We promise we don’t take @Everyone lightly. We save this for special reasons. After some internal conversations, we consider this to be one.
We, as mods, have not succeeded at our one true mission: to provide a welcoming environment for everyone. We are going to do better — in coordination with each other, in particular — and are implementing new guidelines. You can skip to the new guidelines here.
In June of 2022, we declared our independence from the other server. The reasons we did so were clear: we, as the ‘hired’ moderators, no longer had confidence in their ability to effectively host a safe space for everyone.
At first, we invited the people who we knew would be friends and allies, and generally people we enjoyed hanging out with. Then, it grew a bit more. And a bit more. Now even some spouses are involved.
With that growth, and as this became more of a de-facto hangout space, we’ve become more and more comfortable with each other. As more and more of us have left the company that initially all brought us together, more topics outside of our shared day-to-day lives have been brought up, too. This has been a great benefit, and is both enjoyed and preferred!
With the diversity both in the people and topics came a new challenge, too: where do we draw the line? What is out of scope? Where do we come in as “mods?”
As it turns out, the line is “not wherever the hell we put it, that’s for sure.” What started out initially as trying to make a safer space has seemingly evolved into another, different, unsafe place for multiple people at this point. We took too much of a hands-off approach.
Please, make no mistake: this is not based off any one single event. We also don’t want to ignore or want to discount anything that recently happened in #way-too-much, as it represents a culmination of events in many ways.
We take the responsibility we have as a mod team seriously. We take it seriously enough to apologize. We’ve done a lousy job. The first step to solving any problems is admitting you have one. We have determined if we continue to not do much, this space might not exist for very much longer.
A lot more talking amongst ourselves — mod and non-mod — about the right things is required. This should be easy since that’s, effectively, all we ever do. There will be three guidelines moving forward that we are both required to uphold, and you’re required to be held to.
We think this is the best path forward, and strikes an important balance between you and us. Ultimately, we’re going to do a better job of providing a welcoming space for everybody. Thank you for your understanding as we learn to do better.