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2y ago

Goodbye, everyone

I will no longer be working on Mlem.

I started it a year and a half ago when I needed to take my mind off pain from surgery. And I always intended it to be a personal protect that would help me relax.

With the current development of the app, I no longer find being a part of the project relaxing or fun.

I’m not doing any coding anymore, since it’s all done by much more talented and experienced people. If I tried to contribute to my app now, as an outsider, I would be rejected. I’m also not doing much project management. I feel like I don’t have much voice in the development anymore.

I’m also getting backlash for trying to make the app accessible to the average person as opposed to just tech nerds, and it’s not worth the stress. This is happening mostly in my DMs (the other developers are not doing this, so please don’t go after them. They are very nice and would never do this), since some elements of this and Mastodon community don’t have the balls to face me in public.

These are just some of the many reasons I found working on the app for the last few weeks frustrating. Ever since the app exploded in popularity and the community grew, I can say that even thinking about working on Mlem made me instantly angry, annoyed and just overall pissed off.

It’s just not worth it anymore.

The current TestFlight version will keep working for two more days, after which I will erase the app from the App Store. Until then, someone from the team will have given you a new link. I have also transferred the app’s source code to a new owner.

I have released a new version just before posting this, and it’s the last version I have any influence on. The community will continue working on the app.

I will focus on my other apps, which will hopefully not become like Mlem.

Enjoy life, and don’t try to contact me.

57 comments

I'm really sorry to hear that... its really unfair for people to put so much stress on you for what should be essentially a fun project you do in your free time. I'm also hitting a high-score of unread github notifications (900+), and I have to take a ton of piano-breaks, and de-stress in any way I can.
Anyways, thank you for all you've done making mlem, put yourself and your own mental well-being first, and take care.
- There is unfortunately a culture of entitlement and harassment that is absolutely pervasive on the internet. There's a special kind of tech harassment and entitlement which emerged on the internet from stackflow, github and other major websites which put up with people grandstanding their ideals and shitting on other people who don't have enough experience or are asking simple questions or demanding changes or hijacking reports to share one's own ideals which lead to nice people like OP simply leaving these spaces.
  Please think twice before demanding something of a developer, and admin, a moderator. Think about what you're putting out into the world. There's another human behind that screen, extend them a little faith. Ask yourself what you can do to help, before demanding something of others.
  
  Even well-intended messages can be suffocating. All it takes is an explosion in popularity due to circumstances outside your control (like we're seeing here), and suddenly you're inundated with GitHub issues, PRs, conversations, important decisions, critical incidents that need a response and so on. Even if you're full-time on it and salaried (which most open source devs aren't), you simply can't keep up with the volume - dozens, hundreds or thousands of other contributors trying to contact you, debating every aspect of your decisions, technical and social. The toll on mental health can be significant, especially to those personalities who like to stay organised and on top of things.
- As part of the silent majority of Jerboa users, thank you for everything you do. I appreciate all your work on the app beyond words. Its so awesome.

Sad to hear, but personal psychic health is important! Thank you so much for the work you have put in so far!

Your words are exactly why Notch, the creator of Minecraft sold Minecraft, and stopped all of his ongoing projects.
Also the reason Eric, developer of Stardew Valley, said his new game Haunted Chocolatier isn't coming to mobile, because the mobile community is so insanely toxic and entitled.
People suck.
- Mobile in particular? Hmm. Are there perhaps relatively few children on PC? Is that why?
  
  Yea, the mobile community sends him death threats because the updates take longer to come out on mobile. He's been so beaten down by it, that he decided to not release Haunted Chocolatier on mobile.
  Pretty much everyone has a phone, so I'd assume it's mostly children who don't understand development and think he just needs to push a button to release it to all platforms at once.
  
  Mobile tends to encourage more Skinner box gameplay, priming those who will be more obsessed than other platforms.

Thanks for your work, much luck in the future!

Oof that’s sad to hear, understandable tho. I wish you all the best!

Thank you for everything, and sorry it became a sour experience. Most of all though, thank you for handing it over to others to continue! Too many projects just die; hopefully this one will live a long life.

Thank you for bringing Mlem to life! And wish you all the best on your other projects and ones to come in the future!

Huge loss for the community 😢

So sorry to hear that. Thankyou for your hard work

Thanks for everything. Wish you all the best.

Yeah if you don’t enjoy the work don’t do it! Open source leaves its own legacy. You built the starting framework and thanks for that work! Now go chillax!

Oh man that sucks. I’ve been using mlem from the beginning since it’s nicer to browse from than the website. I hope this doesn’t sour your experience of this growing community and I hope you recognize your contributions to it and how many people you’ve helped get here.

Every community will have its toxicity. Sorry you were a target for trying to do something useful and helpful. Take care of yourself, first and foremost.

Also sorry to hear this, it’s been a pleasure working with you and for what it’s worth I agree that the app should be designed for the general user first and foremost.
Thank you for creating the project and for bringing this herd of cats together, hopefully we can continue moving it forward and it doesn’t become only for tech-nerds 🤞
I hope that you stay well and get back to having fun on your other projects - if you ever want to catch up give me a shout, but I’ll respect your request not to reach out
Take care,
nkh (mormaer)

Sorry to hear this, your personal health is always the most important thing. I hope you can find fun in your other projects and thank you for your hard work.

Best of luck with your other projects.
Sad it had to get to a place like this

Good call on looking out for yourself! It’s hard to recognize when cutting ties to a project is for the best.

Thank you for your contributions to this community, it's a shame it got to be such a big stressor in your life. Take your time and relax for a bit, your mental health is important

Thank you very much for your work creating mlem, and I wish you the very best!

Thank you so much for Mlem! As a developer myself, I was blown away by how good mlem was for version 0.0.1. I would hope that in the spirit of federated communities and open source software that people would be understanding of the time constraints and challenges of working on a personal project for the benefit of everyone. I’m truly saddened that a small minority of selfish users soured an otherwise great start to a sorely needed app. I am looking forward to your future projects and hope that this and other thank you messages show how much we appreciate you and what you selflessly gave to us.

Thanks for all your work. Unfortunately some people can be very demanding to volunteers. I hope you will have a better time working on your other projects and won’t stop enjoying programming because of other people’s actions.

It's been a good run, and best of luck with future endeavors. Mlem established a good standard of design and usability for others to strive to attain.

This is why I make my repos private till major releases, know the feeling

Takes care man, no worries!

Thank you for you work. This app has the feeling that Apollo does, it’s clean and sharp.
Thank you so much for that!

Sincerely, thank you.

Thank you!!
I wish you all the best.

Fighting nerdrage is EXHAUSTING. I’m glad you’re putting your own mental health first. Best wishes!

Sorry people are assholes and thanks for all your hard work. o7

Sad to see you go, but when a personal project becomes a little too personal or infuriating it’s the right call to cut ties
I really thought we’d have more time to interact as I started contributing, I got really confused when I saw your last commit. Now it all makes a lot more sense
I wish you many more enjoyable projects (and even for the less enjoyable ones I wish they would be as successful as Mlem will or even more)

What a huge loss for the community. The one thing we need now is simple and approachable to attract users. Wishing you all the best in the future.

Thank you for work, Mlem has brought me and a lot of other users joy. It sucks that some people cannot appreciate the nice things they have and the people who provide them. Best of luck.

57 comments