\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This new workflow should help new askers craft questions more successfully with less stress. Each step gathers specific input that’s generally needed to help answerers. As we test it, we can expand this design to support additional question types. We’ve already done a couple rounds of user testing and are now gathering feedback from the community. You can \u003C/span>\u003Ca href=\"https://stackoverflow.com/questions/ask/wizard\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">check it out here\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and \u003C/span>\u003Ca href=\"https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/369682/ask-a-question-wizard-prototype\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">leave feedback on this post\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cb>Built an “Unwelcoming or snarky” comments classification app\u003C/b>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our users have always been really great at flagging and removing outright abusive comments, but we’ve long struggled to deal with (or even define clearly) lower-key unpleasantness: condescension, snark, dismissiveness. We just finished our first step to change that: 57 employees provided 13,742 ratings of “fine,” “unwelcoming or snarky,” or “abusive,” on random comments on SO, and we’ll be sharing the initial results and our next steps in a separate post.\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cb>Created a prioritized queue of 67 other next up\u003C/b> \u003Cb>initiatives\u003C/b>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some of these are already in active discussion with the community, like \u003C/span>\u003Ca href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/310974/lets-remove-the-auto-downvote-on-validated-vlq-flags-on-questions/311037#311037\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">removing auto-downvotes that come with certain flags\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The key here is that we will always have a \u003C/span>\u003Ci>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">next \u003C/span>\u003C/i>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">initiative to move forward for discussions, input, and implementation, so we won’t lose momentum.\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cb>In progress\u003C/b>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cb>Comment flagging improvements \u003C/b>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We are working on various improvements to comment flagging to increase visibility and \u003C/span>\u003Ca href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/311459/allow-new-users-to-flag-comments-on-their-own-posts\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">allow more people to participate\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in this critical activity.\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cb>Community/civility partnerships \u003C/b>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’ve connected to individuals (researchers, academics, community managers and data scientists) from many institutions and companies that are concerned about civility on the internet. We’ve kicked off collaborations with a couple companies to build machine learning approaches that can address civility in internet scale communities. More data can train smarter analysis, so we are optimistic about these collaborations. Machine learning isn’t a magic solution nor will it be our only avenue for partnerships, but it will be a part of our toolkit. We hope to have more to share soon.\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cb>Upgrading our community standards\u003C/b>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We are undertaking a full review of our community standards, including an overhaul of our \u003Ca href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/be-nice\">\"Be Nice\" policy\u003C/a> to evolve it into a full fledged code of conduct, \u003C/span>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">which better articulates exactly what we expect and how those expectations are enforced. Our first draft is almost done and we’ll be sharing it for feedback early next week.\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cb>Our internal framework to attack the problem\u003C/b>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’ve created a framework to help us ensure we’re being disciplined in how we define the problems and prioritize solutions.\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cb>Understanding exclusion\u003C/b>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We need to fully understand the scope and depth of the problem. Using data insights and UX research we are attempting to answer questions like these:\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Cul>\n \u003Cli>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What are the negative experiences people have had while using Stack Overflow?\u003C/span>\u003C/li>\n \u003Cli>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What are the site functions that contribute to negative feelings, expectations, and/or experiences?\u003C/span>\u003C/li>\n \u003Cli>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What are the behaviors that contribute to negative feelings, expectations, or experiences?\u003C/span>\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cb>Learn from others’ inclusion efforts\u003C/b>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By engaging and working with others who are actively tackling inclusion efforts (particularly other companies dealing with internet scale communities) we want to: \u003C/span>\n\n\u003Cul>\n \u003Cli>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Learn, learn, learn. We aren’t the experts. \u003C/span>\u003C/li>\n \u003Cli>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Investigate solutions from other online communities who had to address similar issues.\u003C/span>\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cb>Solve for one, extend to many\u003C/b>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We believe that by focusing on excluded people we can make Stack Overflow (and the entire Stack Exchange network of Q&A sites) better for everyone. We are committed to making changes in: \u003C/span>\n\n\u003Cul>\n \u003Cli>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">community standards\u003C/span>\u003C/li>\n \u003Cli>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">enforcement mechanisms\u003C/span>\u003C/li>\n \u003Cli>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the software that runs the site.\u003C/span>\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cb>Engage the broad community\u003C/b>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We commit to an open dialog about our goals, understanding of the problem, ideas for research and solutions and progress on both Meta and our blog.\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cb>Next up\u003C/b>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We will be providing regular updates on the work we are doing around inclusion. Soon, we’ll be sharing more details in separate posts on the Ask a Question Wizard, what we learned from our comment classifier, and our proposed new code of conduct. We’re on a long road here, but we’re excited about our progress so far. We hope you’ll stick with us for the rest of the ride.\u003C/span>","html","2018-06-21T16:00:21.000Z",{"current":455},"rolling-out-the-welcome-wagon-june-update",[457,465,470],{"_createdAt":458,"_id":459,"_rev":460,"_type":461,"_updatedAt":458,"slug":462,"title":464},"2023-05-23T16:43:21Z","wp-tagcat-community","9HpbCsT2tq0xwozQfkc4ih","blogTag",{"current":463},"community","Community",{"_createdAt":458,"_id":466,"_rev":460,"_type":461,"_updatedAt":458,"slug":467,"title":469},"wp-tagcat-company",{"current":468},"company","Company",{"_createdAt":458,"_id":471,"_rev":460,"_type":461,"_updatedAt":458,"slug":472,"title":474},"wp-tagcat-stackoverflow",{"current":473},"stackoverflow","Stackoverflow","Rolling out the Welcome Wagon: June Update",[477,483,488,493],{"_id":478,"publishedAt":479,"slug":480,"sponsored":12,"title":482},"1d082483-6dc6-424b-8b09-9c84b54779da","2025-09-02T17:00:00.000Z",{"_type":10,"current":481},"back-to-school-developers-at-stack-overflow-have-some-advice-for-you","Back to school? Developers at Stack Overflow have some advice for you",{"_id":484,"publishedAt":479,"slug":485,"sponsored":12,"title":487},"5cd91820-9515-4be5-87ae-e919fd443c18",{"_type":10,"current":486},"getting-started-on-stack-overflow-a-step-by-step-guide-for-students","Getting started on Stack Overflow: a step-by-step guide for students",{"_id":489,"publishedAt":479,"slug":490,"sponsored":12,"title":492},"614538a9-c352-4024-adf1-fa44a9f911b6",{"_type":10,"current":491},"stack-overflow-is-helping-you-learn-to-code-with-new-resources","Stack Overflow is helping you learn to code with new resources",{"_id":494,"publishedAt":479,"slug":495,"sponsored":12,"title":497},"763b1d36-83d8-4178-9c2d-32d705ea1d7b",{"_type":10,"current":496},"introducing-your-newest-study-buddy-stackoverflow-ai","Introducing your newest study buddy: stackoverflow.ai",{"count":499,"lastTimestamp":500},43,"2023-05-25T09:46:33Z",["Reactive",502],{"$sarticleModal":503},false,["Set"],["ShallowReactive",506],{"sanity-igux5TZRqpfOqQqBJgUwt0-BRhjachimq3pzfUDSxHE":-1,"sanity-comment-wp-post-9351-1757096269607":-1},"/2018/06/21/rolling-out-the-welcome-wagon-june-update"]