@GammaGames you mean SE actually fix bugs??

@ShadowThePrincessWizard, Mobile doesn't scroll back that far, if your referring to the hors d'oeuvres - ouichefnetwork.com/2009/12/…

@Rob it was a reply to this:

And yeah, I had to switch to full site to reply to that.

Yes, check the other link.

Even on full side I have to click on "load older messages" so many times it says to go to the transcript.

@Rob full site in transcript, then you can see what's the reply to and reply back with the action arrow.

@ShadowThePrincessWizard that they do

and lets me real here. The technical side is uber competent. The community folks on the ground are good.

The problem is elsewhere

@PM2Ring Thank you

@JourneymanGeek yup.

@ShadowThePrincessWizard So when I go to the transcript the first page is a half dozen comments long, click previous day, now the days are spilt into 2-4 parts (this time only 2, since it wasn't busy), and the links-back don't cross the boundary:

@Rob I just go to the notification link

It's a lousy setup, you should just be able to click and it shows you; without an internship at the Cirque du Soleil.

@Rob I'm worried that nobody's addressed the major issue here yet

namely, what is that font on the URL bar

Beauteous... regardless of what it's called.

@ArtOfCode @Catija - It's Spirax, with these settings:

It’s fun.

One of many sources: 1001freefonts.com/spirax.font

@Catija I believe the word you were looking for there is "abomination" ;)

You need a side-loader to force it to install on a Samsung phone, on Windows or Linux no such problems.

/me puts the font in his naughty list

@ArtOfCode font purist!

though I now feel that the Source family of fonts should be a standard everywhere

@Catija Part of the Courier elite.

It's readable from a distance when it's cranked down that small, providing a lot of characters per line, and it's distinctive so people can tell you've customized your phone (which is more difficult when the phone doesn't permit such changes, without a hack). All the fonts on my screen don't use Spirax, only the OS fonts, which clearly demarcates one part from the other.

Even MathOver𝒇 low uses fancy fonts, correct Catija.

@Catija that sounds like a compliment in my book x)

@curious ... yeah. It’s one of those ambiguous statements. And, to be clear, I cringe when I see papyrus.

@Tinkeringbell I've been reading custodians of the internet too!

@curious oh you were the one I got the link to the full book from 😄

hey shog weird question maybe but have you set up notifications for your name on external sites?

I kinda can't mention your name without that second of a pause even outside SE

Shog knows what evil lurks in the heart of men

He is also quite disappoint at the lack of creativity

Typeface design is hard. One (relatively) modern font that I like is Lithos, designed by Carol Twombly at Adobe. It's an uppercase-only display font (eg for headings & signs), but it's also ok for body text in small doses. I suppose if it got overused it'd get as much criticism as Comic Sans or Papyrus. The lack of lowercase letters has probably helped to prevent its overuse.

has he seen Half-Life: Alyx? I think it's rather creative

@curious @JourneymanGeek told me he got the link to the full book from you, so: Thanks!

I just managed chapter 2 last night

@user1306322 I know shog doesn't like to be pinged, and doesn't like reply pings while in a conversation, so I assume not

@curious I'm up to chapter 2 finished, it's dense as hell but very informative

Ana wrote a guide at some point for how to protect yourself when you're in a public-facing position. I think the first point on it was to set up alerts for your name.

the idea that I could be inadvertently pinging shog every time I mention his name is a bit disturbing

@Catija That was my next plan after this feature request gets implemented

time to seriously curb the shog 1-8 jokes I guess

I search for my name, only to find a ton of noise from a bot posting comments into a particular chat room. I don't disagree with its actions, but I'd like to filter out the room it posts in because it's just noise.

Well, chat doesn't get indexed by Google, so I think you're OK.

@Magisch if they set it up that way, they're kinda asking for it aren't they?

I"m kinda scared to search for myself ... though, I'm hopeful that when Twitter starts freeing up unused usernames (assuming they actually do it) I'll get my actual username on Twitter.

I usually ping who I'm talking about, but shog once explicitly asked me not to unless it's serious

so I've been avoiding it to avoid annoying him

@Catija I'd like to be able to respond to chat discussions about me. (As a matter of fact, shortly before you posted that message, I actually did so.)

@Magisch I prefer such pings, so please continue to do it with me. (If Shog complains, let me know and I'll talk to him.)

lol

eyeballs-pls Off topic - meta.stackexchange.com/q/339673

@Catija It doesn't? I can get results on stuff I posted in the SO Python room from Google searches.

@PM2Ring Ah. Now I have to think about why I thought that... maybe chat just doesn't get particularly high scores in Google rankings...

@Catija Maybe it depends on the chat network?

Nah. The private rooms definitely aren't indexed but that should be the only exception.

Eg, I get 3 chat room hits with site:https://stackoverflow.com python "PM 2Ring" avalanche

@AnkitSharma You can report posts in the Charcoal room. :) chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/11540/charcoal-hq

(to be clear, I reported it already for ya)

@Catija Probably because google crawlers have no access to them

Probably...

@rene The situation with the OP of meta.stackexchange.com/q/339660/334566 is a little complicated. He has a long track record on Physics.SE of posting wrong (or at least misleading) answers. Admittedly, he is putting effort into improving his physics knowledge, but there's only so much you can do when you're teaching yourself from pop-science works, Wikipedia & Stack Exchange.

Many of his questions are posted in response to downvoting of his answers, to try to improve his understanding, but often those questions contain bad assumptions, which can lead to downvotes (due to "insufficient prior research"). Some people do post corrective comments, but many of the regulars have given up trying to educate him.

Well, meta is still a dumpster fire...

@Mast If you have any thoughts of where to aim the hose, we're always glad to see flags or ideas :) But at some point, to stop the fire it needs to get no new fuel.

@Tinkeringbell Nothing specific, unfortunately, although I wouldn't mind some users getting banned for a month or two so they shut-up instead of spreading negativity all around...

Seems like the tone is shifting to not only blame SE staff, but moderators as well. Quite unhelpful.

@Mast :) Get out of my mind, please ;)

@Mast good to know its not just us ;)

I imagine this wasn't exactly what you signed up for, yet you lot have been doing a good job of keeping the site clean.

But if instead of running out of fuel they're replacing the fuel with new kinds of fuel (targetting moderators instead of staff), this could take a while.

Well - its a general distrust of authority ._.

@PM2Ring okay, fair enough

@JourneymanGeek I'm sure that's part of it, but there's also an element of "if a mod blocks me from raging against SO Inc then that mod must be siding with SE Inc". Which is rather short-sighted, but kind of understandable. OTOH, you often say stuff like "reacting like this is just playing into the hands of people who say Meta is toxic", but I don't think that someone who's frothing at the keyboard pays much attention to stuff like that.

@PM2Ring True

but that's what I feel

@PM2Ring I guess that's part of the thing too - we could easily suspend about say a dozen people and everything's quiet

But that's kinda the whole nuclear option

and I do realise, assume good intent aside a few faces I see here are just here to cause trouble, or see this as the best place to rage against SE (Twitter is right over there)

@JourneymanGeek Me too! And i think it's important that you keep repeating that message. But I guess it won't really matter so much in a couple of months, when most of the functions of Meta get shifted to other channels...

@PM2Ring I'm betting on it failing

What's that old hairy chestnut...

I won't actively seek its downfall, nor shall I morn it

It's hard to know what'll happen, since at this stage we only have a very vague outline of what SE Inc plan on doing.

@PM2Ring 'most of the functions'... I'm not so sure about that, actually. It sounds like 'most of the side stuff' to me, leaving room for a 'functional' meta.

But we'll see :)

Like I said the other day:

@PM2Ring there's no great channels for bug reports otherwise

the big advantage of meta is its a low barrier of entry

as long as we don't get Jira ticketing instead i'm fine

lol

shakes fist into air

Jira on SE, no, please no.

twitch

wait

I am not the only guy with a burning hatred of Jira? ;p

@CptEric you monster

@JourneymanGeek I get the impression that they're creating a new channel for that. They want a proper ticketing system for bugs. You can't just bolt that on to the metas.

@JourneymanGeek join to jirasistance.

specially the new experience which feels like a very slow medieval torture.

i'm sure it sells good because it looks fancier, but they have 4 different ways of opening a ticket from the board, on the same page, on different links/actions

and none is coherent.

SE like to write their own stuff. But I guess they might adapt an existing system.

@CptEric yes, it is slow.

JIRA doesn't have to be bad, if you only refrain from putting all the frigging fields on the form and make them mandatory. I rather take the SO survey then put in a ticket.

jira is like discount warehouse satan

@PM2Ring that needs building. And people need to use it

low key and boring evil

And it's the core users who will bother to report bugs

ah you mean the crowd that's been systematically alienated

that might be a hitch in the road

@JourneymanGeek Yes. And there are likely to be bugs in the bug tracker itself... :)

quite

@PM2Ring Which will probably be reported on meta, for the time being.

A transition period of sorts.

All non-bugtracker bugs on the bugtracker, all bugtracker bugs on meta.

Or all bugtracker bugs also on the bugtracker, take it to meta if the bug is serious enough to not be able to post the bug.

Who knows.

They'll think of something.

New system, new bugs, new problems.

Wonder whether there'll be a reputation system of sorts on the bugtracker and who's going to be the first to get reprimanded for abusing it.

@Mast points at the survey

I'm not really sure there's a solid long term plan or the... erm...

@JourneymanGeek Anything?

they probably have a comprehensive roadmap, it just isn't public

@Magisch like the loop?

Hyper Loop

point being

Someone tell the Loop it's had enough coffee.

So picture - a long running software project that makes the company no money

vs a functional meta

@JourneymanGeek That hasn't stopped companies before.

@JourneymanGeek aren't I supposed to be the cynical one?

Remember that other pioneering software that killed itself? Netscape?

@Magisch I'm being optimistic

where is the optimism in that?

@Magisch well - there's room for improvement? :D

yikes

@Rob So, just to be clear about that link with your suggestion ... who is going to decide who/what should be moved to that new community you suggest here? You? The current MSE moderators?

@GhostCatsaysReinstateMonica presumably it can be a migration target

@JourneymanGeek "It could be worse" is also optimism

@Mast precisely

they have not yet fully commited to the worst path I can imagine

optimism, everyone

morning

@GhostCatsaysReinstateMonica The train has left the station. What do you want?

This is happening.

We don't have to like it.

Whenever an earthquake happens, you can yell at the earth or start rebuilding.

@Catija noted

@Catija thanks

.... and now I wish I didn't read the transcript.

Think I need some time out, sorry.

Later

@Mast I am not talking about SE Inc doing this or that. I am specifically talking about the suggestion by Rob ( chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/8093710#8093710 ) . To say it blunt: it feels like folks like Rob would like to have a "second meta", where they can push content they dont WANT to see on THEIR meta.

@GhostCatsaysReinstateMonica Yeah, another site for all the off-topic stuff that doesn't solve a real problem sound good. Especially that last sentence is perfect!

It can even have a rule that answers don't need to answer the question, and only that :)

@PM2Ring This is interesting... because a lot of people have been asking for more communication about roadmaps and stuff... but the thing is that those are often vague... and the communication being vague seems to open up channels for people to voice the worst interpretations of things, and then that spreads negativity all around like some ink blot...

@Tinkeringbell Have fun going backwards in time and moving 50% or more of the MSE content then.

Because according that is in essence what is suggested here.

*frustrated sigh*

@Mithical Right back at ya.

I wouldn't mind deleting 50% of stuff posted on meta.

I guess that's going to be a multi-year thing to do though, I only have so many weekends/vacation days :)

No surprise. I guess that is why SE Inc. appointed you then.

Oh, no...

The reason for appointment can be found in the instatement post ;)

> We've also seen an uptick in targeted trolling, as well as people simply not acting in good faith.

And perhaps also pertinent:

> In a dynamic where we essentially hold all of the cards and power, we need to give folks as much latitude as possible in order to create a field that's as level as possible. That means, we've gotta let the truth hurt, essentially, even when it's incredibly inconvenient. HOWEVER, if we can't find a trace of good faith in correspondence or it has become personal, it needs to be removed to keep the bar to entry in line with what we can take.

Besides that, SE doesn't usually let you know why they pick you when appointing mods. They just ask if you're interested.

I wanna try something. What could SE, Inc. do right now that you would consider a step in rebuilding trust between the company and the community? What would you like SE to do that would allow you to start to rebuild relations?

(Note: Answering "reinstating Monica" is not going to help, because that isn't going to help at this point. That whole thing has now passed the point of no return into legal-land. SE won't be able to do anything related to that even if they wanted to by now.)

For me, it would be SE reaching out, either personally or publicly, and explaining exactly what steps they are taking to ensure the safety of their community members and moderators, including psychological safety, and then following through on that.

But I'm interested in what other people personally think.

@Mithical abstractly? Actually make the community feel like they matter

@Mithical Keep up what they're doing. Keep us in the loop about the "The Loop" projects. But I guess it also wouldn't hurt to have them set out a 'mission statement' for MSE/MSO, have them set ground rules for how meta should be used now it's no longer an 'old boys network' of users that can solve their problems interpersonally, but something that's grown to have more diverse viewpoints and thus is going to need more moderating that's not always going to be according to the loudest voices :)

@JourneymanGeek I was more interested in concrete steps.

(Or oldest voices)

no more "meta is only 0.15% of our userbase"

...I was considering posting that as a meta question, but I wanted to see what chat was like first.

@Tinkeringbell True, roadmaps are usually just a vague outline. But when people are starved for solid information they'll read between the lines and speculate. So we get people who read the Introducing The Loop blog post assuming that the intention is to remove Meta & replace it with nothing but blog posts & little surveys.

If you want a concrete thing - more CMs, empowered to steer decisions to do with the community

@Mithical I dunno if posting it like a meta question is a good idea... But I like the topic of conversation in chat :)

@Tinkeringbell well, you must have made an impression somehow

@Mithical for most people, personnel changes in management, public direction and communication, probably

and/or resolving the monica situation amicably, with a real and followed through apology

@Magisch Yeah, I don't really understand either, given that one of my rules is 'never be role model on the internet'... it'll only make your falls harder.

shrug

@Tinkeringbell The way I see it, it'll either become an outpouring of bitterness or, with the right nudges, actually become a useful repository of what SE can do to start fixing things. But that puts a lot of pressure on the mods, so... I'll hold off on that.

@Mithical actually - the push to move more things to mods

I reckon the situation is past the point where people would accept anything that isn't untenable to SE to provide

It could be a good thing - but it needs to be as empowerment, not "its a way to move responsibility"

for that to be community empowerment we would need term limits and recalls for mods

right now the democracy side of electing them is rather light

Nononono. We don't need mods worrying about taking unpopular decisions because it means they might not get re-elected. We need people who will take action, not politicians.

well - thing I was thinking of was actually the opposite - SE has power, but... not much responsibility

the mod position was sold to the constituencies as a sort of general janitor, exception handler, more or less. When it comes to policy and governance, mods are supposed to be no more powerful then any user of the site

@PM2Ring yeah, so the dichotomy is between a.) Providing more open communication, but at a more broad/vague level and have people read negativity between the lines or b.) Providing things once they're concrete, but then getting complaints about not communicating enough.

@Mithical what they're proposing - shaping policy and guidelines - is a very political position. If you want to keep that democratic, you need politicians

@Magisch And technically, we can be that... but only if there's a community that basically moderates itself, and currently that's not happening so we're setting things straight :)

yup

we're not CMs

@Mithical What kind of scope creep? Would you consider setting things straight part of that?

@Tinkeringbell We're in a catch-22, a bit. People are bitter because they're not getting updates, but when those updates do come they get attacked because people are bitter, which leads to fewer updates... rinse and repeat.

If there's ever a council of some sort shaping site policy and mod policy, it should be elected with term limits and everything that comes with a position that requires continous trust and mandate from the community

@Tinkeringbell Not necessarily. That's part of the "community leader" that is at least par for the course with appointed / protem mods.

but mods aren't supposed to be leaders in the traditional sense

But the company seems to be putting more and more on the "moderator" role.

@Mithical That too... but that's not really what I was getting it, I was aiming more for 'Would you want specific information so that you cannot read negatively between the lines as easily' (like, don't tell us about the The Loop until it's more concrete, so people don't worry you'll end/kill MSE next month), or do you want more communication that may be vague?

we don't elect leaders. We elect people with enough common sense, time and willingness to be exception handlers

@Magisch On a large site, yes. On small sites mods are expected to be more community leaders, and that is, crucially, made clear at the time.

I've never seen a mod impose a new policy on any site

at best they propose and implement it, or determine consensus

I think you're interpreting "leader" differently from how I'm using it.

@Magisch Back up policy on IPS :)

The "legislative" so to speak is the community, not the mod team

For instance, on Lit, we'd take charge of setting up topic challenges and the like, community building, outreach to people who we'd like to contribute, taking charge of a blog / Twitter account... that sort of stuff is being a community "leader", and a representative of the community / site.

@Tinkeringbell dozens of people left over that overreach, and that's what that was, even though it had mild consensus at the time and I was personally for it, too.

I am not talking about "instituting policy unilaterally". That sorta happened once on Puzzling, and it did... not go well.

(It was all because of a misunderstanding, naturally, but there were important lessons learned by many people there.)

I mean, I guess I have one example, the change in comment moderation on MSO was kind of unilateral

it was an unmitigated and at the time unprecedented shitshow though

@Magisch ... sounds great. Not sure if you saw that sentence from Tinkeringbell a few minutes ago when they announced: I wouldn't mind deleting 50% of stuff posted on meta. though. Really sounds like the government reaches out, and finds itself new, better people to govern.

@GhostCatsaysReinstateMonica *confused squinting* Not sure what you're saying here.

@Magisch That's... not that bad though, if you consider it left us with a.) A functioning site that used the platform (public Q&A on SE) as intended and b.) A community that's actually moderating itself now :)

The second part refers to a poem that I recently quoted ( meta.stackexchange.com/a/338609/285661 ). I simply find it strange that a moderator thinks that 50% or more of the conversations that the COMMUNITY users have on MSE should be dumped somewhere else. To me, that is like saying: "you know, we wrote those rules in stone at some point, and albeit since day 1 the community strived and grew ignoring these rules almost daily ... but now we are going to fully enforce those rules".

I dont see how that would help to IMPROVE the community, or the negativity towards SE Inc. within the user community.

@Tinkeringbell I'm not so sure. I've never once on the entire network heard a non negative word about IPS since except in the tavern and on ips itself

People like being able to post whatever they want. IPS is rather strict in not letting them do that. So... yeah, people who don't like following those policies are going to be annoyed.

To the contrary, it perfectly underlines the sentiment that I see on MSE more and more these days: that the moderators can't be trusted, and that they are nothing but servants of SE Inc. And that their job isn't to help the community, but to suppress unwelcome content.

Actually... kinda reminiscent of the people being annoyed about the CoC change, now that I think about it...

I reckon a lot of this distrust can only be solved if SE gives up the reins on moderation

independant election comission, arbitration comittee for discipline issues, term limits and reconfirmations, essentially an actual democracy modeled in here

but they'll never do that because the majority user base is significantly less progressive then they are and they wouldn't like the outcomes

SE needs to allow Shog and Cat to direct their actions for the next few months. ;)

erf. That garbage again

@Magisch That's not going to happen, not just because the users are "less progressive", but because SE as a commercial company isn't going to give non-employees free reign like that on their site. They still need to have some level of oversight.

@GhostCatsaysReinstateMonica there's seriously nothing more annoying that people calling us corporate lapdogs

@Magisch Someone shared a blog post a few months ago about someone that had their question closed on IPS and I believe a more objective site like Math... and they weren't mad at us, they actually liked how we handled it... So it's not all negative outside of here either ;)

The real issue is just this: There was a strong appearance and feeling of true self governance. That lasted just as long as our interests perfectly aligned with the corporation's. Now that illusion is coming apart, and the only way to "fix" things if that is ever possible would be to put truth to the original feelings. E.g delegate major decisions to the community and accepting the outcome even if you dislike it

@Mithical Thats also a reason, albeit an unsolvable one I fear

@JourneymanGeek Sure. But the statement I quoted above about removing 50% MSE content ... nicely plays that sentiment.

@Magisch Ehh, we're reading the same book, right? It's probably not about aligning with the corporation's as much as aligning with each other... when 'communities' grow, it's going to be harder for them to settle upon the rules, and thinking there's a silent but content majority is not very useful.

The problem is: trust is eroding. Even towards the moderation team. There are plenty of reasons for that. But I think even you should see: such statements as the one I am referring to ... don't help with that.

So your 'true democracy' will still only reach those that speak out... it still carries that 'silent majority' problem.

@Tinkeringbell I don't actually agree with that book on that specific aspect. From a personal (ideological perspective) only the people who care enough to speak up should get a voice in shaping their community

being there but not engaged enough to participate doesn't earn you any consideration in my book

I do agree that from what I've seen, baby SO did carry that appearance and feeling of true self governance, but that was because a.) the userbase was more homegenous and b.) it was loads smaller.

The trust between the community and the company has been eroding steadily since at least '17. The latest drawn-out explosion is only the result of a pent-up growing issue that has been growing and finally exploded.

same way as nobody who doesn't vote gets to complain about their politicians

@Magisch 'not engaged enough' is a dangerous one... as I've seen plenty of people state that they're disengaging... because the loudest voices are drowning them out.

I posted something about it right before stuff happened and everything exploded. This has been a long time coming.

@Mithical my point from above excactly. the illusion is falling apart, slowly at first, faster now. There's no straightforward fix to bring something back that never existed

We need to go back and address the problems that caused the problems in the first place, years ago, not just the catalyst from the end result explosion.

@Tinkeringbell In the real world, disengaging means you concede in a democratic system

people using that line of thinking is precisely why the right wing is on the rise again in europe and it pisses me off

@Magisch Not really. It can also mean that you still disagree, but can be jailed for speaking out.

Or publicly shamed

piled up upon

if you want to stick with democracy

My coworkers talk weekly about how they dislike that the new super-right wing party got 40% in our town last local election

Did any of them vote? no

you can't sincerely snipe and criticise from the sidelines when you don't actually commit when it matters

Okay, but we're talking about an online website and the people using that... I understand the frustration about people not voting in real life... but as far as I know, in Germany you won't get people pile up on you if you don't vote right wing... online, that can happen.

internet is a ugly place

if you want to make it less ugly taking some heat is unavoidable

you've been on the frontline yourself for some time. Do you reckon someone who flees at the hint of drama deserves the same voice in shaping the community as you who has spent real hard work and energy trying to fix it?

@Magisch Actually... yes. Because my work is aimed at shaping a community without drama, where these people can participate too.

This only happens because we started accepting that it's going to be this way

online democratic systems have the same failures and exploitabilities as real life ones

Eh. No

with the exception that a real life failure is higher stakes

It's not about getting everyone to vote... it's about first creating an environment where everyone wants to vote, has a right to vote, and feels they can safely vote.

We have been telling anyone who would listen to us about issues

But if there's an ultra-right-wing party clogging up the entrance to the voting office... well, that's where I come in.

well their answer seems to be to do away with self governance entirely, which, fair enough, you're a company, but is going to sour people who expected the unwritten assumed social contract here to be real

@Magisch Well, if your idea of self-governance is that you're allowed to join the party blocking the entrance... that's probably going to feel true when people tell you to let others pass in too... :| But I don't know how to fix those feelings

@Magisch also, there's a fairly big difference between democracy and rule of mob

And well - you've seen me over the past year and month, and how I've handled things

@Tinkeringbell Nah, I just think that you mistake speaking in the public square for blocking the door

@Magisch Okay, but even speaking in the public square often requires a permit from local government in real life.

@Magisch I've literally had people try to bully me into quitting, and at least some of the hostility to mods is aimed that way.

@JourneymanGeek Another batch is aimed at creating as much mistrust of us as possible :)

and in a lot of situations, its folks trying to bully us into ignoring long established rules then claiming we're silencing them

@Magisch And well... I've read stories where people were just 'speaking in the public square' so to speak, by protesting outside e.g. abortion clinics and yelling at the people entering them. If you have to cross the public square to get to the voting office, there's still a barrier.

Also I hate this much metaphorical talk and it's about lunchtime...

@Magisch also, early SO was mostly a dictorship ;p

@JourneymanGeek so had I, even though I don't do much and have no position in all of this. Just commenting and not being fully on board the outrage train gets you called out. Still, as I said, the 'web is ugly

(and there's 3 of us. At best maybe 2-3 CMs assisting)

but with all these countermeasures you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater

@Magisch right, so....

we have folks involved in open and close wars

comment threads are long, ugly and we can't really keep track of all of it

Democracy is nice. We'd love for folks to handle stuff like grownups

but...

> Just commenting and not being fully on board the outrage train gets you called out.

this isn't right

And don't forget, we've been pretty invested in meta in the longer run

not just for the outrage train

The fundamental problem is that, ultimately, SE decides what conduct is acceptable on SE sites and who may be a moderator. They set up and run the platform and provide it with resources. Everyone else can only make suggestions. Most of the heat on meta, all the way back to the welcoming fiasco, comes from members of the community thinking they can make demands.

Precisely

The toxicity comes from people, who have given advice and made suggestions that SE has declined, thinking if they increase the pressure SE will do what they want: a failure to accept that SE may reject suggestions.

@Raedwald not realising we're trying to work towards a lot of the same goals

So, I think snark in comments beneath crap posts can be useful. It's not really that toxic and communicates to readers (but not the OP so much) "don't do this". SE disagrees and/or thinks helping the OP directly is more important. Perhaps they are right; I'm not do sure of myself. OK, I will avoid snark. It's not that hard.

@Raedwald I mean, morally, they can. They're the people who helped build this thing

SE is kinda here by our collective sweat and free labor

And for years, that was the illusion. Come here, contribute your expert knowledge, take part in the unglorious dirty work to keep it all clean, but for that, it can be yours.

It was never more then an illusion, one that only really works as long as you know and inherently and deeply trust the folks in charge. That is changing, and all of this outrage is pinned down to this primary point in one way or another. Obviously they can't really do anything about it now except try to find a new and more healthier way to set community expectations. Their whole business and moderation model so far has depended heavily on power users.

This has to change with it. If you don't want to go the wikipedia route, the benefits of it will disappear with the drawbacks eventually, though it takes longer.

Sometimes the problem is that people have been active on another site, read the Help there, and know how it works - all without reading the Help here. From the Help Center: Our Model > "What is "meta"? How does it work?". - When things don't meet their expectations, when the Poll is wrong, it's an outrage.

@Magisch Listen to Your Community, But Don't Let Them Tell You What to Do

An irony is that (I guess) those who are most vocal in their opposition to the CoC change are not revolutionary socialists who reject the fundamental idea that those who invest in a company (The capitalists, rather than the workers) should decide what it does.

I have a feeling the CoC change is being used as a maypole

it's in essence pretty uncontroversial, I'd hazard even most people who are angry agree with it

bit like obamacare. When you poll the actual issues, you get overwhelming support. But the label people put on it makes them hate it

SO moving from 5 to 3 close votes permanently is a step in the right direction.

although I did get enough crap for being in support of it, even off-site, even while being a normal community member with no clout or influence, so maybe

both the COC change and the licence change might have worked better if not for yanno

Yeah, ol' Yanno. All their fault.

I think that as long as the site relies on volunteer work for its revenue stream people will demand participation and representation

not like all of this is anything but an academic excercise anyhow

unless one of you is a VC investor moonlighting nobody here has any influence over proceedings

@Magisch I've never understood that position, actually. It was never ours. It was always SE's and ours. There's a very big difference there. SE have always had the final word and ownership of the platform, so I really don't see how anyone could have thought otherwise. The community could decide scope and local rules for sites, and we did used to have more of a voice in deciding general direction but only because everything was new and SE was just figuring it all out along with us.

But this idea that the network somehow belonged to us and not SE never made sense to me.

It's just that for many years I trusted SE enough not to mind.

And it's important to remember that the site does not rely on volunteer work for its revenue stream. As far as we know, the public Q&As have never been profitable.

@terdon-stopharmingMonica the content licensing scheme and how the network started was a pretty clear indicator

nothing stops a competitor from simply taking all of SEs content and moving it to their site