I hate highjacking your post with my ramblings so I thought I'd just start a fresh one

squinky

I'm seeing a LOT of dogpiling on this dude on my feed, and I'm just trying to sort out what's going on.

I read https://dansup-open-letter.github.io/appendix/ -- and buckle up because I'm about to make myself look like some kind of crazed apologist.

Ok, let's count through the offenses I can find:

"Stance on open-source software" -- some of his stuff isn't fully open source (yet?), like Loops. He says it's not ready for other people to look at yet. I'm developing an app myself right now and it's in a state where if people saw the source code right now I'd be publicly humiliated. Applying a FOSS purity standard to preview code is ridiculous.

I'm seeing a bunch of stuff he's said being read as hostility where it's just awkwardly worded, like "Officially I'm not impressed, unofficially I am impressed and won't hinder unauthorized 3rd party access. [...] This would normally lead to legal action, but here in the fediverse, you are doing my work for me ". The chosen interpretation here is that he is vaguely threatening legal action but it sounds to me like he's drawing a comparison between how he does things and how someone like Meta would do it

There was a section where he broached the subject of running ads on his platform, then backpedaled and called it a joke. I think that's kinda cringe, frankly, but according to his recount of it, it started with (what I assume is) a badly worded joke that nobody got, which culminated in a lot of drama and ended with a personal block of someone on Discord. This feels gossipy as hell and I don't really care. I think the topic of ads makes it more sensitive to a lot of folks (idgaf about ads frankly but I recognize being in the minority on it)

There's a recount of a weird end-of-december meltdown I've heard mentioned (and him apologizing about), which looks like him starting off saying weird stuff, then alternatingly overly sensitive/defensive and grandiose -- holy crap was this a manic episode? That would actually explain a thing or two.

The last bit was about him banning some accounts prematurely by association, which is probably not great but seems like a gratuitous addition here.

I just don't know. I don't see a perfect spotless record here for sure, but enough to merit a public campaign against someone? I'd prefer that if someone has a bad month or two then apologizes about it we let it happen then leave them the fuck alone about it

squinky

@erosdiscordia I removed your name from the initial post in hopes of sparing your mentions if this thread carries on

squinky

Also if this was about him having had a manic episode at the end of the year that is NONE OF MY BUSINESS. I don't know the guy but the behavior pattern matches what little I know from my own friends who tend to have them, and I feel like I'd be ableist to read it any other way

Mystery Babylon

@squinky And also, I really really don't want to start any sort of campaign against anyone! I think I've called out like one person on the fediverse in the six years I've been on here, and they were a public figure who did a political transphobia.

It's a weird balance. I want to CW things like this, because some people just don't wanna read meta about the fediverse and its apps.

But then the CW itself can make it sound like Something's Going Down., when it isn't (that I know about). 🫣

When my part in the non-event was just trying to see what alternatives might be getting talked about, with an explanation of why I cared.

I'll keep saying, I don't thing Dansup is a bad person at all, and I don't think Pixelfed is a bad platform. I kinda wish I hadn't said anything.

squinky

@erosdiscordia Agreed. I think he said he wishes he hadn't said anything too.

Personally I think he's building really cool shit, and a person has to have a really amazingly repellent personality to cancel that out, and I don't think he's quite reached that threshold.

Hopefully we can all just snuff out our torches for now and put him on probation rather than just drive the dude out of the community

Mystery Babylon

@squinky Are you seeing torches? I admit I'm not, but somehow I've gotten myself into a fediverse corner where I miss 90% of the meta.

And gods help me, I promise I don't have a torch, myself.

There's actually been amazingly few people on the fediverse (outside of the straight-up blocked Nazi instances) who have repellent personalities. It's a wonder that this vibe has lasted as many years as it has.

squinky

@erosdiscordia yours is the third or fourth unrelated post mentioning his behavior that I've seen today. Someone created a github page about this. It's pretty torchy.

As for the vibe here, I hate to say it but that's survivorship bias. I've heard from a ton of people who bounced off this whole network because of its tendency to overdo it in situations like this.

Those of us who are still here either don't care, haven't tripped up, or I guess are actual Shining Examples of the Right Kind of Behavior

squinky

@erosdiscordia I joke a lot about how the fediverse is entirely populated by people whose autistic special interest is Leftist purity standards.

The truth is probably closer to the fact that there are so many vulnerable communities with disproportionately high representation here that there's a heavy immune response to anything seen as hostile to those communities.

But it's so severe it's become an autoimmune disorder. I've seen it go off at weird times and expel allies and other well-meaning people from the place. It's hard to watch.