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1. I will not be able to strictly abide by the new CoC myself in all circumstances, much less enforce it on others.
2. I don't think the new policies will make this site a better (or even a good) place. It was already hard to come up with a scope and ground rules that worked for us. Now the tools we had are being stripped away. Given a restart today under the current rules and corporate (lack of) cooperation I do not think we could have gotten this site of the ground, and I don't believe it will continue to work well long term unless they make some serious changes. They are telling us that won't be happening and I don't want to go down with the ship.
3. The way SE has handled other volunteers has been reprehensible, and they've done nothing but buckle down behind their bad moves. I cannot volunteer my time (and ironically, my personal identity) in support of a company that treats its volunteers and community this way.

This has actually been brewing for a long time⁵, but the touch-stone issue for me this weekend was a moderator on another religion side being unceremoniously booted. Monica was (and is) an adamantly courteous individual and did an upstanding job for the sites she worked on. Here is her announcement for context, and her personal blog for a taste of how she deals with people. Ironically in the specific the issue at hand called out (using people's preferred pronouns) she is on record as being much more accommodating than I would be.

Furthermore I cannot in good conscience support where this is going. SE has decided on a corporate image that includes actively catering to a specific ideology at the exclusion of others. The talk of inclusivety is just rhetoric, not practice now. To be only slightly melodramatic, offending somebodies personal sensibilities by use of grammatically correct pronouns can get you fired, but getting on the receiving end of death threats because of your religious views gets you shown the door. That's slightly dramatized because SE has taken personal threats seriously in the past, but the new threat is internal. Now I can't be, say, or do what I think is right if that thing will offend somebody else's sensibilities. It doesn't matter any more whether I intend offense, and just keeping my head low and not going places where I know there might be trouble is no longer an acceptable way out.

Unfortunately in the dumpster fire that's been raging for days/weeks/months in moderator-only spaces, there have been plenty of insults of both sides. This includes some people ridiculing LGBT+ positions in ways that were not "nice". I am not saying that is okay! Even in the face of disagreement there are respectful ways to say something and disrespectful ways. I'm not stake out a right to be disrespectful. I've seen violations of the old code of conduct's "be nice" –both directed at individuals and viewpoints– that were reprehensible. Monica, who was sacked, was not one of those parties. The SE staff has done nothing but pour gasoline into the fire. I can't fix this. SE has given no indication that they even think it is a problem they want to try to fix and every indication⁷ they think their approach is the fix.

1. I will not be able to strictly abide by the new CoC myself in all circumstances, much less enforce it on others.
2. I don't think the new policies will make this site a better (or even a good) place. It was already hard to come up with a scope and ground rules that worked for us. Now the tools we had are being stripped away. Given a restart today under the current rules and corporate (lack of) cooperation I do not think we could have gotten this site off the ground, and I don't believe it will continue to work well long term unless they make some serious changes. They are telling us that won't be happening and I don't want to go down with the ship.
3. The way SE has handled other volunteers has been reprehensible, and they've done nothing but buckle down behind their bad moves. I cannot volunteer my time (and ironically, my personal identity) in support of a company that treats its volunteers and community this way.

This has actually been brewing for a long time⁵, but the touch-stone issue for me this weekend was a moderator on another religion site being unceremoniously booted. Monica was (and is) an adamantly courteous individual and did an upstanding job for the sites she worked on. Here is her announcement for context, and her personal blog for a taste of how she deals with people. Ironically in the specific the issue at hand called out (using people's preferred pronouns) she is on record as being much more accommodating than I would be.

Furthermore I cannot in good conscience support where this is going. SE has decided on a corporate image that includes actively catering to a specific ideology at the exclusion of others. The talk of inclusivety is just rhetoric, not practice now. To be only slightly melodramatic, offending somebody's personal sensibilities by use of grammatically correct pronouns can get you fired, but being on the receiving end of death threats because of your religious views gets you shown the door. That's slightly dramatized because SE has taken personal threats seriously in the past, but the new threat is internal. Now I can't be, say, or do what I think is right if that thing will offend somebody else's sensibilities. It doesn't matter any more whether I intend offense, and just keeping my head low and not going places where I know there might be trouble is no longer an acceptable way out.

Unfortunately in the dumpster fire that's been raging for days/weeks/months in moderator-only spaces, there have been plenty of insults of both sides. This includes some people ridiculing LGBT+ positions in ways that were not "nice". I am not saying that is okay! Even in the face of disagreement there are respectful ways to say something and disrespectful ways. I'm not staking out a right to be disrespectful. I've seen violations of the old code of conduct's "be nice" –both directed at individuals and viewpoints– that were reprehensible. Monica, who was sacked, was not one of those parties. The SE staff has done nothing but pour gasoline into the fire. I can't fix this. SE has given no indication that they even think it is a problem they want to try to fix and every indication⁷ they think their approach is the fix.

* Edit: Several people have noted this sounded to them as if I was poking fun at other peoples' foibles. Allow me to clarify that my intent was not to make light of what other people consider important, it was meant as light-hearted way of pointing out the grammatical and epistemological weight imbalance between "I pronounce you anathema" and "I can't bring myself to use plural forms to talk about single entities."

Even more ironically, I personally have a long history of being at odds with Monica. We have disagreed —often adamantly– about many things because we hold ideologically irreconcilable religious views and those views fundamentally shape what we feel is required of us to do. We've debated each-other until we (or at least I) was blue in the face and our exchanges came to an impasse more than once. Yet even when she vehemently disagreed with my entire world-view she was still respectful to me (and others involved) as individuals. She is meticulously principled and when push came to shove would not do what I thought would have been for the best, yet in all that I came away without a single complaint over the way she treated me as a human being.

* _{Edit: Several folks have noted this sounded to them as if I was poking fun at what is an important issue to many. Because it has been cited all over the net now I can hardly take it back, but please allow me to clarify that my intent was not to make light of what other people consider important or even their struggles, it was meant as light-hearted way of pointing out the grammatical and epistemological weight imbalance between "I pronounce you anathema" and "I can't bring myself to use plural forms to talk about single entities."}

Even more ironically, I personally have a long history of being at odds with Monica. We have disagreed –often adamantly– about many things because we hold ideologically irreconcilable religious views and those views fundamentally shape what we feel is required of us to do. We've debated each-other until we (or at least I) was blue in the face and our exchanges came to an impasse more than once. Yet even when she vehemently disagreed with my entire world-view she was still respectful to me (and others involved) as individuals. She is meticulously principled and when push came to shove would not do what I thought would have been for the best, yet in all that I came away without a single complaint over the way she treated me as a human being.