> Something I have noticed is that the more people join a project, the more it begins to go off the rails, and the less productive each member of the team becomes. [...] many of the newcomers spend the bulk of their time, if not actually sabotaging the project, doing the next best thing. They do their best to drive the project in the wrong direction. In so doing, they waste the valuable time of everyone around them who is forced to clean up the messes they leave behind. These are intelligent people, so I do not believe they are incapable of understanding the vision that caused the project to be born. I think, rather, they just don't care. Some call this "not being a team player", but I call it narcissism.
Er... reading this, I would rather suspect the author of "not being a team player". Of course, if other developers find your project interesting and want to contribute, they may have their own features and use cases in mind that don't necessarily overlap with what you have planned, which doesn't however mean that it has to be a "wrong direction". As the owner of the project, you are free to accept their contributions or not, and they are free to fork the project and take it into another direction if you don't like that direction.
Er... reading this, I would rather suspect the author of "not being a team player". Of course, if other developers find your project interesting and want to contribute, they may have their own features and use cases in mind that don't necessarily overlap with what you have planned, which doesn't however mean that it has to be a "wrong direction". As the owner of the project, you are free to accept their contributions or not, and they are free to fork the project and take it into another direction if you don't like that direction.