[akerl_]

> I have endured a sustained campaign of abuse from members of the VOGONS forum, been labelled a "clout-chaser", had threats sent to my personal email address, code been used in other projects without proper accreditation, my 3D print designs stolen and sold by faceless eBay/Etsy sellers, personal attacks made towards me when people don't get their feature request... the list goes on and on.

None of that sounds like a gray area to me.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

There's an argument to be made that whether that rises to the level of harassment is up to the recipient of the of behaviour in question.

Another person may well just see it as a cost of doing business, a cost of operating in the world. There will be detractors, some of those will be malevolent snakes. We can mostly just ignore those as they very rarely represent a real and immanent threat.

If you've got nothing better to do with your time than waste it trying to antagonise a situation, you're probably wasting your life. And maybe the recipient can come to understand they can choose to be flattered by the attention - if many people are exerting effort to put you down, more power to you - you might actually be doing something important, and people hate that.

[akerl_]

Suggesting that people who publish open source should be flattered by harassment is a fascinating take.