large USD income (the transfer is in ZEC but it is reported as USD income). Free2Z started as a closed-source for-profit. The original idea was definitely “worth a try” and we still will have some energy to continue on and take new paths in 2025. In hindsight though, a better design would have been to do it as a fully open-source community project from the beginning that was meant for 100s or even 1000s of people to contribute to the building and marketing with a defined way to earn ZEC.
My experience has probably been similar in a lot of ways with David and Natasha. Hard-working experts doing the best they can under the circumstances. But, this small-group-gets-substantial-income grants design is suboptimal not just because it doesn’t necessarily deploy capital in the most efficient way, not only because it breeds political positioning and backroom conspiracy theories, not only because it is fundamentally centralized, but it also puts huge psychological pressure on the grant recipient and makes them public figures up for infinite criticism and second-guessing.
What’s the latest on the lockbox?
I would like to know who is responsible for this forum
as I only expressed my opinion again today and was immediately censored again like 1 week ago.
Please contact me.
ZF is responsible for this forum, and @Shawn helps us administer and moderate it.
You may wish to review the Community Code of Conduct.
Anyone can flag a post that they believe breaches the Code of Conduct, and this may result in the post being hidden, pending review.
Any criticism against shawn will be censored immediately
that’s why I ask you to check it. I have already contacted the ECC.
Thanks.
You’re not being censored.
You are perfectly welcome to criticise but personal attacks are explicitly against the Code of Conduct.
So you are seriously saying that the truth is an attack. Interesting attitude.
I will adjust my post again. Then we will see.
Unfortunately I was censored and suspended here for a week because some ppl didn’t like my criticism. Up to this point in time everything I’ve said so far has been part of free speech and if not, in no case an insult from a legal point of view, just like this post: in my opinion, this is a pretty cowardly and left behavior. If you guys don’t know what free speech or an insult is and feel offended or insulted then that’s your problem not mine. If you here don’t like certain topics, then you should leave, but not the people who write.