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    I'm pretty sure the intent was more like "we (the signees) are not going to tolerate this treatment"- not literally "you can't treat us like this" Commented Jun 8, 2023 at 1:43
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    @starball Taking that statement literally was a dramaturgic device. They are either going to "tolerate" this treatment, or be replaced by others. The company can do whatever it wants. They may see the public announcement of the strike as a minor nuisance, because now, they have to wait for the dust to settle and open a fresh can of apologies and promises. But they don't really care about the people who are striking. Commented Jun 8, 2023 at 2:13
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    What you fail to acknowledge with this overly cynical take is that moderators/curators striking means that there is the potential for unchecked abuse on the site, which is even worse than spam. And abuse often doesn't surface with red flags that employees can go and check every once in a while. Delaying handling those situations can have real repercussions on the people involved (racism, harassment, bullying, etc.). Once it spreads the perception that the platform is unsafe, it's game over. Commented Jun 8, 2023 at 2:35
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    One thing that I can't understand right now. Let's imagine that the strike becomes effective and SE answers "our" demands. Who will fix the whole mess the day after? Commented Jun 8, 2023 at 3:03
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    "We hear you, from now on we will inconsistently and capriciously ignore, mistreat, and malign volunteers" Commented Jun 8, 2023 at 6:34
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    Totally agree, the company doesn't care. And I'm afraid that they will do exactly what I commented here Commented Jun 8, 2023 at 10:12
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    @blackgreenonstrike I acknowledge that insofar that I considered to bring up another point: Who would even notice this strike if it wasn't announced publicly? Out of the ~5.5m daily visitors of SO, how many of them require moderation action, and notice when the action is not performed? An random (but high) guess of 1% would still mean that they have "99% customer satisfaction"... Yes, it may sound like "cynicism", but that may just be an expression of my disappointment, based on actual observations that I made here in the past ~10 years. They. Don't. Care. Commented Jun 8, 2023 at 11:29
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    @blackgreenonstrike I don't think he meant that. I read this post as a quite realistic claim: even if every current moderator was to resign now, there is plenty of other users that are ready to take their place either because they don't have yet realized what the situation is or because they don't care. So the company will in a way always be able to find someone who will "polish the turds" to use shog9 old words. This seem to be tangential to my post here Commented Jun 9, 2023 at 7:59
  • The company doesn't really care - it's not a human being. But you can negotiate with it. It's not like it's not dependent on the mods or existing community. Sure it could try to find new mods and new users, but that is risky by itself and may fail. The striking mods however, must be prepared to walk away if necessary (not sure if they really are). That's the situation, in a nutshell. Commented Jun 9, 2023 at 8:14
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    @SPArcheon perhaps you are correct, and the cynical part of me somewhat agrees with that idea, but the other part doesn’t. I wouldn’t be striking if I thought the company doesn’t care as much as painted in this answer. Although… I probably would strike anyway because even if they don’t care, I do. Commented Jun 9, 2023 at 11:35
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    @Trilarion You've been involved in Meta so long that I'm surprised to see that optimism. SE does not really need a "community" (roughly: "a group that shares goals and values"). It needs visitors and activity. I also don't see any risk in replacing mods with new ones. Each new generation will have the choice to swallow the poor treatment, or leave (and ... people will (have to and be willing to) swallow a lot). So imagine the striking mods went away now (and I share your doubts about that): What then? New ones will be elected, and stoically moderate auto-generated content... Commented Jun 13, 2023 at 0:13
  • @blackgreenonstrike You mentioned your "cynical" part and the "other" - what is this "other part"? (I could ask whether that other part is "naive" or "idealistic", but ... my cynical part would say that these are not necessarily different things ;-)). But seriously: You've been here (on Meta) for 2 years. You replaced a mod who left after the 2019 debacle. That mod replaced one who left after 2015. And if you leave, you will be replaced, by someone who doesn't complain as much as you. (I'm playing <strike>devil's</strike> SE's advocate here, I hope that's obvious...). Commented Jun 13, 2023 at 0:21
  • @Marco13 I guess I'm naturally optimistic. I just don't want to believe yet that the company pulls an Elon Musk and fires everyone who isn't agreeing with them. But it may happen if course. Having a team of highly efficient mods is valuable, but maybe not that much. Commented Jun 13, 2023 at 3:55
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    Of course they don't care about the users/mods, but not caring about the quality of content (which they don't rn) is not a sustainable practice for such a website. Threatening to make the quality even worse (which is what the strike essentially does) is probably the only way the moderators (and users) have to pressure any change. Commented Jun 13, 2023 at 10:30
  • @liakoyras People will do websearches, find a few bad Q/As, and maybe one of the answers solves their issue, and maybe not. Where do moderation or the strike come into play here? Maybe someone flags a comment, and the flag is not handled, but that affects only people who care about stuff like that, and is totally unrelated to "(technical) quality". When "the community" is defined as "people who strive for quality", and SE does not care about quality, then it does not care about the community. (Sure, that's oversimplified, but ... too little space for too many management failures here) Commented Jun 13, 2023 at 14:48