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I maintain a very popular piece of FOSS software as my full time job (you've all heard of it, many of you use it). Easily the worst part of the job is toxic us

I maintain a very popular piece of FOSS software as my full time job (you've all heard of it, many of you use it). Easily the worst part of the job is toxic users who hop on to issues demanding you implement them immediately and belittling your planning ability. Worse when you were planning on implementing it soon anyways, but now if you do it's "rewarding" their behaviour (in their eyes at least), and they become invigorated to go and spread their toxicity even further. Alternatively, you can hold off on implementing it until things cool down, but then all the nice users who have been patiently waiting get screwed. I'm forever grateful that I actually get FAANG salary to do this -- I wouldn't keep it up if I was getting the little-to-noting many FOSS contributors get.

mulmen 6y ago
Thanks for what you do.
sbinthree 6y ago
It's the same issue with support as a software company. We have companies paying us $10k a month who "want us to consider something for future roadmap if other customers would also value it" and free users who "demand we fix (expected and documented behavior) IMMEDIATELY". The problem isn't open source, it's free.
- gonzo41 6y ago
  You almost need something like a shadow ban for users like that. Or to try and outsource your ticket moderation to the community.
  - taurath 6y ago
    That’s sort of dispersing the problem onto some other poor sap or group of saps. Businesses do need to set boundaries and it’s terrifying to do so because “the mob” can suddenly decide against having goodwill. Best bet is to set standards very early and firmly like you’d treat a child - EG “we do NOT put our hand in the fire, but you can do just about anything else” and “we do NOT adjust our roadmap to people who yell the loudest but we are happy to have a conversation over why it’s important”
- foepys 6y ago
  I think part of the problem is the expectation of instantaneous gratification today. Individuals can get any item they want shipped premium to their door step the next day nearly everywhere. So why shouldn't software features be the same? The problem with "free" is that many, many more people can use the software. Large corporations (which the $10k/mo user probably is) on the other hand calculate updates in months or even years. My company also has a very large customer that asks us to implement something "whenever possible" and if we need 2 years they are just happy we did it. Why? Because they have a long update cycle. It's not really important if it's in the next release because they might not even install that but wait for the release after that.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    As somebody who usually works in those big support contact enterprises, I often find myself incredibly frustrated by the open source projects my employers pay for. You often see these companies that take the enterprise approach to support contracts, taking the open source approach to fixing issues. As in, if you want something fixed, you’ll be lucky if it ever happens. The issue that undermines you’re (mostly correct) observations on slowing moving enterprise, is that they’ll often adopt technology before knowing if it will even work the way they want it to. So when it comes time to implement, you’ll find things that don’t work as described, often accompanied by some years old issue on their tracker which basically say “we might get around to that some time”. “Enterprise grade” proprietary software is usually terrible anyway, so still prefer open source for the reason that I’m able to write my own patches for it (which I often do). But I find the open source attitude toward fixing issues, in software that your customers are actually paying a lot of money for, incredibly frustrating. There’s a particular maintainer on a project that I use a lot at work, and anytime I see his avatar on the forum while trying to debug an issue, I instantaneously know that my whole day is about to be ruined by some of the least helpful advice you could possibly imagine.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  > consider something for future roadmap if other customers would also value it Personally I wouldn't want a custom feature just for me. Because I know it'd likely be poorly supported and sometimes break. Because that's how it's been when I've been on the other side of that.
- tweetle_beetle 6y ago
  Isn't it a bit more subtle than that? The business issues with free users are well documented, but this is a bit different. What we're really taking about is GitHub - you don't have the same volume of low effort comments demanding features on pre-GitHub collaboration tools like making lists, IRC or even using the email address associated with commits. I'd suggest that it's more a combination of: the volume of users that now have access to the world's most popular git hosting service is vast compared to the number of people who can usefully contribute, the ease with which maintainers can be contacted through it and the "friendly by default" stance that most maintainers take on a platform where your stars are more valuable in the real world than your CV.
- eloisant 6y ago
  Free users don't care if you tell them to fuck off. The company paying $10k can't change vendor overnight so it's in their best interest to stay in good terms. Also in his company, the guy you're talking to don't want to be "the guy who pissed off that key vendor".
  - bob_roboto 6y ago
    I second that. Once a vendor becomes important enough I even stop thinking of it as a vendor and rather as a partner that you interact with as if it was part of your own organisation. I am not amused when members of my team are rude to a vendor and jeopardise a relationship that took a long time to build. Even when you pay six figures a month, you can still get preferential treatment compared to other customers in the same tier when it comes to influence over the roadmap if you actively foster the relationship.
  - studius 6y ago
    > Free users don't care if you tell them to fuck off. You don't have to and shouldn't respond in any specific time period. Even if you're the sole maintainer of a critical project and you imagine the world wants your head, the world has to wait sometimes. However, users may abandon projects where support tickets go untended, maybe even writing a post about it in the process[1], so try to respond when you can, unless you've abandoned the project. As a representative for a FOSS project or even a bystander commenting on a PR, respond professionally and succinctly. If you shouldn't accept a PR, don't. If it's a request that seems hostile to the project, and you have time, either leave it for a little while to cool off, try to serve it with professionalism without getting off-topic, or at worst close it. If needed, add a "code of conduct"[2] so that you can "encourage a pleasant and productive environment by responding to disruptive behavior in a fast, fair way"[3]. Note that instituting one before it's needed, while seeming proactive, may put off some users. If you screw-up, apologize briefly, then fix it or move on. [1]- https://medium.com/free-code-camp/why-im-not-using-your-github-repository-2dff6c7ac7cf https://medium.com/free-code-camp/why-im-not-using-your-gith... [2]- https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/github/building-a-strong-community/adding-a-code-of-conduct-to-your-project https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/github/build... [3]- https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/github/building-a-strong-community/about-community-management-and-moderation https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/github/build...
- a_bonobo 6y ago
  It's like when you give your old stuff away on Facebook/craigslist/gumtree - when it's free, you'll get very entitled people messaging you whether you can deliver it to them, or don't keep agreements. Asking for $5 removes 99% of the trouble.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  The enterprise guy is at the other end also writing software professionally so he understands if you can't build to his use-case.
- Closi 6y ago
  100% Agree. And this can happen on HackerNews too! Here is a thread in the last week where 50% of posters from HackerNews were berating Microsoft for open sourcing all of VS code, but not open sourcing one of their free language servers (calling them selfish, anti open-source e.t.c.). I think this is the exact same sentiment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25719045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25719045 So Microsoft open sourced all of VS Code, but didn't want to open source the Pylance language server (a separate product which is installed separately as an extension) which they provide as a free (as in beer). This is because Pylance is also used within their other (charged) offerings such as full Visual Studio and is a differentiator from their competition in the premium space. Also they have hinted that it includes some proprietary secret-sauce that they don't want to make public. Bear in mind that Microsoft is making VS Code free and open source... here are some quotes from the thread: > I find it what they are doing to be dishonest [...] the consequences of their actions is that people who dislike them will talk bad about them. > [Microsoft] have the right to be two-faced about their open source policy, I have the right to speak about how I think it's bad to do so. > They should please stop acting like they are the second coming of christ for open source [...] they are misleading their users. > Microsoft proved that they only care for OSS [...] because it enables them to spy on coders and their code to develop proprietary and closed sourced spins for software development product. The OSS community got served. > Microsoft always does this, they fool people by pretending they’re in favor of open source or make something free but it’s just a trick used to bait and switch people into the proprietary anticompetitive Microsoft ecosystem. > Seems like Microsoft is back to pissing in the public pool.
  - depressedpanda 6y ago
    To be fair, Microsoft has plenty of bad rep, stemming from decades of abusive behavior, to recover from. Also, a megacorp is not a person (no matter what the law may say). Being abusive towards individual developers should not be tolerated, but leveraging fair or unfair criticism towards an amoral entity? Eh, whatever floats your boat.
    - Closi 6y ago
      Signal isn’t an individual developer, so what about the sort of comments highlighted in the original article? Or is it just 'be nice to developers in small companies, but you can say anything to developers in big companies'?
- proactivesvcs 6y ago
  For this exact reason I've cut almost all of my tech support for friends and family. It seems that what goes around comes around, and my time was worth what they paid for.
mlthoughts2018 6y ago
On the flip side though, lots of FOSS project maintainers want a large user base for fame and glory but also want to omit support for that large user base to instead pursue whatever interests the maintainers, as opposed to what is evidently needed, all under the disingenuous guise that not being directly compensated entitles any arbitrary planning policy. While users have no justification for being rude or insulting, they absolutely do have justification to be frustrated if you want to have your cake (compensation in the form of notoriety due in large part to the willingness of others to actually use your FOSS project) and eat it too (not prioritize plans, bug fixes, or features in accordance with what that user base needs & requests, over and above what you prefer). I’m not saying this applies to you specifically, but it does apply to many FOSS projects, and arguments of infinite entitlement to strand users who bring your project notoriety because the compensation isn’t in currency format are totally specious and deserve to be met with (polite) frustrated pushback.
- jhasse 6y ago
  > not being directly compensated entitles any arbitrary planning policy. It does though IMHO.
- nextlevelwizard 6y ago
  You present no argument at all. FOSS is FOSS. Creator or current maintainer owes you and other users exactly nothing. They are putting their stuff up for you to use if you see value in it. You can report bugs and make feature requests, but no one is under any obligation to even read your bug reports or feature requests. If you want your specific thing fixed right now then do it yourself.
  - jodrellblank 6y ago
    Grandparent comment is “I maintain a very popular piece of FOSS software as my full time job”; FOSS means libre not necessarily gratis, it could still be paid for, with paying customers or employer-users in this case and owe them a lot.
    - 6y ago
grecy 6y ago
> I'm forever grateful that I actually get FAANG salary to do this -- I wouldn't keep it up if I was getting the little-to-noting many FOSS contributors get. I wonder if you have any tips or advice for other people out there maintaining FOSS projects who are struggling to get paid for their work. How can a person in that scenario move closer to what you've got going on?
- stingraycharles 6y ago
  I suspect the project was started by a FAANG business, eg React or something like that.
  - heyoni 6y ago
    React isn’t something we all use, as OP implied...on the other hand, OP might be maintaining a left padding package!
    - bigiain 6y ago
      I'm now imagining a stream of hysterical entitled feature request demands from users of leftpad.js... "This dumb library doesn't left pad correctly when I'm standing on my head. FIX THIS IMMEDIATELY or I'll change to an alternative library and leave a 1 star Yelp review! What kind of clueless amateurs are you? You call yourself 'developers'???"
    - stingraycharles 6y ago
      He implied that we all heard of it, but it’s besides the point I was trying to make — rather than starting an OSS project in the hopes some FAANG company may sponsor it, it may very well be a project started by such a company instead. Ie its not likely something you can “grow” a project into.
- dodobirdlord 6y ago
  I suspect that what meetups323 means is that they work for a FAANG company on a piece of software that company uses that is also open-source, not that it's their own FOSS project and it draws them a FAANG-equivalent salary.
deleted 6y ago
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rorykoehler 6y ago
If you published a roadmap would it solve the problem?
- intended 6y ago
  I cant help but laugh, since this is very likely the kind of things he fields, but is also totally natural for techies to suggest.
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    I meant it more as a solution to people thinking their bad behaviour is being validated.
- newsbinator 6y ago
  I was thinking the same. Doesn't even have to be a roadmap, even merely opening an issue for a feature long in advance, saying "comments about x go here, as we intend to implement it at some point in the future".
  - fwip 6y ago
    Those kind of issues, while useful for well-behaved people, are often magnets for the kinds of people who yell "look! People have been asking for this for 201X, why are you ignoring your users!"
    - newsbinator 6y ago
      Would it be okay to explain why other issues have taken priority and will likely take priority for the near future? It doesn't hurt to write down the thought process. Of course some people can't be appeased and no reasonable explanation will be sufficient.
    - vntok 6y ago
      The tone might be off but it seems like a perfectly valid question. If most users have wanted X for years but the developer instead spent her energy implementing Y and Z that noone else cares about, that begs questions like how are features prioritized ("based on what I want to work on" is a valid answer but needs to be explicit) and who the software is for ("me but sure you guys can tag along and use it for free I guess" is a valid answer but needs to be explicit) Maybe some of those users who have wanted feature X for years would be happy to pool some cash to make it happen if given the opportunity.
oefrha 6y ago
I have a slightly different experience. I find aggressive users very easy to ignore. What does drive me mad is that some non-hostile users put zero value on my time. I’ve painstakingly implemented debug logs and carefully prepared issue templates yet I still get these “does not work (EOM)” (effectively) issues. In the back-and-forth that ensues, sometimes it takes three or four attempts of asking the same question to get what I need, possibly separated by a day each time. Sometimes they’ll eventually realize what they missed was documented in the first place and would have been obvious if they followed the issue template to begin with. Then there are users expecting me to help with an incomplete, out of context code snippet, or quite the opposite, with their 5k LoC repository, hoping I’d fish out the 50 or 5 lines that are actually relevant on my own. These users are not outright assholes, so it’s somewhat harder to justify passive-aggressiveness against them. And they may have actual issues locked behind three or four back-and-forths. (For the record, I got maybe a total of $10 in donations from thousands of hours of FOSS work. Actually a high profile project I worked for did receive sponsorship, but nothing went into my pocket for obvious reasons.)
- opportune 6y ago
  I understand when writing paid software with support expectations/contracts, sometimes you have to engage with the teeth-pulling exercise that is “does not work”. But why do you in FOSS? Can’t you just close the ticket and say “not descriptive enough” and move on?
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    You can and I regularly close tickets for not following the template that says at the very top "tickets not following this template will be closed with no reply". It's even better if you can get a bot to automatically reply and close it.
    - Tehnix 6y ago
      I was thinking about how one could automate this when reading. Not a foolproof way, but add a string in your Issue Templates that is required to be there, e.g. . If this is not present in the issue, the GitHub action just closes the issue with a message to please fill in the template if they wish to create an issue. Doesn't catch nearly everything, but should get some and it's easy to set up. Could be interesting to go further with the idea and maybe check if each section contains text or something like this, hmm...
fn1 6y ago
> Worse when you were planning on implementing it soon anyways, but now if you do it's "rewarding" their behaviour (in their eyes at least), and they become invigorated to go and spread their toxicity even further. No, please don't think like that. Implement what you see fit when you planned to do it and you can ignore this. 1. You don't know how "toxic" people really are. Some of them are nice, but just put no time/understanding into their internet communication. They write and forgot what they wrote a minute later. 2. If they really need to learn something, talking to them politely "Thanks for the suggestion but...", "Could you please..." etc. will help over time. Not doing something in the fear of rewarding their behaviour is way too complex to understand.
- folkrav 6y ago
  > 1. You don't know how "toxic" people really are. Some of them are nice, but just put no time/understanding into their internet communication. They write and forgot what they wrote a minute later. A bit of a cop-out, IMHO. That's also true of real-life interactions: most people you'll talk to, you'll forget about 5 minutes later. I honestly don't remember if I said anything in particular to the corner store lady just yesterday, and I see her every other day. If I was a jerk to her, putting in thought or not, I was the asshole, final. Seriously, it's not that hard not being an asshole, just... don't be. > 2. If they really need to learn something, talking to them politely "Thanks for the suggestion but...", "Could you please..." etc. will help over time. Not doing something in the fear of rewarding their behaviour is way too complex to understand. Sure, treat people with respect. However, I'm not convinced it would be that guy's responsibility not to hurt someone's feelings, especially when that person was a jerk in the first place. I don't think we owe respect to someone who was disrespectful. The whole point is that dealing with it is a chore; having to take the time to educate people on their own behavior doesn't make it easier. I just think it shouldn't be _expected_ of maintainers to have to deal with it at all: simply closing the issue or ignoring the request should be seen as a fine response to asshole behavior.
- meetups323 6y ago
  End of the day yes I'll implement the thing I was planning on implementing -- I'm not going to let some random user dramatically change my planning process. But the added work of having that conversation if needed gets factored into my mental idea of the cost of the item (I didn't get into software engineering because interpersonal relations come easily and stress-free), and if that means that I prioritize lower cost items with the same impact, so be it.
chii 6y ago
> toxic users who hop on to issues demanding you implement them immediately I would have a policy of not allowing feature requests, only bug reports. Their demands gets immediately deleted. Either report a bug or GTFO - and make this the norm!
- enriquto 6y ago
  > I would have a policy of not allowing feature requests, only bug reports. There's also the "polite" feature request, that's actually helpful. For example, a user wants a feature, and they ask if the developer would be willing to accept a pull request implementing that feature. I think this is respectful and better than sending the pull request right away.
  - arp242 6y ago
    Also, while a lot of feature requests are for kind of obvious things and not really all that valuable IMO, sometimes people just post really good ideas in feature requests. It would be a shame to lose that.
DisjointedHunt 6y ago
I strongly hold the belief that, for the long run, the success of open source depends on establishing a profitable business model that rewards people like yourself who put their hearts into it.
- throwaway29399 6y ago
  I maintain or contribute to various FLOSS projects. The day FLOSS becomes profit-driven is the day I stop contributing. Profit and user freedom are two different priorities. Sometimes they are compatible, more often they are not.
  - arp242 6y ago
    There is a difference between "profit-driven" and "spending untold hours getting very little in return while some of the people using this are literally some of the richest companies and people in the world". I am not at all money-driven; my current income is about €600/month, which is not much but a sustainable where I currently live, and in return I can work on open source/free software as I see fit. It's not what everyone would choose, but for me, it's good trade-off, right now away. I wrote a bit about this over here last week[1], but I think we really need to think more about money instead of treating it as the devil. [1]: https://lobste.rs/s/r5qaap/introducing_preql_new_relational#c_wqebka https://lobste.rs/s/r5qaap/introducing_preql_new_relational#...
totalZero 6y ago
> "rewarding" their behaviour (in their eyes at least) You must, in your own mind, depersonalize the requests and translate them into polite-speak. You know better than I that people who complain about software are usually unaware and frustrated. If they knew the whole picture and hadn't just encountered limitations in the software, maybe they'd be nicer. The risk is that your resentment could lead to wanting to delay an improvement just because you want to disincentivize toxic demands.
taoufix 6y ago
I made a small app for my specific need and decided to share it with people with same interests. It stated getting traction and more and more users started using it. At first I was exited to read the 5 stars reviews and thanks. When the app got even more traction and reached +30K users, the reviews and direct emails became toxic and insulting: why doesn't the app do this? why is it free? are you selling our data? (the app is free w/o ads and with Zero permissions not even network. It's just a small sqlite database with a UI). The I read the Flappy Bird's creator story[1], I decided to stop reading the reviews all together, it's just too much stress. I'm sure a lot of users (the silent majority) appreciate and find the app useful. [1] https://businessideaslab.com/flappy-bird-story-dong-nguyen/ https://businessideaslab.com/flappy-bird-story-dong-nguyen/
- mk89 6y ago
  I think that this is a bit different from what the parent comment was about. > why doesn't the app do this? why is it free? are you selling our data? These are all valid questions, in my opinion, especially the last two. Some of them could easily be answered in a FAQ section. And no, I almost never leave reviews, so I am not one of "them".
  - secfirstmd 6y ago
    Yeh reading app reviews is toxic. We build a free open source/creative commons app (https://www.secfirst.org https://www.secfirst.org) to help people learn about digital and physical security. It's one of the biggest guides ever written about the topic, something like about 160k words in 40 different topics translated into 7 main languages. All done with volunteers. We regularly get people giving us one star reviews and telling us the app is shit because it's not translated into Japanese, Korean, Dutch or Norwegian etc. I mean we'd love to translate it into all these languages but Norway isn't exactly the world's most dangerous country so not our main priority. We try to reach out to every user who contacts us no matter what and sometimes we send people the details about how easily to help is translate it if they can - but the usual answer is abrupt, unhelpful and dismissive.
syrgian 6y ago
If you are willing to share, when you say that you get FAANG salary you mean FAANG-level or actually from one of those companies?
- meetups323 6y ago
  I'm employed by a FAANG to maintain an OSS project.
deleted 6y ago
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everdrive 6y ago
A bit of a tangent, but when it comes to consumable media I often hear the same lament: "X is great," (where X is a band, a TV show, a video game, etc.) "but it's got a toxic community." I'm not sure how many of these things really have a toxic community per se. Instead I just wonder if you could more correctly say they have a "large community on the internet, which is usually caustic no matter the topic at hand."
- arp242 6y ago
  I've definitely noticed there is a difference between communities. Of course, no community is "perfect", and a lot of times conflicts happen just because someone having a bad day or lost their temper. That's okay, part of the human condition and all of that. What matters is 1) how you deal with things when someone is having a bad day (things can either cool down or escalate), and 2) how you deal with people who seem to be having bad days almost every day (i.e. assholes). If you don't do anything then all communities will gravitate towards toxicity; simply because non-assholes will get tired of assholes and will stop coming back, and then all you're left with are ... assholes, and people with above-average patience.
cgsmith 6y ago
What is FAANG salary?
- majinuub 6y ago
  Its a salary that you would normally earn working for the large tech companies in Silicon Valley. FAANG stands for: Facebook Apple Amazon Netflix Google
- sabertoothed 6y ago
  The salary made at companies like Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Alphabet (formerly known as Google), together known as FAANG.
eplanit 6y ago
"I maintain a very popular piece of FOSS software as my full time job (you've all heard of it, many of you use it)." Then name it, please.
- dwhitney 6y ago
  FYI - you're one of the toxic users he's talking about
  - eplanit 6y ago
    If that's toxic (I said please, in fact), then the OP is too thin-skinned. Why signal that you work on a popular software title (you've all heard of it...geez), but then not name it? I'll assume he worked on Hannah Montana Linux[1] /s [1] http://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/ http://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/
    - nickthemagicman 6y ago
      Do some people not recognize when they're being rude? Do they think they're just being funny or something and aren't aware of the inherent rudeness in their comments? Maybe people work in a bro type culture and this kind of thing is acceptable and so they don't realize ther behavior is not viewed favorably by the wider world? Just curious. It's interesting phenomenon.
    - pashsdk27 6y ago
      Maybe the OP wishes to be anonymous. Maybe you interpreted the message incorrectly. :))
  - dang 6y ago
    Please don't make threads worse with personal attacks. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
echelon 6y ago
> I maintain a very popular piece of FOSS software as my full time job (you've all heard of it, many of you use it). If it's Firefox, thank you from the bottom of my heart. This piece of software is essential in keeping the web free and open. Fight the good fight. Don't let the trolls and the selfish users dissuade you. Regardless of what you work on, thank you. We should all be more appreciative.
sputr 6y ago
Honest question: why don't you ban such users? I used to be in non-main-stream politics, and we had the same problem - people coming into the group who were toxic and made our lives hell. It took me far too long to realize the following: Freedom of speech does not mean that individuals and private groups have to tolerate asshats. It's a fallacy that many, many, far too many, progressive groups and movements fall into: this feeling that we "owe" people to hear them out. And that we "owe" people to let them sit at the same table with us. You are not the government or a hegemonic group/platform. You don't owe toxic people anything. Ban them, without remorse. Have a rule for it - obviously - but for the most toxic behaviors don't even give them a warning. What do you have to lose - a few asshats out of hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of users? And no, it's not censorship. Not everything is censorship. Telling idiots and asshats to STFU or GTFO isn't censorship. And a lot, and I do mean A LOT of problems that online communities and even real world politics have is connected to just not telling people the simple word of "NO".
- meetups323 6y ago
  If I were acting on behalf of myself I might, but as a representative of {FAANG company}, it a bad look to be banning people left and right.
nickthemagicman 6y ago
Is this Moxie? If so I just want to say I love your blog and your thoughts and wish I could read more. :)
gumby 6y ago
Brian Fox had a great canned response to such people: he would reply "Please return your copy of Bash for a full refund"
jlg23 6y ago
My $0.02 advice for dealing with toxic FOSS users: "You already got more than you paid for, closing this ticket for violation of basic human interaction protocols."
kemitchell 6y ago
Reading your post reminded me of a common social conundrum among lawyers who negotiate deals. Sometimes I will run into a businessperson, on our side or the other side, who loves to send follow-up messages, or even makes calls, demanding progress reports or turnaround times. Almost never do these messages have even the slightest effect on how quickly I get to a job, or finish it. I have a to-do list, a calendar, and a list of priorities. Their content-free follow-ups affect none of them, unless it includes genuinely new and relevant information. Very, very, very rarely does an ongoing deal slip my mind. It may be that I was right in the middle of finishing a turn of an agreement when they interrupted me. I had no way to know their message wasn't reporting some important new development in the negotiation. Having stopped to check, I've broken focus, and will probably take longer to finish what I was doing. But from their point of view, they're reinforced every time they send a low-effort follow-up message and see progress a relatively short time later, whether the two were causally related or not. Even if the message actually delayed delivery. This leads to yet more follow-up messages, both later in the current deal and in other deals. It leads to disappointed expectations when mashing the lawyer's button doesn't make them scribble faster. Anecdotally, I see this most from people with strong sales backgrounds. Either way, I almost always find it worthwhile to cut it off preemptively, by making it very clear that I'm an organized professional, and not a rower in their galley. I have threatened to fire a client for putting me in their CRM for automated follow-ups. Things got much better, for both of us, from there.
xbar 6y ago
I don't know what you maintain. But let me say, loudly, THANK YOU! YOU ARE APPRECIATED.
paraknight 6y ago
This is the exact reason working on video game mods stopped being fun for me
krageon 6y ago
You can just block users that bother you, can't you?
- meetups323 6y ago
  If I were a solo dev yes, as I'm acting on behalf of a company it's a bad look. (As I said, I'm 100% grateful to be in this position, and this being the worst part of my job is a testament to how nice the job is, I'm simply venting a bit)

mulmen 6y ago

Thanks for what you do.

sbinthree 6y ago

It's the same issue with support as a software company. We have companies paying us $10k a month who "want us to consider something for future roadmap if other customers would also value it" and free users who "demand we fix (expected and documented behavior) IMMEDIATELY". The problem isn't open source, it's free.

gonzo41 6y ago
You almost need something like a shadow ban for users like that. Or to try and outsource your ticket moderation to the community.
- taurath 6y ago
  That’s sort of dispersing the problem onto some other poor sap or group of saps. Businesses do need to set boundaries and it’s terrifying to do so because “the mob” can suddenly decide against having goodwill. Best bet is to set standards very early and firmly like you’d treat a child - EG “we do NOT put our hand in the fire, but you can do just about anything else” and “we do NOT adjust our roadmap to people who yell the loudest but we are happy to have a conversation over why it’s important”
foepys 6y ago
I think part of the problem is the expectation of instantaneous gratification today. Individuals can get any item they want shipped premium to their door step the next day nearly everywhere. So why shouldn't software features be the same? The problem with "free" is that many, many more people can use the software. Large corporations (which the $10k/mo user probably is) on the other hand calculate updates in months or even years. My company also has a very large customer that asks us to implement something "whenever possible" and if we need 2 years they are just happy we did it. Why? Because they have a long update cycle. It's not really important if it's in the next release because they might not even install that but wait for the release after that.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  As somebody who usually works in those big support contact enterprises, I often find myself incredibly frustrated by the open source projects my employers pay for. You often see these companies that take the enterprise approach to support contracts, taking the open source approach to fixing issues. As in, if you want something fixed, you’ll be lucky if it ever happens. The issue that undermines you’re (mostly correct) observations on slowing moving enterprise, is that they’ll often adopt technology before knowing if it will even work the way they want it to. So when it comes time to implement, you’ll find things that don’t work as described, often accompanied by some years old issue on their tracker which basically say “we might get around to that some time”. “Enterprise grade” proprietary software is usually terrible anyway, so still prefer open source for the reason that I’m able to write my own patches for it (which I often do). But I find the open source attitude toward fixing issues, in software that your customers are actually paying a lot of money for, incredibly frustrating. There’s a particular maintainer on a project that I use a lot at work, and anytime I see his avatar on the forum while trying to debug an issue, I instantaneously know that my whole day is about to be ruined by some of the least helpful advice you could possibly imagine.
Gibbon1 6y ago
> consider something for future roadmap if other customers would also value it Personally I wouldn't want a custom feature just for me. Because I know it'd likely be poorly supported and sometimes break. Because that's how it's been when I've been on the other side of that.
tweetle_beetle 6y ago
Isn't it a bit more subtle than that? The business issues with free users are well documented, but this is a bit different. What we're really taking about is GitHub - you don't have the same volume of low effort comments demanding features on pre-GitHub collaboration tools like making lists, IRC or even using the email address associated with commits. I'd suggest that it's more a combination of: the volume of users that now have access to the world's most popular git hosting service is vast compared to the number of people who can usefully contribute, the ease with which maintainers can be contacted through it and the "friendly by default" stance that most maintainers take on a platform where your stars are more valuable in the real world than your CV.
eloisant 6y ago
Free users don't care if you tell them to fuck off. The company paying $10k can't change vendor overnight so it's in their best interest to stay in good terms. Also in his company, the guy you're talking to don't want to be "the guy who pissed off that key vendor".
- bob_roboto 6y ago
  I second that. Once a vendor becomes important enough I even stop thinking of it as a vendor and rather as a partner that you interact with as if it was part of your own organisation. I am not amused when members of my team are rude to a vendor and jeopardise a relationship that took a long time to build. Even when you pay six figures a month, you can still get preferential treatment compared to other customers in the same tier when it comes to influence over the roadmap if you actively foster the relationship.
- studius 6y ago
  > Free users don't care if you tell them to fuck off. You don't have to and shouldn't respond in any specific time period. Even if you're the sole maintainer of a critical project and you imagine the world wants your head, the world has to wait sometimes. However, users may abandon projects where support tickets go untended, maybe even writing a post about it in the process[1], so try to respond when you can, unless you've abandoned the project. As a representative for a FOSS project or even a bystander commenting on a PR, respond professionally and succinctly. If you shouldn't accept a PR, don't. If it's a request that seems hostile to the project, and you have time, either leave it for a little while to cool off, try to serve it with professionalism without getting off-topic, or at worst close it. If needed, add a "code of conduct"[2] so that you can "encourage a pleasant and productive environment by responding to disruptive behavior in a fast, fair way"[3]. Note that instituting one before it's needed, while seeming proactive, may put off some users. If you screw-up, apologize briefly, then fix it or move on. [1]- https://medium.com/free-code-camp/why-im-not-using-your-github-repository-2dff6c7ac7cf https://medium.com/free-code-camp/why-im-not-using-your-gith... [2]- https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/github/building-a-strong-community/adding-a-code-of-conduct-to-your-project https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/github/build... [3]- https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/github/building-a-strong-community/about-community-management-and-moderation https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/github/build...
a_bonobo 6y ago
It's like when you give your old stuff away on Facebook/craigslist/gumtree - when it's free, you'll get very entitled people messaging you whether you can deliver it to them, or don't keep agreements. Asking for $5 removes 99% of the trouble.
renewiltord 6y ago
The enterprise guy is at the other end also writing software professionally so he understands if you can't build to his use-case.
Closi 6y ago
100% Agree. And this can happen on HackerNews too! Here is a thread in the last week where 50% of posters from HackerNews were berating Microsoft for open sourcing all of VS code, but not open sourcing one of their free language servers (calling them selfish, anti open-source e.t.c.). I think this is the exact same sentiment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25719045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25719045 So Microsoft open sourced all of VS Code, but didn't want to open source the Pylance language server (a separate product which is installed separately as an extension) which they provide as a free (as in beer). This is because Pylance is also used within their other (charged) offerings such as full Visual Studio and is a differentiator from their competition in the premium space. Also they have hinted that it includes some proprietary secret-sauce that they don't want to make public. Bear in mind that Microsoft is making VS Code free and open source... here are some quotes from the thread: > I find it what they are doing to be dishonest [...] the consequences of their actions is that people who dislike them will talk bad about them. > [Microsoft] have the right to be two-faced about their open source policy, I have the right to speak about how I think it's bad to do so. > They should please stop acting like they are the second coming of christ for open source [...] they are misleading their users. > Microsoft proved that they only care for OSS [...] because it enables them to spy on coders and their code to develop proprietary and closed sourced spins for software development product. The OSS community got served. > Microsoft always does this, they fool people by pretending they’re in favor of open source or make something free but it’s just a trick used to bait and switch people into the proprietary anticompetitive Microsoft ecosystem. > Seems like Microsoft is back to pissing in the public pool.
- depressedpanda 6y ago
  To be fair, Microsoft has plenty of bad rep, stemming from decades of abusive behavior, to recover from. Also, a megacorp is not a person (no matter what the law may say). Being abusive towards individual developers should not be tolerated, but leveraging fair or unfair criticism towards an amoral entity? Eh, whatever floats your boat.
  - Closi 6y ago
    Signal isn’t an individual developer, so what about the sort of comments highlighted in the original article? Or is it just 'be nice to developers in small companies, but you can say anything to developers in big companies'?
proactivesvcs 6y ago
For this exact reason I've cut almost all of my tech support for friends and family. It seems that what goes around comes around, and my time was worth what they paid for.

mlthoughts2018 6y ago

On the flip side though, lots of FOSS project maintainers want a large user base for fame and glory but also want to omit support for that large user base to instead pursue whatever interests the maintainers, as opposed to what is evidently needed, all under the disingenuous guise that not being directly compensated entitles any arbitrary planning policy. While users have no justification for being rude or insulting, they absolutely do have justification to be frustrated if you want to have your cake (compensation in the form of notoriety due in large part to the willingness of others to actually use your FOSS project) and eat it too (not prioritize plans, bug fixes, or features in accordance with what that user base needs & requests, over and above what you prefer). I’m not saying this applies to you specifically, but it does apply to many FOSS projects, and arguments of infinite entitlement to strand users who bring your project notoriety because the compensation isn’t in currency format are totally specious and deserve to be met with (polite) frustrated pushback.

jhasse 6y ago
> not being directly compensated entitles any arbitrary planning policy. It does though IMHO.
nextlevelwizard 6y ago
You present no argument at all. FOSS is FOSS. Creator or current maintainer owes you and other users exactly nothing. They are putting their stuff up for you to use if you see value in it. You can report bugs and make feature requests, but no one is under any obligation to even read your bug reports or feature requests. If you want your specific thing fixed right now then do it yourself.
- jodrellblank 6y ago
  Grandparent comment is “I maintain a very popular piece of FOSS software as my full time job”; FOSS means libre not necessarily gratis, it could still be paid for, with paying customers or employer-users in this case and owe them a lot.
  - 6y ago

grecy 6y ago

> I'm forever grateful that I actually get FAANG salary to do this -- I wouldn't keep it up if I was getting the little-to-noting many FOSS contributors get. I wonder if you have any tips or advice for other people out there maintaining FOSS projects who are struggling to get paid for their work. How can a person in that scenario move closer to what you've got going on?

stingraycharles 6y ago
I suspect the project was started by a FAANG business, eg React or something like that.
- heyoni 6y ago
  React isn’t something we all use, as OP implied...on the other hand, OP might be maintaining a left padding package!
  - bigiain 6y ago
    I'm now imagining a stream of hysterical entitled feature request demands from users of leftpad.js... "This dumb library doesn't left pad correctly when I'm standing on my head. FIX THIS IMMEDIATELY or I'll change to an alternative library and leave a 1 star Yelp review! What kind of clueless amateurs are you? You call yourself 'developers'???"
  - stingraycharles 6y ago
    He implied that we all heard of it, but it’s besides the point I was trying to make — rather than starting an OSS project in the hopes some FAANG company may sponsor it, it may very well be a project started by such a company instead. Ie its not likely something you can “grow” a project into.
dodobirdlord 6y ago
I suspect that what meetups323 means is that they work for a FAANG company on a piece of software that company uses that is also open-source, not that it's their own FOSS project and it draws them a FAANG-equivalent salary.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rorykoehler 6y ago

If you published a roadmap would it solve the problem?

intended 6y ago
I cant help but laugh, since this is very likely the kind of things he fields, but is also totally natural for techies to suggest.
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  I meant it more as a solution to people thinking their bad behaviour is being validated.
newsbinator 6y ago
I was thinking the same. Doesn't even have to be a roadmap, even merely opening an issue for a feature long in advance, saying "comments about x go here, as we intend to implement it at some point in the future".
- fwip 6y ago
  Those kind of issues, while useful for well-behaved people, are often magnets for the kinds of people who yell "look! People have been asking for this for 201X, why are you ignoring your users!"
  - newsbinator 6y ago
    Would it be okay to explain why other issues have taken priority and will likely take priority for the near future? It doesn't hurt to write down the thought process. Of course some people can't be appeased and no reasonable explanation will be sufficient.
  - vntok 6y ago
    The tone might be off but it seems like a perfectly valid question. If most users have wanted X for years but the developer instead spent her energy implementing Y and Z that noone else cares about, that begs questions like how are features prioritized ("based on what I want to work on" is a valid answer but needs to be explicit) and who the software is for ("me but sure you guys can tag along and use it for free I guess" is a valid answer but needs to be explicit) Maybe some of those users who have wanted feature X for years would be happy to pool some cash to make it happen if given the opportunity.

oefrha 6y ago

I have a slightly different experience. I find aggressive users very easy to ignore. What does drive me mad is that some non-hostile users put zero value on my time. I’ve painstakingly implemented debug logs and carefully prepared issue templates yet I still get these “does not work (EOM)” (effectively) issues. In the back-and-forth that ensues, sometimes it takes three or four attempts of asking the same question to get what I need, possibly separated by a day each time. Sometimes they’ll eventually realize what they missed was documented in the first place and would have been obvious if they followed the issue template to begin with. Then there are users expecting me to help with an incomplete, out of context code snippet, or quite the opposite, with their 5k LoC repository, hoping I’d fish out the 50 or 5 lines that are actually relevant on my own. These users are not outright assholes, so it’s somewhat harder to justify passive-aggressiveness against them. And they may have actual issues locked behind three or four back-and-forths. (For the record, I got maybe a total of $10 in donations from thousands of hours of FOSS work. Actually a high profile project I worked for did receive sponsorship, but nothing went into my pocket for obvious reasons.)

opportune 6y ago
I understand when writing paid software with support expectations/contracts, sometimes you have to engage with the teeth-pulling exercise that is “does not work”. But why do you in FOSS? Can’t you just close the ticket and say “not descriptive enough” and move on?
- StavrosK 6y ago
  You can and I regularly close tickets for not following the template that says at the very top "tickets not following this template will be closed with no reply". It's even better if you can get a bot to automatically reply and close it.
  - Tehnix 6y ago
    I was thinking about how one could automate this when reading. Not a foolproof way, but add a string in your Issue Templates that is required to be there, e.g. . If this is not present in the issue, the GitHub action just closes the issue with a message to please fill in the template if they wish to create an issue. Doesn't catch nearly everything, but should get some and it's easy to set up. Could be interesting to go further with the idea and maybe check if each section contains text or something like this, hmm...

fn1 6y ago

> Worse when you were planning on implementing it soon anyways, but now if you do it's "rewarding" their behaviour (in their eyes at least), and they become invigorated to go and spread their toxicity even further. No, please don't think like that. Implement what you see fit when you planned to do it and you can ignore this. 1. You don't know how "toxic" people really are. Some of them are nice, but just put no time/understanding into their internet communication. They write and forgot what they wrote a minute later. 2. If they really need to learn something, talking to them politely "Thanks for the suggestion but...", "Could you please..." etc. will help over time. Not doing something in the fear of rewarding their behaviour is way too complex to understand.

folkrav 6y ago
> 1. You don't know how "toxic" people really are. Some of them are nice, but just put no time/understanding into their internet communication. They write and forgot what they wrote a minute later. A bit of a cop-out, IMHO. That's also true of real-life interactions: most people you'll talk to, you'll forget about 5 minutes later. I honestly don't remember if I said anything in particular to the corner store lady just yesterday, and I see her every other day. If I was a jerk to her, putting in thought or not, I was the asshole, final. Seriously, it's not that hard not being an asshole, just... don't be. > 2. If they really need to learn something, talking to them politely "Thanks for the suggestion but...", "Could you please..." etc. will help over time. Not doing something in the fear of rewarding their behaviour is way too complex to understand. Sure, treat people with respect. However, I'm not convinced it would be that guy's responsibility not to hurt someone's feelings, especially when that person was a jerk in the first place. I don't think we owe respect to someone who was disrespectful. The whole point is that dealing with it is a chore; having to take the time to educate people on their own behavior doesn't make it easier. I just think it shouldn't be _expected_ of maintainers to have to deal with it at all: simply closing the issue or ignoring the request should be seen as a fine response to asshole behavior.
meetups323 6y ago
End of the day yes I'll implement the thing I was planning on implementing -- I'm not going to let some random user dramatically change my planning process. But the added work of having that conversation if needed gets factored into my mental idea of the cost of the item (I didn't get into software engineering because interpersonal relations come easily and stress-free), and if that means that I prioritize lower cost items with the same impact, so be it.

chii 6y ago

> toxic users who hop on to issues demanding you implement them immediately I would have a policy of not allowing feature requests, only bug reports. Their demands gets immediately deleted. Either report a bug or GTFO - and make this the norm!

enriquto 6y ago
> I would have a policy of not allowing feature requests, only bug reports. There's also the "polite" feature request, that's actually helpful. For example, a user wants a feature, and they ask if the developer would be willing to accept a pull request implementing that feature. I think this is respectful and better than sending the pull request right away.
- arp242 6y ago
  Also, while a lot of feature requests are for kind of obvious things and not really all that valuable IMO, sometimes people just post really good ideas in feature requests. It would be a shame to lose that.

DisjointedHunt 6y ago

I strongly hold the belief that, for the long run, the success of open source depends on establishing a profitable business model that rewards people like yourself who put their hearts into it.

throwaway29399 6y ago
I maintain or contribute to various FLOSS projects. The day FLOSS becomes profit-driven is the day I stop contributing. Profit and user freedom are two different priorities. Sometimes they are compatible, more often they are not.
- arp242 6y ago
  There is a difference between "profit-driven" and "spending untold hours getting very little in return while some of the people using this are literally some of the richest companies and people in the world". I am not at all money-driven; my current income is about €600/month, which is not much but a sustainable where I currently live, and in return I can work on open source/free software as I see fit. It's not what everyone would choose, but for me, it's good trade-off, right now away. I wrote a bit about this over here last week[1], but I think we really need to think more about money instead of treating it as the devil. [1]: https://lobste.rs/s/r5qaap/introducing_preql_new_relational#c_wqebka https://lobste.rs/s/r5qaap/introducing_preql_new_relational#...

totalZero 6y ago

> "rewarding" their behaviour (in their eyes at least) You must, in your own mind, depersonalize the requests and translate them into polite-speak. You know better than I that people who complain about software are usually unaware and frustrated. If they knew the whole picture and hadn't just encountered limitations in the software, maybe they'd be nicer. The risk is that your resentment could lead to wanting to delay an improvement just because you want to disincentivize toxic demands.

taoufix 6y ago

I made a small app for my specific need and decided to share it with people with same interests. It stated getting traction and more and more users started using it. At first I was exited to read the 5 stars reviews and thanks. When the app got even more traction and reached +30K users, the reviews and direct emails became toxic and insulting: why doesn't the app do this? why is it free? are you selling our data? (the app is free w/o ads and with Zero permissions not even network. It's just a small sqlite database with a UI). The I read the Flappy Bird's creator story[1], I decided to stop reading the reviews all together, it's just too much stress. I'm sure a lot of users (the silent majority) appreciate and find the app useful. [1] https://businessideaslab.com/flappy-bird-story-dong-nguyen/ https://businessideaslab.com/flappy-bird-story-dong-nguyen/

mk89 6y ago
I think that this is a bit different from what the parent comment was about. > why doesn't the app do this? why is it free? are you selling our data? These are all valid questions, in my opinion, especially the last two. Some of them could easily be answered in a FAQ section. And no, I almost never leave reviews, so I am not one of "them".
- secfirstmd 6y ago
  Yeh reading app reviews is toxic. We build a free open source/creative commons app (https://www.secfirst.org https://www.secfirst.org) to help people learn about digital and physical security. It's one of the biggest guides ever written about the topic, something like about 160k words in 40 different topics translated into 7 main languages. All done with volunteers. We regularly get people giving us one star reviews and telling us the app is shit because it's not translated into Japanese, Korean, Dutch or Norwegian etc. I mean we'd love to translate it into all these languages but Norway isn't exactly the world's most dangerous country so not our main priority. We try to reach out to every user who contacts us no matter what and sometimes we send people the details about how easily to help is translate it if they can - but the usual answer is abrupt, unhelpful and dismissive.

syrgian 6y ago

If you are willing to share, when you say that you get FAANG salary you mean FAANG-level or actually from one of those companies?

meetups323 6y ago
I'm employed by a FAANG to maintain an OSS project.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

everdrive 6y ago

A bit of a tangent, but when it comes to consumable media I often hear the same lament: "X is great," (where X is a band, a TV show, a video game, etc.) "but it's got a toxic community." I'm not sure how many of these things really have a toxic community per se. Instead I just wonder if you could more correctly say they have a "large community on the internet, which is usually caustic no matter the topic at hand."

arp242 6y ago
I've definitely noticed there is a difference between communities. Of course, no community is "perfect", and a lot of times conflicts happen just because someone having a bad day or lost their temper. That's okay, part of the human condition and all of that. What matters is 1) how you deal with things when someone is having a bad day (things can either cool down or escalate), and 2) how you deal with people who seem to be having bad days almost every day (i.e. assholes). If you don't do anything then all communities will gravitate towards toxicity; simply because non-assholes will get tired of assholes and will stop coming back, and then all you're left with are ... assholes, and people with above-average patience.

cgsmith 6y ago

What is FAANG salary?

majinuub 6y ago
Its a salary that you would normally earn working for the large tech companies in Silicon Valley. FAANG stands for: Facebook Apple Amazon Netflix Google
sabertoothed 6y ago
The salary made at companies like Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Alphabet (formerly known as Google), together known as FAANG.

eplanit 6y ago

"I maintain a very popular piece of FOSS software as my full time job (you've all heard of it, many of you use it)." Then name it, please.

dwhitney 6y ago
FYI - you're one of the toxic users he's talking about
- eplanit 6y ago
  If that's toxic (I said please, in fact), then the OP is too thin-skinned. Why signal that you work on a popular software title (you've all heard of it...geez), but then not name it? I'll assume he worked on Hannah Montana Linux[1] /s [1] http://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/ http://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    Do some people not recognize when they're being rude? Do they think they're just being funny or something and aren't aware of the inherent rudeness in their comments? Maybe people work in a bro type culture and this kind of thing is acceptable and so they don't realize ther behavior is not viewed favorably by the wider world? Just curious. It's interesting phenomenon.
  - pashsdk27 6y ago
    Maybe the OP wishes to be anonymous. Maybe you interpreted the message incorrectly. :))
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't make threads worse with personal attacks. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

echelon 6y ago

> I maintain a very popular piece of FOSS software as my full time job (you've all heard of it, many of you use it). If it's Firefox, thank you from the bottom of my heart. This piece of software is essential in keeping the web free and open. Fight the good fight. Don't let the trolls and the selfish users dissuade you. Regardless of what you work on, thank you. We should all be more appreciative.

sputr 6y ago

Honest question: why don't you ban such users? I used to be in non-main-stream politics, and we had the same problem - people coming into the group who were toxic and made our lives hell. It took me far too long to realize the following: Freedom of speech does not mean that individuals and private groups have to tolerate asshats. It's a fallacy that many, many, far too many, progressive groups and movements fall into: this feeling that we "owe" people to hear them out. And that we "owe" people to let them sit at the same table with us. You are not the government or a hegemonic group/platform. You don't owe toxic people anything. Ban them, without remorse. Have a rule for it - obviously - but for the most toxic behaviors don't even give them a warning. What do you have to lose - a few asshats out of hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of users? And no, it's not censorship. Not everything is censorship. Telling idiots and asshats to STFU or GTFO isn't censorship. And a lot, and I do mean A LOT of problems that online communities and even real world politics have is connected to just not telling people the simple word of "NO".

meetups323 6y ago
If I were acting on behalf of myself I might, but as a representative of {FAANG company}, it a bad look to be banning people left and right.

nickthemagicman 6y ago

Is this Moxie? If so I just want to say I love your blog and your thoughts and wish I could read more. :)

gumby 6y ago

Brian Fox had a great canned response to such people: he would reply "Please return your copy of Bash for a full refund"

jlg23 6y ago

My $0.02 advice for dealing with toxic FOSS users: "You already got more than you paid for, closing this ticket for violation of basic human interaction protocols."

kemitchell 6y ago

Reading your post reminded me of a common social conundrum among lawyers who negotiate deals. Sometimes I will run into a businessperson, on our side or the other side, who loves to send follow-up messages, or even makes calls, demanding progress reports or turnaround times. Almost never do these messages have even the slightest effect on how quickly I get to a job, or finish it. I have a to-do list, a calendar, and a list of priorities. Their content-free follow-ups affect none of them, unless it includes genuinely new and relevant information. Very, very, very rarely does an ongoing deal slip my mind. It may be that I was right in the middle of finishing a turn of an agreement when they interrupted me. I had no way to know their message wasn't reporting some important new development in the negotiation. Having stopped to check, I've broken focus, and will probably take longer to finish what I was doing. But from their point of view, they're reinforced every time they send a low-effort follow-up message and see progress a relatively short time later, whether the two were causally related or not. Even if the message actually delayed delivery. This leads to yet more follow-up messages, both later in the current deal and in other deals. It leads to disappointed expectations when mashing the lawyer's button doesn't make them scribble faster. Anecdotally, I see this most from people with strong sales backgrounds. Either way, I almost always find it worthwhile to cut it off preemptively, by making it very clear that I'm an organized professional, and not a rower in their galley. I have threatened to fire a client for putting me in their CRM for automated follow-ups. Things got much better, for both of us, from there.

xbar 6y ago

I don't know what you maintain. But let me say, loudly, THANK YOU! YOU ARE APPRECIATED.

paraknight 6y ago

This is the exact reason working on video game mods stopped being fun for me

krageon 6y ago

You can just block users that bother you, can't you?

meetups323 6y ago
If I were a solo dev yes, as I'm acting on behalf of a company it's a bad look. (As I said, I'm 100% grateful to be in this position, and this being the worst part of my job is a testament to how nice the job is, I'm simply venting a bit)