stoat.exposed
Founder exhibit · Insert
The we, the I, and the Ltd.
Stoat’s landing page is a chorus. The FAQ is a single owner. Companies House is one name. This page is that person’s public record.
Identity
Pawel Makles, also Insert.
Public names attached to the same project: GitHub insertish, handle Insert, legal name Pawel Makles (Companies House also files “Pawel”). Born March 2003, Polish national, UK resident. Domain contact for stoat.chat. Data controller of your messages. Person of significant control of Revolt Platforms Ltd, 75% or more.
GitHub README, current: “i currently work @ FUTO on the Immich team / i made Stoat (formerly Revolt) / fastest way to reach me is through the Stoat Lounge or at insert#0751 on Discord.” The Discord-alternative founder still routes the fastest ping through Discord.
The original three
Vale’s history, written by a long-time Revolt contributor who later designed Toast: in 2019 three students in their mid-teens, Paul Makles, Rene Vinter (Nizune), and Martin Löffler (FatalErrorCoded), ran Riot on Patreon. It died mid-2019. Revolt started in late 2019 as a Rust learning project. The API server’s name stuck.
Vinter left in early 2023. Löffler’s contributions slowed, then stopped. Vortex 2.0, the old voice stack, entered development hell after that departure. LiveKit replaced it years later and still launched unusable. The “team” on the blog is mostly the person who remained, plus later maintainers (infi on Android, zomatree on iOS, Declan Chidlow on docs, bots, and the mascot).
How he talks in public
On why Revolt exists, first person. “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).”
On money, first person. “if you want to make a larger donation, please consult me first.” Personal Ko-fi split: “long overdue… Future donations here will just fuel my development costs.”
On the rebrand, first person, two days late. “I apologise for the way this ended up being handled… I intend to write up a postmorterm within the next week.”
On the landing page, chorus. “We’ve got no board to please.” “We actually listen.” “Free and open source, now and forever.”
The week that keeps slipping
3 October 2025: a postmortem “within the next week.” The live updates index still has the rebrand post and no postmortem of that week. May 2024: licensing “by the end of May,” then a June addendum that still owed Discover and Shield. May 2024: financial transparency reports coming soon. GitHub discussion #1050: the “main character” tagline, 161 thumbs up on the complaint, locked by Declan Chidlow after “starting to turn into attacks,” with a promise the line would change.
He does ship. Discriminators, an architecture overhaul, Android, a new web client, a million registered users. The exhibit is the mismatch: a homepage that sounds like a foundation, a filing that sounds like a sole trader, and a calendar full of “next week.”
What this page will not do
It will not recycle a rival’s CSAM threads as evidence. Those posts live on r/dcts and get cited from dcts.community as “trustworthiness.” Stoat’s AUP forbids CSAM. A single Trustpilot review is not a finding.
It will not invent a lifestyle. There are no public receipts of parties funded by Ko-fi. There are two tip jars, a Ltd with unpublished first accounts, and a founder who also has a FUTO salary. That is already the story.
If you would not hand a community’s plaintext message history to one 23-year-old whose legal entity still uses the name a lawyer made him drop, you already understand the product.