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In summary Atwood has deemed offensive/unconsrtuctive and deleted two comments by a big contributor to the Math.SO site, without consulting its moderators. The

by Jun8 16y ago

In summary Atwood has deemed offensive/unconsrtuctive and deleted two comments by a big contributor to the Math.SO site, without consulting its moderators. The community is now quite angry. What he needs to understand is that not all these communities are like SO, their demographics, especially for thightly knit, professional one like Math.SO is quite different and they won't. Let him moderate their group in such a heavy-handed manner. One way or the other, he elicits respect in the hacker community (mostly), but he has no such clout among mathematicians.

microarchitect 16y ago
I think you're being generous to Atwood here. I don't see how he has any business deleting comments in a community that (1) he did not start* (2) he is not an active member of. I'd argue that this statement is invariant across communities - hacker or otherwise. This really is a classic micromanagement fail. The original action was motivated by a misguided sense of "being involved". The problem was then exacerbated by an unwillingness to accept mistakes and a sense of outrage fuelled by an ego-bruising. *I do of course understand Atwood is one of the founders of the SE network of sites.
- codinghorror 16y ago
  Actually, it's quite simple: off-topic, unconstructive, borderline rude comments were removed from a meta post on a SE, Inc initiative to support the math community. It'd be like you asking a hacker news question about how to send HN regulars to a conference, and I replied "well, Hacker News isn't worth supporting because Paul Graham has gone on record saying he's a bad programmer, and has expressed exasperation with programmers". I wish I was kidding. I really do.
  - microarchitect 16y ago
    The community is upset because of your fly-by-night moderation tatics. Clearly, Prof. Clark is a valuable and respected member of the community. If you felt what he was saying was inappropriate, you best recourse would have been to reply to his comment, or perhaps even send him an e-mail. Simply deleting his comments gives the impression (whether warranted or not) of high-handedness. What I don't understand is your response to all this. All you needed to do was apologize and promise not to delete any more comments. Prof. Clark would likely have been appeased and the whole brouhaha would've petered out before you could say Peter Clark (sorry, couldn't resist!). Instead, your continued insistence on doing what _you consider right_ raises the very real concern that you might, in the future, abuse your moderator powers in more serious matters.
Edog 16y ago
This is the second time that Jeff Atwood's heavy handed approach has cost Math.SE a generous helpful member who is also a well respected professional mathematician. The first incident occurred in November. In both cases, if he had expressed his concerns to the moderators, and let them address his concerns, I am confident the issues would have been resolved amicably. As it stands, there are a lot of angry people, including the moderators at Math.SE.
Jun8 16y ago
Atwood's actions are inexcusable. However, I think, he feels compelled to interfere with this particular site because he says, in the past, there has been so much in-fighting and flagging, compared to other SE sites. He says this site flags at a rate that is an order of magnitude higher than any other SE site. I generally hang around in Pysics.SE (other than SO, of course) and sometimes am amazed at how fast they close questions.

by Jun8 16y ago

microarchitect 16y ago

I think you're being generous to Atwood here. I don't see how he has any business deleting comments in a community that (1) he did not start* (2) he is not an active member of. I'd argue that this statement is invariant across communities - hacker or otherwise. This really is a classic micromanagement fail. The original action was motivated by a misguided sense of "being involved". The problem was then exacerbated by an unwillingness to accept mistakes and a sense of outrage fuelled by an ego-bruising. *I do of course understand Atwood is one of the founders of the SE network of sites.

codinghorror 16y ago
Actually, it's quite simple: off-topic, unconstructive, borderline rude comments were removed from a meta post on a SE, Inc initiative to support the math community. It'd be like you asking a hacker news question about how to send HN regulars to a conference, and I replied "well, Hacker News isn't worth supporting because Paul Graham has gone on record saying he's a bad programmer, and has expressed exasperation with programmers". I wish I was kidding. I really do.
- microarchitect 16y ago
  The community is upset because of your fly-by-night moderation tatics. Clearly, Prof. Clark is a valuable and respected member of the community. If you felt what he was saying was inappropriate, you best recourse would have been to reply to his comment, or perhaps even send him an e-mail. Simply deleting his comments gives the impression (whether warranted or not) of high-handedness. What I don't understand is your response to all this. All you needed to do was apologize and promise not to delete any more comments. Prof. Clark would likely have been appeased and the whole brouhaha would've petered out before you could say Peter Clark (sorry, couldn't resist!). Instead, your continued insistence on doing what _you consider right_ raises the very real concern that you might, in the future, abuse your moderator powers in more serious matters.

Edog 16y ago

This is the second time that Jeff Atwood's heavy handed approach has cost Math.SE a generous helpful member who is also a well respected professional mathematician. The first incident occurred in November. In both cases, if he had expressed his concerns to the moderators, and let them address his concerns, I am confident the issues would have been resolved amicably. As it stands, there are a lot of angry people, including the moderators at Math.SE.

Jun8 16y ago

Atwood's actions are inexcusable. However, I think, he feels compelled to interfere with this particular site because he says, in the past, there has been so much in-fighting and flagging, compared to other SE sites. He says this site flags at a rate that is an order of magnitude higher than any other SE site. I generally hang around in Pysics.SE (other than SO, of course) and sometimes am amazed at how fast they close questions.