Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

meta.stackexchange.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 333 posts

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#141

Post by alexhutcheson »

bane wrote: post #94
rusk wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the good old "X/Y Problem" [0] Doesn't matter if Y is non-negotiable, or if I've purposely constrained Y, to get a specific answer for a specific technology. How infuriating for a "Questions and Answers" site, to be told when you're asking a question, that the question you're asking is wrong, and that "you should instead have asked ..." I swear to god, the SO mods are the dumbest, most priggish, humourless be…

You see this phenomenon here on HN all the time. Find anybody asking a question or help to figure something out and the first couple answers will likely be "why are you doing it that way?", followed by almost completely useless advice to do something else entirely a completely different way.

Why didn't you write it in Rust?

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#142

Post by Dayshine »

mieseratte wrote: post #28
mellosouls wrote: post #12

There is no detail of the actual argument, just loads of people claiming to be in the know and indicating toxic behaviour and dramatic battles behind the scenes. There's a lot of flouncing resignations and "we need to talk" style essays also revealing little of substance. Considering the passion involved some people have clearly been hurt, but perhaps that's due to the amount of time they have invested in somebody el…

> There's a lot of flouncing resignations and "we need to talk" style essays also revealing little of substance. I feel similarly, I've read all of Monica Cellio's posts and still have no real idea what is going on. Lot's of talk of DMs and messages and emails, but nothing concrete posted, just he said / she said, all while alleging personal innocence and purity. If there is some concrete evidence and examples, put u…

Well, they were internally discussing a proposed Code of Conduct. I imagine mods are bound by an NDA, and management are choosing not to share.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#143

Post by LeoNatan25 »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #131
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because someone who is active in a community and has high confidence by the community (= high points), it is more likely that this person is capable of moderating this community better than someone who is not familiar with the subjects of the community.

That's the problem though, isn't it? > high confidence by the community = high points High confidence at answering questions. We don't get to vote on moderation, closed as dupe, deletion etc. Karma is only a weak indicator of being a good moderator. Sure they may know the subject well, but that's not reflective of a good and empathetic moderator. Frustration with this is one of the main reasons I just stopped logging…

I guess everyone sees the issue from their own point of view, of which there are many, and there isn’t one magic bullet to solve them all. I stopped participating because of the push to be more “welcoming”, even to those that put “it’s happening to me too, what I do???” as answers or those that can’t be bothered to search for anything, just want a solution HERE AND NOW. SO used to be a lot more strict than it is now, but people are complaining a lot more these days than before. That, too, says something about the community.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#144

Post by MrStonedOne »

Pfhreak wrote: post #136

Reading between the lines, it looks like a queer mod felt unsupported by SE over a long period of time, and SE eventually decided to make a code of conduct change. These mods disagreed with that change (some using language like "thought crime") which precipitated their resignations?

It looks more like one mod voiced something potentially ranging between legit concerns to outright argumentative opposition (we don't know) and got demodded for that, and a bunch of other mods are quitting in protest in part because of that, and in part because they feel it went from a mod as first class citizens community with a business component to a top down structure of decisions they have no say in.

Basically if there was going to be a new rule, some of the mods would have preferred if SE had came to meta and asked for help writing it and feedback on it, and instead of being told what the new rule was going to be.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#146

Post by mjw1007 »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #111
bane wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You see this phenomenon here on HN all the time. Find anybody asking a question or help to figure something out and the first couple answers will likely be "why are you doing it that way?", followed by almost completely useless advice to do something else entirely a completely different way.

We aren't here to just answer your homework question. Why you're doing something is part of the conversation and its context. It's also part of asking a good question. I don't understand the uproar especially on a Q&A site.

This behaviour is particularly bad on a Q&A site that aims, as SO claims to do, to optimise for future readers (rather than the individual asking the question).

It leads to a page with a clear question at the top and a great deal of text below which is not an answer to that question.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#147

Post by jkeuhlen »

pjc50 wrote: post #82
MrStonedOne wrote: post #29

This is natural selection at work. Stack Exchange has become a frustrating site to use. "Closed as duplicate: different and unrelated question" reopen further explaining the question and how its not related "Closed as duplicate: the first question that was immediately closed with no replies" OR! Google around, find SE link on issue, everybody is arguing about why the user wants to do it that why, convinces them to do…

StackExchange needs a sibling forum. I know forums are in opposition to everything that SE stands for, but for quite a lot of cases the questioner would benefit more from a back-and-forth, or open-ended discussion, and then at the end of the process if it's been refined then turn it into a question. If not, then let the thread auto-close and maybe even expire into deletion. Also, any SE equivalent needs to understand…

Each site has a chat room where you can have the back-and-forth to clarify a question or refine it. So this already exists to some degree.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#148

Post by ridaj »

MrStonedOne wrote: post #29

This is natural selection at work. Stack Exchange has become a frustrating site to use. "Closed as duplicate: different and unrelated question" reopen further explaining the question and how its not related "Closed as duplicate: the first question that was immediately closed with no replies" OR! Google around, find SE link on issue, everybody is arguing about why the user wants to do it that why, convinces them to do…

Talking about X/Y problem — the actual incident described here doesn't seem to have anything to do with it, but rather to the ham-fisted handling of a disagreement between the company and a moderator. Or is there some relation between the two, eg was the disagreement about how to handle answers to what look like the wrong questions to ask?

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#149

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

rusk wrote: post #41
MrStonedOne wrote: post #29

This is natural selection at work. Stack Exchange has become a frustrating site to use. "Closed as duplicate: different and unrelated question" reopen further explaining the question and how its not related "Closed as duplicate: the first question that was immediately closed with no replies" OR! Google around, find SE link on issue, everybody is arguing about why the user wants to do it that why, convinces them to do…

Ah yes, the good old "X/Y Problem" [0] Doesn't matter if Y is non-negotiable, or if I've purposely constrained Y, to get a specific answer for a specific technology. How infuriating for a "Questions and Answers" site, to be told when you're asking a question, that the question you're asking is wrong, and that "you should instead have asked ..." I swear to god, the SO mods are the dumbest, most priggish, humourless be…

> to be told when you're asking a question, that the question you're asking is wrong

I've long associated this behavior with Linux evangelists, and one wonders how much cross over there is with the people who answer questions on SO. It seems like both categories would be attractive to the kind of holier-than-thou mindset that would do this.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#150

Post by LoneWolf123 »

Back in the day I used to be among top users on that site - they even sent me a T-shirt at some time. Left several years ago, as the site became toxic.

I'm not mentioning this "top user" thing on my resume anymore, because not relevant.

The site is still an excellent source of information about all things that were cool ten years ago, such as Java, Spring, SQL, Python.

Post reply on HN