Case discussion on the EIP process, based on EIP-1900 & EIP-1

Magicians Process Improvement
22

Sorry, like I’ve said repeatedly, I don’t have a lot of time to spare, and I already gave a lot of time to my initial feedback, which you are free to take and leave as you like. It seems you’ve had a lot of time to respond, and I’m willing to respond as I’m able, I’m sorry it’s not synchronous, there are many important things competing for my attention right now.

I will try to get back to this, but if you’re going to read slow delays as unacceptable disinterest or even “not giving you time for rebuttal”, then I will just leave it alone, as it seems like I may be doing more harm than good.

Thanks for highlighting the most important thing for me to reply on.

From what I can tell, the hostility began around June 2. Phrases like:

  • I suggest you pay attention to how clearly you phrase your questions before being unsatisfied with the answer.
  • So aside from your destructive (as opposed to constructive) and your inexact criticism, what can I do?

I totally get that this was frustration at not getting merged, but I would also point out that at no point during this issue discussion do you link to the pull request that you’re referring to, so I could imagine that Nick didn’t even realize there was a PR that you were suggesting, and didn’t see himself as blocking at all.

There were also lots of instances of hostility in the more recent twitter thread.

Anyways, I’m not judging, I really do understand the frustration with the EIP process, I have EIPs that also do not get merges or comments. I’m just answering your question so you can hopefully understand why from my perspective, this just looks like a misunderstanding that got escalated.

I’ll try to review the other comments soon, sorry for the regular absence, it is not meant in bad spirit.

23

Ethereum is about open and decentralized processes. What is the outcome of a process that does not work? Abuse. Abuse can be on either side, willingly or unwillingly. Abuse on time, on effort, etc.

For my case (EIP process), this abuse was:

  • months between the EIP PR and merging; merging only happened after I started proposing EIP editor processes

  • Arachnid did not understand dType, but still gave recommendations on how to write; first were ok and I complied; second ones, talking about the intrinsic tech demonstrated a lack of knowledge on the topic, which he was unwilling to admit or consider

  • I did not accuse him of not understanding what a type system is (i.e. not interfaces), but he did accuse me of not understanding the difference between an implementation and an interface

  • his status gives him the power to abuse even unwillingly; he did not understand the proposal and dismissed it

Arachnid can also consider that he was abused (time, effort, etc.). But he is an instrument & influencer of the EIP process.

You started this discussion by voicing your conclusions. And the conclusions were:

  • Loredana was rude for no reason
  • if a process does not work/abuse happens, then you should be nice and take it

Now, you are an obstacle to clarifying these problems because you have:

  • opened a lot of subjects without the intent to follow through because you then say you don’t have time
  • returned to a subject that has already been explained, seemingly not accepting the arguments already given and not answering my questions on that subject; You should present counter-arguments to the arguments that I gave, not acting like the subject was not even touched (e.g. “I suggest you pay attention to how clearly you phrase your questions before being unsatisfied with the answer.”)
  • not retreated the Twitter statements that you conceded

If you like to stay abused, at least do not block others who do not. I consider that I have a duty to me and others to fight against the abuse that I can directly see.

24

This is such a misrepresentation of what I said, that I barely have anything left to say. I did my best at interpreting what happened, and you reject my interpretation. That’s fine, but I am done trying to facilitate this conflict, I should have known it would turn on me soon enough.

25

Until this point you have been misrepresenting your intentions:

  • you seemed open to actually discuss the case, but then your actions showed that you only wanted to present your interpretation without really discussing
  • you said one thing (conceeding that I did not miscommunicate - comment) and then your actions did not support that statement (you never retreated that statement in the original Twitter thread - first link in the description)

At this point, I cannot know if you actually mean what you write, so this discussion cannot be continued until your actions match your words.

26

This has been an intensely busy period for me, and while I wanted to give to this discussion, I gave what I could, and I did not have as much to spare as I expected or hoped.

You can accuse me of misrepresenting my intentions, but I didn’t, and that accusation just further cements my opinion on this matter, that I don’t have interest in being a part of this discussion anymore, and I’d appreciate no further pings on the thread.

27

@danfinlay

On 1st of September you started with a twitter statement:
https://twitter.com/danfinlay/status/1168187079089508352

On 5th of September :
https://twitter.com/danfinlay/status/1169688792527065093

You accepted a debate in public that happens in this conversation.

On 6th of September, to the initial statement you added other statements [Case discussion on the EIP process, based on EIP-1900 & EIP-1 - #2 by loredanacirstea] that themselves would take some time to unpack.

“This has been an intensely busy period for me, and while I wanted to give to this discussion, I gave what I could, and I did not have as much to spare as I expected or hoped.”

You are participating in a debate that you started. If now you do not have the time or the will to continue, the gentlemanly thing to do is to concede all or any points that you presented.
We still have to see you conceding the very first one in the original medium: on twitter. Especially after you conceded it here in comment

“You can accuse me of misrepresenting my intentions, but I didn’t, and that accusation just further cements my opinion on this matter, that I don’t have interest in being a part of this discussion anymore, and I’d appreciate no further pings on the thread.”

You have misrepresented your intentions in several instances:

  1. When you pretended to concede but you are not acting on it
  2. When you start a debate but are not answering to the arguments presented by the other party, but only repeat your own. That bogs down the conversation because the other party is required to repeat the overlooked arguments. So at the level of intention: you do not want to have a meaningful debate.
  3. When you say you do not have the time to continue, but you had enough time to start several issues.
  4. When you further (meta) misrepresent your intent when you dismiss a clear and reasonable demonstration of you misrepresenting your intent.
  5. When you leave the debate with the imposition on others to not extract conclusions: “no further pings on the thread”

If I am mistaken in the above, I welcome the arguments in the renewed debate :slight_smile:

I am not sure if the readers of this discussion are here for the stated title or just for your debate with @loredanacirstea on side-topics. I do think the stated title is more deserving of our attention than the debate, but I think we should be hygienic about approaching the main subject and first close the secondary discussions correctly.

28

I firmly reject the notion that I started this debate. When I entered this discussion, I was hoping to mediate an already raging argument between two people I considered friends.

I was never under any obligation to see this debate through, and it did not take me long to feel victim to the same kind of misrepresentation that I now believe Nick was victim to.

Claiming that I was pretending as a purported form of evidence is the exact kind of poor-faith misrepresentation of my role in this issue that has made me want no further part in it.

The burden of proof was never on me. Loredana was the one who directed accusations at Nick and the EIP editors. I was trying to find evidence that Nick had wronged Loredana, and I failed to find any that convinced me. Others can take the evidence and debate as they see fit, I’m done with it.

I am now muting this thread.

29

You are participating in a debate that you started.

I firmly reject the notion that I started this debate. When I entered this discussion, I was hoping to mediate an already raging argument between two people I considered friends.

I did not say that you started the debate between Loredana and Nick. I said you started this debate where you are coming as a third party. You yourself admit that you have a different role than the parties involved in the other debate. In this debate, you are introducing your own arguments and views and those were beginning to be addressed by Loredana. However, you did not even admit on Twitter what you admitted here. So you are stifling the debate that you started.

I was never under any obligation to see this debate through, and it did not take me long to feel victim to the same kind of misrepresentation that I now believe Nick was victim to.

ctzurcanu:

You have misrepresented your intentions in several instances:

  1. When you pretended to concede but you are not acting on it

Claiming that I was pretending as a purported form of evidence is the exact kind of poor-faith misrepresentation of
[/quote]

Please address the evidence given below related to point 1: At the point of my writing you held true that:

At the same time, you did not retire your twitter statement. Therefore, at that moment in time (when I wrote point 1), you held 2 positions that were mutually exclusive. It is your choice with which position you will remain, but you cannot logically pretend you were not pretending :smiley:

You did not address the other 4 points. I guess they are solid.

You also pretend to be a friend of @loredanacirstea. That is surprising. Because she works with me and she asked me for some time off to help metamask and you in particular - in a friendly fashion. She produced this: Docs enhancement - plugin system sequence diagrams · Issue #43 · MetaMask/metamask-snaps-beta · GitHub
What did you do? You took her work without giving at least some credit and presented it as your own: Sequence Diagrams · MetaMask/metamask-snaps-beta Wiki · GitHub

This was unfriendly and unprofessional in my opinion. I hope it is not your regular practice and it was just a fluke.