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Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

dearstackexchange.com

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Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#81

Post by anon12345690 »

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

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#82

Post by ALittleLight »

MrStonedOne wrote: post #76
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…

Just because quit is an option doesn't mean some can't or shouldn't choose to try and make a final ditch effort to save something they care about. Sure, to somebody who doesn't care, its easy judge the fact that they care, telling them to just stop caring. Unfortunately people don't work that way and if you ask somebody who has volunteered at a food shelter or drop in center for 5 years if they would walk away the mo…

They aren't working at a food bank though. They are helping a company make money. If you heard your waiter complain that the for profit restaurant he volunteered for treated him badly, repeatedly, and had no signs of changing, you might ask him why he doesn't consider not working there anymore.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#83

Post by je42 »

This is totally sad. I really wonder how a company could publish a year ago in 2018 "Our Theory of Moderation, Re-visited.":

> Trust people. > Supporting people should be your default reaction

and then a year later be in this current state.

Worse is, SE seems to unable to reactify the situation in a meaninful and trustful way.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#84

Post by igor47 »

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 am a bot that automatically translated and shortened the parent comment. a more concise version follows:

  > i have no idea what's going on here, but while i remain ignorant, here are some opinions.
  > * people other than me are doing it wrong, probably because they're much less clever.
  > * building a community is so easy, anyone can do it.
  > * the most constructive way to engage is to disengage.
  > * some people's hard work is actually useless.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#85

Post by edoceo »

olingern wrote: post #73
brian-armstrong wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a shockingly unempathetic way to view the situation. These people have poured lots of their time into making SO work, and they deserve to be heard. There's no way anybody could build this service without volunteers. These things don't just spring up from the ground on their own, and as someone who uses the SE properties for personal and professional reasons, I hope these moderators can find some sort of satis…

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.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#86

Post by je42 »

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

i think the disagreement is the trigger.

It looks like the deeper issue is that the way how some SE people dealt with the disagreement has been causing a lot of pain and distrust.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#87

Post by khazhou »

Pfhreak wrote: post #59
anon12345690 wrote: post #48

yea these pronouns affect like 0.01% of people but go ahead and worry about them instead of everyone else and youll ruin every community when are people gonna figure out that you cant make everyone happy and the people who whine about pronouns wont ever stop nice downvotes lol, cant handle the truth?

Pronouns affect most people. Most people use them. If you are talking about trans people, it's estimated to be about 1-3% of people. That's roughly one in thirty to one in a hundred people. That puts it at about the roughly same numbers as the number of redheads. It's uncommon, sure, but it's not totally minuscule. Trans folks are also one of the most likely (if not the most likely) minorities to suffer physical viol…

1-3% does not pass the sniff test. Way too high.

A quick search gives the number 0.6% according to a 2016 study.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#88

Post by stOneskull »

xvector wrote: post #55
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…

> going as far as buying a domain and setting up a website to publicize how upset you are, just to complain to a place that you volunteer at, you know, maybe it's time to just let it go. This is a terribly shortsighted interpretation. Stack Exchange is a community like any other. Volunteers tend to care about the communities they take part in. It is entirely reasonable to complain if you volunteer in a community and…

i don't think it's trolling. it's just a different opinion. may not agree but i do appreciate individual expression.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#89

Post by mister_hn »

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.

They've got compensated in visibility. I don't know any moderator with less than 20k points to date.

And the more points you have, the upper you stay in the ranks and you can always embed their badge in your website.

So, yes, they don't earn money, but they receive visibility

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#90

Post by wpietri »

zonidjan wrote: post #61
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…

> Maybe don't volunteer there. StackExchange isn't even a charity, it's a private for-profit company. This. Stop giving your time for the profit of people who don't care about you. You want to help the community? You want to be respected? Great! Find some like-minded people, start a new site, maybe even make it a non-profit or at least democratic. But above all, stop making rich people richer off your labor

Yeah, it kills me when they say they are "people who have invested a lot in the network". Sorry, kids, but investors get stock. Employees get paid. And only non-profits have volunteers.

Stack Exchange describes themselves as a "a hyper-growth enterprise software company" [1]. I have no idea why anybody's giving them free labor. I'll happily volunteer for Wikipedia. But until somebody sets up a non-profit Q&A site, there's no way I'm contributing content.

[1] https://stackoverflow.blog/2019/09/24/announcing-stack-overf...

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