I cannot possibly answer the question sincerely without first challenging the frame introduced by talking about "toxicity". My extensive experience in Internet debate has led me to the conclusion that the term "toxic" offers no benefit to the discussion. At best, it describes nothing concrete or objective. At worst, it is a boo-word used by (and watchword for) entryists who seek to shame a community into relaxing its rules or altering its culture, even at the expense of its core values, principles and goals.

I cannot possibly answer the question sincerely without first challenging the frame introduced by talking about "toxicity". My extensive experience in Internet debate has led me to the conclusion that the term "toxic" offers no benefit to the discussion. At best, it describes nothing concrete or objective. At worst, it is a boo-word used by (and a watchword for) entryists who seek to shame a community into relaxing its rules or altering its culture, even at the expense of its core values, principles and goals.

I cannot possibly write about this topic sincerely without first challenging this frame. My extensive experience in Internet debate has led me to the conclusion that the term "toxic" offers no benefit to the discussion. At best, it describes nothing concrete or objective. At worst, it is a boo-word used by (and watchword for) entryists who seek to shame a community into relaxing its rules or altering its culture, even at the expense of its core values, principles and goals.

While I don't find anything inherently objectionable in the concept of a community being "welcoming", I question the implicit assumption that a community should have any moral obligation to be welcoming, simply because - what? Because it's public facing? Because membership is open?

Stack Exchange sites are not merely "not social media"; they are explicitly goal-oriented. Every site's tour gets to copy-paste a template that claims: "With your help, we're working together to build a library of detailed answers...". That's a goal. Every site solicits help from the general public to meet that goal. Asking a question is helping with construction.

Construction requires at least a modicum of forethought. Questions are the material of the site, and in order to end up with a sound, useful library, it is necessary to carefully scrutinize every new question that is proposed for addition (i.e. to check them for clarity, topicality and focus), and for everyone to be willing to abide by an existing system of curation (i.e., to be willing to accept edits and duplicate closures).

A lot of veterans like to turn the question around and talk about the ill treatment they've received in response to their attempts at ordinary curation tasks. I don't think that's very productive or insightful, and I generally shrug off such ill treatment nowadays anyway. But my point is: the problem isn't being "unwelcoming", except insofar as one chooses to treat "being welcoming" as a KPI.

A big shiny button labelled "Ask Question", along with a text input form, affords treating Stack Exchange sites like the discussion forums that they aren't. New users are disappointed when the expectations set by that UI are not met. The competitive model for answers, similarly, incentivizes people to do what will be popular, which is not necessarily what is helpful. Meanwhile, the incentive for actual curation tasks is sorely lacking.

This results in sites where curation is done by a tiny minority of deeply intrinsically motivated people, while new content is contributed by hordes of people who have no interest in even finding out that the site has anything like a greater purpose. What's more, curators are handicapped. It is far too difficult to get redundant, altogether incorrect, or otherwise unsuitable answers removed. Meanwhile, the people asking questions insist on tailor-made answers, and resist all attempts to route those questions as duplicates to some higher-quality, polished, decontextualized version of the question, as well as attempts to edit their own question so it can be suitable for closing someone else's question as a duplicate.

On larger sites, this is compounded by the fact that different parts of the world, giving rise to different cultures, will have people awake and answering questions at different times of day - creating mirroring cultural enclaves within the site, with their own ideas about the purpose and utility of the site software. The Meta sites are simply not adequately powered to get these varying groups on the same page. (To be frank, I consider it nearly miraculous that Stack Overflow's English-only policy is upheld anywhere near as well as it is.)

There is nothing unkind about being blunt. There is something unkind about using needlessly personal language or taking an accusatory or exasperated tone, like "why didn't you do X?!". But it is perfectly reasonable to say "Please read [relevant policy] and do X." More than that shouldn't be necessary.

They almost never mention that there is a Code of Conduct, or that violating content should be flagged, or that such content is promptly removed whenever the extremely overworked volunteer moderators can manage it; usually they seem entirely unaware that any such system exists.

As such, there is no opportunity for inequality to arise - except when people who falsely consider disparate impact as proof of inequality, derive disparate impact from being treated the same way as everyone else. Instead of, you know, attempting to assess the local culture fairly, appreciate why it is as it is, and understand how it works. You know, just like what they might exhort others to do.

I cannot possibly answer the question sincerely without first challenging the frame introduced by talking about "toxicity". My extensive experience in Internet debate has led me to the conclusion that the term "toxic" offers no benefit to the discussion. At best, it describes nothing concrete or objective. At worst, it is a boo-word used by (and watchword for) entryists who seek to shame a community into relaxing its rules or altering its culture, even at the expense of its core values, principles and goals.

However, I'm happy to talk about what new users do or don't seem to find "welcoming" - based mainly on my reading of off-site criticism, and partly on some rather... difficult Meta site interactions.

While I don't find anything inherently objectionable in the concept of a community being "welcoming", I question the implicit assumption that a community should have any moral obligation to be welcoming, simply because - what? Because it's public facing? Because membership is open?

Stack Exchange sites are not merely "not social media"; they are explicitly goal-oriented. Every site's tour gets to copy-paste a template that claims: "With your help, we're working together to build a library of detailed answers...". That's a goal. Every site solicits help from the general public to meet that goal. Asking a question is helping with construction.

Construction requires at least a modicum of forethought. Questions are the material of the site, and in order to end up with a sound, useful library, it is necessary to carefully scrutinize every new question that is proposed for addition (i.e. to check them for clarity, topicality and focus), and for everyone to be willing to abide by an existing system of curation (i.e., to be willing to accept edits and duplicate closures).

A lot of veterans like to turn the question around and talk about the ill treatment they've received in response to their attempts at ordinary curation tasks. I don't think that's very productive or insightful, and I generally shrug off such ill treatment nowadays anyway. But my point is: the problem isn't being "unwelcoming", except insofar as one chooses to treat "being welcoming" as a KPI.

So, one might wonder: what is the cause of this expectation gap?

My take: a big shiny button labelled "Ask Question", along with a text input form, affords treating Stack Exchange sites like the discussion forums that they explicitly aren't supposed to be. New users are disappointed when the expectations set by that UI are not met. The competitive model for answers, similarly, incentivizes people to do what will be popular, which is not necessarily what is helpful. Meanwhile, the incentive for actual curation tasks is sorely lacking.

This results in sites where curation is done by a tiny minority of deeply intrinsically motivated people, while new content is contributed by hordes of people who have no interest in even finding out that the site has anything like a greater purpose. What's more, curators are handicapped. It is far too difficult to get redundant, altogether incorrect, or otherwise unsuitable answers removed. Meanwhile, the people asking questions insist on tailor-made answers, and resist all attempts to route those questions as duplicates to some higher-quality, polished, decontextualized version of the question, as well as attempts to edit their own question so it can be suitable for closing someone else's question as a duplicate.

On larger sites, this is compounded by the fact that different parts of the world, giving rise to different cultures, will have people awake and answering questions at different times of day - creating mirroring cultural enclaves within the site, with their own ideas about the purpose and utility of the site software. The Meta sites are simply not adequately powered to get these varying groups on the same page. (To be frank, I consider it nearly miraculous that Stack Overflow's English-only policy is upheld anywhere near as well as it is.)

There is nothing unkind about being blunt. There is something unkind about using needlessly personal language or taking an accusatory or exasperated tone, like "why didn't you do X?!". But it is perfectly reasonable to say "Please read [relevant policy] and do X." More than that shouldn't be necessary.

They almost never mention that there is a Code of Conduct, or that violating content should be flagged, or that such content is promptly removed whenever the extremely overworked volunteer moderators can manage it; usually they seem entirely unaware that any such system exists.

As such, when editing and curation proceed according to policy, there is no opportunity for inequality to arise - except when people who falsely consider disparate impact as proof of inequality, derive disparate impact from being treated the same way as everyone else. Perhaps they'd be better off if they tried to assess the local culture fairly, appreciate why it is as it is, and understand how it works. You know, just like what they might exhort others to do.