My first reaction to the staff person's claim that there have been posts with "combative and hurtful words to attack Stack employees, other mods, and teammates" was
No way! You're projecting!
But then I read a post that contained the following:
By trying to censor these posts, [staff member's] actions have created a veritable firestorm....
[Staff member] has disrespected, in particular, Madara himself, but also the rest of the community who has tirelessly built, nurtured, and advocated for these sites over the past decade.
Sadly, the post mentioned the staff member's name half a dozen times. It felt like a salvo against the individual person, rather than the company that had (judging by Shog9's tweets) ordered the employee to post the company policy.
Be kind to your fine-feathered friends,
'Cause that duck could be somebody's mother.
Be kind to your friends in the swamp,
Because it's dark and dreary there.
This particular staff member is relatively new.
I wrote a comment below the post, suggesting that the poor schmo was most likely posting the company line, as ordered.... Without knowing what this employee's financial situation is, who are we to judge him for following orders? After Shog9 and Robert's sudden departures, I think we can feel fairly certain that if this employee were to refuse to follow orders, he would find himself suddenly out of a job.
(Note that except for some personal attacks on Sara Chipps in the fall, this post is the first one I've seen made against an individual SE employee.)
In addition to attempting to reason with the post's author, I also flagged the post.
The result: the flag was declined; and my comment removed (silently -- as though it had never existed -- as has become the MSE moderating team's modus operandi).
I then proposed an edit, replacing the staff person's name with "staff person" or "the company." It only took a few minutes for the author to roll it back.
I believe this sort of personal attack is precisely what Shog9 asked us not to engage in.
I take one thing back. This employee isn't at all new. I was confusing his name with someone else's.
