On 1/2/25 3:57 PM, S Umple wrote:
Recently there's been a debacle about the wechat packaging in AUR.
"Recently" is an interesting word choice, this "debacle" has been going for months [1]...
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.
As said above, this situation has been going for months and is particularly difficult to deal with. We have multiple separate mail threads about the overall situation and most comments on the AUR are not written in English which makes it non-trivial to deal with from a moderation standpoint. Decisions have not been taken arbitrarily, Muflone is just trying to deal with this situation and I'm personally very thankful that someone is actually willing to try to solve this mess (excuse the term, but frankly that's what it is at that point). The rest of the staff approves Muflone's decision / judgment (which is purely about trying to make the package work, regardless of the maintainer). Such assumptions and judgments about staff decision's making are not welcomed here [2]. Keep in mind that this is voluntary work.
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.
Which is a totally unjustified and unacceptable behavior that resulted in a waste of time for everyone (both users and staff...).
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.
That's also a non-English comment, which doesn't help... It's important that comments, contributions & discussions remain intelligible to most people (including the staff). As for PMs "dictating" the course, keep in mind that Arch Linux is not run as a democracy [2]. While the staff shall always attempt to implement universally peaceful solutions, they have the final word (which, unfortunately, cannot always please everyone).
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/2024/12/08/do-not-waste-time-on-aur/> https://blog.kimiblock.top/2024/08/23/aur-moderation/ <https:// blog.kimiblock.top/2024/08/23/aur-moderation/>
I'll do as if you didn't share those links... This goes beyond the scope of the AUR, which this mailing list and this overall situation is about. Of course, I could just throw that "I'm not paid enough to deal with such public rant about my decision making" (since this is all voluntary work) and bail out, but I frankly don't (want to) care.
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?
Duplicate packages are not allowed, this is a clearly stated rule [3]. As for the second question, the users are not the ones maintaining and moderating the platform. Keep in mind that the AUR is a platform entirely maintained and moderated by the staff on a voluntary basis. Some rules have to be established, otherwise the platform itself cannot live (or rather not reliably). Users are still free to maintain their own PKGBUILD locally or in an unofficial repository [4] though.
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]
You could raise it to the moderation (via email or AUR requests) until a PM steps in (which is currently happening).
3. What can we do about it when one PM takes over, calling shots and suppressing users' voices? Is there an appeal process?
Short and rough answer: Nothing [2]. This situation is difficult and controversial enough that it feels that, whatever the final decision is, people will be unhappy anyway. I'd like to remind everyone that the AUR is a platform entirely maintained and moderated on a volunteer basis for the sole purpose of providing a freely accessible and community maintained package repositories. We expect the community to do their part to contribute to a healthy community and environment. I'll be completely transparent here, the only thing that came out from the recent events* is that we started discussing another potential outcome to all of this: banning any wechat related packages from the AUR altogether. After all, it seems like there isn't any other distro shipping wechat [5] and seeing the controversy & the overall pain it causes from a moderation stand point to our staff, that's an actual possibility we are eventually considering. Please, work _with_ us. *The erroneous deletion requests repeatedly submitted out of anger, impolite and disrespectful behaviors [6], shit shows in comments, wechat related packages repeatedly re-submitted after being deleted by the staff and so on... [1] https://lists.archlinux.org/hyperkitty/list/aur-general@lists.archlinux.org/... [2] https://terms.archlinux.org/docs/code-of-conduct/#respect-the-staff [3] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AUR_submission_guidelines#Rules_of_submissi... [4] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Unofficial_user_repositories [5] https://repology.org/project/wechat/versions [6] https://lists.archlinux.org/archives/list/aur-requests@lists.archlinux.org/m... -- Regards, Robin Candau / Antiz