maintainers: drop emaryn

[ghost]

Due to the absence or outdated versions of essential software in nixpkgs, I submitted multiple pull requests and reviewed various patches in the hope of filling that gap and advancing the updates, yet all I encountered was disappointment and exhaustion; over time I realized that the community’s guiding values are fundamentally misaligned with my own, and rather than fostering consensus my efforts were sometimes met with defamation and intimidation. I endured nitpicking and disproportionate criticism that often bore a deliberate accusatory tone, along with personal insults that fostered an oppressive atmosphere; any seemingly minor adjustment could be escalated into a fierce conflict, provoking lengthy admonitions and veiled threats. What ought to have been a straightforward technical discussion too frequently descended into ad hominem attacks, where the merits of proposed solutions were overshadowed by the speaker’s status and influence. The prevailing culture within the nixpkgs community appears to endorse relentless coercion and infringement upon contributors, and although I have not been formally excluded, in such an environment I find myself with neither the necessity nor the desire to continue investing my efforts.

[drupol]

Ho crap :(

So sad to read this, every PRs I reviewed from you were super great, I'll miss them.

That said, I share your feelings lately and I started to take some distance from the project as well. There's something wrong and I don't know how it could be fixed.

I contribute less and I feel better, I avoid commenting and participating into the matrix chats too. Recently I also removed GitHub from my phone.

Anyway, hope you'll find a better balance now...

Thanks for what you did,

Edit: a message to the moderation team has been sent this morning about this.

[mightyiam]

Please don't sacrifice yourself for the public good. But I hope you can contribute sustainably.

[ghost]

Thank you all for your understanding, support, and encouragement. This is simply a brief expression of my frustrations and my desire to step away. My review request was made only to have my PR processed—there are no other issues, and I apologize for any inconvenience caused to the reviewers. I’m unable to continue contributing because I can’t fully comply with the NixOS organization’s guidelines (and I’m still unclear whether some of the demands made actually fall under those rules). It’s better for contributors who cannot adhere to the rules to step down early, rather than risk being forced out later.

[wolfgangwalther]

Thank you for all your code contributions.

And also thank you for stepping down as a maintainer. Being a maintainer comes with additional privileges, such as to close any issue or pull request. With this in mind, your increasingly destructive behavior, which ended in you apparently having deleted most of your comments* recently, made me feel very uneasy about you having these privileges.

* Only very few recent examples of many cases: #390873 and #417369, where other users seem to discuss with themselves. I also came across a PR, where a new contributor was worried that they "force pushed away review comments", because they suddenly disappeared (can't find it again, right now). Absolutely not acceptable! Feel free to search for commenter:emaryn in the pull requests search and be surprised how many PRs you will find where they are a "commenter without comments".

[drupol]

With this in mind, your increasingly destructive behavior, which ended in you apparently having deleted most of your comments* recently, made me feel very uneasy about you having these privileges.

• Only very few recent examples of many cases: conda-shell: Requesting option to select a shell in the package override #390873 and Missing Documentation: GitHub Copilot #417369, where other users seem to discuss with themselves. I also came across a PR, where a new contributor was worried that they "force pushed away review comments", because they suddenly disappeared (can't find it again, right now). Absolutely not acceptable! Feel free to search for commenter:emaryn in the pull requests search and be surprised how many PRs you will find where they are a "commenter without comments".

How about adding this new rule in the contributor guidelines? So that new contributors are aware of that from the beginning.

[wolfgangwalther]

How about adding this new rule in the contributor guidelines? So that new contributors are aware of that from the beginning.

I'm not sure about that. It just seems like common sense to me, if we start documenting things like that, where does it end? I think a good rule of thumb is, that something should have happened multiple times (aka by multiple users!) to be worth documenting - otherwise it's very much a special case. I only know about this one case, so far - I have never seen it elsewhere, yet.

I really think that the ability to delete your own comments entirely is a misfeature of GitHub. Maybe within a certain period of time (1h or so) to handle accidental secrets disclosure or something like that. But weeks after? They should just not allow it.

[drupol]

That's true as well.

I understand, but some people are reluctant to leave breadcrumbs on proprietary platforms. Whether due to privacy concerns or personal convictions, they prefer not to leave any trace. While it might seem like common sense to you, that's not the case for everyone. Emaryn is not the first person I’ve seen do this (and not just in nixpkgs).

Perhaps there’s room for improvement on GitHub’s side, but that’s beyond our control — which is why I suggested including this rule in the contributor’s guide.

[wolfgangwalther]

I understand, but some people are reluctant to leave breadcrumbs on proprietary platforms. Whether due to privacy concerns or personal convictions, they prefer not to leave any trace.

I absolutely understand that, because I have these same concerns. I leave far fewer traces than many others. But once you decide to contribute here, that part is public - there is no taking back. It's not like deleting a comment would actually remove this data from GitHub. That proprietary platform still has access to it, as we can tell by the commenter:... search (do they really delete these comments anyway? From their backups, too? Or do they keep using them as input to train their AI models? We don't know...) - but the community does not have access anymore. So, even from the contributor's perspective caring about that footprint, this is the worst possible outcome.

Emaryn is not the first person I’ve seen do this (and not just in nixpkgs).

Ah, just noticed the slight edit in time ;). So you're saying this has happened in nixpkgs before? In that case, I'm open to adding something to the guides.

Although, I wonder whether that's already covered by the code of conduct. Of course, the CoC is always rather vague, but I think this would fit:

Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants include:
[...]
Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting

[ghost]

Even now, you persist in blaming others, and your words reveal not a trace of respect for your fellow contributors. You demand that they submit to your controlling whims, and you point fingers at strangers with careless disdain. You cloak your judgments in ugly language and arrogantly reduce people to simplistic summaries. Time and again, you provoke others, then turn their kindness into a weapon to manipulate and intimidate them.

[drupol]

I absolutely understand that, because I have these same concerns. I leave far fewer traces than many others. But once you decide to contribute here, that part is public—there is no taking back. It's not like deleting a comment would actually remove this data from GitHub. That proprietary platform still has access to it, as we can tell by the commenter:... search (do they really delete these comments anyway? From their backups, too? Or do they keep using them as input to train their AI models? We don't know...)—but the community does not have access anymore. So, even from the contributor's perspective caring about that footprint, this is the worst possible outcome.

Fair enough—but I’d be careful not to draw firm conclusions about what GitHub does behind the scenes unless we know for certain. We can definitely raise concerns, but it’s good to distinguish between speculation and verifiable facts when making our case.

Although, I wonder whether that's already covered by the code of conduct. Of course, the CoC is always rather vague

And that vagueness is exactly the problem. Because the CoC is open to interpretation, people end up relying on their own judgment—which leads to misunderstandings and inconsistent expectations. That’s precisely why I’m suggesting we explicitly write such a rule into the CoC: to reduce ambiguity and help contributors make informed decisions without relying on guesswork.