> The (apparent) view that the people who spend the most time working on Elm are not people, but unfeeling robots who exist to create and distribute free softwa

> The (apparent) view that the people who spend the most time working on Elm are not people, but unfeeling robots who exist to create and distribute free software in their free time, and then to take unlimited amounts of verbal abuse on their own forum. If they respond to this verbal abuse by exercising moderator powers like banning, that makes them tyrants. > The core team has spent countless hours discussing these topics again and again. People get exhausted explaining and re-explaining themselves until they are blue in the face. Honestly, posts like this are what makes contributors want to quit This is a disappointing mindset for them to have. If people have questions about design decisions, and express dismay about the real-world effects those design decisions have on them as production users of the software, then it's an opportunity to convert those passionate users into engaged contributors to the core, rather than considering them as abusive adversaries. If you are explaining things until you are blue in the face, that's a bug in your documentation - and sure, bugs are frustrating, but it's the sign of an effective developer to not let them cause emotional distress. (And while the original post was direct in its depiction of the BDFL, it was far from toxic in its wording, and not meant to be an ad hominem attack.) Instead, the thread is locked, the poster is confused, there's even a slimmer chance of the blogger reintegrating into the community to stave off these types of issues in future releases, and the language is worse off for all of that.