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    It's possible that "run Stack Overflow" means moderating, not designing. Jeff isn't interested in the vote because he's not looking at the immediate impact, he's looking years down the road. I still don't agree with him, but I hope I understand his perspective.
    – Mark Ransom
    Commented Jul 9, 2011 at 19:53
  • 14
    @Mark: Jeff Atwood has at some points taken a very active role in moderating math.SE, often to the consternation of many of the elected moderators and the vocal users of the site. His single-handed interventions resulted in the resignation of one of the elected moderators. I was often surprised, among other things, that the head of a largish enterprise would insist on acting on such a small scale: e.g. policing individual comments. When pressed, he has made it clear that he will do what he wants even if most or all of "the community" is against him.
    – Pete L. Clark
    Commented Jul 10, 2011 at 4:02
  • 3
    @TJ: +1. I strongly agree with most of what you say. However I disagree that (let me shift away from the personal) the SE platform gives an unusual amount of control to the user. It seemed that way at first, but in the long run I have never been involved with a website that took such an active interest in directing and micromanaging my actions. Protocols on the SE sites change frquently, without warning, and most often without local explanation: you have to go somewhere else (e.g. here) to understand why the site doesn't work the same way today as it did yesterday.
    – Pete L. Clark
    Commented Jul 10, 2011 at 4:07
  • @Pete: Let's not bring the Robin Chapman thing into this discussion (or did you mean someone else?). It's an unrelated point and one where (agreeing with your post on the matter) neither party appears to have behaved well. It's true that SE changes regularly and I'd agree those changes are not well-communicated. In general, I'd say it changes for the better, and it makes a change from systems that just never improve, year-on-year.
    – T.J. Crowder
    Commented Jul 10, 2011 at 8:14
  • 7
    Don't let numerics fool you. Numerics don't make right. Hundreds of users were opposed to the changes made to the envelope we used to have. See where we are now. Policies here have never been decided solely by votes. If they were, the top entries in the reqs tab on the front page wouldn't still be there, they'd be implemented straight-away. Singular users have been enough to oppose the Team's solid stances and still get what they want implemented. Claiming that all these voting supports should be what defines how the site is created is a non-starter.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Jul 13, 2011 at 18:26
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    @Grace: And I'm not claiming that. I'm saying that the change is pointless, arbitrary, and unnecessary. Forcing a pointless, arbitrary, and unnecessary change down the throats of the community the face of overwhelming feedback to the contrary is demonstrating a complete and total lack of respect for that community and an unwillingness to examine or question oneself. The numbers just prove how unpopular it is. It was wrong before the first person voted; ignoring the feedback is a second, distinct, error. And a worse one, frankly.
    – T.J. Crowder
    Commented Jul 13, 2011 at 21:19
  • @TJ: I was not talking about Robin Chapman. (Actually Robin Chapman is apparently still a moderator...) I was talking about the resignation of Akhil Mathew.
    – Pete L. Clark
    Commented Jul 15, 2011 at 7:17
  • @Pete and after reading his resignation the loss seems sad. Without getting into the cause, he seems like a valuable member of the community to lose
    – JockM
    Commented Jul 15, 2011 at 16:50
  • @JockM: yes, Akhil Mathew is, in just about every sense I can think of, an exceptionally good person. But he hasn't left the community -- he just stopped being a moderator. So, although I brought it up as an example of negative consequences of outside intervention, I have to say that in absolute terms it wasn't really a tragedy.
    – Pete L. Clark
    Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 19:43
  • @Pete I take your point (and actually knew that), but I would argue that it is still a net loss. Just, perhaps, not as grave as it could have been. As a guy who started and ran a community based website for years I know that any community site is only as good as the leaders in it. They are the moderating force, they set the tone; in short: they lead.
    – JockM
    Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 19:53
  • 2
    @JockM: Sure, when a great moderator is driven to resign on principle it seems clear that something is amiss (which is why I brought it up in the first place). I just didn't want to paint too dire a picture.
    – Pete L. Clark
    Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 20:02
  • @PeteL.Clark. Jeff Atwood also made some interesting moderation decisions on EL&U. He eventually realised his mistakes and issued a notpology.
    – TRiG
    Commented Nov 2, 2012 at 14:48
  • "ten times as many people expressing an opinion want the change reverted as want to keep it. That's a landslide in any voting system." Your question has 262 in agreement, and 15 in disagreement. Given there are "millions" of users on Stack, that's no representative of "community". Even with 5K views, it's also, quite specifically, a representative of "Meta community" voting, and the majority of the whole "Stack community" have not even read this.
    – James
    Commented Jun 21, 2015 at 17:37
  • @James: The key part of that quote was "expressing an opinion". You can only measure what you can measure. (And it is, of course, now closer to 20 times as many than to ten...)
    – T.J. Crowder
    Commented Jun 21, 2015 at 17:43
  • @T.J.Crowder Yes, one can "only measure what you can measure", but that doesn't make it accurate. And one can make a decision without considering the data because it's limited and so not particularly useful. Jeff obviously believes he did what was best for the site, and that will (likely) include the presumed consensus from those who did not come here and vote. That's only speculation of course, and it does touch towards dictatorship. But perhaps if 1 million users had come here and voted in favour of your proposal, Jeff would have at least reconsidered it
    – James
    Commented Jun 21, 2015 at 17:59