Woke invasion of the NixOS community can be traced back to as early as April, 2021 (1, 2). It appears to have reached its zenith in April, 2024 when the woke moderation team’s mischiefs reached the public eye.
On May 1st, 2024, the Board decided to delegate powers to an unspecified “community” (see “Eelco steps down” below), however it remains to be seen as to what exactly this will engender.
Timeline
Notable events since Nov, 2023:
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2023-11-14 | Author gets banned for ideological reasons |
| 2024-01-28 | Witch-hunt by NixOS moderator Martin Weinelt (hexa) to get the entire NixOS Asia domain, as well as Srid, banned from the Lobste.rs site |
| 2024-02-12 | Report of the moderators perma-banning David Arnold |
| 2024-03-10 | Continued criticism of the mod team by community members; a NixOS moderator “piegamesde” publicly accuses Srid of being “transphobic” |
| 2024-03-20 | Continued criticism; Jonas Chevalier (zimbatm) publicly lies about Srid; then threatened and successfully shadow-banned the people raising criticism |
| 2024-04-22 | Attempt to depose Eelco Dolstra |
| 2024-04-26 | RFC 175; Banning of Jon Ringer, and the authors of RFC 175 (nrdxp apcodes); moderators begin resigning (see below) |
| 2024-05-01 | Eelco steps down |
| 2024-05-01 | Zulip is chosen for governence discussions (allowing banned members with “extreme prejudice” and threat of permaban “[if] they blow it““) |
| 2024-11-08 | RFC 175 authors get permanently banned |
| 2024-11-21 | SC kicks off their deliberately designed echo-chamber (“We want to speak and act as a single voice”) |
Moderation team
Evidence of woke moderation
https://github.com/nrdxp/rfc-evidence/blob/master/rfc_evidences_experiences.md
Resignations
Just a few hours after the PR for RFC 175 was opened, several moderators began to resign from the team:
| Date | Name |
|---|---|
| 2024-04-26 | Ryan Mulligan |
| 2024-04-28 | piegames |
| 2024-05-01 | rhendric (Ryan Hendrickson) |
As of May 2nd, this leaves hexa and the newly-joined lassulus as the only moderators.
Board member resignations
4/5 board members have so far quit, leaving Ron as the only one left.
| Date | Name |
|---|---|
| 2024-04-30 | Eelco Dolstra |
| 2024-03-11 | Domen Kozar |
| 2024-06-07 | Jonas Chevalier |
| 2024-06-28 | Théophane Hufschmitt |
Timeline
May
- Self-professed manipulator joepie91 (Sven Slootweg) is involved from beginning
- Preemptive squashing of dissenting opinions: https://github.com/NixOS/foundation/pull/142/files#diff-ad7ee810e67ff78b1b7f55f7113b7e291719780d95065a82e68a5b83a19462fcR23-R25
-
Allowing safetyism-based silencing & banning: https://github.com/NixOS/foundation/pull/144#discussion_r1588136289
- cf. shlevy <-> zimbatm on Matrix
-
A predominantly woke moderation team (6 of them from Europe, incidentally) was chosen to moderate the Zulip: https://github.com/NixOS/foundation/pull/144#issuecomment-2091819630
- infinisil was quite sensible, until to the point of ceding to banning Shea Levy (see below)
- RaitoBezarius is woke.
- hexa is woke.
- Janik is woke
- endocrimes is woke (responsible for banning Shea)
- lassulus (unknown yet; but did relay the spurious message justifying Jon’s ban)
- Zulip topis of interest
- Shea Levy got banned (infinisil folded to the rest of the moderators)
- Assembly applications open https://old.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1cojgjs/applications_for_nixos_constitutional_assembly/
-
Assembly announced: https://old.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1ct3tdb/nixos_foundation_board_constitutional_assembly/
- several months before their work is done, and the results can be appraised.
- delroth publicly accusing Shea Levy of being ‘fascist’ https://mastodon.delroth.net/@delroth/112450680035780629
- Someone’s calling out of recent (biased) mod actions https://x.com/sridca/status/1792321271608328487
-
Calls to drop r/NixOS from nixos webpages; samueldr banning individuals from the wiki for political reasons: https://x.com/sridca/status/1793489723882664111
- https://old.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1cya4k4/rnixos_deleted_from_the_official_wiki/
-
sock-puppets of woke users trying to worsen the drama, e.g.:
https://old.reddit.com/user/Prudent_Confidence14
- May 30: Raito dogpiles on nix 2.18 -> 2.22 PR: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/315262
- May 30: Irene claims to be “closely associated” with the NixOS drama (despite not publicly engaging with it outside of signing the save-nix-together letter): https://lobste.rs/s/vyprdq/nixos_24_05_released#c_pxv3sb
June
- Jun 4: zimbatm removes Srid from nix-system org (also replying to him on X) and blocks him on GitHub; Srid is (coincidentally?) banned from nix-community GitHub org on the same day: https://x.com/sridca/status/1798025800798683161
- Jun 7: zimbatm formally announces leaving Foundation writing “I also messed up in many places [..] the worst part was all the conflicts that erupted in the community that I couldn’t address adequately. That was difficult. Many people got hurt emotionally. I’m sorry I failed there.”
- Jun 10: Target date, public repo, office hours, interviews
- Jun 11: After his suspension, Jon Ringer comments on RFC 175
- Jun 17: (word of mouth) Ron apparently is the only one running the Board (Théophane silently quit)
-
Jun 19: Jon Ringer’s request to restore commit access (which was removed when he was suspended) gets brigaded by woke mob https://x.com/sridca/status/1803545277284143252
- wokies threaten to quit if Jon is not banned gain.
- Domen gets threatened by Jade (comment link)
- Jon gets his commit bit back, but not yet Tim
-
samuel ragequits and engages in sabotoge by deleting several packages from
nixpkgs
-
June 21:
- Jon is permabanned https://x.com/sridca/status/1804188339244843120
-
r/nixos reportedly begins to get moderated by unknown users (mods list is private and hidden) with posts being hidden or removed.
- On the same day, Lassulus (the new mod and CA member) resurrects his reddit account which had been inactive for 6 years
- Unclear if Domen played a role: https://x.com/sridca/status/1804506753876299924
- Domen ragequits in giving commit access, because mod action wasn’t not taken on his attacker (welcome to the club), Jade: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/50105#issuecomment-2183067965
-
Ongoing vandalism on nixos.wiki as well as impersonation by wokies (links to be added)
- Jul 27: Impersonation of Shivaraj on nixos.wiki purloining this very page: https://old.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1ed5gbc/the_nixos_conflict_in_under_5_minutes/lf70qh1/?context=3
- Jul 22: Impersonation of Srid on an entirely unrelated community: https://x.com/sridca/status/1815545168982130707
- Nov 7: “isabelroses” brings up the impersonated page for political gain: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nix-community-survey-2024-results-gender-distribution/55489/110
-
Jun 22: Following Jon’s ban, Hexa talking “purge” https://x.com/sridca/status/1804533789760037221
- In response to Srid’s post, Hexa reveals himself as an antifa on the same day, https://x.com/sridca/status/1807516430260113904
- Jun 27: spamming of github repos to switch away from unofficial wiki: https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-wiki-infra/issues/105
-
Jun 28: Another board member, Théophane Hufschmitt, steps down writing “I have also been deeply hurt by some behaviours, when people considered that pushing for their own idea of a successful community was worth spreading hate, defamation, fear and exclusion, or by the (too recurrent) thinking that one’s own agenda was more important than honesty, truth, and care for the others.”: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/time-to-step-down/47835
- This leaves Ron as the only board member: https://x.com/sridca/status/1806706500234039792
- Jun 29: Domen and Graham fight out the blame game, while Domen continues to talk freely while utterly failing in leadership actions: https://x.com/sridca/status/1807063291132309905 & https://x.com/grhmc/status/1806997486621405227
- Jun 29: Domen, Shea, Graham publicly talking about commercial fork/consortium https://x.com/domenkozar/status/1807047507404312592
July
-
Jul 1: Infinisil concedes what went wrong, and promises to do better by collaborating with Jon; further woke fallout (more ragequits): https://x.com/sridca/status/1807842730132795653
-
More ragequits follow: https://old.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1dtqlga/maintainers_exodus_over_recent_events/
- Yet, in all factuality, there extortion is empty rhetoric: https://old.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1e0clk6/growth_in_nixpkgs_maintainers_jul_2020_to_present/
-
More ragequits follow: https://old.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1dtqlga/maintainers_exodus_over_recent_events/
-
Jul 3: First media report on the core issue (political activism): https://old.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1dul0nw/nixos_commits_purge_of_nazi_contributors_forces/ which gets censored on Discourse https://x.com/sridca/status/1808577121465303149
- The reddit submittion gets shadowlisted in a day (by Domen?)
- Jul 3: Sometime recently (in the last 3 weeks), Jonas Chevalier blocks Srid from the entire GitHub organization of his consultancy (Numtide): https://x.com/sridca/status/1808605343674450157
- Jul 6: Tim Political Bikeshedding: NixOS Edition
- Jul 11: Lix post gets flagged on HN; their bigotted beliefs get called out elsewhere (albeit on a community which itself is moderated by a bigotted group)
-
Jul 13: /r/NixOS begins testing AI to assist with moderation (based on NixOS CoC): https://old.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1e27pxq/automated_moderation/
- Jul 21: And approaching failure: https://old.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1e885up/an_argument_against_the_use_of_watchdog_chatbot/
- July 18: Ron posts “[The board] is now smaller than it once was. I would love to extend a call to action for those interested in helping out.” https://discourse.nixos.org/t/call-to-action-interim-volunteers-for-nixos-foundation-efforts/49269
- July 5 (discovered on Jul 26): Chris posts The NixOS Conflict in Under 5 Minutes
Aug
- Aug 1: NCA publishes Nix Community Values draft for feedback. Ryan comments publicly. https://old.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1eh8s7i/nix_community_values_draft_for_feedback_before/
Sept
-
Sep 10: Nix 2.24 vulnerability drama, mostly from Lix people
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41492994
- https://lobste.rs/s/ixb3v7/nix_2_24_is_vulnerable_remote_privilege
- Causing a Nix team member (Robert) to object & then apologize
- Sep 10: Last call for feedback; Nix Governance Constitution to be finalised on 2024-09-16
- Sep 19: SC election nominees are substantially wokies (which ought to be unsurprising given the political nature of this takeover), as of Sep 19: https://github.com/NixOS/SC-election-2024/pulls?q=is%3Apr+Nominate
- Sep 29: Evidence of bigoted beliefs among candidates resurface: https://x.com/sridca/status/1840385121578291680
Oct
- Oct 14: Tampering of the voting system and eventual deadline extension: https://old.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1g6s0mc/nix_elections_voting_open_until_20241103/lslmdrs/?context=3
- Oct 20: Two SC candidates have CoI with the activist fork Lix, https://old.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1g801r9/lix_forking_nixosnixpkgs/
- Oct 20: A SC candidate demonstrates bigotry openly against a community member: https://x.com/GabriellaG439/status/1850915429050708063
- Oct 27: Domen (“I won’t be contributing to Nix anymore and will put my efforts into Tvix”) attacks DetSys; Graham responds
- Oct 30: SC candidate cafkafk getting called out by another (numinit): https://discourse.nixos.org/t/announcing-determinate-nix/54709/120
Nov
- The yearly gender ritual:
- The rest of RFC 175 authors get permanently banned: Andreas, Tim.
- SC kicks off their deliberately designed echo-chamber (“We want to speak and act as a single voice”).