@MisterPositive Hey there, I'm good. Very disappointed in SE with the complete lack of follow up from their apology - it looks like they're not going to take any further action to redress the situation with Monica. I see the apology post went from having a score of 700+ down to 191 at the time of writing. The wider SE community is clearly unhappy with their unwillingness to engage with Monica :(

@JaneS I'm not convinced that it isn't just more stalling, but this answer suggests they might, maybe, (I'm not very optimistic) actually still be trying to redress things.

@brug I thought that with David's apology. I have the utmost respect for Shog and I appreciate his post, but he is bound by the decisions of others as much as anyone. The fact that it's been weeks and there has still only words but no actual visible action doesn't give me confidence in the eventual outcome. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not optimistic.

I agree. I am not optimistic. The only positive sign in that post is it lists actual detailed steps that are supposedly being taken. I can't imagine Shog would mention moderators reviewing an action plan if it wasn't actually taking place.

@brug Obviously, I am no longer a moderator, so I have no visibility of what's going on. But that is kind of the point. The view from the outside is far from shining a positive light on SE and their ability to respond effectively to what they've already admitted as to a failure in their own processes.

yes. The whole thing has lacked transparency from the get-go

The way I see it is that if you build your business around utilising volunteers as employees, then you have a duty of care to give those volunteers some of the rights of an employee. That means following due process when being fired and total transparency to the volunteer. Not for us, the unwashed masses, but certainly Monica should have clear, regular communication with SE about the steps being taken, and that just doesn't seem to be happening.

You also need to fire people. Anyone, volunteer or employee, with tact. Especially if you feel like you can't be forthcoming with the details.

There was no tact here. It was the opposite of tact.

As I said in my meta answer, I don't know what happened, and nor do I need to. What the general membership of SE does need to see is that the process for any disciplinary action (and especially firing) needs to be done right. This wasn't, SE has said as such themselves, yet despite a public firing, there is no publicly visible action being taken to resolve it.

I can't agree more.

I don't know what happened. I am not in a position to judge Monica. (Nor should I be. Nor do I want to be.) But it was painful to watch someone I respected from many corners of the network dragged through the mud.

@brug That is exactly how I feel.

This whole thing got so unbelievably ugly. And then the bigots joined in on the madness.

I need to step away. Thanks for chatting with me.

No problem, my timezone is such that I usually miss everyone in chat :)

@JaneS I've read a message where they offered to reinstate Monica but under conditions she refused. I think they asked for public apology from her or something similar.

@ArthurHavlicek I didn't see that, but I believe that she hasn't actually been told exactly where she breached the CoC, so until that's clear and understood, she may feel that an apology can't be genuine.

@JaneS Yes, it's likely. From my understanding, it's hinted that she got fired for openly disagreeing with new CoC, so it could be that people arguing CoC changes right now would actually work to reinstate Monica as well: should the company change its direction on that, it would be a logical stance to change direction on firing people disagreeing with the first direction, I think.

@ArthurHavlicek The thing is, I'm not sure if she actually disagreed with it, rather was asking about ways in which she could be compliant with the intent. Again, I have no visibility of any of that, nor do I need to, but the way in which everything was enacted was just wrong.

I agree. Well, I still sincerely have hope they repair their mess in the following days or weeks. Until we have official statements, that is. Nobody really knows what will happen then, but if this happens to be disappointing, the moderation resignation waves and ongoing trolling are likely to continue.

PSA: Please don't make up pronouns as doing these can be interpreted as mocking the people who we're trying to include. We're asking for people to be respected, not feel mocked and further marginalized.

I really don't want to be draconian about this, but making up pronouns as a way of mocking the policy isn't helping and isn't particularly funny. The way that this change was communicated and the wider fallout isn't great, but the underlying reason for this is one of respect for everyone using the network of sites and shouldn't be forgotten.

@Snow Absolutely. I have always tried to use people's preferred pronouns, and that won't change. As you say, the intent behind the CoC change is admirable. The way it went down isn't, but that shouldn't take away from what it was trying to achieve.

I get the impression that public redress for Monica's hurt won't happen until there's a resolution that can be communicated. If SE went to the press with a statement of regret, they're going to be asked what the outcome was and whether Monica will be reinstated or not. Currently, SE doesn't have an answer to that, so Monica is stuck on the end of all this work. Which majorly sucks.

@JaneS I concur - the original intent and idea of the "new" CoC is admirable, the execution of this however is utterly shambolic, even discounting the awful treatment of Monica. It's not an easy thing to do something like this and I wouldn't judge SE for falling short of perfection - but they couldn't even manage mediocre

Rest assured that the moderators have been seeking to expedite an outcome, but we have no real powers there.

tbh I've reached the point with the CoC changes themselves where between the CoC the "FAQ" and various seemingly-contradictory comments from CMs/Staff that it's become so tangled as to what I can/can't (or should/shouldn't) do that I've given up trying to parse it. I've always tried to be respectful of others and I'll keep doing that. If it lands me in hot water then cest la vie.

@Snow Shog has stated the mods have until friday to comment. An unspecified time after, the procedure will be made public, and according to another mod (no idea where they got that info from) going through the procedure itself should take 2 weeks

@motosubatsu I do the same, we should be fine. Anyway, the debate would at least had merit of opening minds about the boards inclusiveness.

@motosubatsu Basically, if someone indicates they want to use a specific pronoun, then it should be respected and used. You're not allowed to discriminate by saying "I don't want to say that word, I'll grammar myself out of it instead".

@Snow Except if the demand isn't reasonable (and reasonable demands include ne, xe, ze and a few others I don't know).

@ArthurHavlicek See pinned message. --->

@Snow Do we have statistics on neopronouns usage ? I know a respectable chunk of users go by "they", but I don't really have a clue for all the other alternatives

It should be apparent from context whether a pronoun request is right or simply made up to make a point. Googling the pronoun in question will help in this assessment.

attempting to muddy the waters by facetiously using neopronouns or contriving questions centered around them though is unhelpful

@ArthurHavlicek It's hard to quantify as people generally use "they" as a neutral pronoun anyway, and have done for some time. You're free to use the data tool to construct your own queries if you want to.

and puts the mods in a straining position

@Magisch It's disrespectful. It's like doing something to include black people and having people react by running around with wildly differently coloured face-paints saying "look at me, I'm a different colour now".

@Snow oh I get the gist.. I can see some gaping holes (and out and out harmful things) in the specifics I've read - but I think they are unlikely to ever have much direct relevance to the way I already write though so I'm just going to carry on as I always have, it's worked so far and trust that it won't become a problem because of something I didn't realize was wrong

Exactly. And you're respectful enough to adjust your words if requested without really thinking about it too much. I believe that most people have been doing the same thing for years.

@Snow more or less

I expect you all take a very dim view upon such shenanigans

I've tried two neopronouns, i've matched 5/644758 comments

The only real moderation problems we have seen come out of the COC so far has been people trying to abuse it to make a point against it

I can't be certain I didn't match foreign language in the process

@ArthurHavlicek Good. And the dates for those? Old or recent?

last month query

@ArthurHavlicek Yeah, those pronouns have been raised as examples recently, so you might want to look at anything before 2 months ago to get a realistic picture of usage.

I expect we won't get a sample size on TWP, and that it'll be months before it actually comes up in earnest

@Snow well I'll adjust language where requested - as you say it's only basic respect. It actually takes quite a high load for me to adjust in some circumstances but that's my burden to bear

first 6 months of this year, I have 27 / 3354734, it seems stable in proportion, around 1 out of 100.000

again, it could be foreign language or even typos, I can't be certain

@ArthurHavlicek Interesting. So the actual times people might run into this situation is small. Very small. Nevertheless, still important in in those few cases.

@motosubatsu It did take me a long time to process just why this is an important thing. But now I have, I get it.

@Snow oh I fully understand the importance of the underlying reasons, speaking as a member of a (different) sub-section of society that gets routinely abused/dismissed by some elements of the mainstream understanding the importance of respecting those sections of society that we might not fully understand is the easy part for me

sometimes the exact nuances of how are harder of course - which is why I appreciate that getting the CoC "right" is no easy task. Doesn't change my view that SE have bungled the whole shebang extremely badly thusfar though.

@Snow Further refinement seem to indicate most matches are because of some user being named "Mr.hir" and other random encounters, such as an example string being "Ze" and the like. It seem completely non-existant in usage :|

@ArthurHavlicek until now. The reason for that is probably that no people who prefer such pronouns have felt safe to use them so far

You have to remember they're used to being dismissed, ridiculed and abused for their pronouns and SE has until now not given a reason to believe otherwise. If you seriously think about it, it makes sense.

IME, people with neopronouns tend to not reveal that unless they know that they are in a place where they will be respected.

Very true. It's a trust and confidence thing. And it's more difficult in an environment where there's many people who only converse with text.

200 reps away from #9 spot. I guess I need to answer some questions.

@Snow nice one regarding "non-zone time" on the sensory dep question btw

"only" another 10k or so to go to make the top 10 sigh

@motosubatsu Thanks. You'll get to be top 10 soon. You're almost irritatingly good at answering.

@Snow it's my superpower - in hindsight I wish I'd gone for telekinesis instead

j/k thanks mate :)

@user58 Following that, I'm not sure SE will be better it used to be. If I was them, I'd continue to hide.

@Snow My sentiments as well. She is stuck.

@Snow Me too...haven't seen some real rep in awhile and your getting too close

many thanks to @Snow for the clean up

Yeah. That was.... tough.

:(

damn...just stepped out for quick lunch break between sprint planning sessions...

brutal.

Hi, I'm new to all this, but the CoC says to flag content in order to trigger consequences. I don't see a way to flag this user's repeated, consistent, targeted, willful and abusive behavior. What does it mean that "messages moved to trash"?

Are those two questions related?

@AlexM Where are you seeing this behavior?