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    As a moderator, part of the harm I have felt is learning that our community management team has been significantly depowered, their role apparently made into one of corralling users rather than as community ambassadors. The moderators and community rely on the CMs to get things done. We need them to be empowered to do what they're good at. We need this ratcheting situation—and the ideas that have lead to it—to be recognised as self-destructive and dispelled.
    – doppelgreener
    Commented Feb 19, 2020 at 17:13
  • 26
    All of the current internal Community folks are now part of my organization. We are currently working through defining the framework for the work they do: tactical, operational and strategic and how they have impact. Through defining this and the Community Roadmap initiatives we will have a better sense of how many people we need to be successful and what skillsets/background they should have. We will also have the information to justify more people if needed. So my best answer is we are figuring it out together as a team.
    – Teresa Dietrich Staff
    Commented Feb 19, 2020 at 18:39
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    @TeresaDietrich Thanks so much for the reply, it seriously means a lot. Best of luck to you and your team moving forward.
    – Spevacus Mod
    Commented Feb 19, 2020 at 18:45
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    @TeresaDietrich The justification is already clear. For example, the dozens of sites that need new elections but can't have them because only one current CM knows how to run them fully. How soon until we see job postings for new CMs?
    – curiousdannii
    Commented Feb 19, 2020 at 21:51
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    @TeresaDietrich you say you're at SE since about a month ago - which roughly coincides with the timing of two very important CMs being let go. Was that already part of your actions as head of the community team? Or were you hired after the fact?
    – l4mpi
    Commented Feb 20, 2020 at 10:11
  • 43
    @TeresaDietrich: Over the last few years the CM team has been whittled down from 14 to 6. As the team got smaller, we were asked to justify the work we were doing. It seems to me that we had already hit the limits of that strategy before Robert and Shog were let go. I'd encourage you to consider the size of community management teams on networks of similar size to Stack Exchange/Overflow. Even given the amazing work volunteer moderators do for the sites, I can't see how the current CM team isn't understaffed by an order of magnitude or more.
    – Jon Ericson
    Commented Feb 20, 2020 at 17:40
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    It's also worth considering that that's a direct, tangible and fairly immediate investment that could be made in the community. The CM team we have now, taking into account Jeff being terribly hands on, is roughly the size the team was in its infancy. I'd also say that to a significant extent, one of my reservations with devolution of decision making to mods - say through the mod council is that it could be used to freeze or shrink the CM team. That the team is overworked and stretched thinner and thinner is a significant concern of many in the moderator community.
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Commented Feb 21, 2020 at 0:20
  • 42
    @TeresaDietrich Perhaps rather than reaching out to the people who are left, you should reach out to the people who have left to see what they think. As Jon pointed out above, there were 14 of us a few years back and that's been whittled down. Rather than just trying to figure out what the "tactical, operational, and strategic" value of the remaining CMs is, why not also take a look at what changed to get to the point where the organization doesn't understand the role CMs play in the relationship with the community?
    – jmac
    Commented Feb 21, 2020 at 1:09