They actually don't. You can just ignore them. I get that people find them unpleasant. But "finding somebody unpleasant" is different from "someone costs you money."
No you can't, because they report bugs in the same place that all the other people do, they create spam accounts, they concern troll, they divert conversations onto their pet issues, they do everything people have done to irritate other people on the internet for ages. It's very well understood behavior to anyone who has used an internet forum in the past 20 years and also obvious there is no magical way to filter this all out. You're running the project or part of the maintainer team, YOU have to separate the wheat from the chaff, no magical algorithm or "trick" is going to do it for you.
This is before the fun part where, depending on the level of "personality" you're dealing with, you might end up getting a fun weirdo who becomes obsessed with you for a little while and makes life miserable for everyone involved. I know one person who was stalked on GitHub (before they let you ban people from interacting with you, a fairly recent feature) and this person would comment on literally EVERYTHING they did, but only in a "nice" and "helpful" tone. You can't tune that shit out so easily, I'm afraid.
To be fair you also get some lesser psychopaths'; the angry guy who reported his bugs, replied and demanded to be replied to via Lisp programs in quoted code blocks was a more memorable one.
> because they report bugs in the same place that all the other people do, they create spam accounts, they concern troll, they divert conversations onto their pet issues, they do everything people have done to irritate other people on the internet for ages.
What this is saying that if your "free software project" includes anything more than providing the source code for free online--in other words, if it includes things like a bug tracker, a discussion forum, etc., that you are actually paying attention to--then it's not just a "free software project" any more, it's more like a "free website", and has many of the same issues people are discussing here relative to the latter. And the solution would be much the same: your time and effort isn't free, so if you're giving it to the project, the project shouldn't be free; you should charge for it.
What I would consider "free software" is beside the point. I'm not trying to propose a new definition of "free software" or argue for some particular way of labeling projects as "free software". I'm just pointing out that if a project author decides to provide anything more in relation to their project than their source code for free online, they are taking on a potential burden in time and effort, and if the burden becomes too much for them to provide for free, they will either need to start charging for it, or stop doing it. The SSLPing project has taken option number two.
Love to see your email filter that separates messages from helpful users from demanding users.
If you can't automate this step, you have to read the insults, and pleading, and jerk-faced comments from the demanding users. Which takes time and energy.
My filter is my brain. I just... don't interact with people who don't seem worth interacting with.
And, look, that's not perfect and I'm not saying that it's not unpleasant. I'm saying that it's materially different from every person who uses your service costing you actual dollars. And if you can't see that, I honestly don't know what to tell you.
If you filter who can complain, you do not have to deal with those that you do not care about.
SAAS with free tier does it this way:
* To contact support via non-app method you need a PIN. PIN is displayed when you login into your paid account. Don't have a PIN? Can't connect to support.
* To contact support via app method your profile needs to be associated with a paid account. Don't have a paid account? Can't contact support via inapp
This is before the fun part where, depending on the level of "personality" you're dealing with, you might end up getting a fun weirdo who becomes obsessed with you for a little while and makes life miserable for everyone involved. I know one person who was stalked on GitHub (before they let you ban people from interacting with you, a fairly recent feature) and this person would comment on literally EVERYTHING they did, but only in a "nice" and "helpful" tone. You can't tune that shit out so easily, I'm afraid.
To be fair you also get some lesser psychopaths'; the angry guy who reported his bugs, replied and demanded to be replied to via Lisp programs in quoted code blocks was a more memorable one.