Why were the Code of Conduct changes received so negatively, and what can / could have been done to change that?

Question

The announcement of the Code of Conduct changes had a score of -1922 (with 2371 downvotes). I can't remember a change announcement being received so negatively; it's an order of magnitude higher than (in)famous announcements like We're testing advertisements across the network and A New Code License: The MIT, this time with Attribution Required. The previous major Code of Conduct changes were published as a blog but the announcements (1, 2) were positively received, even though there was/is a lot of critique on the Welcome Wagon.

What are the (main) reasons that the current changes are received so negatively? And how could/should Stack Exchange improve to make sure such major changes are received better in the future? As a professional trainer of mine likes to proclaim "People can and want to change, but they don't want to be changed." Or, does it even matter that the current sentiment is the way it is, as long as the company is (feeling that it is) doing the Right Thing™? Desperate times call for desperate measures, and those are often unpopular.

I'll try to outline some of the possible reasons (and improvements) in answers, but I hope other users will write something about other reasons I'm not familiar enough with (e.g. compelled speech, or punishing the company for the way they treated Monica). Note: I'm not trying to take a stance here (though it's obviously hard to be 100% objective in this case); as always on Meta, a neutral tone is preferred.

Answer 1

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.

Source

This came 3 days before the users were "informed after decisions had been made" of the new CoC. And apparently it was a big fat lie. Not an oversight or an omission. A calculated lie.

People don't like being lied to I guess.

Answer 2

Monica was a well-known, well-liked, and well-respected moderator across the Stack Exchange. Her moderation status was suddenly stripped away because of an alleged protracted spat about pronouns in a chat room.

Perhaps her remarks in that chat room eventually got to the point where there needed to be some kind of intervention and discipline, perhaps not. Opinions are divided and details are scant. However, one of the foundations of the Stack Exchange has been Jeff Atwood's Penalty Box analogy:

If we think you are reachable, and the behavior is one that we feel can change, we will try to warn you via email first when there are behavior problems — so that we can address them before they become deeper problems.

Depending on the severity of the problem behavior — and at the complete discretion of the moderator — your account will be placed in timed suspension for anywhere from 1 to 365 days.

At the end of this timed suspension period, your reputation will be recalculated, and your account will resume as normal. We don’t hold grudges. The point of all this is to address the behavior. If the behavior improves, you are welcome back.

Many of us are appalled at the way Monica's situation was handled – or mishandled – from the outset. You don't just step in and overturn four SE moderator elections in one fell swoop because of a heated argument in a chat room. There is a process for removing moderators; it was ignored.

The answer to your question, "What could have been done to prevent such a negative reception?" is simple: The company could have let cooler heads prevail. They could have pressed on and continued to polish their CoC clarifications, but, before releasing them, they could have first righted the rash wrong and made Monica a moderator again.

When I first caught wind of this whole brouhaha, I thought for sure within a week an apology would come and Monica would be reinstated on all the sites where she moderates. Naively I thought, "Level heads always prevail on the Stack Exchange." Instead, the community was coldly informed, "We are not going to re-litigate the past. We are moving forward. We are working on how we can do better next time."

I think that many of the downvotes this week may have been upvotes had the CMs simply admitted that they bungled this – and not just because of the timing around a Jewish holiday. Instead, they gleefully pressed forward and ask us to embrace a new era of inclusiveness as if this were something worth celebrating, all while one many of the longstanding community members wondered what in the hell just happened.

In short, they drew their line in the sand, and their own obstinance doomed the reception of their new clarifications. Had Apology 2.0 come with a reinstatement, much of the turmoil could have been quelled, and the community may have been more open and receptive to the new changes and clarifications. Instead, it feels like it is being shoved down our throat.

Answer 3

One of the possible reasons could be that users feel Stack Exchange is not setting the right priorities. For many people (including me), the community not being inclusive (enough) is not something we encounter frequently (or at all). This is especially true for the technology-oriented Stack Exchange sites, which make up the majority of the sites and traffic in the network. I've been a moderator on Ask Different for two years and inclusiveness hasn't come up a single time (as far as I can recall; my memory might fail me or I might have been on vacation).

I've read the transcripts in the Teachers' Lounge where the alleged violations of the Code of Conduct by Monica took place (I was probably even online during some of them), I needed to read them again before I could identify where it was supposed to happen and I had to read them another time in order to really empathize with the users involved (both Monica and the users who were offended). Now, I'm bad at empathizing, but I suspect many other users here feel the same way: they just don't see the problem and don't understand why the company is making such a big deal out of it.

What they do see is a company which

• shows highly inappropriate advertisements and seems to be unable/unwilling to do something about it
• unilaterally changes the license without having the right to do so
• generally seems to struggle with its presence on Meta Stack Exchange and Meta Stack Overflow (I'm not up-to-date with the current status on MSO, but here is an example)

There are probably a lot of other recent examples, all of which affect the majority users much more and much more often than the inclusiveness/gender-neutrality problem. They might feel that it's OK for Stack Exchange to be one of the champions for gender neutrality, but not right now. My feeling is that these changes would have been received a lot better if they had happened one or two years ago, maybe during the Welcome Wagon. If that's the case, it would have been better if Stack Exchange had addressed the other problems in an adequate manner, before releasing these Code of Conduct changes.

Answer 4

Another reason the CoC changes have been received so negatively is the antagonistic and hostile behavior by Stack Exchange employees towards the community. I think it's important to point out Pëkka's comment before it gets blindly deleted:

73 It's reassuring to know the site's director of public Q&A has a nuanced, completely straw-man-free view on the debate. i.sstatic.net/VLqFB.jpg – Pëkka 6 hours ago

This is a tweet which was retweeted by our favorite Stack Overflow Director of Public Q&A, Sara Chipps♦:

Reading comments on a blog post about a CoC:

If you're against CoCs and to protest you're leaving the community because the CoC has become more inclusive...

1. You identified yourself as part of the problem

2. You removed your problematic self from the community

... thank you?

That's unprofessional and not very welcoming of an SE employee.

Answer 5

A baseball bat is a fine thing, until it's used to rob a liquor store.

The new CoC is a fine thing, until it's used as a tool to shut down discussion and bully and denigrate those who try to engage in that discussion.

How could/should Stack Exchange improve to make sure such major changes are received better in the future?

I think by being the inclusive community that it claims it wants to be, rather than drawing rigid lines and saying - "look, if you're on that side of the line, you're Bad People".

Answer 6

Here's the thing: we can all get behind the intent of the change of the CoC. If it had been something along the lines of

Be nice
Treat other users' gender, nationality, religion, etc. with respect.

It would have been applauded.

Because we're good people who want to be nice and welcoming and polite to other people. If what we wanted were to be trolling schmucks, we'd already have been suspended.

If it appears that a group of otherwise nice people are struggling with being polite about gender issues, for whatever reason, we could have a page entitled

How to be more polite - issues of gender

Since we're good people who like being good people, we'd have gone to the effort of looking it over, and learning to be more polite.

But the CoC doesn't assume we're good people. It assumes we are all potential offenders who need to be held in check. It says "here's the rules, and here's the drastic punishment if you break them." Only, the issue is something quite a few of us have never really encountered before in more than the most superficial way, so we don't even understand very well what it's all about. The rules aren't very clear. The only thing that's clear is the threat. And punctuating that threat - Monica Cellio, a respected and valued moderator, punished without measure for allegedly violating the as of yet unpublished when she was punished CoC.

Faced with rules that we do not understand and are not allowed to dispute, and with the threat of very serious repercussions if we break those unclear rules, we are afraid, and angry at having been made to feel afraid, angry at being treated like potential criminals when we've done nothing to merit it.

Answer 7

I'll just share my personal view:

I do my best to be respectful of everyone, I was already uneasy thinking I may be offending someone by a wrong wording.
Now I'm afraid I could be suspended for it on top of that. (That's probably not rational, but that's the case)

This new CoC with its FAQ just frighten me, I don't feel safe answering anything anymore as I don't feel fluent enough in English to spot all cases.

Answer 8

The underlying issue is that Stack Overflow appears to want rules that proactively give transgender people dignity. The problem there is that no laws or rules can actually do that.

In college I took a class in golf. The semi-pro guy who taught the class described something he called the "fuzzy doughnut". In golf, the goal is to hit the ball into the hole. This means that, subsequently, every golfer must walk up to the hole, stand next to it, and reach into the hole, and extract their ball. As such, the ground around the hole naturally gets depressed. Golf courses periodically have to move the holes on the green for this reason.

Rules cannot give you dignity. If they could, we would never have another problem with sexism, racism, etc. Rules can absolutely deny you dignity, however. If you get dragged out of your house in handcuffs, or frog marched out in front of the community, your dignity has been lowered. That was the ultimate goal of Jim Crow laws. Even if you didn't care about racism, the state mandated you lower the dignity of a racial group, lest you find your own dignity lowered by them instead.

The flash point over LGBT rights has been that people want to help this group by proactively demanding dignity for them, and so they make rules. The problem is that rules can only take dignity away from others. As such, you get a "fuzzy doughnut" of dignity, whereby rules meant to raise the status of one group really lower the status of everyone else (George Will's term for it was sore winners).

We're in uncharted territory here, but the net result of many of these rules is uncertainty, which then breeds fear and lashing out. Canada, for instance, has actual laws against hate speech, including misgendering (emphasis mine).

And while Canada's laws may have been written in such a way that appears limited, that doesn't mean enforcement is. Prosecutors and judges will be the ones deciding what it means to "incite hatred," and that introduces ambiguity and disagreement. That's a good reason as well to oppose such laws. That it's not possible to easily determine whether opinions in transgender bathroom panic debates would violate this law (or whether a prosecutor or judge might decide it does) is exactly what creates the "chilling" environment that attempts to shut down speech that ought to be protected. Back in 2010, Ann Coulter was warned even before coming to speak at the University of Ottawa that she needed to watch what she said because she could be prosecuted there for hate speech. The letter prompted outrage from Glenn Greenwald back when he was still at Salon, and he warned, "Who would ever want to empower officious technocrats to issue warnings along the lines of: be forewarned: if you express certain political views, you may be committing a crime; guide and restrict yourself accordingly?"

We're not talking laws here (I am still of the opinion that SO pays for this platform and can show you the door for any reason they see fit). Still, the net effect of these new rules has been rampant confusion over the rules, not to mention the backlash against the SO LGBT community.

Which brings us to the Monica debacle.

The rules, as laid out by SO, are vague, and appear to be so intentionally ("We can't define misgendering, but we'll know it when we see it"). There's been some attempt at clarification, but, as others have noted, the new Code of Conduct also no longer assumes good intent first. Normally, I'd be skeptical if someone suggested that SO was just going to bring the hammer down on people for no apparent reason, but then SO fired one of the top "legal beagles" in the community. Worse is that not only was the firing doubled down on, it also doubled down on not bothering to explain the reasoning (apparently not even to Monica herself).

In other words, the new Code of Conduct appears to be a fuzzy doughnut. The net effect here will be some people open disengaging with any user self identifying as trans, lest they face punishment for any incidental slights. It's impossible to allay those fears as long as Monica's punishment remains unexplained.

And how could/should Stack Exchange improve to make sure such major changes are received better in the future?

Let's take a step back for a second. You're a new SO employee tasked with dealing with complaints that trans people aren't being treated well on the network. If that were my job, I would

1. Open a featured Meta.SE post about how the Transgender members feel (that has happened anyways). Let them air their grievances (minus the Festivus Pole). Listen to what they are saying and try to get at the root issues if possible
2. Open another dialogue about how the community thinks those problems could be dealt with
3. Propose draft language to the broader community for input
4. Enact policy and have moderators enforce it

Contrast this with

1. Announce to mods a Code of Conduct change. In a private room. On a Friday afternoon
2. Disagree in private and fire a moderator of multiple sites known for being a stickler for the rules. Said moderator complains loudly they have no idea why they were fired
3. Have multiple moderators resign or stop moderating without any official response for 5 days
4. Apologize, but openly double down on the firing for violating the Code of Conduct. Don't explain anything about what in the Code of Conduct was violated
5. Apologize for real this time and promise to make nice with the fired moderator
6. Roll out new Code of Conduct before any resolution of moderator firing firestorm

Answer 9

Honestly, I downvoted the announcement and had a negative reaction to it because I couldn't (and still can't) see how it's remotely relevant to the vast majority of the network. It doesn't make any sense for a site that prides itself on having no noise and being straight to the point to begin worrying about individual user's personal problems.

Why is gender identity, of all the possible problems, the hill we're dying on? I don't see why instead of just rewording or adding selective emphasis in the current CoC, gender issues are being singled out and made into this huge important thing. In the 5 1/2 years that I've been on the network nearly daily, I have first hand experience of one instance of issues with gender pronouns. I referred to the OP of a question as "he", and they replied with "did you just assume my gender?". That's it. To support the CoC change, is there any hard evidence that this is the most pressing issue we currently face?

What I do see frequently however are new users being insulted due to differences in their expectations and the rules of the network. That's a broad issue that affects a large demographic, and I think it's a more important issue to address at this moment.

I also wasn't a fan of the assertion

Using someone’s pronouns is a way of showing respect for them and refusing to do so causes harm.

Emphasis mine.

I don't see how refusing to use someone's preferred pronoun causes them harm. I find that to be a gross exaggeration and it makes it seem like you're reaching to try and justify the new CoC. It may cause them slight mental discomfort until they move on and inevitably forget about the interaction, but should we really be shaping our core policies around not causing niche groups any short-lived discomfort?

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Three days later, I decided to revisit my answer and soften my language since stating absolutes isn't productive. I believe what I believe, although I understand that others may have varying views due to experience.

Answer 10

For me, this CoC has a few issues. First, it is focusing on one specific problem. At this point, it's focused so much on one problem that it's excluding all the other ones. Quick, can you tell me what is explicitly called out as bigotry in the Code of Conduct?

Did you come up with some? There are four.

We don’t tolerate any language likely to offend or alienate people based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion — and those are just a few examples.

Yet, for those four being called out, everything in the past month has been focused on gender. What about the other three or the others that are implied by "just a few examples"?

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Second, is the massive amount of hypocrisy coming from Stack Exchange. This is my biggest complaint about Stack Exchange, and it isn't something that has happened in the last four weeks. It's been festering for a couple years.

As a moderator, I am bound by the moderator agreement.

ii. I acknowledge that I may have access to potentially personally-identifying information about Stack Overflow users and that in connection with such access

a. I will use such information solely in accordance with the then-current Privacy Policy of Stack Overflow,

b. I will not disclose this information to anyone,

c. I will not store or copy this information and

d. I will only use such information in connection with performance as a Stack Overflow moderator for the benefit of Stack Overflow.

Specifically, section II.b. "I will not disclose this [personal] information to anyone". Along with that is the common practice of not talking about actions taken against user accounts in public, unless they bring up the information in public. Even then, err on the side of "less is more". I, and every other moderator, are to be quiet and respect the community. Yet, Stack Exchange couldn't do this themselves. This entire month long controversy started because of a public (in a mod chatroom) firing and escalated from there. It escalated to posts around the network that, at the very least, cast people in unflattering light. It ended with speaking to the press about a single, specific user.

Stack Exchange shared less information publicly when Ross Ulbricht was arrested. They have shared less information when other moderators were removed for other reasons. Yet, this time, they spoke with the press.

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Finally, there is another portion of the Code of Conduct that I don't think Stack Exchange is holding up.

Be clear and constructive when giving feedback, and be open when receiving it.

I haven't seen a lot of that from Stack Exchange in the past...well, few years, but let's focus on the last month. We've been dropped edicts in the Teacher's Lounge and then left to argue between ourselves with no follow up. We've been given the chance to provide feedback on this Code of Conduct, yet that now seems like it was a pointless exercise. To me, it looks like Stack Exchange already had their minds made up about a series of actions before they even asked for feedback. Stack Exchange hasn't been clear in their feedback on this entire incident. We've gotten apologies, copy and pasted good byes, and the cold shoulder. We're being given edicts that conflict with how the site has been run. All of this is being done and it really feels like feedback being provided is at best ignored.

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In summary, my issues with the new Code of Conduct are:

• Narrowly focusing on one specific problem to the exclusion of others that the CoC itself calls out
• A huge lack of trust on my part toward Stack Exchange. There is so much bad faith communication around this entire update that it's hard for me to separate the good changes from the drama that has occurred. I also can't shake the feeling that Stack Exchange is trying to get rid of community members.
• Communication. Like almost every "incident" in the last few years, communication is lacking.

I've been re-evaluating my positions on Stack Exchange over the past month and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to ignore that lack of trust. I'm trying to get past it. But, as I wake up each morning and check my sites, I find that I'm withdrawing more and more from the Teacher's Lounge and other network wide discussions with Stack Exchange. I trust my moderator team mates, but it's been harder and harder to read comments from Stack Exchange employees and assume good faith. The Code of Conduct changes are included with that.

That feeling sucks. I hate it.

Answer 11

I guess, people think that:

1. Wrong priorities.
2. New CoC forces people to do something. Probable, if the message about pronouns was in the form of request instead of demand, it would be received much better.
3. The story with Monica still unclear.

Answer 12

There is much more traffic on Meta Stack Exchange (about 3 times the usual) since September 28th (the day after Monica was fired):

More traffic means more votes. For the Hot Network Questions, that means the vote distribution is skewed in the positive direction, because almost all users can upvote but not downvote due to the association bonus. However, on Meta Stack Exchange only 100 reputation is required to downvote. By the way, this is on purpose.

Of course, being featured, the announcement of the Code of Conduct changes would have been visible for everybody in the network (and rightfully so). However, and this was very surprising to me, the previous iteration of the Code of Conduct didn't cause a spike in the Meta Stack Exchange traffic, despite being featured twice (the first draft was featured as well).

One could argue that the current situation is actually for the better: now the company really sees how their user base thinks about the new changes.

Answer 13

I'll sum it up, hopefully expand the answer at later point in time.

1. Monica.
2. Forcing people to go against what they believe in if they want to use SO/SE.

Answer 14

Respect is a two way street. You cannot demand it, you cannot force it. If you do, then you are the one not showing respect.

Be nice would be sufficient for any CoC.

Current CoC goes beyond that and tries to enforce how people write and how should they think. On one side it looks completely innocuous and leaves room to express yourself freely as you would normally do, but then clarifications of certain parts show that you MUST write in specific way or you will be punished.

I have been around for a long time and I have managed not to offend anyone pronoun wise. If I did, they never told me. I am sure I can manage to be respectful in the future, too. But, I get distracted, tired... doing my best may not be enough... I even mix up my kids names all the time.

That also should not pose serious problem, after all intent is what matters and I am sure I don't intend to offend anyone. But in light of recent events when company has shown utmost disrespect and disregard to elected moderator, how can I expect to be treated fairly.

I cannot. I no longer trust the company.

And most of all, I am not going to surrender my freedom of speech. If I allow that, what will be next?

Answer 15

It's easy:

As to the why:

1. Completely mismanaging Monica.

2. Letting people come to the conclusion that you (SE) are actually lying about the how and why of the demodding, therefore throwing away lots and lots of goodwill and trust.

3. Forcing people who freely contribute time and content into abiding by what is a minority (see below) opinion in respect to language use if they want to continue to contribute.

Point 3 would be much, much less of a problem if people hadn't developed trust issues due to point 2.

None of this is necessary in order to make sure the mods have the tools to deal with people being unkind or actually hurtful (and it's also far from sufficient). SE's continued refusal to see this is counterproductive.

So, how to begin fixing it:

• Reinstate Monica.

• Revert to the previous CoC while coming up with improvements that the community can stand behind.

Note that both of these are actions.

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Edit:

I was asked to provide a source for my use of the term "minority opinion" in regards to pronoun choice in language use. With that term, I was especially referring to Q9 and Q11 of the official CoC pronoun FAQ. For me, the more disturbing one is Q11, but on hearing "minority opinion", I guess people think of Q9, and for Q9 I was actually surprised to learn opinions are almost evenly divided, at least according to PEW Research Center publication 1 and PEW Research Center publication 2 (the basis for the first one). OTOH, the same sources also make it clear that there are a lot of people which are at least somewhat uncomfortable about using these pronouns. Anyway: I don't want to uphold my initial word choice, especially since the main issue of point 3 holds without it, too. 

Answer 16

Let's be more inclusive!

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But shall we please not make the code of conduct paternalizing towards the users of StackExchange and dictate in a very rigid, detailed way and intrusive manner what words/language people have to use and how we can be nice to each other.

Language has to evolve. You should not (can not) demand from others that they are going to use some particular word, or at least it would be equally respectful to allow others their preferred way of speaking English.

• You can demand that another should not follow gender stereotypes and should instead be gender-neutral.
• But you cannot demand what exact words/language another person has to use in order to do this.

Of course, it is respectful when people match each other's language and follow up on other people's desires and respect that some particular use of words may be offensive. But such behaviour needs to develop naturally and can/should not be placed into rules.

The use of a pronoun (referring to a person by a general word) is not like the use of a person's name (referring to a person by a very specific label that has been given to the person or has been chosen by the person).

It is obvious that some people may be afflicted when certain pronouns are used to refer to them because these pronouns classify people (like gender) and that might be a misclassification (this pain should be acknowledged and respect would mean that one will try to avoid inflicting it). However, unlike with a personal name, with a pronoun requiring/demanding others to use a particular pronoun (as if it is a personal name) is not respectful towards those people.

Let other people please make up for themselves what words they prefer to use or not.

Just like:

• I cannot demand that others always use my name with the adjective 'smart' or 'pretty' (as in, my preferred personal name is 'smart pretty Martijn') or whatever I feel like is my personality.*
• I cannot demand that others use specific verbs (as in when speaking about me then I would prefer that you say I am 'running' instead of 'walking'),

Just like that

• I can neither demand from others that they always use a specific 'pronoun' instead of the pronoun that they prefer to use to refer to others. Pronouns are common terms in language, and each person has their own individual way to speak and use language. Desiring that others use a particular term is interfering with others personal habits, language, ways of expression.

*Actually when I present myself to a non-Dutch speaking person, then I use "my name is 'Martijn' but you can call me 'Martin'", thus giving the other the freedom because the pronunciation of my name is not so easy.

Now, the above-stated does not mean that there is something wrong with telling another person that one would prefer a certain pronoun. This is completely natural and does not interfere with the other person who can note the preferences and try to follow it. But the other is free to use it in a way that they feel is most suitable for them. Now, and this is the worst thing about the CoC, the creation of a rule that the use of preferred pronouns is obligatory, is changing the way how preferred pronouns are being used and how people need to respond when you state your preferred pronouns. If somebody desires the use of a particular preferred pronoun, then before the CoC they could politely ask this without intruding into the personal freedom of the other, but now with the new CoC stating ones preferred pronoun on StackExchange, becomes an act of enforcing how others have to talk. I imagine that for some people this is not at all desired and it may be working against inclusiveness because these people might feel less free to state their preferred pronoun.

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Written by StackExchangeStrike

Answer 17

Downvotes represent disagreement (on Meta, for most questions). The downvotes on that Code of Conduct change indicate that a large number of people think that those Code of Conduct changes should not be implemented.

If Stack Exchange wants a major change to be received well, the simple answer is to run it by the community before committing to it. If a proposed change is received poorly, then you don't have a problem; simply don't do the thing that was received poorly. (And, presumably, come up with a different proposal, or ask an open-ended question if you're at a loss.)

Answer 18

What happened?

In my opinion, the situation is fairly clear. There's been a cold war brooding between the community and SE's community team for a while. Especially among moderators and other more-involved users, there's been little satisfaction with the activities of Stack Exchange, Inc. Its community team is the interface point where these tensions concentrate.

The cold war recently heated up due to a series of incidents. Forced arbitration was enforced for dubious reasons. The relicensing wasn't dubious but outright illegal. In both cases, SE's community team utterly failed. This cocked the gun.

The trigger was pulled with the CoC. With all the important work that the community team should have been doing, this is what they did?! But even this was not what turned the cold war hot. The confirmation of open hostilities on the community was the firing of Monica. The community solidified, and we saw the wave of moderator resignations. And Monica's firing was followed by even more hostile actions - outright and repeated threats of widespread bans, removing critical comments, lies about apologies.

What can be done to change this?

A community team that is in a state of war with the community is useless. Sorry. It is a hard decision to be made by SE's leadership, but the current community team cannot remain. Naming names is probably not useful; there is nothing to be gained by trying to determine exactly which members of the team are most responsible.

It's similar to a sports team. When the communications between the team and the coach breaks down, the coach gets to find a new job. You can't fire the athletes. SE Inc can't fire its community, its customers.

Answer 19

What are the (main) reasons that the current changes are received so negatively?

I'm guessing that this is multi-faceted.

• We had a moderator elevated to literally the highest level of trust (one step shy of being an actual employee at one point) fired over what was reported as a current violation of the CoC.
• We get an initial apology which isn't received very well.
• We get a better written apology which may have soothed some anger but still raised a few valid points about the timeline.
• The network is, by definition, dual purpose; there are the technical network sites and the non-technical network sites, and this is an issue which tends to come up more often on the non-technical sites than it does the technical sites. Yet, technical sites are forced to accept the status quo as prescribed by the CMs.

And how could/should Stack Exchange improve to make sure such major changes are received better in the future?

A message like this isn't going to be received any better in the future.

...and I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to be, either.

The intention behind it is good. It's something I can get behind in general. Don't call someone what they don't want to be called.

The delivery and execution, though, is pretty awful. In my view, it has the power to ignore the complete other half of the network.

In the course of my answering questions on Stack Overflow, my compiler or interpreter doesn't care what preferred pronoun is used by the OP, so it makes little sense to me as to why it has to be kept around on a technical site. But, it has to be. It's like no one solicited feedback from technical site moderators, or none of them thought enough to ask about this.

Answer 20

To be precise it is the FAQ linked to the CoC that assumed a certain dissidence and resistance among Stack Exchange's supporters and members. And they weren't wrong.

The unprecedented firing of Monica Cellio backfired tremendously.

It just messed up things in a tremendous and spectacular manner. Furthermore, despite the second public apology, Cellio was still not reinstated. Therefore, the FAQ with its extensive amendment–a total of 14 Questions–guaranteed users' opposition.

Answer 21

I downvoted against the CoC because it says

We don’t tolerate any language likely to offend or alienate people based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion

Now we know that from various court cases in England and USA that this is not possible and much more effort has been put into resolving these than Stack Exchange can do. Yes there are some cases where religious views clash with gender views and they are not reconcilable.

Thus the CoC is logically impossible to be implemented by referring to the rules. So that implies that Stack Exchange employees will have to make decisions on which offended person to back or penalize. Now the FAQ appears reasonable but then we get to the comments by SE staff in replies. See this answer

If a user states their preferred pronouns in the course of asking a technical question - where personal identity doesn't generally apply - would removing that language then constitute a violation of the CoC?

@Catija a Community Manager for the Stack Exchange Network comments

Please don't remove these. We don't have an official way to notate this for the time being, so if someone opts to put this in their post, please leave it there. Many users won't be aware of these changes, so we need to assume good intentions and roll back and possibly comment to let them know. If it turns into a rollback war, please draw the attention of the mods. –

My view is summed up in the comment by @fredsbend

"Oh, hey, I'm 22 years old, non-binary (they/them, please) and my dog is so cute. Anyway, I've got this professor that's assigned this homework and I need help. He's not a very good professor. I'm trying to learn the coding, but it's hard, so I hope you can all help me out. Here it goes. What's the answer to this question? Thanks for your help." @Catija So, we can delete virtually all of the non-bold part from the question, but not the pronoun part?

So the question will then only apply to this who use they as a pronoun (a bit more obvious if the user asked for xir or other unusual pronoun), On a Java question it needs to apply to all users not just a subset.

Answer 22

Put bluntly it is more stick than carrot and is typical of the zeitgeist - dog pile until people rage quit. And frankly, it makes me sick to the stomach.

What happened to educating people? Mutual empathy? Treating people like human beings? What happened to celebrating differences?

I've been lucky enough to work with all sorts of people and different people are hugely enriching to your world view.

So please, consider people who aren't quite on the same page yet rather than proselytizing from the moral high ground. Judge not lest ye be judged.

Answer 23

Users feel increasingly insecure.

The CoC changes are, all things considered, a tiny change in natural speech most users would accomodate without even thinking, but the general context in which all of this happened (advertisement, Monica case, and other things that I won't recall) caused us to think the rules could be enforced in an unreasonable manner.

Users feel insecure about being trolled and/or banned for writing as they normally speak.

Nothing could be done by SE inc in a climate where they aren't trusted to be of good faith. Restoring trust was a primary requirement.

Answer 24

I believe the core issue is that the new change moves dangerously close, if not crossing the line, in to forced speech and certainly moves away to the assumption of positive intent. This entire platform is based on concepts similar to the open source movement which place tremendous importance on the value of freedom of both self and information.

By making rules overly prescriptive, it assumes bad intent from a community of contributors who contribute out of extremely good intent, which is a slap in the face. Further, compelling speech is a direct affront that many within the open source/free information community would find an explicit contradiction of values held dear by the community.

Finally, what this really signals is that the management of Stack Overflow are moving out of touch with the community. It has gone from a technical management that understand the values that drive the community forward through mutual respect and freedom and are instead driving towards something else entirely that I'm not even really sure how to describe, but it is at odds with core principles (freedom) of the type of person that makes an active Stack Exchange member.

For a rule to be effective and accepted in a community for which freedom is a core value, the rule really needs to be as minimally prescriptive as possible while still accomplishing its goal. Many believe this new CoC is far off the mark on that. The problem is not directly the goal, the problem is how they got there.

In addition to all of that, it's probably actually harmful to the group it's trying to protect, so it's also likely highly ineffective at accomplishing it's goal while also flying in the face of core tenets of the community.

Answer 25

Reasons and meta-reasons:

1. No public atmosphere expecting CoC changes as an avenue for resolving something right now.
2. Changes initiated by SE Inc in parallel with unconscionable behavior, not yet resolved.
3. Over-hyping of the LBGTQ+ welcoming-and-acceptance issue
4. No trust in SE Inc as honest enforcers, and can't even rely on moderators to soften the blow considering what we've seen.
5. Existing CoC already draconic and unwelcome - less of that, not more, would be better.
6. People expect resolution of the Cellio + other moderators resignation issue before implementation of new policy.

Answer 26

Because the code of conduct was the weapon used against Monica Cellio. And since she is a person whom people respect, and who doesn't seem like the person who would intentionally harm or insult anyone, and since additionally, as far as I can tell, Stack Exchange was not willing or able to give any substantial evidence justifying their move, people no longer trust Stack Exchange not to use the same weapon also against others who have done nothing wrong.

Disarming the weapon used against Monica Cellio would be a first step into rebuilding the trust.

Answer 27

The first issue is that things like calling men "she" and women "he" and really just going out of your way to be a dick has always been unacceptable everywhere. This didn't change because someone is trans. It's quite possible we can disagree entirely on basically everything, including your ideas on your own gender, and still engage in polite conversation, earnestly trying to prevent offense.

So what does that make this CoC look like? What does it look like when that most recent blog post by Sara Chipps spends 4000 words on "LGBT inclusivity" and only 700 on actual welcoming measures for newbies? The word is pandering. It looks like pandering, which by nature is an affront to the community's intelligence. We're not stupid, which is why so many of us (for about 2 years now) have been asking for qualitative data that we can act on, which assumes our accused unwelcoming behavior toward these groups. And we get in return silence from SE and accusations of hate from militant "allies". How are we supposed to react to this treatment? We took you at your word, and then you were silent when we ask for specifics and couldn't even stand up for us when fanatics called us hate-mongers. It looks like the goal is something other than actually helping users in need.

This leads to the second issue. One common understanding is that SE corporate wants SE usership to contain a set of core beliefs, which have little to do with site topics. To me, the idea itself, here on SE, is incredulous, even if I agreed with these core beliefs. How can a site dedicated to objective answers for timeless questions make a requirement of core beliefs? It's outrageous, and I mean literally, it causes outrage.

The impression many of us are coming to is that the expression of discordant beliefs is not allowed, and is at worst considered expression of hate, and therefore will be deleted with prejudice and may result in suspension.

"Tolerance, inclusivity, diversity" ... all hot air to you, SE. Sara Chipps confirmed by retweet, you'd rather we leave if we aren't like you.

What should SE have done.

Literally nothing since September 1. If there was a reset button to reboot SE back to September 1 specs, you should hit it now. You've made what we in the business like to call "a qualified eff up".

What you should have done two years ago was not tell us we're so intolerant of women and LGBT, based only on your word supposedly based on a survey of users. This is SE! Don't bring that weak sauce in here! You have a massive repository of user content, deleted stuff retained, and none of your data geniuses on staff could design a few queries for you? That's the least you could have done. If you wanted the truth on whether we're so intolerant, that is the bare minimum you should have brought to the table before you accused us.

Too bad it's too late for many of us. Too bad it doesn't look like SE cares.

Answer 28

Here's the CoC I want:

We here at SE are a diverse bunch, with strong ideas and we want to make sure this is a safe place for everyone. This is going to require us all to be tolerant and compassionate toward those who have ideas differing from our own. To do this we have some rules:

1. Assume no offence was intended and be tolerant when people say offensive things without malice.
2. Be gracious toward others and treat them respectfully even if you disagree with them.
3. Don't deliberately try and provoke or offend each other, because we're going to delete it and no one will be impressed.
4. Value those who are different to you, as they are the ones you will learn the most from.
5. We're going to critique and modify your stuff, we do this because were passionate about making things that will be useful to lots of people. Don't take it personally, instead help us make it even better.

I'd like this with some fun comics amongst it.

Answer 29

What are the (main) reasons that the current changes are received so negatively? And how could/should Stack Exchange improve to make sure such major changes are received better in the future?

Frankly, I think this is the largest part of the problem. Just as with the official responses to the controversy surrounding Monica's dismissal and public shaming, the community is angry that it's apparently not even crossing the minds of the Stack Exchange management and staff to consider that it's what they did that's the problem - they're concerned only with the reaction to it, and with how they could have better managed that reaction.

It comes across like a convicted bank robber saying at their sentencing:

Your honor, I'm really surprised that I robbed a bank and was caught and imprisoned. I don't remember a previous action of mine being received so negatively. How can I improve to make sure I can rob banks without getting caught in the future?

The negative reaction shows that the majority of people reacting don't like the changes, and that's the issue that concerns them. They consider the changes divisive and conducive to creating a toxic and hostile environment - changes that are likely to exacerbate the problem SE claims it's trying to solve and which are likely to harm and endanger precisely the group it's claiming to be particularly trying to protect.

Instead of taking a position which encourages tolerance and which facilitates a diverse group of people to peacefully co-exist and work together despite their differences, SE deliberately chose to elevate and privilege one subsection of the community and to belittle and punish the other, in the face of numerous, serious objections. Regardless of the merits on either side of the pronouns argument, this will catastrophically fail as an attempt to achieve a diverse and healthy community, as countless examples throughout history show, and as many of the reactions on the part of those supporting the changes - including some members of SE staff - are showing as we speak.

Or, does it even matter that the current sentiment is the way it is, as long as the company is (feeling that it is) doing the Right Thing™?

There are few things in the world with the capacity to cause as much harm as people with power blindly persisting in "doing (what they feel to be) the Right Thing" while blithely ignoring the damage that's causing. That's a road that never leads to a good place.

Answer 30

The problem is trust. Intentionally insulting someone by means of pronouns is bad. Few people disagree with that, and it has been forbidden by the original CoC from the beginning.

If people assumed that that's all the CoC is about, there wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that users assume bad faith on the part of those who enforce the CoC, and are afraid the CoC will be abused as an excuse by SE staff to ban them at will, with no realistic chance of appeal, and smear to their reputation on top.

They believe this might happen to them because they believe the same thing recently happened to a very reputable, level headed, and respected member of the community. In the absence of trust, users are looking for a bulletproof CoC that cannot be abused against them.

Stack Exchange has gone to great lengths to reinforce both of the aforementioned beliefs, to a point that some feel can no longer be adequately explained with incompetence.