Vitriol in the Linux community

Operating Systems & Open Source Linux
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There’s a reason I left.

There’s a reason I’m back.

There’s a reason I’m contemplating continuing my extended break until mid-feb.

This community is toxic. I get on for a day and the most active threads are about hating on companies or some sort of other minor frustration. To those who are perpetually angry about something, I recommend that you get your head out of the tabloids. News sells clicks by way of outrage. Don’t fall for the trick. Yes, there are things that aren’t absolutely perfect in the world, but let me let you in on a secret: It’s marvelous world. The technology that we are able to take advantage of simply by living in the modern world is astounding. Even if you can’t afford brand new or top end hardware, what we’re doing on computers wasn’t even dreamt of 100 years ago. Think about that. When I press the button, this thread goes out simultaneously to all 1.9k of our monthly active users. That’s a huge privilege and responsibility.

All I’m trying to say is that this world is beautiful and marvelous and miraculous. There’s a vocal minority of people on this forum who can’t see that and simply cause a stink about something that didn’t go their way. Remember that you have the distinct privilege of living in the most prosperous, most free, most optimistic time period yet, only to be outdone by tomorrow. Yet, you choose to sit in front of your screen and cause a stink.

Yes, politics are stressful. Yes, there are things that could go better for Windows/Linux/OSX. Yes, AMD could get their shit together with drivers. Nvidia could lower their prices. Intel could lower prices as well. But at the end of the day, how much of that really matters?

We used to be able to shitpost and talk about tech and laugh and have a great time together. The forum seems to have changed for the worse. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still good stuff going on. Projects and collaboration and helpdesk threads and all that is great, but the community lacks that feel of an actual community. The L1 staff has a pretty good connection with each other, but outside that, it doesn’t quite feel that way.

We have a bad name in other communities for the amount of toxicity, snark and vitriol that we’ve got here. The reason we’re slowly dying is not because of anything the Staff are doing (forum or org), but because of the way that people on here can’t be pleasant. I don’t want this to continue.

I love this forum. You all make it great, but you also make it awful. All I ask is that you think about what really matters in life. Coronachan may take us all with her sweet embrace this year. Do you want to die miserable or happy?

Call to action

I ask everyone who reads this to pledge to focus on being optimistic about things from here on out. Just try to look on the bright side. We’re not going to grow as a community if we keep adopting and encouraging negativity. I’m not expecting perfection. Just do your best.

For those who are unhappy with the rocket league situation:

Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.
~~Dr Seuss

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I can see why.

My “lurk more”-approach to internet useage also works nicely.

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I don’t know if it’s rose tinted glasses or reality, but when I joined the forum it seemed the place was much more active and had a lower salt content. I can’t blame people for wanting to take a break, I’ve been in the same position, that much sodium just isn’t healthy. I’m slowly ramping my forum participation back up and I hope we can make this a nice place to be. We all may get in arguments from time to time, so just remember we share this community; regardless of what OS, Graphics Vendor, CPU Vendor, chat program, or game store of choice is. Let’s try to adjust our attitudes and not take each other so seriously. Let’s not hold our disagreements against each other. Let’s make this a place people want to hang around.

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The youtube algorithm says all engagement is helpful. Are you saying YT is wrong?

:crazy_face:

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Pre Tekxit, it was better.

@eden made a really good point in the Mod chat, maybe he’d like to parrot it here?

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Tekxit all predates me I think. I’m a 2018 newfig

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Oh. :confused: I do agree it may have gotten worse lately though.

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I remember when the whole ANON ME thing became a meme there was some negativity still but it wasn’t taken very seriously and people could still laugh at stuff.

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I think it’s actually gotten better overall, it’s that the focus has shifted away from the majority and towards the vocal minority. They’ve always been there, it’s just the shift in focus has made them even louder.

This forum used to have a severe problem where whenever anything Windows was brought up, good or bad, some users would start shoving Linux down everybody’s throat. We even had a mod at one point that wasn’t the greatest at being neutral in that zone.

But now, while I do still see it happen from time to time, I do see much less “Linux or fuck you” posts. The Linux in a Windows thread hasn’t gone away, but there’s more using Linux to find if the problem is hardware, firmware, or software related. Honestly the worst post I remember recently, aside from the “kick them where it hurts” post a few hours ago, was the “proprietary = slavery” post a little while back. And that’s one/two post(s) of how many Linux posts recently?

Whether or not the above is because of an actual shift in the Linux world or because of a change in site traffic I don’t know, I don’t have access to that type of data.

As for the issues with this specific community, I think that’s best as a different topic.

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I disagree.

Constantly telling people how toxic they are and that they can’t be angry about stuff even when there is reason to be angry, is a way bigger turnoff and only escalates things. Every time.

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The YT channel is attracting more people, however these people are ideologically different in some ways to the older user base. I wasn’t attracted to TS or L1 because of Linux but they definitely convinced me to dabble in it. Now you have newer users that mainly focus on Linux and have an open source way of thinking. This contrasts many of us who mostly use Windows or just see Linux as a tool and not as a way of life.

That being said most who disagree with the more “passionate” linux users tend to add more fuel to the fire by being antagonistic and choosing devils advocate just to fuel the flame. I think we can be better than that, and need to get over the fact that people see things differently.

Overall I think we are doing pretty well as a whole, yes there are people who got their foots stepped on, we’re not perfect. But to everyone: Please practice restraint, you don’t have to agree with people you just have to understand where they are coming from.

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Is this thread just addressing the vitriol among the forums’ Linux fans, or wider spread?

It seems to me, that my fellow obsessive s of the penguin are just as shouty, touchy and defensive, but the general number of non linuxers on the forum seems to have reduced, so like already mentioned, the minority is less of a minority, and sounding louder than before?

It doesn’t excuse personal insults to the many people who deride the freedoms offered by open source, or the greedy capitalists who take what is freely given, and don’t have to give back.*(this is just a light hearted observation. But Tim Sweeney does himself no favours)

I guess we roll a few defensive points together, in our rush to defend the mostly unthought about, and less cares systems?

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When i joined here at L1T specifically i was SUPER happy because at the time it was still small and help and opinions (worth typing, I mean) came hard and strong but I think this suffers the same problem that any other forum does - the longer it exists the longer it has had to rot. I STILL think that L1T is the best of the bunch in terms of forums - I can’t be on Linus’ forums for more than 3 minutes without some 12-yr old calling me a noob or someone telling me how this company is run by the Nazis or that distro is for people who don’t know what terminal is, but again, the longer it exists the longer it has to rot. I feel like it is just an effect of popularity and there’s probably a ‘law’ defining the action.
If the comment was about the Linux community in general I can’t really opine - I have used the forums, etc., for info and leave the complainers to conmplain. About 90% of the time I figure out what I’m trying to somewhere and move on with my life but the 10% of the time that I need to ask a question I come here and yes, sadly there is often crap posted as well but that’s why I personally don’t use forums too much in general for communication but rather just use them for information.

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Mate,

Unless you remember a time where your porn came uuencoded, you aint been around long enough to realize it’s almost always been the same.

The only thing that changes with time, is you ability to cope with it.

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This is the problem, if we could put that to the side that would be great.

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I’ll pledge to focus on being more optimistic as I’m guilty of finding the faults and negativity in a particular subject.

I’ve noticed a general shift towards negativity across the various sites that I visit. I’ve worked hard to both remove myself from negative and toxic communities and also not be so critical of the content that I come across. In the long run all the criticism and negativity isn’t sustainable and isn’t healthy for you or the people you interact with.

I think an important point to make here isn’t to bury your head in the sand, isolate yourself, and accept the new ‘way of things’. There are legitimate reasons to be upset about an issue. But if all you are doing is bitching about the same issue as the person before you did, you aren’t adding anything constructive to the conversation, just spreading additional toxic negativity.

I recently came across a video from Louis Rossman where he talks about how he has become pretty critical of Apple. He’ll admit that he bitches a lot, and that there are legitimate concerns for how business practices are handled. He has years of videos criticizing Apple.

But a quote that he mentioned in the recent video really stuck with me. It was roughly “All I can do is make my corner of the world a better place for myself and others around me.”

If you follow Louis Rossman, you’ll notice more recent videos where he takes time from his business to go and provide legitimate constructive feedback to the various legislative bodies that have oversight for the ‘right to repair’ movement issue that he has to manage to keep his business operations going.

Because this is a long read, I’m adding a spoiler for the following portion as it is a personal example of how negativity can impact your life and others around you. Feel free to skip this portion…

A personal story and example that I can bring up is how critical and negative I was about Facebook.

(Everyone say a friendly hello to the Facebook Security team who has been monitoring me closely that last several months.)

I used to work at Facebook for several years in Data Center Operations at the start of their massive data center expansions around the world.

Overall I enjoyed my time there, as a young adult I couldn’t have passed up a better opportunity for my early I.T. career and I appreciate the individuals who put their name on the line for me so that I could land a dream position that I absolutely did not deserve.

I was at Facebook longer then about 87% of the total workforce (30,000~ people) before I left due to the impending Cambridge Analytica scandal that was about to break to the public. Up to this point I was extremely proud of the work that I did and the impact I had to help people connect all around the world.

I felt a whole bunch of emotions, ones I won’t repeat here. Once I left I spent a lot of time filling up my timeline with lots of anti-facebook new articles, blogs, tweets etc due to the negative news and emotions I felt.

It had gotten so bad that I had very good friends and professional mentors who I looked up to call me out, argue with me, and then eventually block me due to my criticism and negativity of the content I posted and shared.

It wasn’t constructive feedback, just rehashing the same shit the articles did. Later on I came to realize that this event was having a serious impact on my life from both a mental health and social perspective. I needed to move on from the issues I had no control over, and try to have constructive feedback on the issues that I had experience in. I eventually came around and used that built up salt and submitted various whitehat vulnerability reports with ideas to help tackle issues that they were having with bot and spam detection on their platform(s).

The point I’m trying to make here (and I feel that @SgtAwesomesauce would agree) is that we should all take in a deep breath, relax and count to 10… Don’t get outraged over the insignificant stuff. If you are upset, share constructive feedback, see how you can make this situation better for people in your corner of the world. Be respectful and open to other people’s perspectives. Be the change you want to see.

We are a minority of the total population that have the opportunity to experience the 1st world comforts and luxuries of the modern age. There are groups of people that are not so lucky to also get those comforts and luxuries.

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A rule I follow is to try and post answers and questions. other than that I’m done arguing.

I realized I’ll never change someones opinion, and quite frankly I don’t care to.

I’d rather just spend my time learning and spitting out what I’ve learned so others can.

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I mean, if you’re talkin void ppc

I think there should be something to distinguish between desktop users and people who contribute to projects. I never understood the psychosemantic BS over “BUT MY DISTRO NYEEEEH”

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Yes, but there’s a bit more than just Linux issues. 95% of them are around Linux.

This 100%.

This is the crux of the issue.

Yeah, that’s a good rule. Discussion is fine but when it turns into an argument it’s not pleasant for anyone.

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Well, that depends on the person, and the subject. One does not have to jump into each discussion, or argument, certain topics are best left alone (politics and religion being obvious ones here), and certain people are, indeed, unable to be reasoned with.

However avoiding discussion in general, while each one’s prerogative, of course, seems like it passes up quite a few learning opportunities. Differing visions enrich us, as long as we are open to them (which obviously has to apply to both sides of a discussion, see my first point).

As for negativity, I was certainly unpleasantly surprised by the language used in a certain recent topic. Other than that the forum has been mostly fine, at least in the time I’ve spent here so far.