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I can see why author's strictness in adhering to his community rules is off-putting, but at the same time, for all the complaining, I do not see anyone being wi

I can see why author's strictness in adhering to his community rules is off-putting, but at the same time, for all the complaining, I do not see anyone being willing to put the effort in to build a different community. Yes, this is work, but one wants it, go and do it (not referring specifically to you, stavros, but to the general theme in the entire discussion). After all, this is free software, published under the Apache 2.0 license. Fork it and build a community you want it to have (you don't even have to do any code changes, and you can simply reject any external PRs more politely :)). With that said, maybe the author is right in wanting to keep this "infrastructure" boring and to attempt to safe-guard their time, but at the same time, they do spend a lot of time defending their approach to this and complaining how nobody has read their 20 pages of "community instructions", which really, is an expected behavior for everyone (no matter how much one wishes otherwise). I can't not wonder if it would be less time & energy consuming if they did it more politely?

hypfer 1y ago
> I can't not wonder if it would be less time & energy consuming if they did it more politely? This is an interesting question that comes up from time to time and it's actually not as it seems. While it is work and taxing at all, the whole act of explaining is actually not very expensive. In fact, it is simply tapping into the stream of consciousness and piping it into a text input. What _would_ be expensive actions would be to: a) _not_ explain, see that something isn't quite right and then try to handle the internal discomfort sparking from that. b) mask and play a different "more polite" role, which actually just means "accepting the unsolicited emotional offloading and the task of handling those attached to it" both being "providing a service" to the random person that just approached me, and operating in a style that is unnatural to me. This is counterintuitive for the vast majority of people, because for them it works exactly the other way round. Doing this emotional labor for free would also be just giving away the thing that makes me money. Specifically, being able to understand technical details and also communicating those to people that won't necessarily do. Effectively, the free-plan includes technical support but not emotional consulting. This, for some, is hard to understand, for others, it is hard to accept. And, of course, it always gets worse when social media (like HN) is involved, because these machines erase any context and replace it with violently jamming in defaults + rewarding those that dunk the hardest and make the in-group of the mob feel pleasant feelings.
- necovek 1y ago
  I get you, and I can understand how emotionally taxing it is to not do anything and "keep it in" (should have said this, could have done that, why are they not reading simple instructions... — I've spent one too many sleepless nights mostly when I wasn't behaving as myself but rather adapting to social expectation). So I think you are completely right to set the boundaries you want to set, but perhaps you can recruit someone else in the community who doesn't get so annoyed at people not respecting others' time, because let's be honest, that's what people do (mostly because it usually works due to the social norms being what they are). It is why some people are unapproachable and build boundaries (eg. imagine even executive assistants to executives in order to not divide their attention on every little thing).
  - hypfer 1y ago
    > but perhaps you can recruit someone else in the community who doesn't get so annoyed at people not respecting others' time No, I can't. The world, in this aspect, is wrong. It is flawed. Rotten, even. I (and actually we) cannot approach this by just accommodating what is broken. Everyone has been doing that and you can see what damage this has done to democracy and to reality itself. As the docs state, Valetudo is counter-culture. The definition of being that is that you will hear a steady stream of loud screaming, because culture is being countered. If this stream stops, that means that the countering also stopped. I do not think that we can afford to let the world deteriorate even further than it has already. We need to re-learn context. No matter how painful that might turn out. I know HN is the last place for this :D But I also didn't ask to be linked here. I did however ask to not be posted here anymore. I also believe that Valetudo is a unique opportunity for this, because no one is being held at gunpoint and forced to use it, nor will anyone die because they can't use it. But, at the same time, it is highly-polished software that just works and offers massive amounts of value for free. You only pay with accepting that context exists and that other humans exist. > It is why some people are unapproachable and build boundaries This is precisely what I am doing. I would argue thought that the "unapproachable" really depends on where one is coming from.
    - necovek 1y ago
stavros 1y ago
You misunderstand, I didn't say hypfer should or shouldn't do something. I said I don't want to use his project, as is my right, because I don't like being banned from talking to anyone who might have the same problem as me if I say something hypfer doesn't like. Even so, I'd be happy to run a community for any other project, but I don't really like hypfer's behavior and don't want to help him out.
- necovek 1y ago
  One option is to not help him at all: fork the project, run it completely independently in any way you see fit. Many a FOSS project has been forked due to disagreements with how it was maintained, technically or socially — this is the lovely thing about free software, that the author agrees to as well.
  - stavros 1y ago
    No, the lovely thing about free software is that enables people to work together, not that it has an escape hatch for when they can't. Forking a project duplicates effort and requires much more work than just allowing collaboration. Again, though, I have no particular desire to do anything here. I don't even use my vacuum.
    - necovek 1y ago
      Edit to answer the first point: free software as a cultural movement grew out of a need to control the hardware a software engineer bought and which came with no source code for the drivers. Friends made along the way was great, and I agree that's lovely, but ultimately that's what free software enables, among other lovely things (like not depending on a manufacturer you disagree with, or another programmer you disagree with). Forking a project does not duplicate the effort — collaboration requires a lot of effort, and the more collaborators, the more expensive it is (usually even more than 2x). This is why many well-run free software projects have their own BDFLs (Linux, Python... OK, maybe not so benevolent at all times :)). If the two of us wanted to take a project in a different direction, and insisted on keeping it a single project, we'd have to do more work to reach compromises all the time, neither side ever being fully happy, but doing duplicate work for an imperfect result. As you are well aware, RoI calculation is not as simple as LoC count, and typing in the code is the fast part. With two projects with clearer missions, willing contributors flock to the one they align better with, which leads to one being more stable, another being quicker to add new features. And no, getting all of those contributors on a single project would not result in a single project that is both stable and adding new features quickly. Obviously, no expectation on you to do anything. I just find it surprising you do not see the value in a different way to organize a community compared to what's common, even if what's valuable to you is different.
rpdillon 1y ago
This person wanted to create an alternate community because the Telegram channel was such crap. https://www.reddit.com/r/valetudorobotusers/comments/1lmz85n/addressing_the_slander_in_hypfers_announcement/ https://www.reddit.com/r/valetudorobotusers/comments/1lmz85n... There's a huge amount of drama over there because hypfer came in and tried to poison everybody against him. > I have only 3 relevant interests here: > Spreading information about offline IoT, because this is the journey on which using Valetudo has put me > Providing a safe space where anyone can discuss ANYTHING about Valetudo, without fear or retribution > Provide help with Valetudo to anyone, including people who don't want to create a TG account, and especially people who were banned from TG I've kind of gone down the rabbit hole on this whole thing this morning and after a lot of reading my conclusion is that the leader of this project thinks that they are communicating far more clearly than they are. But trying to use an analogy of a private garden when it's clear that they just don't want to field questions from people is not the way to communicate. Here's another relevant example. Somebody that did a huge amount of work and then asked a technical question that reflected that they had done the work and was banned with no comment. > With all of that prerequisite searching out of the way, I decided to create a Telegram account to join the support chat and ask there whether or not splitting the "Mop Dock Wastewater Tank not installed or full" error into two distinct errors has already been investigated, and to express this as a feature request if it hasn't. I included justification for why I think it might be a feasible task, since there are three vendor error codes in DreameValetudoRobot.js mapped to that error and it stands to reason that maybe they could be split out with some basic testing. > The next notification I saw from Telegram was: Valetudo: Hypfer !pban 1y
archi42 1y ago
> I do not see anyone being willing to put the effort in to build a different community. There is a small community on Discord: https://discord.gg/tfPVDGQuYm https://discord.gg/tfPVDGQuYm To manage expectations: It is less active than the official channel of course, but then it is not as old as the official TG groups and it's not exactly endorsed by the developer (e.g. it's not linked to on the Valetudo website as an independent/alternate support platform). But it's an option to discuss Valetudo and related topics, and get some support if the official way doesn't work out. Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with that Discord, I just happen to hang out there.

hypfer 1y ago

> I can't not wonder if it would be less time & energy consuming if they did it more politely? This is an interesting question that comes up from time to time and it's actually not as it seems. While it is work and taxing at all, the whole act of explaining is actually not very expensive. In fact, it is simply tapping into the stream of consciousness and piping it into a text input. What _would_ be expensive actions would be to: a) _not_ explain, see that something isn't quite right and then try to handle the internal discomfort sparking from that. b) mask and play a different "more polite" role, which actually just means "accepting the unsolicited emotional offloading and the task of handling those attached to it" both being "providing a service" to the random person that just approached me, and operating in a style that is unnatural to me. This is counterintuitive for the vast majority of people, because for them it works exactly the other way round. Doing this emotional labor for free would also be just giving away the thing that makes me money. Specifically, being able to understand technical details and also communicating those to people that won't necessarily do. Effectively, the free-plan includes technical support but not emotional consulting. This, for some, is hard to understand, for others, it is hard to accept. And, of course, it always gets worse when social media (like HN) is involved, because these machines erase any context and replace it with violently jamming in defaults + rewarding those that dunk the hardest and make the in-group of the mob feel pleasant feelings.

necovek 1y ago
I get you, and I can understand how emotionally taxing it is to not do anything and "keep it in" (should have said this, could have done that, why are they not reading simple instructions... — I've spent one too many sleepless nights mostly when I wasn't behaving as myself but rather adapting to social expectation). So I think you are completely right to set the boundaries you want to set, but perhaps you can recruit someone else in the community who doesn't get so annoyed at people not respecting others' time, because let's be honest, that's what people do (mostly because it usually works due to the social norms being what they are). It is why some people are unapproachable and build boundaries (eg. imagine even executive assistants to executives in order to not divide their attention on every little thing).
- hypfer 1y ago
  > but perhaps you can recruit someone else in the community who doesn't get so annoyed at people not respecting others' time No, I can't. The world, in this aspect, is wrong. It is flawed. Rotten, even. I (and actually we) cannot approach this by just accommodating what is broken. Everyone has been doing that and you can see what damage this has done to democracy and to reality itself. As the docs state, Valetudo is counter-culture. The definition of being that is that you will hear a steady stream of loud screaming, because culture is being countered. If this stream stops, that means that the countering also stopped. I do not think that we can afford to let the world deteriorate even further than it has already. We need to re-learn context. No matter how painful that might turn out. I know HN is the last place for this :D But I also didn't ask to be linked here. I did however ask to not be posted here anymore. I also believe that Valetudo is a unique opportunity for this, because no one is being held at gunpoint and forced to use it, nor will anyone die because they can't use it. But, at the same time, it is highly-polished software that just works and offers massive amounts of value for free. You only pay with accepting that context exists and that other humans exist. > It is why some people are unapproachable and build boundaries This is precisely what I am doing. I would argue thought that the "unapproachable" really depends on where one is coming from.
  - necovek 1y ago

stavros 1y ago

You misunderstand, I didn't say hypfer should or shouldn't do something. I said I don't want to use his project, as is my right, because I don't like being banned from talking to anyone who might have the same problem as me if I say something hypfer doesn't like. Even so, I'd be happy to run a community for any other project, but I don't really like hypfer's behavior and don't want to help him out.

necovek 1y ago
One option is to not help him at all: fork the project, run it completely independently in any way you see fit. Many a FOSS project has been forked due to disagreements with how it was maintained, technically or socially — this is the lovely thing about free software, that the author agrees to as well.
- stavros 1y ago
  No, the lovely thing about free software is that enables people to work together, not that it has an escape hatch for when they can't. Forking a project duplicates effort and requires much more work than just allowing collaboration. Again, though, I have no particular desire to do anything here. I don't even use my vacuum.
  - necovek 1y ago
    Edit to answer the first point: free software as a cultural movement grew out of a need to control the hardware a software engineer bought and which came with no source code for the drivers. Friends made along the way was great, and I agree that's lovely, but ultimately that's what free software enables, among other lovely things (like not depending on a manufacturer you disagree with, or another programmer you disagree with). Forking a project does not duplicate the effort — collaboration requires a lot of effort, and the more collaborators, the more expensive it is (usually even more than 2x). This is why many well-run free software projects have their own BDFLs (Linux, Python... OK, maybe not so benevolent at all times :)). If the two of us wanted to take a project in a different direction, and insisted on keeping it a single project, we'd have to do more work to reach compromises all the time, neither side ever being fully happy, but doing duplicate work for an imperfect result. As you are well aware, RoI calculation is not as simple as LoC count, and typing in the code is the fast part. With two projects with clearer missions, willing contributors flock to the one they align better with, which leads to one being more stable, another being quicker to add new features. And no, getting all of those contributors on a single project would not result in a single project that is both stable and adding new features quickly. Obviously, no expectation on you to do anything. I just find it surprising you do not see the value in a different way to organize a community compared to what's common, even if what's valuable to you is different.

rpdillon 1y ago

This person wanted to create an alternate community because the Telegram channel was such crap. https://www.reddit.com/r/valetudorobotusers/comments/1lmz85n/addressing_the_slander_in_hypfers_announcement/ https://www.reddit.com/r/valetudorobotusers/comments/1lmz85n... There's a huge amount of drama over there because hypfer came in and tried to poison everybody against him. > I have only 3 relevant interests here: > Spreading information about offline IoT, because this is the journey on which using Valetudo has put me > Providing a safe space where anyone can discuss ANYTHING about Valetudo, without fear or retribution > Provide help with Valetudo to anyone, including people who don't want to create a TG account, and especially people who were banned from TG I've kind of gone down the rabbit hole on this whole thing this morning and after a lot of reading my conclusion is that the leader of this project thinks that they are communicating far more clearly than they are. But trying to use an analogy of a private garden when it's clear that they just don't want to field questions from people is not the way to communicate. Here's another relevant example. Somebody that did a huge amount of work and then asked a technical question that reflected that they had done the work and was banned with no comment. > With all of that prerequisite searching out of the way, I decided to create a Telegram account to join the support chat and ask there whether or not splitting the "Mop Dock Wastewater Tank not installed or full" error into two distinct errors has already been investigated, and to express this as a feature request if it hasn't. I included justification for why I think it might be a feasible task, since there are three vendor error codes in DreameValetudoRobot.js mapped to that error and it stands to reason that maybe they could be split out with some basic testing. > The next notification I saw from Telegram was: Valetudo: Hypfer !pban 1y

archi42 1y ago

> I do not see anyone being willing to put the effort in to build a different community. There is a small community on Discord: https://discord.gg/tfPVDGQuYm https://discord.gg/tfPVDGQuYm To manage expectations: It is less active than the official channel of course, but then it is not as old as the official TG groups and it's not exactly endorsed by the developer (e.g. it's not linked to on the Valetudo website as an independent/alternate support platform). But it's an option to discuss Valetudo and related topics, and get some support if the official way doesn't work out. Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with that Discord, I just happen to hang out there.