### Reduced moderation ### To start with, two of the moderators on Server Fault have drastically curtailed their activity on the site. Michael Hampton: "After catching up on this situation, including today's post, I have suspended all activity on Server Fault, both moderation and answering questions." This is a huge change, since he's the single most prolific answerer, commenter, and moderator on SF. https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/335013/ Sven: "I am a Server Fault mod and silently stopped all activity since this whole mess started and mostly stepped back from it." He's also a very active answerer and moderator, and has been on the site since the beginning. The fact that he's likely to leave permanently is another big loss: https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/335297/ Ward: I haven't made an announcement about it, but I've cut back my activity here and on other SE sites. Because of the timezone I'm in, there never seemed to be much moderating for me to do, but I've also stopped reviewing and largely stopped voting. My opinions about all this are attached to various posts on meta.SE, you can find them here (all the answers in October): https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/130540/ward?tab=answers (If any of the other moderators want to add a comment on their status, please do so.) ### How does this affect Server Fault? ### No one knows what the fallout will be from a site losing a big chunk of its moderators. There are so many resignations and so many other problems that I'm sure SO Inc. hasn't gotten around to working on a plan. On some other sites that lost all their moderators, SO staff members are stepping in to deal with moderation. When it comes to the new CoC and how people interact, I don't think there'll be much impact on SF. As I said on one of my posts on meta.SE, there isn't really a community here: there's essentially no chatting and no discussion in comments, both of which take up a lot of moderator time on other sites. If there simply aren't many interactions between users, there's less opportunity for unfriendly interactions and less problems for moderators to deal with. I think the issue that started all this - proper use of pronouns - is largely a non-issue on any SE site, and here again, the fact that there isn't much discussion on SF means it's even less of an issue: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/335247/how-can-the-prohibition-on-pronoun-avoidance-possibly-be-enforced So I think we might end up being a bit of test case here on Server Fault: How much moderation does a large SE site require? Does a site without a real community and minimal moderation "work" in a way that SO Inc. likes? ### Long term changes on Stack Exchange ### I think the underlying reason for the uproar is that long-time SE users are concerned about how SE has changed and is changing. When an SE site is new, most of the activity is by users who are experts and enthusiasts. As a site grows, the proportion of users who aren't experts grows, which changes the type of questions and answers. There are numerous posts about this, here are some that I think are most relevant, especially the posts on meta.SO by staff members: * *[Does the company still want this to be a library of knowledge?][1]* * *https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/335352/open-hostility-from-se-staff-towards-the-community-trying-to-understand-it* * *https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/335299/is-there-even-an-attempt-by-se-to-make-existing-users-more-welcomed* * *[Why is it important for corporate SO to maintain a fast new user growth rate?][2]* * *https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/335345/what-is-on-the-mind-of-stack-exchange-management* For the most part, I don't care how SO Inc. handles this ongoing "demographic transition." I've gotten a lot out of Server Fault and other SE sites over the years, so I'll likely stick around, but it will be mostly as an observer because I'm curious to see how things change, not because I hope to have any input into the changes. [1]: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/388384/does-the-company-still-want-this-to-be-a-library-of-knowledge [2]: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/373169/why-is-it-important-for-corporate-so-to-maintain-a-fast-new-user-growth-rate