Unprofessional how? I say this without malice. Greg, you're not much of an ambassador - leave the negotiations to someone else and stick with the tech explanations which you are very good at.
See Peter Todd's nice explanation on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/47cjb5/f2pool_to_withdraw_support_from_round_table_due/d0byl5aThe Medium post wasn't officially released with Adam Back as 'Blockstream President' - you're thinking of the draft, which was released publicly by accident.
FWIW, Adam Back wasn't the person who actually typed in "Blockstream President" in the original Medium draft - IIRC the document was edited on Samson Mow's laptop and he probably actually typed it in based on what he assumed Adam Back would sign as.
Before the final copy was released officially Adam Back asked for that title to be changed to individual after consulting with others, including other Blockstream employees, as well non-Blockstream Bitcoin devs such as myself, both at the meeting and on IRC. That actual edit was probably made by Samson again.
The rational for that change was pretty simple: Adam Back didn't feel he could speak for Blockstream officially without further consultation with others at Blockstream. Similarly, rather than use the more common term 'Bitcoin Core Developer', we specifically used the term 'Bitcoin Core Contributor' to avoid giving the impression that the Bitcoin developers who signed were signing on behalf of all Bitcoin Core developers (edit: I personally argued for even more clear language along those lines, but everyone was getting tired so I decided to drop the issue, and instead I made it clear in my tweet rather than delay things even further).
Since an earnest piece of confusion existed here the professional way to handle it would have been to first simply send an email "Hey, what happened here?" Not to issue a public ultimatum; especially when the subject matter in question was a title on a on a document, and doubly so when the party being attacked didn't even have the technical ability to change it themselves. Even in the least charitable interpretation of the facts, F2Pool making a public fuss and threatening to change their operating behavior over this matter does not give me an impression of a thoughtfully managed organization.
Mistakes happen, however, and I do not think they should be vilified for it, but nor do I think it should be flushed from history.
Cheers.
The miners gave a lot in this "consensus agreement". I doubt they did so in order for Adam to give them a BIP that would be dropped in a heartbeat. When Adam & co met they should have understood that the people on the other side of the table expected them to represent Core in a way that would lead to an enforceable agreement.
Does appear a bit ridiculous... so Either there is some unmentioned other reason, some cultural difference, or just an excuse to back out... it really doesn't make much sense in context.
The "cultural difference" is that they're done playing games. It takes two to tango, so
you have to stick to the agreement as well. When one of the key signatories changes from "Blockstream/Core" to "bearded middle-aged man" after the agreement is reached, you broke the deal.
I for one think the posts are an example unprofessional practices on the part of F2Pool, and are of topical interest to miners considering using the pool. I hope history isn't whitewashed through their removal.
If all the other miners on their pool left f2pool, the difference would be marginal. Their in-house HW would still be enough to effectively block anything you throw at them.
In short: If you want to be angry at someone, be angry at the people who attended the meeting on behalf of Core and Blockstream without having the authority to represent neither.
