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Who are the decision makers of what needs to be in the Code of Conduct?

Site owners? Moderators? Voters?

For example, I would strongly oppose the guideline "Avoid sarcasm". Is there a way to influence the Code of Conduct in that direction?

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  • It might depend what kind of sarcasm you are thinking about. The other day, on a MetaStackoverflow question, someone answered with a point of view, and someone else mocked the answer with a very strong sarcastic tone (I mean, it was clearly an attack). That might be the kind of sarcasm we should be avoiding.
    – Clockwork
    Sep 22, 2020 at 9:29
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    @Clockwork It might indeed. My biggest concern though is the word "avoid". Imagine if the law was saying "avoid murdering people" instead of "do not do it". This just creates too much room for moderators' discretion and impartiality. Sarcasm should be either allowed or not full stop.
    – Greendrake
    Sep 22, 2020 at 10:57

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The Code of Conduct is made by the site owners and applies to all sites in the network (it's just hosted in different places). It has seen a couple of iterations so far, and they do request feedback from the community on Meta Stack Exchange:

Sarcasm can be a great tool when properly used. The main problem, especially in written form, is that it's often hard to distinguish from unfriendly language or worse. For many users here (including me) English is not their first language, and being from different cultures may influence people's understanding of or reaction to sarcasm. Therefore, the Code of Conduct advises against using it.

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  • Thanks. However, what puzzles me is that this answer refers to SE-general Code of Conduct discussions, not specifically Law SE. Are the Codes of Conduct all the same for all SE sites? If so, why have a Code of Conduct addressed under law.stackexchange.com ? If not so, are there discussions specifically re Law SE Code of Conduct?
    – Greendrake
    Sep 20, 2020 at 13:41
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    It's a network-wide policy.
    – Glorfindel
    Sep 20, 2020 at 13:43
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    One easy way to make it obvious any sarcasm is intended jokingly would be to add a :p or :D
    – Radvylf Programs
    Sep 29, 2020 at 16:50
  • Sarcasm does not translate well between different languages and often beween dialects of one language.
    – Mark Johnson
    Nov 1, 2020 at 12:10

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