As most of us know, there's been a lot of drama between Stack Overflow, Inc. and the core userbase recently. Stack has been ignoring the community and treating us as if we're expendable.
We've tried talking. We've tried meta posts. We've had community members meet with Stack Overflow staff in person. We've tried social media. Nothing has changed.
That's why yesterday, I proposed that we make it very clear to Stack Overflow management just how much they depend on us.
If the Stack Overflow mods, Charcoal, SOBotics, and SOCVR all pause activity for a week, Stack Overflow the site will take a sharp blow. The thousands of people who use Stack Overflow on a daily basis to find answers and to browse will notice the buildup of spam, non-answers, and other junk taking longer and longer to remove. They will raise attention to it through any and all communication channels - I anticipate complaints on Meta, on Twitter, on Reddit, on Hacker News, through Contact Us... thus causing bad press for Stack Overflow. They will either have to divert staff resources to moderating Stack Overflow or they will have to deal with the buildup of trash accumulating.
Now, I don't want to cripple the site. I want anything that's happening to be entirely reversible - which is why I'm suggesting only a week-long strike; anything longer will be too difficult to recover from, and anything shorter will not gain enough attention.
I want to make it crystal clear just how much they depend on their core userbase to keep their site usable, by taking away that volunteer effort for a week. Once it's gone, they'll realize how much they rely on us.
For Stack Overflow moderators, I would suggest first off marking yourselves as inactive, using the vacation tool, with a link to the letter written to accompany the strike (see below). If enough moderators have marked themselves as inactive, it sends a notification to staff.
In addition, refraining from handling spam flags, deleted NaAs, and closing questions is essential to this strike. While it seems drastic and goes against everything you stand for as a moderator, the goal is to ultimately improve our situation and show Stack just how essential we are to their continued success, and to force them to improve their communication with us.
I know that cleaning up afterwards will be a pain. I know that it seems wrong to stand by and intentionally allow spam to remain on the site you have committed to keeping clean. But when the company continues to treat us as expendable and take us for granted, we sometimes need to take drastic measures.
I would suggest continuing to handle comment flags, especially rude/abusive ones, as well as offensive flags on posts. We don't want to kill the site and drive away contributors permanently. Simply having it take two hours to remove spam instead of five seconds and hours to remove "me too" and "help me" answers should already make a huge impact on the users who passively use the site, especially as the effect builds up over a week.
I've written up a letter to accompany the strike here. Please, read through it thoroughly. Think about it a bit before making a decision.
I've also raised this with Charcoal and SOBotics, and am also discussing it with SOCVR.
If you have questions, or feedback, or a suggestion, or anything, you can ping me in #strike-organization on the meta discussion Discord and I'll see it, or I can be found in the Tavern or the Meta Room.
Currently, I'm planning on starting the strike Monday, February 24, 2020 and ending on Monday, March 2, 2020.
Would you as a Stack Overflow moderator be willing to participate in a week-long strike of Stack Overflow moderation?
-Mithical, former Literature.SE moderator