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.

---

Email was sent to Monica on October 8.

Answer 1

Ok. Thanks for the apology. I'm not too sentimental like that, so I wasn't seeking it in the first place. All I really wanted from SE was a clear explanation with examples why you fired Monica. In this post, you say you'll only do that if you both agree? That's not reasonable. The only circumstance where keeping that information private would be if Monica admits fault and concedes her removal was just. Monica is equivalent to a public figure on SE. We deserve answers.

Answer 2

Your post is like a breath of fresh air compared to what I've recently seen posted by the company here. As many others have already stated, thank you. Among the other answers, there are many questions, comments & suggestions expressed about various aspects stated in, or omitted from, your post, but I will mainly discuss the timing you provided of the CoC related changes, i.e.,

• 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

As a non-moderator myself, who has been a member for just under a year, and who has only now mostly during the past week or so tried to catch up with what has been going on here & in the past, I don't know how realistic those timelines are. Nonetheless, I don't believe there's any hard & fast deadlines to complete any step in the process, so I suggest it's better to do it right rather than on time. If you find any step is taking more time than you expected, please adjust the schedule accordingly and let us know. As long as the process doesn't drag out for too long a time & you don't provide too many updates that don't pan out, I at least, and I trust most of the community, would appreciate the updates and the extra care to try to make good decisions.

Also, your words are a great start, and I hope they're also backed up with appropriate actions. If so, it'll help start building back trust from the community with the company. Also, I hope the company has begun to make a significant change in how they will deal with us, so there will in the future be increased communication and more transparency from the company, listening to & taking into account our feedback, and making appropriate adjustments as required, similar to what is requested in A general call for increased transparency from Stack Exchange, Incꓸ.

I sincerely believe that by working together, we can continue to make the SE sites places where members will generally always feel welcome, be happy to participate and feel they are part of a community they want be involved with; the general public can continue to ask and/or find excellent questions and answers to solve their needs; and the company will prosper, both financially as well as with the good will from the members and the general public.

Answer 3

This is a peculiar flavored mashup of sidestepping, backpedaling and extenuation.

Like seeing someone take a chug of a beer they find after a party, and it's full of butts.

Think, do, own it. When you get the order wrong it doesn't work.

Consider the impact of your actions and how they affect everyone. You can't fix some things by doing one thing or another; that applies before, during and after.

It is sometimes amazing what can be learned from another, and sometimes amazing what one forgets about their own.

Source: "Learning Curves | Recognizing a Race-Friendly Dyno Graph":

"Getting In Shape
A good percentage of the very-best engineers, racecar builders and engine tuners understand and use dyno graphs as outlined to improve a vehicle’s performance. However, there are a select few racecar and engine tuners that focus on the shape of the dyno curve to optimize controllability, traction and suspension stability. Why should this be important to you? When you shift gears and it upsets tire grip, you get passed—if you are lucky. If unluckly, the loss of traction can result in a crash. Likewise, when you feed in throttle to launch your drag car or attempt to accelerate off a corner only to spin the tires, the finish line just got a lot closer, for the competition that just passed you. As the sample dyno charts will demonstrate, the shape and length of the power curve beyond peak horsepower plays a significant roll.".

Source: "Racing Line":

"Introduction

The racing line line depends on the following factors: braking point, turn in point, apex, and the position and direction of the next corner.

It is important to remember that there is rarely a perfect line through any corner for all circumstances. It depends on the characteristics of your car, your cornering strategy and the conditions. If you’re racing, you may also have to react to the position of other cars on the track. You should experiment with different lines and learn from instructors and the people who know the track best.".

See how similar information and situations read differently. It's not just applying what you know but knowing how it is applied and what the result will be.

If you can't apply what you already know to various situations successfully then you either need to learn to do that, learn more, or learn to leave things alone.

Answer 4

It seems to me that you brought this whole thing on yourselves.

This is a technical Q&A site, whose bread and butter is highly technical questions ranging from C-language rounding to server-farm emergency backup generators. Gender issues are highly unlikely to arise.

Frankly, this site is positioned to unite everyone who does tech.

So why is SE, as a company, publicly making a spectacle of themselves on gender identity issues?

I've noticed SE has a very small minority of stacks of a very different nature - Interpersonal Skills, Parenting, and a few religious stacks. These are the sites where gender issues come up, and I'm particularly looking at Interpersonal Skills stack, because that seems to be a lightning rod for all sorts of things. Take the Twitter debacle earlier, which was fundamentally about SE's core/base customers considering the content to be out-of-place on this platform.

The sway is mystifying: these sites (and their advocates) seem to be the "600 pound gorilla" of SE -- the company reacts emotionally, even irrationally, to anything that would threaten the status-quo of these particular stacks. It's almost as if an owner said "these sites must succeed at the expense of all else; I'll stake my company on it".

Coz that seems to be happening.

For SE to dig in their heels and say "We want to die on this hill", doesn't make much sense.

How about instead of dividing the community over stacks that aren't even a good fit for the platform... divide the platform! Divest the troublesome stacks. Spin them off to someone who actually wants to be in the social Q&A business, which is a very different business than the technical Q&A business. That would basically make gender issues irrelevant at Stack Exchange.

I'm not saying StackExchange shouldn't care about gender issues, but maybe employees and investors who care about that should do their politicking at a personal level instead of embroiling the company.

Answer 5

Thank you for for your apology! It is much appreciated.

For me, the most important part is:

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. _{by David Fullerton, emphasis mine}

I want to say Let's forget it, but currently I can't. But with the above statement it seems I can in future.

I say this, because in the past you often said sorry, promised improvements, but forgot it a few month later. Just make sure you remember this statement in a year. And ten.

Thanks again.

Answer 6

• 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

This seems like a poorly chosen order - the code of conduct should be reviewed by the moderators (including reinstated ones) before being enacted. How can that happen if the reinstatement is last?

Answer 7

Every time I look at you I don't understand

Why you let the things you did get so out of hand.

You'd have managed better if you'd had it planned.

Why'd you choose [a delay in] time [with] such a [bad hand]?

– Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice, Jesus Christ Superstar (1970)

Answer 8

This response is long-awaited... But it feels heartfelt and meaningful.

As just another Stack Exchange community member: Thank you.

I'm certain I speak for many members when I say that I'm satisfied knowing that this event is being taken seriously, and my faith in Stack Exchange is starting to become restored.

In the future... I hope that it doesn't take this long to address an uproar of this magnitude. However, I think we should focus on forward movement with regards to the past.

I still hope SE becomes more transparent, but that's a conversation for a different location, and a different time.

By Friday, October 11, we’ll share the processes for moderator removal and reinstatement with moderators for their feedback

Is there going to be any specific focus on the most recent moderator walkouts? Will those moderators be contacted privately to discuss possible reinstatement, assuming they're interested? If so, can you elaborate?

Answer 9

I am pleased to see this message from the CTO of Stack Overflow; it goes a long way toward correcting things. However, while what has been done so far is necessary, it is not sufficient.

It is critical to realize that certain important decisions should not be rushed, even if one has good intentions. I have to second what others have said that the moderators should have more time to review and respond to the new CoC before it is published. Another week would not be an excessive amount of time and would far better provide adequate time to respond and for any needed changes to be made before the new CoC is made public.

After publicly naming Monica as having been fired they need to publicly post a retraction and apology.

There have been several other issues, besides Monica's firing, that have upset the community, and rightly so. These other issues also need to be addressed.

Although Stack Overflow has made some reassuring statements, which certainly are good steps toward correcting their errors, we will have to see what they actually do over the coming weeks. It is their actions, not just words, that will show their true intentions.

EDIT: I tend to be optimistic and willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. So when the CTO of Stack Overflow posted a better sounding apology with a promise of improvements to come I was hopeful and willing to wait and see what happened. It has been a month with no really substantial improvements in the numerous issues affecting these sites: Firing mods and forced relicensing: is Stack Exchange still interested in cooperating with the community? Therefore I must add my voice to others expressing their dissatisfaction with Stack Exchange. As shown in the link above there are a number of issues; there seems to be little that the average user can do, but this link has ideas on what can be done to help address one issue: How can we help Monica Cellio?

Answer 10

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

This is great, really. Coming from one of the Moderator's who resigned, and then changed his mind and came back -- before this was issued BTW. I do believe this should go a long was to prevent future events like this.

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.

This is as much as you could ask for at the moment, and took a ton of courage to post. Admitting, apologizing, owning, and attempting to rectify. This make me very hopeful that our big community will survive and thrive.

I do believe there is a road back for Monica as I still believe her heart is always in the right place, and I hope that path back is acceptable to all involved.

Answer 11

"make it an even more welcoming and inclusive place"

Unless you are CIS Gendered, Heteronomative and Socially and Politically Conservative. Then, you can go pound sand.

(Or find an alternative that is welcoming and inclusive to those people groups.)

I understand the need to find some middle ground, but the ground chosen by SE is so far to the LGBTQ+ side that Monica was basically removed for a thought crime and the rest of us better get in line RIGHT NOW!

Answer 12

Hey David and Stack Overflow,

This is a good step and thank you for this. It is great to see you acknowledge where you went wrong and what process you're going to work on to fix this.

One thing I've been trying to mention in posts but haven't seen addressed is getting proper training for your volunteer moderators.

There are courses in non-violent communication, conflict management and other areas of moderation you can pay for.

I think you are being unkind towards yourselves when you don't train moderators at all and then expect them to endure the empathy fatigue community moderation involves while behaving in a welcoming empathic way.

I think you can benefit from actually investing in moderators and community members. Issues like dealing with people from different cultures are not something people are born with.