An apology to our community, and next steps

Question

I’m David Fullerton, Stack Overflow’s CTO, responsible for the product, engineering, and community teams.

I joined Stack Overflow in 2010 because I believed in the vision and mission of Stack Overflow. I wanted to be a part of building a community where programmers come together to help one another learn and share their knowledge with one another. I loved how the site was run in the open, in collaboration with its community, and moderated by members of the community.

I’m here nearly a decade later because I believe we can continue to build this community together and make it an even more welcoming and inclusive place than it is today.

In the last few weeks, we made a series of mistakes, both in our actions and in the ways that we communicated those actions. In doing so, we hurt people who believe in that mission and who want to help us make the community welcoming and open to all. While Sara and others were on the front lines of that, I was personally involved at each step along the way and ultimately responsible, and I’m deeply sorry for the hurt that we’ve caused.

First of all, we hurt members of our LGBTQ+ community when they felt they couldn’t participate authentically and we didn’t respond quickly or strongly enough in supporting them. Worse, through our handling of this situation, we made them a target for harassment as people debated their right to express themselves and be addressed according to how they identify.

I am responsible for that, and I am deeply sorry. We absolutely support the LGBTQ+ community, and we’re committed to making our community a place that is open and welcoming to everyone. We’re working on an update to our Code of Conduct which we’re sharing with moderators for feedback tomorrow and the rest of the community later this week. We’ll also work on making more resources and materials available to our moderators to help them support members of the community as we all learn together how to be more welcoming and inclusive.

Second, we hurt a longstanding member of the community and an important volunteer moderator. She deserved the benefit of a private, comprehensive process. In the absence of a clear process for handling this kind of situation, we should have taken inspiration from our existing Moderator Action Review Process. We made a decision to act quickly, which I personally approved, but in doing so skipped several critical parts of the process. In acting quickly, we also acted at a time which coincided with a Jewish holiday which she and many other members of our community observe, and we should have taken that more into account in the process.

I’m responsible for that, and I’m sorry. We’ll be reaching out to her directly to apologize for the lack of process, privacy, and to discuss next steps. We’ll keep those discussions completely private unless we both agree to share any of it with the community.

We’ll be sharing with our moderators this week our proposed processes for handling situations like this in the future. This includes a process for handling moderator removals, and a process for reinstating moderators who wish to be reinstated.

Third, we hurt the moderators and members of our communities. Community moderation is the backbone of Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange, and our moderators are a vital part of us creating a more welcoming and inclusive place. We need to be working with our moderators and community, rather than working against them, in order to create the kind of community where everyone feels welcome and able to share their knowledge.

I’m responsible for that as well, and I’m sorry for the hurt that we’ve caused. Going forward, we will be working with the community to overhaul how we gather input and feedback from our moderators and members of the community to make sure that your voices are heard and involved in the process, not just informed after decisions have been made.

Finally, I want to apologize again for all of the pain we have caused. I am more committed than ever to creating a welcoming and inclusive community across Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange, and the mistakes we made over the past few weeks made that worse, not better. I know we have lost the trust of many of you, and that trust must be re-earned over time by more than just words. That starts this week with some of the concrete steps we are taking with the moderator removal process and the Code of Conduct changes, but the hard work will continue for years. Those first steps are:

• On Monday, October 7, we’ll be sharing a second draft of an update to our Code of Conduct with all moderators for feedback
• On Thursday, October 10, the update to the Code of Conduct will be announced publicly
• By Friday, October 11, we’ll share the processes for moderator removal and reinstatement with moderators for their feedback

Looking forward, Stack Overflow is just beginning this new stage in its growth as a company. One of our top priorities across the entire team is to continue to make the community more inclusive and welcoming. We recognize that the community is the heartbeat of Stack Overflow, and we deeply appreciate all that you do. We know that our moderators care deeply about the future of our community, and we’re committed to involving you more as we evolve. We have an incredible opportunity to impact the world, and we hope that you will continue to join us on that mission.

Thank you for listening, and thank you for your patience with us as we continue to work our way through this.

This post was written with the input and support of Sara Chipps, Tim Post, and the community management team.

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Email was sent to Monica on October 8.

Answer 1

Before "apologizing", you need to come clean: did you lie?

(Edit: Post has been deleted. See web archive link here.)

Earlier, you (Stack Exchange) wrote:

We removed a moderator for repeatedly violating our existing Code of Conduct and being unwilling to accept our CM’s repeated requests to change that behavior.

However, Monica disputed that she had received repeated requests to change her behavior.

Clearly one party here is lying, and much of the community believes that party is Stack Exchange.

So—did you lie, or not? Your "apology" is meaningless until you clean this up.

Answer 2

I was optimistic when you made this post; this was a much more positive message than the "apology and update" that preceded it. The test of your will to address these problems would have come in the actions that follow and in their timeliness. Acknowledgement of errors is important but incomplete. Unfortunately, the follow-through was severely deficient.

We’ll be reaching out to her directly to apologize for the lack of process, privacy, and to discuss next steps. We’ll keep those discussions completely private unless we both agree to share any of it with the community. (October 6 21:00 UTC)

I received email from David Fullerton on October 8 at 15:10 UTC. The email repeated the accusation that I violated the code of conduct, again without specific citations. David also claimed that I was warned and quoted two messages from Sara Chipps in TL which do not sound like the warnings David says they are. The message referred to an upcoming reinstatement process and said I could apply following that process.

That same day I asked, since that email repeated the assertion that I violated the current CoC, to be told what specific actions did so. I have asked this question several times since September 27 and have yet to receive an answer.

Having heard October 11 as a target date for the new policy and having heard nothing further, I sent David email on October 13 at 19:30 UTC asking for the process and how to trigger it. Two days later, on October 15 at 22:30 UTC, I received a reply from David, saying that they were finalizing the process that week after receiving feedback and would send it to me when it was final. Given the ongoing harm being caused by Sara's public, defamatory accusations, I asked if things could be expedited. I received no reply.

On October 21 at 20:00 UTC, I received email from Tim Post (not David) alerting me that the new processes would be posted soon and I could apply for reinstatement. I still have received no answers to my questions about what the specific charges are. There are serious flaws in the reinstatement process that call its fairness into question for my case.

I had hoped SE would prioritize resolving this matter, especially since this post admits to serious failures of process (and also because of the ongoing harm to me). Given those serious failures, I still think the correct thing to do is to reinstate me now and then discuss whatever the problem is, but SE says their due-process-lacking decision stands and my only recourse is to apply for reinstatement under a flawed process and a presumption of guilt. Meanwhile, the defamatory statements continue to do me harm.

I am not satisfied by the followup from this post. It has now been more than a month and SE has taken no actions to mitigate the harm they have done me.

Answer 3

As a user who goes by ‘they’, I appreciate your acknowledgment that despite your intent to make users like me more welcome, your actions backfired:

Worse, through our handling of this situation, we made [members of the LGBTQ+ community] a target for harassment as people debated their right to express themselves and be addressed according to how they identify.

But you are responding only to the straw that broke the camel's back. Between the many words of apology, the only specific actions you're offering here are reinstating the moderators and publishing the code of conduct update. These are good steps to rectify SE Inc.'s mistakes around the CoC and Monica, but they don't address any deeper issues of governance and respect for community behind many of the other issues fueling the blaze that this one spark set off:

• Mandatory binding arbitration—an abuse of the contract of adhesion that Stack Exchange, Inc., requires all users to sign.

  Incidentally, according to your own statements, you require anyone opting out to provide their legal name up front, which is not very friendly to queer people like me who write only under a name that is very much not my legal name—the very people you say you're trying to support with the CoC changes.

• Animated ads—in July you tell us animated ads are against your policy, and then three months later you backtrack without explanation.
• Fingerprinting users for tracking—no matter how many laws or industry standards the practice doesn't break, profiting from mass surveillance is morally wrong, and when we asked you about it, you gave us only a condescending response about audio. If you must display more relevant targeted ads, you should limit them to be relevant to the questions and answers on the page.
• License changes—in 2016, when you wanted to change the license on source code published here, you asked for our input, and you listened and responded to it. But this year, when you wanted to make a much more modest change from CC-BY-SA 3.0 to CC-BY-SA 4.0, you quietly changed the Terms of Service, possibly in violation of your own license to the content, without explaining the process or making an effort to consult us, the users who granted you a license to use our writing in the first place.

Perhaps if you actually want to establish legitimate trust in the company, Stack Exchange, Inc., should have some elected representatives of the moderators and of the users on the board of directors—or perhaps if a welcoming community and a living repository of knowledge is incompatible with the commercial goals of the venture capital funders, the Stack Exchange network should be spun out into a different governance model altogether.

Answer 4

tl;dr: I believe CTO Fullerton is mostly candy-wrapping, not back-tracking from, SE Inc.'s problematic conduct.

To my fellow Meta.SE users: I am surprised at those of you who view this post as a proper apology and worthy of gratitude. I will try to explain why I believe Mr. Fullerton has apologized for the wrong or the minor things, while in fact doubling-down on the more serious problems or transgressions.

Continued over-hyping of the inclusivity issue

Mr. Fullerton apologized first and foremost to "members of our LGBTQ+ community" – not to the entire community, or to Monica Cellio and the other affected moderators, as though the recent upheaval has been due to how "they felt they couldn’t participate authentically and we didn’t respond quickly or strongly enough in supporting them."

This repeats the claim of there being a non-inclusivity crisis that requires forceful urgent action (i.e. sky-is-falling type of situation). Mr. Fullerton is indicating SE Inc. will find for itself the same legitimacy for inappropriate actions as it has over the past few weeks.

Now, I do not want to dismiss the issue of LGBTQ+ inclusivity on SE. It's not trivial and should not be ignored but it, and they, have been used in a rather insidious fashion to legitimize and morally-enforce conduct on SE Inc.'s part which is authoritarian, unilateralist and dismissive of broadly-held perspectives of the community. Much of the non-inclusivity or non-welcoming aspects of SE at this moment are the result of that, irrespective of any LGBTQ+ related issues.

Also, when Mr. Fullerton described the undesirable consequences of SE Inc.'s actions, he emphasized hurting:

• those... who want to help us make the community welcoming and open to all.

Well, the community is open to all (OK, to be fair: to English-speakers who are able to browse websites). Different SE sites are more welcoming, or less welcoming, but there is an ongoing debate regarding the extent, severity and justifiability of the non-welcoming aspects; Fullerton's choice of words re-enforces a fixation, or at least an excessive focus, on this issue.

If you think I'm exaggerating, just note the same phrase being written again and again:

• we [will] all learn together how to be more welcoming and inclusive

• our moderators are a vital part of us creating a more welcoming and inclusive place

• I am more committed than ever to creating a welcoming and inclusive community

• One of our top priorities across the entire team is ... to make the community more inclusive and welcoming

The incessant repetition of this mantra is a definite sign IMHO of an artificial focus or over-hype.

No justification for more CoC commandments

Mr. Fullerton writes SE Inc. intends to amend the Code of Conduct. Why? I mean, personally, I believe it should just be rescinded, but what is this supposed to even help with? I'm not a moderator, so maybe I missed it, but I have not heard any argument in favor of a further tightening of the code of conduct.

Thus, one of the key actions that's supposed to improve the situation is at best mysterious and of unclear benefit, and at worst – expected to worsen things on SE even further than with the original Code of Conduct.

Cellio's dismissal still in effect.

(I don't know Ms. Cellio, and I don't think I've even interacted with her as a mod and probably at all.)

Mr. Fullerton apologized for Cellio having been hurt; and for the process of her termination as a moderator having been flawed; but he did not indicate she will be reinstated. That means SE Inc. is doubling down on the legitimacy of the termination, flaws or no flaws. This is saying "we should have kicked you out more nicely".

That won't do. When you skip due process, your resultant actions should be null and void, or at least canceled.

Mr. Fullerton seems to indicate that Monica will have to undergo a process for being reinstated. That too is inappropriate. Maybe that process is reasonable, maybe it isn't – but it certainly shouldn't apply to her, now that it is agreed that her termination process was fundamentally flawed.

No retraction or justification of the claims against Ms. Cellio.

Despite Mr. Fullerton's apologetic tone, he has not retracted the claim that Monica Cellio had broken the (existing) Code of Conduct repeatedly. If she hasn't – please acknowledge that, Mr. Fullerton; that's definitely something worth apologizing over. If you insist that she has – and you should know, since by your admission you were personally involved in her dismissal – you now owe it to the Meta.SE public to list those breaches and explain why you found them sufficient for a dismissal.

Planned actions not essentially different than before apology

Even before Mr. Fullerton's post, we all knew SE Inc. was planning an updated/expanded Code of Conduct; and Sara Chipps has also talked about a "moderator removal process" (although we already got one, so apparently an amendment). This was the plan when SE Inc. was "riding the high horse". How is it different now?

Mr. Fullerton could have said SE Inc. has reconsidered the changes it was planning to the CoC and the moderator removal procedure, and will now present different documents than they had planned before. He could have explained how those differences are to help curtail SE Inc. excesses – like his own, and how they would be binding in a way which prevents such arbitrary unilateral actions in the future. That may have helped to restore trust.

Answer 5

I'm a quiet (now resigned) moderator who just sits in her corner in The Workplace, keeping flag queues under control, trying to maintain a community that I care for. I don't spend time in meta.stackexchange, I just do - or did - what I was elected to do by my community four years ago.

I was one of those who resigned in the wake of the terribly handled situation that started bad and got worse. My resignation had nothing to do with not supporting the intent behind the new CoC; I have used the preferred pronouns for LGBTIQAP+ folk for years, be they new terms, existing terms, or terms that traditionally are used in other contexts. This had nothing to do with my decision.

What I objected to was the way in which the whole thing was enacted. For something that was private, it got very public and no doubt felt very, very personal for Monica. She was held up as the bad guy, she was slapped down when she was offline for days for her religious holiday. I honestly don't know what happened in private, nor do I even want to know. What was publicly visible was bad and placed a very poor light on SE and their ability to manage people. Which is all the more ironic to me, being a mod for "The Workplace," which by its very nature is about workplace conflict resolution.

So I will say that this apology is the very first attempt to address that poor behaviour honestly. It's a start. I hope that the promised behind-closed-doors arbitration with Monica is done with proper intent to a real resolution, not just lip service. If that means that both parties agree that Monica remains un-modded, then I can live with that decision. But please, take the time to do this right, because so far nothing has been.

And until such time as there is real, public visibility of addressing what was done badly, my diamond shall remain in the drawer.

Answer 6

This apology seems to be sincere but leaves me with questions. I am not overly cynical and believe people can decide to do better and move on from there. This appears to be doing that.

One elephant left in the room:

The real concern is dealing with the gravity of statements made to the press against someone working for SE voluntarily. Specifically, as of now, the top google search item for Monica's name is an accusation from SE "the company" about Monica being unwilling to comply with a code of conduct against bigotry. That's not going to look so good in a job interview.

For the foreseeable future Monica will have to face questions that come with being "the person SE accused of being a bigot" resulting in her having to explain how this really wasn't the case and to please see so-and-so additional reference that clarifies it.

Even in the (inconceivable) event that SE upholds Monica's dismissal, for the sake of current mods and for anyone else considering becoming a mod and volunteering their time and energy for SE, please notify all users how this public statement against Monica is being handled so that we know it's safe to invest our time and energy here and if something like this slips it can be handled.

I trust that it probably won't happen again but just want to make sure.

EDIT (11 Oct 19):

After recent sentiments forwarded by the Director of Community and the prior two weeks of poor community interaction, I am really starting to wonder if this is some kind of (very mis-guided) technique to increase exposure for SE... it's getting pretty old, and it's a real shame Monica is dragged into it.

Based on some SEDE analysis it seems this whole shenanigan isn't really going to produce much difference to warrant this HUGE, dramatic network wide policy change anyway. On SO there are 0.658% of comments in a month that use a non-neutral pronoun and the VAST majority of these arguable could have been used correctly.

Can't we just keep flagging things we find offensive? Do we really need to lose a significant portion of our moderator power to pre-emptively handle 0.01% of posts that a flag can handle anyway? (providing there are still mods to handle flags)

Well I guess we do if we want to increase SE exposure as being the "vanguard" of "inclusion and respect".

Personally, the CoC change hardly effects me, I have used a non-neutral pronoun twice in the last 8 years, woops. (If you're curious you can check yours here). So I really don't have a problem complying. I just can't credit this violent change and heavy-handed treatment of this issue as anything other than a public relations campaign. It certainly couldn't be a "mistake" as Mr. Fullerton says above.

Not to mention a campaign that is still being pushed heavily on other platforms despite all the collateral damage.

Answer 7

• On Monday, October 7, we’ll be sharing a second draft of an update to our Code of Conduct with all moderators for feedback
• On Thursday, October 10, the update to the Code of Conduct will be announced publicly

Is that really enough time to gather and iterate on feedback? If you have a "release date", and somebody finds a "bug" on Wednesday, the 9th, what then? Do you publish the new CoC anyway? What's the rush?

Answer 8

Thank you.

Answer 9

From this post you've clearly shown that you still know how to engage with the community so I'm genuinely interested regarding why this sort of statement wasn't drafted originally and you opted to go with the original one which caused further controversy?

Did you really think the original one would go down better (sort of testing the waters so to speak to see how compliant people are)?

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If you are in an answering mood, to quote Sébastien Renauld:

There's something that still doesn't sit well with me; you said you wanted to act quickly on a moderator removal. What was the risk that required fast action?

(emphasis mine)

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_{This is not me bashing, I'm genuinely interested in the thought process (or lack thereof) behind it.}

Answer 10

I was a moderator, who's just resigned due to the erosion of trust I feel has happened as a result of this issue.

But, there are some things to note as it relates to the above apology...

This apology has come not a moment too soon.... for the past days, almost a week, now, moderators from across most sites have collaborated on communicating our concerns to the SE staff. We have been working "in plain sight" of the SE staff (using the TL to collaborate).

The apology above addresses most, if not all the concerns that we have raised as a group effort.

The timing of this apology appears to have been in a race to beat our statements about the issues.

Note that the SE staff have not been collaborating, corresponding, or feeding back in any way on our collaboration, but appear to have just been observing.

While the apology above indicates the desire to collaborate with mods again, there has been nothing of the sort in the past few days, so I expect there to be an interesting discussion tomorrow .....

Update: ArtOfCode's meta post sharing the statement signed by many moderators

Answer 11

While this apology is a good first step, there are still some serious issues that remain unresolved.

1. Monica Cellio should not have had her moderator status removed without due process. I believe that she should have her moderator status reinstated wherever it was summarily removed, pending action to be initiated by SE by the appropriate channels to have it removed , or pending Monica's request that it be removed once more should she no longer desire to be a community moderator. Should neither party now desire that Monica's moderator status be removed, she should not have to apply to have it reinstated.

2. Monica was mentioned by her real name in a statement to the media made by a SE employee. As the nature of this statement was negative, there may be further-reaching consequences to Monica than her alleged infraction (whatever it was) likely warranted. Certainly, no-one has accused Monica of any wrongdoing other than a supposed breach of SE's code of conduct, so, since using her name in a negative fashion in a press release was unwarranted, Stack Exchange has a duty to issue a retraction and apology to Monica via the same media outlet through which they made their first, unwarranted press release.

3. I believe that this entire matter was caused by the hasty, ill-considered and unilateral actions of a single Stack Exchange employee, or at most a small number of employees. I would hope that the employee(s) will be disciplined appropriately, and if their employment with Stack Exchange continues, that they will not remain in a position in which they may repeat or compound their recent mistakes. I would also hope that whatever action Stack Exchange takes with respect to the employee(s), it will not be publicised... a mere "We have taken appropriate disciplinary action against the employee(s) responsible," from SE will be sufficient; there is no need for this shameful matter to receive any more of a public airing than necessary. However, the employee(s) responsible have caused a great breach of trust between SE and the community upon which it relies, and the continued involvement of the employee(s) in question with the community is unlikely to help to restore that trust.

EDIT

4. The Stack Exchange platform needs to be modified so that it does not allow community-elected moderators to be removed from their post(s) unilaterally by any one person, even an employee of Stack Exchange. The only mechanism by which a moderator should be able to be removed is by the established process for removal of a moderator. Of course, a person with database access could override the user interface's restrictions, but in my experience as a software developer, no developer would have any legitimate reason to alter live data in such a manner without orders.

Answer 12

This is a plot of the total score (upvotes minus downvotes) of this announcement. The difference from the previous day's total score is shown in green (positive, above the y-axis 0) or red (negative, below the y-axis 0).

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On the left, we believed your apology. We thought you were sincere and wanted to fix this.

On the right we realised you were just saying this to pacify us again, and do not care about the community. Your words were empty, and simply there to get our guard down and then spring the CoC changes on us.

This is not how to handle a community. If you're going to make promises like this, stick to them.

Answer 13

This is the third time now SE has failed in gathering feedback from the moderators on this topic.

The first time was when you dumped the announcement into the Teachers' Lounge (TL).

The second time was when you posted the previous non-apology to the TL, ignored all feedback and just posted it on Meta only 6 minutes later.

The third time started very well, the draft of the CoC change gathered a lot of feedback, and that feedback actually was incorporated and the language was changed.

What we didn't know at that time was the content of the FAQ that was published along with the actual CoC change, we didn't even know there would be one. And that one contains all the meat of the change, all the controversial details that we had already discussed in thousands of messages in the chat.

None of the feedback of the moderators changed anything about the actual rules that SE wanted to enact, as those are not actually encoded in the language of the Code of Conduct. All the feedback SE actually asked for was entirely about the language and the packaging of the changes, the substance remained entirely untouched.

Answer 14

While the whole thing is a breath of fresh air, I wanted to underscore one of the points

Third, we hurt the moderators and members of our communities. Community moderation is the backbone of Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange, and our moderators are a vital part of us creating a more welcoming and inclusive place. We need to be working with our moderators and community, rather than working against them, in order to create the kind of community where everyone feels welcome and able to share their knowledge.

I really wish this had been said sooner. As I said elsewhere SO has been really heavy on the "smack moderators down to make new users feel welcome". Curators and moderators should not be your enemy (least of all a top contributor who is well respected) and this week we've been close to that.

Answer 15

Whatever that you do with the new CoC, just:

• Don't be heavyhanded or take offense from things that most users think are normal behaviour or that could be done out of cluelessness instead of malice.

• Making everything peaceful and nice is more important than making a war just to stand an argument, regardless of whether the argument is right or not.

• Doing it right is more important than doing it hastily.

• Don't forget that many people don't speak English well, and we even have a few sites that aren't on English after all.

• Listen to all your moderators and users. Even when they disagree or defend what it seems to be strange for someone be defending, there are valid points worth considering.

Answer 16

You look to be owning your statements here. You look to be owning what happened here. You look like you wish to improve or make improvements to this somewhat broken system already.

This is a positive step in the right direction, so I'll play nice and share about what you're going to expect from me as a power user, and one of the users who has been hurt by this.

You don't have my trust because I don't have any patience to wait for these communication improvements anymore. The good will and credit that Stack Exchange has been exercising has already dipped negative, and yet again the expectation here seems to be that I should take your word that things will get better and I should be patient while you work through these changes.

By and large there have been earth-shattering events that have happened between the Welcome Wagon and all of this mess, which have widened a rift between how power users see the company listening to their feedback/pleas/cries for help and the overall goals of the company itself.

To put it bluntly, while a lot of the angst over the last week or so has been about the way y'all dismissed a moderator (which you own and are making amends for now), there's been a brewing tension over how users just don't feel like they're being heard, and I wonder if some of this boiled over into the whole circumstance.

But I call it out here and now because I see shades of the same. The power users of the Stack Exchange Network definitely deserve a seat at the table to help understand how the changes to the CoC would impact their site.

Your timeline for rolling out the new CoC is incredibly aggressive. So much so that I'm genuinely unconvinced that there hasn't been enough thought or input to how technical Exchange sites are going to be assisted with this. Put another way, on Stack Overflow (where I'm primarily based), I would edit out any mention to another user's orientation or sexual preferences as noise; when you're programming, the compiler/interpreter which is giving you a bewildering error doesn't care who you are, and I see no value in doing so either in that context.

Note that I don't have a problem with the alleged rule change at face value. I'm perfectly fine with ensuring that people of all walks of life are respected and treated with dignity here.

But I take extreme umbrage to edits which pertain to gender made unnecessarily on a technical Exchange site.

With that said...I'm going to make this brutally clear.

I will permanently cease participation if I cannot help cleanly enforce this new CoC.

If applying the rules can no longer be consistent on the site I'm most familiar with, then participation with my reputation level becomes fundamentally impossible.

Answer 17

Update 6.11.19:

(Related update, 30.10.19)

For those of you who either don't pay attention or missed it, someone leaked info about a future change announced on the internal moderator team. It was initially posted here on the network, but currently lives on through the internet archive and Reddit (r/stackoverflow).

While I'm not going to link it directly (or mention any details aside the existence of a leak, because I'd like to keep this answer alive), I believe this change would've been received about as badly as some of the other major changes in the current environment. Presented later, it might've been fine, but presenting it without resolving the existing issues is basically pouring gasoline next to a spreading fire, thinking "it won't come here!"

The change is likely to spark another controversy, and once again risk the targeting of another underrepresented group in tech. SE's intentions are good, but once again, the execution is (would've been, technically) awful.

The CoC update - intended to protect LGBTQ users - sparked events that made it less safe for us. SE was once the safest place on the internet, and I really liked it because it wasn't a safe space. It was a place where different beliefs, opinions, and not to forget identities could live together - differences aside. At least on technical sites (samples from SO, SU, AU, vi.SE), but also meta (samples from MSO and MSE).

Unfortunately, the CoC change brought out the worst aspects of people because it turned into a complete mess of multiple problems that were bundled up into a massive ball of frustration and anger. Off the top of my head, Monica's removal (central aspect), the problems Aza mentions, the (at one point) "future, mysterious, unannounced CoC change", as well as ads, and the underlaying frustration caused by a lack of communication, and for many at least core users, frustration with old, unscaled systems, the change of the SO front page to what can only be described as a paywall for people who aren't users, and probably more I've left out. Throwing more onto this pile of crap isn't in anyone's best interest at the moment.

Moreover, SE isn't responsive and I'm starting to doubt many of their statements. There are still a few staff members that interact with the community in an outright exemplary way - and I need to mention this because, in spite of a lot of things being crap at the moment, not all the people are awful. This is speculation, but I believe some form of management order is messing up a lot of the communication.

But to the point: Shog and Yaakov are the employees I'm talking about. Yaakov is taking point on the post notice rollout - a rather major change in a heated climate, but it's still handled fantastically. Shog generally has an ability to calm down heat, at least in my experience. Additionally, posts involving Shog (notably the 3 close vote experiment) rarely gets ignored. The research results were delayed, but when people asked about a status, they actually got answers. It's not like with the deadlocked open letter situation, in which it appears SE is ignoring the letters, mainly because the person involved (Sara) is unresponsive. There's been multiple requests on a status, all of which have been ignored.

I'm not trying to hang out Sara here, but on another post where she was involved (in all fairness, along with Tim Post - but a recent comment has made me doubt whether he actively ignored comments or not. The comment is completely unrelated, but it established some trust), concerns were ignored. For those who aren't aware, this is the question, well, specifically change I'm talking about.

We can only speculate why this happens. Automatically blaming management isn't a good idea, nor is it constructive, but when there's a clear difference in responsiveness depending on which employee, I do get suspicious.

My weirdly phrased point: On the 30th, I decided leave within the next two weeks. I'm still here for the next week, because the network has become a slight addiction I need to manage. The reasons for that are mine alone, and I won't discuss these.

I've tried being nice, I've tried being provocative, I've tried expressing frustration, and I've helped create pressure - none of these things have worked so far, and I'm getting tired of it. The only thing that can turn the situation around is SE, but I currently have no belief they'll take the situation under control.

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Note: Since this answer was posted, things have taken a different direction. Feedback from moderators on the CoC got ignored, communication is still broken, lots of critical posts go unacknowledged, a tweet from the director of public Q&A caused further drama, communication between Monica and the company has allegedly broken down, and the situation has overall gotten significantly more heated. To top this off, a shortage of moderators let the worst people continue because things simply cannot be handled fast enough. This isn't the moderators' fault - the problem lies in fewer mods and an ever-increasing stream of content.

I still stand by what I've said in this post, but the situation didn't go the way I expected. This is also why I added this note. The CoC release was handled about as horribly as the problems leading up to this situation, which has caused significantly more hate and toxicity, not just against LGBTQ, but against users in general. The apology seems pretty pointless now, because they did the exact same thing again with no regard for consequences, and without thinking about all the people on the other end of their actions.

It's time for this to end, and it appears that the only way to get you (Stack Overflow, Inc) to listen is by applying pressure. I'll be continuing my strike until I see real, good-faith attempts to resolve this situation, as well as attempts to restore communication between users/mods and the company, preferably before the community gets damaged beyond recovery.

And I'm going to say it a last time; you still have a chance of recovery, but you need to start taking action. If something is delayed and you know it is, say so publicly. And try to listen to people suggesting alternatives to improve the CoC further - you can still refine the details to allow users to survive if they make mistakes, make it technically possible for mods to enforce, and let users help without losing the intent behind the change. We want to help you, so please talk to us before everything starts collapsing. Until you do, people will continue to be angry, and either intentionally or without knowing it in a pure venting mode hurt real people. Regardless of who the CoC update aimed to help, it doesn't help anyone when the community turns on itself.

Old answer:

This announcement earlier would've saved a lot of drama. Nevertheless, thank you for this.

The two initial attempts and rumors about the CoC did spark a lot of unwelcoming behavior against LGBTQ. I came out a couple years ago thanks to a user here on SE, and even after I came out with a name and avatar change, and when I (unrelated) later changed my avatar with a trans flag overlayed, no one reacted in an unwelcoming way.

I honestly expected a lot worse back then - as in some of the comments posted around this massive drama surrounding CoC discussions. But even in spite of that, most of the people I've run into on meta on my posts have actually been supportive (as in asking if they have questions and in a way that's, well, perfect). Hopefully, this will calm down now. And thank you for acknowledging that the way it was handled caused damage not just to LBGTQ, but to users and anyone else caught up in this. It might not undo what happened, but this is hope SE has a future.

I need to say this though; this announcement was a lot more than I expected. Fantastic apology aside, you laid out a schedule for future events, including the heavily debated CoC change. I'd love to see more of this in the future too. And hopefully, this is the beginning of an era with working communication between users and the company.

And, again (and I cannot say this enough):

Thank you!

Answer 18

• On Monday, October 7, we’ll be sharing a second draft of an update to our Code of Conduct with all moderators for feedback

Given what happened to the last moderator who provided feedback... what exactly do you hope to accomplish with this? Your past actions will inevitably have created a powerful chilling effect that will choke off honest feedback and discussion. What guarantees can you provide that this will not happen again?

Answer 19

A move to welcome, but I wonder if any of it would have occurred without a massive community backlash.

It shouldn't take a moderator mass-exodus and overwhelming criticism to set things straight. If the staff truly has the community's interest at heart, they'll do it right the first time - or at least not massively betray claimed principles. Whether or not staff acted out of fear of loss or genuine regret isn't straightforward, but props to the community for not putting up with executive abuse.

Answer 20

I see apologies for:

• hurting members of the LGBTQ+ community
• hurting Monica Cellio
• grossly offending many other mods and regular users
• stirring up a firestorm of drama

I see no apologies for:

• firing someone for merely asking clarifying questions about a planned CoC change
• publicly accusing that person of repeatedly violating the current CoC (seems libelous to me)

While you seem sincere about improving the things you apologized for, I get the impression that the things you didn't even mention - publicly denouncing someone's character after punishing them for merely questioning a potential policy change - are working as intended and will be par for the course from now on. You just want to do those things without anyone raising a fuss, like a child apologizing not for hitting their friend but for leaving a bruise that could be shown to a parent. You're not promising to stop hitting. You're promising that next time you'll use a sock with a bar of soap in it.

But hey, judging by all the praise this question is getting, it looks like your strategy is working beautifully, so... full speed ahead!

Answer 21

After reading through all the (good) answers, I would like to point out a (to me) scary part of this apology:

We’ll keep those discussions completely private unless we both agree to share any of it with the community.

Translating this into normal language, this means: "We will talk to Monica in private, but only if she agrees to an NDA to keep it secret unless we give express permission."

This secrecy smells more like an attempt to silence Monica rather than an attempt to make right - I would be very careful to accept this if I were Monica.

The honest thing would have been to either reinstate Monica and let her decide if she wants to resign and (very) publicly retract any disparaging remarks about her and explain why she didn't get due process, or to come forward with proof why breaking the process was warranted, at the very least in private to Monica, without any conditions attached.

The fact that this hasn't already happened simply means this apology isn't one.

Answer 22

Honestly, even as a conservative Christian with firm beliefs on sexuality, I haven't spent enough time thinking through how I can best speak with truth and love to those with a transgender or queer identity. I need to do that, and I'm grateful that this debacle is reminding me of that.

But here's what I do know:

• I will not compel speech.

• I will not enforce a CoC that compels speech.

• I will not agree to moderate a site if I am expected to compel people to use specific language that they are morally or otherwise unwilling to use.

If you don't want people like me moderating your sites – even if we have no personal objection to using "preferred" pronouns – that's fine. Your site, your rules. But you must realize that for some of us, this is about much more than how you mistreated Monica and others in the community.

Answer 23

This apology is meaningless, and Stack Exchange Staff is lying to the community again.

So first, you mess up. Badly. You hand out a half-handed apology where you slander Monica even though she has not violated the old or the new CoC. Then you issue a new apology while still clinging to the lie that Monica did anything wrong.

But then there is yet another problem: we have one staff member "apologizing", but another staff member appears to be doubling down by retweeting this tweet.

This apology is a bald-faced LIE to try and cover SE, as evident by the fact that SE is publicly retweeting stuff like this.

Answer 24

Thank you. Better late than never. I just want to point out one thing about the new CoC:

we’ll be sharing a second draft of an update to our Code of Conduct with all moderators for feedback

Shog9 has mentioned it in Teachers Lounge (TL), but how will the discussion process be going relatively to international sites? Will we have a chance to participate in this? Will we be able to discuss it on our local Meta sites?

Answer 25

This letter, while addressing the community at large, has precisely 0 mention of Monica's name. There better be a good reason for that.

Consider the effects of negative press already released outside of the Stack Exchange network sites. Consider how that affects her public-facing reputation when someone does a google search of her name in the future. Now consider that at the time of this official apology posting, there has been no retraction/amendment/refutation of the previously issued negativity which reaches a similar or greater audience in an attempt to restore Monica's public-facing reputation.

Posting an apology on just this site to quench the rage of just this site's nameless crowd is one thing, but fixing the mistake which had, and will be continuing to have real effects outside on a single named individual, is a more important step, which has not been yet made.

Answer 26

David,

While I appreciate this response and believe it is a good and necessary start to begin repairing the relationship between SE and the community—assuming the words are followed up promptly with concordant actions—I'm still concerned about the underlying motives for the whole thing and the implications of that for us moderators. After reading Monica's relevant post in the mod stack and the relevant portions of Monica's and Sara's activity in the TL, especially the original and newly updated CoC changes and Sara's (lack of) response to Monica's questions, I don't see how a reasonable person with access to that information could conclude anything but that it was a direct personal attack to force Monica out. How can the moderators believe SE will never treat another one of us like this again?

Answer 27

Doubling-down on your already quadrouple-down of going forward with exclusionary changes to CoC and complete lack of admitting wrongdoing for the actual problems at hand are enough for me to see it's time for me to go.

You apologized for not going far enough in the wrong direction.

I can not trust a man that will not admit when he's wrong. You've just let on that this is a core problem at SE including the very top, and that no amount of user feedback will change the direction.

I had hope. This killed it.

To quote some sharks, "And for those reasons, I'm out."

Answer 28

That looks more like an apology. Thanks for writing something that is not canned and does actually give info on what to expect next (dates, at least). I feel like we're a little bit less in the mud there.

I can't guarantee October 7, 10 and 11 will be all peaceful, but people might have calmer minds when they know when to expect, if not what to expect.

Not all is forgiven but there's improvement.

Answer 29

Thank you.

Thank you for what you said.

I'm not a moderator, so most of your word don't directly impact me, but, as a non-binary person this does:

First of all, we hurt members of our LGBTQ+ community when they felt they couldn’t participate authentically and we didn’t respond quickly or strongly enough in supporting them. Worse, through our handling of this situation, we made them a target for harassment as people debated their right to express themselves and be addressed according to how they identify.

So, thank you for acknowledging that. I will be able to sleep in peace tonight knowing that I have still a place here. Knowing that I'm still welcome, knowing that the higher authorities still have my back (or at least, they are trying to).

Thank you.

Answer 30

Thank you.

Please never forget this: no single act can repair this breach of trust. This cannot just be the end of an old conversation, but also must be the start of a new one.

When that trust is rebuilt, it won't look the same, and it certainly won't behave the same, as what we had before. But what we had before was limited, harmful to some, tiring to others, joyful to no one, and needed to be excised*. That process could have been easier, but the Stack is now one surgery in. I hope the Stack + community can grow and adapt into a new, better form. And I hope you won't look back with rose-tinted glasses on a form of trust that existed only by accident, and broke upon its first real challenge.

Make this new way deliberate. Make it better. Make it whole.

All the best.

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* (I want to make clear that I am not talking about Monica -- I'm talking about culture exclusively.)