I'm glad the suspensions are sometimes (usually?) temporary, but letslet’s improve on that even more. We are OK with the user, so long as they aren't posting content that isn't allowed. Have moderators show some grace here, and perhaps users will stick around a bit longer. It would certainly be a less harmful iteration, at least, of the policy than what is looming on the horizon, in my opinion.
Active reading [<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/let%27s#Etymology>].
I'm glad the suspensions are sometimes (usually?) temporary, but lets improve on that even more. We are OK with the user, so long as they aren't posting content that isn't allowed. Have moderators show some grace here, and perhaps users will stick around a bit longer. It would certainly be a less harmful iteration, at least, of the policy than what is looming on the horizon, in my opinion.
I'm glad the suspensions are sometimes (usually?) temporary, but let’s improve on that even more. We are OK with the user, so long as they aren't posting content that isn't allowed. Have moderators show some grace here, and perhaps users will stick around a bit longer. It would certainly be a less harmful iteration, at least, of the policy than what is looming on the horizon, in my opinion.
There are multiple things I have questions/concerns about, but I'd like to focus on just one. This still seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater with regard to what the announcement/policy actually says.
The problem you have observed and are trying to correct here is negative user growth: active, answer-writing users are leaving the platform at a higher rate than you like, or that you think is sustainable, etc.
The cause you have attributed to that, based on this post, is suspensions for using ChatGPT, which have also increased by a marked amount in the same time frame. In fact, you even point out in the post, "since we greenlit the suspension on first offense..." (or something similar) to try and show a strong positive correlation.
However, your solution to this problem has a severe negative effect in terms of the underlying problem: ChatGPT content; it encourages ChatGPT content to grow and metastasize across the network, unfettered by moderation attempts. If moderators are no longer allowed to delete or suspend for ChatGPT at all, then we are tacitly (or even expressly) saying that ChatGPT-authored contributions are welcome on the site. As you say, Stack Overflow, at least as it exists today, cannot survive such a reality. It will absolutely become the next Quora (or whatever awful Microsoft forum iteration is around at any given time).
The CM team took the unusual step in concert with moderators at the advent of the ChatGPT problem of writing a site policy that outright banned the use of that tool in answering questions. The community largely agrees with this decision, as Stack Overflow and its sister sites across the network pride themselves in curated, expert content. As we all know, ChatGPT is neither expert nor curated. And because the bar for using it is so extremely low, and the quality of ChatGPT's English grammar and spelling is so extremely high, the absolute fire hose of ChatGPT-generated content on the network really mandated such an unusual response.
However, you also enabled a pretty severe enforcement option for moderators to mete out for violations of this new policy: suspensions for 1st-time offenses. If a new user gets suspended for their first or second post, I agree that it does make for a pretty unwelcoming experience (whether the suspension was warranted or not), and such users are not likely to stick around.
The metaphor of getting told to permanently or even quasi-permanently shut up as soon as you say something for the first time in a new place tends to have that effect.
So...
The problem I have here is that the new policy doesn't just revert the extreme suspension policy. It purports* to rollback the ChatGPT policy entirely. User retention is suffering, so you are going to undo the policy that helps protect the site's entire raison d'être: to provide free, expertly curated answers to every programming question there is.
Have you considered a half-measure somewhere between "no ChatGPT content allowed--you are banned the first time you use it" and "you get ChatGPT content, you get ChatGPT content, everyone gets ChatGPT content!"?
One thought is reducing the suspension threshold to only occur on the second or third offenses (based on severity, of course), similar to how they are for other infractions, while still allowing mods to delete the offending posts with a 'ChatGPT notice' and work out the details via mod mail if a user wants to appeal.
To reuse the same metaphor from before, this would be saying something for the first time in a new place and told that, while you are allowed to speak, the specific thing you just said is not OK. A far better and more useful piece of feedback than just instantly suspending someone.
I'm glad the suspensions are sometimes (usually?) temporary, but lets improve on that even more. We are OK with the user, so long as they aren't posting content that isn't allowed. Have moderators show some grace here, and perhaps users will stick around a bit longer. It would certainly be a less harmful iteration, at least, of the policy than what is looming on the horizon, in my opinion.
The main benefit for the site is that ChatGPT copy-and-paste content is still not allowed, and the main benefit for the company is that your metrics of number of new/frequent answerers getting suspended will decrease, likely leading to better (read: less bad) retention numbers. Win-win!
* - I say 'purports' because, as far as I am aware, the moderator team (and certainly not the users of the network writ large) doesn't have clear guidance on what they can or cannot allow on the site (a core tenet of Stack Exchange sites/communities, I'm sure I don't have to tell the CM team, has always been that each site gets to decide for itself what kind of questions it finds acceptable). This, aside with the extreme speed at which the marching orders were foisted upon the moderator teams, understandably has a lot of people upset.