Community & opensource project
The post was in french.
His testimony nail the evolution in opensource project.
Source: https://mastodon.social/@fabi1cazenave/116539266800945000
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My thoughts are a bit scattered, but I’d like to try to talk about the harassment that opensource project leads can face.
The community is always at the heart of the project: that’s who we work for. It’s the community that provides us feedback, helps spread the word about the project, reports bugs, and sometimes even submits patches. As a lead, we therefore take care to protect our community: we draft a code of conduct and we set up moderators.
When a project grows, the nature of the community changes. We go from a small group of highly engaged enthusiasts to a more diverse group, including more “average” users, people who just want it to work. They don’t submit patches but provide feedback we hadn’t received before. This feedback is the very first contribution we need as a lead. It can be tough at times, but it’s always welcome.
I believe this is where an insidious shift can occur.
We’ve put feedback at the center of our work; for some users, giving feedback therefore amounts to making a request, and failing to respond to that request becomes a bug. If the bug persists, it means the project is a failure. And so, little by little, it seems legitimate to them to make demands and to complain publicly if those demands aren’t met.
On the lead side, we are often sheepish. It is difficult to live with the fact that some requests remain unsatisfied after so long. The project rarely progresses at the pace we would like, we feel at fault.
There is a lack of contributions. We point it out. We are told that this is normal, there are too many unmet requirements, it demotivates contributions.
So we devote more time to the project. We have less for the community, where complaining takes up more space.
And then, sometimes, there is a click. A user request so slammed to the ground, so aggressive, that we realize the shift that has taken place. By dint of shooting ourselves to the satisfaction of users, we fell into an insidious situation of harassment.
At this stage it's often too late: you're burned, the community has changed, you just want to abandon the project. What happened to the maintainer of treesitter.nvim resonated a lot with me.
https://github.com/nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter/discussions/8627
So I started to organize my departure from the #Ergonautes. There's just no way I'm going to continue to suffer this type of behavior. I get tired of anxiety and dark thoughts all day long. At night I can't sleep, it's not tenable.
And then, the unexpected. One demand too many, one aggression too many, and I find myself in a situation where I have to defend my team. My life is summed up in "fight or flight", I have just switched to "fight" mode.
Magic: Support appears. I have no words to say how much support changes EVERYTHING.
Harassers, in this context, present themselves as victims: we have been subjected to their gaslighting for months, we lack reference points, we feel guilty.
But as soon as you are supported: the fog dissipates, you see exit doors that do not consist of burning the project or getting under a train.
The psychological load is suddenly lightened.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO
I am not sure what I am getting at with this testimony. I would just like to say to the people who maintain free projects: "Take care of yourself."
- "It's released when it's ready" is a perfectly valid schedule.
- Never isolate yourself. Never.
- And if you, as a user, are happy with your free tool: go tell the team.
Publicly, if possible. No, not to the Ergonauts, but to the teams of the other projects you use. Thank you. ♥️
His testimony nail the evolution in opensource project.
Source: https://mastodon.social/@fabi1cazenave/116539266800945000
---
My thoughts are a bit scattered, but I’d like to try to talk about the harassment that opensource project leads can face.
The community is always at the heart of the project: that’s who we work for. It’s the community that provides us feedback, helps spread the word about the project, reports bugs, and sometimes even submits patches. As a lead, we therefore take care to protect our community: we draft a code of conduct and we set up moderators.
When a project grows, the nature of the community changes. We go from a small group of highly engaged enthusiasts to a more diverse group, including more “average” users, people who just want it to work. They don’t submit patches but provide feedback we hadn’t received before. This feedback is the very first contribution we need as a lead. It can be tough at times, but it’s always welcome.
I believe this is where an insidious shift can occur.
We’ve put feedback at the center of our work; for some users, giving feedback therefore amounts to making a request, and failing to respond to that request becomes a bug. If the bug persists, it means the project is a failure. And so, little by little, it seems legitimate to them to make demands and to complain publicly if those demands aren’t met.
On the lead side, we are often sheepish. It is difficult to live with the fact that some requests remain unsatisfied after so long. The project rarely progresses at the pace we would like, we feel at fault.
There is a lack of contributions. We point it out. We are told that this is normal, there are too many unmet requirements, it demotivates contributions.
So we devote more time to the project. We have less for the community, where complaining takes up more space.
And then, sometimes, there is a click. A user request so slammed to the ground, so aggressive, that we realize the shift that has taken place. By dint of shooting ourselves to the satisfaction of users, we fell into an insidious situation of harassment.
At this stage it's often too late: you're burned, the community has changed, you just want to abandon the project. What happened to the maintainer of treesitter.nvim resonated a lot with me.
https://github.com/nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter/discussions/8627
So I started to organize my departure from the #Ergonautes. There's just no way I'm going to continue to suffer this type of behavior. I get tired of anxiety and dark thoughts all day long. At night I can't sleep, it's not tenable.
And then, the unexpected. One demand too many, one aggression too many, and I find myself in a situation where I have to defend my team. My life is summed up in "fight or flight", I have just switched to "fight" mode.
Magic: Support appears. I have no words to say how much support changes EVERYTHING.
Harassers, in this context, present themselves as victims: we have been subjected to their gaslighting for months, we lack reference points, we feel guilty.
But as soon as you are supported: the fog dissipates, you see exit doors that do not consist of burning the project or getting under a train.
The psychological load is suddenly lightened.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO
I am not sure what I am getting at with this testimony. I would just like to say to the people who maintain free projects: "Take care of yourself."
- "It's released when it's ready" is a perfectly valid schedule.
- Never isolate yourself. Never.
- And if you, as a user, are happy with your free tool: go tell the team.
Publicly, if possible. No, not to the Ergonauts, but to the teams of the other projects you use. Thank you. ♥️