A tale of two postings, and what to learn from it

Aristotle once wrote that it is the sign of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

When you provide ANY sort of service, there is dissatisfaction. You need to address it. Not necessarily agree, or bend to any whim, but you need to address it. You need to be able to entertain the thoughts that the person is expressing.

So, what does "address it" mean?

You need to acknowledge that someone has a point. Not in the boilerplate notices sent out of "We understand your concerns, and we are addressing them now, please be patient" variety. Everyone knows that that is a form letter sent to just shoo a person away.

To address it is to investigate, ask questions, and get to what all the fury is about. The person who is accusing you of being something akin to a "stinky poop head" didn't start out that angry, but now feels ignored and frustrated to the point of lashing out.

Even the person cursing up a storm and being rude did not start out that way.

When I worked in customer service, we were always taught to acknowledge the person's frustrations and then start asking questions such as "What can we do to make this right?".

Even asking that question solves 90% of the problem, as the primary source of frustration is a feeling of lack of acknowledgement or understanding. You want to send the message that the person is being heard. Blow them off, and the anger only grows. Worse, anger can build to the point of disgust, and people will just walk away.

I see the word "TOXIC" bandied about. That's become a crutch and a cop-out that people, not just at SE have been kicking about far too much. It's an excuse to dismiss people who disagree with you, because if they are "toxic", then they can be dismissed.

Worse, this departs from SE's original "Be nice" and "Assume good intentions policies", both of which I found extremely attractive because as a person with autism, we are RARELY afforded such courtesy.

Now, the apparent strategy seems to be "Anyone who disagrees with us is 'toxic' in some way shape or form.

The OP has nailed it completely.

Stop stonewalling, listen, AND TALK to the user base.

SE is in a deep hole, it's time to stop digging.

People have been screaming at you for the past month. It's time to start listening

(Warning: Soapbox ;p)

It's worth remembering that they're different teams, and, well, people feel as welcome as we make them - and that works both ways.

Folks were able to reach out to the development team, show them meta isn't a scary place give them a slight push and... well... it's a lovely thing ;).

If you treat folks as inherently hostile, they will be. If you treat a place as toxic, it will be. There's sometimes work to be done, of course, to actually make things better.

Let's talk about the good old days. When staff - even folks who started outside the SE community, because, well the community was barely taking shape - were accepted into the community. Folks we still speak of fondly were hired, worked their way into the community, and well, even in their absence at least leave a them-shaped hole.

Having folks from the dev and community team working with us should be the normal, as are many other things.

What isn't normal is folks seeing the core of the community as hostile or unimportant, and the community and company being at odds with each other.

It's worth remembering broadly many of us are working towards similar goals. I'm sure the dev team basically wants a product that's the best they can make it. The community wants a platform that fits their needs.

I hope stuff like this keeps happening ;)

This kind of story is nothing SE specific or unique.

On one side there is a Company and on other there are Users (Community). What Company calls toxic Community should actually be called frustrated Community.

Toxicity develops over time when Company continuously ignores Users and pushes its own agenda, implementing superficial, poor or just plain bad features. Insulting Users by calling them toxic while they are drowning in poisoned water Company produced is not helping either.

This is a vicious circle, and many Companies never get out of it.

Of course, there is always plenty of blame to go all around, but one thing that should be pointed out is that Company employees are paid to do their job and Users are either paying their money for Company services, are the actual Product for the Company and/or contribute to the Product. That means that on top of dealing with issues with the Company and the Product, Users have other problems on their own and they have to earn their paycheck doing other (for them way more important) things.

How to solve toxicity?

Unfortunately, solving toxicity is something only Company can do and initiate. If the Company makes right moves poison will clear out. While Users can certainly contribute to faster cleanup, they cannot do a thing unless Company starts making moves in a right direction.

• Company should employ right people in critical places (including managers) - that means having people that can handle the criticism, that are capable of listening to the Users and that are capable of calming down discussions

• Company should train their all employees that deal directly with Users - making them realize that criticism toward Company is not a personal attack

• Company should start listening to the Users and has to seriously start fixing most critical flaws in the Product. In this process it is vital that right (real) issues are recognized and that also involves talking to and listening to the Users

At the end of the day, Users will respond in a positive way to any changes and moves they perceive as desired and needed. That can trigger nice feelings and good response from involved employees. The bad toxicity circle can be turned around.