Why was the Weekly Day of Silence post deleted? It was an answer to the question Monica's situation continues unresolved, is SE hoping the problem just goes away?. The system didn't allow me to vote to undelete -- there was a message saying it had been deleted by a moderator.
Why was no explanation given?
Response to closure:
This question is different from the proposed duplicate and should not be closed. The proposed duplicate was itself closed as a duplicate of Question Y. I'm going to invoke the Transitive Law of Duplicates and explain how my question is different from Question Y.
First, my question is about the deletion of an answer, and Question Y is about the deletion of a question.
Second, when Question Y was deleted, an explanatory comment was provided. In this case, no explanation was given, and the second part of my questions asks specifically about this.
Third, the target audience for Question Y was volunteer moderators, whereas mine was aimed at any participant feeling frustrated and impotent to make their voice heard.
Lastly, Question Y urged an extended, continuous work stoppage. I suggested taking off one day per week, to show, through silence, the belief that the conflict can be resolved through transparency and dialogue.
Note, I have not found any clause in the Code of Conduct or the terms of service stating or implying that subscribers agree to visit the site and participate actively with any particular frequency.
I would think that a side benefit to the company of my proposal would be the reduction of traffic one day a week, which could contribute to an easing of tensions, by lightening the workload of the (paid) Community Managers, who have been stretched to the limit, coping with both increased volume on Meta.SE, and reduced volunteer work product.
I do understand that the company needs to be able to turn a profit, so as to be able to continue to host the sites in the network, and maintain and update the software.
There was no intent on my part to damage the company's image or profitability; and I don't believe there was any suggestion of such an intent in my post.
Below is a screenshot of the first half of the post in question.
(If any member of SE staff feels that this is somehow disrespectful or hurtful to the company -- I would just ask, please don't purge the question from the site. Instead, please simply remove the image, if you feel that is necessary.)
Second response to second closure (after the questions was reopened and then closed again):
In the proposed duplicate's answer, Tim wrote
Once you get to the "I'm done talking!" stage, it's probably more forcing than persuading, and that we just can't host.
My question was all about persuading. It called for transparency and dialogue. It had nothing to do with forcing.
Another update:
I've gotten kind of lost in the ups and downs of this question's roller coaster history. But here is a comment.
Tim didn't say they would quash all protest. In practice SE has not quashed all protest. You can call my proposal protest if you like. I think it's more productive to look at what sort of action is being proposed, and how it's being proposed. The line was drawn in an arbitrary way, even though Tim specifically said they would have to look at where to draw the line on a case by case basis.
I don't see that anything is to be gained by the movement for transparency and dialogue censoring itself. If management wants to shut down my proposal, let them shut it down. We do not need to make that decision for management. Let the question stand, and let the proposal stand. Let us prepare the ground for management to respond in a meaningful way.
I invite someone to vote to reopen, so that this will show up in the review queue. (I'm not allowed to re-vote to reopen.)
