this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2026
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The original Github issue was deleted, but there is a new issue up in case anyone wants to vote on it
Looks like they merged the removal PR. I didn't bother to read through the issue to see what convinced them.
Justinmk, the lead maintainer wrote:
Well said by the mainrainer(sic). Should probably have mentioned the reality behind some of the leaders of the mob, who target people like (infamous nazi!) Richard Stallman.
Totally organic! And the foot soldiers are totally mentally (and hormonally) stable!
You haven't made it clear what Drew DeVault's role is in this alleged hate-mob of non-Neovim users. The article you linked (don't use archive.ph, by the way) doesn't prove anything more than he likes looking at drawings of children. Even if we suppose he is actually a danger to flesh-and-blood children (which is not implied by that fact), and that there is a hate mob of non-users, and that he is behind it, that's an ad hominem attack and a non-sequitur.
DHH is a white supremacist. He talks on his blog about how non-white people need to be purged from society. He should be politically untouchable. I'm a 5-year NeoVim user considering switching to a new editor. Racists do not deserve our platform, and I'm not going to change my mind about that just because one of the people who agrees with me is a pedophile. Two things can be bad at once (and again, that's if he is).
Sorry for playing devil's advocate, but I wouldn't go as far as saying it's a non-sequitur to mention DeVault's lolicon proclivities, and certainly not if we're supposing he actually were a dangerous pedophile. If the point of attacking DHH's politics -- and by extension anyone associated -- is to create a more inclusive software community, you can't ignore that DeVault (a supposed ally in the fight against DHH) is at the same time hurting the inclusivity initiative by being publicly misogynistic (at best).
I wouldn't claim to know where DeVault sits in the balance between net positive or negative on the inclusivity front, considering he seems to have otherwise agreeable politics, but I just think you've weakened your argument by dismissing the reasonable criticism of DeVault's behavior.
That said, obviously I would rather be on the side of the likes of DeVault than DHH. With DeVault, you need to go digging to find his dark side. DHH just screams his nonsense from the mountain tops.
I agree with this, and I should have clarified. What I meant was that, in the event that DeVault is, in fact, a danger to children (which, given many of the quotes about pedophilia screenshotted in that very blog post, I sincerely doubt), we should be going after both him and DHH, and not abandon our campaign against DHH simply because DeVault was a part of it.
I believe that there is a difference between a pedophile (person with urges they did not ask for and cannot choose to stop having) and a child molester (weak-willed menace to society who deserves, at minimum, a life sentence). Child molestation is, I would argue, in a close race with genocide for the most despicable evil. Many, if not most, people who are attracted to children also believe this, and seek treatment including therapy and, in extreme cases, medical intervention that eliminates all sexual desire, if they believe they may offend. If DeVault is in the former camp, and it sounds like he may be, he deserves our help getting these resources (and our reminders of what will happen if he does not make use of them and his willpower subsequently fails). If he is in the second camp, which I doubt, he deserves every ounce of ire currently aimed at DHH and then some. But even in that case, we have plenty of ire to go around, and just because a child molester hates a racist doesn't mean we shouldn't also hate the racist.