Is everything OK at Stack Exchange now?

Question

Background

As a 31-year-old male that is emotionally stable (I think...), I just spent the last two hours with tears running down my face as I read 10+ Stack Exchange (SE) posts, blog posts, GoFundMes, describing the events from a year ago regarding the one that everyone changed their names to support (a user's name on an unrelated post had caught my eye, and their profile took me down a rabbit hole).

This is one of the saddest things I have ever come across in a long time. I couldn't believe, how could something like this happen? Not just MC, but even all those caught in the crossfire along the way. All these users and moderators that I have never even heard of, but even as an "outsider" I can recognize, this is a tragedy.

I've been using SE for the past 10 years and am one of those that just uses SE to solve their problems. But I've grown to love SE, appreciate the community, and enjoy exploring all the different sites. One of my favorite ways to distract myself while working is looking through all the interesting "Hot Network Questions".

I've grown to really love SE, and all the communities that formed, even though I never really participated. As someone with no account, I really appreciated the regular users and moderators that would take time to answer questions, comment, participate, debate, etc. While reading what happened to MC, I love how I could see that the community really came alive and really came to the forefront of what SE really is. SE was no longer just a Q&A site, and that realization will stay with me. SE is really a special place.

Question

So, in my attempt to hopefully not get this removed immediately, I'll ask my question: is SE OK now? I know MC has left, among many, many others, but also many have decided to stay, especially for the communities they've grown to love. Have you noticed progress or anything that inspires hope for the future for SE?

I'm maybe 10 months too late to the party, but what a sad thing, for SE to die because it could not apologize to one person and treat them as they should be treated. I don't think I can even understand why SE decided to take the stance they took.

All the timelines and posts I read, it's almost like the story just abruptly ends, and there's no happy ending and no reconciliation. Are we just carrying on now, business as usual? Are we trying to help and protect the communities that have developed, almost like a mother continuing to take care of her kids while in an abusive marriage? Am I just opening old wounds that have already started healing? I'm not sure where SE stands now (community, not the higher ups).

Answer 1

It's.... complicated.

First off, there are still a lot of issues that never really got a satisfactory conclusion and kinda just faded into the background, with people either leaving or becoming more bitter as a result. For instance, we never got a real explanation of why Shog9 and Robert Cartaino were unceremoniously and discourteously fired as Community Managers; there has been absolutely no official communication from SE about that despite both CMs having been staples and champions of the community for nigh on a decade.

On the other hand, I can't deny that SE has recently been making strides to reconnect with the community and somewhat attempt to smooth things over; for instance, they've recently been making attempts to improve the workings of the power-user tools (moderator tools, review queues), and worked with community members to respond to the Lavender Letter.

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There's been no real conclusion to the story with Monica because SE and Monica signed an agreement that limits both parties' ability to discuss the issue (to what extent remains unclear, especially as Monica and SE have placed the line in different places). I've personally recommended to Teresa and other members of the Community Team that they reach out to Monica to at least discuss (since Teresa only came on board after the whole '19 debacle), but I've heard nothing about that happening. (Incidentally, you can find Monica and a bunch of other users (including me) at the Codidact project, which is an open-source, non-profit Q&A site.)

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It's worth keeping in mind, though, that the '19 debacle - which includes Monica's removal and associated fallout, the licensing issue, and dozens of smaller flareups - all come as a result of a deterioration in the relation between the company and the community that had been going on slowly for years, and came to a head in late '19.

The root issue of the company ignoring its community - including understaffing the CM team to the point where they're grossly overworked - still needs to be addressed. They've made some recent strides - including opening CM positions - but there's still a lot of work to do.

If you want to get into some of the history that led up to increased tensions between the community and company even before the "Monica incident", I wrote a post just before that happened. If you read through some of that, and the links at the bottom, it might help shed some light on why exactly the '19 debacle was as bad as it was; people were already frustrated even beforehand and this was the catalyst for it to really erupt. (And SE certainly didn't help.)

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So to sum up: No, everything is not "okay"; there are still a lot of unaddressed issues. SE is starting to make attempts to mend the relationship with the community. It's a long hard road ahead for everyone involved, though, and it's going to take a lot of time.

Answer 2

The TL;DR here is

Monica Cellio - There was a legal agreement between her and SE that they will never speak of what happened to her again. We don't know exactly what happened there (in any official sense) beyond what Monica initially said and later on MSE. SE has learned the hard way that this media interview was a mistake and there are now official policies about it.

The SE LGBT Community - They unfairly got the brunt of the fallout. There was an official apology and commitment to fix it.

Licensing - After withering criticism for how it was decided and handled, a reasonable attempt to bring back sanity was made. Things made under prior CC versions will stay under that version unless edited.

Shog9 - As best as I can tell, Shog9 was terminated as part of a corporate restructuring (a number of employees were let go at once). The timing was just terrible. Shog9 has gainful employment now and he still shares his wisdom from beyond the network. And sometimes from inside it.

The Community at large - What's really helped everyone move on is that Apology 3.0 contained actual deliverable goals and there's been measurable progress towards them. CMs and Devs both have worked to improve communication and real things are getting done.

Is it perfect? No. Monica is gone for good, and some people will forever have "Reinstate Monica" names and avatars in protest, a sign of the deep scar left by events. But there's cautious optimism and, some 9 months from Apology 3.0, there's not been anything even remotely close to Monicagate. "OK" is about the best anyone can hope for at this stage, but compared to this time last year (with the community at a rolling boil and radio silence from SE leadership), it's also an improvement.

Answer 3

You'll have to forgive, but I had polarizing responses to this.

On the one hand, asking if everything's okay with us and SE leadership puts me in mind to the current pandemic situation and America's optimism to it, suggesting that it will just "go away" in a few seasons. Being optimistic and projecting optimism is okay - sometimes you have to do it. But there's a very well defined line between optimism and delusion, which is the chief reason that I mention it here.

On the other, I suppose then there's a reason to ask about if we're alright. It's a bad breakup and we're not sure if we've got any bad blood or if we're feeling some type of way every time we bump into them.

In context...no, things are not okay. Things haven't been okay all year.

To give you some perspective, here's where we really were before the bomb went off last October:

• The community was starting to feel like observe that the people in charge weren't listening to them, seemingly bowing to Twitter pressure faster than listening to thoughtful community discourse. And no, this wasn't an isolated occurrence; the aforementioned example is the fastest ever period of proposing a new feature and implementing it network-wide that I've ever seen.
• There were already some signs of strain with the non-technical communities. I only speak from anecdotal experience, and I could gesticulate over how some sites were able to graduate from the beta site experience far earlier than Writing.SE, but at a minimum, even in my own little pocket on Anime.SE I didn't feel the same warmth, as it were, from the company.
• There was just a deluge of anti-curator sentiment on social media and elsewhere, and it felt like we were getting just...thrown under the bus for it. I don't know how else to explain it, but it just didn't feel like the stuff the company was saying about how we handled question moderation was particularly fair.
• First impressions of a new high ranking Stack Exchange employee went over poorly, to put it politely. Honestly I personally don't blame them explicitly for a lot of things that happened, but I can also see why there were a handful of people who did, and continue to. First impressions matter.
• Area 51 was in a bit of a lurch. Let's be realistic, it was. It didn't feel like it was clear who was doing what over there or if new communities could still come over to Stack Exchange.

So...where are we now?

• Two high profile CMs were let go at the beginning of this year. Bad timing or bad circumstances aside, this was something that happened that was right after the whole matter with Monica was formally settled, and wounds were still very, very raw.
• Another well visible CM decided to leave back in December of '19.
• Another high profile CM has decided to move on.
• Communications with the community have come across a bit clunky, as if the proposals that were made weren't in-context to what the site was about.

While I don't want to undercut the other advances that the team has put together...honestly in my mind, I can't see those for the gaping craters left behind over the last year.

So, no. Everything is not okay. In your defense, it hasn't been okay for a good and long while now, but I think the last year brought everything to a head.

Like a messy break-up, some emotions still linger on, but in spite of all of that, the site still has to move forward. It's just a lot tougher to feel good and comfortable with how the site's moving forward, and it's a lot easier and simpler to feel or be disconnected from it.

Like you, I do still enjoy Stack Exchange and I enjoy the network. I still don't think it's supported like it used to be anymore.

Answer 4

That depends entirely on your expectations.

It's not worse than at the peak, where a whole lot of unforced mistakes and grave errors in judgement caused some people significant harm. It's been relatively quiet, and SE has not committed any major blunders recently.

In the end it simply comes down to how much you trust SE, and how much you need to trust them for the kind of participation in the SE network you'd like to have. Trust is quickly destroyed, and far slower to rebuild.

For me personally the trust required to remain a moderator is gone, and I don't see SE regaining that kind of trust in the near future. I still trust SE enough to participate occasionally as a regular user, and the sites are still useful resources. I'm mostly disappointed in SE because I thought there was a chance that they could be much better than they turned out to be. This was maybe just naïveté on my part, or probably just a lack of imagination when considering the ways SE could fail to live up to the promises in the end. But if you compare them to other large sites with community content, there are also far greater evils around.

I think at this point it is simply too early to know if SE turned this around or not. They caused a lot of damage, and it will take a lot of time to repair it, if they're able to.

Answer 5

I think it depends on whom you're asking.

I, for example, have been a "regular contributor" for a few years, visiting almost every day, until last year's incident. Now I'm just visiting from time to time, mostly when I hear of "important stuff" or because it comes up while chatting with other (ex-)SE folks. Besides that, SE is mostly "over" for me as a contributor, but also because I've drawn my attention to other websites and projects.

From what I have seen and heard, there are (broadly) these groups of users:

• those who don't care much for Stack Exchange the company anymore, but still love their communities and are therefore staying on the site

• those who are still connected to Stack Exchange and its communities, but don't want to actively contribute to it anymore (mostly former Meta-users, still commenting on updates and stuff)

• those who think that Stack Exchange has started to improve them and give it a second chance (for example, after Teresa Dietrich's post, which Alexander Gruber linked, and some other initiatives)

• those who have moved on and either left the Q&A-field totally or switched to some of the emerging alternative projects (such as TopAnswers or Codidact, to which I'm affiliated)

• and of course those who endorse Stack Exchange's actions last year (to be fair, I don't think I saw many people doing so publicly; I rather saw many people endorsing the goal, while not the means, which would likely be in the other categories)

So in summary: Some people left (probably forever), some have drastically reduced their activity hoping for "better times" and some think that Stack Exchange has already improved.

Answer 6

The following statement is something I would have considered a fair description of what this site is about or what we are doing here before 2019:

We are here to help other people with their problems, free of charge, in the language we use to communicate, to the latest standard taught in schools today so everybody out there can access our shared knowledge equally.

This statement has become a bannable offense. And that is not some hyperbole, I have been banned/suspended for it for not quoting it as something in the past but instead actually meaning it as an opinion I hold in the present. I cannot even explain to you why you will get suspended for it, since that, too, is an offense you will get suspended for. Please do not argue about this in the comments, since that, too has been listed as a reason to suspend me, whether I'm actually involved in the comments or not.

As a sign of how determined the leadership is to make sure we follow their rules to the letter (instead of collaborating) they made a big and messy example of one of the people I would consider a positive beacon of how to behave here.

There never has been an apology. There never has been someone to step up and say "sorry, that was me, that was stupid, we will reverse it." The only people we have seen are "communication experts" that will tells us how they are so sorry that we perceived it that way. That "mistakes were made", as if that is some force of nature that just happens and nobody's fault. When "mistakes were made" they were not corrected. The obvious and technically simple corrections were deflected to some newly found procedures, so the victim was allowed to come to the perpetrator begging to have the act undone. That is a big bowl of sleaziness that I absolutely expect from all those people that consider themselves "managing" or "directing" or "marketing" something. Preferably "Communications". But we hold the company to higher standards than our local used car dealer. And they have failed those standards by a light year.

We are a tech community. We don't need messaging professionals. We need professional messages. And despite all the glitter that those messaging professionals are adding, it is pretty clear that the days of professional messages by tech professionals are long gone.

A new leadership has taken over and they only know one thing: dictate their way. This site is not about collaboration any more. We are not partners in a community; we are their livestock. Their numbers on their reports. It's about making money. Which everybody would be fine with, if it were a side effect. I don't mind that a corporation is making money off of my free contributions. Something has to pay the costs of the platform and people working to make the platform work. But it has become the main show, and the fact that we can still write questions and answers here has become a side effect that is really just something the leadership "tolerates". I mean sure, when they go into interviews, they always put community first, but that is just empty words from a corporate shell person that could have been replaced by a script. Or maybe it already is a script. It's like McDonald's telling you how they really, really value the quality of their beef. Like hell they do. They value the dollar they get when someone buys it.

So no. Nothing is fine. There is a layer of silence here, people carrying on without saying something. Not because they are happy, but because they are afraid. They have seen what will happen if you speak out.

So the answer is no.

This site is no longer the first choice because it's a great choice. This site is still the first choice because there is no alternative.

Answer 7

I have also been using SE network for about 10 years at this point, and from my point of view, it feels like we all believed that something very very good can appear and exist for a very long time, but as years went on, things changed and we all experienced and grew up along with it.

You know how sometimes exceptionally good people start something, and then they hand it over to other people, and you don't know if the new people are also exceptionally good at it until later. I prefer to think of it in an understanding way, that very few people are actually really great at their job, and that the best products are made by companies whose leadership (not just the employees) actively use the product. At the start it was the case - the creators were the leaders, but then the company was handed over to those who I don't think know much about this platform at all, and it is still my impression about them to this day.

Many people that got very hurt and disappointed in the last 2 years especially, have left for good. Some of those who stayed, limited their participation by a lot or somewhat. But for the most part, I personally don't think that 90% of the userbase has even heard of what happened or cares. The 10% who did though, are arguably the janitorial backbone of this community, as the most active users whose participation should not be underappreciated.

On one hand, I cannot really blame the new leadership for not being "superb" at managing this type of site, because really, you go and find a great fit for one of the most complicated online communities in the world, seriously good luck finding suitable people to handle it. But on the other hand, it could have been way way waaay worse. It could not be a Q&A site at all on this URL address.

So is it great now? Not really. Is it bad? Nah. Okay is probably about right. But are you satisfied with okay?

Answer 8

It's a really difficult question to answer. While everyone remembers the firings, moderator removals, and social media - the damage to the community as a whole has happened over years - even the first round of layoffs was triggered by something that still has ripples years on, with almost no one involved still around.

There's no simple, short-term fix for everything.

I would say that it's a period of transition with the potential for things to go either way.

Admittedly, I'm in a funny place - while I don't have the whole story, I've picked up lots of snippets of what's happening from a lot of places over time. The simple fact is we've had folks make mistakes, and have had to carry the weight of those mistakes (and possibly those of others over an extended period of time).

Things breaking can happen quickly or compound over a period of time - but rectifying those issues takes...a while.

It's difficult to put one's finger on what's changed when things have changed a lot over time, but I'd say part of it is that at some point SE lost contact with the ground, and made decisions based on either bad data, or folks who didn't quite get the culture of the network.

I'd say that trust broken over time is going to take time to fix.

Stack Exchange of old was agile (as a small organisation with a BDFL) in fixing things. Modern Stack Exchange is not. There's a perception of internal turf wars (not just from outside - Glassdoor reflects that), not helped by the fact that we literally lost folks from a tiny community team to bolster up resources for another (larger) team.

While many of those things are in the pipeline (and I'm still looking forward to the culmination of the hiring process for the new CMs we badly need) - we're still dealing with community-debt. The things that ought to have been done before - but were put on the back burner.

Admittedly, we have a backlog of things that need to be fixed, which there's good work being done on, but least to me, a lot of issues we've had would have been much less worse if they had been settled quickly.

Grand gestures are nice - I'm sure that one or two things would probably help a lot, but this isn't a sprint. It's a cross country race, up hill, both ways, in the snow, through self-dug Punji pits, the searing heat, and snakes (why does it have to be snakes!).

It's the early days for the new management - and how far they deign to understand the ground and the wider community, hire, build up and listen to experts, and work towards reearning trust, not today, or this year, but on an ongoing, long term fashion is going to determine if everything is ok.

I can't say I'm overjoyed with the state of things. It's not ok. But there's at least a chance we can make this work.

Answer 9

There are many different levels of being OK - it's not a binary thing - but the one thing that is clear is that things are back to some sort of (new) normal now. People have learned, adapted and/or moved on, the company also has changed course a bit (is my impression) regarding the way it communicates with the community. The magnitude of emotions involved has been greatly reduced (several orders) I would say, which is good because such intense emotion over a long period is probably very stressful and unproductive. With a more unemotional and realistic view, there are hardly discussions about the subjects anymore and if there are, the interest is comparatively lower (although even there you see a bit of a ghost of 2019 with 40%(!) deleted answers).

The intense "hot" period was October 2019 to January 2020, but the general feeling is that tensions started growing long before that. An as analogy I would speculate that it also takes some time for the tension to really subside completely. Predictions about the future are difficult and one should never say never, but I don't think something similar will happen again anytime soon. People have gained clarity about the role of the community as well as insight into the situation of minorities, the company has learned to communicate more regularly and the mods here have become adept fire-fighters.

See also:

• Post-mortem or root cause analysis of the recent issues (late 2019-early 2020)
• Does the community consider the “coerced speech” complaint largely resolved?
• How can we move forward if SE will not admit to wrongdoing for legal reasons? and there I think that especially the answer by little_birdie is spot on: "Many contributors will leave, but some will stay. New people will come in to fill the gaps. It will not be the same as before, but life will go on. Millions if not Billions of dollars will be made."

In short, most people just moved on or accepted the changes, because that is a very reasonable thing to do. There are so many things happening in the world. Sure, it was sad and took a toll but if you compare it to other things, people probably adjusted their evaluation of the importance of the issues. One could do some SEDE queries to determine if activity on the network has changed significantly. From what I saw activity on Stack Overflow didn't change much but things might have eluded me or change slower than thought.