TW: Racism, transphobia, homophobia
A common question throughout this has been staff's absence within this thread. People are wondering why we're not talking, or taking it a step further and calling us cowardly for not showing up.
Part of the reason we're scarce is because we're discussing changes to not only staff procedure and the general guidelines, but also community engagement and ways to bridge that gap with the members here. We're thinking about throwing some things out entirely and trying new things, some of which were suggested in here actually. (Just because we're not posting doesn't mean we're not reading.) Our goal is to create enduring changes that we think will have a positive effect on the community so as to avoid the mistakes made this past week. We're trying to get them solidified as quickly as possible, but this all still requires us to discuss and debate different changes. That doesn’t mean we’re not reading what you write here: please continue to post in this thread with your thoughts.
However, I wanted to share a snippet of the types of abuse we have received since this began to better contextualize our perspective. What has been an issue this and every time there has been a blow up is stupid tickets and PMs like this:
This is by no means abnormal in terms of just the complete disrespect we get on the site, but it was just heinous enough that staff felt that I should show it myself.
It doesn't matter that I'm an admin. This is a problem we legitimately deal with, and it does inhibit staff's ability to work smoothly. However, we are actually working. Please be patient.