Troll attacks of questionable origin

[PeyTy]

Hello there! Something bothers me. Okay I get that ReactOS and GreenteaOS are competitive projects and making jokes on one another is the norm (in terms of code quality, and stuff like that).

But how the hell it happened, that everytime ReactOS get attacked by trolls, its somehow assumed that its orchestrated by PeyTy (me) or even done directly by PeyTy in disguise?

At some point (years ago) I wasn't interacting with any of ReactOS directly or indirectly (had enough real life problems going on) for about TWO YEARS. And yet within that time frame ReactOS got wave of the troll attacks, and I remember people here were so angry at *me* that someone even proposed to "resolve" it in the court. Like I was financing troll attacks or something like that.

Recently ReactOS got two supposedly troll attacks (well I'm not an expert in the trolling science so no bold assumptions here):

- Some Prontoguy started email spam campaign. This guy later joined my discord server posting some emotional bla bla bla that nobody cared about. Somehow people assumed (and still think?) that this guy is either me with multiple spam accounts or he acted from the side of the GreenteaOS project.

- Issue about source code leaks. I made a bunch of comments here doubting the claims, cause I don't want to be indirectly accused for reading leaked sources: basically if ROS uses WRK/etc it would imply that we are all doomed for touching it, which is madness.

- Somewhat related. Belliash (ExectOS author and formerly ReactOS ~contributor) was also attacked on hacker news from fresh accounts. We have found similar attack on ReactOS from years ago mentioning Minoca OS in a similar fashion. Its on reddit under Pronto_Guy nickname. Note that Belliash is *not* a contributor of the GreenteaOS project and operates independently, but has mod role to help with spam from time to time.

Okay, again, I know people may have their opinions, no prob. But how, specifically, people assume that I'm doing active troll attacks in disguise and stuff like that? I want our projects compete on the technical matters, and maybe cultural whatever, but trolling attacks is a shitty idea to do.

I never orchestrated troll attacks and I find the idea itself disgusting! If someone claims that they act from GreenteaOS side its a clear fake. If anyone would be authorized to say so, it would be stated publicitly. I'm so annoyed by all this stuff that lost my will for any interaction with ROS community.

Our projects are not at war or anything like that. My position is known - the more *independent* ideas and approaches at making Windows rival we try, the better.

P.S. Dibya told me about some conspiracy around GreenteaOS being written in javascript Its a basic feature of the github to treat .hexa files as typescript to enable syntax highlighting, check the .gitattributes file.

Posting it here so I can share link to this post.

[EmuandCo]

Hey PeyTy. First of all I have to pay you utmost respect to come by and trying to settle things on your own. I highly value your attempt to get things sorted out!

I even try to make this a sort of official ReactOS Deutschland e.V. reply in my function as Vice President. (Try because I do this on my own with our project in mind, but no guarantee that the rest of the board agrees with my reply here, especially my writing style.)

First I confirm what you very likely already know, but we aren't supporting any trolling or harassment either of course. I don't know of any court resolve attempt from our side either, at least not against your person as there was at least one in discussion in recent days. That was a Zero3k kinda problem though. Of course I am not there 24:7 either. So I won't say this did not go through some member's minds, but the official side I am representing here right now did NOT attempt that.
Of course I heard of these discussions, too. Our Mattermost does not lie here and confirms that there was quite some emotional "discussion" of that trolling and harassing where you were mentioned, too.

This is the perfect time to sum up how all this happened... As you know there is some kind of habit in human mind to tend to group formation in a close to religious way. Let it be Apple vs. Samsung. Mercedes vs. BMW or here ReactOS vs. GreenteaOS, NeptuneOS or ExectOS etc. And these discussions have nothing logical left most of the time. This behavior is the main reason behind most wars in human history and happens again and again.

In our case here some community members seem to believe that they help anyone with their trolling/harassing behavior. You hear some lie or just plain stupid gossip regarding evul PeyTy paying trolls to harass us from someone who got it in a slightly different meaning from someone else etcetc and the starting point was a completely different fact OR false information was spread on intention from the beginning. I know this too well as I live in a small village...

I am quite sure that this behavior is what we see here, too. Don't get me wrong though, I am NOT trying to support or belittle this mess or anything, just sharing my thoughts how this all might have happened to form at all. I am here way too long to think that any core member would start a troll war against anyone else out there, but even there we have emotional outbursts. Hey, anyone here who knows me would now say I AM THE PERSONIFIED OUTBURST .

Anyways, enough side story now... I heard that you had a longer discussion with a core member and most if not all things were sorted out by just talking about them. This is something we really should have tried to do, too... After reading up the discussions in the past and yesterday I think we're the ones that have to apologize. Regardless if we in person did start this or our community, it's still our responsibility! I can not speak for everyone out there, especially emotion driven community members, but I CAN speak for the project itself:

The ReactOS project is far from innocent regarding that whole chaos so I deeply apologize on behalf of the project!

I hope that the issues can be fully resolved and we can return to a healthy, friendly and of course a little competitive relationship though!

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Here I talk to YOU, Mr./Mrs. Community member: We NEVER asked you to join a non existing ReactOS army and fight for us. Believe me when I say that we are very well able to do this on our own. We don't need ANY unnecessary bloody war with ANY project out there just because you read some lies and then take action out of emotion! Tell US about what you heard and ONLY US. We will take action if needed our own way! This emotional outburst you tend to send to whoever you claim to be a enemy of the project is NOT helping us in ANY WAY!

[PeyTy]

...good words...

Thank you! The final outcome I want to see in the case of ReactOS community is a review of the Belliash case. You should know that Belliash is a very friendly and sentimental person and ReactOS heavily damaged his open-source life. You may see here that he gets troll attacks referencing his PR: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40725451

Also Rafal Kupiec is a common Polish name and Belliash has nothing to do with https://lists.reactos.org/hyperkitty/li ... KRJFOF7EC/

He multiple times discussed that old PR with me showing code snippets and telling that he has nothing to do with code leaks and stuff like that.

The problem is that ReactOS ultimately blocked him from the github and left without any chance to protect himself. For a sensitive person like Belliash its a devastating move, thus he decided to avoid any futher communication to not receive waves of trolling and hate speech (and settled in the new own project ExectOS to code peacefully).

I wish Belliash to be unblocked on Github and let him provide a chance to elaborate every questionable line of code. Even if he would fail to provide enough evidence, at least it would be fair, than just alienating the person with a eternal fear of being attacked.

This is not just for Belliash. The whole review process should be more transparent and open for discussion. Because it could affect any of us and future contributors.

[EmuandCo]

I know this case, but not the sources mentioned there. It's just me aka a single person telling you that, but I will pass this on and try to resolve the case.

[EmuandCo]

Well.. Could you explain us what the OSDev Discord has to do with us? You should go and complain to their mods and not us. We talk here about our community and how we can be a better place for anyone here, at Mattermost, GitHub and of course the almost official Discord server. In short in places where we can change things. We can't help you if you linger around in a Discord server with well known toxic behavior.

@PeyTy btw, I still try to get in contact with ColinFinck, but he is difficult to reach these days.

[PeyTy]

@EmuandCo yes, I know. Thank you. We will be waiting for Colin. Belliash is fully aware of the situation and okay to wait.

[EmuandCo]

EDIT: Cleaned up and reopened.