I want to start off by saying I think the rust community is the most amazingly supportive and helpful technical community I’ve ever come across. I often see fellow rustaceans giving the most detailed and helpful answers, even to posts that may not have been made in good faith. But if any user so much as mentions the word blockchain on this subreddit, they will most definitely be downvoted into nothingness.
Every morning I wake up and browse r/rust, excited to see what cool things are being done in the rust community, and I find at least one post or comment from someone who is genuinely interested in and even outright praising rust, but they mention they don’t hate blockchain, so they get heavily downvoted and get many fewer responses than the rest of the community. Often with a few rustaceans directly replying to that user, telling them r/rust has an irrational hatred of blockchain so they may be better asking for information elsewhere.
https://www.rust-lang.org/policies/code-of-conduct
This is a direct violation of our own code of conduct, which states things like
- We are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all- Respect that people have differences of opinion and that every design or implementation choice carries a trade-off and numerous costs. There is seldom a right answer.
- We will exclude you from interaction if you insult, demean or harass anyone. That is not welcome behavior. We interpret the term “harassment” as including the definition in the Citizen Code of Conduct;
And here is one of the definitions of harassment in the Citizen Code of Conduct:
- Sustained disruption of community events, including talks and presentations.
Due to the importance of maintaining network consensus, the fact that network transactions are immutable, and the fact that some of these systems have billions if not trillions of USD value running through them. Blockchain developers are extremely security focused. This means rust is an excellent language for them to use. It might even be the single most Ideal language for the needs of the blockchain industry. Yet every time a developer in the blockchain space comes to this subreddit, genuinely polite and excited to learn about rust in an attempt to better themselves, their work, and the entire rust community. The message they get from the r/rust community, is very clearly “we don’t want you here”. Either stated passively through getting downvoted and not replied to, or flat out stated actively by user’s comments. This is like Bullying the fat kid for going to the gym and trying to better themselves.
While it is no secret that the permissionless and pseudo-anonymous nature of blockchain has allowed some bad actors to use the technology to perform scams. Blockchain is a useful technology, and that statement is being continuously backed up by the ever interested free market. Bitcoin recently went over a one trillion dollar market cap. Many of the world’s fortune 500 companies have recently started investing billions into Bitcoin and other crypto currencies. The country of El Salvador just signed into law that they recognize Bitcoin as legal tender, and is requiring that every business and government office in the country accept it as a form of payment. They even let you pay your taxes in Bitcoin.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/nvn4sa/el_salvador_has_passed_the_law_its_official/
Whether you like it or not, crypto currencies are growing in popularity every year and are here to stay.
Provided we don’t drive them away first and blockchain interested developers decide they like Rust, they may become the ones who help you with your next rust problem, who wrote or maintain that library you come to use every day, or who help you with your next project.
Yes, it is known that a possible majority of current Rust job openings are for blockchain companies, and it is completely understandable that that might be frustrating to developers who love Rust but aren't particularly interested in working with blockchain. I am not advocating that we upvote every blockchain post we see. But I am asking that we not actively downvote anyone who mentions even a casual interest in blockchain, and for us to keep our own community guidelines in mind before downvoting others.
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