TL:DR; Reluctant to switch distros because of toxic member - Rude and unhelpful to newbies - Prevents people from participating and makes other users willing to help uncomfortable - Management and moderators have done nothing to address the issue

Sorry if the post is a little confusing. English isn’t my first language. Normally, I don’t do posts like these. I’m a package maintainer for the same distro, just a newbie, but yes, I’ve published a few apps with the help of kind app devs, who were happy with giving their own time to spare, to improve the aforementioned distro. I’m sick of it. I’ve had enough tolerating this, because this is one of the worst four to five months of experiences I’ve ever had, and I’m contemplating switching the distro that I’m using.

After that changes that Red Hat undertook, and the direction of Fedora, I decided that it was finally the time I switch to a community-based distro. This distro I chose is what most people would call the Arch of 2023, I’d say. This new distro is a niche, and one-of-a-kind, but it’s very popular, because it’s a valid research project of utmost importance.

Little did I know that one person, could ruin my entire opinion about a community as being the most horrible, unwelcoming, unsafe and unkind place I’ve ever seen. I’ve faced rude people from Mint, Debian, Fedora and the likes, but this person is the epitome of “asshole”. Let me explain why.

The “asshole” in my case is a senior “elitist” maintainer - the stereotypical problem everyone complains about, whom I’ve had the misfortune of meeting. Let’s call them person X. They behave just like the stack-overflow “elitist”. Also, they maintain the most important part of the particular distro I’m using. Are they knowledgeable? Yes. Can they solve most of the issues? Probably. Their responses are almost, always baits actually, to make you lose your composure and to also discourage/prevent others from participating and helping. The first part, I’m okay with, because I’ve always been able to maintain my calm. But the second, not at all.

X is active almost all of the time. Now, that you’d think is a really reliable person you’d say. Except that they’re not. X gives answers to people, and that answer depends on his personal feelings, and a bunch of other personal bias. If it’s a technical subject, you’d see X discuss about that. If it’s a project X does not like, X would say that this project should be thrown out of the repository. If there’s a newbie question, or a question about personal inconveniences in a distro, X will lose their shit.

X has previously replied to me, and a bunch of countless other people in a rude manner. About how it started for me, well, that was the first comment I’ve even posted on their chat server about how a certain file was corrupted, and what do I get? Angry comments asking me to explain everything in detail. Well, I never asked for a fix, because the fix was literally to wait for some time and download the newly generated file with newer timestamp. The worst first impression I’ve had about a community, but I convinced myself that I mustn’t be too judgy. As any respectable person would do, I did not reply to X, I did not comment anything about them being an “asshole”. Simply ignored them, and in this case, thankfully, a kind fellow gave me some directions.

I’ve been using this distro for about five to six months, I’d say. I’d ask a question, I’d get rude replies from X, and in rare circumstances, X would give proper reply or just wouldn’t respond, which is way better than listening to angry comments.

Well, today, I asked a simple question about the experimental stuff used in the distro. I got a really rude answer, with personal opinions I’ve not asked. Again, I did not respond. But I was really furious. I wanted to reply something rude and hurtful back. But I did not.

Why exactly am I so done with this community? Because:

• X has created a hostile environment for newbie users, who are genuinely looking for help, and this distro is very much undocumented, which means that you’re basically asking answers from a spiked wall
• When X replies, other user don’t help the one asking for assistance in fear of being judged for having some opinion
• X has enjoyed this power trip for quite some time, and the management, the overall team, especially the moderators have done nothing in their power to make the chat room a safe space. Granted, I did not inform that mods, so part of it is on me. But this person is an active participant, and by active, I mean, they’re online all the time, and they respond, and so this pattern is visible to everyone.

So basically, neither was my query answered, I had my mood ruined, and no one else wants to on the fear of being judged. So what if they’re a senior maintainer? Are we allowing bad actors now? People who make community that are against the principles of inclusivity and diversity? Are we now encouraging toxic and hostile eco-chambers filled with a bunch of Linux-bros, because newbies can’t stand next to you?

I don’t switch distro often, because I am very loyal to a particular distro for years, and besides, in my opinion, it’s pointless to change distros unless there’s a reason to. But this, I’ve had enough of this shit. I just feel like changing.