The case for privatizing Bitcoin Core

The discussion emphasizes the importance of maintaining a strict, technical-only focus within GitHub repositories, particularly for contributions such as Pull Requests (PRs), to ensure that discussions remain relevant and productive. The suggestion includes implementing a strong ruleset to disallow any non-technical contributions, applying this rule uniformly without exceptions based on the contributor's status or perceived relevance of their input. This approach is recommended specifically for GitHub repositories dealing with technical development, acknowledging that such extreme discipline may not be necessary across all repositories.

Additionally, the conversation highlights the need to clearly define and promote appropriate forums for technically adjacent discussions, such as bitcoin policy debates, which include topics like advocating for or against soft forks. It suggests that encouragement for these discussions should originate directly from the GitHub repository through messages to contributors whose discussions are deemed off-topic, directing them to the suitable forum for such debates. This strategy aims to maintain the technical integrity of the repository while still fostering a healthy environment for broader, policy-related conversations within the community.

The challenge of finding an appropriate channel for policy-related discussions that avoids relegating contrary opinions to a "politics" category, thereby diminishing their value or visibility, is also addressed. The email proposes the creation or identification of a dedicated platform for serious bitcoin policy discussions to prevent the dismissal of opposing views as mere politics or sock puppetry, which has been a problem in past controversies like the blocksize debates. The goal is to establish a space where serious and respectful policy discussions can occur without detracting from the technical focus of development repositories.