Hyprland is an open source Wayland compositor based on wlroots, a project I started back in 2017 to make it easier to build good Wayland compositors. It’s a project which is loved by its users for its emphasis on customization and “eye candy” – beautiful graphics and animations, each configuration tailored to the unique look and feel imagined by the user who creates it. It’s a very exciting project!

Unfortunately, the effect is spoilt by an incredibly toxic and hateful community. I cannot recommend Hyprland to anyone who is not prepared to steer well clear of its community spaces. Imagine a high school boys’ locker room come to life on Discord and GitHub and you’ll get an idea of what it’s like.

I empathise with Vaxry. I remember being young, smart, productive… and mean. I did some cool stuff, but I deeply regret the way I treated people. It wasn’t really my fault – I was a product of my environment – but it was my responsibility. Today, I’m proud to have built many welcoming communities, where people are rewarded for their involvement, rather than coming away from their experience hurt. What motivates us to build and give away free software if not bringing joy to ourselves and others? Can we be proud of a community which brings more suffering into the world?

Update: Response from Vaxry, Hyprland Developer

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    852 years ago

    the moderators of the Discord server engaged in a harassment campaign against a transgender user, including using their moderator privileges to edit the pronouns in their username from “they/she” to “who/cares”

    Well, apparently those moderators care. Why else edit it?

    • RiikkaTheIcePrincess
      link
      fedilink
      382 years ago

      They like to make a show like everyone on Earth is just like they are so how dare we exist differently but it’s clearly just them being hateful. Idunno how bigots manage to still think they’re clever and totally not insecure whilst making self-contradictory statements and raging over nonsense and trivia for hours at a time, often in spaces where they’re not even welcome.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    732 years ago

    I can personally vouch for how toxic the Discord server and its moderators/admins are. Went there for support (Hyprland was crashing on startup on AMD, sway worked fine), and was told something along the lines of “if you can’t figure this out you’re stupid and you should stop using Linux”. Figured out the issue on my own and stopped using and recommending Hyprland after that.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      8
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      Vaxry’s themselves does this all the time. He’s an asshole. Like I get OSS developers don’t owe anyone anything, but some people think that means they can be an asshole to their users for no reason too.

      Just look at this for example. Someone asked a clarifying question and Vaxry basically said “stop making noise”. Ironically producing more noise instead of just, idk, answering them? https://github.com/hyprwm/Hyprland/issues/1817

      • The Quuuuuill
        link
        fedilink
        English
        211 months ago

        Sorry to be dragging a comment out of the aether as I read into Hyprland controversies, but its absolutely wild this guy was rude across the span of an entire week about a pretty typical issue request, and then later down the road was like “it was one bad comment I might have been having a bad day” and its like… Dude it was 7 days

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      4
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      I empathize a lot with this comment.

      In tech (though I would guess as in many other technical domains), many people do seem to easily bully people for not knowing things or making mistakes. I’m guessing it’s just people having high insecurities themselves, it’s even more of an ego thing when considering that computer things are considered as a “nerd” pastime (a group considering itself “smart”). Not knowing things - even things that we would have thought are really simple - should be OK on an help channel as long as you’re not abusing the helpers’ patience.

      I’ve been a witness of these situation countless times, the sane way of handling this for me have been to just consider that these are mostly people externalizing their poor self esteem and to just continue conversation (at worst with the other people) as normal.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      32 years ago

      I wonder if this comes from the only help / discussion being on Discord which has an infamously horrible search feature.

      A forum could even be indexed by search engines so no need for:

      1. A discord account
      2. Annoying the developers with frequently asked questions
  • AItoothbrush
    link
    fedilink
    English
    272 years ago

    Just dont interact with the community. Theres an excelent wiki that details everything.

  • 👁️👄👁️
    link
    fedilink
    English
    482 years ago

    this guy just learned about discord general chats lol

    they’re all this bad, and also they’re absolutely dogshit for open source software so I have no idea why people make them

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      122 years ago

      I’m in the max server limit, 100 right now, and many of those are people who treat discord as github, which is so annoying (but many projects are of questionable legality, like Dan’s palace which makes and distributes completed android and vita ports of other games for free).

      One time I got excited since there was announcement for the half life 2 android source port discord. I thought it was a big update or maybe a new game, but what I saw was something like:

      the memes channel is for memes, not child porn

      It’s just discord that has these issues. Matrix or IRC don’t have these problems. Discord just creates a kind of culture that fosters this stuff.

        • haruki
          link
          fedilink
          3
          edit-2
          2 years ago

          This. I’m tired of all short responses that don’t want to discuss the problem or steer the topics to a direction.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          22 years ago

          I haven’t encountered any of these issue on matrix, but admittedly I haven’t joined a lot of matrix chats.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    30
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    It sucks that cool projects like hyprland are usually riddled with toxic weirdos that ruin it. It also sucks that there’s not much to choose in the wayland space that’s usable and actively developed but I refuse to use hyprland after seeing this.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    1402 years ago

    As someone on HackerNews said:

    I’ve never felt the need for any “community” for my window manager of choice

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      74
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      Hmmm. If abuse happens, is the right idea to say that “I don’t need this community”?

      I’m not sure how that HackerNews comment helps in the slightest. If my university has an obscure basket weaving community and people are getting abused that community, should I just say “Eh we don’t actually need a basket weaving community”.

      • RaivoKulli
        link
        fedilink
        502 years ago

        “You shouldn’t use this window manager because their community is toxic”

        “I’m not going to interact with the community”

        Seems fair enough

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          282 years ago

          For real. Not everything needs to be a fucking subculture. Next they’ll be saying, “The WinRAR community is toxic”. Like no, your discord server is poorly moderated. The problem starts and ends there.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        252 years ago

        I just wanted to point out that it’s ridiculous to form some kind religion¹ around a wayland compositor.

        Also, I don’t want anybody to think I’m supporting what’s happening there. I just don’t really care about Hyprland’s community because I’m not part of it.

        ¹Hyprland’s discord server is named “Church of Hyprland”

        • aard
          link
          fedilink
          122 years ago

          This is a pretty old joke. See “Church of Emacs”.

          • Kata1yst
            link
            fedilink
            52 years ago

            Another toxic community founded and maintained by the socially inept. Yep, checks out.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      132 years ago

      Hmm, I feel like there’s some nuances around Hyprland (and it’s kind of window managers) that makes having a place for discussion valuable.

      • Plugin development discussions
      • Configuration recipes and troubleshooting (Configs for tiling wm’s often are like 500-line software projects)
      • …and sometimes its just fun to chat with like-minded people who share a similar philosophy on the tools they use on their computers

      I’m not a hyprland user, but I find it valuable to lurk around SwayWM communities on Discord and Reddit.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      82 years ago

      That’s great for you but that might not be true for someone you recommend it to, or decides to give it a try after you mention you use it. Someone might go looking for help or tips there.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        1
        edit-2
        2 years ago

        File a bug, read FAQ, StackOverflow? If you are messing around with window managers on Linux, a certain level of competency is expected. However, I’m more concerned about the weirdos hanging around in a discord chat of said window manager, harassing strangers. Such a strange hobby.

    • _cnt0
      link
      fedilink
      25
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      […] the lead dev seems to be a fucking idiot.

      How so? I mean, I am tempted to agree. Reaching out to that unofficial community to improve their conduct instead of just ignoring them is pretty idiotic. But, are you sure you’ve read the linked page and understood its content?

      I didn’t pay attention when reading the linked page. Its author is/was the creator of wlroots, not hyprland. He reached out to the lead dev of hyprland which is very much associated with the discord community. I got so much wrong reading that …

      Sorry for being contrarian.

      • Aatube
        cake
        link
        fedilink
        192 years ago

        They mean the hyprland lead dev, not the dev in the article. In fact the lead dev brushed off the who/cares thing in a podcast and compared himself to Terry Davis.

        • _cnt0
          link
          fedilink
          52 years ago

          Looks like I didn’t understood what I read. I should have paid more attention.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        12 years ago

        Out of topic, but damn, this is what I like about Lemmy. Just people admitting their mistakes and people moving on without making a fuss. I missed this so much. Reddit is extremely toxic and is hard to see when you are inside

        • _cnt0
          link
          fedilink
          52 years ago

          I got a lot wrong initially reading that blog post (updated my comment accordingly). Though, I can sympathize with what he’s saying in that screenshot specifically. If I did maintain a popular open source project I’d rather completdly remove the social aspect than try and manage it.

        • just another dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          352 years ago

          To be fair, as a dev, I wouldn’t want to bother with that either, and much rather hand that stuff over to a moderator or a community manager. Then again, I’d also wouldn’t run a discord or a forum for those exact same reasons.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            122 years ago

            Dito. I would want to deal with technical problems, not social ones. If people start to fight over social norms in my technical community, I would advise them to take that elsewhere. (Of course same if people behave like assholes.)

            Then again I wouldn’t create a fucking discord “server” for a technical topic in the first place.

            • just another dev
              link
              fedilink
              English
              4
              edit-2
              2 years ago

              I’m not sure if I follow. Someone made or quoted a childish argument, and they just shrugged it off and ignored it. What’s wrong with that?

  • _cnt0
    link
    fedilink
    142 years ago

    Well, we live in a democracy: 9 out of 10 people enjoy bullying or don’t care about it. If you hate democracy, go to North Korea, snowflake!

    (obvious /s is obvious)

    In other non-news: Using a software doesn’t require visiting a loosely associated unofficial community. This has strong vibes of people wanting to be Christian and changing Christianity while being opposed to ~half the bible’s content if they bothered to read it. Just fuck that cesspool and move on with your life …

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    32 years ago

    I struggle to be interested in any bling project written by C++ “coders” since they were 9 who don’t even know how copyright works so use a pseudonym there instead - they’re almost always inexperienced children. And children are almost always sociopaths.

  • lckdscl [they/them]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    112 years ago

    CW: slurs, bigotry

    Well this was apparently their chat log. I found the link through the comments on Hacker News. Whatever you think of Drew, he’s not wrong at all, they sound like they just discovered 4chan.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    342 years ago

    Your first mistake was joining a Discord group for a software product. Github pages / bug-tracker or GTFO.