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Since Monday, June 5th, 2023, moderators and content curators (that's you, dear reader) from across the Stack Exchange Network, including the moderation team on this site, have decided to protest recent statements taken by the Stack Overflow corporate team.

The protest consists primarily of not responding to flags, not voting on questions or answers, not closing off-topic or spam questions and answers, and not actioning any items in the Review Queues. You can join us by adding your name to this letter, and by not performing content-curation activities during the strike.

The precipitating event for this strike is the corporate decree regarding the handling of Artificial Intelligence/Large Language Model-generated content:

Stack Overflow, Inc. has decreed a near-total prohibition on moderating AI-generated content in the wake of a flood of such content being posted to and subsequently removed from the Stack Exchange network, tacitly allowing the proliferation of incorrect information ("hallucinations") and unfettered plagiarism on the Stack Exchange network. This poses a major threat to the integrity and trustworthiness of the platform and its content.

The Stack Exchange network-wide Meta site has an excellent post about the details of the action we're taking, the history of why this action is necessary, and what the desired outcomes are.

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In addition to the moderator strike there are discussions as to whether the users should go on strike too, or not.

Would the striking moderators welcome a user strike? Should we, the users, go on strike?

As we know, there is a call for a strike from the moderators on the entire network. I support the moderators.

It occurred to me, perhaps a little late, that my participating on the site as usual — upvoting, downvoting and answering — may undermine the strike.

Should regular users like me actively support the moderators, take action and call for a strike as well?

After all, without playing down the indispensable work of the moderators: We are the real assets. A site consisting increasingly of unmoderated bad posts, AI answers and trolls is worthless. Users are what the owners are after. A user strike would really hurt.

As pointed out by Hannah in the initial question and in her comment:

You (i.e. the contributors) can join us by adding your name to this letter, and by not performing content-curation activities during the strike.

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