Changes to the Hyprland community
20 IX 2023
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With recent drama, I have decided to investigate the issue of harassment in the Hyprland community a bit more. This post is to outline the already present changes and the nearest future's upcoming ones.
I'd like to highlight that my previous post on the matter is still up there and, unlike what some people think, I am not backpedalling from what I said there.
Drew DeVault raised a concern - a valid one, but a bit overblown, with arguments that are not touching the root of the problem - the current (not over a year ago like the who/cares incident) state of the discord server.
Shortly after our exchange of blogposts, I have conducted an anonymous poll about harassment on the discord server. With about 300 replies, the results were not great, as about 30% of people reported feeling uneasy about the state of the server.
This, obviously, was not great, and as such, I decided to take action.
I do want to apologize for allowing the Discord server to get to such a state, and it is definitely, in a large part, my fault. However, since apologies are in the end worth little without proper action, let's talk about just that, the actions.
Let's start with the implemented changes, and then to the planned / scheduled ones.
The hyprwm/Hyprland repo now contains a CoC that applies across the hyprwm org and its official spaces.
It's a pretty lax CoC all things considered, as our main goal is to avoid harassment while still allowing people to excercise a great amount of freedom, while also avoiding creating a corporate-feeling space.
You're still allowed to swear or express your opinions. We just ask you, in a tl;dr style, to not harass people or go too offtopic.
The Discord server's rules were reworked from the ground-up, and 2 new moderators have joined the team. (Namely, end_4 and Mathisbuilder, thanks!)
We'll try to enforce the rules more strictly (as it's already happening) and create a more chill space where as many people as possible are invited to freely spend time in.
Again, the rules are still designed in a way to allow people to express their freedom of speech as much as possible, but without harassment or bullying.
This is quite a major one.
The Discord server now enters a "test phase". In 2 weeks-ish, I will conduct the harassment-related poll again. If the results do not come back satisfactory enough, the Discord server will be sunset and archived.
What will happen if that comes to effect? We already have a plan in mind, but since nothing is set in stone, I will not say anything yet. The community will most likely not be reduced to atoms, though. :)
With the CoC in place, and a more moderated community, I hope to lessen the amount of harassment to as little as possible from now on. I do realize that the line between free speech and harassment is sometimes blurry, but that's why we have a gradual system for punishments.
I am taking this thing seriously, and that's why I am doing all of this. Obviously, we can't have a community that caters to every single person's taste, but the state was far from being even close to that.
I want to thank Drew for raising the issue, (even if a bit overblown) as recently, being honest, I've been on the Discord server less and less, and as such, paying less attention. For many reasons, real life, actually writing code, yadda yadda.
I also want to thank everyone who showed support for Hyprland and/or me, both privately and publicly.
If you believe you have been wrongfully treated, or harassed in the community, both I and fufexan offer our apologies. I hope the plan outlined above will be enough to get things more respectful from now on.
I do not ask you to like me or believe me in anything. I am asking for just one thing:
Instead of shouting "this won't work" or "who will enforce this? you guys are the problem", consider stepping back for a month or two, and seeing how the situation goes. Those questions lead to nowhere, and only time can truly tell what will happen.
If the state is still unsatisfactory after 1-2 months, I am open to attempt further action.