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What "deepening crisis" is this? Is it just the usual internet drama with a few people being unpleasant to each other and then storming off in a huff, or somet

What "deepening crisis" is this? Is it just the usual internet drama with a few people being unpleasant to each other and then storming off in a huff, or something more serious?

setr 7y ago
Some well-liked SF mod got randomly booted due to a CoC powerplay, and then everything exploded. Rules weren't followed correctly, mods getting kicked out or quiting in revolt, all sorts of corporate powerplays and misplays Basically the whole stack overflow administration is fucked, but also no one really cares because that administration is mostly invisible to the majority of SF users (developers coming from Google). Same way Wikipedia drama has never been cared about by anyone but Wikipedia mods. General pop will only care once the quality of the system degrades This article however probably has nothing at all to do with that, and is probably authored/published by a team entirely independent of the stack overflow mod administration.
- sdegutis 7y ago
  I’m on the fence to whether to care about any of this. On one hand I’ve no time for nonsense anymore. On the other hand, it sounds like it means SO will degrade (even more) because of it.
  - setr 7y ago
    I don't think it matters at all unless you're an SF admin.. you and I are going to do fuckall to impact the situation anyways. I personally only care insofar as the situation is interesting. This is my onlooking entertainment. In terms of degradation, I suppose it depends on which side you're on. The admins imo are the ones pushing the rule-heavy and quick-to-close question methodology that stack overflow gets a lot of grief for -- the company seems to be trying to move to the more free-form moderation found on forums, where mods are gods (until ejected by the Supreme Leader aka CEO). Where it really makes sense to blame one mod vs another. IMO stack overflow benefits mainly from it's strict enforcement, and it's preference on serving answerers rather than questioners (the burden is on asking good questions, less on writing good answers.. rather, it's more assumed good answers will be written for good questions, whereas other systems like quora emphasize the opposite). So the loss of the mod community will cripple stack overflow in the long term, imo.
einpoklum 7y ago
* Many of the moderators left or suspended activity in October; almost none have returned. * A few more moderators have left this month. * Consequently, several sites have only a single active moderator or none at all. * Two key employees involved in moderation and community relations have recently been terminated. * Company management completely avoids any communication with the community. * One particular moderator who had been summarily terminated (not from a paid position) was slandered to the media by SE Inc. , has threatened legal action, and has reached an undisclosed arrangement with the company. The community has responded quite negatively to the little which is known about the arrangement (which does not include any admission of wrongdoing). This is not including unfounded rumors about where the company may or may not be heading business-wise.

What "deepening crisis" is this? Is it just the usual internet drama with a few people being unpleasant to each other and then storming off in a huff, or something more serious?

setr 7y ago

Some well-liked SF mod got randomly booted due to a CoC powerplay, and then everything exploded. Rules weren't followed correctly, mods getting kicked out or quiting in revolt, all sorts of corporate powerplays and misplays Basically the whole stack overflow administration is fucked, but also no one really cares because that administration is mostly invisible to the majority of SF users (developers coming from Google). Same way Wikipedia drama has never been cared about by anyone but Wikipedia mods. General pop will only care once the quality of the system degrades This article however probably has nothing at all to do with that, and is probably authored/published by a team entirely independent of the stack overflow mod administration.

sdegutis 7y ago
I’m on the fence to whether to care about any of this. On one hand I’ve no time for nonsense anymore. On the other hand, it sounds like it means SO will degrade (even more) because of it.
- setr 7y ago
  I don't think it matters at all unless you're an SF admin.. you and I are going to do fuckall to impact the situation anyways. I personally only care insofar as the situation is interesting. This is my onlooking entertainment. In terms of degradation, I suppose it depends on which side you're on. The admins imo are the ones pushing the rule-heavy and quick-to-close question methodology that stack overflow gets a lot of grief for -- the company seems to be trying to move to the more free-form moderation found on forums, where mods are gods (until ejected by the Supreme Leader aka CEO). Where it really makes sense to blame one mod vs another. IMO stack overflow benefits mainly from it's strict enforcement, and it's preference on serving answerers rather than questioners (the burden is on asking good questions, less on writing good answers.. rather, it's more assumed good answers will be written for good questions, whereas other systems like quora emphasize the opposite). So the loss of the mod community will cripple stack overflow in the long term, imo.

einpoklum 7y ago

* Many of the moderators left or suspended activity in October; almost none have returned. * A few more moderators have left this month. * Consequently, several sites have only a single active moderator or none at all. * Two key employees involved in moderation and community relations have recently been terminated. * Company management completely avoids any communication with the community. * One particular moderator who had been summarily terminated (not from a paid position) was slandered to the media by SE Inc. , has threatened legal action, and has reached an undisclosed arrangement with the company. The community has responded quite negatively to the little which is known about the arrangement (which does not include any admission of wrongdoing). This is not including unfounded rumors about where the company may or may not be heading business-wise.