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

  • 👁️👄👁️@lemm.ee
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    10 months 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

    • moonpiedumplings@programming.dev
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      10 months 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.

  • deadcade@lemmy.deadca.de
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    10 months 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.

    • piexil@lemmy.world
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      10 months 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

    • d6GeZtyi@lemmy.world
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      10 months 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.

    • vildis@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 months 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
  • xavier666@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

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

  • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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    10 months 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?

  • ExLisper@linux.community
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    10 months ago

    Who cares about the community? If it’s useful and works I will use it. It’s not like I’m paying for it. If the community is toxic people will not contribute to the project. If they don’t need contributors they can do whatever they like.

  • sky@codesink.io
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    10 months ago

    [A trans person] joined the Discord server and made a big deal out of their pronouns […] because they put their pronouns in their nickname and made a big deal out of them because people were referring to them as “he” [misgendering them], which, on the Internet, let’s be real, is the default.

    Damn I didn’t know women didn’t exist on the internet! Also “making a big deal out of ones pronouns” is almost never the case, it’s always just a normal request for the respect of addressing someone properly.

      • sky@codesink.io
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        10 months ago

        given I am a woman who is currently on the internet, I am aware there are women on the internet.

        thanks for explaining that for me 😉

    • KSP Atlas@sopuli.xyz
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      10 months ago

      Does drew not know about the existence of singular they? I use that unless i know their gender properly

      • drspod@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        These are not Drew’s words, he is quoting something said by the project dev. The context that the previous commenter ommitted is:

        Following my email conversation with Vaxry, he appeared on a podcast to discuss toxicity in the Hyprland community. This quote from the interview clearly illustrates the attitude of the leadership:

        [A trans person] joined the Discord server and made a big deal out of their pronouns […] because they put their pronouns in their nickname and made a big deal out of them because people were referring to them as “he” [misgendering them], which, on the Internet, let’s be real, is the default. And so, one of the moderators changed the pronouns in their nickname to “who/cares”. […] Let’s be real, this isn’t like, calling someone the N-word or something.

  • beteljuice@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    I stopped using it because of a couple shitty interactions on Discord. I don’t know anything about the developer himself but the company he keeps sucks. Using the word “cucked” when talking about breaks in dependencies… and being told “see if I care” when pointing out a race condition I found in initialization that caused problems with multimonitor setups.

    No thanks. Sway works great. No need for eye candy.

  • SirPlus@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    The guy who develops hyprland is a known transphobe, I’m surprised this is just now coming out.

  • starman@programming.dev
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    10 months ago

    As someone on HackerNews said:

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

    • phario@lemmy.ca
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      10 months 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 in that community, should I just say “Eh we don’t actually need a basket weaving community”.

      It’s also amusing to me that a commenter on a relatively obscure and niche website is complaining that that don’t need (or care about abuse that transpired on) a niche community from another website. And then this comment is echoed in yet another niche community.

      • starman@programming.dev
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        10 months 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”

          • Kata1yst@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

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

      • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz
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        10 months 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

    • wispydust@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months 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.

  • leastprivilege@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    I just switched to hyprland and although the discord general chat isn’t for everyone, they have been helpful when I ask stupid questions and need a little help.

  • rjek@feddit.uk
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    10 months 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.

      • InstallGentoo@lemmy.zip
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        10 months ago

        His response is perfectly rational. You need to stop getting offended over every small thing on the internet.

        • zwekihoyy@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          treating people respectfully is not getting offended. please touch some grass and open your eyes.

    • MBM@lemmings.world
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      10 months ago

      The final bit is interesting. Vaxry says Q (who was openly bigoted) got punished, but doesn’t mention prisj (who was slightly less open about it).

      #general does indeed sometimes have jokes that some people might treat as “controversial”.

      And if you really need a place with controversial jokes, split it off from your support server or something.