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Valetudo is really nice software, but I have a bad taste in my mouth from the community. I went to the Telegram channel to ask something about why my vacuum ru

Valetudo is really nice software, but I have a bad taste in my mouth from the community. I went to the Telegram channel to ask something about why my vacuum running Valetudo would have a specific behaviour (IIRC it moved on its own), they kind of talked to each other for a second to discuss if this question was relevant to the channel, and then, presumably deciding it wasn't, banned me for a year.

fxtentacle 1y ago
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- hypfer 1y ago
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  - saagarjha 1y ago
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    - hypfer 1y ago
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      - saagarjha 1y ago
        My understanding is that you unbanned me but I was too lazy to rejoin. Perhaps this has changed?
        hypfer 1y ago
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        saagarjha 1y ago
        I actually have no idea who Hajo is. If they’ve been annoying in the past, and you banned them for it, it’s not really my place to figure out whether they deserved it. I only replied because yelling about it here is a sure fire way to get your comment flagged. Maybe you don’t mind but I felt that, spending far too much time here and watching a bunch of people do this repeatedly even though it’s against the rules, I might as well send people a reminder that there’s another option. As for your Telegram chat: I actually genuinely do not care, and I mean this without trying to be smug or anything. I joined to ask about S8 stuff and eventually just met Dennis directly. Ironically both of us seem to have gotten too busy with work to actually get to a good solution for those and I never actually ended up installing Valetudo anyway. My friends occasionally tell me how great it is and I feel a little but of regret for not following up to get the exploit stable but I just put up with letting my vacuum do its thing without any of the smart features :( But yeah, I really don’t think I would have gotten any value from rejoining the chat so I didn’t. I’m actually kind of sorry I participated in the conversation I did, not really because I wouldn’t stand behind what I said but more that it was kind of a waste of time and low value to even respond. And clearly it made you upset, so considering I valued it at effectively zero and you definitely felt it was negative, I think the conclusion is pretty obvious. One thing I do want to say, though: I feel like you frequently run into your project just causing you misery. I work on FOSS too, and arguably I work in a similar hacking-ish space too where random people show up and beg you for support, who don’t really bother to read the rules, etc. I get that this is frustrating. I ban plenty of people who drag down the place too. But I think that your garden that you’re trying to make might actually be causing you more trouble than it might be worth. I don’t wake up feeling drained that I have to interact with the community, in fact I actually appreciate talking to many of the members even if they can be annoying sometimes. I’ve had people occasionally claim they were unfairly treated (usually I disagree, of course) but I think the sentiment is largely positive. So, like, I just want to point out that it’s possible to enjoy what you do; it can be nice even if sometimes frustrated people show up. I just don’t want you to hate working on the things you’re doing.
        Geezus_42 1y ago
        I have yet to see anyone attack you, here or in any of the links people have provided. I don't know all the history of your interactions with these people, but it feels like you are playing the victim without cause.
      - timcobb 1y ago
        Dude if you have a whole thread of people you have all these problems with, maybe it's you? > I have no desire to force change on the man (it's his garden after all); ultimately, GitHub was the wrong destination for his work. It's sort-of like he's opened a workshop in the middle of a bustling market and now he's barking at everyone for interupting him. ^ This ^
  - fxtentacle 1y ago
    I feel a bit honoured that I got a response within 3 minutes … But I also feel a bit weird because I was trying to support your way of running your community. So yeah, I was trying to do a balanced take on why Valetudo is good despite some people having a bad experience with the telegram channel.
    - hypfer 1y ago
      [flagged]
- jamesbelchamber 1y ago
  A few years back I wanted multifloor on my Valetudo (I had a weird single room which had a step into it) so I did my research and found a whole bunch of toxicity around this feature, mixed in with a bunch of information which mostly answered my questions (it wasn't supported, which of course I was fine with, because it's not my project and I was just grateful for being able to use it). I figured "oh, this would be useful to document", popped onto the Telegram and asked a few clarifying questions, saying I intended to contribute to the docs. First I was accused of not reading the docs (I had, they were confusing and incomplete), then I was accused of trying to sneak multi-floor into the product (..what), then I was accused of being a "well-off boomer who wanted him to do extra work because I wouldn't spring for a third vacuum" (I WASN'T ADVOCATING FOR MULTI-FLOOR). So I backed off and watched for a bit, then landed up leaving. I have no desire to force change on the man (it's his garden after all); ultimately, GitHub was the wrong destination for his work. It's sort-of like he's opened a workshop in the middle of a bustling market and now he's barking at everyone for interupting him. Recently an error popped up in Home Assistant, so I hazarded a look at the issue tracker to find he'd closed an issue and banned a well-regarded Home Assistant community member for opening it: https://github.com/Hypfer/Valetudo/issues/2310 https://github.com/Hypfer/Valetudo/issues/2310
  - oivey 1y ago
    Wow, that issue is illuminating. A simple heads up leading to a multi-page meltdown against an individual he banned. It was even pinned in the repo at one point.
Havoc 1y ago
That’s rough but also a tiny bit funny
- iancmceachern 1y ago
  This makes me want to flash mob them and see how many people we can get banned for how many funny reasons
- NewJazz 1y ago
  It is a very typical experience for folks asking questions in the telegram group. https://www.reddit.com/r/valetudorobotusers/comments/1lmz85n/addressing_the_slander_in_hypfers_announcement/ https://www.reddit.com/r/valetudorobotusers/comments/1lmz85n...
  - SubiculumCode 1y ago
    Damn. Those comments are damning.
  - ricardobeat 1y ago
    That's horrible. Matches the vibe I got by reading the project pages though, felt tiring just trying to get to 'what is this project'.
    - NewJazz 1y ago
      Yeah its sorta hilarious that someone has taken a "make my life simple and easy" technology to the extreme of "if you don't solder your own breakout board you should get off my lawn". I'm hoping to sidestep the drama and just enjoy the software.
      - 9dev 1y ago
        When you’re two days and one solder in, you’ll need an answer from someone, and you know exactly you’re in for a ride now… been there, done that
IncreasePosts 1y ago
The docs say "search before asking"...did you do that? Maybe it's a well known issue they're tired of responding to.
- stavros 1y ago
  Well, given that they had to discuss among themselves whether the question was relevant or not, I'll guess that it wasn't a well-known issue. Even if it were, I wouldn't ban people for a year in my community, I'd simply have an "RTFM" bot response.
  - GaryBluto 1y ago
    You were not worthy of consorting with the council of wizards. In all seriousness though, I didn't need to search too hard to find numerous other testimonies of the project author acting neurotically. I'm not sure you missed out on much. Someone on Reddit mentioned being banned after joining the Telegram group for a similar question only a week ago.
    - stavros 1y ago
      Yeah, it seems that way. Ah well, it's his project, I see the ban as saving me time and aggravation.
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    >Valetudo is not a community >Contrary to common expectations when it comes to software released under a FOSS-like license, Valetudo is not a community-driven project; nor does it even have a community in that sense. How can someone ban someone from a community if it doesn't have one.
    - stavros 1y ago
      Saying it doesn't have a community doesn't magically make it true. There are people in that Telegram channel who talk to each other about the software, which is what a community is.
txr 1y ago
Yeah, I’ve never seen a community more off-putting than this one. I’m thankful for it, it works on my robot, but I wouldn’t help or participate in any way. But it’s like they don’t want help or be a community like mentioned in their docs. In contrast, for example, https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt was such a welcoming community.
- vachina 1y ago
  > This project is the hobby of some random guy on the internet. There is no intent to commercialize it, grow it or expand the target audience of it. In fact, there is intent to explicitly not do that. Then it begs the question of why they even publicize the Telegram chat. I guess it’s for contributors only, not a support chat.
  - kuschku 1y ago
    For some robots, they intentionally published false rooting instructions online, so you could only get it rooted via the telegram chat. Then they banned you if you asked the wrong questions in there. It's certainly the most hostile place on the internet I've encountered so far.
toxicaf8888 1y ago
The main developer is toxic af, and the community behavior reflects that.
- gspr 1y ago
  I thoroughly disagree. On the surface, his behavior may seem very similar to the behavior exhibited by toxic people, but once you understand his reasoning, I find it makea perfect sense. To summarize and paraphrase: the project is his personal garden. It's by him, for him. But he has also decided to open that garden to any random stranger on the internet, free of charge. In a lot of similar projects, that means an invitation is extended to plant stuff in the garden or to suggest that certain plants are moved. He wants to make it clear that that's not the case in his garden. If you wanna plant, you're free to freely and instantly duplicate his garden and get cracking. But he will not be planting your plants in his. Since people struggle to accept this, he's taken on a harsher-than-normal tone. That's understandable to me.
  - k8sToGo 1y ago
    No. There is 0 reason to be toxic or an asshat in general. It should not be accepted. He might have reasons to be protective, but one can do that in a respectful manner. But going around, making something up, banning people for asking or criticizing is not the way to go. Once you make something public it's not a private garden anymore.
    - gspr 1y ago
      > No. There is 0 reason to be toxic or an asshat in general. It should not be accepted. So, you wanna shame or force him into accepting contributions? That's ridiculous! > Once you make something public it's not a private garden anymore. Wait, are you saying if I have an actual garden that I myself own and maintain, and I let random people from the street come see it between noon and five every Sunday, it's no longer my private garsden? Then you and I are on different planets in this debate.
      - 1y ago
tjpnz 1y ago
Heaven forbid you go there simply to praise the project. The last guy to do that got a 2 year ban and many, many paragraphs of irrelevant pseudo intellectial nonsense from the maintainer. Not going to paste the message directly - but it happened five days ago and was along the lines of "thank you for breathing new life into my robot which was otherwise destined for landfill".
braincode 1y ago
Totally second that, I was banned today on their Telegram channel just because I mentioned that I recorded a r2con2025 presentation to free Samsung PowerBot VR7000M vacuum cleaners (no Samsung bot seems to be supported by them to date), titled "Restoring the Vacuum" in here: https://radare.org/con/2025/#vacuum https://radare.org/con/2025/#vacuum I wish I didn't mention Valetudo positively on my presentation now. Hypfer has bizarre (to say the least) views about what community building means and entails.
- jamesbelchamber 1y ago
  Oh, see, I actually wish I was part of a community that would have flagged this to me. Maybe there is? Regardless, thank you for sharing, I'll be watching this :)
- hypfer 1y ago
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  - braincode 1y ago
    I posted the exact model name & number and there's indeed quite a lot of hardware specs detailed on the talk itself (Allwinner A20 SoC, btw) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ "There was no relation to Valetudo"... well, with your current behavior and tone as a community "admin", you're certainly making sure I'll not work on that direction in the near future (I do have it mentioned as future aim on my last slides).
    - hypfer 1y ago
      > and there's indeed quite a lot of hardware specs detailed on the talk itself Not in what you posted though, nor in the link you posted. > well, with your current behavior and tone as a community "admin", you're certainly making sure I'll not work on that direction in the near future Not just with that, but also with the Contributing.md in the repository clearly and unmistakably stating that this is not wanted nor needed.
  - rpdillon 1y ago
rpdillon 1y ago
Yeah, they seem pretty clueless. Right now they're doing the classic 302 back to Hacker News when you visit with an HN referrer. So they appear to have this extremely unnuanced approach to wielding power where they just block people with minimal reasoning. I used to focus always on the tech. Now I focus on the people. No time for this kind of behavior.
goodpoint 1y ago
From their website: > Contrary to common expectations when it comes to software released under a FOSS-like license, Valetudo is not a community-driven project; nor does it even have a community in that sense. And I witnessed similar, very unfriendly interactions.

fxtentacle 1y ago

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hypfer 1y ago
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- saagarjha 1y ago
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  - hypfer 1y ago
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    - saagarjha 1y ago
      My understanding is that you unbanned me but I was too lazy to rejoin. Perhaps this has changed?
      - hypfer 1y ago
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        saagarjha 1y ago
        I actually have no idea who Hajo is. If they’ve been annoying in the past, and you banned them for it, it’s not really my place to figure out whether they deserved it. I only replied because yelling about it here is a sure fire way to get your comment flagged. Maybe you don’t mind but I felt that, spending far too much time here and watching a bunch of people do this repeatedly even though it’s against the rules, I might as well send people a reminder that there’s another option. As for your Telegram chat: I actually genuinely do not care, and I mean this without trying to be smug or anything. I joined to ask about S8 stuff and eventually just met Dennis directly. Ironically both of us seem to have gotten too busy with work to actually get to a good solution for those and I never actually ended up installing Valetudo anyway. My friends occasionally tell me how great it is and I feel a little but of regret for not following up to get the exploit stable but I just put up with letting my vacuum do its thing without any of the smart features :( But yeah, I really don’t think I would have gotten any value from rejoining the chat so I didn’t. I’m actually kind of sorry I participated in the conversation I did, not really because I wouldn’t stand behind what I said but more that it was kind of a waste of time and low value to even respond. And clearly it made you upset, so considering I valued it at effectively zero and you definitely felt it was negative, I think the conclusion is pretty obvious. One thing I do want to say, though: I feel like you frequently run into your project just causing you misery. I work on FOSS too, and arguably I work in a similar hacking-ish space too where random people show up and beg you for support, who don’t really bother to read the rules, etc. I get that this is frustrating. I ban plenty of people who drag down the place too. But I think that your garden that you’re trying to make might actually be causing you more trouble than it might be worth. I don’t wake up feeling drained that I have to interact with the community, in fact I actually appreciate talking to many of the members even if they can be annoying sometimes. I’ve had people occasionally claim they were unfairly treated (usually I disagree, of course) but I think the sentiment is largely positive. So, like, I just want to point out that it’s possible to enjoy what you do; it can be nice even if sometimes frustrated people show up. I just don’t want you to hate working on the things you’re doing.
        Geezus_42 1y ago
        I have yet to see anyone attack you, here or in any of the links people have provided. I don't know all the history of your interactions with these people, but it feels like you are playing the victim without cause.
    - timcobb 1y ago
      Dude if you have a whole thread of people you have all these problems with, maybe it's you? > I have no desire to force change on the man (it's his garden after all); ultimately, GitHub was the wrong destination for his work. It's sort-of like he's opened a workshop in the middle of a bustling market and now he's barking at everyone for interupting him. ^ This ^
- fxtentacle 1y ago
  I feel a bit honoured that I got a response within 3 minutes … But I also feel a bit weird because I was trying to support your way of running your community. So yeah, I was trying to do a balanced take on why Valetudo is good despite some people having a bad experience with the telegram channel.
  - hypfer 1y ago
    [flagged]
jamesbelchamber 1y ago
A few years back I wanted multifloor on my Valetudo (I had a weird single room which had a step into it) so I did my research and found a whole bunch of toxicity around this feature, mixed in with a bunch of information which mostly answered my questions (it wasn't supported, which of course I was fine with, because it's not my project and I was just grateful for being able to use it). I figured "oh, this would be useful to document", popped onto the Telegram and asked a few clarifying questions, saying I intended to contribute to the docs. First I was accused of not reading the docs (I had, they were confusing and incomplete), then I was accused of trying to sneak multi-floor into the product (..what), then I was accused of being a "well-off boomer who wanted him to do extra work because I wouldn't spring for a third vacuum" (I WASN'T ADVOCATING FOR MULTI-FLOOR). So I backed off and watched for a bit, then landed up leaving. I have no desire to force change on the man (it's his garden after all); ultimately, GitHub was the wrong destination for his work. It's sort-of like he's opened a workshop in the middle of a bustling market and now he's barking at everyone for interupting him. Recently an error popped up in Home Assistant, so I hazarded a look at the issue tracker to find he'd closed an issue and banned a well-regarded Home Assistant community member for opening it: https://github.com/Hypfer/Valetudo/issues/2310 https://github.com/Hypfer/Valetudo/issues/2310
- oivey 1y ago
  Wow, that issue is illuminating. A simple heads up leading to a multi-page meltdown against an individual he banned. It was even pinned in the repo at one point.

Havoc 1y ago

That’s rough but also a tiny bit funny

iancmceachern 1y ago
This makes me want to flash mob them and see how many people we can get banned for how many funny reasons
NewJazz 1y ago
It is a very typical experience for folks asking questions in the telegram group. https://www.reddit.com/r/valetudorobotusers/comments/1lmz85n/addressing_the_slander_in_hypfers_announcement/ https://www.reddit.com/r/valetudorobotusers/comments/1lmz85n...
- SubiculumCode 1y ago
  Damn. Those comments are damning.
- ricardobeat 1y ago
  That's horrible. Matches the vibe I got by reading the project pages though, felt tiring just trying to get to 'what is this project'.
  - NewJazz 1y ago
    Yeah its sorta hilarious that someone has taken a "make my life simple and easy" technology to the extreme of "if you don't solder your own breakout board you should get off my lawn". I'm hoping to sidestep the drama and just enjoy the software.
    - 9dev 1y ago
      When you’re two days and one solder in, you’ll need an answer from someone, and you know exactly you’re in for a ride now… been there, done that

IncreasePosts 1y ago

The docs say "search before asking"...did you do that? Maybe it's a well known issue they're tired of responding to.

stavros 1y ago
Well, given that they had to discuss among themselves whether the question was relevant or not, I'll guess that it wasn't a well-known issue. Even if it were, I wouldn't ban people for a year in my community, I'd simply have an "RTFM" bot response.
- GaryBluto 1y ago
  You were not worthy of consorting with the council of wizards. In all seriousness though, I didn't need to search too hard to find numerous other testimonies of the project author acting neurotically. I'm not sure you missed out on much. Someone on Reddit mentioned being banned after joining the Telegram group for a similar question only a week ago.
  - stavros 1y ago
    Yeah, it seems that way. Ah well, it's his project, I see the ban as saving me time and aggravation.
- charcircuit 1y ago
  >Valetudo is not a community >Contrary to common expectations when it comes to software released under a FOSS-like license, Valetudo is not a community-driven project; nor does it even have a community in that sense. How can someone ban someone from a community if it doesn't have one.
  - stavros 1y ago
    Saying it doesn't have a community doesn't magically make it true. There are people in that Telegram channel who talk to each other about the software, which is what a community is.

txr 1y ago

Yeah, I’ve never seen a community more off-putting than this one. I’m thankful for it, it works on my robot, but I wouldn’t help or participate in any way. But it’s like they don’t want help or be a community like mentioned in their docs. In contrast, for example, https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt was such a welcoming community.

vachina 1y ago
> This project is the hobby of some random guy on the internet. There is no intent to commercialize it, grow it or expand the target audience of it. In fact, there is intent to explicitly not do that. Then it begs the question of why they even publicize the Telegram chat. I guess it’s for contributors only, not a support chat.
- kuschku 1y ago
  For some robots, they intentionally published false rooting instructions online, so you could only get it rooted via the telegram chat. Then they banned you if you asked the wrong questions in there. It's certainly the most hostile place on the internet I've encountered so far.

toxicaf8888 1y ago

The main developer is toxic af, and the community behavior reflects that.

gspr 1y ago
I thoroughly disagree. On the surface, his behavior may seem very similar to the behavior exhibited by toxic people, but once you understand his reasoning, I find it makea perfect sense. To summarize and paraphrase: the project is his personal garden. It's by him, for him. But he has also decided to open that garden to any random stranger on the internet, free of charge. In a lot of similar projects, that means an invitation is extended to plant stuff in the garden or to suggest that certain plants are moved. He wants to make it clear that that's not the case in his garden. If you wanna plant, you're free to freely and instantly duplicate his garden and get cracking. But he will not be planting your plants in his. Since people struggle to accept this, he's taken on a harsher-than-normal tone. That's understandable to me.
- k8sToGo 1y ago
  No. There is 0 reason to be toxic or an asshat in general. It should not be accepted. He might have reasons to be protective, but one can do that in a respectful manner. But going around, making something up, banning people for asking or criticizing is not the way to go. Once you make something public it's not a private garden anymore.
  - gspr 1y ago
    > No. There is 0 reason to be toxic or an asshat in general. It should not be accepted. So, you wanna shame or force him into accepting contributions? That's ridiculous! > Once you make something public it's not a private garden anymore. Wait, are you saying if I have an actual garden that I myself own and maintain, and I let random people from the street come see it between noon and five every Sunday, it's no longer my private garsden? Then you and I are on different planets in this debate.
    - 1y ago

tjpnz 1y ago

Heaven forbid you go there simply to praise the project. The last guy to do that got a 2 year ban and many, many paragraphs of irrelevant pseudo intellectial nonsense from the maintainer. Not going to paste the message directly - but it happened five days ago and was along the lines of "thank you for breathing new life into my robot which was otherwise destined for landfill".

braincode 1y ago

Totally second that, I was banned today on their Telegram channel just because I mentioned that I recorded a r2con2025 presentation to free Samsung PowerBot VR7000M vacuum cleaners (no Samsung bot seems to be supported by them to date), titled "Restoring the Vacuum" in here: https://radare.org/con/2025/#vacuum https://radare.org/con/2025/#vacuum I wish I didn't mention Valetudo positively on my presentation now. Hypfer has bizarre (to say the least) views about what community building means and entails.

jamesbelchamber 1y ago
Oh, see, I actually wish I was part of a community that would have flagged this to me. Maybe there is? Regardless, thank you for sharing, I'll be watching this :)
hypfer 1y ago
[flagged]
- braincode 1y ago
  I posted the exact model name & number and there's indeed quite a lot of hardware specs detailed on the talk itself (Allwinner A20 SoC, btw) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ "There was no relation to Valetudo"... well, with your current behavior and tone as a community "admin", you're certainly making sure I'll not work on that direction in the near future (I do have it mentioned as future aim on my last slides).
  - hypfer 1y ago
    > and there's indeed quite a lot of hardware specs detailed on the talk itself Not in what you posted though, nor in the link you posted. > well, with your current behavior and tone as a community "admin", you're certainly making sure I'll not work on that direction in the near future Not just with that, but also with the Contributing.md in the repository clearly and unmistakably stating that this is not wanted nor needed.
- rpdillon 1y ago

rpdillon 1y ago

Yeah, they seem pretty clueless. Right now they're doing the classic 302 back to Hacker News when you visit with an HN referrer. So they appear to have this extremely unnuanced approach to wielding power where they just block people with minimal reasoning. I used to focus always on the tech. Now I focus on the people. No time for this kind of behavior.

goodpoint 1y ago

From their website: > Contrary to common expectations when it comes to software released under a FOSS-like license, Valetudo is not a community-driven project; nor does it even have a community in that sense. And I witnessed similar, very unfriendly interactions.