I’m around this project and the community since some time in 2017. During this time I’ve monitored the mailing list, qubes-issues and the forum since it exists. I can’t help but recognize that there are some community members like @unman, @adw and a few others that are always around, working to make the project and the community better and help new and existing users. They receive a little praise every now an then, but mostly they just contribute and are helpful through their actions (many of which you wouldn’t know about unless you’d monitor commits and tickets on github).
Then there are these other folks: they come into the community, criticize harshly and loudly (sometimes with reason), receive some feedback, then make it all about themselves and complain bitterly, drive the mods crazy and then rage and ultimately quit.
The way I see it, it’s like a credit / merit system:
- people who contribute and help a lot have a large balance of good will and if they misstep or answer a bit moody it’s not a big deal – because everyone knows them and what they are about and people have bad days;
- people that come in here and just s**t all over the place without contributing value have the opposite situation: they are already in debt and people also know what they are about and that their involvement more likely than not means that thread is doomed.