Recently there's been a debacle about the wechat packaging in AUR. Essentially there were two competing packages wechat and wechat-bin [1] which are both popular. Package maintainer K(type user in AUR) of wechat took unbelievable measures to try to get rid of wechat-bin from AUR to begin with and was rebuked[6] by a PM A(type "Package Maintainer" in AUR). But eventually the same maintainer K succeeded when another PM M(type "Package Maintainer" in AUR) sided with him and took control of wechat-bin with a total revamp of the packaging.

Package maintainer K's actions are bizarre, hostile and malicious overall. There's absolutely no reasonable explanation as to why K had to take over the control except for the guideline which is flawed. Plenty of users submitted their negative views[2] towards such takeover. And it's also my observation that PM M did not do due diligence on this matter and just arbitrarily made a decision suppressing users' voice in the meantime.

The situation got worse under PM M's dealing with this matter that users feel ignored and betrayed that many **wrong** deletion requests[3] have been filed towards both wechat and wechat-bin, presumably by angry and frustrated users from both camps.

The chilling effect can also be seen here[5] when the most upvoted wechat related package is discussing a backup plan in case the same thing happens to it and the possibility of retreating to github, when one PM dictates the course of action and there's no way to appeal.

If we also look at the roles PMs play in this debacle, it also draws ire from K. K is not happy when his attempt was denied by PM A either.
https://blog.kimiblock.top/2024/12/08/do-not-waste-time-on-aur/
https://blog.kimiblock.top/2024/08/23/aur-moderation/

The questions are:
1. Is there enough room for more than one packaging in AUR or does it have to favor the first package maintainer in system log?[1] What's wrong with choices letting vote/popularity work and users the freedom to choose?
2. What can we do about it when the package maintainer ignores legitimate technical issues and won't budge until after a PM steps in and orders such? [4]
3. What can we do about it when one PM takes over, calling shots and suppressing users' voices? Is there an appeal process?

[1]
wechat started on 6/30/2024 with an essentially nil placeholder commit. Actual and meaningful commits started on 11/5/2024 with nothing in between.
https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/log/?h=wechat&ofs=50

wechat-bin started on 11/5/2024
https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/log/?h=wechat-bin

As such wechat has a earlier start date in the system than wechat-bin.
Yet if we look into the detail by no means can K claimed that his package arrived first in the repo.
PM A expressed[6] his doubt towards K's legitimacy in his response to K's attempt. Quote "Claiming legitimacy over the other existing packages in a forced and unexpected manner like you're doing is not helpful."
I'm a wechat-bin user and am sure it collected 50+ votes and not sure about wechat which currently also tallies 50 votes.
That said, if anything, both packages have the support and deserve to stay instead of merging them in a haste.

[2]
Most comments can be found under packages' comment page
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/wechat-bin
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/wechat

Select negative user comments towards K:
ernest https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/wechat#comment-1004581
etoyz https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/wechat#comment-1004579
timefaker https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/wechat#comment-1004546
JoveYu https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/wechat#comment-1004540
envolution https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/wechat?O=30#comment-1003718
pr0m1x https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/wechat?O=40#comment-1003602
wszqkzqk https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/wechat?O=40#comment-1002784
Keep-Silence https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/wechat-bin#comment-1004718
JoveYu https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/wechat-bin#comment-1004832
duguyipiao https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/wechat-bin#comment-1004833

[3] https://lists.archlinux.org/archives/search?q=wechat&page=1&mlist=aur-requests%40lists.archlinux.org&sort=date-desc

[4] After K's takeover, packaging quality took a dive and won't even launch properly. User provided feedback and K simply cited his deal with PM M to provide only vanilla packaging and won't budge, until M stepped in and ordered K to correct such and K complied. It's noticeable that PM M chose to ignore this important attitude detail that K has shown towards this package and simply summarized it as "Still only a minor issue (in the upstream desktop file) was reported and it was promptly fixed in less than one day." This kind of sweeping-it-under-the-rug approach is very much problematic and troublesome. This brings into question PM M's capability in fairly addressing inquiries. PM M had this to say "Stop this useless spam and provide valid reports if any, or else keep your personal PKGBUILD elsewhere if you don't want to use this package." as if M owns this community https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/wechat-bin#comment-1004808 and opposition are just spammer and the only option is to flee. I'm pretty sure that's against the value of OSS and M does not repesent the overall PM group and just an isolated case.

[5] https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/wechat-universal-bwrap#comment-1004422

[6] PM A had this to say in rebuke to maintainer K, quote
"This indeed is an inappropriate usage of the "replaces" array. This should be a "conflicts" array at best.
As you know (since you started the related discussion on the ML), the "wechat packaging situation" in the AUR is a bit controversial and difficult to deal with.
Claiming legitimacy over the other existing packages in a forced and unexpected manner like you're doing is not helpful.
I switched the "replaces" array to a "conflicts" one, please do not switch it back and give time for the AUR staff to deal with the pending requests about wechat related packages.
Thanks for your comprehension & collaboration."
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/wechat?O=50#comment-1001449