Regarding [2] This is extremely bad, like Google+ forced-real-name-policies bad..!
(For those who wonder: that and the Buzz incident made lots of people hate or at least distrust Google.)
Why why why do companies do this?
During the last 6 months I've stopped logging into Stack Overflow. It is a nice resource but for me it is read only for now because they messed up so hard - and refused to come up with a real apology.
Same goes for Quora: they betrayed us hard by trying to tell everyone what we were looking at. (Edit: next sentence added later:) Now imagine you've been reading up about health issues and realize it is suddenly on your profile. Still now, many years later I shun them as they haven't as far as I see come clean.
In some cases, if it get caught early enough, just saying: "we messed up, sorry, here's what we will do:" can be enough.
In other cases - where there are layers of bad patterns, lies and contempt for users and volunteers I actively want to punish them until they start behaving.
Quora (broadcasting sensitive information), Google (trying to kill the web, insulting me with insanely misplaced ads for years, trying to kill Firefox), Stack Overflow all goes on my list of companies that I actively work against, but I guess only until I see real change ;-)
They kicked a mod (Monica) who dared to ask questions about the implementation of their new policy regarding gender words.
IIRC Monica asked if would be OK if she (or someone else?) wrote in a way that sidestepped the whole issue, for example by writing about "the user" instead of "he and/or she".
Again IIRC they leaked information to newspapers, misrepresented the case and issued one or more non-apologies before trying to pretend nothing had happened.
Is it really surprising that a moderator, who is meant to be enforcing the rules, protesting a "respect trans people's pronouns" rule with "what if I just stop using pronouns" didn't go well for them? StackOverflow should pick moderators that respect the spirit of the rules they're going to be enforcing.
You should read more about the situation. I think your take is quite naive, frankly.
And why it became okay to compel someone to use a certain pronoun as opposed to compelling them to _not misgender_ is absolute lunacy. Monica wanted to write her sentences in a way that did not require pronouns period, and they decided that was not okay. Not to mention all the mud-dragging and character assassination they pulled.
I’m on mobile so won’t dig up the link but go find what Monica wrote on it
Sure, but moderators are elected by the community, Monica was elected before the new policy was a thing, and the community including Monica and StackExchange were discussing what the new policy was going to look like (the policy hadn't even been finalized yet, let alone rolled out) when SE went and fired Monica (doesn't matter what the reason, firing people from elected positions without consensus doesn't go over well) and dissed Monica (by name!) to the media.
And then obviously Monica crowdfunded $25k to sue SE, they came to an agreement and neither party really talks about the incident any more.
There was really no need for the situation to escalate as harshly as it did and SE shot themselves in the foot repeatedly.
(For those who wonder: that and the Buzz incident made lots of people hate or at least distrust Google.)
Why why why do companies do this?
During the last 6 months I've stopped logging into Stack Overflow. It is a nice resource but for me it is read only for now because they messed up so hard - and refused to come up with a real apology.
Same goes for Quora: they betrayed us hard by trying to tell everyone what we were looking at. (Edit: next sentence added later:) Now imagine you've been reading up about health issues and realize it is suddenly on your profile. Still now, many years later I shun them as they haven't as far as I see come clean.
In some cases, if it get caught early enough, just saying: "we messed up, sorry, here's what we will do:" can be enough.
In other cases - where there are layers of bad patterns, lies and contempt for users and volunteers I actively want to punish them until they start behaving.
Quora (broadcasting sensitive information), Google (trying to kill the web, insulting me with insanely misplaced ads for years, trying to kill Firefox), Stack Overflow all goes on my list of companies that I actively work against, but I guess only until I see real change ;-)