Resigning and leaving SE

Question

I have decided that I can no longer contribute my efforts to Stack Exchange and therefore I am stepping down as a moderator and planning on leaving the community. I will not be deleting my accounts or content, but I will not be actively participating. I have been thinking about this for a while and it is not related to any single event. Our community is welcoming and supportive. The SE Community Managers, past and present, are both knowledgeable and professional, but more importantly, they represent the community spirit that made SE great; they are amongst the greatest assets of SE.

When I ran to be a moderator I said:

My personal opinion is that the community opinion rules, so it will be difficult for me to be in disagreement with the community. I like to think that the SE policy is that the community opinion rules. If the community opinion is so against the SE opinion, the SE team has moderators who can handle it. If the SE team really pisses our community off, I would go to bat for our community in private (e.g., in the mod only teacher's lounge) and in our public chat and meta.

Over the past few months, it has become clear that my views of our community now disagree with SE policy. I have gone to bat for us, and I have been unsuccessful. I am no longer an effective agent for advancing our community goals, I have simply been biding my time until SE did something so horrendous that I felt no choice but to leaving. That is not a fair way to represent you, so I am stepping aside in the hopes that others can be more successful.

When I joined Stack Exchange 8 years ago, it was an awesome community that had awesome support from the company. They not only provided the servers, they had developers actively working to make the experience better and employees whose jobs were to build the community. Even before it was trendy, they cared about user privacy and the rights of our contributions.

Over time, SE became an awesome community with just enough support to keep the whole thing from imploding. At first it was simply that the support from the company did not keep up with the growth in the communities. Then SE started cutting support and diverting resources.

A year ago, SE began to transform into an awesome community where SE keeps the lights on and was not negatively interfering with communities. The core values of the company began to shift and outwardly it seems building strong communities was no longer the focus, making money was. Of course companies have to make money, but it made me uncomfortable contributing to SE if they were going to sacrifice their core principals to make a buck.

Most recently SE has become an awesome community despite the interference of the management. Volunteer moderators and community members are being asked to implement policies that SE thinks are right for us. They are not acting on our feedback or telling us why they are making the decisions they are. They are the boss, they have that right. What they do not have the right to do is act like the boss and then say the community is "built and run by you [users]".

In the 5+ years that I have been a moderator, I have learned so much. I thank you all for working with me. For those that I disappointed with my actions and in-actions, I wish I had more time to show you through my actions that I have taken your criticism to heart and have learned from it. Alas, all I can leave you with is empty words that I am sorry that I was not better.

Answer 1

Thank you for your service!

We will miss you and your contributions as user and moderator. They were always excellent. The site will not be the same without you. All the best!

^{(I could try to write a long essay, but I don't think I could find the right words, so I will stop here.)}

Answer 2

To a significant amount of researchers out there, life in academia is rough, even brutal and toxic. Poor students have their lives, hopes and dreams sucked out of their bodies, for the sake of production, of science, of progress, breaking the shackles of ignorance for the good of mankind. It is a heavy burden, sometimes too heavy.

Wir müssen wissen, wir werden wissen!

Most of the time, at a high price. We get stressed. We get lost. Sometimes, we cry for help in the hopes some blessed soul will lend a hand. It happens, thankfully. But some cries, most of them surely, go unnoticed. Students suffer to reach deadlines, to get papers accepted in conferences and journals, to get a good insight, to come up with innovation, to make a difference. They struggle so hard to not fall apart, to not break into pieces. It is common to hear "Where's the revised version of your paper?" instead "What was the last time you ate? Are you hungry?". We want to harvest knowledge at the expense of the well being of students.

When in despair, where to go, where to find a escape valve?

I do believe one of the answers to this question is this very website. You all bring hope to poor students that are struggling with their academic lives, providing technical advices and guidances without, however, losing the kindness needed to address such themes in a humanized way.

And that is where you, Dr. StrongBad, really shines. :)

We know each other from the TeX community. Sometimes, we have a nice conversation in the chat room. Speaking of which, the vast majority of the chat residents has a doctorate degree. These people are experts in their fields, work in renowed universities. But, when hanging out in there, we never cared about our OrcID profiles, our titles, our h-indices or any of this academic balderdash. We are just a bunch of wacky people having legimitate fun, helping and instructing each other the best we could.

Your work in this community reflects the exact same ideal we all hold dear. You are a superb moderator and you will surely be missed in this community, as well as in the TeX corner. I completely understand the motivations for your resignation, and I share your concerns with the future of SE/SO as well.

Thank you very much for making academic life a better, less frustrating experience for most researchers, scholars, lecturers and students out there! Kudos to you and to all the moderators in this website!

A great hug from the TeX community! Quack! :)

Answer 3

Maybe you'd reconsider. The only way this place can get better is if the people who care enough to contribute stay around and keep at it.

I hope it isn't just general burnout though. For that, a break might be enough.

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Since this is the academia forum, let me add that the administration of universities also do some stupid and terrible things on occasion. But few faculty leave in protest. Many of us have experienced such things, I guess. The situation isn't exactly the same, since giving up volunteer work isn't the same as giving up a job. But, still, it is the ones that stay that have a chance to make a change.

Answer 4

The core values of the company began to shift and outwardly it seems building strong communities was no longer the focus, making money was.

I'm confused about why you think this. The company was definitely founded to make money from the start. The initial focus on community was a step towards that. What is amazing here is that it was such a long-term strategy.

I do not see why you should expect a company to put anything ahead of profits. There are exceptions (social enterprises) but I never saw any signs Stack Exchange was an exception.

Answer 5

I'm adding an answer to point out the last interaction here, in case you missed it; it is now buried in the edit history. On April 2, @Wrzlprmft added the tag status-review to this question, which (after a recent change) is the preferred way to ask for SE staff attention on important posts in metas. One week after, SE employee @JNat silently removed the tag without addressing the issue and without an edit comment.