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I read in this question written by Philippe:

Stack Exchange released guidance to moderators on how to moderate AI Generated content.

Why wasn't the guidance to moderators on how to moderate AI Generated content made publicly available? I thought moderation policies were supposed to be public.

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    Related in Can we please get more information on the "network policy regarding AI Generated content" post?, which says: "What exactly is this standard? You say what it excludes, but not what it includes. Considering that the question post is titled "What is the network policy regarding AI Generated content?", and the body asks "[...] guidance to moderators on how to moderate AI Generated content. What does this guidance include?", [...] the instant-self-answer doesn't really answer the question."
    – starball
    Jun 5 at 6:05
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    They kind of made it available, but in an altered version and a few days later (last week Wednesday instead of Monday I think).
    – NoDataDumpNoContribution
    Jun 5 at 7:01
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    "I thought moderation policies were supposed to be public." just want to mention that mods also have their own mod-only help pages which have a header mentioning "This information is intended for moderators only; please don't share the specifics in public", so while some of the moderation policies were posted on Meta publically by staff, not all moderation policies are public. (Though in the case of AI policy, the problem is really with the discrepancy)
    – Meta Andrew T.
    Jun 5 at 7:45

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I wouldn't say that the problem is that we didn't got the same level of detail the moderators got, the issue is that we got a DIFFERENT policy from what they got.

I expect and accept that not every detail about the implementation of a policy should be made public. There are some things that only a mod would care about (for example what to do in the case of a first violation versus a repeated one, what is the default suspension time etc).

The real issue with this policy is that as multiple moderators have made quite clear the policy THE MODS were required to follow has many substantial differences between with the one that THE USERS were shown (and I doubt every single one of them is a liar... but maybe the company could provide a different explanation if they weren't busy ignoring every single one of this posts).

On May 30th, 2023, a version of this policy was posted to Meta Stack Exchange and tagged mod-agreement-policy, making this a binding moderator policy according to the Moderator Agreement. The policy on Meta Stack Exchange differs substantially from the version issued in private to the moderators. In particular, the public version of the policy conspicuously excludes the “requirements” made in private to immediately cease practically all moderation of AI-generated content.

Now, I would also argue that this "unfortunate and totally unplanned inconvenience" from an outsider may instead look a very deliberate move: show the mods the real version of the policy and request them to not share how rigid and self-harmful it looks while at the same time giving the users a far milder version that some may even find acceptable (and also that is mostly empty after you remove all the marketing buzwords).
The reason is pretty clear: you can't avoid to disclose the real picture to the mods, and you can't prevent them from getting really angry... but you can blow smoke in the eyes of the rest, and maybe if you are lucky many of them will think that the policy is not that bad and the mods are just overreacting...

References:

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    "There are some things that only a mod would care about" there's literally nothing that isn't private information that has to be private. Everyone should be able to comment about policy, specially the community to which policy is being applied.
    – Braiam
    Jun 5 at 15:05
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    @Braiam as I said in my example, if they wanted to remove the part about how many days of suspensions are given out on each infringement or other similar details for the sake of keeping the "general user" version simpler and more readable I could be fine with that (even better if they provide a link to the complete version). But I can never be fine with two different version that don't seem to agree on central points of the policy.
    – SPArcheon
    Jun 5 at 15:16
  • Ok, so leak the policy. Show the community that moderators can not accept a non-public policy.
    – Braiam
    Jun 7 at 15:15

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