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Correct, but it's another domino in a broader trend that appears to have a common root. It was only a year ago that the moderation team mass resigned pointing t

Correct, but it's another domino in a broader trend that appears to have a common root. It was only a year ago that the moderation team mass resigned pointing the finger at the steering committee [1]. It's not been the same people for the last two years, but clearly there must be systemic issues in the people getting elected to this board for there to be so many persistent problems. Also see roberth's resignation [2], and Gabriella439's retrospective [3], and then there's Jon Ringer's thing, the list goes on. [1]: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/a-statement-from-members-of-the-moderation-team/69828 https://discourse.nixos.org/t/a-statement-from-members-of-th... [2]: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/stepping-down-from-the-nix-team/70203 https://discourse.nixos.org/t/stepping-down-from-the-nix-tea... [3]: https://haskellforall.com/2025/09/steering-committee-retrospective https://haskellforall.com/2025/09/steering-committee-retrosp...

Aurornis 2mo ago
I don't know if the moderation team's collapse is indicative of anything. The first blog post complains about the Steering Committee for doing, well, steering. The moderators complaining that the Steering Committee is "interfering" points to a bigger issue where the moderation team didn't understand their role. The second blog post is from someone on the steering committee who complains about Gabriella439 (the author of the 3rd blog post) "turning on" them after they tried to work with the moderation team, whatever that means. The third blog post complains that the moderation team was too large, had a lot of absenteeism problems, and tried to do everything by consensus which didn't work with the large size combined with the absenteeism problems. The last post is most revealing. It's also the least dramatic. It looks to me like they tried to form a way too large group of people who treated this as a low priority, then tried to do everything by heavy procedures and consensus with half the team not showing up. That's a common mistake in community organization that leads to collapse. EDIT: I looked up the conversation about the NixOS moderation team resigning. Apparently the moderation team was causing a lot of their own problems within the community. I'm not going to read it all, but this looks like familiar overzealous moderator drama My favorite example so far was that someone got banned and one of the conditions for getting unbanned was removing steak from their profile picture: https://github.com/NixOS/moderation/commit/e9d67b7efa03e6e9bc0bf2d03c6344d60c103395#commitcomment-132961513 https://github.com/NixOS/moderation/commit/e9d67b7efa03e6e9b...
- majorchord 2mo ago
  I think the elephant in the room is that many tech nerds are just famously terrible at working with others and social skills in general, even if they have a long history of excellent work. Especially so if that experience was not gained from traditional careers where it wasn't possible to get by without people skills.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
spoaceman7777 2mo ago
The moderation team stuff was largely unrelated to tech stuff, and was specifically involved with politics and ideological HR-style cancellation discourse. One of the most notable actions of the team was managing a protest against defense companies assisting the project. Its disbanding was just another instance of the well documented, and statistically supported, end of the cancellation committee trend that rapidly took off in 2021, peaked in 2023, and has nearly fully receded into oblivion since then. The backlash against that trend, while not communicated publicly by most (far-right folks excluded...), has been massive, but handled tactfully, behind the scenes. Always important to remember that the equity-left is only about 20% of Americans, and the US is the global stronghold for such ideals. (That 20% makes quite a bit of noise, which gives many the impression that there are many more than there actually are. The reality is just that most people are polite, and don't want to get involved in discourse where their opinions could lead to them facing dramatic negative consequences.) The global community has not been supportive of the continuing of the trend. So it's not just pushback from the (largely polite) majority of those in the English-speaking world that gave the whole situation a fair shake. Anyway, to reiterate: the moderation team's disbanding had just about nothing to do with technical aspects of the project, and it could be argued that its disbanding was potentially a positive sign for stability.
- fcantournet 2mo ago
  > Always important to remember that the equity-left is only about 20% of Americans, and the US is the global stronghold for such ideals What ? The U.S main ideological exports of the last 50 years are neoliberalism, alt-right and techno-feudalism. Its 2 party would register as far right and center right in basically any other country.
  - Kratacoa 2mo ago
    Both sentences are false. > The U.S main ideological exports of the last 50 years are neoliberalism, alt-right and techno-feudalism U.S.A is responsible for the pervasiveness of social liberalism in the centre-left of Western countries, and more specifically the topics of its American version (the so called "wokeness"). It's distinct from neoliberalism, although academic left, and its pundits, like to use that misnomer for anything liberal they want to put down. And I want to point out that all of the terms you used are generally poorly defined. > Its 2 party would register as far right and center right in basically any other country. That's also wrong, just look at the current European landscape. American Democrats are not like CDU in Germany, Conservative Party in UK, PiS in Poland, etc. , but rather closer to the centre-left counterparts in the respective countries.
roenxi 2mo ago
> but clearly there must be systemic issues in the people getting elected to this board for there to be so many persistent problems. First time dealing with a committee? It is routine for every community to be shrouded in an ongoing cloud of drama and that doesn't indicate anything at all. There certainly could be problems and if there are it'll generate chatter, but the problems have to be dealt with individually. People resigning and complaining about a steering committee is normal.
- Pay08 2mo ago
  Drama certainly doesn't seem to be a problem for GNU.
farfatched 2mo ago
The moderation team quit because they could no longer act with impunity. This was the elected steering committee doing its job, and a sign of growing health.
farfatched 2mo ago
roberth resigned from the Nix maintainer team, not the Steering Committee. > So while I shouldn’t let myself be bullied away, I am stepping down from the Nix maintainer team. > I am not as of now stepping down from the SC, because that would be irresponsible.

Aurornis 2mo ago

I don't know if the moderation team's collapse is indicative of anything. The first blog post complains about the Steering Committee for doing, well, steering. The moderators complaining that the Steering Committee is "interfering" points to a bigger issue where the moderation team didn't understand their role. The second blog post is from someone on the steering committee who complains about Gabriella439 (the author of the 3rd blog post) "turning on" them after they tried to work with the moderation team, whatever that means. The third blog post complains that the moderation team was too large, had a lot of absenteeism problems, and tried to do everything by consensus which didn't work with the large size combined with the absenteeism problems. The last post is most revealing. It's also the least dramatic. It looks to me like they tried to form a way too large group of people who treated this as a low priority, then tried to do everything by heavy procedures and consensus with half the team not showing up. That's a common mistake in community organization that leads to collapse. EDIT: I looked up the conversation about the NixOS moderation team resigning. Apparently the moderation team was causing a lot of their own problems within the community. I'm not going to read it all, but this looks like familiar overzealous moderator drama My favorite example so far was that someone got banned and one of the conditions for getting unbanned was removing steak from their profile picture: https://github.com/NixOS/moderation/commit/e9d67b7efa03e6e9bc0bf2d03c6344d60c103395#commitcomment-132961513 https://github.com/NixOS/moderation/commit/e9d67b7efa03e6e9b...

majorchord 2mo ago
I think the elephant in the room is that many tech nerds are just famously terrible at working with others and social skills in general, even if they have a long history of excellent work. Especially so if that experience was not gained from traditional careers where it wasn't possible to get by without people skills.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]

spoaceman7777 2mo ago

The moderation team stuff was largely unrelated to tech stuff, and was specifically involved with politics and ideological HR-style cancellation discourse. One of the most notable actions of the team was managing a protest against defense companies assisting the project. Its disbanding was just another instance of the well documented, and statistically supported, end of the cancellation committee trend that rapidly took off in 2021, peaked in 2023, and has nearly fully receded into oblivion since then. The backlash against that trend, while not communicated publicly by most (far-right folks excluded...), has been massive, but handled tactfully, behind the scenes. Always important to remember that the equity-left is only about 20% of Americans, and the US is the global stronghold for such ideals. (That 20% makes quite a bit of noise, which gives many the impression that there are many more than there actually are. The reality is just that most people are polite, and don't want to get involved in discourse where their opinions could lead to them facing dramatic negative consequences.) The global community has not been supportive of the continuing of the trend. So it's not just pushback from the (largely polite) majority of those in the English-speaking world that gave the whole situation a fair shake. Anyway, to reiterate: the moderation team's disbanding had just about nothing to do with technical aspects of the project, and it could be argued that its disbanding was potentially a positive sign for stability.

fcantournet 2mo ago
> Always important to remember that the equity-left is only about 20% of Americans, and the US is the global stronghold for such ideals What ? The U.S main ideological exports of the last 50 years are neoliberalism, alt-right and techno-feudalism. Its 2 party would register as far right and center right in basically any other country.
- Kratacoa 2mo ago
  Both sentences are false. > The U.S main ideological exports of the last 50 years are neoliberalism, alt-right and techno-feudalism U.S.A is responsible for the pervasiveness of social liberalism in the centre-left of Western countries, and more specifically the topics of its American version (the so called "wokeness"). It's distinct from neoliberalism, although academic left, and its pundits, like to use that misnomer for anything liberal they want to put down. And I want to point out that all of the terms you used are generally poorly defined. > Its 2 party would register as far right and center right in basically any other country. That's also wrong, just look at the current European landscape. American Democrats are not like CDU in Germany, Conservative Party in UK, PiS in Poland, etc. , but rather closer to the centre-left counterparts in the respective countries.

roenxi 2mo ago

> but clearly there must be systemic issues in the people getting elected to this board for there to be so many persistent problems. First time dealing with a committee? It is routine for every community to be shrouded in an ongoing cloud of drama and that doesn't indicate anything at all. There certainly could be problems and if there are it'll generate chatter, but the problems have to be dealt with individually. People resigning and complaining about a steering committee is normal.

Pay08 2mo ago
Drama certainly doesn't seem to be a problem for GNU.

farfatched 2mo ago

The moderation team quit because they could no longer act with impunity. This was the elected steering committee doing its job, and a sign of growing health.

farfatched 2mo ago

roberth resigned from the Nix maintainer team, not the Steering Committee. > So while I shouldn’t let myself be bullied away, I am stepping down from the Nix maintainer team. > I am not as of now stepping down from the SC, because that would be irresponsible.