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> But they can also mess up a project with giving power to non-developers who focus on changes like redoing the UX every release

Have you found that a new developer is meaningfully less likely to recommend redoing the UX compared to a new non-developer? Personally my sense is that desire to update the UX is more closely correlated with the "newness" than development ability.

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>Have you found that a new developer is meaningfully less likely to recommend redoing the UX compared to a new non-developer?

Kind of. New developers tend to do some bug fixing here and there, or implementing some small feature, not dictate major changes. And if they do, they're ignored or debated, and that's it.

That would be overwhelmingly true of most non-developer contributors too: they maybe submit one feature request that gets brushed off and then aren't heard from again. The question isn't whether most members of a given demographic are successful in derailing things or not, the question is if non-developer contributors are disproportionately likely to be disruptive to the project.

I don't believe that to be the case, but am open to examples that provide evidence in favor of the claim.

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