Diversity, Inclusiveness, and how to completely break them while saying the "right things" (Or how to jump the shark!)

For nearly 9 years now, I have been a moderator on various Stack Exchange sites. Initially Security Stack Exchange, which I first encountered as a useful information centre and then realised I was probably more useful moderating (as there are members of the community there much smarter on particular topics than I) and this spread out to other interests including Music, Parenting, the Outdoors, Sound and Video, as well as the ill fated Personal Productivity site.

I look after more sites than any other moderator on Stack Exchange. And I have over 10k rep on various other sites. I'm pretty personally invested in the communities that have grown up around these sites. I have helped prevent bad behaviour, bullying, trolling etc. I have helped advertise and market them, have steered and guided growth, and while I am not a mod on the big 3 SE sites, my role crosses technical and subjective sites in a way that gives me a pretty good insight into what makes them tick, what helps drive positive behaviours, and how the long standing "Be Nice" rule can be used to stop trollish behaviour in its tracks. I am generally respected as fair and patient, and willing to bring in independent voices if I feel too conflicted) so I hope a large net positive to the SE network.

Many years back, Stack Exchange the company was incredibly positive about interaction with moderators. Community Moderators (SE employees) worked with us unpaid volunteers to help get through issues with growth, or challenges along the way. The process was iterative and collaborative, and while it wasn't perfect, we all felt part of it. We spoke with staff. My wife and I were even made to feel very welcome at their head office when we visited.

But in recent years, SE has visibly gone down the route of ignoring moderators, and instead responding to public sources (eg twitter) with knee-jerk actions that invariably caused more damage than the initial problem. Policy changes, wording changes, members of staff missing the point entirely and blaming moderators for things they didn't do, forcing a licencing change,and now actively misusing a proposed Code of Conduct change to suspend a moderator for something she might do in the future. To put it bluntly, SE could have helped us out in previous years, to improve the experience for persecuted minorities, but while the CM's listened, SE didn't change. Now they have decided change is required publicly (perhaps because of the new CEO, perhaps to appease twitter) they have messed up every single step.

The proposed Code of Conduct ostensibly looks to ensure that minority groups are made to feel welcome. Sounds great, right? Only every iteration has shown that SE have nobody in a position that understands how to do this, and they don't take guidance or advice from the community. Their Head of PR, in fact has retweeted posts indicating her intention is to rejoice in any mods who leave and blame them for being bigots. Well, after ensuring the Internet has the impression the first mod they fired is a bigot, they don't seem to understand how much personal danger they put people in by this. To be clear, SE have put at least one person in real physical danger over this, and have still not apologised. They could do the same to any one of us.

The latest debacle has led to mass resignations and self-suspensions by moderators across the network, hoping to hold SE to a timeline of improvements, but instead SE seem to double down on the dumb. Promising conversation and consultation, but continuing to ignore moderators and community alike. I have suspended all my moderation activities (overall, 90 mod roles are affected - a significant percentage of the total)

All of these are documented on meta.SE (as well as reddit, HN and others) so I won't post all the links. This one is a useful starter point though, as is this apology which was well received, but was ultimately too late, missed important points, and indicated SE was not interested in making things right...

*added some more useful links at the bottom*

When the new Code of Conduct was published, it seemed okay, right? But this faq post by SE (one of the most rapidly downvoted posts of all time) has made things worse. It now appears to suggest that we must now not treat minority groups the same as others, but instead treat them very differently, thus causing a wider divide between groups.  Rather than disallowing negative words and harassment, it forces certain word types that prevent inclusiveness and are unworkable in practice, and worse, as mentioned by a commenter on twitter:

"That sad consequence is that Sara's labeling of non-bigots as bigots HAS CREATED AN ENVIRONMENT WHERE BIGOTS FEEL SUPPORTED. People like Monica are disgusted by that, but because Sara has told them that leaders lke Monica are bigots, transphobes feel represented and embolden." (spelling mistooks in the original tweet)

As you may know, technical SE sites pride themselves on removing extraneous noise from posts in order to focus on the core question and then good answers. So we remove salutations, signatures, things that add nothing. This faq suggests we can no longer do that if the post includes a statement of the OP's preferred pronouns. Along with a number of other rules which will encourage trolling and remove moderators' ability to combat bad behaviours. The main discussion points from the moderator community were ignored, and instead the delivery of the update appears to be designed once again to create controversy, create a divide in the community and to score media discussion points. I really hope that isn't the reason for it, but I grow less surprised every time they do something new.

While I will happily continue to support all members of the community equally, no matter what gender, race, technical level, personality type, and continue to suspend or remove folks for breaking the basic tenet of "Be Nice" I am not going to sign up to the new Code of Conduct, unless it is reworded to actively promote inclusiveness, and I will encourage others to do the same.

If that gets me removed as a moderator, well, I guess SE will elect new moderators, and it is possible they will be brilliant, SE will lose the passion, collaborative spirit of helpfulness, fair ethics, and mentorship I have brought. And I will use the extra time to give back to other communities.

Well done Stack Exchange - you have shot yourself in the foot

Links:

Summing up the main issues - the story so far
Are there specific issues with unwelcoming behaviour towards LGBTQ persons on Stack Exchange
An apology to our community and next steps
Define Gender-Neutral language
How should we refer to members of the SE network in a neutral way
Aza's resignation update
Why are the code of conduct changes received so negatively
We need "assume good intent" back in the CoC