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Mt32-pi developer quits due to community harassment
- taw28 2y agoThis happens far too often, but I’ve never seen good advice on how to prevent it. All I ever see is “we as users need to be better.”
- HideousKojima 2y agoIt only takes a small number of insane users to cause massive drama, unfortunately.
- okanat 2y agoIf they are in some high tens, they are no small number.
- immibis 2y agoWhen you find out, let the Nobel committee know. This kind of thing is not limited to open source - it generalises across all of society and is collapsing it as we speak. Somehow we keep giving power to annoying trolls instead of taking it away.
- okanat 2y agoIt is the commercial Internet. Basically quantity instead of quality. People should realize they cannot give everything away and accept to communicate with everybody. They should stop using big platforms like Github that optimizes for numbers. The communication should have some gates in the place. Not for the sake of gatekeeping but for filtering non-intellectual communication.
- o11c 2y agoEnforcing real names helps somewhat, but doesn't eliminate the problem entirely.
- stephen_g 2y agoI think you might be surprised by how little shame humans can have... I've been amazed at the abuse people will post even with a real name and real photo avatar of themselves, yet some of the best online communities I've been on have been pseudonymous and just well moderated...
- ghaff 2y agoI used to think that True Names were something of a solution. These days I'm much less sure. A lot of people don't seem to care.
- immibis 2y agoThey are also dangerous, because the same shared reputation that allows a "good person" to hunt down a misbehaving "bad person" also allows the reverse, if the "bad people" are effectively outnumbered. ("All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing" - the effective number of "good people" is often zero)
- o11c 2y agoOh trust me, I'm aware how horrible people can be. But it still makes some difference, and more than a pessimist might think. ... and even more, if it were universally applied, the lack of opportunities for toxic ideas to fester in anonymous fora would reduce the incidence of them crossing over towards reality.
- reactordev 2y agoBest advice is to not do something under your personal name but a shadow corporation like the rest of them. Ever tried getting support from Google? Or getting a human on the phone at Apple? The project maintainer needs to reinvent themselves as an anonymous avatar and release software/hardware as Acme Corp. P.Midi or somebody.
- akerl_ 2y agoThe only techniques I’ve seen that appear to be long term effective are: 1. Be a gruff asshole who just doesn’t engage with the community or give a shit what they say or want or think 2. Don’t publish your code, or publish it anonymously and never interact with users 3. Luck into having your project be in such a niche that the only users are likeminded people who aren’t assholes None of these are amazing, but otherwise you’re basically guaranteed to run into this eventually.
- TheSpiceIsLife 2y agoThere’s an argument to be made that if you’re not prepared to deal with all of that, don’t become popular - either online or in meatspace, because it will happen.
- ghaff 2y agoIt's a reasonable argument that, if you don't want to deal with some of the inevitable consequences of popularity, basically don't put yourself out in public at all. It's rarely an actual requirement for a lot of things. You can make videos for yourself without posting on YouTube for example (as most people who historically made hobby videos did).
- akerl_ 2y agoThat’s a wild argument, up there with “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” People should be able to produce and publish content without being harassed.
- ghaff 2y ago>People should be able to produce and publish content without being harassed. I don't disagree. (Assuming the content isn't of a nature that deserves a lot of criticism though that's in the eye of the beholder and is a matter of degree of course.) But there's also the real world where putting yourself out in public can have consequences, especially if you become particularly popular. You take the good with the bad and decide if the tradeoff is worth it.
- akerl_ 2y ago> Assuming the content isn't of a nature that deserves a lot of criticism though that's in the eye of the beholder of course The fact that people think there are kinds of content that warrant harassment is kinda the root of this whole problem.
- 2y ago
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- joecool1029 2y agoDiscussed previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42955613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42955613 Looks like maintainer going through a tough time, no details of whatever happened but it doesn't look like it was public harassment, wish the best for them.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jrflowers 2y agoI like how you linked to this: > I have endured a sustained campaign of abuse from members of the VOGONS forum, been labelled a "clout-chaser", had threats sent to my personal email address, code been used in other projects without proper accreditation, my 3D print designs stolen and sold by faceless eBay/Etsy sellers, personal attacks made towards me when people don't get their feature request... the list goes on and on. >There is only so much I can take. >My mental health has been in decline as a direct result of this behavior; the joy of working on this project has pretty much gone. There is nothing to be gained from putting time and hard work into it any more. There is no gratitude, no encouragement - just entitled behavior and grift. And concluded that it is a mystery why he quit.
- fitsumbelay 2y agoI wonder why this doesn't happen with other devs who maintain widely used wares like Sindre Sorhus or even old timer like David DeSandro. If it does to them happen I wonder what they're doing that the mt32 pi dev isn't. I dunno ... I don't get out much but this seems to be a 3 dimensional corner case or as one commenter here put it, the cause might be something else
- NotYourLawyer 2y ago[flagged]
- crummy 2y ago"someone being mean on the internet" seems needlessly reductive
- ghaff 2y agoThere's often some intersection of one or two toxic individuals (or at least perceived as such) and someone who, for whatever personality or life circumstances reasons, just isn't prepared to deal with it. It's not commentary so much as an observation that people putting themselves out in public invite, rightly or wrongly, public commentary. Some communities can also just become disproportionately toxic as a whole.
- flufluflufluffy 2y agohow about dozens of people being mean (on/off internet, why does it matter, everything’s in the internet now) every day, over and over, for months on end, specifically targeting you
- fitsumbelay 2y ago"thin skinned" is unfair given what the dev claims to have endured
- Moru 2y agoMost people that see this happening stay away from it in the first place. Even friends of mine that has no clue about programming has seen how people behave against new users on forums that they would never touch linux with a long stick.
- nthunter 2y agoAs someone who has run quite a few projects and communities in the past, my tip is straightforward: ban hammer on the first instance, no warnings, no questions. At the first sight of an idiot, nuke them from orbit and do the same to anyone who hints compassion towards the idiot. This ensures more good people will flock, because often they refrain from engaging because they can't stand idiots.
- nine_k 2y agoA maintainer's work is a labor of love; if it's not a joy anymore, it stops. This, to my mind, is one of the key reasons to keep community standards pretty high, and react to violations pretty swiftly, even not when you're a moderator, but just as a member of the community. Acting vile will just drive away all the people who make the community worth existing.
- immibis 2y agoNote: This is a good idea if your goal is to not be bothered while developing your software project where you are the DFL. It's not necessarily a good idea if your goal is to run a discussion forum, because the risk of misclassifying people on first glance, and banning people who other people actually want to talk to, is pretty high, and people won't want to walk on eggshells. That isn't a constraint for a DFL software project because you're the only person people are coming onto your platform to talk to.
- froggy 2y agoTrolls get traced and fined in Germany. It ought to be done everywhere. The 1st Amendment is taken too literally in the U.S.. Insults, abuse, and blatant lies have no place in public discourse.
- robgibbons 2y agoAs an American who appreciates a strictly literal interpretation of the first amendment, it's very funny to me that a German not only takes pride in their government hunting down and suppressing inconvenient speech, but wants the rest of the world to fall in line.
- teaearlgraycold 2y agoYeah they’re real Nazis about it.
- froggy 2y agoI’m an American. I saw it on 60 Minutes last night. Any reason why you prefer the strictly literal interpretation? The difference between a personal insult and a criticism of something someone has done seems pretty clear cut to me. We could use more constructive discourse especially in the US.
- robgibbons 2y agoEvery amendment should be taken literally. How else should your rights be interpreted? Figuratively? I agree with you that people are much better off using constructive dialogue, and communities like HN are much better off because of moderation, but the idea of some government agency tracking down and fining trolls is to me a laughable suggestion.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- numba888 2y agoStretching and bending can go long way. Did you know there are zillons of sexes now? It's not the brain, it's the wrong body. For each psychological disorder.