I asked Zooko to please move his posts regarding serious allegations against other cryptocurrency projects and project leaders for two reasons:
The forums Code of Conduct clearly states that personal attacks are not allowed.
I have no way of verifying the validity of the claims and do not want to risk Zcash Foundation (who owns these forums) having liability for leaving such claims up.
I personally want to thank Zooko for his understanding in this matter and for moving the posts to a different venue.
I also want to note this comment made by Zooko in the previous thread:
It’s worth considering whether this is an example of how an adversarial actor or organization of actors who know what the rules are can intentionally exploit the rules, for example making sure that one or more of their members retain the ability to participate as apparently members-in-good-standing, but that posts calling them out would be excluded due to the (entirely good and well-justified) rule against “personal attacks”.
This is a relevant point to which I do not have a good answer to.
I strive to remain neutral when making any Moderation decisions, referring to the CoC as the guideline. However I acknowledge there can be cases where members are strictly “following the rules” but may not have Zcashs best interests in mind.
As I mentioned in the other thread:
Forum members have to break the forums rules to be banned, it’s as simple as that. If the bar for banning people is not behavior on this forum, but behavior on other platforms then we run into he-said she-said they-said with no way for us to verify claims. For example just the other day people were calling for FireiceUK to be banned because they felt they were a “scammer”, if there is no actual bar like the Code of Conduct that ECC and ZFND have in place than it’s a whatever I or someone at ZF feels.
It is extremely important to me that this forum remains a inviting place where Zcash members can discuss, agree and disagree with each other in a respectable, safe and inviting atmosphere. And the best way I know of to do that is to strive to maintain a clear set of expectations for all members.
Please feel free to call me out if I’m messing something up in a thread, here, or via DM.
Please feel free to use the Meta category to make topics regarding or questioning any moderation decisions made, or if you have suggestions for how the forum could be better.
Fair enough, there was a subsequent topic in that thread about ZCAP that @ebfull had brought up and I had responded to. What would be the best way to continue that discussion?
Also, I think we are ok to “call out” or “discuss” (maybe not “attack”, although that can be subjective) people by name as long as we use context or background that is publicly verifiable when discussing them? For instance, if a ZCAP member has Zcash’s best interests at heart based on their previous statements, etc, etc.
Appreciate your diligence and transparency @Shawn.
Agree, with the caveat that the person is also part of the forum and can respond to the criticism. Otherwise how will they know?
For example:
Ok form of criticism:
I saw the other day that [ X] @ person was posting this on [social media] [link] against Zcash and as a result I think [ X] should be excluded from [whatever]
Poor form of criticism:
[ X] is just a scammer. You all are a bunch of idiots for letting [ X] do [whatever] and [whatever]. I saw them doing [whatever, no link] this one time. All members of [ X] group should be automatically excluded from [whatever] because of this betrayal.
Because it falsely insinuates that someone (me) has dishonest and malicious intentions. Be aware that Matt Green, who wrote the above, is a member of the Board of Directors of the Zcash Foundation, which owns this forum and which — if I understand correctly and unless this has changed — pays Shawn a stipend to serve as chief moderator. I strongly believe in Shawn’s integrity and good intentions — he has just about the longest track record of any member of the Zcash community — he’s basically the first member of the Zcash community, or one of them — and his track record has zero occurrences of anything other than acting with the highest integrity. So I do not want this comment to be mistaken as a slur against Shawn’s character, but I want everyone who sees this to know that there is an inherent conflict-of-interest built into the Zcash Foundation’s ownership and operation of this forum.
To be clear, I very much do not want that comment to be edited or removed. On the contrary, I want it to remain so that people can see it and learn from the fact that it was posted.
There’s been way too many allegations over the last week. Shawn is one of the most balanced, unbiased people I know, and that is in no way compromised by the fact that he moderates these forums and ZF operates them.
By the way, I would consider the phrasing of the topic “Does the Zcash Foundation support ZEC holders” to be a personal attack. I would also consider the claim about the Zcash Foundation staff “having yet to deliver any results” to be an attack on all of the Foundation’s staff.
But what is there to gain from any and all of this? Can we just get back to contributing towards shared goals and stop all the pointing of fingers?
You feel that I have somehow given members of the ZF a lighter hand on moderation enforcement solely because they are from ZF?
If so, you could be correct but know that same more “flexible” application of rules also applies to you, members of the core developer teams, employees of ECC and ZF, and the founding scientists of Zcash whenever you are discussing core Zcash issues.
Why?
Because you guys are literally Zcash
Your work, efforts, debates, discussion, agreements, disagreements, etc… are shaping the future of Zcash, in real-time.
It is vitality important for the community, investors, and zolders to see and understand what is working and not working between the two organizations so they can be informed about the future of Zcash.
If you’re saying my motives are inherently biased because I am working for ZF, and I’m not here every day working to serve the Zcash communities best interests, but somehow trying skew the conversation in ZFs favor, then simply say as much, plainly, and I will depart tomorrow.
I will donate the zcash community URL to the ZF to do with as they see fit.
Ugh, no!! You’re not reading that right! I’m so sorry you saw my post like that, Shawn. I don’t think that about you, and I tried to be as clear as possible in my post that I don’t think anything negative about you. I hold your integrity in the highest esteem.
My point is that the Zcash Foundation as an institution has legal ownership and control of this forum, and that constitutes an inherent conflict-of-interest, which can become an issue when there are contentious discussions that are important to the Zcash Foundation or that involve Zcash Foundation Directors.
A data point is that the post from a Zcash Foundation Director, alleging that I have dishonest and malicious intent, was allowed to stand, but my post hypothesizing that Rhett Creighton and Riccardo Spagni might be engaged in dishonest and malicious behavior was locked and deleted by the Zcash Foundation. (Along with comments containing good points relevant to Zcash governance by Sean Bowe and David from ZcashMedia. I hope they repost those.)
I sincerely believe that you, Shawn, are doing the best possible job under the circumstances and that your intentions are unimpeachable. I sincerely hope that you recognize the trust I have in you — and that I believe everyone in the Zcash community has in you — and I hope you remain an active pillar of the community.
But I don’t believe this forum can serve as a credibly neutral venue for important discussions, since it is owned and controlled by the Zcash Foundation, and I suspect it is infiltrated by adversarial agents.
Zooko! A public post by you alleging that Zcash Foundation engineers have been up to essentially nothing in terms of results was also allowed to stand. According to you, the only good work the Foundation ever did was in relation to Zcon and Comms by Dan and myself. Your description in here is very selective. And I say this with the utmost respect for you.
@zooko I really hope you can take a moment to sit down and think about how despite your best intentions, you could be causing detriment to this community with polarizing statements and baseless accusations. I look up to you, that’s something I have even said to you in private. But the accusatory statements this week have been demoralising to people who care so much about Zcash and I don’t think you understand that.
Shawn, I’m extremely sorry that you feel mentally and physically exhausted and that you think my concern about the legal structure of this forum reflects badly on you, and I’m extremely sorry that we’re losing your long and excellent service.
For the benefit of those reading, and perhaps also yourself, I want to point out that your quote of my comment, shown above, ends with a comma, because it omits the reasons that I gave for why I don’t believe this forum can work as a credible neutral venue. The reasons have nothing you do with your integrity. The reasons I gave are:
The reason I personally have chosen to become vocal recently is because ZF is catching a lot of flack in a really unfair way. Our leadership and a lot of our team is new. Our ED for example joined ZF in February 2021. Along the way, we got new team members including a new COO who have absolutely nothing to do with the qualms many of you have, including myself.
I’m taking all these things personally because not many of you understand the dedication that the Zcash Foundation staff has towards Zcash. To be asked if we support ZEC holders is down right an insult given the circumstances that many of you are aware of.
To continuously attack us with all kinds of claims is outrageous and mean spirited especially for those of you who know what some of us have had to deal with while continuing our mission in supporting Zcash and general privacy. We’re working on improving based on your feedback. Some compassion however would be nice.
I had a close family member lose their eye sight between the time I joined ZF and now, ZF staff know about this. And yet I’ve continued to show up with integrity every single day, to serve the Zcash protocol that we’re accused of not caring for .
Zooko fam, my 11 year old nephew just lost his eye sight and I’m on here on a Friday night weighing in on Zcash and its operations. I also didn’t take a single day off for his surgical procedures, you can run that by ZF who advised me to, in case you’re concerned about ZF staff’s investment in Zcash!
Plus, I also actually started running a campaign this week that is doing so much good for ZEC during this market volatility. I don’t need drama and neither does ZF or Shawn.
Okay, this has been one heavy week in the crypto markets and the Zcash community & members from outside the community have been having serious discussions around the upcoming upgrade. At times like these, some posts made from the point of view of certain members might be taken in a totally different context if folks can’t put themselves in the shoes of the OP.
Example:
I respect Winfred for standing up for what they believe in, and I see that there is confusion around the point raised. Zooko asked an open question if ZF has the interests of ZEC(the currency) holders since some members have concerns around ZF’s mission being oriented to blanket privacy tech VS privacy effectively via ZEC the currency. This has nothing to do with the ZF engineers that you pointed to, who I believe we are so lucky to have - as their work, does attract investors, that Zcash will get an efficient Rust-based node client that will make it easy to build apps on top of Zcash network and grow adoption of ZEC. But again, the open question stays and we did see responses and discussions around it on the forum.
Yes, a lot of times these discussions take a toll on us, especially when some of us are working full time on ZEC, this is also the challenge of being in this industry. But some critical matters need to be discussed and inputs need to be evaluated and digested by the community, or these discussions would happen in backdoor meetings without involving the input from zodlers.
With all due respect Adi, and you know I have a ton of respect for you, Shawn is on the verge of handing a resignation to Jack tomorrow morning. And you as well as I know that he is one of the MOST respected people in this space.
If Shawn is considering a resignation, IMHO, we all need to reflect on why this would be the case. Idk Shawn btw, have never met him either, was hoping to at Zcon.
Like can we do a cost benefit analysis of the most recent actions on this platform? I’m an Economics student and graduate. I view things from an economical perspective too. And I’m very objective BTW, when it comes to both ZF and ECC.
Losing Shawn is A NET LOSS FOR ZCASH. Anyone that disagrees is dishonest with themselves.
This is sad, I don’t think anyone can match Shawn’s level of dedication to managing the forums. And it is doubly sad if confusion around accusations causes his resignation. Words are being taken out of context and given face value as to who is saying them. Instead of letting the discussion prevail.
I don’t know who will replace Shawn, I hope they decide to stay, this is definitely a tough situation to be in for them.
I agree. Does this forum have a pause function? It wouldn’t hurt. *)
Lately, I’ve been surprised every morning by the number of such topics here (when the forum is active life, in Russia comes night). I think there are too many bad emotions here. We ourselves are forced to moderate them under the rules of the forum. But they come out in bad posts. I have written very bad posts here many times, and I did not limit my emotions at that moment. Then I reread and deleted myself my emotions. Emotions go away, you realize that they set you up.
