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SE’s actions seem heavy-handed to say the least, and to be fair it is a private platform dictated by their own rules - but what this will lead to is disillusionment within the community and honestly I feel this has been a long time coming. If neither the mods nor users feel heard, who does this “platform” serve?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Monica already posted everything from her side here: https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-... Or is there some specific piece of information you feel she is withholding?
She posted her side of the story, with no material backing information making, as I’ve said, a he-said-she-said tale. We don’t know anything material of the exchange. Yet everyone feels compelled to assume bad faith on SE’s part.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is basically guilt determined by a closed court in which the accused has no representation and no reason is given for the judgement, and in fact even the rule they've been found guilty of isn't disclosed, even to them. So what is it exactly that they've done to earn any benefit of the doubt?
It’s a private website, not the US Supreme Court. Try applying that same standard on HN! They’ve done nothing to earn my doubt, I don’t start from an assumption of guilt as you do. Y’all are some toxic reactionary shits. Thanks for the reminder of why I quit this site the first time buddy! Stay salty, HN!
A few dozen long-time moderators vouching for the one that was fired and stepping down should inspire some doubt. Personally, vague judgements that say "she totally, repeatedly overstepped the lines, and didn't want to change after we confronted her, but we won't comment on issues like these" always sound fishy to me. If they won't comment, they wouldn't have commented. It looks like "we're inventing reasons that make people shut up about it because we don't have an actual case that we could present".
is there a summary of events that occurred? There's lots of confusing accounts and it's impossible to piece together the facts.
Stack Exchange is perceived by many people to be unwelcoming. There has been persistent concern that SE is even more unwelcoming to people with protected characteristics.
SE have made considerable effort to fix this.
Recently they've been looking at codes of conduct.
The most recent version of this includes a request, or maybe a requirement, to use a person's preferred pronouns.
Some people refuse to do this because God tells them it's wrong to do so. Other people refuse to do this because, well, I dunno I've never understood why calling someone "he" instead of "she" is such a burden.
Stack Exchange is telling those people that their refusal to use a preferred pronoun is not compatible with being a moderator at SE, and so they removed one mod.
She posted her version of events to one of the SE sites, and this caused a bunch of other mods to "resign" their posts in support of her.
EDIT: I've tried to word this as neutrally as I can.
To respond to a couple of comments: Bob says "please use 'he' when talking about me, and Ann says "No, I can't do that because God tells me it's wrong. I'll use 'them' instead." -- I don't see how this can be anything other than Ann refusing to use Bob's choice of pronouns. Note that I haven't used the word "misgendering".
As a former operator of a (much smaller) community website, I understand the motives behind SE actions. They want to avoid discussions about gender-neutral pronouns and other contentious topics completely. There are only risks and no benefits for SE business in such discussions.They actually do not want discussions, just questions and answers. Jeff Atwood once wrote a blog post about their effort to stiffle discussion on SE sites. Notice how their comments are difficult to use and see.
Unfortunately, SE is many people with different goals, someone made the move to update the CoC, and now SE management has to tame the public outrage.
IMO, the right management decision is to silently fire or move the person behind the CoC update, remove moderator status from Monica forever and publicly define limits to SE discussions in future annoucements.
SE’s actions seem heavy-handed to say the least, and to be fair it is a private platform dictated by their own rules - but what this will lead to is disillusionment within the community and honestly I feel this has been a long time coming. If neither the mods nor users feel heard, who does this “platform” serve?
I see a lot of complaints, about questions closed as redundant etc, and about moderation, but what keeps someone from putting a better version up? In particular unlike quora, the reputation of the person answering doesn't seem as important. most people would accept anyone's answer as long as it works.
so what's the important network effect here?
is there a summary of events that occurred? There's lots of confusing accounts and it's impossible to piece together the facts.
It's a bit confusing because a mod was removed, and a bunch of other mods resigned in support, and then it came out that she'd been removed for refusing to use people's preferred pronouns. Stack Exchange is perceived by many people to be unwelcoming. There has been persistent concern that SE is even more unwelcoming to people with protected characteristics. SE have made considerable effort to fix this. Recently they'…
is there a summary of events that occurred? There's lots of confusing accounts and it's impossible to piece together the facts.
It's a bit confusing because a mod was removed, and a bunch of other mods resigned in support, and then it came out that she'd been removed for refusing to use people's preferred pronouns. Stack Exchange is perceived by many people to be unwelcoming. There has been persistent concern that SE is even more unwelcoming to people with protected characteristics. SE have made considerable effort to fix this. Recently they'…