Founder exhibit · Insert
Do not hand this person your DMs.
The landing page is a cooperative. The FAQ is one owner. Companies House is one name. The Discord alternative still lists a Discord handle as the fastest way to reach him.
One person, several storefronts.
Public names attached to the same project: Pawel Makles (Companies House also files Pawel), Insert, GitHub insertish, Discord insert#0751 and @insertish, insrt.uk, ko-fi.com/insertish, ko-fi.com/stoatchat, Revolt Platforms Ltd, GitHub location ::1, raccoon.
The personal site still says “i made Revolt” and “700k+ registered users.” Stoat’s own blog later claimed a million, then a million and a half. He never finished the rebrand on his own homepage. Contact methods, in order: Revolt Lounge, Discord, email. The CMS, he writes, “got wiped off the face of the Earth.” The rebuild is “under construction.”
Also on that homepage: a first-class MSci from King’s College London, and “i’ve been programming for just over 14 years.” The degree is real. The raccoon is the mascot of the man who wants you to treat a Ltd like a commune.
Say we. File I.
stoat.chat speaks in chorus: “We’ve got no board to please.” “We actually listen.” “Free and open source, now and forever.” The FAQ is labeled, in the first line, “written from the perspective of the project owner.” Large donations: “please consult me first.” The company is one shareholder. The coffee page was his name for years. The split onto a project Ko-fi was, in his words, “long overdue.” The personal page is still live, still taking money for “development costs.”
A lawyer made him drop Revolt. The UK filing is still called Revolt Platforms Ltd. Financial transparency reports have been “coming soon ™️” since 10 May 2024. GitHub: he currently works at FUTO on Immich. The day job has a salary. The chat app has volunteers. You are the we.
The voice in the files.
On why this exists. “I’ve had a few people say, ‘why not just contribute to X?’, the answer is quite simple, I just didn’t know about any of these projects (i.e. Matrix).”
Later in the same FAQ, Matrix is “unlikely, obtuse and unstable.” He discovered it existed, then graded it. “Reinventing the wheel is part of the process.”
On money. “we have amassed a significant amount of money from donations alone. (financial transparency reports coming soon ™️)”
The trademark is doing a lot of work. So is “consult me first.”
On the rebrand, two days late. “I intend to write up a postmorterm within the next week.”
He spelled postmortem with an extra r. He did not ship the extra r either.
On FOSS week, May 2024. “Ignore the drama completely going forwards.” “Double down on FOSS branding (this is mostly just me being chaotic).”
Chaotic is the official strategy. The Android source was still closed. Discover still “makes business sense” not to publish. The CLA, while it lasted, was for “commerical licensing options.” He spelled commercial with an e. The revenue stream was theoretical. The volunteers were not.
On the rest of the masthead. “everything is on a volunteer basis.”
He will not “exert control over anyone’s views” unless it is “truly detrimental.” Helpfulness is “not a strict requirement.” The roadmap for when X ships lives at op.stoatinternal.com, a forge you cannot browse. The FAQ asks you to “liase” with them, and to budget for the “occassional” hardware expense. The owner’s own spelling is the documentation.
FAQ · Long Live Stoat · Vale inquiry, archived · 11 May 2024, archived · insrt.uk
A community with a raccoon and no payroll.
The original three ran Riot on Patreon. Riot died. Revolt ate the name of an API server. Rene Vinter left in 2023. Martin Löffler’s voice stack entered development hell after he stopped. Jennifer kept Android closed, Vale wrote, so she could “collect praise.” Zomatree answered FOSS with “cope” and “chad.” Insert asked Vale for more examples, promised “due time,” and kept both of them.
May 2024: people were “permanently dropping their association.” He would not chase them. University, flu, and a “semester from hell” are the published calendar for why Discover, Shield, and the CLA took a year of email. He does ship: discriminators, a new web client, registered-user milestones. The other names on the blog are volunteers. The large cheque is an appointment. The FUTO job is the one that pays.
Next week is a personality.
3 October 2025: postmortem in seven days. Still no post. End of May 2024: licensing sorted. June addendum still owed Discover and Shield. 10 May 2024: books coming soon, with a trademark. GitHub #1050: users compared the “main character” tagline to a protein powder ad. Maintainers locked the thread. The line would change “in the near future.” The man who sells “we actually listen” closed the comments.
Self-hosting does not save you from the admin.
You are trusting one person with plaintext messages, a date of birth, an IP, and a UK Ltd that still uses the name a lawyer made him drop. Official clients mostly cannot point at a self-hosted instance. The tip jar used to be his personal page. The FAQ still has a joke trademark where a ledger should be.
A mean maintainer is a product defect. An overwhelmed maintainer who writes “ignore the drama” and “consult me first” is the same defect with better copy. If the software were excellent, the person would still be a reason to walk. The software is a Discord skin that crashed under the refugees. The person is the part that does not get a patch.