The Factory Floor

HDE 226868

17:56

Happy timezone, all.

Gryphon

Happy timzone, HDE.

James

Whats shakin all?

@HDE226868 Did you read the meta post yet? I am hesitant to even look...

HDE 226868

@James Read it and answered it, yes.

It is . . . very, very bad.

James

@HDE226868 That was my concern...well here we go again.

HDE 226868

This is just my opinion, but . . . SO could not realistically have written a worse response.

Secespitus

18:00

@HDE226868 Completely agree

Gryphon

Do any mods have any comment on this answer? It's fine if you don't, or don't want to take sides, but this seems to potentially contradict some of the stuff Monica has said, so I just wanted to see if anyone who had more information was able/willing to say anything about it.

HDE 226868

@Gryphon As far as I'm aware, the first paragraph appears to be correct. I'm familiar with at least some of the incidents alluded to.

Gryphon

OK, good to know.

James

@HDE226868 Ok so I appreciate you were trying to give me low expectations but...you failed. That is a garbage response.

HDE 226868

@Gryphon This comment is also accurate:

@DarthFennec It's true that Monica didn't want to use singular they, even when someone else said "that's the pronoun I want used for me." But Monica didn't refuse to write in a gender-neutral way, she tried (respectfully) to discuss alternative ways she could write w/out using singular they. Continuing to try to find alternatives that worked for her but were still respectful was, in itself, considered harmful and disrespecful. — Ward 10 mins ago

Gryphon

18:09

@HDE226868 OK, I don't have any problem with Monica refusing to do something she found violated her morality/religious beliefs and working with others to try and find something that would be acceptable for all sides.

James

@HDE226868 People fall on different sides of whether this is acceptable. I admit I fall on Monica's side, not that I care about using singular they it's more that don't tell me what words I must say.

That is a very different expectation than, don't use these words that are offensive. Sure, got it, no problem.

HDE 226868

@Gryphon I can confirm that her reasoning was grammatical in nature, rather than religious. Which I think is something that's important to get correct, especially in light of some statements I've seen by religious folks (e.g. on Christianity meta).

Gryphon

@HDE226868 Oh. As I know she is a religous jew, I had thought that perhaps she had religious objections, but grammatical ones (or ones based in free speech) make an equal amount of sense.

@James There is definitely a reason that "apology" is at -252 right now.

HDE 226868

@James I think that's a common refrain at the moment.

Secespitus

I am not sure how they are hoping to recover from this whole mess at this point.

James

18:21

@Secespitus Not sure they can honestly.

I would not want to be the PR department at this point.

Secespitus

They seem to be quite happy, adding more and more insults with every step they take.

James

Hey all, Cyn, who's a regular here and mod on writing is taking a leave of absence. Check out this meta post: writing.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2243/…

Gryphon

I'm increasingly of the opinion that they're planning on just building an entirely new userbase after they drive all of us away.

James

18:51

...there's a minor edit war in the apology post.

@Secespitus Thanks for showing me that, I laughed out loud at my desk.

Secespitus

@James Always glad to be of service

Gryphon

It amuses me that it initially had "Friends," at the top, and someone edited it out.

Secespitus

@Gryphon I like the edit summary of revision seven the most

It resonates deeply with me

Wow, this will soon be the lowest voted post on Meta SE. Impressive. — Solomonoff's Secret 29 secs ago

I feel like I have read this sentence at least half a dozen times in the last couple months

Gryphon

@Secespitus The sad thing is that it's frequently true. SE keeps doing worse and worse things, and thus getting more and more downvotes.

Secespitus

Yeah, but it takes a lot of planning to put out such a bad response this late after an amazingly ignorant fiasco

They (the company) have outdone themselves this time.

3

Gryphon

18:58

It's almost impressive how badly they've messed this up.

Secespitus

Yeah, and the end is not in sight so far

James

19:29

@Gryphon Several times in fact.

Secespitus

It was a good time. If anyone ever finds a worthy successor site please ping me. StackOverflow will probably be useful to me for a while as I am not working with too much new technology and the User Experience is less horrible when logged in. But working for this company is not what I signed up for originally.

James

@Secespitus No kidding. Weird part. 5 weeks ago or so I applied for an open position they had. Product owner for Q&A...

Didn't get a call or anything but man...kinda wish I was there to help fix this mess.

Gryphon

It's very strange to me that they don't seem to be panicking, or even very concerned, about a vast number of their most valuable users protesting and/or leaving. They're just ignoring it and occasionally spouting mostly useless information.

Secespitus

@James On the one hand it would be great to have someone there that could actually do something. On the other hand I feel like they would throw you under the bus, too, so I am kinda glad that you don't have to go through all that.

@Gryphon I feel like they want to reduce the public free Q&A and focus on the money-bringing stuff.

James

@Secespitus I actually have no problem with that...they are a company after all and the point is for them to turn a profit...but it seems like there should probably be a way to do that without pissing everyone off.

@Secespitus Sword of Damocles and all that.

Gryphon

19:39

But... aren't the ads they have money-bringing? And don't they need content to get views to make money off of ads? They get literally millions of views, and I'm sure that that brings in decent revenue, and it's weird that they're trying to get rid of the people who provide that content.

James

@Gryphon Seems that way at this point...but lets be honest none of us know what their internal deliberations have been.

@Gryphon Oh for sure. I don't mind them trying to make money...but their methods seem bonkers to me.

Gryphon

Though this be madness, there be... oh wait, no there isn't any method, it's all just madness.

Green

Perhaps they just don't care about the more public facing stacks after they launched their private stacks? Enterprise, private stacks have got to make money hand-over fist. Practically every dev on the planet knows and loves the SO format. Having that internal would be amazing to have (and I've considered it for my own company).

Secespitus

@James Yeah, which is why they are currently on the "let's reduce our costs if we can't make more profit" trip - and the fastest solution is to reduce the amount of people who post stuff and need community managers and all that costly stuff

James

@Green Perhaps. Seems like the best tool to sell those is the main site though.

Green

19:58

@James Also, this doesn't appear to be apathy though. I haven't read the metas but from all the buzz about how bad the reaction is (assuming that all the buzz is correct), either someone is really really misaligned at SE or this is intentional.

Gryphon

Wow, the "apology" is all the way down to -342. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up < -1000.

James

20:25

@Gryphon There's been speculation that this is an elaborate hoax set up to see who can get a post to -500 the quickest.

For the record, the apology is the second most down voted MetaSE post of all time...and its only been up for 4 hours.

And its second only to:

-380

Q: We're testing advertisements across the network

For several years we've had advertising solely on technology-related sites. But many of our sites aren't about technology at all, so we haven't sold ads for them. Traditionally, that hasn't been a hardship since Stack Exchange sites have required only a small investment from the company to set up...

Secespitus

21:02

@James It definitely looks like a planned effort to anger people - and it's working incredibly well.

11

A: Firing mods and forced relicensing: is Stack Exchange still interested in cooperating with the community?

I'm a moderator on Skeptics, and I'm suspending my activity as a moderator. This doesn't really mean much in this case, as I was pretty much determined to step down anyway even before this incident. Several previous actions by SE meant that I had lost my confidence in them, and their vision for t...

>I no longer see much hope for change. The last statement from SE is pretty much doubling down on their mistakes. I find it extremely disappointing how SE essentially engineered a shitstorm, and the persons at the center of it have to bear the consequences. They pretty much threw a well-regarded moderator under the bus, and they also drag other involved users into this, who are exactly the vulnerable persons they claim to protect with this.

3

James

21:27

@Secespitus I don't know a moderator that was more well know and more well regarded on the site than Monica. Granted that's just my little universe and I spend very little time on the technical sites.

...really bad choice.

@Secespitus I think the kicker for me at this point, which...honestly may = resignation is the fact that they took an unpaid volunteer, who did a great job, and spoke to a news outlet casting aspersions on her character...now you're talking about potentially impacting someone's livelihood. that's...well...Fuc%ed.

Secespitus

21:49

@James As I mentioned in my response to HDE, the posts by the company seem like libel to me at this point. Or maybe that's not the best word, I am not sure. My dictionary also gives me "defamation" and "character assassination" for this kind of thing - making a public press release that is intended to harm the credibility of a person and could have horrible repercussions in their normal life as she is using her real name as far as I am aware of.

I really, really hope that Monica gets out of this whole mess mostly unscathed... This could get really, really bad if it continues. And that makes me so sad and angry... She has always been such a calm and extremely polite voice in every discussion and with any problem that I have ever seen her interact with. Nobody deserves such a treatment, but especially not someone with her character that has contrbibuted so much to the network that is now throwing her under the bus.

Nex Terren

Where is their response?

I'm having trouble finding it.

Secespitus

-421

Q: An Update to our Community and an Apology

Last week we made an important decision for our community. We removed a moderator for repeatedly violating our existing Code of Conduct and being unwilling to accept our CM’s repeated requests to change the behavior. We recognize it has caused concern in the community as a whole. We made a hard d...

discussion featured moderators code-of-conduct

2

Nex Terren

Thanks!

Secespitus

"repeatedly violating our existing Code of Conduct": citation needed. "CM’s repeated requests to change": citation needed. — Monica Cellio 6 hours ago

James

@NexTerren You might reconsider that "thanks" once you finish reading.

Mar 24 '15 at 20:47, by James

Is there a saintly patience badge?

2

I wrote that about Monica 4.5 years ago

Secespitus

22:01

@James Yes, that sounds like Monica.

Unlike the stuff that SE posts at the moment.

James

@Secespitus Going to the press and in essence calling her trans-phobic was way the hell over the line.

7

Secespitus

Like, she is still trying to talk to them! Without a lawyer as far as I can tell!!

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog perhaps an actual conversation between Sara and Monica in private would be a good first step. SE isn't taking my calls; I can't initiate that. I still believe that there has been a profound misunderstanding that they could have fixed last week if only there'd been actual communication. — Monica Cellio 18 mins ago

@James Yes, exactly

James

@Secespitus She is way, way nicer than I am.

Secespitus

@James She is way, way nicer than anybody else here on the network. I don't think anyone here would still try to talk to them in private at this point...

I'd be far too afraid to read a press release about that private conversation the next day at breakfast.

James

This is the news article I was talking about.

theregister.co.uk/2019/10/01/stack_exchange_controversy/

Secespitus

22:10

@James Yeah, I have seen that in the discussions. And like with a lot of things I would find the title and the alliteration funny, if this whole thing wasn't so sad and scary...

Nex Terren

Well, the response was more or less what I expected, as was the conversation that followed.

If this isn't resolved I'll probably leave. Not as a protest--nobody would care if I storm out--just I don't want to deal with this or be part of this.

We'll see, but I don't expect much.

James

@NexTerren Eh, this chat room is convenient and it's not blocked by my firewall at work.

Secespitus

Well, gotta go now. Let's see how this all looks like tomorrow... Stay safe all.

Nex Terren

@Secespitus Take care.

Gryphon

22:54

It looks like if we hurry, we may manage to hit -500 on the "apology" post before it's 8 hours old.

And apparently we already had a procedure to remove moderators, which was definitely not what happened in Monica's case.

Shalvenay

what's confusing to me is the way I read Monica's response to the COC changes is that she prefers to use proper nouns vs. pronouns, generally....I really don't see why that would upset anyone?

Gryphon

@Shalvenay Very few people are on SE's side here. I haven't heard what I'd consider a rational explanation for why Monica was removed, either from SE or one of the few defending it. Apparently, someone at SE was of the opinion that simply not using any pronouns was insufficient and then proceeded to demod Monica.

Shalvenay

23:10

@Gryphon yeah -- I don't get that?

Gryphon

Some people are crazy. shrug That's really my only explanation at this point.

Nex Terren

23:27

People with power like to think they don't have to be wrong

Green

@Gryphon I'd like to think that there's plenty of people at SE who can de-mod someone, but only one of those people can do it without having to check with someone else first.

Gryphon

@Green I'd also like to think that. However, recent events seem to suggest otherwise.

Green

I wonder if SE is somehow bending over-360 to cover the actions of someone who should just be fired with some misplaced idea that the internal employees skin is more important than their community.

Shalvenay

hey there @Green, how're things going?

Green

@Shalvenay buying property is a drag. Great when it's over, sucky in the interim.

How are things with with you?

Shalvenay

23:36

@Green alright here, buying a house, or some other sort of property?

also, remembered one of my worldbuilding questions :)

Green

Something else.

@Shalvenay do tell!

Gryphon

@Green That's my current working theory.

Green

@Gryphon maybe their shiny new CEO who they can't fire(yet)?

If I were on SE's board, I'd be having some very very strong second thoughts.

2

Gryphon

@Green Monica said "director", so I'm guessing it's someone lower in level.

Shalvenay

@Green actually, I figured out the answer to it while typing it up for this chat

it turns out my minotaur-maze-village probably wouldn't have addresses after all, with a regular courier/mailperson basically knowing folks by name/their way around

but something happened and a different courier had to make this delivery, without the aid of detailed directions/maps, and they kept getting lost as a result

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