## In the beginning... 8 years, 1 month, and 6 days ago at something between 2 and 3am in the first few hours of this site being launched I signed up from a mobile phone browser and acquired account #30. I still remember being annoyed that the public release happened to fall while I was on a multi-day international bus trek making it difficult for me to keep up with the early private beta phase and the meta discussions about how things would take shape. (Mobile phone browsers were not so good in those days!) I still remember my excitement about the possibilities this site represented. Shortly after things got rolling and whether a Q&A on religion was going to fly on a secular platform was still an open question, I wrote an adamant defense of why I thought it was okay to use the secular Stack Exchange platform for the purposes of a question and answer site _about_ Christianity. [Brothers, we are not Christians‼][1] was pretty well received, and specifically affirmed by at least 4 of the SE's CM Team at the time. If imitation is the highest form of flattery, that post inspired several other similar posts on other new sites as they started up. Among other things I made this statement: > [...] as long as SE doesn't try to dictate or censor our respective beliefs [...] and nobody tries to ascribe their personal views to a larger corpus of people than are willing to sign off on them, then there is a place in my life for participating here. ## Now... Unfortunately this is no longer the case. SE has announced and begun enforcing a new *Code of Conduct* which both censors and dictates beliefs. The new CoC is not posted publicly anywhere yet, but they have already started enforcing it with moderators and have reiterated emphatically (and with no wiggle room) that it will not be changed. Hence I have come to the conclusion that I am no longer able to contribute as a moderator. Yesterday morning I announced my intention to resign. Seeing as how its up to SE to actually take away my diamond I guess that's effective whenever they feel like accepting this, but I will not be signing the new CoC if –as they have adamantly insisted will be the case– in includes a requirement for pro actively taking action along with something I fundamentally disagree with. In the mean time I will of course do nothing to harm this site nor violate the moderator agreement I am currently bound by. ## But why? Stack exchange sites across the board depend on substantial amounts of volunteer time from moderators to keep things running smoothly. All the communication recently from SE tells me that they no longer consider moderators to have their own agency with regard to their own communities. That will be a problem for this site, and I don't think I will be able to help things run smoothly. The Stack Exchange volunteer moderator team(s) of today are not like they were when I joined. The entire network has become a place where individuals do not retain their own agency. Mind you this isn't what they _say_, but it is what they enforce. What they say in public in [posts like this one][2] protest to the contrary: > Give people as much agency as you can. ...but what has happened over the past week(s) in "private" is quite the opposite. In light of what we went through just to open this site, the touch-stone issue is almost comical. Pronouns. No seriously, pronouns. Personally I have yet to face the specific issue, nobody to my knowledge has taken offense at the pronouns I used for them. But the "law" laid down quite suddenly and directly to moderators by several staff members was that henceforth we all had to do whatever was requested of us. It used to be that the ground rules were limited to a "be nice" policy that could have been boiled down to "if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all", and how that was enforced varied a bit by site. Even though I often disagree with the world at large on what is considered nice and constructive, I can usually figure out how to live within a system with boundaries. You can do X, but not Y. Given the framework of this secular platform those were rules I could play by. What changed is this: now it isn't enough to not be rude to people you disagree with, the new policy forces us to positively affirm things we don't agree with. Even disengaging has been ruled out as an allowable solution, since that's discrimination and potentially hurtful. That avoidance of potentially compromising scenarios is not allowed has been directly affirmed by staff members several times over the weekend. If person A comes along and demands that I refer to them by their "preferred pronoun" (even if it is a mismatch for their genetic sex or the grammar of the language being spoken) and I refuse, that's considered an insult. Now if I avoid pronouns altogether by sticking to proper names or disengaging from the individual, that's being considered an insult too. The issue of gender pronouns hasn't come up (yet) in moderating this site, but it does have a direct corollary. It took a lot of growing pains to figure out, but we eventually settled on a way to deal with Q&A on the difficult topic of religion in which many parties think the other side of an issue are heretics. This site ~~has~~ had room for questions scoped to Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Monastics, Oneness Pentecostals, Word of Faith, Reformed Presbyterians, etc. etc. etc. Many of these groups believe many or most of the others to be heretics. One of the reasons we've made this site work and all sides have been able to participate (some with less friction than others) is because **we allowed people to continue holding their own views** and even articulating those views — and space was given for the other side to hold their views too. In fact for the scope of this site **we've gone so far as to allow any established viewpoint to self identify as 'Christian'.** At the end of the day when we stand before the judgement seat it will be apparent that not all of those groups were really Christian, but for the purposes of this site we've allowed self identification to qualify as being on topic. **What we have not done is forced other people to agree with or use other group's preferred terminology.** I have not demanded this sites' LDS members to call me a true Christian and themselves heretics. In fact they are free to call my views heretical as long as they do so under questions about their own views. The new CoC removes that level of agency. The new unforgivable offense is not playing along with people that disagree. This is being enforced on moderators right now. Presumably it will apply to all site users eventually, but that will be harder to enforce, and I cannot in good conscience stick around to even try. The dogmatic demand has been repeated over and over in the moderator's chat room with no quarter given for compromise. Conform or leave. I have decided that the only thing I can do in good conscience is leave as protest. > First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out — > because I was not a communist; > Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — > because I was not a socialist; > Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — > because I was not a trade unionist; > Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — > because I was not a Jew; > Then they came for me — > and there was no one left to speak out for me. > — Martin Niemöller Keep in mind that although there is a wave of resignations lately, all of us have slightly different (if interrelated) issues. For example I resonate a lot with [Gilles' resignation][6] as well as [Robert Harvey's][7]. Some such as [Snow's][8] and [Jane S's][9] are more focused solidarity. Mine resignation has several motivations. 1. I will not be able to abide by the new CoC myself, 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 work 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 terrible, 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. I've put in blood, sweat, and tears to help make this site succeed in spite of limitations of the platform. Combined with much effort from many other contributors that worked to make something useful here. But it only worked while each site and its moderators were granted enough agency to figure out how that needed to work. That agency has been stripped away from us. I feel like if I stay hiding behind my diamond moderator I'll be like a captain staying at the tiller of a boat whose rudder has been removed. The wheel I'm holding doesn't do anything any more and I know it. So why pretend this is going to be anything but a shipwreck eventually? This has actually been brewing for a long time, 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 site she worked on. Here is [her announcement][3] for context, and from her [personal blog][4]. Ironically in the specific the issue at hand called out (people's preferred pronouns) she is much more accommodating than I am. Even more ironically, I personally have a long history of *disagreeing* 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 everyone else) as individuals. She is very principled and would not _do_ what I thought would have been for the best, but I have not a single complaint over the way she treated me as a human being. As such I find her being sacked (particularly in this way) from sites where she was well respected over an issue I am far more guilty of than her to be something I cannot stand by and watch. Management issues at SE didn't just come out of nowhere, it has [long and strange history][5]. Not all of what bothers other people is relevant for this site or me personally, but stuff has been brewing for a couple years and the heat has been turned up since January. I have had other concerns in life (getting married being one of them) in the past couple years and I've tried to stay out of the problem bits. I've tried to keep my head down and just do my job for the local community, for the site where I was an elected or appointed moderator. This past Sunday I became convicted that I could no longer in good conscience pretend I could keep doing what I signed up to do. Reading in moderator chats the levels of intransigence from from other network mods towards anybody that disagreed with whatever the most in-vogue political correctness is showed me pretty clearly that I wasn't welcome any more, and the CM team dogmatically buckled down on enforcing a CoC that includes pro-active steps, and saying anybody that doesn't agree can find the door. As a moderator doing the dirty work of keeping this site clean there are plenty of people who have wanted a piece of me. I've been lambasted in public and private. I've received death threats just for doing janitorial work around the site. Up until recently I could take all of that in stride because it seemed that SE had our backs. I no longer feel that is true, and I no longer feel safe being a moderator here. 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 think will offend somebody else's sensibilities. It doesn't matter any more whether I intend offense, and just keeping my head low and now going places where I know there might be trouble is no longer an acceptable way out. The new tolerance is tolerant of everything except disagreement. It is forced conformity. Especially for Christianity, **I've always believed we needed the space to hold to our convictions and express them, yet _not_ impose them on others.** 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. I am not saying that is okay. I've seen violations of the old code of conduct and "be nice" groundwork 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's a problem they want to try to fix. Please note in all of this that I've tried not to name names or blame specific individuals. Somewhere in upper SE management there is a circus on fire but I don't know where it is. I've seen several employees belligerently taking the same unhelpful approach, but I am unaware if this play book is their own impetus or if there is something higher up going on and they're just forced to play cards from a specific deck. I'm not angry at anyone in particular, and nothing in particular was said to or about me personally. That being said, the way they handled other cases of people wearing the same shoes convinces me it isn't safe to try to hang around and wait for the fire to burn down. ## Will I leave entirely? No, I don't plan to. I'm not boycotting the existence of network entirely and am not refusing to interact with people with whom I disagree. I will probably turn up from time to time particularly on the technical sites looking for answers. What I am doing is **withdrawing my active endorsement** of SE as a platform, especially for humanities related topics, in response to the fact that **they have come out in active antagonism** of me, my beliefs, and the very world view of many people most active in contributing to this site. ## Would you reconsider? I don't expect to change my mind unless there is a substantial amount of evidence that something significant has changed. If they want this network to be a place where people with differences of identity and belief are allowed to disagree and co-exist, then I might consider coming back. I don't see that happening soon, the train wreck in progress still has a lot of momentum. ## Parting words To the old-guard CM Team members who were instrumental in helping this site get started and having our backs through all the rough spots, thank you. I know or guess some of you might have your own current frustrations and/or have your hands tied, and unlike you my job isn't on the line here. I'm not blaming any of you. To my fellow CS.E and other religion site moderators, it's been an honor to serve with you. To the rest of this site's users, I'll let Bilbo Baggins speak for me this time ;-) > I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring [1]: https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/q/193/30 [2]: https://stackoverflow.blog/2018/11/21/our-theory-of-moderation-re-visited/ [3]: https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/q/5193/836 [4]: http://cellio.dreamwidth.org/2064112.html [5]: https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/333965/145951 [6]: https://cs.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1650/950 [7]: https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/q/9000/4609 [8]: https://workplace.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6314/1070 [9]: https://workplace.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6316/1070