In recent days, the discussion around Lemmy has become a bit...spicy. There's a few points of impact here. To list some examples: Beehaw being frustrated enough to ponder leaving the software Sublinks being started out of uncertainty with the lemmy roadmap Drama about inability to delete images and lemmy dev reactions to the priority request [...]
Look at it this way: I’ve spent almost every single working day for the past four years developing Lemmy. I implemented the entire federation logic and much more. Most days and nights I think about ways to improve Lemmy and it’s not easy to shut off. Especially during the Reddit blackout it was extremely stressful as we were completely bombarded with requests, I didn’t even have time to keep up with all the issues.
Yet last week some individuals came along who never made any contributions to Lemmy and never showed the slightest gratitude for my work. They essentially what I’m doing is wrong and that they should be in charge of decisionmaking for Lemmy. One Beehaw admin even said that all my work on Lemmy is meaningless.
I know you and many others have good intentions with your criticism. But after all the negativity of last week I simply don’t have the mindset to accept any of it.
Mate trust me I understand all about Foss stress and burnout. I’ve been doing Foss for way longer than 4 years and the ai horde has been very demanding as well (and I also have a day job and small children) . But through all this, you have to learn to keep your cool. It’s sometimes better to just come out and say “people, I’m close to burnout and I can’t comment now” or “I am going to work on this as fast as I can but if someone can get to it first feel free” etc. It’s way better to explain that you’re overworked than to attack people. It’s also OK to say nothing at all than to go on the offensive. People can understand the former but the latter will never work the way you expect.
I keep saying that this is a pure communication issue. I (and many others like sunaurus) can clearly see you’re working hard and we understand how much there is to do, and this is why I’m dismayed when I see you escalate.
If you want we can get in a voice chat and I can share how I deal with these situations and what has worked for me. Just pm me. I really think this is made unnecessary harder than it needs to be.
Thank you for the offer but its not necessary. Ive also maintained open source projects long before Lemmy so Im familiar with the occasional entitled user on Github. In my experience its not a good idea to make any promises to these users because they will view their entitlement as justified, and make more demands.
However its a completely different quality when its not just Github comments, but multiple blog posts within a few days attacking Lemmy and me personally. Sure my responses were not ideal, but it was the best I was capable of at that time. If I had said nothing, people would assume that all the accusations are true and I have nothing to defend myself (like the claim that Im a “tankie” which has been going around on Mastodon for years).
In any case I think its better to say something and get my view out rather than being quiet. Sure there are miscommunications but those can be cleared up, and I can learn how to communicate better in the future. On the other hand if I said nothing, I may be left with the impression that my work sucks, and lose all motivation to keep working on Lemmy. Then I would be stuck doing nothing at all. Luckily that hasnt happened, Im still working on the project like before.
Regrettably, complaining tends to be a common pastime for many individuals. I acknowledge your frustrations with certain users who may appear entitled or unappreciative of the considerable effort you’ve dedicated to developing Lemmy. Shifting towards a mindset that perceives complaints as opportunities for enhancement can be transformative. Establishing a set of transparent rules or guidelines on how you prioritize issues and feature requests could help turn critiques into opportunities for improvement. This transparency can help manage expectations and foster a more collaborative relationship with the users in your community. While not all complaints may be actionable, actively listening to feedback and explaining your prioritization criteria could go a long way in building trust and goodwill. Open communication and a willingness to consider diverse perspectives can lead to a stronger, more user-centric product in the long run.
The philosophy of Complaint-Driven Development provides a simple, transparent way to prioritize issues based on user feedback:
Following these straightforward rules allows you to address the most pressing concerns voiced by your broad user community, rather than prioritizing the vocal demands of a few individuals. It keeps development efforts focused on solving real, widespread issues in a transparent, user-driven manner.
Here’s a suggestion that could help you implement this approach: Consider periodically making a post like What are your complaints about Lemmy? Developers may want your feedback. This post encourages users to leave one top-level comment per complaint, allowing others to reply with ideas or existing GitHub issues that could address those complaints. This will help you identify common complaints and potential solutions from your community.
Once you have a collection of complaints and suggestions, review them carefully and choose the top 3 most frequently reported issues to focus on for the next development cycle. Clearly communicate to the community which issues you and the team will be prioritizing based on this user feedback, and explain why you’ve chosen those particular issues. This transparency will help users understand your thought process and feel heard.
As you work on addressing those prioritized issues, keep the community updated on your progress. When the issues are resolved, make a new release and announce it to the community, acknowledging their feedback that helped shape the improvements.
Then, repeat the process: Make a new post gathering complaints and suggestions, review them, prioritize the top 3 issues, communicate your priorities, work on addressing them, release the improvements, and start the cycle again.
By continuously involving the community in this feedback loop, you foster a sense of ownership and leverage the collective wisdom of your user base in a transparent, user-driven manner.