Stack Overflow Inc. has sunk to new lows.

[cellio]

I will have quite a bit to say about this, eventually. Right now I am tired, and sick, and in the midst of the high holy days. But there's a lot of stuff floating around, and I want to try to pull some of it together for my own sake and yours.

I'll start with the opening of the message I posted for the Mi Yodeya community:

On Friday, half an hour before Shabbat and two days before Rosh Hashana, Stack Overflow Inc. suddenly revoked my moderator status on all sites where I had it. I found this out while handling flags [...]. They did this not because I've done anything to violate SE policies (which I have not done), but because they think I will in the future violate a thoughtcrime-style provision of a Code of Conduct change that hasn't been made yet. (Stack Overflow Inc., sinat chinam, and the goat for Azazel)

I will write more about the specific disagreement later. Please be patient and hold comments on that. Right now I and most of the community of people who pay attention to meta issues are more focused on how they carried out a bone-headed move.

Later I will have more to say about "what they say they do vs. what they actually do". For now, some key points about how they did this:

• They announced a vague policy that afforded what seemed like an interpretation they didn't mean. I asked clarifying questions. They never answered them.

• At the time they fired me I was in the midst of what I thought was an amicable email discussion with a member of their team, trying to resolve the matter, and had been waiting patiently for four days for a reply.

• Stack Overflow, a company that promotes values like respect, diversity, and inclusion, fired a known-to-be-observant Jew, a moderator on the Jewish site, half an hour before Shabbat right before Rosh Hashana. Thanks SO for ruining both my day of rest and my holiday.

• They have been making vague personal attacks against me both publicly and privately. Meanwhile, they aren't answering my email (in which I have remained courteous, solution-oriented, and restrained).

Their actions have produced consequences across the network. At this point 17 moderators (several on multiple sites) have resigned in whole or in part because of this, and another 17 have stopped moderating. Including my sites, this adds up to 59 vacancies. Some sites are down to one moderator; on one of the sites where I served, there are no active moderators at all now. (One moderator is pretty inactive and might or might not be aware of the waiting shitstorm.)

If you click through to that last link, you'll see a list of links to resignation announcements. Among them, I particularly draw your attention to the ones from Gilles and Caleb. The latter especially touches me because Caleb and I have argued a lot in the past, and I never knew where I stood in his eyes. I had judged him unfavorably, which I regret. He sent me email and we are mending that fence.

Meanwhile, the community on Mi Yodeya has been amazingly supportive (click the first link to see).

I still hold out some hope that Stack Overflow will fix the mess they've made. That hope fades a little more with each passing day. This is the latest in a series of decisions they've made that have eroded the community's trust. Restoring that trust will take a lot of hard work. Restoring my status is an important first step and there are ways for them to save face while doing it. It's up to them now; I think I've done all I can to repair the damage.

Comments

[cellio]

Smear campaign has commenced, yes. :-(