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TL DR:

The input from meta carries far less sway than it used to. The Stack Overflow Company (I'll refer to as the network) is making the decisions on site changes. We need to adapt to our new limited influence.
OR should I stay or should I go?


So this is less of a discussion, more of a heads up, a pointer to a good chat room and of course another opportunity for people to raise concerns, given this new information.

Background

The active meta community has been very concerned about not being heard. There's been a lack of coordinated communication from the Network about where we stand as a community and what to expect.

I'm hoping to shed some light on this.

I have been lobbying hard for change on the site for - years really, as have many of the active meta users. Why haven't these changes been made? Why are we feeling disenfranchised?

Because the Network has changed how they're doing things. Our site has changed. The meta community has lower stakes in it that we previously had. The thing most of us feared is actually true.

It appears we are a minority and an incredibly small one at that:

there are Millions of users on Stack Overflow whose needs aren't being met because in the past we've spent so much time on Meta which has .015% of Stack Overflow's active users and is not representative of the community as a whole.

In fact this whole chat room, that was created from comments under a meta answer has proven to be valuable for airing community concerns. It doesn't feel rife with the conflict people often complain about within meta comments and perhaps, some of us, are reaching a point of knowledge (facts of what's going on) and acceptance. I'm linking it here for people to go to. In fact it's almost that we've needed this kind of outlet for some time.

What I have found out.

Our meta community no longer makes decisions about the site

The network does. No one person is to blame. It's the facts of the nature of the site changing with growth and becoming an ongoing business concern. The powers that be have taken the Q&A site into hand and are making decisions without us on meta.

This is not necessarily bad, as they're taking feedback from other users who do not participate on meta.

In many ways this is a relief for me. I've been pushing against the system for change and now I realise this is out of my hands. So I know where I stand.

Although it comes as a shock, it's been softened by the fact that we all could see it coming. The main criticism I have of the network over this, is not letting us know. I don't believe this is from any malevolence, it's more from the company reforming, restructuring and finally the Q&A is being given resources. To be fair, I cannot blame the employees for being forced to take directives from their bosses, based on internal company decisions, by people we have never heard of.

It's been a sticky situation and, by the sounds of it, a discoordinated mess.

The positive thing to come out of this. There's some more people working on the Q&A and they are actually pushing changes onto the site. Some that the regular users cannot see, but they are moving towards further change.

What does this mean for us?

Does this mean meta is dead? I hope not. Meta is changing, that's for sure.

It does mean one thing. There's no point in repeatedly lobbying over and over on the same issues. They're been noted and heard and now we need to wait and see what will happen.

I don't know exactly where our site is heading. One thing I do know, it's the keystone to the entire network's success and it is for that reason I feel confident that it will be ok. The network has a vested interest in keeping this site going and striving to maintain quality content. It needs to be set apart from "forums" and needs to put into place the UI and tools to achieve this. This is no easy ask. But you know what? It's no longer my problem. I can take a deep breath and allow the people who work for the organisation to work out how to solve the issues on the site. And that is what they are doing.

We know that the vast majority of meta users are not happy with this (I wasn't), but it's something we have no control or choice over. So for me it was a matter of asking myself, "can I live with that?" Yes, I can. It's an individual choice.

How can we adapt to this as a meta community?

Please feel free to raise concerns, bearing in mind this is how it is now.

Note: by network I mean the Stack Overflow company

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    Interesting conversation moved to chat.
    – user3956566
    Jul 27 '19 at 2:46
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    As a StackOverflow user who has not participated in the Meta, I'd probably say the reason why I haven't is because of a fear that what I say or ask would be 'inappropriate' or 'not what meta is for', or something to that effect. It feels like there's a large barrier to entry for Meta. Jul 28 '19 at 16:56
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    @starbeamrainbowlabs stock overflow meta is like walking into the lion's den. It's an accustomed site and a hard community to crack if you don't get it just right. Your point is totally understandable and the company knows this and they're trying to change it. Unfortunately a lot of the meta community feels let down, so they're emotional, which compounds everything.
    – user3956566
    Jul 28 '19 at 20:05
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    To me, this all sounds like Meta is now used for these 3 things : exceptional cases on the main site, Bug fixes, and tags matter. Asking for a new feature (this means using feature-request tag on meta) should not even be... a feature on Meta. And why not just remove it then ? I think this is just normal evolution of a big web site Jul 29 '19 at 18:39
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    Yvette, while It is unclear how the number 0.015% was calculated, there are many users (like myself) who used to be Meta-lurkers solely through Hot Meta Posts. I used to be at 30% for the yearly vote rates on Stack Overflow until just a couple months ago, so I'd like to think that I'm an example of the non-meta user. My feeling is that especially non-meta users would like to see Hot Meta Posts come back (or be emulated in a fresh new way). Jul 31 '19 at 15:33
  • 4
    This is not really a Q & A no, is it not rather a blog post? What kind of answer are you expecting to get? :)
    – Icepickle
    Aug 1 '19 at 18:27
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    @Icepickle it's a topical discussion in form of a Q&A. Answers are probably thoughtful discussion contributions. Comments are more casual.
    – Trilarion
    Aug 1 '19 at 20:27
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    stock overflow meta ... a subconscious typo?
    – rene
    Aug 2 '19 at 19:29
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    @GiantCowFilms would you believe I asked almost the same question in our moderator chatroom 30 minutes ago?
    – user3956566
    Aug 6 '19 at 3:42
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    @hek2mgl Do you think the only kind of involvement one can have in the site is answering and asking? Do you know how many time consuming and less then glamorous tasks of moderation, curation and peacekeeping the moderators have to take up?
    – Magisch
    Aug 6 '19 at 14:10
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    @Hek2mgl In that comment, you said Meta users should have Meta closed so that they can be happy because their contributions have no value, less useful than even politics. That's the epitome of not constructive content and it flies in the face of the many people who spend time on Meta, inviting conflict. So yes, it was exactly as I characterized it, as well as your more recent comment. Your snipe at Yvette saying she doesn't help SO at all was in fact rude. You have now said explicitly that you don't want other opinions on the matter, which proves your comment never was constructive.
    – Davy M
    Aug 6 '19 at 14:32
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    @hek2mgl it's not about meta. SO Mods have to handle 2500-3000 flags daily on the main site, it'd be good if they can find a time to look for an interesting question, do enough research, and write a quality answer. If they stop handling the flags, then who will?
    – Andrew T.
    Aug 6 '19 at 14:39
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    @hek2mgl yes I am and I've handled 70,000 flags on the main site
    – user3956566
    Aug 6 '19 at 14:43
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    @hek2mgl That a user is active or inactive on the main site has nothing to do with the validity of their statements or arguments. Your so-called authority from your "tons more experience here" similarly have no bearing on the validity of your, or the other side's arguments. If you can't refute a person's argument, telling them that they aren't active enough or have enough experience to argue with you is really bad form. Aug 6 '19 at 14:45
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    @hek2mgl no, they're not paid and better not to be paid (monetary reward will make anything worse), mods are volunteers (self-nominating and voted by the community). Yes, all per-site meta mods are also main mods (by design). Yes, some of us who loudly discuss here tend to be low-rep because we prefer not to answer low-quality/duplicate questions that shouldn't be answered in the first place. However, believe me, most of us are professionals.
    – Andrew T.
    Aug 6 '19 at 14:50

13 Answers 13

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The implications are simple: it's time for us to cut our losses and move on.

Meta has essentially just been downgraded from "mostly irrelevant" to "completely irrelevant". There is nothing more that anyone who cares about Stack Overflow - the original concept of a high-quality, highly-curated repository of Q&A - can do to get problems made visible and hence actioned. I've already been in a chat where the moderators are discussing making Meta a more civil place by enforcing better behaviour - as if censorship will somehow magically make this place relevant again.

Jeff Atwood's dream is dead. Our dream is dead. It was not a natural death, but a drawn-out starvation and deprivation, possibly the most cynical way to kill something. And it was intentionally architected by those left behind when Jeff walked away 7 years ago.

It's time for us to come to the same conclusions he came to, accept the same facts he had to, and make the same choice that he ultimately did. Just as Meta is toxic for Stack Overflow employees, so it is toxic for those of us who have put something of ourselves into this site.

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    Thanks Ian. I can't leave. Not yet anyway. I want to see what happens. tbh I do feel sad. It feels like it's been a huge 24 hours. It's been such a struggle on here. Lobbying to get things done. At least we know.
    – user3956566
    Jul 25 '19 at 15:45
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    I don't believe the BS about Jeff leaving on his own, even if he said it. For heavens sakes, he went to work right after...I believe and have always believed he was forced out for these reasons.
    – JonH
    Jul 25 '19 at 18:17
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    y'know the what greatest irony is though? They're trying to make the site more bearable for new users by making it less bearable for the old folks.
    – Script47
    Jul 25 '19 at 19:00
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    "Meta is toxic for Stack Overflow employees" Let's assume that's a true statement, just for the sake of discussion. The question to ask would be why? I don't think things happen in a vacuum and/or without a cause or reason. If there's any "toxicity" (whatever that means), then that's an effect that must've been caused by something else. Most people spend their time fighting branches/symptoms instead of trying to identify and go for the root of the problem(s).
    – code_dredd
    Jul 25 '19 at 23:26
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    @JonH: Some of the real reasons (quite different from the stated reason in 2012) have been alluded to over the years in interviews (podcasts) and public presentations (posted on YouTube) by Jeff Atwood himself, but none of what you mentioned (that does not rule out that it could be the case, of course). But I find it strange that Joel Spolsky would mock Jeff Atwood's code in public (on more than one occasion)). Jul 26 '19 at 0:55
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    Can you articulate what "Jeff Atwood's dream" was, and how it differs from where SO is and where it is going? Jul 26 '19 at 2:38
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    @SteveBennett blog.codinghorror.com/… "Stack Overflow is, as much as I could make it, an effort of collective programmer community." "... the confluence of wiki, discussion, blog, and reddit/digg ranking systems -- is a fair representation of our original vision for Stack Overflow"
    – Ian Kemp
    Jul 26 '19 at 7:45
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    @SteveBennett blog.codinghorror.com/… "The most common complaints I see about Stack Overflow are usually the result of this fundamental misunderstanding about who the questions and answers on the site are ultimately for, and why there's so much strictness involved in the whole process." "Stack Overflow is designed for practicing programmers... Q&A for professional and enthusiast programmers"
    – Ian Kemp
    Jul 26 '19 at 7:48
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    @IanKemp That is a nice dream and worth striving for. I don't really see how its death has been "intentionally architected" as opposed to the community not being able to scale to its current size, though. (even though it did scale far beyond many previous implementations of that dream.) Jul 26 '19 at 7:49
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    @Discretelizard the change in target audience from professional and enthusiast programmers (or "practicing programmers" as in the quote by Jeff) to literally everybody who can write some semblance of english and needs help with a problem that has at least a tangential relation to programming is very much a concious decision by SE, and the biggest issue I have with the company. I want a knowledge repository, not a help site, which means people who ask about basic debugging issues such as an NPE in Java should get turned away (politely, of course) instead of being coddled.
    – l4mpi
    Jul 26 '19 at 14:42
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    @l4mpi To me, it seems Jeff's dream about a collective programmer community was about more than just a knowledge repository. Namely, the community part. Still, I think I get your point. While it is important that new users feel encouraged to constructively participate in the site, if our goal is Jeff's dream, this is but a means to the end. But SE seems to be treating it as an end on its own. In particular, the "constructive" bit is the main point for Jeff's dream, while indeed the focus of the company lately has mostly been on the "participate" part. Jul 26 '19 at 16:12
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    @code_dredd I mean, we have to be honest with ourselves. Even though I agree with most of meta's complaints, things have been getting fairly ridiculous lately in terms of holier-than-thou, preachy essays that go around spelling doom and gloom for everyone and everything. I can see why, people have invested years and (tens of) thousands of hours into SO, but when you're writing multiple pages of what is essentially dumping on SO, you have to see why the employees feel bad about it.
    – mbrig
    Jul 26 '19 at 17:31
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    @mbrig Again, that it'd be an effect whose cause likely lies elsewhere, i.e. the observed problem(s) is/are symptoms signaling deeper, and likely less visible, causes. "you have to see why the employees feel bad about it" And do they see why we feel the way we do at all? Feelings are too subjective to be considered a reliable "guide" to anything anyway and so should carry less weight (not none; just less). Being feelings-driven is the antithesis of SO's purpose. SO exists for Q&A on technical topics, not group therapy; it often seems the company wants more of the latter..
    – code_dredd
    Jul 26 '19 at 19:25
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    @BrianKnoblauch I strongly disagree with your second claim: Stack Overflow was doing quite fine while it was flying under the radar. It was adding users, it was adding questions and answers, and most importantly: those users were asking questions that couldn't be answered by 5 minutes of Googling or having the most fundamental debugging skills, which meant answers to those questions tended to come from people who were foremost in their field (in the C# section, Jon Skeet and Eric Lippert to name only two) and those answers tended to be extremely good. (contd)
    – Ian Kemp
    Jul 31 '19 at 8:22
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    @BrianKnoblauch (contd) Nowadays, the sheer plethora of crap that anyone has to wade through means that good, difficult questions are extremely difficult to find. Good answerers don't bother digging through mountains of sand to find those pearls, because ain't nobody got time for that. The end result is a chilling effect because people with good questions aren't going to bother asking them here because they know said questions won't get the attention they need! End result, the good questioners and answerers go elsewhere, and everyone loses as a result.
    – Ian Kemp
    Jul 31 '19 at 8:28
123

Thank you to @Yvette for catalyzing this discussion and thank you everyone who’s put together thoughtful responses. I’d like to share with you my perspective on this question.

I’m Meg Risdal, the new Product Manager for the Community Team. 👋

First, since this is my Meta debut, I figure I should say a few words about myself. I came to Stack Overflow specifically in order to work on public Q&A. I’m passionate about open access to high quality knowledge that helps developers successfully learn and do their jobs. I come to Stack Overflow from Kaggle, a Google company and online data science community, so I appreciate how special it is to be able to learn and work so closely with users in developing products.

In the months since I’ve joined the company, we have a renewed focus on public Q&A which I’m personally thrilled about, of course. As you’ve read in Sara’s blog post from last week, our attention is turned toward ways in which we can improve the system itself in order to reduce friction for all users. Her message resonates deeply with me and I’m excited to work with an incredible team.

The thing I care about most for my team is focus and delivery. Recently, we’ve shipped the new tag synonyms dashboard, a redesign of the mod flags dashboard, and Custom Filters. And now, over the coming months, we will be focused on a small number of new initiatives to deliver results. It’s imperative that we demonstrate action and an ability to succeed when we focus our efforts. This will get a flywheel moving both in terms of execution as well as paving the way for continued resource investments.

Where we are today is that we have a huge history of feedback shared by folks on Meta (thank you!), and we have an absolute treasure trove of knowledge on our CM team as well as among our seasoned team members. Plus, more and more we’re supplementing these inputs with quantitative and qualitative research. As a Product Manager, I’ve never been so fortunate to have so many rich inputs and I take advantage of it every day. In fact, just before drafting this answer I got off a couple of video calls with moderators to learn more about their workflows and pain points.

In light of this, when it comes to how we can work together, what I can do is give you insight into how our product development process is evolving on the Community Team. Our approach will be to:

  • Release changes (informed by research, pre-existing Meta feedback, and lots of input from our CMs and other experts on the team)
  • Listen to feedback and data to help us iterate quickly

For example, we’re working right now on holistically improving post notices so that they better deliver feedback to post authors, don’t put moderators on the spot, and make them more actionable/understandable for the vast majority of our users who are just viewing posts. Will we get some things wrong? Yes. Even though we’re putting our best efforts into this, I think we can count on it. But when we introduce the changes I can also promise that we will be listening to you. Taking this approach will get us to something better for everyone, faster.

Our CM team will play an important role here in acting as a liaison between the Community product team and Meta. Because we want to be focused, deliver results, and ensure your input is considered alongside our other inputs, we’re looking at ways to make sure the feedback loop is scalable. We’ll be looking at ways do things like regularly aggregate your feedback into themes. To do this, one tool we’re using more frequently (which I’ve seen Shog mention on Meta) is Friction Logs. Some thoughts on ways your feedback can be actionable:

  • Describe how you use features/functionality to accomplish specific goals and what pain points you experience.
  • If there are things you genuinely find delightful, let us know that too. Not because I need the compliments, but because I’m interested in an accurate representation of your experience.
  • Use your expertise in the system to help us understand how changes impact not just your own workflows, but those of other types of users.

None of this is to assert that you’re not already providing feedback in this way. Instead, I want to put emphasis on what kind of feedback is especially useful to us. I’m glad to be part of this community with you all! Like I said, I consider myself fortunate to have access to such a diverse set of resources in order to do my job, including Meta. Thank you again for starting this conversation about how we can work together. ✌️☮️

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    I donno about all these emojis, but... Since you got that big wavy New Contributor banner, I'll cut you some slack - thanks for the detailed write-up!
    – Shog9
    Jul 26 '19 at 0:04
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    Here's an ASCII <3 for you @Shog9. A pleasure working with you.
    – Meg Risdal
    Jul 26 '19 at 0:05
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    Thank you for replying. I'm hopeful that our site can improve. Honestly I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t. I also want to thank you and your crew for the hidden moderator support. We need it and feel heard and supported. Well at least I do. I’m excited about the latest additions to the CM team. I encourage people to sit back and observe to see if they like how things unfold.
    – user3956566
    Jul 26 '19 at 0:10
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    @Shog those emojis and love hearts in chat. The things we have to put up with.
    – user3956566
    Jul 26 '19 at 0:11
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    Thanks for this. Finally! "Master's degrees in Linguistics" That, together with machine learning, sounds promising. Can we now get a feature that automatically capitalises "i" on main and gets "Stack Overflow" right on meta? (Search for "S.O") Or at least semiautomatically. Jul 26 '19 at 3:48
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    I need to get up to date on what emojis look like now, I thought that first one 👋 was a hand with Frankenstein's Monster's Neck Bolts sticking out of it.
    – Davy M
    Jul 26 '19 at 4:46
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    Thanks for engaging in this discussion Megan, it's great to hear that you and the community team are listening, and that Meta may still play a part in this site's future. In your post, you mentioned that your product development cycle will consist of releasing a change, followed by iterative changes based on community feedback. One thing that I was hoping you may be willing to consider is consulting the community before changes are made, in addition to after it is implemented. Even if it's a change in company direction and they aren't willing to change, the Meta folks tend to appreciate Jul 26 '19 at 9:49
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    (...) it when you provide some advanced notice and let them be part of the process moving forward. I'm sure we can all think of at least one recent change that wasn't communicated in advance as well as it could have been (and that's OK - mistakes happen!), and the community understandably felt betrayed and excluded by the sudden move. However, I'm sure that with advance notice and time for feedback, people are more likely to recognise that changes need to be made and will respond more positively to the final outcome. Jul 26 '19 at 9:49
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    (...) And best of all, the additional feedback will mean that stuff can be done the right way the first time around - so that less iteration is required, and the saved time can be spent on implementing even more fantastic features! Anyway, that's just my $0.02, I hope you find it helpful. Thanks again! Jul 26 '19 at 9:50
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    This is an encouraging and useful post, and thank you for be willing to wade into this middle of this situation to introduce yourself.
    – Jeremy
    Jul 26 '19 at 16:11
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    @angussidney, I beg to differ. In the very small number of days which Megan has been here, her idea of releasing a change first and then iterating based on feedback has worked pretty well. The flag dashboard for moderators when it was released was abysmal. After successive rounds of feedback (alpha, beta, pre-release, post-release), it has been improved a lot, and perhaps the words "a lot" doesn't do much justice to the improvements done, as well as the work that both Megan and Brian have done. Similarly the tag synonym dashboard was released first and then significantly improved because ... Jul 27 '19 at 3:08
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    ... Adam and Megan took special interest in the community feedback. Finally we all know that CQL was practically unusable when first launched, and now it has kinda been one of the top features of SO in the recent past. The problem with that recent change which you mention is that the higher ups did not listen to feedback, but instead asked us to move along. OTOH, The Q&A devs along with the PM, are going the extra mile to get the feedback on their releases. Jul 27 '19 at 3:09
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    That was my fault, @Trilarion - Meg suggested the change based on her experience and observations, and I went along based on my past experience without doing the research that would've highlighted just how broadly-used the term had become over the past five years; like a doting mother, I overlooked the fact that our little baby had grown up and left the nest. That was careless of me - but it ended well, with several folks here suggesting changes that were better than anything we'd thought of internally. As Mad suggests in his answer, this is the true value of meta: well-supported arguments.
    – Shog9
    Jul 28 '19 at 15:44
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    (...) We do read the Meta posts and decide when/how to respond, but I'll be honest--for things we're not looking for more debate on, this takes a lot of time I would rather spend on our priorities. I'm trying my hand at some Meta-style bluntness. I understand this isn't probably what you wanted to hear, but it's an honest answer of where we're at today. A lot is changing about how we're working and we will do a lot of reflection along the way. Thank you again for your question.
    – Meg Risdal
    Jul 29 '19 at 15:51
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    @MeganRisdal ... Meta is pedantic in this way because Meta wants to avoid being blindsided by sudden site direction changes (the majority of fears being traced back to the "be welcoming" campaign). Meta often reads into what SO team members say more than necessary because of the lack of transparent premeditation in SO company decision making. Meta picks apart any employee response for any hint of such changes, and pushes back hard. Outside of meta, I wouldn't have taken anything you said to be out of the ordinary. The more transparency/positive change, the less this will be an issue.
    – Krupip
    Jul 29 '19 at 20:28
94

Meta has always been just a tiny fraction of the entire community, and it was never representative of the wider userbase for SO and the network sites. It was always dangerous to assume that the voting and sentiment expressed on meta represents the views of the entire community.

Meta was always more about making arguments to me. If I can make a convincing argument on why a specific aspect of the site or software should be changed, that has value entirely on its own. It doesn't matter how many people agree or disagree, the argument itself matters. Ideally an SE employee or several see the argument and either are convinced by it and bring it up internally, or at least it influences their view on certain things.

We never set the priorities, or directly made any decision about what SE works on, and how it changes the software. We certainly had an influence in many individual decisions, but in the end SE decides based on their own requirements and targets.

What changed is that it seems to be harder now to affect the decisions made by SE, the distance between the meta community and the company feels much larger now. This is quite subjective, so I'm not sure how much of this is simply a different perception.

But by far the biggest and most destructive change recently is that many SE employees now dread facing meta at all. This fundamentally breaks Meta as a way for the community and SE to communicate. With the reception many meta posts by employees have received, I really can't blame them for avoiding meta entirely. I also blame SE for making too many bad and unpopular decisions recently, which triggered this kind of negative reactions. But the meta response is often disproportionately hostile and too often gets far too personal instead of staying focused on the actual issue.

If Meta stays a place that employees dread and actively avoid, it can't fulfill one of its main purposes which is the communication between the community and SE. It is still useful for support requests and internal discussions within the community, but feedback and dialog with SE gets much harder, if not impossible.

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    Great answer. Yes it's been a problematic few years and now the CMs and meta community are all suffering. It's vital to adjust our expectations as a community. I showed this question to a CM before posting to make sure I wasn't saying anything out of line. It's a big change for a lot of people.
    – user3956566
    Jul 25 '19 at 11:07
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    I'm just a regular Stack Overflow user and I've always dreaded any interaction with meta. Until recently, I've gone out of my way to avoid meta. And when I did finally decide to interact with meta, the experience was as unpleasant as I feared it would be. I'm reluctant to post this comment because of the negative reaction I expect. But I think it's time the "community" heard from the folks who avoid meta. Jul 25 '19 at 13:38
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    @DavidCullen As I've mentioned in chat; that's our fault as moderators. Way back in the day (think 2013), I tried to moderate comments on Meta the same way I would have Stack Overflow and I was smacked down (as a moderator) by other moderators because Meta is supposed to be looser. Incidentally, what none of us realized is that the unchecked commenting and piling on contributes to the non-constructiveness that was present in the responses to changes on the SE network. If we (and I) had moderated Meta like we should have, I'm sure it wouldn't have gotten this bad. Jul 25 '19 at 14:05
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    @DavidCullen could you elaborate? From a glance at your meta posts I saw that most of your posts have been downvoted... but as on the main site, downvoting is an indication of usefulness of the post and not some form of aggression towards you personally. On meta it additionally signals agreement or disagreement with a post. Maybe there were some deleted posts or comments which I can't see, but otherwise I don't see anything other than your post score which would point towards an unpleasant experience.
    – l4mpi
    Jul 25 '19 at 14:54
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    @l4mpi After I wrote that comment, I expected to be asked to justify it. If I could pick only one word to describe meta, it would be hostile. Almost every time I looked at meta over the years, I thought the same thing: This is how people wind up arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Meta seems to attract people who like to argue about opinions. I have a relative who likes to argue opinions. He can turn any conversation into an argument. I avoid talking to this relative because I don't like arguing. Maybe I'm bad at arguing. That doesn't make my opinions less valid. Jul 25 '19 at 19:38
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    @l4mpi Any experience with meta will be unpleasant for me because it is essentially about arguing over opinions, which is something that has been unpleasant for me since I was a child. I have avoided such arguments since I was young and will avoid such arguments until I die. Being asked to justify an opinion is tiring for me. As I said, maybe I'm bad at it. That doesn't make my opinions less valid. However, the environment on meta seems to invalidate that stance. Random strangers vote on my opinions and my defense of them. If we removed the voting from meta, how many would still participate? Jul 25 '19 at 19:45
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    Thanks for being willing to share, @DavidCullen . It's nice when people are able to put their experience into words in a clear and honest way.
    – Catija StaffMod
    Jul 26 '19 at 0:03
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    @DavidCullen Although I am more familiar with Meta Stack Exchange than this meta here, I agree with your impression of "meta" as hostile. But I'm afraid (only) removing votes completely will not help: voting solves the problem that everyone has to make a comment to give their opinion and removing voting means that another (technical or social) solution to that problem is nessecary. Some change in the system is probably nessecary to improve this situation. But figuring out what is a hard problem, although this of course is also something those on meta have many ideas for (and argue about...). Jul 26 '19 at 6:35
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    @DavidCullen That said, this does not mean that I wish to 'attack' your impression, although it may be interpreted as such. It is very hard to avoid the impression of hostility when you are giving criticism over text and pretty much impossible to measure in an isolated fashion, even if this criticism to me is more intended as an expansion of your ideas than an attack. (Incidentally, I think this a reason why letters where so polite back in the old days. Perhaps things would be better if people treated comments more like letters than, like, well, "(youtube) comments") Jul 26 '19 at 7:31
  • 1
    "Meta has always been just a tiny fraction of the entire community, and it was never representative of the wider userbase for SO and the network sites" incidentally, meta is the most representative group of the main contributors to the site. If you compare the group of users by answer count vs participation in meta.
    – Braiam
    Aug 2 '19 at 19:22
80

No one likes waiting for glaciers to calve, but that's mostly what we've been relegated to. Basically, what efforts we know are large and complex - like fixing search - are glaciers we're waiting to calve into something smaller and less complex. Those waits are long and can be at times painful, and in the meantime we get features or fixes which aren't...even remotely related to the glacier we're stood on.

In essence, the situation is fairly straightforward - the site can't be led by just the community anymore, and just the opinion of a small group of people on the site can't be the only thing taken into account. This is likely why we've seen more initiatives which target, well, not the Meta crowd.

The site is listening to other perspectives, which don't just mean ours.

But I suppose we should've been sobered up to this notion of us not being in charge anymore. A lot has changed for the site, the company and the network in the last five years. A lot of things have to be improved - for everyone involved - and that isn't going to happen from feedback existing in a silo.

My priorities for the site aren't going to align with the priorities that the company has for the site, and I have two very clear choices - either live with it or move on.

At this point, I'm not sure which would be better for me. I've sunk in a lot of time into this and I feel like I'm slipping into some kinda fallacy here. The only real thing I can do at this point is simply accept that where we were years ago is not where we are now and isn't where we have to go in the next five years in order for there to be a next five years.

I just have to decide if I want to be a part of that effort, as does everyone.

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    exactly, it's been a difficult things for us to come to grips with. Although the site had its faults, it has changed over the years and it's the end of an era and it's natural for us to grieve that. Thoughtful words. Thank you
    – user3956566
    Jul 25 '19 at 5:57
  • 14
    I may have to work this into answer, but for the moment: "In essence, the situation is fairly straightforward - the site can't be led by just the community anymore, and just the opinion of a small group of people on the site can't be the only thing taken into account." I think the thing that strikes me here is that I've never seen SO as run purely by the community. I have always viewed SO, the company, as the final arbiter of policy. The problem is not that I feel powerless, but that these events continue to shatter any remaining trust in SO's leadership that I can muster.
    – jpmc26
    Jul 25 '19 at 6:09
  • 25
    Mm...I'm not sure there was ever really any "trust". It was always manifest as patience, at least for me. Being patient with the fact that development is slow, research takes time, development efforts need to be spun up, etc etc...and normally that patience would be rewarded by the showcasing of new features that had been waited on. However, I really do feel like the angst/lack of trust is just manifest as a lack of patience now. The features that have been asked for aren't being put out, and patience isn't being rewarded, hence the animosity. At least, that's how I'm seeing it...
    – Makoto
    Jul 25 '19 at 6:19
  • 3
    @Makoto I would suggest that rather your trust was manifesting as patience. It takes trust to weather something difficult while you wait for someone else to act. You have to believe that they're going to come through eventually, or you won't be willing to go through the hardship. Your loss of patience is a manifestation of your loss of trust.
    – jpmc26
    Jul 25 '19 at 6:26
  • 9
    Trust is more than just, "I believe what you're saying is factually true." It's, "I believe you so strongly I will act according to what you say and promise."
    – jpmc26
    Jul 25 '19 at 6:32
  • 2
    The site has never been led by just the community. And to be fair, I'm glad about that, certainly because I appreciate SO as a company much more than its community.
    – GOTO 0
    Jul 25 '19 at 8:00
  • 5
    The complexity of tasks or needed efforts can’t be the reasons for missing features. We had a new site navigation in beta test and it worked well, I used it for months. Then, the decision was made to drop it in favor of some mystical even newer thing which probably only existed in the minds of some decision makers. So the entire effort spent to the new navigation was wasted. Apparently, Stackoverflow can afford wasting development resources that way.
    – Holger
    Jul 25 '19 at 8:05
  • 2
    I'm still hoping things will change, but so far, there's only been negative chances. If meta doesn't have as much to say, this site is no longer community-driven.
    – Zoe Mod
    Jul 25 '19 at 10:49
  • 1
    @Zoe exactly, they are listening to us, but ultimately with no where as much weight as they used to
    – user3956566
    Jul 25 '19 at 11:08
  • 8
    There's fallacious thinking that can lead us to perceive that a period of time has passed or is passing, like "When Stack Overflow was good," when at least some of that perception comes from our relationship with it. For example, participation might have been more satisfying in the past and now we're over it. What seemed like fun now feels like unrewarding work. But we perceive that it has changed, not that we have. Even if it has changed, we view changes through that lens. That perception isn't everything, but we should all take it into account. Jul 25 '19 at 16:07
  • 1
    @ScottHannen I'm not harkening back to a "better" time; I'm only saying that there was a different time a long time ago, and the direction we seem to be headed in now is different that what I would've thought so long ago.
    – Makoto
    Jul 27 '19 at 15:10
  • Meta was never "in charge". There was just more connection between the actual team working on the site and the community before, but they still did all the work and made all the decisions.
    – Travis J
    Aug 1 '19 at 17:58
63

If we don't have a voice, can we at least make some decisions then?

  • If we agree that SO doesn't listen, then don't talk about issues on meta, and leave meta to only moderation and questions.

  • if a curation/moderation problem is too hard to deal with right now without extra tools, don't deal with it. Either it isn't a big deal, or it is, and SO's hand will be forced due to curation issues. Don't complain on meta, and don't try to fix it with tooth picks when you need a hammer. Just leave hard curation problems alone

  • along the same lines, limit the scope of the kind of curation we are willing to do. Do what is easy and stressfree, not what should be possible with future tooling.

Despite SO clearly being out of touch, people still try way too hard to use their broken toothpicks to fix the problems with the site. We know they don't listen, so quit trying to fix these issues. You are not free labor, so stop acting like it.

This post was the final straw, and the past 24 hours finally gave us an exact insight into the mind of management at SO, and how precisely they view their interactions with us. We have definitive evidence that many SO employees don't themselves understand how to treat downvotes, and disagreement when faced with Meta.

First:

About three months in, on a Friday afternoon, we introduced a new company-wide policy that I felt was relatively benign. What happened next was that, from my point of view, the engineering team completely lost it. No one agreed with this policy, and they made it known over seemingly hundreds of Slack pings. After an afternoon of going back and forth, I walked away feeling emotionally drained. What had happened to my amazing coworkers that were so kind and wonderful? I felt attacked and diminished. It seemed people weren’t valuing my work or my judgment.

I went home for the weekend and stewed in my frustration. I replayed everything that happened in my head and each time got more frustrated with the way people reacted. When Sunday rolled around, I decided I wanted to look back at our Slack conversations and see which one of my coworkers was being the rudest and the most unreasonable. I wanted to give them direct feedback that they had hurt my feelings.

As I went back through that Friday afternoon chat log, I was shocked to see that no one had been hurling insults. There was no one saying mean things about me or attacking my efficacy directly. In fact, what I found was that people had some well put together arguments about why they felt this policy was a bad idea. The entire engineering department definitely made their criticisms known, but I didn’t find people questioning my ability as a manager, throwing around insults, or saying anything that that illustrated why I was feeling so targeted.

Except in our world, meta was not given the same attention to personal introspection and reflection of events. After all, they don't have to work with Meta. They aren't actually employees of SO. They were not forced to interact with them the next day, so what is actually a personal problem remains our problem. All of this because of the perceived negativity, likely the same source talked about in that article, mass disagreement and negative visual signals.

Second:

I’d like to add some context to the “why” we are doing it. Tim, kindly, wanted to shield me from ire, however, in taking this job I signed up for this. I'd like to come here, own my decision, and deliver this feedback.

Stack Overflow Employees have panic attacks and nightmares when they know they will need to post something to Meta. They are real human beings that are affected by the way people speak to them. This is outside of the CM team, who have been heroes and who I constantly see abused here.

I can’t, with good conscience, force anyone to participate in a venue that causes that type of psychological damage at work. The CMs feel this is something that can be remedied, and I believe them. However, until then, I can’t sleep at night knowing that we are forcing people to participate here as part of their jobs.

We're removing Hot on Meta as I don't want to send new people to a place where people have these experiences. Full stop.

Now doesn't that seem familiar? A feeling like they were personally attacked, when in reality, it was mere disagreement, but from many people?

I won't act like I wouldn't feel the same way, but it is just funny to me that this particular individual couldn't see the irony between these two posts. And I doubt any of us could get through to them, and from this point forward, I doubt Meta will ever have an effect on any kind of decision making process on Stack Overflow. As soon as responses get less positive, I presume people who take downvotes and disagreement to policy personally would inevitably end up disliking going on meta. I completely understand, but it is still frustrating that mere participation on meta is what got these people afraid of it.

If you feel frustrated with curating, stop curating. SO can ignore tooling all they want until people stop supporting the current system. Stop engaging if engaging frustrates you. We need, as a community, to put the brakes on trying so hard. Why should thousands of individuals suffer for free at this point? If the system is really that broken prove it!.

7
  • 1
    What I'm afraid off is that if we totally drop the ball, could it be recovered after in case SO changes their minds ? I fear the damage would not be salvageable after a point :/
    – Tensibai
    Jul 26 '19 at 12:17
  • 5
    I don't see any "irony between these two posts". The first was discussing how even if it's not intended, the way feedback is given can overwhelm somebody; the key insight was a personal epiphany about not taking criticism badly, it was a mission to make feedback more constructive. The second is saying "the feedback on here overwhelms people, and we need to work out how to fix that"; it's exactly the same message! It doesn't matter whether people are "right" to feel overwhelmed; they do, and that's horrible, and it's absolutely right to say it needs fixing.
    – IMSoP
    Jul 26 '19 at 16:20
  • 32
    @IMSoP The irony, is that in the first they realize that they weren't actually being insulted, and that it was just a bunch of criticism. In the second, they took the negative feedback on meta the same way (as insults, ie "abuse", not constructive arguments), despite the situation being analogous. Its not about everything being fine, its about realizing that people aren't the problem. This individual blames meta itself in the second quote, but doesn't blame her coworkers in the end in the first.
    – Krupip
    Jul 26 '19 at 17:15
  • 6
    @opa I think both posts blame the circumstances not the people. She doesn't blame her co-workers, but she doesn't blame herself either; and "meta" is a website not a person, so "blaming meta itself" is not saying that people are the problem. What both posts do is acknowledge that the problem is real, and shouldn't simply be ignored. If anything, it's your reaction that's ironic: you apparently feel personally attacked by the second post, and lay the blame for that on its author, not on the circumstances.
    – IMSoP
    Jul 27 '19 at 12:18
  • @IMSoP I'm probably nitpicking but when I read "affected by the way people speak to them" I read blaming on people of meta.
    – Tensibai
    Jul 29 '19 at 15:17
  • @Tensibai That's a reasonable point, there is perhaps some implication of blame there. But it's not explicit, and what is explicit is that it is a problem to tackle, not just a situation to accept: "The CMs feel this is something that can be remedied, and I believe them." So I still think this post, in throwing the blame for "not understanding" back at SO employees, and talking about "getting through to them", and lamenting that the situation is irreversible, is at the very least repeating the very mistakes it is complaining about.
    – IMSoP
    Jul 29 '19 at 15:51
  • @IMSoP after the previous fuss on answer deletion I wrote an answer, what I was eluding there has been acted on and I regained a bit a faith, this removal and this specific sentence had break all this sadly. I really can't understand the reasoning to do it at this time when things were settling down, I try to resist thinking that's voluntarily but it gets harder each week and I can't anymore assume good faith and coincidence. That's on me, I'm probably too old and too ingrained to see the merits and should just take a step back and see how it moves.
    – Tensibai
    Jul 29 '19 at 16:46
42

I agree with @Ian Kemp's answer.

This site, once a repository of Q&As for future viewers to come and find their solutions has turned (or will turn) into a repository of "troubleshoot my code" questions. Don't get me wrong, sites like that are useful for beginners or any programmer who is seriously struggling, but SO was never a "give-me-help" website. There are sites like Quora or a coder who you know for that.

Sure, most of the 99.85% want to completely change SO into a "give-me-help" website, but is that really going to make the site better, or would it dissolve into Yahoo Answers? That's why us 0.15% of users are on meta, actively showing our disapproval for this change in ideology.

If you want to go with the new users but defy the original idea for SO and your veteran users, so be it. We can't stop you, but everyone who wants a repository of Q&As for future users will almost definitely leave or reduce their activity, and SO will devolve into Yahoo Answers.

This is not what was intended for SO to become.

3
  • 7
    Quora has moved in the direction of Yahoo Answers by removing the question details (a few years ago). There is only a single line for the question and it is quite limited in length (thus not suited for questions with actual code, like debugging questions). It is actually quite good for conceptional questions, but hardly anything else. There are the usual questions about Vim vs. Emacs and programming language comparisons, of course. Jul 26 '19 at 1:11
  • @PeterMortensen I meant sites like Quora
    – MilkyWay90
    Jul 26 '19 at 2:43
  • Quita like could be Reddit for example. They even have downvotes.
    – Trilarion
    Jul 28 '19 at 6:42
33

So in summary, meta is useful for mundane "was my question closed inappropriately" type questions where site users may have a disagreement with or question about a site moderation action, but that's about it, that it has essentially no say in site structure, features, and goals. If this is correct then this puts site moderators in an extremely stressful position as they continue to have high levels of accountability but without authority, and this will naturally leading to frustration and eventually bitterness.

Thoughts and Questions:

  • Is my summary statement a correct one?
  • Is there a "lead moderator", perhaps one elected by the other moderators, one to represent the "voice" of the moderators to the "Network"?
  • If meta has little ability and power to make site changes, should these types of questions be disallowed?
  • And if the site's goals have shifted mostly to profit, despite this is being done at the expense of the moderator's and meta-involved user's own personal sense of ownership and emotional well-being, then should site moderators be paid, since they are now saddled with all the down-sides of being an employee without the benefits?
  • While we, the concerned citizenry of Meta Stack Overflow, cannot create an effective strike, I do wonder if the site moderators would be able to do so since their participation is much more critical for allowing for smooth site functioning. I am guessing that they have already considered and discussed this but have declined this option for now.
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  • 8
    1. We don't have a lead moderator. We actually discussed this yesterday. Some mods prefer doing certain moderation tasks over others. Most of us are abreast of what happens on meta and then you'll see the regulars who participate here, myself being active. In terms of this post, I showed Shog in the mod room before posting it. 2. I'm not sure what shape meta will take. This is new to me also and everyone else. I certainly think our role here is something that is long overdue needing discussion. It explains a lot. 3. Too sad :'(
    – user3956566
    Jul 25 '19 at 15:42
  • 4
    I definitely agree with the point you made about accountability without authority. I don't think people will continue to spend lots of time answering questions and moderating if they feel that they are being ignored.
    – user545424
    Jul 25 '19 at 16:13
  • @user545424: partially not true. Most that answer questions are not actively involved in moderation, and so these changes will affect only a minority of the site users, mostly those of us actively involved in meta, and most especially the site moderators. I don't think that these changes will affect the vast majority of site members, including those that answer questions. Please see my edit above. Jul 25 '19 at 16:20
  • 3
    You may be correct, but I am a person who only really answers questions and occasionally looks at a meta question every now and then. I have also been frustrated with the large influx of poor quality questions and have noticed that it's been brought up on meta with several suggested solutions but no action from the site owners. This has led me to feel that the site is less of a wiki as it was originally intended, and that my time is maybe better spent helping open source projects.
    – user545424
    Jul 25 '19 at 16:30
  • 4
    @YvetteColomb Has there been any discussion by the mods about a strike, or a coordinated joint statement to the company? I'm not really sure where all the mods stand on this, and I'm curious what their stance is. I do appreciate you being vocal and active in meta so we know where you stand.
    – mason
    Jul 25 '19 at 18:20
  • 2
    @mason I recommend you pose a new question asking that. Jul 25 '19 at 18:22
  • 1
    @mason knowing our team there's no chance that will happen. As George said it's a whole other issue. We all stand strongly for the success of the site. Some of the mods are very upset about this. We're all processing the changes. You can imagine, being mods, we're pretty dedicated to the site.
    – user3956566
    Jul 25 '19 at 19:56
  • 3
    Meta is for a great many things! A lot of it is rote - "why was my question closed", "should we merge/burninate these tags" - but much of it is not. It can be celebratory (congrats on reaching N rep!), introspective (How many questions do we close every week?), bug reports, and a place for building community and sharing your thoughts about the site. And just because we're listening elsewhere, too... that doesn't mean we're not listening here. When we turn to work on known problems, we look for what's been discussed here... and then see how we can expand on that.
    – Catija StaffMod
    Jul 25 '19 at 20:36
  • 7
    @Catija: There seems to be a possible disconnect between what you're saying and what we see site mods saying, suggesting a possible problem with communication. I have to wonder if some sort of conference, physical or virtual, between those in power in the corporation and a contingent of moderator leaders would be beneficial for us all. Jul 25 '19 at 20:39
  • 1
    There are a lot of disconnects. :) We've changed immensely in the year I've worked here and that's going to continue for the next few months before (hopefully) we settle in and get to work. It's been a struggle to not quite know where you're going but to have to hope that it's the right direction. Everything is changing and I'm excited for that because nothing has changed for the last four years. Change is hard and confusing... and y'all (and I) have been begging for change for years. So much of what you want, we want. We just need to find the way to make it happen... and I'm hopeful it will.
    – Catija StaffMod
    Jul 25 '19 at 20:47
  • 1
    @Catija: you and me both Jul 25 '19 at 20:51
  • 2
    We try to talk with the mods as much as we can. The CMs generally and the PM in charge of the Community Dev team both talk with the mods in their chat room and share what we can. For me, figuring out how much I can share is something I'm still working on. There's a lot of discovery going on that will be exciting once it gets closer to building but sometimes discovery phase reveals that the idea isn't going to work as you'd hoped, so I hate to share and then have to retract the idea. :(
    – Catija StaffMod
    Jul 25 '19 at 20:52
  • Paying moderators would in effect make them employees. Not paying them is however like exploiting their workforce, I feel. I'm not sure what is the best there. Maybe SO should just take over the moderation.
    – Trilarion
    Jul 28 '19 at 6:38
27

How can we adapt to this as a meta community?

We roll with the flow. We see what they put out, and then, see if we want to continue here. As it has always been.

It's obvious we don't wield any real power here, so organizing a strike, or stopping, just means we stopped. So we keep going, as usual, and see what happens next.

"can I live with that?"

This is the pertinent question. Can you? Then you stay. Can't? Then not.

As far as we are concerned, the company is just water. Water flows where it wants to, and cares little about our ideas for where it should be going. But if our plain gets flooded, we may leave.

0
25

Good post. I agree that instead of endlessly fighting the new system, our energy would be better spent figuring out how to work with the new system, and make the best out of it. Change will happen regardless.

I think it is still important that people on meta start discussions about things they feel unhappy with, or express their opinions on certain updates or decisions made. I believe that the regular posters here are the ones who really care deeply for SO, and operate the most with Stack Overflow, and will thus encounter problems that the average Jane or John Doe doesn't notice/encounter.

However we need to lower the expectations of it immediately being acted upon as it may have been in the past (I definitely wasn't there. But from what I hear this was more the case). Simply because SO has taken a more "general" approach of listening to the big data, and doing 1:1 interviews with people from the mailing list, etc. And if the two of them don't align, the interviews done by their professional team takes precedence. As a result of growing to a big business with a lot of stakeholders and third parties involved.

The thing I think that should be improved upon the most, and what has been going wrong lately most often, is the communication aspect of it. Meta is an echo chamber, but also a huge (yes, I think 0.015% on such a large user base is huge) part of your most dedicated users. And it should be treated in that way. And I think that is best done through clear communication and in a timely manner.

I appreciate that as a representative of a company you can't just answer on a whim, but don't make us wait days, weeks or longer (looking at the Facebook issue now (which has been responded to now, I have to add)) for any response. It doesn't even have to be the response we are looking for, just simply acknowledging the issue has been taken note of would satisfy a bunch of people.

Maybe a public backlog (or something similar) would help for this, so the people can see what has been taken into consideration, and what is being worked on (where possible. I don't expect SO to be able to release all the information about what they're working on). Along with a (rough) timeline, so we know why that simple looking feature isn't due until four months later.

Those are just my two cents.

TLDR: It doesn't mean we aren't heard, just at a lower priority. Meta needs to lower their expectations from instantaneous reaction from SO. SO needs to step up the communication game and be more transparent to the users.

4
  • 2
    Nice answer. Thoughtful and gives realistic feedback of what could help us as a meta community. Thank you
    – user3956566
    Jul 25 '19 at 5:51
  • 1
    Please edit for grammar and punctuation. I also don't know what, "I think it is still important to raise what we v," was suppose to say.
    – jpmc26
    Jul 25 '19 at 9:43
  • 2
    @jpmc26 maybe the word "want" got cut off, leaving only the first half of the "w"?
    – l4mpi
    Jul 25 '19 at 9:48
  • 2
    @jpmc26 Weird that the sentence got cut out like that, thanks for pointing it out. I wrote it this morning on my phone so probably fat fingered it away or overlooked it. I'm not a native speaker, and certainly not the best writer when it comes to puncuation either. So i'll have to rely on someone who does pocess these skills to clear that up unfortunately.
    – Remy
    Jul 25 '19 at 9:55
25

I never post on Meta, but feel a need to comment on this one out of a sense of community.

What does it matter how much of a minority the Meta community is compared to the size of the site?

Remember Yahoo answers? The average Yahoo contribution was terrible.
Quora? It's huge, but the average question and answer is still of extremely low quality.

No one wants an average site, no one wants mediocre.

What makes SO great is its focus on quality and filtering. The Meta community is to be thanked for this.

If the goal of SO is now to satisfy the average user, this sounds like a recipe for disaster.

"Toxicity"

I get a hint of how SO is doing as a whole sometimes when I look at Meta, and once a year when I complete the survey. What keeps surprising me in the latter, year after year, is the suggestion that old users are toxic to new users.

"Toxic" is a tricky word. It's fashionable, political, yet vague. Is anything that offends me toxic? It's all subjective, so who is to decide what is offensive and what is not? "Toxic" is a poor choice of word.

On the importance of feedback

I still remember getting started on SO and being on the receiving end of criticism does not feel nice, getting a question closed does not feel nice, getting downvoted does not feel nice… etc.

But the goal is not for them to feel nice. The goal is to maintain high quality. Feeling bad about some criticism is a small price to pay for the new user, short-term, to keep enjoying a larger benefit, long-term – a quality Q&A site. I know I grew as a programmer (and even as a person in general) from asking better questions and better structuring my thoughts.

If there's something great about programmers that transpires throughout the site it's an ability to be precise, aim for objectivity, and write well, concisely.

Answers, including here on Meta, may be terse and come across as blunt or even curt. But that's a small price to pay to save people's time. (A good example of this is the Hi/Hello removal.)

What's the alternative? To sugar-coat it and treat people like children? There's no growing without feedback. New users don't know (yet) how to produce great questions and answers.

Logical/objective vs. Emotional/subjective

I wonder if all this talk about toxicity is not a clash between two world views: a logical/objective one, and an emotional/subjective one, which seems to be playing out here in Meta and staff being at odds.

I have no visibility on where the staff comes from. Maybe the fact there's nothing personal in constructive criticism is more part of the meta/developers community values than the staff/CM/(non-dev?) community. I don't know, I'm asking.

The thing is… the logical/objective/critical worldview is the one to espouse here, because, once again, this is the one that serves the end goal: quality.


I never post on Meta, because I don't moderate nor triage posts and would rather let people who invest more of their time drive the direction of the site.

I hope Meta will keep having a say in the direction of the site, because I trust the community's spirit – its sense of reflection, constructive criticism and insistence on quality – to keep SO going strong.

0
9

My impression is that the changes in the last years were rather gradual. The discussions about an influx of possible homework or debugging questions have been taking place for years as well as feature requests that more or less got ignored or discussions about mentorship, being nicer and welcoming, etc. This is a process that is going on for many years.

It was always clear that the platform except for the textual content belongs to the company, not to the community on meta. It was also clear that the meta community (1.5% or 0.15% or whatever percentage of the users/created content it really is) is not representative of the whole user base, although it's not clear how far away it is from that. It could still be a good idea to listen carefully and reply politely to everything using not too much marketing speak.

How closely should a company listen to its community? Typically, there are speeches by CEOs emphasizing that listening to their users is everything, but as soon as there is criticism from users (or vocal minorities of users) companies react rather annoyed. The best is probably somewhere in the middle. Don't always do what the community or parts of the community asks you for, but if you disagree, make sure you have a good reason for it. And do betas, lots of betas.

There is the fundamental difference in goals, the company behind Stack Overflow wants to make money, the users of Stack Overflow want to ask or answer (some special types) of questions. You cannot align these goals completely. There will always be a gap. For example, I would like to see less advertisement for everyone, because ads just lower the value of the content. But as long as the content is free I hope that the extent of the gap can be limited.

Stack Overflow has changed in the last years. Lots of new users have signed up asking rather specialized questions. Instead of teaching how to debug, Stack Overflow is debugging for them. The mission of building a knowledge base has taken a backseat, maybe because it's done to a big extent already?

I can understand the shift to mentoring and teaching and I don't want to stand in the way. However, I discovered about myself, by ways of introspection, that I don't want to be a mentor or teacher (at least not for free). I thought I might like it, but I actually do not like holding hands. It's just my fault. I'm sure others do and I wish them all the best and the best possible infrastructure for it.

Contributing to a knowledge base on the other hand was fun and it's very sad that this mission might become endangered by a shift of focus. My impression is still that the company tries to accomplish several things at the same time, but even then it's not sure that the original mission can continue to operate. Signal to noise was always a concern. Maybe better search and filtering can alleviate the need to review and police the content, or maybe not. It's too early to tell either way.

Maybe a split would be better. One stricter Stack Overflow for extending the existing knowledge base, which could still work on being nicer in any case and another Stack Overflow for mentoring and teaching, both not necessarily being operated by the same organization.

Is there really a need for a public, curated repository of "why is my code not working" questions? And who is going to answer them?

I think that Stack Overflow Academy, proposed by Shog9 and supported by others already in 2014, was basically the blueprint (and therefore ahead of its time) of what the company tries to achieve now. More credit should be given there.

From the linked Q&A of Stack Overflow Academy I found an almost prophetic comment made by Jason C almost exactly 5 years ago: "this site would be for people who are so utterly bad at asking questions (and incapable of searching Google for "how to ask a question") that they need actual mentoring to teach them?".

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    Re "building a knowledge base ... because it's done to a big extent already?": No, it is quite poor as few answers are comprehensive enough to be useful (there isn't an incentive (read: reputation points - this is for quick answers instead)). And there is also dilution, because too few questions are closed as duplicates (finding duplicates is hard and there isn't an incentive). Exact duplicates of easy questions are asked 8 years later and very high-rep users will happily answer them (we know why). Distilling into FAQs (like on Usenet in the 1980s) could be a partial solution. Jul 29 '19 at 15:14
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    @PeterMortensen With the data explorer I saw that the highly voted, highly visited questions are mostly from 2008 to 2014 and to a much lesser extent from later with an ever increasing fraction of questions that get no upvoted answer at all. The number of useful new questions has gone down. But I agree with your points. Looked at it this way the mission is far from fulfilled and another discussion could be what exactly to do next in order to advance it?
    – Trilarion
    Jul 29 '19 at 15:43
-25

Merge meta back into the main site. If they're so intent on destroying meta, let them. The victory will be hollow.

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    They're not destroying meta, but rather they're narrowing its focus to current moderation issues and away from having a say in the site's structure, function, and long-term vision. They're turning site moderators into un-paid employees. Jul 25 '19 at 16:49
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    Everyone who makes a positive contribution to Stack Overflow is effectively an unpaid employee. Moderators do more dirty work, and that work is probably more valuable, and moderators should probably be compensated. However, business owners generally choose to not pay people as long as they can get away with it. Jul 25 '19 at 19:59
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    @HovercraftFullOfEels Then, hopefully, mods are smart enough to not allow themselves to become unpaid employees... up to them.
    – code_dredd
    Jul 25 '19 at 23:15
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    @DavidCullen "Everyone who makes a positive contribution to Stack Overflow is effectively an unpaid employee" I have mixed thoughts on that. Yes, we add value to the site, but that's simply a secondary side-effect of us wanting to help members of our community. I reckon no one here thinks of "improving business outcomes for the company" before posting something. The site is simply the means to an end rather than the end itself. I think the company takes advantage of that, but we have no obligation to the company in any way. Besides, if they ban actual contributors, it's their loss (1/2).
    – code_dredd
    Jul 25 '19 at 23:20
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    @DavidCullen I think the actual value is not the site, but the content that gets hosted in it, and AFAIK, that content is licensed in such a way that it can be moved around to any other web site frontend/layout... (2/2).
    – code_dredd
    Jul 25 '19 at 23:21
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    What do you mean "merge meta back into the main site"? When was that ever the case?
    – S.S. Anne
    Jul 29 '19 at 2:05
  • @JL2210: When stackoverflow was very young. I've got a meta question on the main site in my profile.
    – Joshua
    Jul 29 '19 at 4:36
  • Some people mod for more e-points, some because they're just lonely and need the attention, some because they believe in SO and want it to succeed, and some because they expect something in return like recognition, money, experience to put on the CV etc. Some however, mod because they lack authority in their own lives and seek to gain it online. I don't know which one of these shog was, but I do know that the majority of those piping up now he's decided to quit are firmly in the last category. Jan 20 '20 at 13:18
-33

Meta is where the "my opinion is important" people hang out, it's driven a lot of us out. Their intentions are good, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

That's meta in a nutshell.

I wouldn't miss it if it was deleted from the Internet.

The meta userbase is so fine-tuned to a certain set of personality traits that any policies defined by the community may simply be too geared toward that mindset. All the other things, I believe, should be handled by the main site. And as mentioned I'm very dubious about the quality of the policies that this community can produce.

For the most part, things that meta handles can be handled elsewhere:

For bug reports, there's a bug report form and a GitHub-like list of bug reports. Feature requests, same deal. Burninations, could be an AI algorithm based on the burninations that have occurred so far. Unjustly closed posts, a system whereby there's a review queue for them; the vast majority of closed posts can have a slight alteration or clarification to the question to get them reopened. New users being helped to make better questions - there's already the beginnings of a "how to write a question" feature, expand on that.

Ultimately, my suggestions for moving these features to the main site is because I'm mostly against the "the community is being ignored" kind of victimhood that resounds throughout this community. That's where I feel the problem lies. Meta does bring solutions to the things above, but they could be solved on the main site, and it would avoid the cries of the victimfolk here on meta.

As for why it's driven a lot of people away from meta, there's a few reasons, from my experience:

  • The downvote system doesn't show how many upvotes you received, so you'll be given the impression that everybody disagreed with you, rather than the truth which is just more people disagreed than agreed. If a poster could see how many people actually agreed then they wouldn't feel so ostracised. The way it stands right now it's purely a "Positive Punishment" and "Positive Reinforcement" mechanic, I think it should change to a poll mechanic whereby even the posts that get 100+ rating will see that 50 people actually also disagreed, and visa-versa.
  • If you post something that someone disagrees with, you'll instantly receive a barrage of complaints, corrections, and the unfortunate part, eventually insults. As proven by the previous set of comments that were attached to this post (now removed.) Prominent figures (I'm not calling out names here, it's not just one person) in this community are overly aggressive in their stance when defending and voicing their opinions. You need to let the ideas flow easily, hammering down on ones you disagree with will only lead to a whitewash.
  • Continuing from the previous point, there appears to be an oligopoly of users that post 90% of the posts, or at least control 90% of the traffic on meta. This intimidates other users (due to the oligopoly having 10k+ rep and previous points raised) into thinking that their opinions don't matter. Once you have the vast majority of users thinking their opinion doesn't matter or thinking it will get them flamed into oblivion, their dissenting opinions aren't posted at all. Then you're only seeing that 10% of people who are politically correct and who will come to dominate the thought-space.
  • Meta is a self-referencing self-important forum. The vast majority of posts I get to see on meta are about meta. It exists to serve itself, not its users, not main SO, not anything but itself and its oligarchy. The only time I've seen a heavy traffic thread not about meta was the user questionnaire thing, and that devolved into a left-wing fight for women's rights in programming, so meta.

p.s. I'm aware of the irony that I called people on meta self-important and then continue on to voice my opinions about it all.

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    Moderator's Note: Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. The arguments brought up in the comments are great things to hash out; the comments themselves aren't the right avenue for that. I recommend moving points you wish to add to your answer, @DanRayson, and if anyone else wants to make their points known in an easy to follow fashion, we welcome any additional answers on this question to do so. Aug 1 '19 at 13:52
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    Can you be more clear near "it's driven a lot of us out." (by editing your answer, not by answering in comments)? What is the mechanism exactly that has driven a lot of you out? Aug 1 '19 at 21:21
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    "the vast majority of closed posts can have a slight alteration or clarification to the question to get them reopened." I guess you have not reviewed many closed posts. Because most closed posts are unsalvageable garbage. Closed posts that are edited are already automatically put on a reopen queue. It is rare that the edit improves the post enough to justify reopening it.
    – Raedwald
    Aug 3 '19 at 8:48
  • "Unjustly closed posts, a system whereby there's a review queue for them": There is. It doesn't work.
    – S.S. Anne
    Aug 4 '19 at 3:37
  • 1
    1.5k+ reputation users can see both upvotes and downvotes on a post; alternatively, use this StackApp.
    – S.S. Anne
    Aug 4 '19 at 3:41
  • @JL2210 Nice! Cheers JL!
    – Dan Rayson
    Aug 4 '19 at 16:43
  • 1
    amen. stackoverflow is very meta and obtuse and having a meta "community" with weight just accelerates that problem. let stack hire actual employees/develop actual mechanisms to solve problems rather than introducing messy self serving humans into the mix. It's the logical thing to do.
    – kkarakk
    Aug 4 '19 at 19:04
  • I love how downvoted this answer is, even though it's the most sensible one here. Proves his point really. Jan 20 '20 at 13:19

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