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Yes, the new AI policy is bad. However, on top of that, I am not convinced the company has any right1 to try to impose it. The first thing claimed in the Tour page of all sites is (emphasis mine):

$subject Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for $subject. It's built and run by you as part of the Stack Exchange network of Q&A sites.

By us. By the communities actually using the sites. The communities decide what is and is not on topic, not SE. The users decide how to mold and adapt the SE model to the needs of their particular community, not SE. This is why some sites allow "shopping" questions (e.g. Hardware Requests), and why some sites allow ID questions ("help me figure out what book/movie/poem/play/whatever I saw this in") while others have banned them. This is why some sites allow questions asking for reference materials but others have banned them. This is why many sites have their own, slightly different policies on how to deal with homework questions. It's why some sites have a completely different take on what the SE model is (e.g. Puzzling or Code Golf). It's why some sites have strict requirements for references in answers (e.g. Medical Sciences).

The company has never before presumed to dictate, and I use this word in the strictest possible sense, what is and is not acceptable content on the sites beyond the obvious of requiring that all users behave in a civil, professional way, not post spam or porn and so on. This is a whole new level of intrusiveness and one we have never seen before. And I am not convinced they have the right to do this, while still claiming that the communities are self-moderated and run by us. First of all, this goes against the explicit promises they made to us, in writing, when the new mod agreement came out:

If the need for a new policy arises, it will be written and shared with the Moderator Council first. Then, it will pass through a process of feedback and possible iterations before being presented to the moderators on the Stack Moderators Team. These future policies will then be posted on MSE and receive the [mod-agreement-policy] tag to denote their status.

None of these steps were followed. Not one. The Moderator Council doesn't exist anymore, but they could have shared this policy with a representative group of mods, as they did in the past for the new underage moderator policy and the latest iteration of the CoC. But OK, since the Mod Council is no more, let's move past that one (although, doesn't that render the entire agreement void?).

There was no feedback or iteration, they went straight to the Stack Moderators Team, where they also didn't ask for feedback, they came down on us like a ton of bricks and laid down the law (they actually wrote "We are now requiring you", I kid you not) while also being quite insulting and treating us like wayward children. Finally, and most importantly, the policy has never been posted on MSE. What you have seen is just a vague description, not the policy itself. As such, I don't see how it can be binding.

But even setting all this aside, ignoring the fact that when they say "binding", they mean that we are bound by the agreement, not them, even setting that aside, the company simply has no business inserting itself into our communities in such a manner. The understanding here has always been that the company provides the hardware and infrastructure, and we provide the subject knowledge and police our own communities in the way those communities decide.

Every other official network-wide policy can be seen here: Questions tagged [mod-agreement-policy]. You'll note that they cover things like minimum age for moderators (legal requirements about being given access to PII), handling posts suggesting risk of self harm and suicide, and acceptable behavior on a public site like ours (the CoC). In other words, things that are either related to legal obligations or can cause real harm to people or both. We have never, ever had a network-wide policy where the company presumes to dictate to us what kind of quality criteria we should use to determine what is and is not welcome on our own sites. This is beyond the purview of the company and breaks one of the most basic covenants between the communities and SE: with this policy, the sites are no longer run by us, they are now run by the company.

I am therefore asking for an official staff response justifying and explaining how they justify imposing something like this and how, in their view, this can be compatible with claiming that the SE communities run themselves:

  • What makes you think you get to ignore the mod agreement while holding us to it?
  • What makes you think you get to dictate what constitutes a good answer for us?

1To be clear, these are their sites, they own the infrastructure, and can do whatever they like. I am asking how they justify this within the bounds of the written and unwritten rules that have governed these sites for more than a decade and while still claiming that the communities are "run by us".

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    it's there website they can do whatever they want. they are supposed to be transparent but obviously something else is happening here.
    – Big Joe
    Commented May 31, 2023 at 21:52
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    This feels like it's roughly a duplicate of Please follow your own policies on making new policies, which covers a lot of the same ground.
    – zcoop98
    Commented May 31, 2023 at 22:04
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    Unfortunately, I think the short answer for the "can they" is just "yes", because it's their site and they can decide to do effectively whatever they want with it, abiding by their own terms that they themselves define. I do think there's a legitimate argument for the mod agreement amendment bit, but I don't think anything outside of that is more than a violation of long standing convention rather than hard, legally-binding policy, in my understanding.
    – zcoop98
    Commented May 31, 2023 at 22:04
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    @zcoop98 Of course they can, they also can make these sites into porn sharing or a forum or anything else. The question here is why they think they can impose something like that on us while still claiming SE sites are run by the communities. Chris's post is close, yes, but here I am asking for an official response on how the company feels it can square the mod agreement and the "run by us" bit with what they are doing.
    – terdon
    Commented May 31, 2023 at 22:07
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    @tripleee no, see my answer to zcoop98 who suggested the same duplicate. I am not asking them to follow their policies. They have not. I am asking how they justify this and why they feel the company's purview extends to dictating quality standards.
    – terdon
    Commented Jun 2, 2023 at 12:37
  • Does the mod agreement specify any obligations for the company?
    – tripleee
    Commented Jun 2, 2023 at 14:18
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    @tripleee Yes. See the section "Stack Exchange, Inc. agrees that it will". However, that does not explicitly include the part about "process of feedback and possible iterations", that's in a different document (meta.stackexchange.com/help/mod-agreement-policies) which is linked to from the mod agreement. Whether that means it is part of it or not is probably a question for the lawyers. But if that's how SE interprets it, as being separate, I'd like to know that too.
    – terdon
    Commented Jun 2, 2023 at 14:20
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    The public mod agreement does not specify what happens if either party is in breach of the terms. IANAL but it seems to me that SO has indeed violated their part of it. But then what? That hardly releases mods from their obligations.
    – tripleee
    Commented Jun 3, 2023 at 8:06
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    To be clear, I have absolutely no desire to be released from my obligations. I would like the company to respect theirs. That said, however, and while IANAL either, there certainly seems to be a strong argument to be made that the agreement is now void since one party didn't uphold it. I just really don't want to go there since I want it to be respected, not broken.
    – terdon
    Commented Jun 3, 2023 at 13:38
  • As others said, it's their site and they can decide anything, regardless of the community's opinion (of course there are consequences, but it seems that they don't care). I wonder how board meetings might be these days: "We bought Stack Overflow, now let's make money. Wait, what's this Meta thing? Wow, so many annoying people complaining. Never mind, just ignore them. What's the new hype, AI? Let's do it, show me the moneeeeeey!"
    – hkotsubo
    Commented Jun 5, 2023 at 21:27

1 Answer 1

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The users decide how to mold and adapt the SE model to the needs of their particular community, not SE.

Right, but those adaptations are to fit our specific sites. SE can make changes that have ramifications network-wide based on what they've observed and what they want. It's their site, after all, so their prerogative. If the recent events reflect anything, though, it's that SE doesn't really care about what they've observed or what we want. Have your pick of these, if you will.

Our feedback is not valued, thoughtfully established precedents are to be ignored, the foundations of our community can be yanked away as SE jumps on whatever the next bandwagon is, and things are only 'binding' until SE decides it's not.

The company has never before presumed to dictate.

Again, recent events arguably show that...well...the company is dictating. It may be wrong; it probably is wrong. But they are, and we can't really do much about it.

We have never, ever had a network-wide policy where the company presumes to dictate to us what kind of quality criteria we should use to determine what is and is not welcome on our own sites. This is beyond the purview of the company and breaks one of the most basic covenants between the communities and SE: with this policy, the sites are no longer run by us, they are now run by the company.

This part's essentially true, if dishearteningly so.

:(


(I'm not really very informed about the moderation and the policy stuff; this is more to say that your points, though probably excellent, assume that the management is willing to stay accountable- it's not.)

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    "The company has never before presumed to dictate.": never before recent events, precisely. And I have no illusions about management caring, I am curious to see if they can provide justification. I don't expect I'll buy it if they do.
    – terdon
    Commented May 31, 2023 at 22:37
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    "It's their site, after all, so their prerogative." ─ It's our site; they just own the servers it runs on.
    – kaya3
    Commented Jun 5, 2023 at 21:16

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