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the list of abandoned open source projects because the maintainers burned out is I think a lot longer than the list of projects that ended because low quality complaints were ignored.

Literally go through GitHub and look how few people contribute the source code to even large projects. If they lose it, it often does significant damage to a project because original creators are important.

In a sense being rude is being humble. If I'm rude to bad complaints it's because I'm realistic about my limited capacity to deal with stuff. It's ironically often generous people who end up resenting what they're working on.



>In a sense being rude is being humble. If I'm rude to bad complaints it's because I'm realistic about my limited capacity to deal with stuff. It's ironically often generous people who end up resenting what they're working on.

??? I don't know how you define rude but I see no reason to go from something like `I'm sorry your suggestion do not align with my vision of the project` and close the issue to anything more insulting.


None of us measured this. Personally, I write code for the people. The good and the bad. It's very rare when someone is abusive (it happens). I'd say it's one in 1000. The ratio of people who disagree is much larger. The challenge is in creating a big tent environment that listens to everyone.

This sort of "don't like it so get the fuck out" attitude is poisonous. It might not seem so in the short term but it is in the long term. As a maintainer you're a politician, not just a coder. I need to be able to take some reasonable level of abuse and stupidity. Because occasionally I'm the stupid person who didn't "get it".


> the list of abandoned open source projects because the maintainers burned out is I think a lot longer than the list of projects that ended because low quality complaints were ignored.

The list is the same, because a healthy project grooms people to take over if you're burning out.




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