The Ruby community has been eating itself alive since almost the beginning, but it is sad to see the short-sighted destruction of trust and connection that this has had.
Predating the current hostile takeover: •••the vitriol directed at early critics like Zed Shaw •••mysterious departure of _why the lucky stiff •••the contentious Code of Conduct •••DHH •••uneasy truce after the toxic tribalism of the Rails vs. Merb
There's more, but the linked article can send you down more interesting rabbit holes than more bullets on my list
Zed Shaw, sure, but that's a single person (though a very vocal one; I always liked his work, but he was pretty outspoken and that got under people's skin)
DHH - yes, opinionated to a fault and outspoken like ZS, prone to create division, but that was always more about Rails than Ruby (this is not a comment on DHH recently, which I know nothing about; I stopped being active in Ruby/Rails community over a dozen years ago).
Rails vs Merb - again I think you're conflating the Rails community with the Ruby community
Someone can shush away any behavior if they want, like you have done. Feel free to provide an alternate history or context for the current Ruby community upheaval if you want, but just dismissing the problems of the past doesn't help anyone.
> I'm not sure what corner of the Ruby world you've been hiding in.
I did say that I haven't been involved for the past dozen years. Before that I was definitely there when Rails burst onto the Ruby scene and its early years. I realize the overlap but they were still pretty distinct -- though maybe that's changed in the past decade.
I developed with Ruby from the beginning and loved Ruby on Rails for many reasons. The community's backstabbing nature and callousness toward people who put a lot of work in was not something I ever admired and it's led us here.