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    "They are not beholden to their volunteers regarding their decisions." ─ And we are not beholden to them regarding the hosting of our communities. The whole Stack Exchange model cannot work if there is no agreement that it's in everyone's interests for them to continue hosting us and for us to continue maintaining the value of their product by curating and moderating it. "The company must do what they think is best for their bottom line, including what they think is best for their users." ─ sure, and if they want to know what's best for us they can listen to us about it. Commented Jun 8, 2023 at 23:44
  • 9
    Do you really in your heart believe that Stack Overflow Inc staff always make the correct decisions? That they should take no input from the people that made this network of sites a success in the first place? Software developers who can write and maintain the apps this site runs on are readily found. A legion of people willing to put forth their own unpaid time to actually make the site useful are not readily found. Commented Jun 8, 2023 at 23:50
  • 31
    The way we are able to tell with greater accuracy than ChatGPT detection tools whether a post is written by ChatGPT, is not because we have discovered some magical solution to the problem that OpenAI are trying to solve, but because the problem we are solving is a different and much easier one. OpenAI want to do it using just the text of the post, whereas we have lots of other input data available, including the original question, the user's post history, and other context; and OpenAI want to minimise both false positives and false negatives, while we mainly want to minimise false positives. Commented Jun 8, 2023 at 23:50
  • 50
    Hi @leanne. I'm Fred. I've been answering questions on SO from late 2010 to late 2016, and I also have been "curating" the site during this time period. I am aware the private SE company can do whatever they want with their assets, or, as you say, "properties". Problem is, volunteer work is not an asset or a "property". It is not paid for. It is not taxed. It is something one does out of their own time and (sometimes) money. The unique situation the SE company finds itself in is that it depends on distributed, volunteer work, and they cannot easily replace that. Commented Jun 8, 2023 at 23:51
  • 10
    Detecting ChatGPT-generated text can be improved by leveraging human intuition and contextual understanding. Humans possess a vast array of knowledge and experiences that enable them to spot inconsistencies, logical fallacies, and contextual discrepancies in generated text. They can identify nuances, sarcasm, and understand context-specific cues, allowing them to differentiate between genuine human responses and AI-generated ones. By actively engaging with the content, asking probing questions, and critically analyzing the text, humans can bring a depth of understanding that surpasses AIs. Commented Jun 9, 2023 at 2:57
  • 10
    The parallel with the book publisher would be an author who turns in a new 300-page manuscript every week on topics ranging from tropical fish to child rearing to nuclear physics to spiritual growth to agricultural sustainability to the history of the Incas. Commented Jun 9, 2023 at 3:51
  • 11
    This post looks like it is just trying to pick up a fight. You don't agree with the strike? Fine, no one here is forcing you - everyone has is views and those should be respected. You, on the other side aren't. Based on your reaction, I assume you are just venting out in frustration. It is clear what your purpose is here:" I personally, and most people I know, have stopped using SO for any new questions because of the combative way we have been treated by some volunteers", so now you are here to talk trash about EVERY volunteer. Commented Jun 9, 2023 at 7:44
  • 27
    "OMG: instead of volunteering, you should be getting paid the big bucks for this incredible skill!!!" - this line makes your purpose quite clear. You see the volunteers as the ones who did you wrong, and now you are felling a twisted pleasure in seeing them done wrong. I think you may find a far more productive use of your time in reflecting about why you "were done wrong". And I will go even as far as to say that is completely possible that you were indeed punished without reason. But in that case you should just ask the company to review you case instead of being mad at the world. Commented Jun 9, 2023 at 7:48
  • 30
    Lastly, since you mentioned a "fired volunteer" I suggest that you may want to actually read about that before empty making jokes that only make YOU look quite bad. The "fired volunteer" as you call it was subject to a slandering campaign on the web that the company started, not just removed from their position. You may thing that they were "fired" with a reason? Again fine. But it is NOT fine to go and make that person you scapegoat puppet in the hope to gain some free advertisement like the company did. So, please. DON'T JOKE ABOUT THAT. Commented Jun 9, 2023 at 7:52
  • 9
    they have the right to "fire" people, revoke moderation rights (since those weren't paid employees in the first place), suspend or ban users. But they don't have any right to go around and tell the press that "there is this moderator that refuses to acknowledge that everyone should be allowed to choose how they identify and was planning to misrepresent users identities on purpose with the sole intention of hurting people, so we removed her and advise no one should hire her ever. BTW here is her mail if you want to send in well deserved hate letters". Yet that is what was done back then. Commented Jun 9, 2023 at 12:21
  • 7
    @leanne I haven't seen you provided any reasoning for why you disagree with the strike. The only reasoning you seem to have provided is that Stack Overflow Inc is a company and can legally do what it wants - but now that we agree that's true, that still doesn't provide any reasoning for why moderators shouldn't strike. What about their reasoning for striking do you disagree with? Commented Jun 9, 2023 at 15:30
  • 20
    If your disagreement with the strike is about whether a human can detect AI generated content or not, then you should have made your answer about that. As written now, it's some rant about how Stack Overflow Inc is a company and can therefore legally do whatever it wants - and that's really relevant to the discussion. Practically nobody disagree with that - it's just that it misses the point and is completely irrelevant. That's why you have so many downvotes here. Commented Jun 9, 2023 at 16:22
  • 10
    Your position would be clearer if you didn't mix it in with irrelevant grievances about other poorly-received changes unrelated to the strike, your own questions being closed, which institutional investors happen to own shares, and so on. It's very hard to discern any logical relation between any of the points you are trying to make, and you seem to be contradicting yourself in multiple ways. So, despite the volume of text you have written, I do not understand what "not support" really means if you don't think we should stop striking, and you don't think SE should refuse what we ask. Commented Jun 10, 2023 at 0:51
  • 10
    OK, so you are wrong, and that's fine. Commented Jun 10, 2023 at 19:24
  • 16
    Why do you keep highlighting the word volunteer in an apparently condescending way? Just because they are unpaid does not devalue their contributions. Remove the volunteers from the network and see how much "content" remains. Commented Jun 11, 2023 at 0:36