Editor's note: We are aware of the recent post from Stack Exchange. It begins to address a number of the concerns we've expressed in this letter, but we still believe what we've said here is important, and goes beyond this one incident. Please bear in mind while you're reading that this was written before the apology post came out.

Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.,

We, the undersigned moderators of the Stack Exchange network, are extremely disappointed in your conduct over the past few weeks. It should be clear from the public feedback you’ve been getting that we’re not the only ones upset with you right now, but as a group of people who have invested a lot in the network, this is intended to be a digest of our collective opinions.

There was a time when the most valuable asset of the Stack Exchange network was the people who freely contributed their time and energy to build communities in support of its mission. Undoubtedly, there still is an element of that left, but as the company has expanded, its outlook on the network has become, necessarily, more corporate. Not all of us have realised the extent to which that has happened over the years we’ve been here. Not all of us have been able to fully let go of the connection to the company we felt we once had. It’s been tough to realize that Stack Exchange no longer seems to want community input the way it used to.

Why we are upset

Not all of us are upset about the same things, but we have identified common themes that underlie our concerns. While recent events have proved to be the catalyst for us to voice our disappointment, our concerns stem from a number of actions and the impression we’ve received of the company’s direction over the past year or more.

We are frustrated with how Stack Exchange staff, with some exceptions, have been increasingly disengaged from the team of moderators as well as the broader community. It used to be common to see staff posting on sites and on meta sites in both professional and personal capacities. Moderators were also seen as community liaisons, collaborating with staff on policy changes and communication. Stack Exchange staff used to be in the trenches with us, not only fighting onslaughts of spam and abuse, but teaching us, learning from us, and understanding how they could best support and protect us. Now many of them, including community managers, feel like strangers.

We are disappointed with the lack of responsiveness to community concerns. On Meta Stack Exchange, bug reports, feature and support requests go unacknowledged, sometimes for months or years, and some excellent posts never receive a staff response. Meanwhile, there have been cases when staff have responded to complaints on Twitter almost immediately, taking action without due process and without consulting with the impacted sites.

We are discouraged that there is apparently no longer a place for human judgement when it comes to enforcing the Code of Conduct and other policies. While there used to be space for flexibility and compromise under the goal of respect for all, the human touch has been lost to rigid inflexibility. This is especially important when we consider the very diverse backgrounds of the millions of people who make up the community.

We are disheartened because Stack Exchange has always told us over the years that the people here are the most important asset there is, and the contribution of the people who don’t just participate but volunteer their time to moderate is considered valuable. Stack Exchange has always told us it will back us up. Not only have we been descended upon from above, but one of our own – a moderator who has for years been regarded as an exemplar on Stack Exchange – has been summarily cast aside with little regard to process or to her own well-being.

Among the most serious mistakes made was that a staff member spoke to the press about a member of the community who participates here under her own name. That same community member is now described in the press with language that can be taken to imply she is an extremist and a bigot. This news article is now the top search report for her name, which may cause her serious issues in real life, with her friends, her family, and her career. In doing this, Stack Exchange has rewarded years of service by putting one of its volunteers in danger – and there’s now a very real feeling that we may no longer be safe on this platform.

We’d like to make sure it’s clear that none of us support interacting with people with anything short of complete respect. As moderators, we are responsible for upholding, promoting, and respecting the high standards that Stack Exchange has set over the years, and we stand behind Stack Exchange in its move to ensure everyone feels welcome and safe. We do not wish to diminish the harm that many marginalized groups have suffered on Stack Exchange in the past in our expression of displeasure here. We do, however, wish to make it clear that the same respect we’re working to ensure those disadvantaged groups receive is due to everyone on Stack Exchange, no matter who they are. We feel this wasn't achieved in Stack Exchange’s response to this issue; that is, ultimately, the root of why many of us are upset.

Moving forward

While Stack Exchange has attempted to apologise for some things, many of us feel their apologies have been inadequate. There is a lot of hurt felt by moderators that has not been publicly acknowledged by the company. We would like to see the company explicitly acknowledge and apologise for the shortcomings and failures that have occurred - the lack of bidirectional communication, the mishandling of situations, the failures to address the pain of marginalized and disadvantaged groups, and the unseemly willingness to speak to the press about matters of user moderation that do not need to be spread outside the network.

Even when apologies and acknowledgements have been attempted, they have come across as insincere and half-hearted or stopped short of actually apologising. Any commitments for future change have been vague, at best. In order for us to move forward and heal this rift between company and community we would like Stack Exchange to take concrete, visible steps towards changing the behaviour that has led up to this current conflict.

We would like to see a roadmap for how Stack Exchange will improve engagement with moderators and the broader community. We want to see a return to the collaborative model that made Stack Overflow as well as the other sites in the network successful in the first place. We want to see trust between the community, including the moderators, and the company restored.

We believe that it is important that the staff, especially those who engage with the community, are active members of the community, in the good times, not just during emergencies. The people in positions of community leadership must not be out of touch with the community using their product. We do not expect every member of staff to contribute all the time, of course, but we feel the current lack of engagement has been a major contributing factor behind many of our concerns. Being more visibly present will improve goodwill in both directions.

We want Stack Exchange to follow its own procedures when removing moderator privileges. We don’t want our fellow moderators to be removed without them even hearing a reason why. We acknowledge that this recent situation came from a slightly different angle than the existing policy is designed for, but absent any more pertinent policy, what already exists should have been adapted rather than it being made up on the spot.

We want Stack Exchange to follow the principles it set down for itself in “Our Theory of Moderation, Revisited” after the last fiasco. We want you to deliver on that promise to trust us, support us, and to give us agency, accountability, and autonomy. Ultimately, we want to feel that we are safe to disagree with Stack Exchange, even on matters of major policy.

We want to help, to serve our communities, rebuild, and move forward. Please take us up on our offer to give you feedback before you make public statements. We fully believe that each of the moderators of the Stack Exchange network have a deep understanding of their communities and can help you understand what public reaction will be before the company takes action. Using this feedback to set out with the best possible words and actions will truly help make Stack Exchange a more welcoming, inclusive space.

We recognise that Stack Exchange is in no way obliged to take our input. We know that we are guests in the home of a private company. We don’t own the platform, and while we want to help to steer the ship, we don’t have the right to determine how it is governed. What built this network is a sense of community and common purpose, and a big part of that has always been the close relationship and communication between Stack Exchange and stakeholders, such as moderators and users. It’s a shame that we’ve lost something so fundamental.