
Stack Exchange is not interested in cooperating with the community, is it? - PudgePacket
https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/342039/firing-community-managers-stack-exchange-is-not-interested-in-cooperating-with/342045#342045
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nif2ee
Stack Exchange is interested only in making big money since they know they
missed out for a very long time and they think they deserve to be a billion+
dollar company just like many of the top 100 websites, if the community is
interested in making money for Stack Exchange so that's fine otherwise SE is
okay with becoming Quora for developers thanks to their influence in search
engines and making money by brute force.

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abdullahkhalids
Once, enough people have left and SE has become a hollow shell of its former
self, it will become a textbook case of how to run a good and valuable company
into the ground. I would guess if SE had not responded at all rather than make
the series of statements they did, they would have done better in the
community eye.

~~~
stefan_
It's like image hosting sites, right? Eventually they all turn into
ExpertsExchange and another site springs up that promises to do it all
different. StackExchange held out longer than I would have expected.

~~~
tenebrisalietum
It's what motivated me to join SuperUser back when it was new almost 10 years
- pure hatred for expertsexchange.com results always coming up in Google
results.

All good things come to an end. :(

I believe theoretically someone could fork the entire site, but I haven't
studied the recent license changes.

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the_jeremy
Is there a good replacement to SE yet? I also don't really support SE's
changes, but it doesn't sound like there's a viable competitor to switch to.

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kup0
IMHO, the biggest problem SE has had this entire time and continues to have
throughout all of these various issues (abrupt relicensing, community
moderator firing, etc) is that there is _constant zero transparency_. Even the
times they do respond and even seem genuine, it shortly becomes clear that
they were not

SE's willful lack of responsibility and lack of transparency make them an
actively hostile entity towards all users, including members of communities
they wanted to be more inclusive towards (good supposed intent, incredibly
poor/disastrous execution). This is clear from a number of responses from
people in the LGBTQ+ community that disagreed with how things have been
handled by SE

I know there are good communities on SE that want to somehow try to save it,
to fix this, but the only way that happens would be a complete
reorganization/removal at the highest levels. It is likely best that SE have a
mass exodus and become a ghost town and its members move elsewhere and try
again, hopefully to build something better. Of course, any new alternative to
SE runs the risk of becoming another SE.

I really hate to see it, because I've learned a lot just from lurking and
reading questions and answers... there's so much wasted potential

( _edited for accuracy_ )

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tom-thistime
Where does 'community' fit into the business picture? There is a corporate
owner, and (eventually) there are some kind of advertisers or other customers.

The volunteers who provide the content are not part of the business picture.
Possibly if they organized they might be, but currently they're like chickens
on a farm.

At one time all that was the obvious inevitable endgame of "walled gardens /
web 2.0" That was why these sites were funded by investors.

Did this stop being obvious at some point since AOL and Yahoo went out of
fashion? I'm sorry if I sound bleak, but this kind of horrorshow is a known
problem.

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RedComet
The TLDR is that they implemented a policy requiring the use of made-up
pronouns for imaginary sexes. One person was fired, seemingly for being woke
but not woke enough. Many others quit.

~~~
devwastaken
[https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-...](https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-
overflow-inc-sinat-chinam-and-the-goat-for-azazel/5197#5197)

this explains it better. They never said anything about 'made up pronouns'.
Rather that as a writer they are meant to write from a neutral perspective
regardless of gender. SO said it was against a policy and has failed to
provide such policy. It's clear to me this is a result of either grossly
incompetent SO mods or a targeted attack.

~~~
RedComet
[https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/334399/summing-
up-t...](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/334399/summing-up-the-main-
issues-the-story-so-far/334417#334417)

See #2: "An SE employee announced an updated clarification to the Code of
Conduct (CoC) in the TL requiring the use of preferred pronouns if known;
announcing that the change is in effect for moderator communications (among
moderators or from moderators to a user)."

So, like I said, she was woke (used they to avoid "misgendering"), but not
woke enough (didn't want to use "Xer" or "FlimFlam" or whatever).

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IAmEveryone
Judging just by the editorializing title, this isn’t anything I want to get
involved in.

It seems to be en Vogue to hate the SO team. But having tried to understand
some of the recent hubbubs, I never saw anything that can’t be attributed to
fast growth, and excused with a basic assumption of good faith.

~~~
devwastaken
[https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-...](https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-
overflow-inc-sinat-chinam-and-the-goat-for-azazel/5197#5197)

I fail to see how this is excuses under those circumstances. Basic assumption
of good faith goes both ways, and fast growth does not mean throwing your very
important users to the curb without good reason.

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kilo_bravo_3
I have never seen so much petty pointless drama about a bunch of people being
told "don't be jerks" and then responding like children who have had their
toys (diamonds) taken away when they acted like jerks in my entire life.

Ten trillion years of unending stellar-scale nuclear fusion could pass and
less energy would have been released into the entire Universe than has been
expended in one femtosecond as impotent rage by Stack Exchange contributors
being "fired" and then complaining about it.

If Hacker News implemented a policy wherein I had to refer to everyone as
"cutie pie" and I questioned it and then they nuked my account-- so what?

~~~
arianestrasse
You sound angry, wanna talk?

Looks like you haven't really understood what the issue is but I can't be
arsed to care enough and explain.

