As far as I know, the whole community has weighed in on what the RAW tag is for - in the question literally asking what it's for, mainly, so I think pinning this on any small number of individuals is overdoing their say in the site. Do note that in all the removal cases, nobody's seen fit to add the tag back at all — people don't hesitate to do that with other tags. If you do feel like there's marginalisation or a need to redefine it, could you make some kind of request around redefining our usage in a meta question?

@doppelgreener No, I will not do that. Every time I have attempted to engage with this issue, I have been attacked and bullied for doing so. I refuse to do so any more. Deal with that and then maybe I will take moderation and meta on this site seriously. For now it remains an unsafe space in which the baggage can neither be ignored nor solved. Every indication available to me suggests that past behavior is not recognized as wrong, is not regretted, is not apologized for, and as such, will continue to happen in the future.

@doppelgreener Also, the linked definition is not how the tag is being enforced. That’s exactly the meta I am talking about being ignored.

I gotta say, "no, don't implement this helpful feature, not until a fundamental issue is acknowledged or resolved, one which I won't lead an attempt to acknowledge or resolve" is a problematic position to take and I'm not sure it's one I can endorse as constructive community participation. I really do suggest you attempt to provide a change to this phenomenon you see, because otherwise it's just not gonna happen.

Ok, sure. Do you want to open a question pointing out our community agreed definition of a tag isn't being handled as we agreed and suggesting what we should do differently to help things work better in that regard? You've got a vantage point I don't here.

@doppelgreener Those responsible can own up to their actions, issue public apologies, and accept appropriate consequences for them. Four-plus-year-long bullying campaigns don’t square with any interpretation of Be Nice. There has been absolutely no movement whatsoever, either on their own initiative or at the prompting of others, for either of them to own up and apologize. It has been a widely-recognized problem for years but absolutely nothing is done. Yes, any attempt to do anything else is a joke in the face of that—a very bad one.

@doppelgreener As far as leadership is concerned, I led that fight for years with minimal support, and the target of almost every attack. I have done way, way more than my fair share. It’s time for someone else to step up. It’s long past time for that. Do not patronize me by pretending I am the one here being unreasonable.

I'm not trying to patronize you. Nevertheless you are being unreasonable.

I am very glad that you have some strict, formal, objective measure of reasonability. If you provide it, I will be happy to consider my position with respect to it for you.

I'll talk when I'm done with lunch

but right now people are waiting for me

bye

Go to lunch. Ttfn!

So basically here's what's going on for me: I've proposed a feature which I think will be helpful, and you're saying this can't happen because XYZ is not done yet (various things need to be corrected or addressed first). The ball is in your court to prompt XYZ to happen -- you're the one who understands what needs to be done, and I can't do it on your behalf. You're declining to act on it though, whilst simultaneously suggesting nothing can be done until it happens.

It's not going to happen on its own though. That position is saying "You can't do anything, and I'm not going to do anything" which is untenable for site maintenance.

You're suggesting that you've tried, and I really don't know where. I haven't seen a meta suggesting correction of our attitudes. I've seen metas arrive like that which have been well-received by the community so I'm sure yours would float just fine as well.

You claim bullying, and I'm conscious you've experienced some of that in the past. However in the past couple of years, when you've brought valid objections to moderator intervention in the tag, you've had major community support.

Over the past few years any proposals regarding the RAW tag have received strong responses of back off, don't touch this but that's not sustainable.

The ball is in your court now to work proactively to correct the course of the tag, not merely to be reactive each time someone else tries to work proactively on it.

I cannot condone continuation of this "back off" signal without corresponding constructive proactive action on your part to guide the tag's usage to wherever it should be.

@doppelgreener ok, some facts

1. bullying happened, for an extended period of time, as in years

2. said bullies have never recognized their behavior as such, have never apologized, have never indicated that such behavior was wrong and inappropriate and will not happen in the future

3. the logical conclusion is that said bullying is considered acceptable, and can be expected to happen again in the future

4. for the past several years, I have actively avoided chat and meta so as to avoid the bullying. as you note, yes, things have been quieter as a result. that does not make them better

5. any attempt to add any explanation or warning to the rules-as-written tag necessarily means defining exactly what it is

6. the definition in previous meta discussions is not the one currently being enforced

7. until we determine what the definition is, we cannot put a warning about it

8. determining what the definition is necessarily requires repudiating the actions of those who have taken it upon themselves to enforce a definition not in keeping with either common usage or meta discussion

9. attempting to do that has been a massive and relentless source of stress, lost sleep, and yes, suspension for me

on the subject of suspension, the specific prelude to the suspension was my contention that the removal of the rules-as-written tag was being done in a way that was not in good faith

I don't—cannot—reasonably assume good faith from bullies on the subject of the bullying; that would be absurd

but at the same time, I cannot move forward with any statement that suggests lack of good faith, as that would be against the rules

while it is certainly true that there probably exists enough material to justify the suspension—which I did stipulate to—that does not change the proximate source of the suspension, nor does it change the fact that it was directly related to massively-larger violations of Be Nice that have, to date, gone unrecorded, unpunished, un-apologized-for

so what do you want me to suggest?

So, first, I'm conscious of the bullying. I took a point to research across it and bring it to CM attention. I also brought up their lack of acknowledgement in this meta, which I've returned to to have them address it.

opening myself up to a target of attacks again, and being unable to call anyone out on it?

or shall I suggest a warning tag that runs counter to how it's actually being enforced, and watch it turn into a fight about that? a fight that will cost me stress and lost sleep, and most likely also open me up to more attacks?

@KRyan And, yes. This is why I've opened that question, so the community (not just you, not just mxyzplk, not just SSD) can work out what they're happy with. Necessarily that means defining how we want the tag to be used. This is why I created this question and invited the community to help us do this. I don't see anything wrong with getting the community to do this.

@doppelgreener because we have been there, done that, and been attacked and ignored for our efforts

why do it again?

@KRyan Defining the tag does not require repudiation of a couple of individual's personal behaviours.

It just requires people to say "hey here's how we should use the tag" "yeah that's a good idea"

@KRyan So here's what I wrote before: open a question, mention how the tag's being used, mention what we agreed it said, indicate what you feel the difference is and what we should be doing differently to handle it. That's it.

that's a lot of stress and a lot of argumentation for very little gain since I see no reason to suspect it won't just be ignored again

@doppelgreener edited my answer, anyway, to be less about me and/or what I will do or oppose, and more about the problem I see

@KRyan Well, if it's major enough we cannot implement a feature without it, then like i said, the ball is in your court to ensure it gets resolved. Site maintenance cannot be suspended indefinitely because of one thing that will never happen because the one person with the vantage point to ensure it happens refuses.

If it is ignored, and nobody sees any real issue, then it may be the case that the community doesn't see any action needing to be taken.

I suggest you do not aim for "argumentation" -- just put forward your concern, and focus on tagging practices and agreement and not on the individuals involved, and let the community respond and discuss it, and let them figure out what they'd like to do (including, potentially, nothing) and accept it unfolding that way.

I also suggest that the idea that two users are somehow enforcing strange global usage of a tag in spite of any community members noticing is not a viable position to take. Like I said, if something's going awry that you're noticing, you do need to bring it up or we can't fix it. Two members, even diamond moderators, don't have the power to enforce anything without community support, and when they do so people notice.

@doppelgreener well, you are objectively wrong, since it's happening and I'm the only one who has brought it up.

Heck, I got flags from someone noticing someone was making trivial edits, or doing weird retags. I've never seen anyone else raise "hey, a couple of moderators are snuffing out the RAW tag where it's not appropriate, and also, they won't let me edit it back".

You mentioned it to me a few months ago that you were concerned something was going wrong there, so I kept my eye out for this as well.

I did mention it, yeah

in how many of the questions where the tag was removed, was any comment offered?

because from my perspective, the answer is none

in how many of those was the tag re-added, and again silently removed? I know of at least one

and in how many of those where it was removed, and a comment was offered, was the stated reason for removal that the tag does not go on questions that want RAW answers if they also are open to hearing about other things too?

again, quite a few

@KRyan Yes.

@doppelgreener the question was 'how many' and I'm not sure what an answer of "yes" means

In fact there's cases where it got removed, then I rolled back, sought discussion, received confirmation, and removed it again.

if you mean "all of them" then uh

Oh, I read "in any".

no, that is not accurate

oh sure, I'm not saying it never happens

I'm saying it frequently doesn't happen

and that was never proposed on meta

@KRyan <- well, you did say it never happens

hm, so I did; I was specifically thinking of by d7 or mxyzplk

my bad there

I'll use my comment-access powers to go through the list later this week and see how many of these questions had comment discussions in connection to the tag removal, per the meta.

definitely been more than a few without

there is also the question of questions that are seeking RAW, but not opposed to also hearing other things

I know there are some cases where it got removed because the question was something like "So how do I calculate {mundane thing in the rules}", which requires no RAW lens or literalism, and so is as much in connection to RAW as "so how do I roll dice" is in connection to D&D (and we'd remove the D&D tag from a question like that just the same)

in my opinion, that is clearly still a RAW question—a RAW answer is still required

and the meta discussions do not suggest that such questions should have the tag stripped

but they have been

@doppelgreener the former is not that cut-and-dry

Well, really, we need your input if you think the RAW perspective on the site is not adjusted quite right.

the latter, sure, but in the former case someone who doesn't know the rules may not know how convoluted—or not—they may be, but are requesting a maximally-pedantic answer (which may be the same as an unpedantic answer but they wouldn't know that)

You've said a lot of "this isn't right", but we need that to also come with "here's what is right"

Because if we don't know what is right, well, we can't do a damn thing about what isn't right about what's going on

So we cannot act on that

what isn't right is restricting the rules-as-written tag to questions that only want RAW and nothing else

Which means, more or less, we have no choice but to proceed in spite of it with whatever options are available

it belongs on any question that does want the RAW answer, regardless of whatever else they may want

@KRyan Ok, cool. Can you suggest a tag warning indicating what you feel would be consistent with that usage?

@doppelgreener maybe later, right now I have a meeting in a few minutes I need to prepare for

@KRyan No problem. At your own pace. It's on meta, there's very little time pressure.

@doppelgreener that has not always been true; d7 moved ahead with his whole program here for "fixing" the rules-as-written tag while I was working on a real response

that's precisely what prompted my "fuck it, I'm done with meta, nothing good will ever come out of there" response

has massively improved my experience using the site, I must say

Well, we need you to participate in guiding things.

@doppelgreener have you run that one by your co-moderators? because they have made me feel exceptionally unwanted and unwelcome

If you want to prevent certain courses of action, you gotta provide alternative courses or other people will provide them instead.

@KRyan Yes I have.

But at this point it's you withdrawing from activity more than anyone stopping you. Like I said, you even had major support the last several times you interacted with the mods over this.

@doppelgreener and yet I lost sleep and had a miserable time, and I really do not think that participation in this site should be incumbent on accepting those things.

@KRyan I agree with that and I've been doing what I can to improve things.

@KRyan @KRyan I suggest at your earliest convenience you leave a reply to this comment such as "I'll take a look at drafting up a tag warning later, I have things I need to do in the meantime"

or whatever wording suits you