Abstract
Yesterday’s replace summarized the first week of the Stack Change Moderator strike. The strike started final Monday
with an open letter to Stack Change.
Over the weekend the moderators, and neighborhood curators elected three representatives to speak with Stack Change. These talks began this week.
They went into these discussions to reiterate the 4 situations to finish the strike.
- A retraction of the of the prohibition of moderating GPT content material.
- The personal coverage on GPT content material that was issued to moderators should be revealed publicly.
- The information dumps should be re-enabled and SEDE and API entry guarenteed.
- Stack Change, Inc. should talk, collect suggestions, and act on that suggestions earlier than making main coverage or software program modifications to the general public platform.
So, the place are we now?
The replace
Representatives
Discussions with Stack Change began off lower than stellar, in my view. Quoting from the Vice President of Neighborhood at Stack Change, as
relayed to these of us not within the discussions:
“So in abstract: Cesar is my delegate for points right here, whereas I reserve ultimate choice making to myself I”ve vested him with broad discretionary authority and we’re assembly on a frequent (each day or a number of instances each day) foundation to clear any variations between us.”
My take away right here is that the Vice President of Neighborhood – an individual who’s job ought to contain coping with the neighborhood does not assume that is
necessary sufficient to attend. Whereas I’ve labored with Cesar in my function as a moderator, that is simply making Cesar the automotive salesman that has to
“speak with the supervisor about your provide”. It is a means for the corporate to pull this out and a approach to make a the true selections with out moderation
enter. I totally count on to listen to from the neighborhood representatives that Cesar preferred a proposal however the VP didn’t however that the VP wasn’t round to
focus on why not. I might like to be confirmed incorrect on that although.
Knowledge Dumps
Knowledge dumps are the third bullet on our record of issues that should be restored. Excellent news! Stack Change could have these restored by June 16, 2023.
This was posted (twice) by the VP of Neighborhood – the one not attending the talks above.
[…]
Our intention was by no means to cease posting the information dump, solely to start to gather extra info on the way it was getting used and by whom – particularly in mild of the rise of LLMs and questions round how genAI fashions are dealing with attribution. Nevertheless, it’s clear that many particular person customers (lecturers, researchers, and many others) have a right away have to entry up to date variations of the dumps. So we’re re-enabling the automated knowledge dumps (and importing the one which’s a few week overdue). We consider that this will occur by finish of the day Friday. We’ll proceed to work towards the creation of sure guardrails (for big AI/LLM firms) for each the dumps and the API, however once more – now we have no intention of proscribing/charging neighborhood members or different accountable customers of the dumps or the API from accessing them.
[…]
Within the meantime, the information dumps can be re-enabled by finish of day Friday. We’ll talk right here when that has been accomplished or if there are any delays. We may also submit right here prior to creating any future modifications to the dumps or distribution of the dumps.
I suppose now we wait to see if there are any “delays” earlier than Friday.
This message was confirmed by one of many Co-Founders that has since left Stack Change and
initially dedicated to those knowledge dumps again in June 2009.
I’ve affirmation through e-mail from Prashanth that that is, certainly, the brand new official coverage. I am glad to see it. Artistic Commons is a part of our contract with the neighborhood, and it ought to by no means be damaged — nonetheless, CC does want to handle the AI difficulty in an up to date license, in my private opinion. […] – Jeff Atwood
I’m proud of this concession and affirmation of the concession from our representatives, Stack Change and a Co-founder.
Nevertheless, it is telling that when once more it is Philippe making statements which can be lies.
He is finished it with posts to the press that I discussed yesterday (moderators are relying on GPT detectors!). He is finished it with the inner
emails to his personal coworkers. He is doing it once more right here.
Our intention was by no means to cease posting the information dump…
This straight contridicts that assertion supplied by the Stack Change Chief Know-how Officer final week.
Stack Overflow senior management is engaged on a technique to guard Stack Overflow knowledge from being misused by firms constructing LLMs. Whereas engaged on this technique, we determined to cease the dump till we might put guardrails in place.
For being a VP of Neighborhood, the flexibility to speak with the neighborhood is significantly missing.
AI Coverage
Not rather more progress has been supplied by the neighborhood representatives. From what I’ve seen, Stack Change is pushing to name an finish of this
with the promise of a brand new coverage. Nevertheless it’s not finished but. They will work on it with the moderators and as soon as that is finished, that may substitute the present
coverage that began the strike. The consultant talked about they have been pushing for a deadline on how shortly moderators would be capable of decide to this
change.
For my part, it is a approach to finish the neighborhood’s moderation strike and conform to primarily nothing. It is one other promise that one thing will occur.
It will get the neighborhood again to moderation (which Stack Change staff have been doing for the week), and in the event that they break that promise the hassle to
re-organize motion has to start out once more.
Proper now, I am not agreeing to return to using my free time to carry out moderation duties with out realizing what the brand new coverage is.
The place do I sit?
Very like yesterday, I proceed to re-evaluate my relationship with Stack Change. I am actually completely satisfied that the information dump has been restored. The messaging
round it although continues to erode my belief within the firm’s actions. This was additionally one of many simpler objects for Stack Change to conform to, even
although it appears like a co-founder might have had a hand in resolving this as nicely. I do not know if that is true and I respect the work the
representatives have finished to resolve our first level of rivalry.
It is also very telling that the messaging does not point out the restoration within the context of the strike in any respect. If the corporate was trying to
construct goodwill on this atmosphere, I might assume they might level to the situations within the open letter and tie the enablement of the information dumps straight
to that. As an alternative, we received an announcement that claims they did not intend to cease posting the information dump, straight contridicting a earlier assertion saying
senior management determined to cease the dump.
Superb.
