I no longer feel safe moderating this site

Question

It's been just over five years since I joined the Stack Exchange network. I was awarded my fifth Yearling badge, over at Science Fiction & Fantasy, around a week ago. I became interested in the upkeep and moderation of the site not long after.
One thing led to another, and I was appointed to moderate Literature Stack Exchange in February 2017. I was 14 years old at the time.

Throughout the past five years, and the duration of my moderatorship especially, the site has been a huge influence of me. It helped me to mature as a person, helped me realize what some of passions were, and introduced me to some of the best people I've ever met. It wasn't always the best, but it was an invaluable influence on my life.

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Over the course of the past three weeks, give or take, though, things have changed. Stack Exchange made a long-overdue change to their Code of Conduct to help protect minority groups, which was awesome to see. And at first, I was hopeful.

Unfortunately, this change sparked a veritable flood of anti-LGBTQ+ comments, posts, chat messages, and what have you. Meta.SE in particular was, and still is, overrun with posts expressing sentiments that make me sick. They are not all overt, but the non-overt posts couched in politeness are just as bad, if not worse.

If that wasn't bad enough, the network also became a host to a large number of anti-Jewish sentiments, sparked by a related issue on the network, in which the company in essence marked a Jewish moderator as being anti-trans and threw her to the wolves.

These sentiments have also shown up in a certain percentage of the folks in the network-wide moderator room, and their claims largely went unchallenged by the vast majority of people in the room.

I am not able to hunt down and remove all of these by myself. The pushback I received from users and other moderators while attempting to address some of the issues I saw had made it impossible for me to effectively moderate chat.SE, in particular.

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The company has shown no sign that they are inclined to remove these posts, and the vast majority of them still remain, creating an extremely toxic atmosphere, especially concentrated around Meta.SE.

I also no longer trust the company to support me as a moderator. They have shown that they are willing to defame one of their moderators in an extremely public way, exposing her to mounds of personal attacks and damaging her reputation, to the extent that they spoke to the press about it. They have, as yet, shown no sign that they are taking action to rectify this, and I can no longer trust the company to have any form of support for the moderators who devote their time and effort into maintaining the site, all for free.

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In addition, the controversy has attracted some extreme attention, and I do not feel safe under these circumstances.

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The combination of these two issues has made it that I no longer feel safe in continuing to moderate this site. The community and the company have made it clear that I cannot trust either of them.

Until I see clear evidence that this has changed, I will be stepping down until further notice. I am open to the idea of return, if I feel that things have changed enough - SE has recently clarified that I do have the option of requesting reinstatement if I step down in good standing. I hope that I'll be able to return. Unfortunately, I doubt it.

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I would like to make it clear that the vast majority of people in the moderator room are kind, hard-working people, who are open to learning and want to do what is best. Unfortunately, the small selection of people who continue to post their toxic views are still doing so largely unchallenged, and I no longer feel welcome there due to that.

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It's been an honor to serve as a moderator of this site for nearly three years. Thank you all.

--Mith

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Update: See also my followup on Meta Stack Exchange.

Answer 1

May we have an occasion to work together again, some day. If not here, when all is through, then I hope elsewhere. Your reasons are clear, and I understand. If I had not quit already, I would quit again now, as my thoughts echo yours near word-for-word.

Thanks, sincerely, for all you've done.

Your Obdt. St,
-- Aza

Answer 2

It's saddening that we are losing another valuable moderator and especially on Spirit Day, which is an LGBT awareness day and second strike on literature now due to the same fire.

It's disheartening and I started losing patience now. I might not be so regular on Literature to be specific but I do know user58♦ and had some experiences in TL and other networks and showed me maturity way beyond the age.

For me, I will always see a diamond in your username and wish you good health and a hopeful come back to the team.

Answer 3

Aw, crap.

I've spent the last three weeks reading a number of resignation posts across the network, including some from folks I've served alongside as a mod and some from folks with whom I haven't. Most of really hard to read - not just because we're losing valuable voices, but because the stories and reasons for leaving are so heart-wrenching: not feeling supported by Stack Exchange, being attacked by bigoted users, fearing for their safety online, or just being emotionally exhausted. This is what I've been calling the human cost of this whole debacle. Nobody should have to put up with that sort of crap.

Amidst all of these, I think that your resignation and Aza's were two of the ones that affected me the most. I don't know why. Could be the wording, could be the particular people involved, could be the musical accompaniment. . . But they did touch me. I've learned a lot from both of you, and gained quite a lot from your presences here and on other sites across the network. And that might be why this whole thing feels kinda like a punch in the gut from the Internet in general.

I'm sorry you're stepping down. I really, really am.

One thing that everyone who's staying - and I mean both folks who are staying on Stack Exchange and folks who are staying as mods - has to do is support each other. You don't feel supported; you don't feel safe. I think it's incumbent upon all of us to provide as much support as we can. And that doesn't mean diving into every dispute. It can mean little things: a cat picture in a chat room if someone's having a rough time, an encouraging remark in chat, or maybe just some sort of, well, cheery demeanor - for those who, on that particular day, have a little extra cheer to go around.

That's one way we can start to turn this whole damn problem around. But supporting those like you who don't feel supported, and doing that liiitle bit we can to make this place a bit safer.

This is Literature Stack Exchange, so I do feel compelled to end with a quote. I'll take one from Gandalf in Return of the King, and even though it's about death, I've always felt it's meant to say that there is a hidden light in even the darkest of times:

End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it. . . . White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.

I hope you find the Valinor in your heart.

Answer 4

Your strength, your courage, your patience, your eloquence, your articulation, and your maturity far surpasses mine and that of many of the people on the entire network. For that, you have my deepest respect. I wish you safe passage wherever you go from here.