It would be nice to hear about the position of HSE as a community regarding the ongoing systemwide moderator strike. Caveat: I understand that the site (HSE) is small and so is number of moderators and users regularly visiting HSE Meta.
For myself: I am currently refraining from voting, flagging, asking and answering questions on main stackexchange sites I normally participate in (such as History Stack Exchange).
Edit: As of August 2, 2023, the strike appears to be over, see here.
This is honestly the first I've heard about it, so at the moment I think its fair to say it isn't impacting this site. Of course that could change, and I can't claim to 100% know the minds of the other 3 site mods.
I have been aware of some of the issues behind this, but personally I'm in the "I'm not angry, just disappointed." mode.
I'm not supposed to talk about what goes on in the moderator-only site, but the post on this specific issue was astonishingly tone-deaf. I don't think they meant it to sound like that, just to be decisive and unambiguous. However, this isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened, and the fact that great care isn't being taken to avoid it happening again is ... disappointing.
The flashpoint was a direction from corporate to not be suspending anyone on the basis of a "Chatbot-detector" showing a post highly likely to be an AI. They don't want those used at all, due to them supposedly showing a lot of false-positives, particularly for ESL (English Second Language) posters. When asked for references to that phenomenon, they wouldn't provide them (until today, but likely nobody's listening now).
From my perspective, I feel like I volunteer and work for you all not for SE. So I'm not going to abandon you to the Nazis just because I'm miffed at SE corporate's inept social skills.
On the other hand, because I work for you, I'm also not changing a damn thing about how I moderate unless and until I'm convinced it would help you and the site to do so, or you all make it clear you want that change.
For me, much the same conclusion. I've been somewhat aware of the strike, but the strikers haven't articulated a clear enough platform/agenda to compel my participation.
To the extent that this strike is about AI, I'm not sure that it is relevant to H:SE. I predict that for the vast majority of the cases, I can moderate content based on the quality of the content, the presence of preliminary research, the presence/absence of citations, etc. Whether or not the content is written by AI isn't likely to be the determining factor. Although SE didn't present evidence (Had their post been in this community, it would have fallen short of the "preliminary research test"), I am sufficiently skeptical of AI and concerned about the implications for diversity that arise from suppressing AI.
To the extent that this strike is about SE corporate culture, I'm not convinced that a strike is the right approach. I agree that SE is failing to build the kind of trust that supports the community they claim to want. Their language can be absolutist/autocratic/insensitive. On the other hand, I strongly suspect that they're working under legal/regulatory/governance constraints that I don't fully understand, and I'm reluctant to hold them accountable without understanding those constraints.
I'm not optimistic about the future of SE. At a minimum, SE is going to transform as it matures - all institutions grow from gardens of hope to edifices of routine. The effort to generate value and sustain investment requires culling opportunities. Creating an institution requires transforming tribal joy into routine procedure, but also inevitable captures and preserves all the errors made. Tomorrow's SE will be different from today's, less in some ways, more in others.
But like T.E.D. the joy I derive is from supporting this site, these people, this topic. I'm not responsible for the bigger picture. SE is aware that they've failed to capture my trust and loyalty.
So I'm not striking, but I'm not opposing a strike. I'm moderating H:SE.
