Thread by @Xrayez

The Russian member and maintainer of @godotengine, called @YuriSizov, aka pycbouh, and other people like him, will destroy Godot faster than me. Let me explain why.

#GodotEngine #CancelGodotEngine

Russian maintainer, @YuriSizov, joined Godot community in 2020 or so. While Godot already had problems with its governance, @YuriSizov exacerbated it further. In fact, the reason why Godot leadership accepted him was mostly because of his toxic behavior towards Godot users.

I know the above sounds like a contradiction, but since Godot is governed by top-down, autocratic approach, toxic leadership thrives in Godot:

https://twitter.com/Xrayez/status/1539652735804485633

Not to mention that Godot shares all characteristics of being an actual cult. Extremely welcoming on the outside, yet abusing on the inside and defensive when you talk negatively about Godot. You can read a story such as this one that confirms this:

https://twitter.com/LillyByteGames/status/1508452120177094663

But lets focus on this rising Russian star in Godot as a prime example of leadership toxicity in Godot. @YuriSizov is very stubborn, and will oftentimes go for lengthy rants just to prove you wrong, on Godot Proposals or Contributors Chat etc.

@YuriSizov says the objective opinion is a fallacy, that it's the authority that should decide the best course of action, even when such decisions go against the majority, because "people don't know what they really want", as he says:

@YuriSizov wants to have only a few decision makers in Godot, saying that "community-driven" does not put community in charge. But that's wrong! Community-driven literally means that community makes decisions using "bottom-up" approach (read above):

@YuriSizov says there's no voting system in Godot. I agree. The adoption of the feature largely depends on maintainer's whims, not community requests. He also says that you need to build your reputation and trust, but that's exactly what describes top-down, autocratic approach:

@YuriSizov will often make up imaginary arguments to prove you wrong or make them look inadequate. Some people react appropriately to such gaslighting. Here, someone says that they are not frustrated by rejections, but by reasonings, and I agree here:

@YuriSizov constantly tells people they must say and how they must behave. But when people comment his own problematic behavior, he suggests them to "keep suggestions to yourself":

@YuriSizov says "don't invalidate people's workflow", but that's exactly what describes @YuriSizov's behavior, so that's hypocrisy and gaslighting, and then he tells people to "stop arguing":

@YuriSizov will close proposals on his own, labelling them as duplicate or when he "feels" that it won't be implemented (despite user requests), and saying that this decision is final, even when other maintainers haven't decided anything yet, or provided their official feedback:

Other users in Godot say similar things as I do, and they get confused about such hypocritical decisions in Godot (and rightfully so):

I noticed this pattern of behavior, so I created a proposal asking not to close them immediately, and instead patiently wait for maintainers' feedback, at least for limited period of time. But @YuriSizov says "there's no problem":

Proposals get locked and blocked, and the freedom of expression gets banned in Godot. This problem becomes more severe with each year of Godot's existence:

@YuriSizov disregards and generally devalues opinions which is different from his own:

@YuriSizov harshly denies usefulness of proposed features, sometimes hiding limitations behind "lack of understanding" of existing features:

@YuriSizov will denote that people are wrong because of some kind of misconception (without backing his statement up):

Oftentimes, @YuriSizov doesn't read proposals entirely or mindfully, so he often makes superficial comments. Therefore, you'll see people suggesting @YuriSizov that he should read the proposal again. But instead, @YuriSizov suggests people to read Godot's Code of Conduct instead:

But @YuriSizov doesn't follow Godot's Code of Conduct himself, because he doesn't assume best positive intentions from people, and that's the very first expectation written down in Godot's CoC:

@YuriSizov's actions and pervasive, intrusive style of discussing things makes him look like he's the sole judge in Godot (he's not). Instead of pointing to older discussions, he says: "Pass".

Due to the above, people have a wrong impression that @YuriSizov is the sole judge in Godot, even when he's not, to the point when he must say he's not a sole judge explicitly:

Hopefully, the above should make it clear to you that @YuriSizov's behavior is definitely trouble-making. Don't let yourself be fooled: even when you see "Contributor" label on him, he's an official member of Godot, and leadership of Godot agrees to what he says.

So, some of you, even after all evidences I provided above, may still ask: "What's the problem? I want to have autocratic leadership in Godot!" The problem lies within Godot's hypocrisy.

When I started to explain to people why their proposals get constantly ignored or rejected in Godot, saying that decisions are not made by community (despite the "community-driven" term used in Godot), my comments were met with anger by Godot leadership:

https://twitter.com/Xrayez/status/1536053402349748232

A year later, and after Russian invasion of Ukraine, I had a conversation with Godot core developers and contributors chat, including YuriSizov (aka pycbouh). You can read the incident here:

https://twitter.com/Xrayez/status/1523267290040578048

So, hopefully, it should become obvious that when I replied to @YuriSizov's statement, I implied that people of Russia live under autocratic putin's regime, so no wonder why @YuriSizov thinks this way.

But for some reason, my phrase to @YuriSizov and only a few links on GitHub where I explain people Godot's governance model, somehow warrants a permanent ban by @Akien. But why wouldn't @Akien ban @YuriSizov as well, then?

@YuriSizov also warrants a ban according to Godot's standards. The problem is that Godot has double standards. @Akien permanently banned an Ukrainian contributor with 5 years of experience. What for? What does this achieve?

https://twitter.com/Xrayez/status/1528069726336958464

Speaking of hypocrisy, @YuriSizov hides the reason why I'm banned in Godot, since he became the cause of my permanent ban. See what he says in one of my proposals, attempting to save his face in Godot:

At the same time, @YuriSizov plays a victim, literally telling people how the war affects him (and that's again a lie, it's his country that invaded Ukraine, and not the other way):

Have I mentioned already that @YuriSizov's old nickname literally translates to "Russian Warrior"?

https://twitter.com/Xrayez/status/1539279340701106176

And this at the time, when @Akien knew about Russian invasion of Ukraine, and that's me who suffers from the war. Was @Akien's decision to permanently ban me from all Godot communities a heartless and even idiotic decision? Yes, absolutely.

And here's another case: there was also an incident when the lead developer of Godot, @reduzio, said that to me that "you don't represent Ukrainians to me", when I decided to tell him about my relationship with Godot in private:

https://twitter.com/Xrayez/status/1538484101338087426

Conclusion: Godot does not #StandWithUkraine. The cult environment promotes toxic leadership. If putin's regime wins, then we'll see many more instances like these in #OpenSource and in the real-life world. Do you want to live in a world of blind compliance?