Skip to main content
Meta Stack Exchange

You are not logged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.

We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.

Required fields*

9
  • 4
    "We can become whatever we want to become - as long as the Community and the Company work together and not against each other." I feel like "whatever we want to be" is a bit rose-tinted. true, there's a lot that many agree on, but I don't think there will be things that everyone agrees are good changes. and the community wants a lot of different things that it's probably impossible to do them all with company people-hours. even if the codebase moved to a more open model, it wouldn't be perfect. there still needs(?) to be some way or person who decides what changes go through or don't. Commented Jan 22, 2025 at 21:22
  • 2
    Yes it's probably a bit rose-tinted. I didn't mean that it's realistic to get everything the Community wants. But if there is agreement on a few things being important or wanting to move in that direction (at least if that agreement is shared between Community members and the Company), I think it should be doable. Commented Jan 22, 2025 at 21:25
  • 7
    Trust is important, but I tend to think of it as a byproduct: it's created when systems work well, and degrades when they don't. It's not a thing to be sought after directly, but by proxy, fixing critical parts of the whole that are not working as desired. So it sounds a bit like what you're saying is that, no matter where we try to go, we won't go anywhere fast unless the capacity to build trust is present. And honestly, I think that's a fair answer. Commented Jan 22, 2025 at 22:11
  • 1
    And tbh I get where you're coming from with 'knowledge,' too. In many ways we have a large complement of resources in the people already at hand. It's fair to ask what we should be working towards just based on those resources. We've made a few attempts at striking out in new directions with it, as you mention. Those features have certainly had their share of criticism, which isn't to say the criticism is unfair, but the general direction does seem to suggest a desire to broaden the kinds of knowledge we can sustainably archive. I think if we can do it, it would have wide public benefit. Commented Jan 22, 2025 at 22:22
  • 1
    The flipside of pursuing better knowledge preservation is that many forms probably require a unified network of communities. And today, I wonder whether contributors to network sites view their contributions more as "local to their communities" or "global to the network." It's sort of a subtle distinction, but I think if you asked people, they'd have a real sense of whether they're "just a Biology contributor" or contributing to "a network." And I think members of network communities would be right to question whether a unified network vision is really the right decision for their community. Commented Jan 22, 2025 at 22:27
  • 1
    But that feels like a problem we can solve for when we need to. More thoughts as I keep chewing on this one. Commented Jan 22, 2025 at 22:30
  • 2
    I feel like having different communities and members focusing on the communities and their interests is probably more important than having a unified view on the network. Of course, there's some sort of belonging but different communities have different needs (the most extreme example might be Stack Overflow vs smaller communities). If someone is active in different SE communities/sites, they see different people just like they would see different people in different non-SE communities. There may be some overlap but it's still different communities - that can work together if that's helpful. Commented Jan 22, 2025 at 23:16
  • 1
    ** as long as the Community and the Company work together and not against each other**- and the company has drawn first blood, so is thus required to make the first steps toward reconciliation and compromise. Until I see evidence of that, I'll be skeptical. For @Slate trust is CRUCIAL for a community supported (at no fee) effort of any kind. Commented Jan 22, 2025 at 23:49
  • 5
    "IMHO, for SE to retain value it must remain an "island" of reliable human-based knowledge, while the rest of the Internet becomes a "swamp" of GenAI slop..." – PM 2Ring Dec 11, 2024 at 23:02 Commented Jan 23, 2025 at 1:20