Document circulating around Ethereum community calls for 'positive non-violent debate'

A document coming out of Department of Decentralization, the collective behind the ETHBerlin conference, is asking members of the Ethereum community to "welcome constructive feedback on all decisions as best we can" and to not "tolerate destructive behavior." Titled "Pitchforks are for hay not hate: maintaining positive non-violent debate for the Ethereum community," the document was started by María Paula Fernández, who handles external relations for the Golem Project. As of the time of this writing, it has been signed by over 100 influential members of the Ethereum community, including Alex Van de Sande and Hudson Jameson of the Ethereum Foundation.

The subject of the document centers around the controversial debate ignited by Afri Schoedon, the release manager for Parity Technologies and former Ethereum contributor. Schoden, who tweeted a meme comparing Polkadot to Ethereum’s Serenity, received a wave of verbal attacks from some members of the Ethereum community. After these attacks, Schoedon announced that he is "quitting Ethereum" and will no longer contribute to its development.

Chelsea Palmer, Co-founder of Carpe Lunam Events and one of the signers of the document, tells The Block her reasoning for signing the document is because she "was concerned...of how quickly the whole scenario escalated on seemingly all sides."

"No one is a complete saint in this scenario, but a lot of unreasonable demands and accusations were hurled at a volunteer contributor to an open source project," Palmer added.

Palmer notes that she is "alarmed when platforms and communities largely protected by pseudonymity start demanding the heads of IRL-identified individuals on a platter" and that she "saw people on both 'sides' highlight this eloquently— we need to better define what arenas are for shitposting, and which are meant to be serious conduits for informative announcements."