90

Following ideas put up by others, I changed my nickname and profile information to inform potential readers of my content on "other" network sites about the ongoing struggle.

Right now, my profile says something like:

I hope you're wondering about my avatar picture, and the strange username.

The idea is to get you curious. About this:

Firing mods and forced relicensing: is Stack Exchange still interested in cooperating with the community?

Now: if you do care: consider joining us in the struggle for our future!

Sure, that will probably help others to figure "something is going on".

But I think: without a neat "call to action", such profiles won't be causing much difference.

Thus: what would be create but legit action requests we could put into our profiles?

I mean: things we suggest the readers (users) to do! (besides changing their nick name and profiles, too)

21
  • 26
    I would add a footnote "Release the transcripts"
    – dfhwze
    Oct 27, 2019 at 8:37
  • 1
    @dfhwze ah sorry, I meant "user actions". What the company should do can directly be retrieved from my nickname.
    – GhostCat
    Oct 27, 2019 at 8:40
  • 1
    I thought that messages on profile pages could only be edited every 30 days? Oct 27, 2019 at 8:47
  • 2
    @Mari-LouA that only applies to the avatar picture. Beyond that, there is one problem with "strike". The idea is that we create attention. And that means to be present, like: answering questions, commenting,... A profile of a user doing nothing won't attract many curious readers. Thus I am hesitant about striking.
    – GhostCat
    Oct 27, 2019 at 8:50
  • 11
    @dfhwze The transcripts contain private information and multiple of the people involved have said they do not consent to the release of the transcripts. Releasing the transcripts would be a serious infringement of privacy. Stack Exchange will not do it, they should not do it, and we should not ask them to do it. Oct 27, 2019 at 9:21
  • 2
    @TannerSwett Private information or any information that could link a statement to an individual should be redacted.
    – dfhwze
    Oct 27, 2019 at 9:23
  • 41
    It is obvious that the only way to get the company's attention is to twitter. They've gone all in on twitter-driven development, so that's the way to go. Posting on meta is pointless, they just ignore that or censor it.
    – Amarth
    Oct 27, 2019 at 9:50
  • 2
    I just put the link to the image, and a link to the summation of what happened and let people who are curious about the image draw their own conclusions about what they should do about it. I am trying to disengage myself from SE, not get tied more tightly to it, so I'm probably a bad example.
    – ColleenV
    Oct 27, 2019 at 11:20
  • 1
    If someone could make a better avatar that would be great, I added but it's not really legible Oct 27, 2019 at 14:58
  • 4
    Maybe link to meta.stackexchange.com/q/336526/162102? That summarizes SE's offenses and the requested remediation. Oct 27, 2019 at 16:51
  • 5
    If I was an activist....I would start a petition (using a third party service) to send to the CEO
    – charlietfl
    Oct 27, 2019 at 17:55
  • 5
    @LаngLаngС of course my posts reflect my perspective. I don't know of an up-to-date, neutral summary. I've written several blog posts (which SE can't take down), which are linked from my post on Mi Yodeya meta. That and the big "roundup" posts here on MSE are probably the best entry points from my perspective. Oct 27, 2019 at 17:57
  • 2
    @aparente001 I've been assuming that any edits from me would be automatically deemed as biased no matter what I write, so I've been sitting it out other than making some suggestions early on. I'll review it and consider linking from my blog. Oct 27, 2019 at 22:07
  • 1
    @dfhwze That would be redacting most of it, by which point there's little point releasing the transcripts.
    – wizzwizz4
    Oct 29, 2019 at 21:20
  • 2
    @wizzwizz4 I get that and would normally not be in favour of releasing confidential information. But when so much has already been said in public, sometimes transparency should prevail. On the other hand, this whole ordeal should have never been handled in public to begin with.
    – dfhwze
    Oct 29, 2019 at 21:23

8 Answers 8

67
+50

I changed my user name to "Pekka supports GoFundMonica" which is snappy and short enough for the character limitation. Hat tip to anonGoFundMonica who came up with the idea.

Profile text, feel free to reuse (attribution not required):

Consider supporting Monica Cellio's gofundme here >>>

A popular and well-respected volunteer network moderator, Monica Cellio, was terminated without warning and portrayed to the press as misgendering trans people by Stack Overflow, Inc. All signs suggest this was an erroneous, if not malicious, decision not founded on fact, which the company is completely failing to take any responsibility for. This has caused an enormous and ongoing uproar in the community.

Monica and the community have been quite literally begging for some kind of response from the company either opening up a path to reinstatement, or justifying their decision to terminate her, for more than a month now. She's made many good-faith offers to talk, and others have offered to mediate (and made dozens of constructive suggestions on how to resolve the situation). Several members of the Lavender community have spoken up on her behalf, e.g. in this prominent post.

So far, Stack Overflow, Inc. has met all of this with thunderous silence. As a long-time contributor and someone always willing to see the good in the company's and its employees' actions and assume good faith, I'm still struggling to come to terms with the corporate callousness of this behaviour which we have to assume now is the new normal.

Having exhausted all other means of communication, Monica is now raising funds for potential legal action to clear her name. This is in her own interest, but arguably also in the interest of the SO community at large. While only the libel is likely to be legally actionable, it might establish at least some boundaries to what the company can do to its volunteers, as well as be a symbolic slap in the face of a business that appears to have lost all respect for the community that keeps it alive.

I have complete trust the funds will be used well and anything left over (say because they decide to do the right thing after all and legal action becomes unnecessary) will go toward good causes.

Consider supporting her today.

10
  • 2
    I added that link to my profile, too. Albeit: the gofundme goal of 5k has already been reached. In less than 14 hours. Of course this is tempting, but would be the point of getting that gofundme to say 5 or 10 times of the original goal?
    – GhostCat
    Oct 29, 2019 at 14:03
  • 8
    @GhostCatsaysReinstateMonica the initial 5k is probably for a retainer agreement. Unless something highly unexpected happens, the legal fees will be much more than that. Monica has said she'd up the goal as she gets more info. It's at 10k now. I would hope we can go beyond that.
    – De Novo
    Oct 29, 2019 at 15:57
  • The first link under "Members of the Lavender community" is to the open letter which is not primarily about Monica, but about the continuing mistreatment of LGBTQ+ people here. Did you add the wrong link? It's a bit of a misrepresentation to say it's "on Monica's behalf". Oct 29, 2019 at 20:42
  • 5
    May I quote this on the GoFundMe page (with a link back here and attribution)? Testimonials like this from other people are valuable to show that it's not just me saying stuff. Oct 30, 2019 at 2:34
  • 1
    @Monica please do! Text is free to use for everyone, with or without attribution.
    – Pekka
    Oct 30, 2019 at 7:59
  • @SilencedTemporarily you're quite right! Wasn't thinking. Was thinking of another post I can't find right now. Removing link 1 for the meantime.
    – Pekka
    Oct 30, 2019 at 8:01
  • 3
    This message is much better than the one I had come up with. I've just set it as my profile. Thank you! Oct 30, 2019 at 8:24
  • 3
    The GoFundMe tally has just hit its initial $10,000 target! @MonicaCellio - time to double the target, methinks! Oct 30, 2019 at 23:10
  • One of the fund raiser updates reads: "The amount we've raised so far covers the $7500 retainer I paid (thanks!). We know that there will be a lot more costs as the case proceeds, and on my attorney's advice I'm raising the goal to $30k.". Any unused money will go to The Trevor Project, which provides support including crisis intervention to LGBTQ+ youth and a variety of related community resources for everyone.
    – BobbyA
    Nov 8, 2019 at 14:25
  • Note: As mentioned on the Nov. 14th update to the Monica GoFundMe, SE apparently will be taking down profile links meta.stackexchange.com/a/338302/375146
    – Jacob C.
    Nov 19, 2019 at 22:16
38
+100

I think the main "action" for more SE users to take is just to change their avatar, username, and 'about me' text (that is, if they agree that Monica has been unjustly treated as far as they can tell, given the evidence they can see). Beyond that, there isn't much they can, or should, do against SE.

If you perhaps mean what action we think SE should do, that's easy:

Reinstate Monica.

  1. Return her diamond on all sites.
  2. Issue a sincere public apology for the hurt she's been through.
  3. Issue a statement to the Register clarifying that she is not a bigot.
  4. If they really believe that she needs to be fired for something, put her through a formal process afterwards. Everything will need to be completely transparent, and they'll have to bend over backwards to show that they are being fair and giving her the benefit of the doubt, because otherwise no one will believe the proceedings were anything other than a kangaroo court. But reinstate her first.
4
  • 14
    @JJJ: Because they don't want the elected moderators on the sites they use to be liable to be sacked & smeared in the press on the whim of an SE bigwig. Oct 27, 2019 at 18:50
  • 2
    @JJJ, I take it the premise of this Q is what to put for people who investigate a profile based on seeing this avatar / username. If someone doesn't know her & doesn't care, I suspect they wouldn't investigate in the first place. If they did anyway out of pure curiosity, it seems incongruous to have something unrelated. Oct 27, 2019 at 18:55
  • I didn't claim it will have any particular impact. I think this is the common-sense answer to this question in the context it was asked. You may feel free to proffer a different answer. Oct 27, 2019 at 19:06
  • 6
    It was a Star Chamber, not a kangaroo court - kangaroos at least pretend to be impartial and "just happen" to come up with their outcome, the star chamber is all done in secret, its way worse WRT justice. I think reinstating Monica would not solve anything, the problem goes deeper. The employee in question needs to be fired IMHO, and a mod needs to be put on the board like a union rep.
    – gbjbaanb
    Oct 27, 2019 at 21:01
15

I had an idea to start a hashtag on Twitter, but now I see that the OP is hoping for ideas other than Twitter. Therefore, I only want to post this as a comment, but I don't have enough rep. (Please feel free to convert it.)

Honestly, though, what is wrong with going to Twitter?

Peronally, I can think of two things, but correct me if I'm wrong:

  1. the irony of it in light of current events, and
  2. no one here has the magnitude of infulence on social media comparable to those that wield a lot of political capital in the current socio-political climate.
4
  • 6
    see: Twitter-driven development
    – gnat
    Oct 28, 2019 at 8:36
  • 5
    Nothing is wrong about going to Twitter. I just hoped for more ideas. I actually turned to twitter some days ago, and responded to Joel's tweet where he announced the new CEO some time back. But alas, no reactions, nothing (not even a like methinks).
    – GhostCat
    Oct 28, 2019 at 8:48
  • 1
    The danger with Twitter (or any other public statement beyond these SE pages) is that if poorly done, it risks creating a Streisand effect: in demanding justice for Monica, it can lead to even more people reading the company's defamation of her. However, since Monica herself has tweeted about the defamation, I think our own respectful, well-worded tweets in support of her are probably going to be more useful than harmful. Retweeting Monica's GoFundMe tweet is a start! :-) Oct 30, 2019 at 6:17
  • 1
    @gnat I'm surprised to see that no-one has added the "Reinstate Monica" meme to that The Many Memes of Meta question! Oct 30, 2019 at 22:44
13

Some stats:

I did a quick analysis of two recent Reinstatement-related questions on MSE. Of those posting answers or comments, no fewer than seventeen users had changed some part of their profile to reflect their support for Monica. That includes 14 who included a message in their username, 10 who changed their avatar (8 adopting the "Reinstate Monica" logo), and 11 with a statement in their "About Me" section.

Some other stats on those 17 users:

  • average number of SE sites each user has an account for: 36 (max: 172)
  • average number of sites each user has posted a Q or A on: 13 (max: 33)
  • average rep on the site the user has most rep on: 47,313 (max: 371k)
  • number of users with >10k rep on any site: 10 (incl. 3 users with >10k on multiple sites)

And that's just a quick skim through the users I found on two MSE questions!

My own contribution:

I was an early adopter of the "Reinstate Monica" username, but I like the format of Username says Reinstate Monica. Unfortunately you can only change your username once every 30 days, so I've got another 20 days till I can become Chappo Says Reinstate Monica. :-(

Since I insist on being idiosyncratic, here's what my own updated profile now says:

To Stack Exchange: Reinstate Monica.

Stop treating our community like a disposable commodity.

Stack Exchange is in crisis. Within our community there are people working hard to resolve the hurt. But the most grievous harm - the company singling out a respected and hardworking moderator, dismissing and publicly humiliating her, and refusing to reinstate her despite fierce community condemnation - remains unresolved.

You can take action to demand justice for Monica:

  • Sign our community letter to the company.
  • Change your name and/or avatar and/or profile message.
  • Donate to the GoFundMe page to help finance Monica's campaign for justice.
  • Go on "strike": stop posting, voting or undertaking community moderation tasks on Stack Exchange sites until the company starts acting ethically.

Let the company know that it would be a mistake to underestimate our power and resolve.


[And for the record, I have taken all the above protest actions, and as of 8 Nov, I have ceased ALL activity on all 5 sites I was previously active on, other than posting or voting on Meta discussions relating to Monica's defamation.]

4
  • 1
    To readers of this answer (by another Reinstate Monica) Will you join us? Oct 30, 2019 at 8:46
  • 1
    By the way: in general I recommend adding/modifying one's username, but not completely changing it to "Reinstate Monica". If everyone's username and avatar is the same, it will have very little impact because it will hide the number of unique users who have done so. Oct 30, 2019 at 20:15
  • 1
    @ReinstateMonica wow - eighty-eight of us! And there are many others with variations on the pro-Monica message in their name - for example, 13 with "support", two with "justice", two with "slander". That's well over 100 pro-Monica usernames!! Oct 30, 2019 at 22:26
  • 1
    @ReinstateMonica: and growing daily. But is anyone at SE listening? Oct 31, 2019 at 5:11
12

A very important element of spreading awareness of something on the internet is to touch a variety of different platforms and environments. The internet has a large number of relatively isolated bubbles, which makes it easy to think that awareness is high, when in fact it's very low overall. The obvious example is that a lot of people know about this situation on Meta Stack Exchange, but likely not many know about it in the technical SE sites.

The name and avatar change is nice because it will help spread awareness in whatever other SE sites we visit. As people see it more and more, they will eventually get curious enough to figure out what it's all about.

In addition, though I'm not usually one for social media, in this case it can be very helpful to spread the message outside of our Meta SE bubble. Spread the word via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and wherever else you use to connect with other people.

Finally, don't forget and don't let it silently die away. This may be what SE is hoping for, that this is just a temporary storm that will soon blow away, eventually even the whispers of which will all but vanish entirely. I believe we can have a big impact by remembering what happened and keeping an active pressure up until a real and fair conclusion is reached.

4
  • By the way: I'm looking for that original post suggesting name and avatar changes so I can link it here, if anyone has the link, please drop it here somewhere. Oct 30, 2019 at 2:06
  • It's in Gung-RM's answer to this current question, but for your convenience here it is also: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/336024 :-) Oct 30, 2019 at 6:01
  • Dont get me wrong, but is there anything in your answer that wasn't written here before, like in my own answer, or the one from gung?
    – GhostCat
    Oct 30, 2019 at 8:11
  • @ReinstateMonica I was thinking of something else, where the OP posted a suggestion for people to change their names and included that image. I stumbled across it once but haven't uncovered it again since. Oct 30, 2019 at 20:21
12

I did hope for more, other ideas, but something is better than nothing at this point.

So just as an example, this is what I wrote into my profile right now:

You probably came to this profile, wondering about the avatar picture, or the strange user name. The intention behind that is to make you curious about a very import struggle that takes place on the Stack Exchange network right now!

To learn about the background, start here or there. And then, if you care, join the community in our struggle for a joint future!

  • Update your username/avatar accordingly. Invite your friends on the Stack Exchange network to look into this, too.
  • Spread the word. Just posting on meta often goes unheard. So: turn to Facebook, Twitter, your own blog, ... and let the world know what you think!

But please remember: above all, be nice. Be respectful.

Please note: I tried to get to a meaningful message that allows to read the "full" message without the need for scrolling (on a normal desktop browser window). On the other hand, "normal" desktop is really ambiguous, so my suggestion: order such bullet points according to the priority that you see for them!

Also note: you can change your profile text as often as you want, but a change to the username / avatar picture can only happen every 30 days!

0
9

I'm not sure that spreading the conflagration to affect people who have no power to

  1. do anything about it and
  2. get informed to a greater degree than reading the "he said, she said" (or perhaps better, "they said, she said, they (pl) said, she said, they/she said, she said, they (pl) went silent, they said, she said") is helpful or even fair.

If that last bit in quotation marks is confusing, then it's reasonable to assume users will also be confused about what's going on. Is it fair to bring users in who will likely see only one side of the picture?

I wish SE was not silent, but they are. I wish SE would reinstate Monica, but they haven't. I suspect there are legalities involved on both sides now that are coloring this, and that we have no real information about.

So I would advise to keep the conflagration to its current size and shape. If it hasn't changed the stance SE has taken yet, maybe it never will.

However, I think if you really want to help, please consider visiting Monica's GoFundMe page. This is the most likely way Monica can start redressing the abuse heaped upon her.

they/she said = SE/Sara Chipps (sp?) I'm too tired to look.

18
  • 3
    @LаngLаngС - Edited. Unless the person trying to bring about change in SE's stance knows all the factors, then they are indeed trying to compel/coerce/pressure SE into doing what they (with limited information) wish SE to do. I'm tired of this. Oct 27, 2019 at 17:53
  • 12
    I don't see how saying "SE, someone in charge needs to look at this" is seeking to compel a particular action. Of course, a neutral party who reviews all the evidence is far more likely to come to one conclusion than the other, but awareness-raising is a standard tool for mostly-powerless populations like SE users. Oct 27, 2019 at 18:00
  • 32
    Sorry you're tired of everything being on fire, but for some people, this isn't even close to be resolved enough to be OK with once the dust settles. It's Stack Exchange that's dragging this out by hoping it will burn itself out (and the problematic people will remove their problematic selves from the community). I think it's a perfectly fair tactic to make the larger community more aware of what's going on and how SE has handled it. If more awareness makes something worse, maybe it's better to treat it then bury it and let it fester.
    – ColleenV
    Oct 27, 2019 at 18:07
  • 3
    @LаngLаngС - An outside investigation would be ideal. If someone - anyone- would like to hire lawyers to investigate, I would gladly contribute to put all this right again. Oct 27, 2019 at 18:07
  • 1
    @ColleenV - I will not stand in anyone's way nor argue that any of this is fair. I'm just stating my opinion fwiw. Oct 27, 2019 at 18:08
  • 5
    I understand that - I was responding to your opinion that raising awareness may not be helpful or fair. Raising awareness of a problem is almost always a good thing if you want that problem solved. It's only a bad thing if you either don't think it's actually a problem or if you don't want to do what is necessary to solve it.
    – ColleenV
    Oct 27, 2019 at 18:11
  • 1
    @MonicaCellio - I think if you want to force an investigation into SE's actions, you are the very best person to do it, with the assistance of a lawyer/lawyers. There is ample support for GoFundMe contributions, and I would gladly make a contribution. I don't think you've acted entirely in good faith, and I know SE overreacted, but they seem entrenched, so I'll stick to my answer above. I don't want conflict with you, but I'll do it if you want. But please don't leave >11 comments on this thread, or I will wonder if you make exemptions for your own behavior that you do not allow others. Oct 27, 2019 at 18:11
  • 5
    I am having trouble interpreting your last sentence as anything other than snarky. If that wasn't your intent, you might consider editing it. And no, I'm not planning to leave a big pile of comments here; wouldn't have left more than the one but for your ping. Oct 27, 2019 at 18:18
  • 1
    @ColleenV - I think it's tricky raising awareness when one is not in complete possession of the facts. It's not necessarily wrong, but is it ethical? I am not in complete possession of the facts; in fact (no stupidity intended), I'm not sure anyone is. If, e.g., the Red Cross did something wrong, but you didn't know what it was or the circumstances around it, would you advocate for a campaign for a strike against them? I wouldn't. That's what I'm saying. The same goes for this. SE is no Red Cross, but I'm not in poossession of all the facts. Oct 27, 2019 at 18:20
  • 1
    @MonicaCellio - It's kinda snarky but partly not. You can actually leave as many comments as you like. I'm just saying - broadly - do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself. Only the myself here isn't me. Or me to you. It pertains to comments I made under your post about others who were hurt. If I had the power to edit any of my comments after five minutes, I would be perceived as a bit more intelligent than I actually am. Oct 27, 2019 at 18:22
  • 2
    @ColleenV - As long as snark was brought into this thread, "I was responding to your opinion that raising awareness may not be helpful or fair." You were also belittling me personally ("Sorry you're tired of everything being on fire..."), publicly. See how easy it is to do something that hurts without meaning to? Or even meaning to. It's easy. Oct 27, 2019 at 18:33
  • 3
    @anongoodnurse I'm sorry that I wasn't more careful with how I wrote that. It's difficult to communicate tone in a comment with limited characters and it wasn't my intention to be snarky. I appreciate it when people point out how something might be misinterpreted, so thank you for that. I get that people are tired of the controversy. I wish this were over too. However, I don't think there's any question that what SE has done to Monica was wrong, regardless of the particulars of conversations in the TL or who said what to whom.
    – ColleenV
    Oct 27, 2019 at 18:39
  • 7
    I really think spreading it is the only option. Monica seems (understandably) reluctant to sue, and SE corporate isn't understanding how destroying their community is going to lead to their cash cow's slow death. They need to see the consequences of their behavior; they need to be reconnected to the reality they've disconnected from. Oct 27, 2019 at 22:23
  • 4
    @anongoodnurse I think the news to spread is precisely that "nobody knows all the news" which, if spread widely enough, might create enough pressure on SE to finally start communicating. Oct 28, 2019 at 9:02
  • 4
    @user1306322 - Now that would be a message to spread that would be honest and worthwhile. Thank you. Oct 28, 2019 at 15:25
4

Calls to action need not be limited to profiles.

We know the following:

1) Right now, Stack Overflow values eyeballs (page impressions / advert impressions) above following due process with regard to community members;

2) Consequently a little bit of controversy across the network is no bad thing for Stack Overflow, right now: it just leads to more page impressions and more advertising revenue. (Who cares about community when you're focused on dollar$?)

3) So if Stack Overflow continues to say nothing and the situation with regard to firing a moderator without going through due process remains unresolved and the controversy rages on, then... the advertising dollars just keep rolling in. (Trebles all round).

So the most radical individual action I can think of - and please note this is a thought experiment, it explicitly isn't advocacy - is the following:

i) A bold call to action paragraph by a user at the bottom of every question that user has ever asked and every answer they have ever given.

ii) The call to action not to be addressed to Stack Overflow but to Stack Overflow advertisers, explaining that Stack Overflow is out of control, acting arbitrarily, without accountability, publicly defaming at least one individual and failing to follow due process - that it has essentially become a toxic environment.

iii) The call to action to end with an urge to advertisers to pull their advertising from Stack Overflow and to boycott Stack Overflow until the latter agrees to start following due process and repair the effects from public defamation.

If the call for an advertiser boycott appears in bold at the bottom of enough questions and enough answers, word will certainly spread to the decision makers at various advertisers. They may decide that they no longer wish to be associated with such a toxic brand.

At this point Stack Overflow's primary priority - increasing impressions - will become a liability rather than an asset. The more Stack Overflow successfully increases impressions, the more visible the boycott notices will become and the more likely numerous advertisers are to make a decision to pull their advertising.

No doubt, Stack Overflow may seek to put together a robot moderator which can find and delete such boycott notices, so ideally, each boycott notice would include random elements and be structured differently so that it couldn't simply be located without resorting to a very convoluted Regular Expression Search and Replace.

The alternative to a robot moderator tidying up is, of course, community moderators tidying up. But many community moderators, given the way certain of their colleagues have been treated of late, may be disinclined to remove the boycott notices.

The alternative to community moderators tidying up is, of course, Stack Overflow paid staff tidying up - but I can't see them signing up to do such a lowly job.

The net result is that the more successfully Stack Overflow increases its own visibility, the more it promotes the message to the world that all reasonably-minded advertisers should be boycotting it, because it is failing to follow due process.

Note: I cannot underline this enough - this is just a thought experiment. None of this at all should ever be necessary.

All many community members would like to see is for the moderator dismissal which Stack Overflow conducted without due process to be annulled and for due process to be followed.

11
  • 11
    A bold call to action paragraph by a user at the bottom of every question that user has ever asked and every answer they have ever given. ... would be a violation of the community rules. Such statements within questions / answers are explicitly off-topic, and would immediately be flagged as "self vandalization". And then a moderator comes in and undoes the edit, and if you do continue to make such changes, you will be blocked. There are really good reasons why I didn't suggest anything like that. Whatever we do needs to within the rules that apply here.
    – GhostCat
    Oct 29, 2019 at 10:30
  • Okay, that's good to know. Thanks.
    – Rounin
    Oct 29, 2019 at 10:31
  • And just to be clear: alone putting up a comment to some other user on a non meta question and suggesting "he, we got this movement going, want to join", that alone could be considered "off topic spam".
    – GhostCat
    Oct 29, 2019 at 10:32
  • Heaven forfend that we ever have "a movement" going. I am generally sceptical of such collectives.
    – Rounin
    Oct 29, 2019 at 10:33
  • Sure. Given the fact that there isn't a valid ways to communicate with any larger number of users here... It would be really hard to align such a movement..
    – GhostCat
    Oct 29, 2019 at 10:53
  • 1
    @GhostCatsaysReinstateMonica There’s always the option to set up a discord server for the dispossessed.
    – ColleenV
    Oct 29, 2019 at 14:31
  • @ColleenV Sure, but such things depend on individuals spending their time and energy on it. Maybe even their own money. And well ... maybe not every "anonymous" SE user would be willing to provide an email address and maybe other data to such a service, established by "someone" somewhere.
    – GhostCat
    Oct 29, 2019 at 14:34
  • @GhostCatsaysReinstateMonica Yep, movements don’t get started when everyone else is waiting around for someone else to organize something. The ability to do something exists, people just lack the will.
    – ColleenV
    Oct 29, 2019 at 14:55
  • @ColleenV movements can also exist even if there's no clear coordination. I think there is a movement within our SE community, and a significant number of us are publicly identifying with it by posting our ideas & supportive messages, changing our username/avatar, donating to Monica's cause (which in just one day has already reached 89% of its target!), etc. And ready to escalate the activity if needed :-) Oct 30, 2019 at 5:11
  • 1
    I have drawn parallels with Hong Kong before. Many protestors in Hong Kong are not part of a movement as such. That doesn't stop them from explaining patiently and repeatedly to their slow-witted administration: You have got this wrong.
    – Rounin
    Oct 30, 2019 at 13:07
  • 1
    It took me some time to decide whether to take action, but I've resolved to update my username, with a nod to "Je suis Charlie" (see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Je_suis_Charlie) from January 2015.
    – Rounin
    Nov 1, 2019 at 13:52

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