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I registered on Stack Overflow 7 years ago. I was amazed by the site, as it put a large focus on the programming community, building a place where everyone was free to ask and answer, as long as they were civil and respected the formal rules for creating questions, answers, or comments, which, even though strict, have helped make this network professional but still open to anybody. I quickly discovered other sites in the network and tried to be a helpful member of various communities. I enjoyed being a part of any community where a person's reputation would come from their knowledge or skill, and not from their views or opinions.

Unfortunately, I was oblivious to what has been happening.

The recent actions have made it clear to me that the people who run the network and create the rules are more interested in maintaing their public image instead of the functionality of the network, and are willing to bow to anybody obsessed with imposing their opinion upon others. This is a destructive tendency and if even honest people who are willing to have a civil discussion face repercussions instead, I cannot imagine where this is going. I cannot and will not support a site that seeks to ostracize members who don't immediately agree with their views, especially when they are as petty as non-standard additions to the English language. The people who want to stay neutral and outside ideological issues are labelled, falsely accused, and persecuted.

I have seen this trend in various communities and sites, and I am saddened that Stack Exchange is the place where this is happening next, especially when this site should be open to people from all groups in the society and should be professional without pushing any political agenda on the users.

For a site of this kind, this cannot go unnoticed and must be resolved by nothing else than apologizing to the wrongly-accused members, undoing the harm that was caused by these accusations and repercussions, and promising to stay neutral and professional when it comes to controversial topics.

Unless this happens, I will be always reminded of the fact that when a question goes unanswered, perhaps somebody who could answer it was actively prevented from accessing the site just because of different opinions.

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    Very well said. For my part, I have considered "maybe someday I could be a moderator instead of just a participant" - but with the current status (and barring dramatic public positive changes) that will never happen. And I have significantly cut back on my (small by some standards, big by others) contributions as the controversy has been far too distracting. Commented Oct 6, 2019 at 12:12
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    @IllidanS4 - This is brilliantly expressed. I feel exactly the same, as do thousands of other members. What astonishes me the most is that the directors and executives of the company have gone completely into hiding. To mix my metaphors, the Titanic has been hit by a bomb that threatens to drown the whole business, and yet neither the captain nor the senior officers has appeared to deal with the situation!
    – TechnoCat
    Commented Oct 6, 2019 at 12:14
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    Please note that LGBT members have been very upset by all this. Eg meta.stackexchange.com/a/334266/334566 Also note that some LGBT people who previously kept a very low profile (including at least one mod) have "outed" themselves and spoken strongly against what's happened to Monica. Eg meta.stackexchange.com/a/334289/334566
    – PM 2Ring
    Commented Oct 6, 2019 at 12:58
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    After VCs step in, companies are fxxed.
    – Eric
    Commented Oct 6, 2019 at 13:35
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    We need to stop and slow down for a minute -- otherwise SE is likely to rm -rf meta/.
    – user474678
    Commented Oct 6, 2019 at 14:25
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    I'm sure that's unlikely to happen.Lets keep it civil and constructive and not decend to conspiracy theories. Folks are stressed out enough as is. Commented Oct 6, 2019 at 15:00
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    rm -rf meta/ They'd be letting go of their entire QA department! Commented Oct 7, 2019 at 14:57

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