There's been multiple anti-community happenings on Stack Exchange recently (informally "The Mess"). After multiple recent surprise changes (ads; CC BY-SA 4.0; HNQ; question rep.; CoC; mod. reinstatement), and after the legal settlement concerning Monica's surprise dediamonding, a few days ago we were shocked to learn of the dismissals (from paid employment) of Stack Exchange community team member Shog9 (who was here just recently) and Robert Cartaino (basically the head of Area 51) and its aftermath.
These dismissals (further) support the idea that at least some sites will probably soon shut down:
- Area 51 (not many new sites are being created nowadays) and
- Meta.SE (which would be replaced by the newly-arrived The Loop after staff complaints of hypercritical feedback).
To my knowledge, Stack Exchange staff have not denied either of these could happen. (There's also suggestive StackOverflow posts about removing Hot Meta Posts and adding sites to StackOverflow.)
Stack Exchange's overall behavior indicates it is refocusing on profit-making ventures (Jobs, Teams, advertising), and it may make further anti-community steps. (Predicting this, some users are currently creating an alternative, called Codidact.)
Consequently on Meta.SE, user HDE 226868 asked After the recent CM departures, are there plans to shut down network sites or Area 51? but we've heard nothing official so far.
In any case, all I really want to know is...
Question: Will Chinese.SE shut down any time soon?
Why should I spend time curating the site if it's at risk of being closed? It seems reasonable to believe further anti-community decisions will happen. I'm here to make the Internet a better place, but maybe this no longer aligns with Stack Exchange's motivations.
