Hello Monica, It is really unfortunate that you are caught in this mess. It is fairly obvious to everyone outside a certain ivory tower that the recent CoC or whatever is a box-ticking activity towards a certain company goal. As you rightly said elsewhere, you have been made a scapegoat to make an obscure statement about the CoC's teeth. They would have done well to choose a different scapegoat though, but I guess having already banned me last year, they didn't have any obvious choice. :-)
That said though, the current fiasco is an XY Problem. The actual issue here is many long-term members of the "community" trust the company when they are unworthy of that trust. That mismatch of expectation and reality is the root cause of the current fiasco, as well as the previous ones. The Welcome Wagon of previous year was a blatantly obvious foot-in-the-door scam, which opened the door to make "small concessions" for "new" (=$$$) users at the expense of the established users.
The current fiasco is a natural progression towards the same goal of driving out established users who don't bring in much new revenue to make room for those who do. It was for exactly this reason that I mocked the initiative as The Great Black Magical Hand of the Welcoming Bandwagon. I could see plenty of red flags to anticipate it would end up into something like the current fiasco. I tried forcing their hand with a disguised "constructive" feedback here (https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/314598/202356), but that ended up exactly as everyone expected and for obvious reasons.
I saw through the company's deceit, dishonesty and hypocrisy long ago. They kept peddling changes that served their agenda while taking the moral high ground and claiming that they were doing it for the community. I kept calling them out and telling people not to trust them, but nobody believed me. (Cassandra Truth) Unfortunately, even in the midst of the current fiasco, many people still believe that the company is trustworthy.
My objections were shot down as non-constructive. Here's a fun fact: in real life, I am known to be a great communicator, and I have resolved conflicts that people several years my senior believed couldn't be resolved. So, I wasn't incapable of giving constructive feedback *per se*. I just did not bother because (1) with their deceit, dishonesty and hypocrisy, the company had long since crossed the point where they deserved constructive feedback and (2) it wouldn't make any difference either way because they didn't want to hear criticism of their decisions (constructive or otherwise).
You have also mentioned elsewhere that you were perhaps too "naive" to follow Spolsky's lead and sign up with your real name. I remember we had a bit of a debate on this topic (in Catbert's Lounge, or perhaps in meta comments, don't remember). I must say, I would have felt happy if I had been proven wrong on that point, and the fact that the company ended up proving me right leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
My real life identity is not exactly a secret, but it would take quite some effort for a casual site visitor to figure it out, which is enough of a deterrent. Ironically, if I were the currently chosen scapegoat, the company couldn't release my real life identity to the press without a massive egg on their face. ("One of our moderators, Masked Man (whose real name is ...) refused to address people by their preferred pronouns." would raise questions about their intentions and overshadow the pronoun non-issue.)
I see that you are still hoping the company will talk to you and sort things out. With utmost respect and no malice, I beg to submit that you *are* (no "perhaps" here) "naive". The company clearly has no interest in resolving the issue or making good the damage done to you. I can say this "somewhat" objectively as I have been away from the site for about a year, and sat out of the all the previous drama. (I only just visited it recently due to the news of the company appointing an Indian-origin CEO, which (coincidentally?) happened around the same time as the fiasco.) Your best option, in my opinion, is to cut your losses and move on. I fully understand this isn't easy for you.
I have previously crossed swords with you on a number of occasions, but looking back, I realize it came down to a simple difference of perspective. I had long ago given up on trusting the company while you believed (and still do!) the company was acting in good faith.
Feel free to contact me over email if I can be of help. Yes, I know that looks like a long shot, but I'm actually much less of a jerkass in private than I am online.
Thanks for taking the time to read my long rambling post. I wish you good luck in whatever you choose to do hereafter (and I don't restrict this to the current fiasco). I guess as they say in the USA, "May the force be with you."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-13 05:06 pm (UTC)It is really unfortunate that you are caught in this mess. It is fairly obvious to everyone outside a certain ivory tower that the recent CoC or whatever is a box-ticking activity towards a certain company goal. As you rightly said elsewhere, you have been made a scapegoat to make an obscure statement about the CoC's teeth. They would have done well to choose a different scapegoat though, but I guess having already banned me last year, they didn't have any obvious choice. :-)
That said though, the current fiasco is an XY Problem. The actual issue here is many long-term members of the "community" trust the company when they are unworthy of that trust. That mismatch of expectation and reality is the root cause of the current fiasco, as well as the previous ones. The Welcome Wagon of previous year was a blatantly obvious foot-in-the-door scam, which opened the door to make "small concessions" for "new" (=$$$) users at the expense of the established users.
The current fiasco is a natural progression towards the same goal of driving out established users who don't bring in much new revenue to make room for those who do. It was for exactly this reason that I mocked the initiative as The Great Black Magical Hand of the Welcoming Bandwagon. I could see plenty of red flags to anticipate it would end up into something like the current fiasco. I tried forcing their hand with a disguised "constructive" feedback here (https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/314598/202356), but that ended up exactly as everyone expected and for obvious reasons.
I saw through the company's deceit, dishonesty and hypocrisy long ago. They kept peddling changes that served their agenda while taking the moral high ground and claiming that they were doing it for the community. I kept calling them out and telling people not to trust them, but nobody believed me. (Cassandra Truth) Unfortunately, even in the midst of the current fiasco, many people still believe that the company is trustworthy.
My objections were shot down as non-constructive. Here's a fun fact: in real life, I am known to be a great communicator, and I have resolved conflicts that people several years my senior believed couldn't be resolved. So, I wasn't incapable of giving constructive feedback *per se*. I just did not bother because (1) with their deceit, dishonesty and hypocrisy, the company had long since crossed the point where they deserved constructive feedback and (2) it wouldn't make any difference either way because they didn't want to hear criticism of their decisions (constructive or otherwise).
You have also mentioned elsewhere that you were perhaps too "naive" to follow Spolsky's lead and sign up with your real name. I remember we had a bit of a debate on this topic (in Catbert's Lounge, or perhaps in meta comments, don't remember). I must say, I would have felt happy if I had been proven wrong on that point, and the fact that the company ended up proving me right leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
My real life identity is not exactly a secret, but it would take quite some effort for a casual site visitor to figure it out, which is enough of a deterrent. Ironically, if I were the currently chosen scapegoat, the company couldn't release my real life identity to the press without a massive egg on their face. ("One of our moderators, Masked Man (whose real name is ...) refused to address people by their preferred pronouns." would raise questions about their intentions and overshadow the pronoun non-issue.)
I see that you are still hoping the company will talk to you and sort things out. With utmost respect and no malice, I beg to submit that you *are* (no "perhaps" here) "naive". The company clearly has no interest in resolving the issue or making good the damage done to you. I can say this "somewhat" objectively as I have been away from the site for about a year, and sat out of the all the previous drama. (I only just visited it recently due to the news of the company appointing an Indian-origin CEO, which (coincidentally?) happened around the same time as the fiasco.) Your best option, in my opinion, is to cut your losses and move on. I fully understand this isn't easy for you.
I have previously crossed swords with you on a number of occasions, but looking back, I realize it came down to a simple difference of perspective. I had long ago given up on trusting the company while you believed (and still do!) the company was acting in good faith.
Feel free to contact me over email if I can be of help. Yes, I know that looks like a long shot, but I'm actually much less of a jerkass in private than I am online.
Thanks for taking the time to read my long rambling post. I wish you good luck in whatever you choose to do hereafter (and I don't restrict this to the current fiasco). I guess as they say in the USA, "May the force be with you."