New answers tagged community
40
To answer the question directly (at least I think I can do this to an extent):
I have been contacted by Stack Exchange, and have had high level talks with two of the highest ranking officials at Stack Exchange, for a total of 90 minutes, between October and November 2019.
Both talks have been via telepresence, with webcams on in a professional manner that I'...
7
I tend not to form my opinion of mods by interacting with them, but by seeing what they do, or to be more accurate, what they did. I see the mod's handle on closed questions, on edits, on comments that nudge and correct other posters, and on questions and answers. We may never interact, yet I can become aware that this mod is really helping. Especially on ...
14
Having no major interactions with moderators where you notice that they are moderators is usually a good thing. Moderators are first and foremost users and humans like you. They are part of your community. You say "I have not - at least not as far as I know - had a lot communication with moderators", which is also great. That might mean that the times where ...
4
On my site, users interact with me as a mod in one of the following ways:
Comments: If I make a moderation comment, then they can respond when relevant.
Flags: Users flag posts and/or comments and I address the flags. Sometimes users may use a custom flag and may include a custom response. There are only a handful of situations in which this applies and ...
7
It is my impression that many other SO users have more communication with moderators.
I'd hazard a guess that it's because you spent some time lurking on the main meta lately (just like me).
Users posting on the main meta are not that many, and are typically more involved than average users (just like mods are more involved too), so it probably gives this ...
11
I am a moderator on two sites. But:
First, I am a human. A user like many others. You and I may “click” when when we chat or answer each other’s questions, or not. Like some other users, I hang out in chat (typically the one for the site I am a mod for). I did so well before I kind of slipped into this mod thing, and that’s how the community of the site ...
19
From the perspective of a mod:
I think most folks interact with me mainly on my site metas and on Meta Stack Exchange (though here I'm not writing in my role as a site moderator). Some users probably know me from my answers, depending on the site, but the frequency of those tend to fluctuate depending on how busy I am.
If I had my druthers, a lot of users ...
4
Interaction happens like this:
Indirectly. You see something, you say something. By raising a flag on a post. That flag stays "pending" for some time, then is resolved. When you flagged for moderator attention, you might even get a short response message in addition to the usual helpful/disputed/... reply. See here for one example how that is supposed to ...
-37
You've proven the company is heading for changes. True. But why is that a bad thing? Microsoft was hell when Ballmer was the CEO. It only got better after his departure and changes in recent years.
Stack Overflow is one of the most visited sites on the planet, but only generated about $70m in 2018. Absolutely ridiculous by any measure. They have to head for ...
28
Change in course is now pretty much clear and in the open. There is no doubt about it, it is planned some time ago and we are just now putting together pieces of a puzzle.
... so why bother?
At this point, it is pretty much take it or leave it situation. In any other place I would now be pretty much ready to pick up my things and go. But that is exactly ...
50
In the end, we keep mixing observations and interpretations.
But the latest statements by Jon and shog9 stand out here: Typically, people are really careful about criticizing former employers, to not cause the impression to future employers that they lack loyalty. Yet, very clear statements from both.
From that point of view, it is pretty safe to assume: ...
answered Jan 18 at 8:02
GhostCat salutes Monica C.
21.6k12 gold badges82 silver badges148 bronze badges
16
Pretty clear SO no longer cares about what anyone thinks. It's just pure money.
What does SE think they need to do to grow in 2020?
Expand their revenue. Cut their costs.
How does the removal of Shog and Robert fall into this plan?
Less cost.
What other steps could potentially come next in this plan?
More cost removal (...
34
George Stocker (on Twitter) has a long thread about this and the community issues.
basically Joel talks with Jason Calcanis about his leaving from Stack
Overflow (recorded in April 2019), and what it will take to get Stack
Overflow public. He says that over and over.
If you listen for another minute, you'll get to who Joel+The Board of
...
29
As a manager myself, I cannot help but be amazed and impressed with the extraordinary level of political incompetence on display among the management at Stack Exchange.
Since I've been contributing, and even before that, one of the attractive qualities of the community was the tolerance and respect that members had for one another. I had the impression that ...
23
I echo Shog's plea: Don't do this to those who remain. Like us, they didn't sign up for this. Like us, they've been mistreated badly by the company. [emphasis mine]
I have a tremendous amount of respect for Shog, and his plea tugs at my heartstrings, but I'm afraid this is bogus. It is casting us in a pathological triangular relationship that we absolutely ...
10
Meh, this is just a money based approach now. Fighting it is a losing battle.
Just wait til the exchanges that don't produce ad revenue, private teams revenue, or jobs revenue all get shut down ;)
We must be nice to those in our community - and of course that includes the current set of CM's and to be honest most (clearly not all) SE employees - but that ...
25
The only thing we're currently actually in control of is our reaction to this.
Our reaction is being controlled. If we get angry, we are toxic. If we don't show anger, Stack Exchange believes they've solved their problem. At that point, there is no way for the community to make their voices heard on this platform, unless it's praising the company.
I very ...
0
No.
You must provide your feedback, negative and positive in "as is" form. If community and analyst teams are comptent this will be better for them, because it's raw data which is much more suitable for processing and making decisions than any "prefiltered" one.
If they are not competent -- nothing will save them and us.
Yes, "CM is also human", but he ...
39
My dear ex-colleagues will be blamed for failing to control you, and another rock will be laid on their backs.
If so, then everything has been said. Then it is time for SE Inc. to just shut down all metas, and for us community members, to turn around, and never come back. And of course, collect some money, that is then used to find out whether the dubious ...
answered Jan 16 at 14:10
GhostCat salutes Monica C.
21.6k12 gold badges82 silver badges148 bronze badges
8
Stack Exchange seems to be changing from being a purportedly a community-run resource to not being so community-run.
That's a change - some would say something of a bait-and-switch. It's not unreasonable to expect some people to be rather cross about that.
If it's taken as a given that change is happening anyway, then some people may have a decision to ...
10
Old Stack Exchange: The value is created by users solving programming problems. Our software should support them in doing so, collecting all their valuable programming solutions on our site.
New Stack Exchange: The value is created by the Q&A software. When users are using the software programming solutions fall out. Getting a higher absolute number of ...
17
Q: Can we go back to this please?
Time travel sadly doesn't exist. We can't really 'go back'. Things have happened, and as long as that's in the collective memory of a lot of people, they won't be forgotten. We can only work from here, but we can make a measure of working side by side with SE a goal to achieve, if that's what we want to do.
I'm ...
42
I still have (a bit of) hope, because hope dies last, but I also think that the proposed action here will not help at all and here is why:
There are not many rants as far as I can see. The moderation is very efficient in that regard and even does more than necessary at times. Meta is not toxic (on average) and never was. That's unfortunately more like a ...
28
A lot of people are saying here that it's not fair to expect us to be reasonable and calm when we've been faced with utter disrespect and contempt.
I agree. It's not fair. It is totally unreasonable and unfair to expect that a crowd of people who have been ignored, called names, and treated with contempt will treat the people who have given them this ...
76
You're wrong.
I sympathize with those working at SE who have no control over the apparent craziness that management at SE has become, but that doesn't mean users don't get to complain.
Engage with the feedback mechanisms they provide.
There are none. Meta was all we had as a feedback mechanism and it is being completely ignored by management.
They ...
15
A famous saying is Insanity Is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over Again and Expecting Different Results. This saying's core concept makes a lot sense, at least to me.
Like many (I believe most) of you, I'm not happy with what has been happening here recently, especially over the last 5 or so months. I don't really know what, if anything, we can do to change ...
11
Right. Of course it takes quite a lot of courage to say "Dear Company, we still think you're running the place all wrong, but we're still going to put up with it anyway, because there's no better option. As long as some people on the staff consider the opinions of the community valuable, there's still hope that things will improve in the future. And as the ...
28
...No.
When you have a product or service that you paid for, and it doesn't work, you call tech support.
If you're angry, then the tech support will get an earful from you. Are they accountable for the product being broken? Of course not. Does that mean you should just fix it yourself? Of course not.
They're the interface between the company and the ...
11
There are already lots of answers and I want to add a more optimistic perspective about a possible future where the company concentrates on selling software for Q&A for enterprises and the public Q&A knowledge base has moved somewhere else for good.
It's really clear beyond any doubt that the company strongly reduced any support for the community, ...
22
I'm not typically very active on meta and also a bit late to the party, but this one amuses me. Really.
I'm going to tell a story (to the users, I know SE staff doesn't care), which is a bit long but please, see if someone can notice any similarities.
A few years ago I worked in a very well known company for one of their local websites. There was a guy ...
11
Since I don't have access to the inner workings of SEI, this is largely speculation based upon other technology focused start-ups.
Is SEI financially healthy?
SEI had Series D funding back in 2015 with $40 million being raised and this funding seems to be tied to investors that are interested in growing the programming and jobs focused sites. As the ...
41
It seems that the OP is on to something, just look at that recent blog post We’re making it easier to try Stack Overflow for Teams.
Now, I can not tell you about the financial health of SE Inc (and to a certain degree, I find it moot to speculate about such things).
But what I can tell you is this: SE Inc. nicely managed to burn its reputation with people ...
answered Jan 15 at 15:06
GhostCat salutes Monica C.
21.6k12 gold badges82 silver badges148 bronze badges
13
In order to appear attractive to investors a company typically requires these things:
growth
profits.
Now it best if you can demonstrate both, but only one is required. As a result, SE has already shown that it wants more users, regardless of the cost to established ones (after all gain 1000 users by losing 900 = growth, and if you ignore the lost users as ...
32
I sympathize why you want to know this (I also want to know), but it is entirely unreasonable to expect a straightforward answer.
SE is a privately held company and they've been very reluctant to disclose financials in the past, understandably.
Furthermore, if your theory is correct and their financial situation is indeed bad, then disclosing it could ...
69
As I've continued to say:
It's time to leave the Stack Exchange network.
This post only further fuels what I and many others are feeling about the direction Stack Exchange has been going recently.
This isn't the Stack Exchange network I signed up for, and it's not the Stack Exchange network I intend to stay in. It's time to send a message: Going down this ...
11
The answer to this question appears to be that they are not.
9
Monica's legal agreement didn't satisfy me, because Stack Overflow didn't do the morally right thing, and because it gave me no confidence they wouldn't continue making other equally serious mistakes. I had already considered changing my name to "Stop Harming The Community" before they fired Shog9, but that choice made my decision easy.
4
The legal agreement is satisfactory for Monica and for SE, otherwise they wouldn't sign it.
It is unsatisfactory for me in my rôle as a moderator on a network site because SE took an "emergency action" in a case where no emergency was present and thus undermines the standing of the moderators and this "emergency action" is not taken back. It is also ...
3
With so many answers already written, and this one coming so late after the question was posted, I doubt this will get much attention. But I've removed the Monica-related language from my accounts for a couple of reasons:
Monica herself did so. I recognize that this is likely due to her agreement with SE, but I was following her lead in the first place. I ...
35
We’re seeking to align the company so that it can continue growing in 2020 and we continue to be committed in investing in the community and ensuring that it has a seat at the table as we keep moving forward. These changes are a part of that process. (source)
I understand that sometimes companies need to reorganize, cut costs, etc. I don't have a problem ...
16
I would like to use this answer as a way to remind everyone, or inform anyone who did not already sign, know or wanted to sign, to visit the link to the Community's letter to the Stack Exchange management.
Seeing as meta will probably be phased out anyway now, at least some artefact of the community's reaction and sentiment will be out on the internet.
22
It seems as though the one's in charge have ordered full engines ahead. Never mind the hole on port or the massive gash on starboard. Disregard the boilers flooding. Pay no heed to the crew calling out that forward are lots of underwater rocks that keep scraping the hull and busting the bulkheads.
Now the helm yells "keep going!" The crew is thinking of ...
66
I wish I could say I didn't see this coming. But I did. Not exactly this, but the continuation of a series of mistakes.
How did we get here?
Mistakes happen, nothing new. But when they do, they have to be fixed; otherwise new mistakes tend to accumulate over the old ones. This is what is also happening here. Mistakes were made, but they were never properly ...
39
All Stack Overflow needs to do, is to own up to her mistakes.
I find it so baffling and beyond comprehension as to what's keeping them from it.
I might be being too cynic, but the simplest explanation would be that now it's an ego problem for the people top in the foodchain.
I think the community and SO need to start seeing a couples-counsellor.
83
It isn't.
There was no statement from a higher up to this thread, not even saying "That's our internal thing and we won't discuss it publicly, we'll do this and that to improve community", or no statement at all (company shouldn't discuss employee terminations after all, but it'd be nice to show some community building plans, if any exist). The ones at the ...
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