I believe that aspects of the rebrand violate the moderator agreement, and triggering a moderator vote may be the only way to try to change it if all else fails.
While there's a process to vote, I'm wondering if using spaces like here, that or the mod team to organise, or doing it externally would be needed?
Basically, what can I do when opposing a corporate mandated action on and about the platform they own?
I've been fairly focused on trying to mitigate (and let's be honest, disrupt) the current plans to sunset the Stack Exchange brand name. The company's seemingly been evasive about it, and I've been pretty clear that I feel that it's not to the benefit of the broader community.
I believe this comment is confirmation that the plan is solid, without clear communications to the moderators — I've asked about it multiple times in private and public communications — here's a useful starting point and community managers would be aware where I've asked privately as well. The consistent replies I've gotten was… no one seems to know:
Yes, we will be moving all sites under the Stack Overflow umbrella in the future. We don't have a hard timeline at the moment but we will share that once we do. This is a branding decision that we are moving forward with. We are currently conducting research on what it will look like for all Stack Exchange sites, including Stack Overflow and we are keeping the concerns that communities on sites outside of SO have signaled in mind. We'll present this to Meta when we have more to share.
Now, the problem with a lack of hard timeline but a definite decision is we don't have a clear idea when we can feedback to stop this, and how. Doing it too late is a waste of resources. Doing it too early means if we have a chance of a less adversarial solution — we've already burnt our bridges.
I believe that as per the strike agreement — there are potential violations at these three points
Not making irreversible changes to the platform
An announcement was made to the Moderator Team, stating that a major change was being made to a foundational system of the platform and that this change would be applied network-wide and irrevocably. (This planned change, which is still private, was referred to as "the second shoe" during strike coordination.) That change was temporarily paused shortly prior to the strike while the impact was reevaluated, mitigations investigated, and potential adjustments investigated. It has since been clarified that this will not be an irreversible change and that that was a mistaken assumption on the part of the person posting the announcement.
The internal Stack Exchange, Inc. process for making announcements has been updated to reflect that system changes are almost never irrevocable or irreversible and should not be announced as such.
This is an irreversible change that's been pushed through despite valid problems pointed out by community members (including moderators) and staff. It has a potential negative impact to the smaller sites.
Gathering community feedback before committing to a major change to the platform
Committing to transparency
Stack Exchange, Inc. staff will be as transparent as possible about product development and policy, regularly sharing updates and proposed changes. Releases will be communicated in a timely manner. Whenever possible, staff will provide insights behind key product and policy decisions to the community.
I've repeatedly made requests for information, and been told "we don't have any". The unavailability of timely information affects moderators ability to communicate with their communities, or try to take actions to influence or mitigate these changes. I've been told by folks they had no information repeatedly so the problem's internal as much as external — and taking them at their word, their queries are not being responded to promptly.
Taking into account community feedback
Staff will work with the community when making decisions about product development and policy, taking into consideration community feedback and suggestions while also considering other data points and research. Feedback on releases that substantively impact the user experience will be sought at the earliest possible opportunity, ideally during an initial ideation and requirements gathering phase of work, but absolutely far enough before the release of a “beta” product such that the feedback given can still influence the direction of the tool or change, and be incorporated into the design.
While we've given feedback — it seems that a good chunk of feedback not fitting with 'the plan' has been ignored. We've not had any alternative rebrands discussed. Where the community feedback has been taken into account is unclear and it seems ignored in specific places.
As such, our feedback isn't seemingly being taken into account, and these delays in responses and lack of clarity means we can't really affect how things will go.
Putting it to a vote is one option but it's final. If we manage to get a result that stops the change, we'll probably burn lots of bridges in the process. Failure probably means we might have folks choosing other means to express their unhappiness. The rebrand would do both anyway.
While I'd like more co-operative measures, I'm looking at this as one of the few options that might actually work… so how does the community feel about it, and what can we do to make this work?
