Just a thought…I think what he was trying to express is: Your voice, like all of ours, possesses immense power, greater than any government, more influential than any voting process, and even surpassing the authority of a founder. United, we are more significant than any platform; it’s a reminder of our collective strength and influence. But we need to remember that people from all over the world use this platform, so jokes or playful teasing might not be understood the same way by everyone. Let’s make sure to be respectful to each other.
I get why some support this proposal (personal vendettas against jar0d) but it concerns me that you’re willing to allow a user to be banned from the platform for being disrespectful? Is that really a precedent we want to set here?
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Go, Lions @Mimsy ! I believe this is our year 
I’m with you on this; looking ahead, we’ll likely encounter many more individuals even more problematic than Jar0d entering this space. It’s essential for us to establish guidelines on how to deal with people who are overly expressive and unable to gauge the atmosphere of the room. Jar0d serves as a good test case for our community. If our community had robust leadership and a well-defined culture, this ban would never have been necessary.
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I am not voting, i just mentioned that. Not sure what you mean by allow ? I really wanted to share my thoughts about how we can we can be more mindful so we can have a better atmosphere. I am understanding and compassionate to his situation but at the same time i can share my thoughts. I hope that we can better communicate moving forward. <3
I’m remaining hopeful! The Lions have only ever let me down before so it can only get better, right? 
But I agree, instead of trying to use governance to ban people we (and by we, I mean a whale and a handful of others) don’t like from the platform, we really should be using this energy to come up with better guidelines to handle the issue and appropriate sanctions. This feels like another case of an unchecked whale running DCL on their own and it’s disheartening to me.
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Just to clarify, it’s my opinion that not voting against the issue is allowing it to happen. Especially in this situation where a whale and a handful of others are passing the governance, taking no stance by not voting is still taking a stance and allowing them to be successful. Similar to an irl example- if you were to see a crime or wrongdoing and not report it or stand up to it, you’re allowing it to continue.
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@Mimsy The spirit of the underdog! I love it. I can always relate to the Lions because I’ve often felt like the underdog in life. I never gave up on my passions or dreams, always pushing myself as if I only had a dollar to my name. Anyway, if people can look beyond their personal feelings and see this platform as a gathering of global interests, they’ll better understand who we all are and the value we bring to our community. So let’s create guidelines, vote them into place, and move forward.
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@SugarClub , This echoes what I’ve consistently said: with the right leadership, clear guidelines, and robust culture, incidents like this would never occur. It’s clear that the Boss Bird is deeply passionate about DCL, and he has every right to call out those who he feels colluding and robbing this community. I believe this situation escalated because people aren’t taking genuine action against corruption.
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Bro, I love you and respèct you deeply but this proposal is offensive for all of us. You may love him or you may hate him but if the guy can prove what he is saying and argument it correctly we are all obliged to respect it. I encourage you to end this madness. PS. I tell you this with the upmost respect. Please reconsider a proposal like this, it´s not healthy for our ecosystem.
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I do not believe this proposal is valid, however I have decided to vote yes. Not because of the way he decides to engage with others or his choice of words. It’s the internet and people will always be people. I voted yes, because Jarod not only made threats against me he also acted on them. The main reason I decided to leave the DCL DAO server was because my interactions (gifs/emojis) in the DAO server were being used against me in another server. I believe I have the right to express myself in the way I choose to do so as long as I’m not putting others in harms way.
Although I can agree Jarod brings value to DCL, I can also say he takes as much as he brings when things aren’t going his way. So for others to just sit here and say this is wrong and the one’s voting ‘yes’ only have a personal vendetta against Jarod, it’s a bit insulting please have some respect for those of us who got a real reason to vote how we are voting. We cannot silence the majority of the community so that the guy who is screaming above everyone else raising their hand gets his way. We are trying to protect some of the Web3/DCL core values by stepping on all others.
Having that said I don’t think Jarod should be banned from all things DCL, but think he should be from discord and forums.
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My stance on @jar0d, and any other individual within this community.
I’ve been unfairly attacked by @jar0d in the past, and I will likely be fairly/unfairly attacked by him again in the future.
Some may feel that banning him might give us a chance to ‘heal’ as a community. I feel that the end doesn’t justify the means, and sets a scary precedent, especially with VP inequity still being in full force.
Maybe instead of tearing each other apart, it’s time to focus on what skills we all uniquely bring to this place to potentially build each other up. We’ve invested (and wasted) so much time, energy, and resources into infighting, that the future of this community looks bleaker than ever.
If you feel that way too, I implore you to remember that the optimism you’re looking for can potentially start with you. Be bold. Be brave. Communicate with honesty. Attempt to facilitate dialogue. Decentralized decision-making is hard and completely uncharted from the perspective of best practices, systems, and policy.
I strongly believe that banning is not the way, and I fear this move will grow to be seen as just another nail in this community’s metaphorical coffin. Please, before voting, be wary of what repercussions such a decision can have on our community, our culture, and our ability to curb censorship in the future.
Votes like this won’t always be about toxicity, and I fear the situation may become more and more Orwellian as time goes on.
Additional thoughts:
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We should never be in a situation where we’re banning individuals from the forums; especially as it’s the only place we can allow VP-holding wallets to ‘officially’ communicate on their votes.
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Discord servers can and should be, decentralized, with multiple servers popping up for different kinds of debates, agendas, or groups to communicate within. There is nothing wrong with this.
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The DAO should have no say in the banning/moderation of said discords. These can and should be community-led, community-managed, and created/abandoned as the community sees fit. The ‘Official DAO Discord’ can and should be managed by our facilitation squads, and questionable actions there can be brought about in the DAO with regards to their tenure/role managing said position.
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The DAO should have the right to begin debates such as these on banning individuals from forums, however, the community must also recognize the dangerous precedent such a move sets in relation to freedom of expression, and how such a precedent can be used for censorship in badly-managed scenarios, especially by wallets which hold large amounts of VP.
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I feel this vote will prove to be a turning point in the DAO. It is not about Jar0d; it is about direction, leadership, values, and ideals (or better yet, a consequence of a collective lack of those things). It is not an easy decision, especially if you were personally attacked by Jar0d in the past, however, this is one of those moments where we need to decide if we’re using our votes to benefit our own personal interests, or use those votes in an attempt to build something significant, that doesn’t replicate the same problems and pitfalls of our already existing systems.
The choice is yours. Don’t take it lightly.
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Bravo! Well said, @Seanny! It’s invigorating to witness a genuine leader finally rise to the forefront.
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Vote: NO
Actions need to have logical consequences. What is described in this proposal is de-platforming and it is out of balance for the listed offences. Rob recently impugned my character in a forum post that has since been deleted. My response is there hanging like a phantom. I still have the forum post in an email notification if anyone wants to see it. In it Rob posted a photo of me in a tutu and holding a magic wand over my head (I am quite fond of this image so the attempt to shame me was a big FAIL). He suggested I was a child predator. He questioned my stated gender and sexual orientation as possibly being inauthentic.
As I understand it, Rob was muted from the DAO forum as a result. Perhaps that was why his post was deleted and he is now free to post here again. Rob also doxxed Jar0d on the DCL DAO Discord. That’s akin to stalking and harasment.
Shall I post a proposal to ban Rob? Have his actions warranted de-platforming? I’m not going to. That’s not my way.
I have been on this platform since late November. When I first encountered Jar0d, I preemptively blocked him on Twitter. Why even glance at the drama? After a number of people encouraged me to remove the block. I read a number of his articles about Decentraland, gaming, and the DistrictX calamity. I considered his grant proposal to receive payment for writing these articles. I reached out to him and engaged with him in DMs.
When Jar0d tweeted about Mr. Dhingia being transphobic, I contacted Mr. Dhingia directly and had a voice call with him to understand where he was coming from. In contrast to reaching out and engaging with each other, how will this space mature and develop if we seek to silence and block and de-platform each other.
Let’s have logical consequences that are equal to the offense. This is too extreme of an action that appears to be personally motivated and reactionary based on articles published about DistrictX.
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For the THOUSANDTH TIME NOOOOO. NO ONE SHOULD BE BANNED FROM ANYTHING EVER. Even Jar0d and I have our differences he has openly talked negative about Waifumon and I as well but I am a grown up and laugh and move on because I AM AN ADULT. Only cowards can’t handle words because they fear they may stem from truth they don’t want to hear. From the famous words from @Tobik "FREEEE SPEAAAEACH MAANZ FREEEE SPEEAAAAACH! " at 1:12 https://twitter.com/AaronLeupp/status/1660677146745118722
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Voting no. Free speech is important. Parallels to the real world are uncanny, a group of people with (voting) power shutting someone down for speaking out against them.
If Jar0d is violating the discord rules mute him for 30 minutes and let him back, eventually he’ll learn if he wants to converse with the community it will have to be done respectfully and politely. If he is insulting on twitter mute him.
Banning someone outright is the most childish and silly solution.
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I’ll be adding my thoughts here once again, due to the high influx of messages I’ve been receiving in Discord with regards to my vote.
It will be a long read, and I apologize for that, however, I am not taking this position lightly, and feel obligated to share most of my thoughts on this matter, mostly because I believe this proposal itself can genuinely damage the underlying founding philosophies of our governance proposals, alongside their binding nature, and I feel those thoughts should be shared. A worst-case scenario for me is seeing further division in this community as a consequence of this decision, however, I do genuinely feel we still have room for discourse, dialogue, and debate, thanks to the conversations I’ve had with multiple community members over the last week, which were held in good faith.
First off, I would like to thank those who took the time to pose reasonable debates my way, as opposed to ad hominem attacks aimed at attacking my person, as opposed to my ideas. I will reiterate, Jar0d is indeed guilty of this approach and has used such an approach with me in the past to attempt to sway my opinion, which I personally did not appreciate.
Nonetheless, that does not constitute a right to ban that said individual from the space; especially when many of our community members have been guilty of this practice in one shape or form throughout our history. I’ve already reiterated the personal belief, alongside many other individuals in this discussion, that Jar0d is the product of a larger, more systemic issue we’re facing as a community, and Jar0d is simply a product of the problem, and not the root cause.
However, more important than this debate is the precedent we will set by passing this vote. I would like to remind everyone about the specificity of this decision, and why I have a problem with this proposal, especially from a governance standpoint:
Permanently Ban user jar0d from viewing, or engaging with :
All Decentraland DAO Discord servers
All Decentraland DAO proposal discussion Forums.
Recommendation to the DCL Foundation that they Permanently ban jar0d from viewing, or engaging with:
All Decentraland Foundation Discord servers
All Decentraland Foundation proposal discussion Forums.
Ban userJar0d from using Decentraland platform in-World discussion and voice communication.
Any and all other current or future communication channels not mentioned.
First off, one must remember that the aim of a governance proposal and vote is to come to a legally/policy-binding agreement of sorts, which can be actively implemented into the DAO’s framework in one shape or form.
The binding nature of a governance proposal inherently requires the proposal itself to be enactable, not just from an ideal standpoint, but from a practical standpoint too. Despite this governance proposal being in its 3rd Stage, it is clear that, right off the bat, it should have been shot down as an invalid question; not because the question of banning Jar0d from Discord is an invalid debate, but rather, because the key specificities outlined as binding action points within this proposal are obtuse, and ultimately, cannot be implemented by our governance framework as of yet.
Why?
There are several problems with this approach, that, as other members pointed out, have been brought about due to our fractured community and lack of leadership on the side of governance and overall implementations of best practices. For starters, from a governance perspective, there’s no clear application/indication of the DAO’s relationship and authority over Discord servers, nor is there a clear understanding of how the DAO itself can and should self-regulate these servers.
Does Permanently Banning Jar0d from viewing and engaging* with ‘All Decentraland DAO Discord servers’ mean that any supplementary discord servers surrounding Decentraland-focused discussions should have Jar0d banned?
One must not forget that governance proposals aim to be binding in their nature. The moment we pass proposals that we cannot enact (proposals that are obtuse in their nature), is the moment we weaken our governance-focused decision-making processes as a whole.
So question 1, regarding the point of the specificity: should this proposal pass, are we to then attempt to hold all Discord servers accountable to keep Jar0d, and his alts, banned from ‘viewing’ and ‘engaging’ with any DCL-focused Discords?
Point two:
banning Jar0d from viewing and engaging with proposal discussions on the forum.
Why is this a red flag?
What this point basically means is that we are binding ourselves to give the authority (and it is still unclear who has that authority, from a practical, action-based perspective), to effectively revoke the inherent right of a community member to read, write, propose and vote in a system where Jar0d’s investments are his own. In any political environment, such a proposal would be seen as a farce; not because Jar0d communication methods are excusable, but rather because it infringes upon an inherent right that is supposed to be inalienable in its nature. To anyone who has a background in human rights, this should already be a massive red flag for you, and all one needs to do is look at history to assess how such decisions and precedents can lead to questionable and dangerous decision-making moving forward.
Once again, I reiterate, how do you plan to shoulder the responsibility of dealing with such a set precedent, and who do you foresee shouldering such a responsibility vis-a-vis the precedent set? On what grounds should we be deciding to alienate an actor within our system, and do you really believe, in the long run, within an asynchronous decision-making system, that a tangible line can be drawn to collectively protect our right to engagement?
I’m extremely skeptical that such an approach can even be carried out, let alone what repercussions it can (and will) cause in the long term, and we must be prudent when taking governance decisions, unless our aim to nullify and ridicule the governance process altogether. I will reiterate; I feel this move will be one step in the direction of making the supposed binding nature of governance proposals obsolete.
Moving ahead:
Recommendation to the DCL Foundation that they Permanently ban jar0d from viewing, or engaging with any and all other current or future communication channels not mentioned.
Once again, the implementation pathway for such a proposal is so obtuse and unclear, that it once again renders our governance proposal process to nothing more than a ‘joke’. Such a proposal is counter-intuitive to the very ideals and principles this platform was founded on in the first place.
What is, in very practical terms, the technical and reasonable pathway for this proposal to be implemented? Is your plan to ban Jar0d’s IP, and if so, how do you plan to stop him from using a VPN? Is your plan to then actively monitor and censor individuals that spew out a specific kind of rhetoric, and if so, who will be the individuals (or systems) tasked with reviewing and assessing those said decisions on behalf of the community?
This point in this proposal doesn’t just set us an obligation to censor and limit the engagement and inclusion of a single individual in the present moment, with our current systems, but also sets out the obligation for all future communication platforms to be rooted in the ideals of centralized control and systemic censorship.
I feel many of you are rushing to this decision without considering the implications and/or results that this decision may have on our governance process. Such a decision is far bigger than Jar0d, and whilst no one should question his seemingly consistent ability to lash out at individuals within the community, we should all be questioning how far we should be exercising our right to vote and curate a space we feel comfortable in.
This proposal is, in my view, a clear step in the direction of rendering our governance platform obsolete; where we naively implement binding decisions in an obtuse manner which is still left to open interpretation. We are setting a precedent here without systems to implement the said decision, whilst simultaneously binding ourselves to uphold ideals that are counter-intuitive to the founding ideals of the very technologies we are dealing with.
I implore you all to rethink this decision; not to protect Jar0d or his rhetoric, which I openly condone, but rather to protect the little respect and trust left in our governance framework, in an attempt to ensure that every binding decision we take, both now, and in the future, is something we can implement, as opposed to it seemingly being a shot in the dark, without any plan, idea, or system to ensure it remains enforced.
CONCLUSION & Moving Forward
It is my hope that all of jar0d’s victims, both past and present, read this proposal and take the necessary action to permanently ban him.
In doing so, it is my hope that the Decentraland community can once again reclaim their right to engage with other members free from the fear of harassment. And approving this action will also serve as a deterrent and reminder to all others that the type of behavior that jar0d has for too long engaged in will no longer be tolerated within our community.
I do not wish to see our community falling victim to the crippling results of harassment and hate speech. However, I do not wish to see our community falling victim to the temporary allure of censorship and centralization either.
When investing all my time, energy, and effort in Decentraland, I signed up to partake in a system that is bold enough to avoid rinsing and repeating the same mistakes our already existing governance structures have fallen victim to in the past. Beyond my personal naivete, I believe I signed up for a system that is somewhat crazy enough to attempt to learn from the mistakes of systems past, to learn from history, and to take a stab at new governance processes that can look beyond what has already been tried, and tested, and ultimately, seen to repeatedly fail.
If you have a problem with Jar0d, mute him.
If you want Jar0d out of your Discord, begin a governance process for the collective moderation and control of ‘Official DAO Discords’.
If you have a problem with the moderation process itself, build out a governance proposal that can allow the DAO to have a say in official channel moderation.
If you wish to control the forums, begin a governance proposal that can start giving the DAO ownership of the forums, with clear, transparent, and reliable systems being prototyped on how these platforms can be moderated in a decentralized, asynchronous context.
Tired of the communication seen in the ‘Official DAO Discord’? Start a new discord, with a group of people you feel you can have healthy conversations with.
Do you feel that someone’s comments in the forums are rude, harmful, and dangerous? Flag it, and get it removed from the dialogue process.
This approach towards singling out Jar0d is not going to work, and I trust that most of you have the technical knowledge to know by now that permanently banning him isn’t something that will work either. I can honestly list out numerous ways he can circumnavigate this decision if he’s willing, which will hit the community back with a whole new wave of AI-powered discourse, which will be far more damaging to the community. And what then? We will all have the precedent set to ban one account; is it far-fetched for us to assume we will have the inclination to then ban accounts en masse as soon as they’re spewing out rhetoric that is harmful to the community, (or worse, rhetoric that not all of us agree with)?
We’re navigating in uncharted and dangerous waters here, and I genuinely hope I’m not alone in being worried about the potential outcomes of this decision.
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Struggling to understand how some individuals are afraid to face reality. There comes a time when everybody needs to face their inner demon’s.
" I’d rather die like a man than live like a coward" Speak up or shut up forever, because you are a coward.
World needs more Straight Alpha Man like me. 
Seanny said everything that needs to be said, and perfectly so.
@JasonX, I’m not sure what the comment above this is even about, but do alpha males really need to announce themselves as such, rather than letting their actions speak for them? Because calling to remove someone’s tongue so they can’t hurt your feelings is probably the most beta male thing imaginable.
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Permanently ban jar0d
This proposal is now in status: REJECTED.
Voting Results:
- Yes 31% 7,045,253 VP (56 votes)
- No 61% 13,510,981 VP (72 votes)
- Abstain 8% 1,966,868 VP (14 votes)
lmaoooooooo cry yourself to sleep tonight, RobL.
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