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Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

dearstackexchange.com

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Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#111

Post by Buge »

ALittleLight wrote: post #58
moneywoes wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a TLDR of what happened anywhere?

Seems like there was a disagreement regarding the use of gender pronouns that resulted in 73 moderators getting "fired" or leaving. The author of that summary mentioned one thing I found especially egregious, which is a policy that stated avoiding using pronouns was out of alignment. If I understand correctly, when she asked how they would know if she was avoiding pronouns or just naturally not writing them, she was…

1 was fired. 73 then left in support of her.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#112

Post by ShamelessC »

anon12345690 wrote: post #74
Pfhreak wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? Like, just accept people and call them what they ask to be called? Why make a big deal out of someone who prefers they or xe or he or she or whatever?

literally not the problem here more like people cant use Bob in an example and say He because "what if Bob is trans" comes up. cant even say "they" to be neutral because apparently "singular they" is offensive. this is dumb. its not a real problem for the site. the rest of us dont need to deal with all that because some people have nothing better to do.

I keep seeing this notion that the singular they is offensive. I thought its whole purpose was to be more inclusive. At what point did it become offensive and why is it considered to be offensive?

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#113

Post by brian-armstrong »

edoceo wrote: post #85
olingern wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Without these people the site could fall into a mess of bad answers or a self promotion answer driven platform like Quora.

Sounds like they are so important they should have been compensated. I mean, if they were so critical to the success.

There are more forms of wealth than just cash. Some people find it rewarding to help others, and SE is set up to make it so that people could create the canonical answer to a particular question. This is a force multiplier so that helpful answers can reach a maximum audience.

This probably won't continue to feel satisfying if SE doesn't show respect for its volunteers. The force multiplier only exists because the moderators keep the site clean and well-organized. It sounds like SE both explicitly and implicitly showed gratitude for this effort, but now they are failing to do so.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#114

Post by Buge »

ShamelessC wrote: post #97
ALittleLight wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like there was a disagreement regarding the use of gender pronouns that resulted in 73 moderators getting "fired" or leaving. The author of that summary mentioned one thing I found especially egregious, which is a policy that stated avoiding using pronouns was out of alignment. If I understand correctly, when she asked how they would know if she was avoiding pronouns or just naturally not writing them, she was…

Is the implication that the LGBTQ+ community found it _more_ offensive to use e.g. "they" than "he" or "she"? I'm so confused. Wouldn't "they" (the gender neutral version) be _more_ inclusive? Is there some other alternative that's even better that I haven't considered? I hope I'm not offending anyone by asking this. Just trying to make sure I understand.

Monica wanted to write in a way such that she would never use the words "he", "she", or singular "they". Stack Exchange said it's not OK to write in a restricted way like that, the words must be used.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#115

Post by p1esk »

chimi wrote: post #36
wavefunction wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what do you mean by support? I google and sometimes use their content and that's it. There are other sources.

By support I mean, continue to moderate their website for them. Answer questions for them. Ask questions of them. Continue to give them time and help them create the product they are going to sell to someone else and keep all the money for themselves. And also support by voicing concerns. Showing them what their user base wants when they clearly don't care what their user base wants, only what they want in their wall…

I ask questions there because I get good answers quickly. Sometimes I see questions in my field of expertise and I answer them. Which other site should I go to instead to have that?

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#116

Post by wpietri »

sytelus wrote: post #34
ldigas wrote: post #22

While, in the beginning, a very active user, I've long now given up on that network. I can't remember when was the last time I asked a question without being forced to defend it for a period of at least a few hours, why it shouldn't be closed as a duplicate, offtopic or ... It used to be an excellent network, but nowadays it's just script-kiddies-playing-admins/editors playground. It is no longer a productive technic…

I don't understand this cry against moderators. These people are volunteerily giving their time to keep quality bar high without any payment. If these people weren't there then SO will be full of duplicates, off-topic and opinion based Q&A just like Quora. A general tendency I have seen is just to ask (often poorly stated) questions without doing simple search to see if it is already answered. Someone needs to respec…

I think SO is poorly designed as a system. It certainly does encourage people to ask not-so-great questions. It doesn't handle them particularly well. And then expects people to clean up the mess for free. Those people of course feel stressed and overwhelmed, so are inclined to be rude, aggressive, and hasty in their decisions.

Like ldigas, I long ago gave up on SO because of bad moderation experiences. I'm grudgingly willing to respect those mods as humans, but I certainly won't as moderators. They do a poor job, needlessly offending and discouraging contributors. They could quit any time. They could go on strike at any time. But no, they just kept on.

I can definitely muster up some sympathy when people trapped in bad jobs are jerks. They are doing it to survive. But people who volunteer to be jerks? That's on them.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#117

Post by hitekker »

dangus wrote: post #26

I'm totally out of the loop about what this drama is about, and I'll stay that way. These are unpaid community moderators. They are essentially volunteers doing this work because they want to. So let's ponder to ourselves and relate this to our own lives, what kind of relationship do we have with the organizations and people we do volunteer work with? If you're at a point where you're so dissatisfied that you're writ…

> I'm totally out of the loop about what this drama is about, and I'll stay that way.

Yes, you who claims not to want to know, and then spends time and effort writing vitriol about the subject you don't want to know about.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#118

Post by tim58 »

Espressosaurus wrote: post #19
ronnier wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politics have crept into every aspect of life unfortunately.

Politics is part of every human endeavor: between kids on the playground, in the workplace, at the level of local, regional, national, and international governments and businesses. Politics and the negotiation of status and access between various in and out groups is a fundamental part of being human.

Thank you. There is a tendency in tech people to dismiss politics as less than important ("just politics", "just political"). It's a fundamental part of our social fabric.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#119

Post by fenomas »

ben174 wrote: post #15

It's incredible that pronouns can bring down an entire community. Pick you battles please, we're losing good things because of this silly conflict.

Apparently, the issue here is that SE removed a respected moderator but isn't telling the community what happened, why, what the removal process was or will be in the future, etc. Pronouns is what was being discussed at the time, but it doesn't seem to be the high-order bit.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#120

Post by Buge »

anon12345690 wrote: post #81
fenwick67 wrote: post #7

I would love a nice couple paragraphs that said "here's what happened", otherwise taking any side in this is just taking shots in the dark, I'm basically reading "certain events happened with a certain individual and that's not okay"

apparently anything on the site like a code example that talks about people like Bob and Alice cant use He and She - because it might offend the 0.01% of people who think that everyone needs to state their pronouns. apparently even saying They isnt enough. its what happens when you give in to the tiny minority that will always complain about something

Do you have a source for your claim that code examples with Alice and Bob with she/he pronouns are not accepted on Stack Exchange? I haven't seen any claim like that before.
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