On bitcoin-dev list admin and list noise

This was discussed in IRC, but (did I miss it?) never made it to the list outside of being buried in a longer summary.

There is a common complain that bitcoin-dev is too noisy. The response plan is to narrow the focus of the list to near term technical changes to the bitcoin protocol and its implementations (bitcoin core, btcd, ...)

Debates over bitcoin philosophy, broader context, etc. will start seeing grumpy list admins squawk about "off-topic!"

It is a fair criticism, though, that "take it elsewhere!" needs to have some place as a suggested destination. The proposal is to create a second list, bitcoin-tech-discuss or perhaps just 'bitcoin', with a more general rubric. This split has served IRC well and generally manages to keep the noise down to a productive level. We want this list to achieve that same goal; if bitcoin-dev is not productive then it's not useful.

I'm not intending to completely dismiss your concerns but as a data point: I read this list daily and it usually takes 15 minutes or less while I drink a cup of coffee.

My concern is that this is one of the (maybe *the*) last uncensored persisted forums related to technical bitcoin discussion with wide viewership. It is increasingly difficult for an average somewhat technical person to attempt to hold the bitcoin development community accountable for its actions or have their voice heard. It would really be a shame if messages like this were relegated to a black hole where things like the exchange rate and various scammy spam goes to fester.

>Debates over bitcoin philosophy, broader context, etc. will start seeing grumpy list admins squawk about "off-topic!"

Who will draw this line? It's unclear to me who the list admins are.

This mailing list was never meant to be a place "to hold the bitcoin development community accountable for its actions [sic]." I know other developers that have switched to digest-only or unsubscribed. I know if this became a channel for PR and populist venting as you describe, I would leave as well. This mailing list is meant to be a place to discuss ongoing bitcoin development issues relating to the protocol and its instantiation in bitcoin core. Please don't decrease the utility of this list by expanding scope.

On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 9:38 AM, Santino Napolitano via bitcoin-dev < bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org> wrote:

> I'm not intending to completely dismiss your concerns but as a data point:
> I read this list daily and it usually takes 15 minutes or less while I
> drink a cup of coffee.
>
> My concern is that this is one of the (maybe *the*) last uncensored
> persisted forums related to technical bitcoin discussion with wide
> viewership. It is increasingly difficult for an average somewhat technical
> person to attempt to hold the bitcoin development community accountable for
> its actions or have their voice heard. It would really be a shame if
> messages like this were relegated to a black hole where things like the
> exchange rate and various scammy spam goes to fester.
>
> >Debates over bitcoin philosophy, broader context, etc. will start seeing
> grumpy list admins squawk about "off-topic!"
>
> Who will draw this line? It's unclear to me who the list admins are.
> _______________________________________________
> bitcoin-dev mailing list
> bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>

There's a simple way to cut down on "noise" that doesn't involve people shouting OFFTOPIC at each other: the maintainer needs to resolve discussions by making decisions and saying, this is how Core does it. If you disagree, go make/join a fork because there's no point in discussing this any further here. People would get the picture pretty fast.

Wladimir doesn't do this. That is something he should fix. Clearly ending debates so they don't run in circles forever is a basic management technique.

Allowing random people to give each other red cards is merely a great way to piss off users even further, because anyone who objects to a clearly bone-headed decision will be told they're discussing philosophy and to go away (this is meaningless).

> On 29 Sep 2015, at 19:29, Mike Hearn via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org> wrote:
>
> There's a simple way to cut down on "noise" that doesn't involve people shouting OFFTOPIC at each other: the maintainer needs to resolve discussions by making decisions and saying, this is how Core does it.

Looks like you are mixing the maintainer of the Bitcoin Core with the bitcoin-dev mailing list moderator. Intentionally? -- Pavel Janík