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30 November 2018 23:59
The last meeting of Ethereum 1x, conducted under Chatham House Rule, has some people in the Ethereum community who think of the nature of transparency.
As human beings, we must decide how to govern ourselves, from the models of leadership we choose to guide our actions to the information we are charged with to disseminate (or not to disclose, how it could be). This last consideration, the sharing of information, has emerged recently while Ethereum's stakeholders consider the balance of transparency and privacy within the development space.
That is to say, November 30th meeting to discuss Ethereum 1x, an update proposed for the network, joined the Chatham House Rule, which avoids the identity and affiliations of the meeting participants. This was reported on the first intentionally called by this rule.
During the last week's session, several key developers expressed divergent views on the opening of the meetings – some considered it unnecessary to make all discussions public, while others were simply ambivalent about the nature of the meeting. This discussion was mainly addressed in response to the private meetings that took place at Devcon4 in Prague and the reactions that these gatherings aroused by members of the community.
Lane Rettig, a dev from the Ethereum core who has publicly published his own thoughts on governance, noted during the November 23rd appeal, that the line between transparency and privacy is subjective and can be confusing. For one, conversations, especially with regards to technical issues, can be misinterpreted or misrepresented by the media, like fellow developers Péter Szilágyi It maintains. However, a presumably open community such as Ethereum may want to default to full openness, such as ETH Magician Greg Colvin It supports.
The Chatham House Rule of the last meeting of Ethereum 1x, therefore, represents a sort of intermediary: the call has not been registered, but the unassigned notes of its proceedings will be published. There was some skepticism, however, as from Nick Johnson of Ethereum Name Service, which claimed that the meeting was "a step backwards for transparency on ethereum" or by Parity Afri Schoedon, who said he was "very uncomfortable with participating in a call [was] not registered."
Despite these feelings, the meeting had record the presence – about 43 at its peak – which is a considerable part of the approximately 60 core developers worldwide. With the new rule, more participants felt like they could speak more freely. Rettig added:
As a journalist, I understand the concerns that people like Szilágyi have. In an era of – I would dare to say, false news – incorrect misrepresentation and actual factual inaccuracies are rampant within the media landscape. This tendency certainly applies also to the realm of crypto-journalism.
Often, I feel like a voyeur of the Ethereum community, not necessarily a part of it, because of the reportage I'm responsible for. I write stories of Ethereum, and sometimes – especially because I do not have a technical background – I'm wrong. There is a distance between the development space and me, not only because I play the reporter, but also because people do not always trust reporters.
However, as an observer, I say it is important to have discussions on off-the-board governance, which includes critical thinking about how the Ethereum community conveys a sense of openness. Some developers may not believe that these considerations are important, especially when technological progress is the main goal, but the approaches that developers pursue have consequences. Many stakeholders agree that a technocratic decision-making would be detrimental to the community, so we discuss how to prevent it, starting with conversations about the transparency of meetings.
Daniel Putney is a full-time writer for ETHNews. He graduated in English at the University of Nevada, in Reno, where he also studied journalism and queer theory. In his spare time, he writes poetry, plays the piano and dances on fictional characters. He lives with his partner, three dogs and two cats in the middle of nowhere, Nevada.
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