Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

And what do you do when every contributor to the project, including the founder, has been labeled a troublemaker?


I'm confused about the scenario you're describing here.

Look, my message is simple and clear: keep the politics and drama out of it. If you partake in politics and drama, you'll be ejected from the project. I don't have the time or the energy to police or play games with people. We're here to build things, not to partake in social activism or sling crap at each other over codes of conduct, pronouns, hair color or magic strings. If you're hurt - fork the project (as long as the license allows for it) and have fun playing somewhere else.


The scenario is a mob of trolls attacking a contributor in bad faith. If you kick out the contributor, what's to stop the mob from picking off someone else?


If a bunch of random strangers (external to the project) are "attacking" your project somewhere on the internet (for example, on Twitter) - just ignore them and move on with your day. They don't have any power over your project and their opinions don't matter. Go on with your life and continue building.

If a bunch of random strangers (external to the project) are messing with your tools and workflows (stirring things up in the issue tracker, creating drama and playing games with silly Pull Requests and comments) - lock down your tools such that they can only be used by trusted members of your team. Close down and remove all bullshit conversations without spending any further time or energy on any of it. Platforms like GitHub blur the lines between "a suite of productivity tools for software development" and "a social network" - so make sure to lock down and limit the "social networks" aspects whilst optimizing for the "software development productivity" aspect. Go on with your life and continue building.

If the "attacks" happens internally within the project (between two or more members of the team) - eject all parties involved because they're clearly not here to build stuff. Go on with your life and continue building.

Your goal should be to spend your energy on building and creating, and collaborating with like-minded people on building and creating. Not on policing, moderating, or playing games with people.


Pick the fork that has devs who are focused on contributing code and not pursuing drama.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: