How can we resolve the current drama without causing any more harm to vulnerable groups?

Question

Context: I am a non-binary user who uses singular they as my chosen pronoun. I'm also a relatively new user who just started paying attention to meta right when the situation over the sudden firing of a moderator was becoming a thing.

First, my thoughts on the Monica situation (1). From what I've been able to glean about the situation I personally believe that SE mishandled the situation. I feel that they violated their own rules and values by moving way too quickly. I would like it if the issue of Monica's rehiring was put before the moderators and that they would be allowed to make a decision on how things should proceed on that front.

Now onto what I feel about the whole CoC drama. I personally think this situation has been mishandled by both the community and SE. I personally feel that SE should've delayed the release of the new change until after the Monica situation was fully dealt with. This would've allowed for people to disassociate this new change from the previous situation and would've allowed users to approach it with a perspective untainted by anger.

While I do feel SE is at fault for how this was received I also feel that some of the communities' reaction, especially the lashing out at members of the LGBTQ+ community, has been completely inappropriate. Within the past few weeks, I feel like I haven't been welcome here. I have felt attacked and demonized simply because of who I am. It honestly makes me hurt and sad that a community that I had felt was a bastion of rational thought has descended into fights over what I feel should not be a difficult question, but a trivial decision to extend a certain group of people a basic amount of human respect.

While I do feel that many protesting these changes have good intentions I still feel that many hurtful and disrespectful things have been said. whether they were intentional or not doesn't matter. I feel that both the community and SE should hold a burden of shame when it comes to this.

How we can resolve this current drama? And how we can do it without causing further harm to vulnerable groups?

Answer 1

Bottom line up front (BLUF):

Those of you reading this post: if you genuinely care about being respectful towards this issue, to the people affected by it, you would do well to stop for a second and just try to consider whether these things are as "irrelevant" as a lot of you seem to feel it is. And to stop and consider that your comfort as someone who might have to double-check how you write here can and should be balanced by considering the comfort of people who are regularly worried that their identity is going to be invalided by being here.

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I'm seeing a lot of comments to this post saying the same thing over and over, from different people: "I didn't see any attacks against LGBT people, what are you referencing?"

And before I dig into that, I want to explain something: bigotry is not a binary. Bigotry is not "I hate trans people!" and then any statement that falls short of that extreme becomes acceptable. It's a spectrum of misbehavior, ranging from outright, extreme statements of intolerance, to subtle cues that give off the impression that the user is just being polite to avoid social repercussions for a belief or statement they know would be much poorly received if they expressed it honestly.

And then there's behaviors and beliefs that aren't outright bigoted, but sound like arguments that bigots use, and for Trans and NB people on this site, seeing those arguments, even from people who don't intend to use them that way, are troubling and disturbing. This, incidentally, applies to the post that Monica made in the FAQ Meta that she later deleted after this was pointed out to her.

And in that same vein are arguments that are bigoted, but which the people presenting them don't realize are bigoted.

These factors, in combination, are why I think a lot of people reacting to these issues aren't seeing the problems that a lot of trans and non-binary folk are.

So with that in mind, what are we talking about?

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I'm going to limit this just to the recently posted FAQ Meta on the Code of Conduct Changes, because it gives us, I think, a good litmus test. Moreover, I'm going to start with the most highly upvoted answers on that post, because I don't want to just find the vocal minority and prop them up like their voices are the only ones that count. I want to focus on the posts that got the most support on that meta, and explain why, as a member of LGBT community myself, I was made to feel uncomfortable by their content.

So we'll start with the most highly upvoted post on that meta, which includes the following paragraph:

I will call you xe or zir etc if you want, but I really don’t like that it’s phrased that if you’re uncomfortable you have to, or get out. I have so much respect for the LGBTQA+ community, but how far do I have to participate in order to engage a user on a question?

So, speaking as a member of the LGBT community, this reads like a more eloquent version of the "I'm not racist, but..." argument people use when they're about to say something racist. If you're someone who has "so much respect" for the LGBT community, why is being told to respect someone's pronouns something that feels like extenuating effort for you?

I don't want to do whole thesis' for each post, so I'll make this brief: just because the matter of self-identity doesn't seem like a large priority to you doesn't mean the person on the other side of the conversation feels the same way. Many people are uncomfortable adopting the default-identity associated with Internet Anonymity (I say with personal experience, being frequently referred to as male despite having not put my gender anywhere on my user profile until relatively recently—which does not include male pronouns), and being treated as such, even implicitly, is uncomfortable.

So yes, being respectful of trans-people means being willing to take the extra few seconds to engage with their identity, if they specifically want that. I get that this is new for a lot of people, and I'm not prepared to exalt SE for their [honestly, kinda crappy] presentation of this change in expectations, but that's how it is.

Next Post. I'm not going to talk about every post, because not literally every single post was objectionable.

So, what about "bad-faith" pronouns like "attack-helicopter" or "Your grace"? Does one still have to use those pronouns?

How does one determine whether or not a pronoun is "legitimate", especially if they are unfamiliar with it?

You flag for a moderator and they'll take a look at it.

Personally, this kind of response frustrates me, because those aren't even pronouns, they're titles. And more importantly, we're not robots. We can gauge for ourselves whether we think someone is acting in bad faith or not. And even if we suspect someone is acting in bad faith, we don't need to react by behaving in ways that will hurt trans people. If someone shows up in a chat room insisting they identify as an attack helicopter, and refuses to cop to any kind of insincere trolling behavior, that doesn't mean we need to start acting like trans people using pronouns correctly are somehow responsible for this behavior, or that a code of conduct mandating respectful pronoun use somehow caused this.

To someone that has English as a secondary language, and where gender-specific pronouns don't exist in their primary language, it may seem absolutely absurd that an subject like pronoun usage ends up in a code of conduct.

What happened to common sense? What happened to just not being an a-hole?

A: "He should do X and X"
B: "(I'm a <gender>, )please use <pronoun>"
A: "Mkay"
Both: Moving on

The problem with this post is that the user is acting like the hypothetical conversation they've described is the only way these conversations have ever played out. But they're not. Conversations on this network don't always play this nicely, and that's why we need changes to the Code of Conduct. The previous "Be Nice" policy was not helping ensure that conversations stayed at this level of respectful and obvious.

There were many conversations, especially in the chatrooms on the programming stacks, that were openly contemptuous of the identities of transgender people. It seems likely to me that much of the purpose of these changes to the Code of Conduct was to specifically try to address that issue.

Compelled speech, even in the name of a worthy cause, has no place in civilized society. Period. Our values reject it.

Forcing people to choose between violating their conscience or leaving, in the name of inclusiveness, is an Orwellian nightmare that has no place in our community. Our values reject it.

A reminder, in case it wasn't clear that I was working from highly upvoted posts, is that this response garnered a net total of 600 positive votes. This post, which calls a policy of respecting a trans person's pronouns, Orwellian, was extremely positively received by the community.

Do you understand how uncomfortable this makes me? How uncomfortable this is for many LGBT people on this network? It's not just that this one user said The Bad Thing™, but that there were hundreds of people who actively cared about this issue that affirmatively agreed with this stance—and these people constitute a majority of the people who cared to respond.

This makes me feel unsafe. This makes me feel like the community does not respect trans people, and it makes me feel the same paranoia I have to try very hard not to feel in unknown communities; that no matter what niceties people put on their words, that they don't genuinely see me (or any other trans person) by how we identify. And personally speaking, I'm still working through my identity! I can't even imagine how these kinds of statements must feel to other members of the community who are more "out" than I am.

And—again—this post was extremely highly upvoted. This isn't some fringe belief of the network, this is something that a lot of people here seem to strongly agree with.

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I'm stopping here because, frankly, I have other things to do with my time, but those of you scoffing at this, stop and actually try to think about how the LGBT members of this stack perceive responses like this. I don't know whether each of these posts really mean the hyperbole, of they're just using intense rhetoric without thinking through the implications—but you need to understand that from our perspective, there's not a big difference.

I don't care whether these people are just being incendiary or if they're actively trying to be harmful, because I can't know what they're really thinking. I can only know how these statements fit into patterns of toxic, bigoted behavior and the rationales given for those behaviors.

Answer 2

"It honestly makes me hurt and sad that a community that I had felt was a bastion of rational thought has descended into petty bickering over whether they have to extend a certain group of people a basic amount of human respect."

If you think this is what the uproar is about, you are just seeing what you want to see and completely ignoring the original issue, because the original issue is much more nuanced and predates this current situation by almost two years. The current situation could have been literally about anything else or triggered by anyone else.

Your everyone is to blame assertion is kind of the heart of the problem, and one of the main sticking points from two years ago, blanket statements of guilt by definition tend to lump the innocent in with the guilty, regardless of how tiny the percentage of guilty there are, which ironically is what was the seed of all the discontent almost 2 years ago, the powers that be are telling everyone they are guilty of being bigots/racists/sexists and that SE enabled them to be, and especially those that think they are not are the worst offenders.²

² If you’re shaking your head thinking, “not me,” I’d encourage you to take these implicit bias tests, specifically the Race IAT and the Gender-Career IAT. If you’re like me, they’re going to hurt.

See, I get it, the I do not see _____ are the the same as the I see ____ and I ignore it. Like Ibrim X Kendi says, (to paraphrase an statement he made in an NPR interview) it is not enough to be not racist, you need to be an anti-racist, and that is to see race, acknowledge it and actively ignore/not consider it.

This last situation is just the final disrespectful straw that many long time community members just could not tolerate in silence anymore. Ironic is it not?

The actual problem:

When people make blanket statements vilifying an entire community, it is not unexpected for those that are not villains to be offended by that, and not want to be called villains and demand a correction, just as much as someone that wants to be called a specific pronoun deserves to be called that pronoun or have references to them corrected.

You are lumping in innocent people with the hand full of bigoted trolls that are now taking advantage of the situation, and that makes you better than Stack Exchange and the trolls how?

To answer @divibisan in the comments:

How would you suggest they talk about a problem in the community without making you feel like you're lumped in with trolls? I understand this is a natural human response, but how would you suggest one avoid that?

The irony in asking the autistic guy about how not to say offensive things is not lost on me :-), I am taking @divibisan at face value and assuming good intent with their question, this is something that should not be lost on @SaraChipps.

If Jay Hanlon had said originally or even edited the blog post to say:

"A very small percentage of the community are bad actors and we need your help to correct the perception that it is the entire community, here is what we propose..."

I can not speak for the entire community, but that would at least show they knew where the problem was, but they just doubled down over and over again that the entire community was unwelcoming and the we enabled it is their way of saying, my bad, not my bad.

At this point, them acknowledging this and making a real apology is about as likely as Emperor Palpatine apologizing for Order 66 in the up coming Star Wars movie.

Answer 3

I am truly sorry about what you feel. It should not be that way and it upsets me. I realize this place is not welcoming right now. For anyone.

There have been plenty of hurtful behaviors in all directions in the past few weeks. This is not due, in my opinion, simply to Monica's demodding, or the CoC changes. We all feel upset and beaten up by what is happening.

There is a long-standing tension that has been released by these events. The reason for that tension is that the community feels that Stack Exchange is not listening to them, nor able to relate to them in a functional way: the lavender community has said so, the mod community has said so, and thousands of users feel the same way based on voting patterns.

Monica's demodding and the CoC change merely exemplified this tone-deaf behavior on Stack Exchange's part. They were a "casus belli". They are not at all the center of this situation.

Unfortunately, nothing at the heart of the problem seems to have changed, so the outlook is not so good at the moment.

Answer 4

To answer the question in the title: Not at all.

The discussion will be stressful, people will be upset, they will feel hurt, they will feel offended and they will feel insulted.

^{(An aside: One could be tempted to first ask what "vulnerable groups" are, but the answer is simple: Humans. Humans are vulnerable. By nature. Physically, and emotionally. Conversely, we might have to accept (as in: "tolerate"!) that there are people who simply say "I don't care about you and your feelings". This may sound harsh, and hard to understand for some, but considering that people in the autism spectrum tend to have "a lack of interest in social relationships, a tendency towards ... emotional coldness, detachment", calling someone an "ignorant bigot" just because he doesn't understand certain sorts of emotions is at the very least not constructive, certainly inconsiderate, and in many cases plainly inappropriate).}

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General thoughts about misbehavior, emotions and conflicts on this site:

It has been pointed out several times: When someone is attacked, then this can be flagged and deleted, regardless of whether that person is a member of a certain group or not, and regardless of any CoC changes. For repeated violations, the offender can be banned.

And when there is the claim that some individual or a group has been (repeatedly or systematically) "attacked and demonized", than there has to be evidence. And I know that requesting that evidence has some potential for conflict, which shows up in questions, answers, comments (and almost certainly in the downvotes that this answer will receive...). The pattern that I have observed in the countless Q/As that have been opened here on meta in the past couple of weeks is basically this:

• People say that they belong to a minority and feel attacked, demonized, marginalized, hurt...
• People (from the majority, if this existed) ask for evidence or examples
• These people are then accused of being ignorant, intolerant, bigots, or worse
• Other people engage, trying to justify the questions, which then seems to be perceived as "the majority" ganging up against "the minority"
• Things go downhill very quickly then...

The aggressiveness and inconsiderateness that can be observed when accusations are brought up never ceases to surprise me. And one problem is: This hatred (!) is often directly addressed at people who ask questions in order to understand things better, with the ultimate goal of finding solutions. There hardly is a way to mess things up more quickly than by hastily trying to solve a problem that is not well understood. As such, the "Welcoming-Wagon" has already been described as an exemplary case of an XY-Problem ...

^{(Another aside: Blanket accusations are exactly what caused all the turmoils after the Welcoming-Disaster. And I have the strong impression that much of the frustration that has been caused back then, by unbased accusations and miscommunication, has been simmering under the surface, and erupted in the past weeks, due to actions that would have been controversial anyhow, but could otherwise have at least been manageable...).}

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Regarding the pronouns and related issues:

The problems of changing language have been discussed elsewhere in great detail. There are many good, objective, reasons to reject the 'singular they' or neopronouns. And there are even stronger reasons to reject compelled speech. There are also many, many reasons of why a policy that dictates a certain way of speech, as the current CoC with the associated FAQ, is likely to fail: The impossibility to sensibly implement this in practice is largely caused by the inconsiderate wording of the CoC+FAQ, the nature of an anonymous Q/A site, and the ambiguities and corner cases that cannot be covered in detail (and, to some extent, by the hardened fronts caused by bad communication).

Beyond that, "changing the language" will not make the site more welcoming: The controversy and conflicts can be seen in all the meta Q/As show that. And at least until now, this attempt has caused far more harm than good. One could say that this attempt has "deepened the trenches", but I'd go further and say that it has created trenches where there hadn't been any in the first place.

But I'd like to reiterate a point that has been brought up frequently, and once more in this question and the currently accepted answer:

Respect

I know that the argument is very common: If someone rejects a certain form of speech, then this is referred to as a "lack of respect" or a form of "not respecting an identity".

This is not the case.

First of all: Nobody can be forced to respect someone else. One can force people to behave as if they respected someone, but one cannot force them to actually do it: Respect is a feeling.

More specifically: Respect is basically synonymous to "a high or special regard", and it would lose all its meaning if it was applied to everybody equally. Respect has to be earned.

This is something completely different than "accepting who you are", or "acknowledging (and ignoring...) that you are different in any way". It also has nothing to do with courtesy or, more broadly speaking "socially acceptable behavior". This whole site is designed to focus on technical questions, and it should be easy to treat everybody equally (even though, maybe, at some point, someone earns the respect of others by providing valuable contributions...).

I accept that others may have a different viewpoints than me (even when they are vastly different than mine, and even when I (initially) might think that the other viewpoint is utterly wrong - I'm nearly ridiculously tolerant in that regard). And we can enter a discourse - an argumentative dialogue of critical thinking, questioning each other's attitudes, trying to find hidden presuppositions, solving conflicts. (And this necessarily includes the risk of offending someone, by the way). But when someone hatefully throws out blanket accusations and insults, and then demands respect on top of that: I'm out.

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^{(I noticed several answers popping up in the meantime. It might have taken me too long to write this. But I try to be very careful with my words, for obvious reasons)}

Answer 5

Due to a series of actions by SE representatives, the community lost faith that the CoC will be reasonably and fairly enforced. The most notable among these actions was the mod removal and subsequent slander (allegedly) of Monica Cellio for daring to ask questions about the CoC.

This is perceived as a threat by members of the community. Similarlly the perceived language police (must use neutral they, must not use language that naturally avoids pronouns) is completely new territory on Stack Exchange and naturally creates pushback.

These issues have nothing to do with the lavender community. And that's exactly why many in the community don't think of taking into account how members of the lavender community might interpret their words. From the perspective of many community members, the lavender community doesn't even enter the picture (I am aware of the irony).

The solution is easily described: Remove the perceived threat by restoring trust. Then restart the CoC discussion and make the discussion about the lavender community instead of about something else.

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Edit: completely reframed the answer, still making the same point but hopefully in a way that's harder to misunderstand.

Answer 6

All sides need to start trying hard to understand the other. This issue is so deeply polarizing because it involves deep feelings that are unfamiliar to each side. People all around are failing to realize the impact of their actions and desires on others because they are failing to think about the impact on those with good intent rather than just those with ill intent.

What I personally see is multiple groups that are deeply troubled by things that large portions of the other side are dismissing far too easily.

Assuming you aren't truly dealing with a bigot, on one side, you have those who are deeply harmed by feeling looked down on for their views and being told their deeply held views on their identity don't matter and are invalid and that they aren't welcome. This side wants to feel accepted and respected. These people can be severely hurt by feeling rejected and disrespected by the community because of who they are and what they value.

On another side, you have a group that holds freedom of thought as an extremely core value and human right. They believe that people should not have exact words dictated to them and that respectful disagreement must be permitted and that under no circumstance should exact word choice be forced on anyone, regardless of reason. These people can be similarly hurt by feeling that a community they care about is going down a dark path that makes them feel hurt and rejected because of who they are and what they value. They can have a similar level of pain to the first group because both are fundamental dismissal's of the value and identity of the individual. They want discourse to be respectful to all and for people to be allowed the freedom to find their own means of achieving that.

The third group is those who have a disagreement about the nature of gender. If they aren't bigots, it has nothing to do with caring about the views of others, but rather what matters is the integrity of their personal identity. Again, assuming they aren't bigots, they should want to do everything in their power to avoid disrespecting or harming others, but they don't feel they can honestly use neo-pronouns without violating their own identity and values. For them, things are deeply painful because their identity and intentions are being invalidated and they are being told they are unwelcome despite having no ill intent, simply for being true to their identity. They are deeply emotionally hurt by being rejected and shunned for who they are, regardless of how they try to treat others in a way that does not violate their identity. They want others to understand their heartfelt intent and want to be allowed the freedom to be respectfully true to their identity without being forced to voice agreement with something they don't agree with. Forced pronoun usage invalidates their identity because it forces them to make statements inconsistent with their world view and identity.

There are actually other minor sub-groups of that third category as well that have other reasons that forced choices of words may go against who they are, such as grammatical reasons or just language preference reasons. These people have varied reasons, but the notion of someone else getting to dictate their speech and it's implications are deeply troubling and can have similar emotional impact.

Any time you try to force an aspect of someone's identity on them, it does deep emotional harm. Any time you try to dismiss or invalidate a piece of someone's identity it does deep emotional harm. Any time you try to tell someone that something they hold dear isn't part of their identity, it does deep emotional harm. It doesn't matter which part or which cause or which value you are doing it for. It does not matter how well intentioned you are when doing it. It's also worth noting that invalidation is not the same as agreement. You can disagree with someone without dismissing how they feel.

Further, people's identities and values are complex and in-congruent with each other. They always have been and always will be. The only way to deal with this is to be accepting and respectful of our differences and disagreements, accept that not everyone will have the same values and sense of broader human identity than you, and move forward assuming the best in people until they show you otherwise and do your best to be respectful of other's views and identity while also staying true to your own. It involves understanding that there are points of in-congruence where others may have views that disagree with your own feelings, and even your own identity, but it means also trusting that, unless they act in a way that shows they don't have respect for your views, then they also don't have ill intent.

Respect does not require agreement. If everyone agreed, respect wouldn't even be necessary. Respect is what allows people with disagreements on core things to their identity to co-exist and get along and even be close friends. We see this all the time in other less polarized areas. A great many atheists and religious individuals can be great friends and have mutual respect despite both thinking the other side holds an incorrect, and perhaps even foolish view. Respect is, inherently, the view that other people's identity and values matter even if they differ, or run directly counter, to your own. You can ACT respectful by doing a list of things, but unless it's actually backed by truly valuing and accepting the experience, views and identities of others, then it is not really having respect.

I believe the fundamental issue here is that we've gotten caught up debating the merits of particular ways to act respectful in regards to one particular issue and mandating those actions rather than assuming good faith and actually practicing true respect that is able to resolve a much wider and more complicated set of possible issues.

So how can we get back to being respectful and de-polarize? We need to start looking at how the other side feels just as closely and with as much trust as we do looking at how we feel. We need to start understanding that others can and are hurt just as much in a charged environment like this. If the goal is truly to be respectful, we need to stop worrying about how people should ACT respectful and instead work on figuring out how to establish true mutual respect. Moderators need to step up and take action against people who display that their actions are not intended in a respectful manner by looking at how they respond to the concerns of the other side. If the response is dismissive, it isn't respectful. All sides need to seek out how to coexist and respect each other regardless of disagreement. How that plays out will differ greatly between individuals and communities. There isn't a simple one size fits all solution.

(For full disclosure, I place myself primarily in the second and forth groups. I can say that this issue and particularly the inability of sides to see each other's concerns, has left me deeply personally depressed and emotionally drained. I've not only lost interest in participating on SE, but have also lost most interest in most other things in life. I've been having extreme difficulty sleeping. All that keeps me going on here is the intense value I place both in sharing my knowledge with others and my intense desire to find respectful solutions for people with diverse views to co-exist with mutual respect. If I didn't care so deeply about these two things, I would have abandoned the platform entirely weeks ago as the last few weeks have been hell on me emotionally and possibly even physically. The above is almost certainly not perfect, but please accept that it's written from a deep place of respect for all views and people, regardless of my personal feelings, and a desire to see the community move forward in mutual respect and as much freedom and trust as possible.)

Answer 7

Stack Exchange is a multicultural place, visited by people all over the world. This means that while everyone at least needs to read and write English, there are vast cultural differences, and direct cultural incompatibilities (issues that can't be agreed upon).

For the lavender community, these cultural differences are especially present, from regions where it's legally required to use proper pronouns when they're indicated to you (e.g. New York) to places where it's prosecutable to be a member of the lavender community (e.g. UAE, large parts of Africa, Wikipedia provides a nice overview of current LGBT rights).

Stack Exchange has generally avoided this issue by making sure people speak a general, formal, language, remain relatively anonymous. In fact, I can't remember if I ever used pronouns on Stack Exchange, and since the scope is narrow and greetings or other noise is disallowed, cultural differences have minimal effect.

However, now, Stack Exchange has taken a stance on a culturally divided issue, creating a more welcoming environment for certain users (one might even call it basic human rights). But this has its repercussions for people who truly object to pronouns out of religious reasons, which are certainly present, as evidenced by the current status of LGBT rights in the world.

While we may agree that advocating transgender rights and setting an example for them is a noble goal, this isn't universal, and to me, it's obvious it sparks resistance from a number of users, even when not considering the sudden moderator firing.

Aggravating factors are, of course, how this situation got to light, and that many users don't see the need as pronouns are rarely used on Stack Overflow, the largest site, and user identity usually isn't considered at all there.

For me, the thing I despise most about this issue, and that sometimes angers me, is the seeming unawareness that LGBT rights are not universal and not default for a large part of the world. They're something that's been fought hard for. And if you want to enforce them in a global community, you will have to fight for them again and again. And that's tiring and saddening. But I hope you're willing to do it nonetheless.

In my opinion, the best way to minimize the impact of these differences is to only bring them up when relevant. I fear I have gone against that several times. If they come up, it's probably a good thing we have a formal CoC, so we know what we can expect from company and moderators. But of course, introducing that has come at a substantial cost. And while unfortunate, it wasn't unexpected, at least for me.

To answer your questions:

How we can resolve this current drama?

We can't. We can only minimize it. There are bound to be clashes, now and in the future, between different cultures, as long as we choose to openly address cultural issues.

And how we can do it without causing further harm to vulnerable groups?

We can only do this by excluding others, those that are intolerant of these groups. And this may be a surprisingly large fraction of people, that have been using the site and contributing for long. So this won't go over easily.

Answer 8

How we can resolve this current drama?

We can't. At least we cannot do so in the sense that every party involved (ok, let's say: most of them ) would support the outcome.

The company has made abundantly clear ( and I expressly refer to material published by Sara Chipps to support this claim ) that they will steamroll the new CoC regardless of the reception in the community. In fact they already have done so. There will be no debate and stipulations are to be strictly enforced.

This leaves little space to accomodate the interests, opinions and convictions of community members that do not agree with the CoC, individual parts of it, and the way it has been released. Actually, imho, it leaves no space.

'We' as a community can do nothing about it. The dissent from within the community has already been clearly voiced but has been met with uncompromising resistance on behalf of the company. The SE platform is their platform, they have ascertained all rights on the content, and in any case, they are in charge. 'We' simply have no latitude.

Don't get me wrong: They are entitled to do so. They've built the site after all and provide the resources to keep it running. Afaik, they've always reserved their rights in the T&Cs thus have never beguiled users to contribute content under false premises.

If, in regarding the CoC drama, we narrow the scope the interaction between company and community, I expect that the hubbub will simply peter out given some more time. Here the community can indeed contribute. Simply let the events rest and move on.

And how we can do it without causing further harm to vulnerable groups?

As long as vulnerable individuals define harmful behavior based on how they feel individually and harm to a vulnerable group is defined as harm felt by some member of this group, I'd say we can't.

I do not judge here. I just think that sorting out a controversy over - at least in part - what constitutes harmful behavior towards vulnerable groups is extremely difficult without making some people feel assaulted in some way at some time.

It goes without saying (but to be sure I'll mention it anyway ...) that this is not about intentionally causing harm to vulnerable groups. Such behavior would not be tolerable regardless of the context.

Answer 9

How we can resolve this current drama?

This entirely depends on what you are trying to solve. Are you trying to change attitudes, or are you trying to change behaviors? In the case of the latter, the CoC is the primary tool that is needed to do that. If it is the former, then that is a much harder proposition. Even when people change their behaviors you can never really be sure if their attitudes changed. You just know that they are complying with social norms.

And how we can do it without causing further harm to vulnerable groups?

Sadly, it's pretty much impossible to prevent all forms of harm. If only because we know that there are bad actors on the Internet whose goal is to cause harm. However, we can typically minimize harm if we know what potentially causes said harm. Going back to the CoC, we already have one of the major tools in place. Beyond that the next major tool that is needed is clear communication pathways network users and Community Managers. In theory Meta is supposed to serve that role, although it is questionable how much it is being followed.

Beyond that everything boils down to communication and everyone being mindful of communication on the internet.

  Internet Argument

Answer 10

Preface

Slow down for a second.

Clear your mind of the forest fire that we are on the edge of, because it's looking like we've ran out of water and need to find another solution.

It's of my opinion that we - the community - are the solution. We are the users of the site, and if we want the SE staff to listen to us clearly, we need to communicate more effectively than the standard that they have set over the last few weeks (although, it looks like something may be in the works. I'm cautiously optimistic due to them taking their time, rather than rushing it like the posts that brought this division into the light).

Communication

We need to be open with each other, without allowing emotions to run too hot, or our passion about a subject take away from the fact that we are talking about people who are in the same room as us.

We need to remain mindful

Communication is key to keeping a community alive, and when infighting happens it becomes increasingly difficult to get answers. The community has become enthralled by their collective frustrations with each other and the actions of those who are more interested in causing disorder for disorder's sake, rather than actually finding a solution to the problem at hand.

The concept of diversity is something that causes issues on its own. The lines between dividing people by their differences, and unifying people in spite of their differences is a very blurry one, separated only by a single step.

Inclusion

In terms of how we can try to minimise avoidable fallouts in the future, an option is to (as a community) adopt a mindset where we consider the impact of new changes for a variety of different users.

We have users on this site who are part of the LGBTQ+ community, users who are autistic, or suffering from mental illnesses like depression, anxiety and eating disorders, users who's first language isn't English or are from cultures that do not align fully with what is seen from the USA. We have users who are Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, Christian, Atheist and users that span across generations, with a massive amount of varying life experiences.

There are a lot of people that we need to include in our thoughts when writing and enforcing rules that are intended to rally the community behind groups that are contained within - and there is no way of making everyone feel included in this, if they are feeling like their opinions aren't being listened to.

"Walk a mile in my shoes" - picture yourself in the position of the people who the change is trying to help, and try to understand what it's like for those users, but also for the users who you are asking to change.

There are a lot of people's toes to step on

Some will struggle with some changes, others will refuse to do exactly what is asked of them, but both groups will be more likely to try their best to change if what they are being asked to do is a suggestion rather than a commandment handed down to them by a team that they already feel isn't listening to them.

Humans have a tendency to fear what they don't understand.

Allow them the opportunity to understand.

Unification

There are 7.53 billion us on this planet, and yet we're stuck. We can't stop arguing about things that are surface level. It's a problem that seems to have been amplified for the users of SE over the last few weeks.

We can learn to judge people on the content of their character, rather than our arbitrary differences, but it will take effort.

When asking people to change their mindsets for the benefit of others, think about the impact that that will have. It requires being selfless in a time where people are simply trying keep their heads down in order to look after themselves.

Take a second.

Users are worried about the policing of thoughts, or that a slip up may end with them being made an example to the community, and there are others who simply don't understand the problem due to lack of experience with the issue at hand, and naïvely state that it's a non-issue.

There's no denying that this is an important subject matter.

We're talking about potentially changing the way that individuals communicate, and we need to remember not to "other" people who are different to us, no matter how much we have been othered ourselves.

We know what that is like, and we need to be better than that.

Answer 11

Here's some topical inspiration as we tackle this question, from the Hong Kong protesters.

Hong Kong protesters are split into seemingly incompatible factions: the majority who are non-violent, and those who reject non-violence.

In a stunning show of solidarity, the latter faction stood back to make way for a full week of peaceful protests. This is a leaderless movement made up of millions of people. These people are angry. How did Honk Kongers make it happen?

Unity

They recognize that infighting between disparate factions only undermines their collective cause. That week of peaceful protest gave the government a chance to extend an olive branch. When they didn't, the peaceful faction stood in solidarity with the more confrontational group as they once again stepped forward.

It was not only an act of unity, but an act that built unity.

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In SE, we have two factions of our own:

• Those who agree with the CoC changes
• Those who disagree with the CoC changes

These two groups are unlike the Hong Kong protesters in that their differences are in fundamental beliefs, not tactics.

They are like Hong Kongers in that they have a common cause. I think we can work with that.

The Cause

I personally feel that SE should've delayed the release of the new change until after the Monica situation was fully dealt with.

SE has been making decisions that not only alienate their users, but actively pit those users against each other. By releasing the CoC before resolving this still-fresh controversy, they've successfully obfuscated the core crisis, in a way that leaves us treating each other horribly.

So let's focus back in on that inciting incident for a moment:

SE abruptly fired a community moderator without due proccess, spoke to the press about her in a defamatory way, and will not participate in two-way dialogue with her about it.

I think now is the time for us to take collective action.

I'll start with my proposal, explain why I think now is a good time, and maybe even answer your question.

Proposal

For a fixed number of days, say two weeks, let us collectively:

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

*or a much more focused and better version of this post in a more visible place. (steal everything, don't ask permission)

This is a BIG ask.

Trans/non-binary users are supposed to leave problematic/hurtful posts unchallenged? People who oppose the CoC are supposed to not challenge it precisely when it is relevant?

Why?

There are a few reasons:

1. Trolls have already arrived: things are presently very heated. This type of collective action, if adopted by the community, would help prevent even more escalation. I think that it would be a team building exercise to deny trolls (A) the opportunity to attack vulnerable groups and (B) weaken the position of CoC opponents by association.
2. It allows some time for emotions to die down: our own, but especially the emotions of SE staff. Right now, everything they're seeing is just more justification for their actions. We should deny them that justification. They need to reflect on their own mistakes, not on how awful their community is.
3. It lowers the barrier for dialogue: I wouldn't want to be in the situation that SE is in right now. Any post/comment you make involves navigating a minefield. By focusing the topic and committing to being extra nice, it lowers the risk associated with that.
4. It would be an exercise in unity and a reminder that we, The Community, are in this together.

Demands

The reason for the time limit is to give us a goal, but also to give SE a deadline. If we're going to hand them another opportunity to make this right they need to know exactly what we want and when we want it.

There's a beautiful letter by moderators to SE that includes what they'd like to see which is a good starting point. I'd like to have a short list of explicit goals, ideally developed by the community.

I'm not going to attempt that right now. It's the early am where I live and I have a fever. I should not have spent hours writing this.

INSTEAD, I'm going to open this up to you! This post is a community wiki. Take good care of it.

What happens when the two weeks are up?

Hopefully the CoC debate can then be had without all the baggage, and hopefully with a bit more empathy.

And if SE doesn't respond?

We tried. Join hands and listen to the band play as this site sinks to the bottom of the ocean.

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Hong Kong content ripped straight from Maciej Cegłowski's coverage of events.

Answer 12

I just stumbled across all of this drama now, and I'm feeling the need to chip in, and I'm going to do it here.

I learned about non-binary genders for the first time early last year.
It was a new, interesting concept.
It's become a bigger thing in past 2 years, engaging our whole (somewhat mainstream) community here now.

We are talking about a new gender category coming into our global society.
This is history happening right now.

Social-gender (as opposed to biological-gender) is something of a crazy thing - the pressure and expectation that people act and behave particular ways depending on if they are male or female.

Sexual preference being strictly defined is somewhat crazy too if you actually think about it - but the social pressures most of us grew up with was so reinforcing of a particular definition that it became hard to question.

The LGBT+ movement has done amazing things in our recent past to transform the definition of sexual love for us all.
That is a struggle that continues and I'm so grateful for all those who have fought hard in order bring all of us further into the noosphere of human evolution.

The non-binary gender movement happening at this time I think will proceed and will be an equally important part of our human historical development.
It seems pretty weird at first, for sure, it's kind of in contrast to what we have been taught our whole lives, but I think it's really important and exciting.

But most of all, I'm really proud that our SE community is tackling the debate about this face on, in the open. We are all of us making history here.

How we can resolve this current drama? And how we can do it without causing further harm to vulnerable groups?

Re-instate Monica immediately, and with an appropriate apology and explanation.
Reverse the CoC changes.
Revise the CoC with community involvement, and with moderators removing folks who fail to engage with kindness.