How can we put pressure on Stack Exchange Inc. without damaging the community?

Question

Is there a constructive way to put pressure on Stack Exchange (the company) without putting any pressure on the community in general and the moderators in particular?

Goals

1. Give Monica her diamond(s) back, with a public apology if the accusations were not founded.
2. Address the underlying issues that led to this blowing up:
   • Significant policy changes without review;
   • Not assuming good intent when people ask questions;
   • Dictating to—rather than working with—moderators and the community;
   • Attacking or going silent when challenged;
   • Insufficiently asking the community they claim to want to protect for their input on how to do so.

Desired properties

The methods to achieve these goals should:

• Be constructive. No trolling, no personal attacks, no targeting of minorities.
• Be sufficiently effective to change some of the company's KPIs to red (whatever they are)
• Not require any additional work from the moderators. There's an extreme amount of pressure already, but it's been mostly directed towards the community.
• Be reversible as soon as improvements are noticed. The goal isn't to permanently damage the company but to force the company to realign with the community. Stack Exchange is still doing a lot of things right.

Past actions

Those actions didn't seem to impress corporate very much:

• Mods resigning (While it has a huge impact on the community and the content, there hasn't been any sign that the higher ups seem to care at all).
• Thousands of Downvotes.
• Strike
• An open letter

What else could work?

• Offer a platform for SE employees to anonymously share information relevant to the current problems. Some of the employees clearly feel a strong link to the community, but they are apparently forced to either stay silent or repeat corporate buzzwords.
• Stop using Stack Exchange paid products at work (e.g. Teams)
• Advise everyone to enable Ad-Blockers on Stack Exchange.
• Change our avatar.
• Reach out to a prominent Twitter user and let them publicly complain about one of the many recent problems.

Any suggestion is welcome.

Answer 1

I would posit that you can't put pressure on SE without damaging the community. Little else damages the fundamental engine of their profit and is plausible within your control. (Although hey, more work on legislation protecting or even preventing unpaid volunteers would always be welcome.)

My own approach so far has been this, and requires little to no ongoing additional work:

• Remove my name, image, bio, etc. from my profile (disassociate my personal identity)
• Stop providing my free services to SE (don't ask or answer questions, don't perform edits, don't flag problems...)
• Provide my services, free or paid, elsewhere (re-post my best answers on my own blog, participate in help IRC channels, check and participate in Github issues...)

Unfortunately, you can't meaningfully take back past contributions. SE has a license to your prior works, so if you were to delete everything, they could just roll back your changes as "self-vandalism", lock your account, and kick you to the curb.

Ceasing your contributions does not have an immediate effect, but probably has the strongest effect. The community will begin to slowly degrade right away, and will continue to degrade. It's also reversible: If you start contributing again, the effects will slowly be remediated. (But I would caution against putting in extra work in such a case. SE needs to not be able to gamble on this happening.)

They already have what they want from you. The most you can do is stop giving them more.

Answer 2

Past actions have been effective

The actions have drawn attention to the updated CoC – over 100k views in 9 days with a score of -1745 and counting. It led to the creation of Meta's 4th most upvoted question in history with a positive score of 1606 and viewed over 121k times in only 21 days. The uproar also attracted the attention of the press, here, and here.

Above all, the significant number of moderators resigning on Stack Exchange and on Stack Overflow has successfully drawn attention to the company's appalling handling of Monica Cellio's demodding.

What is the mood among SE staff and its CEO?

In order to gauge something, I listened to the revived Stack Overflow podcast entitled: compilers, turtles, and a brand new crew with host Ben Popper and guests; Sara Chipps, the director of Public Q&A at Stack; Paul Ford, a writer, technologist and CEO of Postlight; and special appearance by Prashanth Chandrasekar, Stack Overflow’s newly appointed CEO.

The first ten minutes of conversation isn't enthralling unless you are starting a career as a developer, computer engineer or programmer, the explanation of what a compiler does will probably be of interest and useful to know. What particularly struck me was how often Ms Chips interjected with her laughter.

Around 10:24 the new CEO is introduced to podcast listeners and around 15:27, Chandrasekar begins to talk about his vision for the Stack Overflow community and company. In the first two days as CEO he talked to almost 130 Stackers which he said was an “eye-opening learning experience”, he soon realised what made the company ‘tick’ was the SO team

…(16:45) that cares about this community so much and wants to do the right thing. There are probably a handful of companies in the world that has such a large impact around the world. With 50 million developers coming here to seek answers to their most technical questions, there is no way that you could replicate that magic. And so, we're really really blessed to have a phenomenal community of people that are willing to share so much, and be open about the knowledge that is resident in their heads and ready to promote a truly borderless sharing of information around these topics…

Around 19:45 the topic shifts to turtles. I particularly like freshwater turtles, they're cute, but my blood ran cold when I realized that small children could manipulate these poor turtles at their will, to draw things on computers.

My level of engagement plummeted from this point on.

Around 25:50 mark, the topic shifts to something called “Logo”.
Around 27:00 mark, the host (I think) talks about “Net Logo”.

Feedback

The atmosphere on the podcast appeared to be relaxed, buoyant and cheerful. The host and guests chatted freely, little if anything seemed to be scripted, but it was clear the primary scope of the show was to introduce the new CEO to Stackers and users alike. Everyone showed a unified front, which did not even hint at any possible simmering tension.

Unsurprisingly, there was no mention of the diaspora of moderators fleeing across the network, especially the resignations from SE's jewel in the crown, Stack Overflow; Robert Harvey, George Stocker (a staggering 1,408 votes supporting his decision) and just two days ago, Jon Clements. Unsurprisingly, there was no mention of the recently updated CoC, Sara Chipps' article, Iterating on Inclusion, which was published on the company's blog just ten days ago and praised by Fullerton on Twitter; where else?

Yet, in the podcast there was no mention of the importance of inclusivity, no mention of the LGBTQ+ community, no mention of the updated CoC, no mention of SO's infamy of being toxic and unwelcoming to minorities but how, finally, they were dealing with it, head on. And last but not least, no mention of Monica's demodding from six SE sites, nor how the dismissal was compared to shipping software by the Director of Public Q&A herself.

Why? Simply because it's embarrassing to admit in public.

Next course of action?

I suggest that we wait. We wait to see what Wednesday brings. My patience; however, is wearing thin, similar to that of an eggshell.

On October 15, Shog9♦ wrote an answer to the question on everybody's lips

Monica's situation continues unresolved, is SE hoping the problem just goes away?

[Emphasis his]

As noted in David's apology, we created a lot of the problems in play here by not following process. So now we need a process to follow for handling issues involving moderators that our existing process didn't seem right for, and also we need a process for what to do when a moderator has been removed and wants to come back. That last process is the process we need here - that's the big test, really: can we build a process that'll give Monica a fair shake even after all that's happened these last few weeks? Good question...

[…]

…If we get that process right, then we'll finally be able to do something useful here. If we didn't, we'll likely keep circling. That's why, frustrating as it is right now, we're moving slowly.

Believe me, I know how stressful this is to watch, especially when so little is being said. There's a lot I want to say right now, but it would be careless of me to do so; and again, we've already been a bit too careless with what we've said in some situations, and hurt folks by doing so.

Thanks for both your patience, and your gentle prodding - it's folks like you being attentive to the work we're doing that keeps us focused. @Shog9♦

This is Stack Exchange's last chance

This is Stack Exchange's last chance to begin repairing bridges with its core users, and rebuild that trust, which has been slowly eroding for well over a year. A trust that George Stoker, in his resignation, states began crumbling as far back as 2014

1. Stack Overflow Inc. has forgotten how to lead, how to persuade, and how to talk with the community. This has been a slow decline since 2014 and we are now at the point where the company's actions show they no longer want to build a relationship with the community they have.

He brilliantly summed up the proposed moderator process

[Emphasis mine]

2. Since the current people in charge also make the decisions regarding the Moderator review/removal process; I am not confident that moderators are seen as partners in community building; but rather volunteers to be tightly controlled. The proposed Moderator Review process lacks due process, codifies the decision making in the hands of the same people who have created the mess we're now experiencing, and treats oversight of the process in a token fashion. They may as well have retained their previous statement that "community moderators can be removed at any time, for any reason", because that's what the proposed process codifies, with the illusion of impartiality.

There's not much room for optimism, is there?

But there's a glimmer of hope, the process seems to have been vetted, and the moderators have been shown the draft and have suggested ways in which to improve it.

Let's hope to see the company and Monica begin talking to each other, in private, by Wednesday. Let's grant Stack Overflow Inc. this one last chance to get it right.

Answer 3

As discussed in the comments:

A number of users (many dozens now) have changed their usernames to "Reinstate Monica" or some variant like "{username} says Reinstate Monica", and/or changed their avatars to this image:

_{(if someone knows who to credit this image to, please edit it in here. Mari-Lou A posted the first link to it, I don't know if she designed it or not)}

...and added text to their bios explaining and linking to relevant Meta posts for users encountering the issue for the first time. For example, and see further discussion on What would be good “call to action” elements for “Reinstate Monica” profiles?:

The recent actions of Stack Exchange have been reprehensible. The lack of professional conduct, the tone deaf way they've been dealing with the community, and the unfair and unjustified way they've dealt with Monica Cellio.

Monica is an exemplar of the community, it's incredible how she's managed to keep a level head during this time when emotions have been very high.

REINSTATE MONICA

Pros:

• If you have many high-views questions and answers on main sites, it's a good way to raise awareness of the issue to users who don't visit Meta
• It sends a very clear message, and shows Monica personally very clear support (not that I think she has any doubt that most of us support her, but still, it can't hurt to show appreciation)

Cons:

• The decision makers at Stack Overflow Inc. probably won't see it, because they aren't people who use Stack Exchange very much. That said, if they do (e.g. some are light Stack Overflow users), it might be a good wake-up call, especially if they find themselves using content from one of your high-quality answers.
• There are a number of users simply called "Reinstate Monica" now, which has a nice "I'm Spartacus" aspect to it, but can get confusing in comment threads when people @ notify someone. If you want to anonimise your profile in protest but still be @-able you could append your user number from your network profile page URL (e.g. mine is https://stackexchange.com/users/275533/user568458 therefore it would be Reinstate Monica 275533)

Answer 4

1. Start a competing site.
2. Bring over all the Creative Commons Q&A
3. Do a better job managing the site.

If you build it well, they will come.

We can all think of several dot coms that fell to poor management and good competition.

Update See codidact.org, the Codidact Meta, a place to discuss the best way forward to develop a community-driven alternative to replace Stack Exchange with something healthier, and the current list of communities.

Answer 5

A note on this suggestion:

Stop using Stack Exchange paid products at work (e.g., Teams)

Boycott campaigns can be very successful, but they succeed only if the target knows they're being boycotted and why, and can see that the small dip on their charts has a clear explanation and could become a downward trend.

If senior staff in the Public Q&A team don't follow what the community behind the public Q&A are saying here on Meta, then the sales team definitely don't.

Write to Stack Overflow Inc. and tell them

Don't just post here; very few Stack Overflow Inc. employees actually use their own network. It won't be seen.

Instead, write directly to the appropriate sales team – see for example https://stackoverflow.com/company/contact – and also post to social media and/or blog about it.

If hardworking sales professionals see that their hard work trying to promote their company is being actively undone because one colleague in a different team refuses to take responsible action after breaking the company's own rules while pursuing an inexplicable personal grudge against a valuable volunteer, they may apply the kind of pressure we can't.

What can I do?

If you're a software developer:

• You can tell them how you advise colleagues to use other platforms for Q&A and knowledge sharing (e.g., GitHub issues) because of the failing quality control, moderation and community engagement you see at Stack Overflow. I believe that SO Inc. is complacent about Stack Overflow's (slipping) market leader position, but they must have noticed and have some concerns about how (even a year or two ago) its reputation began to fall steeply.

• You are a key part of the target market for Stack Overflow Jobs. You can tell them that you no longer use this for job searches, and that you tell companies who advertise there that it is a platform you won't use (e.g., in surveys, or if you see their own website link to a Stack Overflow Jobs page, etc).

  Something that could be quite effective is, any time you see a company advertise exclusively or primarily using Stack Overflow Jobs, you could send them an email saying that you do not use this platform due to the company's unethical treatment of its volunteers, and you therefore will not apply for positions at this company unless an alternative method is offered, and bcc the relevant SO sales team in the email.

• Your employer is the target market for Teams and Jobs. You can tell them that you have advised your company not to consider such products, because, as a long-standing member, you have observed that Stack Overflow is a burning platform. Even if your company was never considering such products, they will be hoping to reach companies like yours with their marketing and it will concern them to learn that their marketing will be reaching decision makers who are already briefed against them.

If you are a senior person in a software company (even a very small one):

• You can say very similar things to above but with much higher impact – "My company has made the decision to [x]" is stronger than "I am advising my employer to [X]",

• You could blog about it on the company blog, if there is one. This could be very high impact, if you get the tone right.

  For example: you supported their talk and ambitions about inclusivity, but having observed how the company appears to be abusing the name of inclusivity as a cover for staff to pursue unrelated personal vendettas against volunteers, you believe this is a company you cannot trust to be part of your company's operations. You now favour [x] for recruitment, [y] for internal knowledge sharing, and [z] as your recommendation for employees seeking support from the wider developer community.

If you don't work in software, it's harder to make an impact because the other sites are so much smaller and less monetised, but there could still be an impact if enough people directly tell them things like:

• You no longer promote the SE site among other enthusiasts in that field, and/or you promote [rival site] instead,
• You advise people you know in that field to use an ad blocker if they visit that site

Answer 6

I think the only viable strategy at this point is getting media attention, be it Twitter or newspapers. However, attracting the attention you want won't be easy as going against woke policies is likely to be interpreted negatively. There're a lot of context and history which lead to this disagreement, so the story is hard to sell to readers.

Technically, moderators resigning is probably the hardest hit both to the company and the community. However, at the large scale, nobody is indispensable for big companies. Even if the site loses 10% of moderators and active users, it won't massively affect the company in the long run.

Whether you should suspend your activity or not, you should decide based on your own plans, relations and feelings. Going on a strike just to lower "KPI" is probably not a good idea and is unlikely to succeed. The same thing with using ad-blockers or not promoting Teams at work — you're likely a very small minority, so you should make such decisions yourself rather than join an inefficient strike and then measure random fluctuations on SEDE. But that's just my opinion. Maybe I'm overly pessimistic.

The company is clearly aware of the backlash, the reaction is unprecedented already, so I'd rather wait for the company's next step rather than focus on destructive actions.

Anyway, it's been proven many times that what really gets the company's attention is social media. Random posts on Twitter cause immediate reaction and massive changes. I don't know anybody who may be interested, but if you know any prominent users on Twitter, YouTube etc., you should try getting their attention. I think this approach has much higher chances of having a visible effect.

Answer 7

Not much of this would work sadly, not as you understand it anyway.

We're currently hearing some comforting noises but the effect is to be seen.

be strong enough to change some of the company's KPIs to red

We would need to know what the KPIs are. And well - I'm pretty doubtful that anything we do can make a massive impact on SE's revenue streams. Historically the big causes of SE not meeting performance goals was... shooting themselves in the foot.

not require any additional work from the moderators.

Literally any form of public protest involves extra moderator work.

be reversible as soon as improvements are noticed. The goal isn't to permanently damage the company but to force the company to realign with the community.

Looking at current events, well there's always a risk things spiral out of control.

Offer a platform for SE employees to anonymously share information relevant to the current problems. Some of the employees clearly feel a strong link to the community but are apparently forced to either stay silent or repeat corporate buzz words.

And such a platform would still be under corporate thumb

Stop using StackExchange paid products at work (e.g. Teams)

We're often not the decision makers. Also if there is a widespread boycott, and losses - we can't be sure what the effect is

Advice everyone to enable Ad-Blockers on stackexchange.

So far. for most part SE dosen't particularly mind if you use an adblocker.

Reach out to a prominent Twitter user and let them publicly complain about one of the many recent problems.

Honestly if I had that sort of influence and could cause change, I would never stop tweeting about it

The moderator open letter and such had an effect. But what you want will determine what change you want.

I'd personally love to see more investment in the community -both in terms of "physical" resources like more employees on the community side and better more productive engagement from folks here. The latter might take a while at this point. Its what I would lobby and push for.

So a start would be deciding what you want SE to be and working towards that

Answer 8

I think SE will respond in significant ways to a few actions:

• Customers dropping the Teams product because they don't want a vendor who's embroiled in social controversies, or is careless with releasing PII, or because IT decision-makers are making a stand against SE management.

• Negative press exposure, in a 'real' newspaper. Not Hacker News, not Reddit. Their worst nightmare, right now, should be the fear that some news magazine will write a sympathetic story about how Monica was betrayed by an organization she had trusted and volunteered for for years.

• Social Media... IF the critic comes with a certain level of popularity, and is active in the same social media circles as SE management. That won't be of any aid to the actual SE community, of course.

Downvoting Meta posts is ignored. Resigning moderators are an annoyance, but I suspect SE thinks that moderators are interchangeable, and can be easily replaced. Of course, we're already seeing the average level of moderation descend as principled mods leave; but I don't think SE cares about the slow decline of quality.

Most of all, though, they shouldn't be given a break. This is like chemotherapy, and letting up on the bitter medication will just allow the disease to re-establish itself even stronger. The temporary harm to the community is nothing comparing to the death of the community if you give up.

If your only weapon is annoyance and pestering, which is all we have on Meta, it needs to be non-stop and never-ending.

Until they fix the issue.

Answer 9

Is there a constructive way to put pressure on Stack Exchange (the company) without putting any pressure on the community in general and the moderators in particular?

Donate to Monica's GoFundMe. Of all the various avenues, this seems the most likely to get results. By donating, you are no longer just angry words on the internet, but show SE Inc you will hold them accountable. This also puts no pressure on the moderators or community.

Answer 10

If you want to very quickly change your avatar without losing your original visual identity, and you don't feel like messing with real image-manipulation software, I recommend using https://addtext.com/ . You can drop your current avatar in, add "Reinstate Monica", and save the resulting image in less than a minute. It comes with a watermark, but I don't care much in this (hopefully temporary!) case, and anyway, it makes this simple technique more discoverable.

Example:

Answer 11

One way to help Monica without even involving the community of users would be to visit Monica's GoFundMe page. This would be a below the radar way to really get SE's attention, privately, for the injured party, Monica. Tanks.

Answer 12

Place community ads on as many sites as possible.

Based on this design

Community ads are supposed to be relevant to the site they are posted on. I would argue that current issues relating to the network as a whole and its interactions with its volunteers and users are extremely relevant to each individual site, and how avid users decide to spend their time moving forward.

It would almost certainly help raise awareness of Monica's situation if this (or other community ads like it) were posted on all sites - or preferably if multiple variants of this ad were posted on each site on the network to increase the chance of it displaying to users.

In case anyone else wants to make their own community ad or profile image:

Answer 13

This answer is an offshoot of the answer I wrote regarding possible SE violations of New York labor law, where I share my research that appeared to show that for-profit companies are not permitted to use volunteer labor except for short-term projects. See also https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm and https://www.labor.ny.gov/workerprotection/laborstandards/PDFs/FAQs_NonProfit_and_State2016.pdf.

Here is the way I see the basic problem, from the point of view of the volunteeer moderators and community members who are frustrated about recent mismanagement of the network of public Q&A sites (this is going to be quite boiled down, that is, very simplified):

Traditionally, people contributed their time, knowledge, creativity and patience out of altruism, because the work was felt to be valuable, for oneself and for others, and it was rewarding. But this fall, it has become a lot less rewarding for many of us, myself included. (I am a garden variety participant.)

So I started thinking about how to encourage SE leadership to dialog with Monica and be more transparent with moderators and participants.

I reached out in several different ways to request the opportunity to speak with someone in a position of authority, such as David Fullerton. There was no response, ultimately.

Also, I looked into filing a complaint with JAMS (cost in most states in the US: $250). See my post here. However, after speaking with a labor relations expert, I came to have some doubts about the speed and effectiveness of filing with JAMS.

Then I became curious about where the volunteer moderators and the SE company fit together in relation to US and New York State labor law. I've spoken with an investigator at the Wage and Hour Division of the New York Department of Labor, and with her supervisor. I have a phone appointment for Monday with the next person up the ladder at NY DOL. (I want to make sure I understand correctly the status of the volunteer moderators. Even though the two people I've spoken with so far have given consistent guidance, I want to be triply sure I'm not misinterpreting something.)

Here's my current understanding:

Anyone living in the United States can file a Wage and Compensation violation complaint, regardless of state, and regardless of whether they are a moderator or not.

(A complaint could alternatively be made at the federal level.)

The initial complaint to the NY DOL would be filed by phone. It can be filed as a systemic complaint.

The idea is to exert pressure on the company to:

(a) create a non-profit network that would take over the existing Q&A sites;

(b) donate hosting, software and technical troubleshooting to the non-profit;

(c) treat the volunteer moderators and contributors with respect and transparency -- and that would include Monica;

(d) and allow self-rule at the new network.

The company would still benefit from the effect on potential customers being able to see the software in action at the public network. However, the public network would no longer provide a direct source of revenue to the company through advertising.

It would be up to the non-profit to decide whether to run ads, and if so, what kind.

The non-profit might decide to hire some paid staff. Perhaps some or all of the CMs would be interested in applying.

The NY DOL has told me that once a complaint is filed, things move pretty quickly, on a time scale of weeks (not months or years, as I've seen happen at the Office for Civil Rights).

The first step would be for the DOL to do an initial evaluation of the complaint and decide whether to open an investigation.

The complainant(s) can provide a list of volunteer moderators and their contact information. The DOL would then contact those people as part of the investigation. They would be focused on moderators who perform their volunteer work on US soil. In other words, if you are a citizen of Country Y (other than the US), but you reside part of the year in the US, then even if you're in the US on a tourist visa, the DOL would be interested in interviewing you.

The goal would not be to force SE to come up with enough money to cover all the moderators' unpaid back-pay. I am quite hopeful the violation could be resolved by shifting the volunteer activities over to a non-profit. There would hopefully be no need for the company to actually make reimbursement payments.

I do want to clarify that the idea would be to pressure the company to treat its moderators right, all the while avoiding a strategy that would make the company go bankrupt.

I do understand that nobody became a moderator hoping to earn some dollars. The labor complaint would simply be a way to get SE to wake up and smell the coffee. We've been writing persuasively for a couple of months now, but SE, and we, appear to be stuck in a holding pattern. It may now be time to speak in a way that will get their attention.

I found some more interesting reading:

• Review article about relevant case law by Blake Bertagna, an attorney in the Employment Law Department of Paul Hastings, LLP

• There is an ongoing class action lawsuit against Vox Media which bears some similarity to our situation.

• Here's a quote from the Supreme Court decision Tony & Susan Alamo Foundation v. Sec'y of Labor, 471 U.S. 290 (1985):

  If an exception to the [Fair Labor Standards Act] were carved out for employees willing to testify that they performed work "voluntarily," employers might be able to use superior bargaining power to coerce employees to make such assertions, or to waive their protections under the Act.

• "Wage Hour Laws: Avoiding the Quicksand and Land Mines" by Peter M. Panken, Lauri F. Rasnick. This review article includes information about protections against retaliation.

[At the OP's request, the latest development is being communicated]

On Monday (2019/11/19), the NY Department of Labor emailed me to say that the next step would be to submit a formal question to the US Department of Labor, as a way to get more definitive guidance.

Note to company staff and directors: I very much hope you will not delete this post, as I am really hoping we can work things out to everyone's satisfaction, and I would not like you to give the appearance of retaliating, based on my public announcement here that I am considering filing a Wage and Hour complaint with the NY Department of Labor.

Answer 14

ASK QUESTIONS

Asking and answering questions is what this network is all about, isn't it? So, as long as the questions we ask are appropriate, relevant and and respectful, they can't possibly damage the community, can they?

Most people come here to learn, to share knowledge, or both. So let's do just that.

What to Ask

We need to ask questions and provide answers about every nuance of the things that are bothering us.

Where to Ask

On any and every relevant site,

For example, do you have questions about:

• Demoting volunteers? Then ask questions at The Workplace
• What "re-litigate" means? Ask at English Language and English Usage
• How SE moderators are removed? Ask at SE.Meta
• Moral philosophy? Ask at Philosophy

Anything else? Then go and ask where you would normally ask.

How to Ask

This isn't about generating spam. This is about asking good quality questions that generate good quality answers. That's what the community thrives on... and also what will raise awareness of every dimension of the issues that face us right now,

Will it Work?

I think that it already is.

Answer 15

Almost by definition, moderators are very involved with their sites, but every site also has a group of active users posting, reviewing, editing, etc. It's clear to me that SE doesn't value this involvement by active users.

Since SE doesn't value a high level of involvement, my response is to be less involved.

A visible sign of my lowered involvement is that I've reverted to the default gravatar and I'm considering changing my username to userXXXXX. (I think the latter step could have some impact if lot of active users did the same.)

It doesn't take a lot of time to keep on top of flags on Server Fault, so I'll keep doing that. But I don't see myself doing any other clean-up functions: voting, closing/re-opening votes and reviews, etc. On other sites where I was active, I'll probably still read and lurk, but nothing more than that. (Except for meta.SE where I think some voting on all the discussion around these issues is warranted.)

Answer 16

I have moderate^[1] activity on the Stack Exchange network and I don't often protest any person or organization. On the other hand, I like this community and feel responsible to do something against the events, which are harming the community and some users in person.

After observing the discussions (and the company's attitude) on MSE for a few weeks, I decided to take (and took) the following actions.

1. I uninstalled the Stack Exchange Android app.
2. I unfollowed @StackOverflow on Twitter.
3. I removed my Stack Exchange flair from my blog.

I believe these actions don't damage the community and they are easily reversible.

^{[1] 170 posts in 2.5 years}

Answer 17

I suggest we consider baking a Key Lime pie for senior SE officials. Perhaps if they taste the superb heavenly lemony sweetness of it, their cold, cruel hearts will soften.

When they go low, we go pie.

_{You can also buy the pie if you're not much of a baker.}

Answer 18

Part of the difficulty is that the overwhelming majority of users don't know or care about how SE (the company) is ignoring the community; they're just interested in finding an answer to their question/problem.

Perhaps when writing questions or answers, we could insert a single-line banner, something like the following:

The company behind Stack Overflow is ignoring the community. Please take action now, and feel free to spread this banner.

with embedded links to relevant Meta posts.

Recommended actions might include communicating with the CEO and others in management positions, with current and potential investors; making noise via social media, etc.

This would bring the issue to a wider audience than just visitors to Meta.

If enough people participate, this would also force the company to recognize just how much the sites depend on active moderation.

Answer 19

Be reversible as soon as improvements are noticed. The goal isn't to permanently damage the company but to force the company to realign with the community. Stack Exchange is still doing a lot of things right.

Don't worry about the company. The company is a means to serve the community, not the other way around. If the company breaks down, a new company will be very interested to support our community. This community can be used to make profit with very little investment; they just need servers and a listening ear. The other way around is harder; the company cannot do much without the community and it will have to pay its employees, and without money coming in, for which they rely on having a community, that's hard.

So basically, what you need to do to change a company's direction is to force it. There are two things the company listens to:

• money

• the law

Money

You've already suggested two ways of attacking revenue:

• Stop using Stack Exchange paid products at work (e.g. Teams)

• Advise everyone to enable Ad-Blockers on Stack Exchange.

That's probably not enough. They'll get the bulk of their money from investors, and attacking that supply is hard as you'll have to convince investors not to invest. It's clear what's needed to change investors' minds. Make clear that it's a bad investment. The 'problem' is that it's not; SE has unique access to a great community.

Alternatively, you can make investors be more picky. They pay, and they can demand. This is again tricky. How do you convince investors that they'll have a better investment if they condition their money on certain demands? Can you even convince yourself that the requested changes have a meaningful impact on return on investment? If so, please provide the argument, and then share that en masse. Note that such an analysis is probably enough to convince many in the current leadership to change. As Clinton strategist James Carville coined it:

The economy, [censored]

The law

The law can be a great tool. If the company breaks the law or a court of law agrees they renege on some of their obligations then that's a fact you can use to convince investors to push for change.

It's also a good way to convince others in the community who aren't aware of wrongdoing. Nobody likes injustice, not even those who work for Stack Exchange. It may compel change, and it may empower others to stand up.

The question, of course, is whether there is a legal case. I can think of at least one, that's already working, as SE staff says:

This has taken a legal turn and we want to be as transparent as we can. Under guidance from our legal team, we are not able to respond to anything regarding Monica's situation. We will not be answering any questions or comments about that going forward.

That's great. Teams are expensive, and legal teams even more so. Let investors know they're spending their money in the courts. I'm sure they'll wonder if that's really necessary and if it wouldn't be more economical to have better policies that don't end up in court.

And if SE wants to play dirty, go ahead. We have larger numbers. Some states in the US legal system allow SLAPP, and this may be an opportunity to use it for good and to compel the network we love to change for the better. And compelling it is. From Wikipedia's page on strategic lawsuit against public participation:

In the typical SLAPP, the plaintiff does not normally expect to win the lawsuit. The plaintiff's goals are accomplished if the defendant succumbs to fear, intimidation, mounting legal costs, or simple exhaustion and abandons the criticism. In some cases, repeated frivolous litigation against a defendant may raise the cost of directors and officers liability insurance for that party, interfering with an organization's ability to operate.

The only downside to this is that it takes money to take it to court. The upside is that it only takes one person with a load of money to overwhelm SE. And again, don't worry about the company. Even if it breaks, someone else will buy it and they'll want to keep the good elements. Worry about the community, not the company.

Answer 20

I suggested a protest action as an answer to a separate but similar question: How can we resolve the current drama without causing any more harm to vulnerable groups?

The idea is to paradoxically ease up on the pressure in order to give SE room to safely act, give our community a chance to heal, and build unity.

The proposal? For two weeks:

• Refrain from discussing the CoC changes, or the pronoun elements of the incident. No upvotes either.
• Be nice. Be very nice. Channel your inner Mr. Rogers.
• Redirect users to this answer when they do try to discuss the CoC.
• Continue with other protest actions that don't conflict, and don't let the core issue die.

In that last point, "don't let the core issue die" refers to the behaviour that led to Monica's termination, and everything that came after. Namely:

• Failure to follow due process.
• Lack of respect for, and trust in moderators.
• Lack of engagement with the community.

The original post goes into much more detail, especially about the why. It needs some community love before adoption, specifically in crafting realistic demands. Help is appreciated!