7 ms·

Spotted this on the hot question list, totally out of the loop on the latest SE drama, can somebody fill me in?

by jmkni 7y ago

latk 7y ago
There is a perpetual tension between those who want SE to be helping everyone, and those who want to curate a helpful resource. People involved with community moderation aspects tend to fall into the latter group. For the last half decade or so SE has progressively abandoned this latter group, leading to a lot of pent-up frustration. Some changes SE has made are sensible (e.g. striving to be more welcoming and more inclusive), but the volunteer work of curators has only become more difficult. SE refuses to implement new tools to aid moderation, so that e.g. spam fighting is mostly done by volunteer projects. That only sets the general scene. Since the last year or so SE has stopped engaging the community on Meta, mostly just announcing changes top-down. Tweets by third parties have larger impact on SE policy than long-standing complaints by the community. This has led to a further deterioration of the relationship. The illegal changes to the content license a month ago are a perfect example of this top-down, uncooperative approach. Now the actual drama starts: in a closed moderator chat, there was some kind of discussion or disagreement. I'm not privy to the details. Not all of this is nice, e.g. it seems that SE is unwilling to protect trans moderators from vitriol by other mods. But to everyone's confusion, Monica Cellio was suddenly removed as a volunteer moderator. She is known as being extremely reasonable, experienced, and sincere. While she might have tried to discuss sincere questions, it is beyond belief that she would attack another moderator. So moderators and other engaged users are deeply frustrated, see a company that no longer engages with the community, does stupid decisions, and has now fired one of the best volunteer moderators in a despicable manner. For a lot of people, this is the straw that broke the camel's back. E.g. one mod I know decided to resign because they now see themselves completely unable to achieve any positive change on the site. And if Monica isn't a good-enough mod, how can they hope to be remotely adequate? Disclosure: I wrote the linked Meta.SE question. It is my belief that SE the company and SE the community need to cooperate for both to be successful. Yes, the community can sometimes be toxic. But the company seems to have given up completely on engaging with the community, and that does not bode well.
- mellosouls 7y ago
  I think it's worth pointing out that there is also a commercial imperative involved in the tension you cite. In fact, it is that - not "the community" - that is the ultimate decision maker here, though naturally the community being part of the USP, the commercial enterprise undermines it at it's peril. As you disclose, you are seeing this from a particular point of view - the mods (whether or not you are one yourself). It is worth bearing in mind that is a minority - if heavily invested - point of view. Most users probably have little interest in the politics you describe, and the business only in so far as it affects returns.
- jmkni 7y ago
  Thankyou. I would browse Workplace SE quite a bit (it seems to feature on the 'Hot Questions' list regularly) and Monica Cellio has always come across as decent/smart/sincere, so yeah, that's pretty bizarre.
- commentzorro 7y ago
  >> There is a perpetual tension between those who want SE to be helping everyone, and those who want to curate a helpful resource. I never understood this. Why have one or the other instead of both. All questions funnel in on a "everyone" area for a particular type of question. (Junior people can moderate those to gain experience if the senior mods don't want to. This will give them experience, insight, etc.) Even the most repetitive and/or superficial homework question can be answered and not closed as duplicate. (Or at least pointed to the duplicates but not closed until the questioner has accepted a duplicate as an acceptable answer.) When "good quality" appear or new/unique questions and answers appear they can be refined and moved over into a curated persistent section for future reference. The senior mods can take over at this point to make sure the reference Q&A are as they like. I always hated that "closed as duplicate" reply especially if I'd already seen the supposed duplicates and didn't think they applied. This approach would allow those to be answered by new people or ignored if nobody wanted to answer.
- cy_hauser 7y ago
  >> There is a perpetual tension between those who want SE to be helping everyone, and those who want to curate a helpful resource. I never understood this. Why have one or the other instead of both. All questions funnel in on a "everyone" area for a particular type of question. (Junior people can moderate those to gain experience if the senior mods don't want to. This will give them experience, insight, etc.) Even the most repetitive and/or superficial homework question can be answered and not closed as duplicate. (Or at least pointed to the duplicates but not closed until the questioner has accepted a duplicate as an acceptable answer.) When "good quality" appear or new/unique questions and answers appear they can be refined and moved over into a curated persistent section for future reference. The senior mods can take over at this point to make sure the reference Q&A are as they like. I always hated that "closed as duplicate" reply especially if I'd already seen the supposed duplicates and didn't think they applied. This approach would allow those to be answered by new people or ignored if nobody wanted to answer.

Spotted this on the hot question list, totally out of the loop on the latest SE drama, can somebody fill me in?

by jmkni 7y ago

Spotted this on the hot question list, totally out of the loop on the latest SE drama, can somebody fill me in?

latk 7y ago

There is a perpetual tension between those who want SE to be helping everyone, and those who want to curate a helpful resource. People involved with community moderation aspects tend to fall into the latter group. For the last half decade or so SE has progressively abandoned this latter group, leading to a lot of pent-up frustration. Some changes SE has made are sensible (e.g. striving to be more welcoming and more inclusive), but the volunteer work of curators has only become more difficult. SE refuses to implement new tools to aid moderation, so that e.g. spam fighting is mostly done by volunteer projects. That only sets the general scene. Since the last year or so SE has stopped engaging the community on Meta, mostly just announcing changes top-down. Tweets by third parties have larger impact on SE policy than long-standing complaints by the community. This has led to a further deterioration of the relationship. The illegal changes to the content license a month ago are a perfect example of this top-down, uncooperative approach. Now the actual drama starts: in a closed moderator chat, there was some kind of discussion or disagreement. I'm not privy to the details. Not all of this is nice, e.g. it seems that SE is unwilling to protect trans moderators from vitriol by other mods. But to everyone's confusion, Monica Cellio was suddenly removed as a volunteer moderator. She is known as being extremely reasonable, experienced, and sincere. While she might have tried to discuss sincere questions, it is beyond belief that she would attack another moderator. So moderators and other engaged users are deeply frustrated, see a company that no longer engages with the community, does stupid decisions, and has now fired one of the best volunteer moderators in a despicable manner. For a lot of people, this is the straw that broke the camel's back. E.g. one mod I know decided to resign because they now see themselves completely unable to achieve any positive change on the site. And if Monica isn't a good-enough mod, how can they hope to be remotely adequate? Disclosure: I wrote the linked Meta.SE question. It is my belief that SE the company and SE the community need to cooperate for both to be successful. Yes, the community can sometimes be toxic. But the company seems to have given up completely on engaging with the community, and that does not bode well.

mellosouls 7y ago
I think it's worth pointing out that there is also a commercial imperative involved in the tension you cite. In fact, it is that - not "the community" - that is the ultimate decision maker here, though naturally the community being part of the USP, the commercial enterprise undermines it at it's peril. As you disclose, you are seeing this from a particular point of view - the mods (whether or not you are one yourself). It is worth bearing in mind that is a minority - if heavily invested - point of view. Most users probably have little interest in the politics you describe, and the business only in so far as it affects returns.
jmkni 7y ago
Thankyou. I would browse Workplace SE quite a bit (it seems to feature on the 'Hot Questions' list regularly) and Monica Cellio has always come across as decent/smart/sincere, so yeah, that's pretty bizarre.
commentzorro 7y ago
>> There is a perpetual tension between those who want SE to be helping everyone, and those who want to curate a helpful resource. I never understood this. Why have one or the other instead of both. All questions funnel in on a "everyone" area for a particular type of question. (Junior people can moderate those to gain experience if the senior mods don't want to. This will give them experience, insight, etc.) Even the most repetitive and/or superficial homework question can be answered and not closed as duplicate. (Or at least pointed to the duplicates but not closed until the questioner has accepted a duplicate as an acceptable answer.) When "good quality" appear or new/unique questions and answers appear they can be refined and moved over into a curated persistent section for future reference. The senior mods can take over at this point to make sure the reference Q&A are as they like. I always hated that "closed as duplicate" reply especially if I'd already seen the supposed duplicates and didn't think they applied. This approach would allow those to be answered by new people or ignored if nobody wanted to answer.
cy_hauser 7y ago
>> There is a perpetual tension between those who want SE to be helping everyone, and those who want to curate a helpful resource. I never understood this. Why have one or the other instead of both. All questions funnel in on a "everyone" area for a particular type of question. (Junior people can moderate those to gain experience if the senior mods don't want to. This will give them experience, insight, etc.) Even the most repetitive and/or superficial homework question can be answered and not closed as duplicate. (Or at least pointed to the duplicates but not closed until the questioner has accepted a duplicate as an acceptable answer.) When "good quality" appear or new/unique questions and answers appear they can be refined and moved over into a curated persistent section for future reference. The senior mods can take over at this point to make sure the reference Q&A are as they like. I always hated that "closed as duplicate" reply especially if I'd already seen the supposed duplicates and didn't think they applied. This approach would allow those to be answered by new people or ignored if nobody wanted to answer.