The angry, insecure and unwell are over-represented in technical forums.
I find I am typically only browsing this site when I am not ready to present the best version of myself (tired, bored, demotivated).
I don't know how we end the cycle of cruelty in our industry.
arp242 · 7h ago
It's partly just a numbers game, innit? There are about 5.5 billion on the internet. IIRC about 3 billion of them speak English. Even a tiny percentage being profoundly unreasonable means there are millions of them. Sooner or later you will come in contact with some of them.
Or to be more eloquent about it: being instantly connected to everyone on the planet also means you're instantly connected to every fucking asshole on the planet.
thatgerhard · 12h ago
"The angry, insecure and unwell are over-represented in technical forums." no, they're over-represented on all forums
lazyasciiart · 12h ago
This could be more agreeably written as “yes, and”. You are not disagreeing with his statement.
tonyedgecombe · 9h ago
Yes, but this is a technical forum ...
_DeadFred_ · 7h ago
"The people worth listening to leave, and the ones who can't leave stay and rot the place."
obscurette · 10h ago
They are over-represented everywhere. We live in society where being martyr is highly valued, others are not allowed to ignore it and set their boundaries. If you do, you are an asshole and have no empathy.
John23832 · 10h ago
> The angry, insecure and unwell are over-represented in technical forums.
* the internet.
The vast majority of the internet is spurred by ragebait/loneliness-bait in some way. It skews heavily to the mentally ill.
lovich · 10h ago
> I don't know how we end the cycle of cruelty in our industry.
Actually have consequences for it? When industry leaders like Linus act like assholes constantly but are given cover because they produce something so valuable, will always produce a situation where being empathetic becomes a social proxy for being weak or untalented
gruez · 13h ago
Note that "Linux dev" in this context means "person who develops for linux", not "contributor to linux kernel".
McDutchie · 14h ago
While the developer's decision must be respected, I don't really understand it. Why not simply ban the troll instead of engaging with them in any way? I wouldn't want to give a troll any power or influence at all.
serf · 12h ago
It's still effort. If you have someone shitting up your PRs with personal complaints you can either put the effort in to squelch the opponent or you can just walk away. For unpaid FOSS work there is often very little to be gained except for a bit of self satisfaction and kudos from the community.
It's easy to walk away from an ungrateful community if you don't have gold in your pockets to soften the blows.
Saris · 11h ago
It's easier to walk away sometimes, it takes more effort, more mental energy, more stress to deal with things.
alephnerd · 13h ago
Based on the thread, they were doxxed by that troll.
giancarlostoro · 12h ago
Defamation lawsuit sounds like a perfectly valid avenue if that is the case.
alephnerd · 12h ago
Lawyers take effort, time, and difficulty.
It's much easier to shut down a project instead.
Alternatively, people can instead choose to NOT be dicks to people who are altruistically developing stuff for no compensation and the net benefit of our industry.
phendrenad2 · 6h ago
Now hold on a minute. I'm reading the Codeberg posts, and I think Neowin is getting it wrong. The LoucheBear person seems to be saying that their ClamAV scan is clean without Kapitano, but not clean with Kapitano. Anyone want to grab the flatpak quick, just to see if somehow some malware hitched a ride?
Anyway, if I'm reading this right, then these two people are just talking past one another, not understanding what the other is talking about.
Off-topic: It's absolutely mad from a security perspective that you can't download flatpaks as a simple bzip file for security analysis.
cwassert · 13h ago
I think it is a bid problematic that anybody can create an account on github and open issues there (if enabled).
No "professional", paid software would allow ordinary users to communicate directly with the programmer. Or allow outsiders to post comments on their products website.
Just moving discussions to irc would already filter a lot of spam. As a last resort you could require some kind of proof that you are a maintainer of a bigger distribution. Or something in between.
chatmasta · 13h ago
While it may not detract from your point, note that the behavior in question did not occur on GitHub but rather on Codeberg.org.
balamatom · 11h ago
>I think it is a bid problematic that anybody can create an account on github and open issues there (if enabled).
I think it's a bit problematic to use GitHub in 2025 if you are doing F/OSS
exabrial · 11h ago
> LoucheBear
> Joined on Jul 25, 2025
Probably a paid troll by a state actor would be my guess.
joelesler · 10h ago
As the former community manager for ClamAV, there could have been some work done here to correct the situation and make both parties happy. I know ClamAV doesn't want to see third party utilities go away, and it's beneficial to the community for them to exist. Trolls exist, but there are ways to deal with them. I ran ClamAV and Snort for about 15 years, and we had plenty of heat over the years. This could have been avoided.
kjs3 · 9h ago
A single developer doesn't have a 'community manager' to deal with assholes. That said, why would one try to make the troll happy? What reading this results in "they both have a valid point we should address"?
stuaxo · 12h ago
Respect them not wanting to deal with arseholes.
This sounds useful, I'll be building it and having a try.
riffic · 12h ago
when we say "Linux dev" we usually mean kernel development. It'd be nice if the headline reflected the actual project.
2OEH8eoCRo0 · 14h ago
It's basically an open source rite of passage to be harassed by entitled jerk users. I wish people weren't so nasty online.
I find I am typically only browsing this site when I am not ready to present the best version of myself (tired, bored, demotivated).
I don't know how we end the cycle of cruelty in our industry.
Or to be more eloquent about it: being instantly connected to everyone on the planet also means you're instantly connected to every fucking asshole on the planet.
* the internet.
The vast majority of the internet is spurred by ragebait/loneliness-bait in some way. It skews heavily to the mentally ill.
Actually have consequences for it? When industry leaders like Linus act like assholes constantly but are given cover because they produce something so valuable, will always produce a situation where being empathetic becomes a social proxy for being weak or untalented
It's easy to walk away from an ungrateful community if you don't have gold in your pockets to soften the blows.
It's much easier to shut down a project instead.
Alternatively, people can instead choose to NOT be dicks to people who are altruistically developing stuff for no compensation and the net benefit of our industry.
Anyway, if I'm reading this right, then these two people are just talking past one another, not understanding what the other is talking about.
Off-topic: It's absolutely mad from a security perspective that you can't download flatpaks as a simple bzip file for security analysis.
I think it's a bit problematic to use GitHub in 2025 if you are doing F/OSS
> Joined on Jul 25, 2025
Probably a paid troll by a state actor would be my guess.
This sounds useful, I'll be building it and having a try.