Plans going forward

[dvdrw]

Firstly, I'd like to apologize for my unannounced month-long absence. It wasn't planned as such, but
things kept taking time away from my regular schedule.

Secondly, I'd like address the radio silence on the mailing list.  Given my timezone that limits my
participation on-site, especially for US evenings, I can't tell how much buzz this whole RFC thing is getting
(though I suspect not a lot).

Partly to blame is the general lack of awareness and understanding for the process. For this, I am mostly at
fault, as failed to realize how little prior knowledge people had of this concept; and how its location is divorced
from the site.

In order to combat this, I'd like to implement -- at the very least -- a page on bitwave.tv that showcases, explains,
etc. what the goal, purpose, and operation of The Committee is. This would ideally, be part of a larger, more
general system of announcements or something, but alas.

To rejuvenate and invigorate the actual proposal-to-implementation pipeline, there's a couple of steps I'll take:

1. The committee members should remain a slim, core group so to allow rapid (initial) development.
   
   If you are currently a committee member, and do not feel like being able/willing to commit to what I'm
   proposing, or feel otherwise unfit, do feel free to leave. This mantle comes with little power, but a lot of
   responsibility; your tardiness to vote will only drag everything to a halt.
   
   New members can apply with an email to <dvdrw (at) bitwave.tv>. Please include all the usual:
   username on [bitwave], why you think you should be picked, what you bring to the table, what timeslots
   you're available, etc.
   
   I will personally read and reply to any and all emails I receive.
   
   
2. To coordinate members and current topics better, I will be adopting parts of the Scrum workflow.
   
   The members' efforts will be grouped and organized by a single fixed-length period (probably 14 days),
   called a sprint, during which we will focus on a particular issue.
   
   Scrum emphasizes valuable, useful output at the end of the sprint that is really done.
   Each member should assign themselves to a particular task, and/or otherwise produce tangible results at
   the end of the sprint (that contribute to that sprint's goal).
   
   Breaching the time limit is acceptable, so long as a reasonable impediment was identified and reported on
   time. Failure to report will probably result in some penalty, though I'm not sure what, yet.
   
   Optionally, at the end of each sprint, we can show off the progress and work done, and how it impacts end
   users, as well as perhaps do a retrospective.
   
   
3. I will be possibly doing seemingly random, authoritarian managerial things. Consider this a catch-all.

What I fail to understand is this: all this time chat has had issues with the way development was (or wasn't)
heading. Now that chat has a real, direct way to influence development, it seems nobody is stepping up to do
much.

[herb green]

Welcome back DVD, I've also been very busy lately too, but things are finally starting to slow down, thankfully. I hope if things with the rfc get going again I can contribute in a productive way. That being said I just wanted to respond to one thing you had said 

"What I fail to understand is this: all this time chat has had issues with the way development was (or wasn't)
heading. Now that chat has a real, direct way to influence development, it seems nobody is stepping up to do
much." 

To anyone who has discussed this issue with me I'll sound like a broken record, but I'll go ahead and say it once again.

 Before the RFC existed dispatch made what I consider to be the most significant change to the user's experience on this website, he implemented the channel ban tool.

Dispatch received a lot of backlash and angry feedback about this change at the time, a lot of which came from me but several others as well.

Dispatch seemed to take these criticisms seriously and said he was open to alterations of  the channel ban to mitigate the backlash.

After a lot of back forth dispatch and I came to a mitigating compromise that was acceptable going forward, at least in my opinion.

Dispatch made a couple of concrete promises that he committed to implementing on the very next major update, the opt out for chat users of the channel ban censorship. And he said there would a public list of banned users accessible from the streamers page. I actually think there was another promise he made besides those 2, but all this was like 6 months ago and I'd have to look into it more to remember exactly what it was, so we'll just focus on the 2 promises he made to me personally and directly to his userbase publicly.

Now about 6 months later we've had many updates and just yesterday I've come to find out we are in the verge of implementing more janny tools, specifically an ability for a streamer to designate channel jannies to ban users from chat on the streamers behalf. Also there is a feature that allows all troll accounts to be automatically banned from a chat, to be clear not a ignore all trolls but a mute all trolls. Dispatch has been allowing selected paypigs to use this tool already.

In conclusion, it's my opinion that if you want to make a statement like 

 "Now that chat has a real, direct way to influence development,"

YOU HAVE TO PROVE that, that is true. Because I have evidence that Xander will promise/commit to a change but in reality he never makes the change and just ignores people asking him to abide by his word (evidence is presented in the wall of text above).  I think the RFC is completely impotent because Xander is a liar, and I'm not going to put in any effort whatsoever into this after this point until he proves he can be trusted to do what he says he will do. Furthermore if any more Janny tools are implemented, regardless of whether they pass the RFC approval process or not, before Dispatch has made good on his previous promises, about the existing janny tool mitigation, then sadly I will be resigning from the committee.  Also before anyone suggests it I will not be writing a RFC about commitments that have been made prior to the RFC's existence. If dispatch thinks that an RFC is still needed he can write one up to discuss whatever technical details that haven't already been decided, but since he's already committed to the  modification, the ball is in his court. Thank you for your time.     -Herb

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[dvdrw]

I, too, have been notified of these new janny tools just now -- which should tell you just how much coordination exists between Xander and I.

I'm not advocating for them (as a matter of fact, I kind of dislike them), but there's a point of view you should, perhaps, take a look at:
Dispatch's presence has degraded to keeping the site running at a bare minimum. Large streamers, coincidentally revenue streams, are the best, if not only, stress tests
that push the envelope. Very likely, one or more incidents occurred and people bitched about it enough, and implementing this was the easiest solution.

And as for the adherence to RFC, well, as I mentioned above, we're a lot more detached than two 'site admins' should be. This issue was a lot more urgent,
and the whole RFC thing is in complete disarray, with no reasonable indication that an issue like this would be dealt with at all, let alone swiftly enough.

Part of the proposed sprints idea was to have a set of people on retainer for when urgent issues crop up. And, I guess, to be 'listened to' by Dispatch, we
need to prove our competence -- though I will (try) talk to him.

I hope you reconsider your resignation, as I will likely have to recruit 'unpopular' choices in your place, just to keep a list of members.

[herb green]

First I think all communication in this group should be public, unless there is a special circumstance where info needs to remain private, I think it's important that chat knows how we think about these decisions, not just the proposals, they should have a chance to know and push back against member's opinions and thoughts they don't like and be able to lobby members during the process with their ideas and criticisms and I can't think of any reason not to. This group should be completely transparent to the rest of the site, in fact since a large portion of chat won't use discord, I think ultimately we should move the discord RFC channel to the bitwave website so everyone can see it if they want and aren't required to create a doxcord account and then provide their phone number to join Xander's hugbox server.

Dispatch said he didn't care if there were only 50 viewers next December during an interview he did last December on stream, he said he would be happy to keep running the site at that number. Also I'm not convinced that the larger streamers are that beneficial, I mean sure it's great when they arrive and their audience initially buys names etc. But for example how much have we made off btfo audience last month vs what the cost was? I know it's easy to think you're doing well by getting popular but actually spend more than you're making, I'm not sure that we know these larger streams actually help as much as people think they do and I'm not sure how great it is to keep them after they already bought names, they rarely superchat.  Also the momentum of new streamers (large and small) coming to bitwave is more powerful than ever, if everyone hates it and leaves, why are people still coming, and will they continue to come even if we don't retain most of the ones that come? My thought is yes, because they come here for less moderation, and they are continually getting banned from other platforms. You keep acting like you think the problem here is communication, that is not correct, the problem is Xander's credibility and your credibility is dependent on his in this case. I won't be reconsidering anything, if any more janny tools are implemented without Xander fixing the ones that exist I will leave the council in protest just like I left the moderation team in protest after he implemented the channel ban tool, without seeking any community input I'll add (besides maybe hitla and spooky). I barely accepted to join anyway because I was afraid this is what it would be (a impotent organ) I don't care if Xander is here or not most of the time, I don't get upset if the site is fucked up sometimes and he's too busy to fix it, I don't care if it takes him a while to pay people or respond to messages etc. I only care about him lying to my face multiple times and then pretending like it never happened.

[dvdrw]

All of these emails _are_ public. If you click on the 'author' name in the notifications, it'll take you to a web interface where you can read all of them,
and sending an email to <rfccommitte...@bitwave.tv> subscribes you to all _new_ emails. I definitely want to integrate it more with the site itself, but
it'll take (at least some) work on Dispatch's side too --- and I'd like it to be something the RFC committee agrees on first, though that's a weak requirement.

The other thing about Xander is how he grossly overestimates the importance of his passing comments slurred on a 20 viewer livestream at 3AM. Not
only that, but he greatly underestimates the value of his word, and duty as site admin to properly announce things such as ADDING USER MODERATION.

He can, and often does, change his opinion on a whim, and zealously fights for it. I still don't understand the inner machinations that power these outbursts.
It's awful having to deal with that; which is why I was hoping RFC would limit his outlets for this. It used to be somewhat manageable when we still had
often enough correspondence, or when I'd join a livestream to wrangle him into cohesive sentences.

Top priority, and the would-be topic/goal for the first sprint would be establishing a well-rounded, good on-site announcements channel(s), like a news page, blog,
hard-to-miss site-wide blotter, etc. Even a feedback system; his laziness overpowers -- for the most part -- rash decisions. Otherwise, waiting for him would be
a standstill.

[herb green]

I understand that these emails are technically public, all you have to do is join doxcord, then give your phone number to join dispatch's self described hugbox , that even he claims will be a much more censored environment than bitwave, then provide your email address to google, to see the emails.

In my opinion the majority of our community is very concerned with privacy especially from big tech, so I think to make them jump through all those hoops just to read what is happening on the RFC is a bit much, especially if there isn't a technical reason to do it.  Now I know that doxcord is what we've been using and I'm fine with hosting it there until something better can be developed, but I don't see why if someone goes to the trouble of getting into the doxcord server and looking at the RFC channel, why they should only be allowed to see a fraction of what the committee is discussing, especially if it is an easy adjustment to allow them to see everything. If you want to have more community involvement don't hide the process from them, make it as transparent as technically possible. -herb

[herb green]

I RESIGN DISPATCH IS GOING TO PUT IN TROLL MUTE AND CHANNEL JANNIES WITHOUT GOING THROUGH THE COUNCIL, COUNCIL IS MEANINGLESS BUT GO AHEAD AND DONATE YOUR EFFORTS TO THE LIAR. -HERB

On Mon, Oct 5, 2020, 4:22 PM dvdrw <dv...@bitwave.tv> wrote:

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[Jim]

:(

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