Stack Overflow Inc.: more delays

[cellio]

Continuing from my previous post, the company published policies for moderator removal and reinstatement on Friday to all moderators. I understood this to be an announcement, so when I hadn't heard from David Fullerton with an update by Sunday, I sent email asking about it.

It turns out that what they posted was a draft, and they are making updates based on feedback. I'm glad to hear they're listening to feedback, but this introduces another delay. David said they are finalizing the policies "this week" and will send me the final version when it's done.

Reminder: the company has absolutely refused to reinstate me now, even though they admit that they failed to follow the process they already had for moderator removal. Even though David admits that I deserved the benefit of a private, comprehensive process, and even though a senior employee, Sara Chipps, subsequently maligned me repeatedly and very publicly (which is causing damage), they are unwilling to revert the change and then look at the original situation afresh. I have to instead apply for reinstatement.

From what I've heard through the rumor mill, the process, once started, takes two weeks and is probably biased toward the status quo.

With that as background, here is the email I sent to David tonight in reply to that message:

Thank you for the update.

Can we expedite any of this? Sara's public, defamatory accusations, made in violation of all prior Stack Exchange rules and conventions about privacy, are actively causing me harm every single day. They also resulted from a lack of due process for me. Reinstating me alone will not fix that, but it seems reinstatement is a precondition before SE will mitigate the harm done by these actions. From what you've said and the rumors I've heard about the timing in the policy, we're looking at another three weeks of delay and thus continuing damage.

I don't think you intend to cause serious ongoing harm to me. What can we do to alleviate it?

---

While I'm posting... a couple people have asked me questions privately, so:

• I was not warned either that I was violating the CoC or that I was facing possible removal.

• If SE is considering the messages in TL from Sara on September 18 to be warnings, then I did not subsequently violate the CoC, current or future. (I also did not interpret them as warnings that my status was in danger.)

• There was one piece of email from a CM that suggested that if I couldn't see a path toward resolving the matter, I should step down. But I did see a path and said so. So (1) that wasn't a warning of impending termination and (2) even if it had been, the condition was not met.

• I didn't go disrupt something elsewhere on the network after leaving TL. I didn't do anything that would call for an urgent response.

• I think it is likely that the reinstatement process will be rigged against me. Nonetheless, I will go through it if that path is made available in the reasonably near future.

Edit 2019-10-22: The next email I received was on October 21, when a community manager emailed me to let me know the new processes were about to be posted.

Comments

[cellio]

I'm very sad that they charged full steam ahead on the CoC update in the midst of the mess they made, precisely *because* it's damaging the people they said they were trying to support. Members of the queer community have *told* them "you made things worse for us", but there's been no response. It's appalling.

People are also trying to separate the issues, but seem to be largely failing. It's all bound up together in the public mind because of how SE botched the announcement on top of their botched treatment of me.

There's also been a lot of twisting and misrepresentation on both sides. Some want a policy of "you must use these specific pronouns, and you must inject gender into everything even where it doesn't belong or you're a bigot". (That's pretty close to Sara Chipps's original position, though those aren't her words.) That's clearly unworkable. On the other hand, some are saying crap like "those pronouns are fake" and "well then I get to make up my own words too", which makes it worse. And yes, we've seen the "attack helicopter" thing several times already.

In the midst of all this, anybody trying to express a nuanced position that *happens* to look similar to things that some bigots do gets accused of dog-whistling and bigotry and gets shut down. The logical fallacy of "bigots do X; you did X; therefore you are a bigot" is in play. This was apparently in play in Teachers' Lounge back in mid-September, but I didn't yet recognize it. (I'm not up on all the current dog-whistles...)

Professional writers are trained to avoid unnecessary gender references, which can be unclear and/or give offense. Apparently the UN even has guidelines on this, which I was quite surprised to learn. (Section 3. Some of the earlier stuff is dated, but that part is solid and, in my experience, current professional practice.) This doesn't mean anybody's being disrespectful; quite the opposite. In addition, we almost never *need* third-person singular pronouns on the parts of Stack Exchange I use; we talk about spam flags or unclear questions or users (as a class) or site features or whatever, or we might link to a specific post or refer to a user by name, but we don't generally talk about individual people. We might talk *with* individual people, but that's second-person which in English is ungendered, so that's fine.

So against that backdrop -- rare if any need, and an existing, respectful writing style -- I asked questions, seeking to continue to do what I do. One person pointed out that if I use "he" and "she" but not singular "they" then I'm discriminating against nonbinary folks now that some of them use that pronoun. That's a position I hadn't considered before, and I agreed that would be bad and I wouldn't do that. Some folks claimed that I was "twisting" my writing style to avoid recognizing people, which isn't at all true. (I guess we've got some amount of "*I'm* not a good enough writer to do that and therefore nobody could be"? I practice my craft; I am in fact good enough to do that.)

Now they've rushed out sloppy CoC updates, calling down the maelstrom they should have expected, and all the arguments -- extreme and nuanced, sincere and trolling -- are flying around. When people are upset they aren't in the headspace to consider nuanced positions, so it just means a lot of shouting. SE, for their part, has lobbed this into the community, left conflicting comments all over the place (good luck putting it all together), and otherwise done nothing to calm things down. It's hurting everybody, and it's hurting the queer community worst of all because their *identity* is being dragged through all the mess. Ugh.

I want to, separately, post here about language/writing -- some of the stuff I said in this comment, but more clear and careful and with more context and stuff. But I don't want to be part of making things worse for people I care about, and I fear that anything I say will be twisted and weaponized. So I probably shouldn't even leave this comment, but I don't want to ignore you either.


Sigh. This is not what inclusion means. This is not what diversity means. And it's sure not what respect means.

[minoanmiss]

You can screen your comment, or the whole thread, which makes this conversation effectively private.

I think you should keep this comment, though, because it's excellently said and you may need to repeat this explanation elsewhere, so you might as well not have to write it twice.

hugs you

Someone came across this

[(Anonymous)]

https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/309550

Also buried (have to click show more comments):

I said, and Robert said again, that we can't police beliefs, and even trying is hugely problematic. We can and do police behaviors: words posted and actions taken on these sites. The day we stop censoring abusive actions and start censoring any words from people we label as "abusive" is the day this all falls apart. – Shog9♦ May 17 '18 at 20:27

How things change. I don't find anything much to object to, and it seems to be the right way to do "inclusion" to the SE way of things.

[alienor]

Some folks claimed that I was "twisting" my writing style to avoid recognizing people, which isn't at all true. (I guess we've got some amount of "*I'm* not a good enough writer to do that and therefore nobody could be"? I practice my craft; I am in fact good enough to do that.)

If this is in reference to our conversation, I said "It looks like you're twisting yourself in knots to avoid being forced to acknowledge enbies" which is NOT AT ALL saying that you are twisting your writing style.

I completely believe it's possible for you to write that way. I also completely believe that for you to do so when requested to use a certain pronoun would feel pretty awful for that person.

[cellio]

No, that wasn't about our conversation. Somebody in TL made that accusation, which is different from what we talked about.

I write the way I do naturally -- no twisting required. The new request to not use "he" or "she" if I won't use singular "they" will require paying attention, but it's not a big deal. As I said, the need for *any* of it is super-rare; Sara and certain TL radicals are weaponizing the CoC to make a philosophical point, not because it will change much of anything for the better. (Alas, it is already changing some things for the worse.)