@Mariano: While I agree that this "feature" is annoying, I strongly disagree that this gives anyone the right to protest about it in a way that forces other users to waste their precious time. As the Math.SE mods have said, they received complaints about this behavior (flagged comments, etc). Whether or not you know better ways to waste your time is not relevant .

@Pete: Not to speculate too much, but I think that the point of posting comments like that is a matter of civil disobedience. Robin wants the SE people to change it back to the old behavior, and his only recourse is to post comments the way he does. If you don't make an issue of it, it will never get changed.

As seems to be par for the course, I'm with Pete. I also agree with Bill that those of us who are not active on SE should stay out of it.

@Harry: You surely know by now that not everyone subscribes to your uniquely antagonistic approach to enacting change. In case you're unaware, it comes off as particularly patronizing to suggest that your approach is the only one -- note that it does not appear to be faring too well at the moment.

@Pete: maybe the thing that makes the math sites more difficult is that we care about whether or not things are done properly. (Surely we aren't the only ones though)

+1 JDH: I wonder if Jeff had a more soothing icon if that would have headed off some of this trouble :-)

Does it count as coming around if one of the reasons I think it's important is so that there could have been someone there to suspend you during said private beta! At any rate, what I'm more surprised about is that SE2.0 hasn't had these problems on other sites.

Let me second Joel's comment: MO is better off being independent
of SE and should avoid the SE2.0 platform.

Two points re: civil disobedience.

(a) Civil disobedience would be a lot more effective if it causes inconvenience for those with the power to enact change. The way that Math.SE, and other SE2 sites started out with an administrator and with mostly hands-off attitude from SE headquarters, this means that the particular act of civil disobedience is causing significantly more problem for the users of the site and the moderators pro-tems of the site, whose powers end at voting up thread at meta.SO. While I am not a big fan of this "feature" in the SE2 software, I agree with Bill that the method of protest is completely ineffective and unnecessarily involves too many "innocent bystanders". (Which of course leads to some degree of ill-will from the core SO community toward Robin, which degenerates into the current situation.)

(b) Part of civil disobedience has always been the willingness to face up to the consequences of protesting, even in the context of oppressive regimes. A desire to be martyr for the cause if you will. All the people here and on meta.Math.SE who approves of Robin's action as civil disobedience yet argues against his suspension seem to forget that. Remember that the person who coined the term civil disobedience also wrote, in that same essay,

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison

and was imprisoned for his refusal to pay the poll tax. If you think that Robin's action is innocent and due to an uncontrollable tic, that's fine; you can argue against his suspension saying that the rules were never clear on this matter, that the man should not be punished for the software being changed on him, whatever. But if you will interpret Robin's action as an active form of protest, in view of the fact that he has been warned prior by moderators and/or SO brass, you will also have to accept the fact that his behaviour is not unbound by the rules of the game.

---

With that said: some other thoughts.

I agree that from our point of view that sometimes Jeff Atwood's e-mails and word choices can appear unprofessional. I would argue that it is a culture clash between different notions of professionalism. (Though that e-mail he sent to Pete Clark, I have no idea what that's about.) I certainly have friends from my undergraduate days who are now "professionals" in their own right and whose idea of professionalism is not far from that of Jeff Atwood's. It is unfortunate that he had to step in and try to manage a group that (a) doesn't want that level of interference, being used to rather large amounts of freedom academically and (b) enjoys a completely different culture from what he is used to. Of course this doesn't excuse his behaviour, after all, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. But I do ask members of MO, especially those who do not at least semi-regularly visit Math.SE, to exercise restraint and not jump in and make matters worse.

I think despite the many misgivings we may have about the current situation, and about the way Math.SE is being handled by the overlords, most of us (yeah, maybe not you, Harry) actually want to see Math.SE succeed and exist (if only as a foil for lesser questions). As such I really urge people to be patient with (what Bill Dubuque calls) growing pains and let the actual users of Math.SE sort this out themselves. Regardless of how wildly successful MO is, and we shouldn't just rush over and impose our point of views. At the very least, as mathematicians, we should know well that some lessons are best learned first-hand.

If any time we had an issue in the MO community, it was resolved by linking to the SO blog or some random meta.SO post, I don't think anyone here would be happy about it. Why should we defer judgements about our own community to a bunch of people who don't even visit MO?

The same can be said for Math.SE with regards to MO. That community needs to develop on its own. It does not need a gaggle of drive-by voters coming from MO just to stuff the ballot boxes for a certain agenda.

While philosophically I agree with you that the start of Math.SE was not in the most satisfactory manner (little I could have done about it, since I couldn't join at least until public beta), that it has already developed means that change cannot come overnight. It will take time for the new moderators, whoever they be, to prod the community into being more engaged on policy issues and discuss more on Meta. Granted that Math.SE and the SE2.0 platform are significantly different from the platform and mandate around which MO was built, I think it is only fair to let the community figure out what works best for them, as opposed to immediately adopted your singular belief.

Ideally, because of the current agitation, after it blows over and after the moderator elections, more members of Math.SE will take an active interest in the running of the site, bringing it closer to your ideal. But in the off-chance that an overwhelming majority just lets out a collective "Meh!", well.... maybe it should then just be allowed to run its course.

In regards to your first point: note that nowhere in my comment did I address Robin's own interpretation of the events, that post was intended to address the on-lookers. Also, I would like to draw (a possibly somewhat arbitrary) distinction about complaining about Robin's possible suspension and complaining about the rule that led to Robin's possible suspension. Civil disobedience is aimed at provoking the latter, so that the rules will be changed fundamentally. Pleading for the authority to turn a blind-eye because "it's Robin Chapman" is the former, and is only about the symptoms and not the cause. To put it more bluntly: the first one is the creation of a privilege applicable to the elite few, the latter is about the repeal of an unjust rule. I therefore argue that the correct comment on Meta.Math.SE should not be

Please do not suspend Robin, as he is a respected member of the community.

or even

MO users will boycott MSE because Robin (who is an all-around, decent guy by the way) got suspended.

but something like

That the upper echelons will come in and suspend a user for doing something no one's complained about [Nb. this may or may not be true; only writing this as an example], shows something is wrong with the process.

or

This silly issue of hitting the enter key in the comment field has finally caught up with us and caused damage to the community (the possible suspension of a well-regarded user), can we please now have the old behaviour back.

or

MO users will boycott MSE because the existence of unclear/pointless rules under which Robin can be suspended.

---

I guess the point I am trying to make is this: if (and that's a big if) it was an act of civil disobedience, then Robin Chapman does not need your support; his cause needs your support.

I've never posted on math.SE, however, regarding leadership in general, I think that a leader represents the people rather than the other way around. If Jeff Atwood's notion of professionalism is at odds with the prevailing notion of professionalism in the community and in the academic world, then by imposing it on the community he is doing a bad job.
I'm perfectly willing to believe that he has the best interests of math.SE at heart; and yet, nevertheless, ideally he shouldn't be a decision-maker there.
A thought regarding rules: Rules should serve people, not the other way around, and admins mustn't forget that. Never lose sight of priorities. I seem to remember a controversy on MO about a mathematician who posted a question about viewing LaTeX in our browsers. It was against the rules, and the question was closed. The OP became upset. And an exception to the rule was made in his case... and it became a very productive thread. Was it fair and even-handed? I don't know if that's the correct frame of reference in which to consider the question. It was the correct decision. The rule was doing damage, and thus it was put aside in a specific case. Knowing when to make exceptions to rules is a sign of wisdom. As the Gerhard Paseman affair shows, and as this Robin Chapman affair shows, that wisdom appears to be in short supply over at math.SE.

I haven't weighed in on the meta.MSE thread, but like most of the people here, I disagree with Jeff Atwood's decision. I think Robin Chapman's tic is mildly annoying, but it is understandable since, as many users have observed in the thread there, the new commenting mechanism conflicts with standard text editors that many people are used to. I take Robin's word that he is not doing it out of civil disobedience but simply out of habit. I don't think the manner in which he wrote his thread suggests civil disobedience. I'm also not sure why Jeff Atwood has decided to make this decision himself, when he is not a member of the community and may not be aware of Robin's rather prodigious contributions. (Robin has contributed 190 answers and asked no questions.) It would not make sense for him to want to "vandalize" the community as Mr. Atwood suggests.

Except this time, I actually don't think the community there is behind Robin. As I write, the thread has 15 upvotes and 17 downvotes.

+1 Daniel Moskovich. Losing Robin would be quite a loss for the MSE community.

I disagree with Daniel Moskovich on the issue of rules. Entering a community you are implicitly bound by social contract to observe its stated rules. If rules can always be bent on one occasion or another for individuals, this will lead to large amounts of arbitration and the situation will soon become unmanageable with any sizeable community.

In fact, I argue that if a clearly stated written rule was broken, a suitable consequence must be applied to the user who broke said rules. This is especially the case for a website whose goal is to be much more open to the general public, if we want the site to thrive and expand and not just end up a small community of several closely knit individuals. A prerequisite for the Moderators to do their jobs effectively would be for them to have the trust of the community, and that requires even-handedness in enforcing the rules.

In Daniel's system, what is called for is not community moderation, but an all-wise benevolent dictator. (Which as we all know, can work pretty well.) In a system where the people set the rules and the people enforce the rules, if a rule is broken, the proper thing to do is the fix the bloody rule, instead of setting aside provisos and exceptions for this person and that. (And no, I am not talking about US healthcare reform.)

In this particular case, however, I am not even sure exactly what rules were broken, and how much communication has been going on between Robin and Jeff Atwood and other SO admins. In particular, I do not, and will not, support Robin just because he is Robin Chapman, almost winner of Mastermind, wonderful all around guy, and frequent and exceedingly erudite contributor to both MSE and MO. Setting such a precedent can only foster nepotism (or accusations thereof later down the line). I will, however, support Robin in this case because I don't see any rules being clearly broken (unless shown evidence to the contrary) and I think the SO people could've handled the situation better.

---

I agree with Daniel's point about leadership in the abstract. But there is one circumstance to keep in mind here, one which now makes me shudder at the prospect of MO being incorporated as an SE2.0 site:

Jeff Atwood and other SO admins prefer to see all SE2.0 sites as "one big happy family" with one gigantic community, rather than individual communities on individual subjects of expertise.

An early evidence to this fact is the 100 rep bonus for associating existing SE2 accounts. They seem to care more about a uniform platform and uniform policies than about the peculiarities of individual communities (which is why on a few websites a ridiculous number of people have moderator-like powers with the 10K rep, while on some even the number above 3K is rather few). From his point of view, Jeff is a leader to all users of SE2 websites. To play the devil's advocate, when taken in the larger context, it is the Math.SE community that is different, and not Jeff Atwood (see also Pete's anecdote above).

There is no disputing the culture divide between the Math.SE community and Jeff Atwood, and I am not trying to excuse his words and actions. But before you, especially those of you who have not used Math.SE or other SE2 websites, fault Jeff Atwood too heavily, put yourself in his shoes and imagine facing the shock of finding what you've been doing, in essentially the same way, for dozens of times and succeeding, to be completely ineffectual in this one situation.

If you are willing to cut Robin some slack for doing what is habitual and comes naturally, will you not lend some sympathy to Jeff Atwood for also doing what is habitual and usually working? The way the things are going, if neither party (in the general sense, taken to include their advocates) is willing to give ground, the situation can blow-up in a really ugly way. That there are so many voices in the discussion with subtle differences just makes the whole situation a lot more volatile than it needs to be.

For the record, while I would hate to see Robin be suspended over such triviality, I did give his post a down-vote. Bringing that e-mail directly out in the open can only accelerate the deterioration of relationships. I utterly fail to see how essentially throwing a ticking time-bomb into Meta.MSE is supposed to be beneficial to the community.

@Willie: I also don't think MSE should grant pardons to high-rep users for gratuitious abuse. But I don't think that's the issue here, or what Daniel Moskovich was trying to say. Robin's actions are at most mildly inconvenient and break no official rules (to my knowledge). It is more like the VA issue.

I don't think Jeff Atwood is intentionally doing anything wrong, just that his current actions are misguided. My understanding is that the prior SO experience (i.e. where Mr. Atwood was a moderator) was limited to websites such as StackOverflow and SuperUser, which all cater to somewhat similar populations (programmers, sysadmins, etc.), while the new SE 2.0 has him as a moderator on websites geared at very different populations (mathematicians, physicists, theoretical computer scientists, etc.). It is perhaps curious that the math website has a much greater number of problems than the physics and theoretical computer science ones.

@Akhil: I think we almost completely agree on every point you just made. I just tend to be more long-winded. :)

Re: the physics website, the last time I checked (admitted quite a while ago), the site was mostly dead. That could explain why Jeff Atwood hasn't seen trouble there.

(Ah, I didn't say that right. I do not mean that a physics.SE will necessarily go through the same problems as math.SE; I meant a "that statement is vacuously true" sort of thing.)

Considering http://physics.stackexchange.com/ (in beta) .
I just visited there and it's reasonably active. It's not
as lively as maths.se but far from moribund.

There are several assumptions floating around the math.SE (and apparently, this) discussion in various combinations:
- that posting multiline comments is a problem
- that it somehow wrong to post multi-line comments, but one should analyze whether it is unintentional as a mitigating factor
- that continuing to post in that style is "civil disobedience" (against what laws?)
- Atwood's stated assumption in his email that multiline comments were used as a "form of protest" or constituted "vandalism".

All the above are absurd. Robin Chapman added useful material to the site, in comments. That's all, as far as his use of math.SE is concerned. There was NEVER anything wrong with this and it is puzzling that analyses of "what he did wrong" by posting the comments in one way or another, or "whether he might change", are taking place. Wanting him to format it better is like expecting the comments to be spell-checked, saturated with encyclopedic references, posted in iambic hexameter, contain proofs of all assertions, always use TeX instead of text f(x), or contain any number of other upgrades. These would all be nice, but they are optional and nowhere is it documented or even informally expressed that any such thing must be part of the comments. Chapman is under attack because of Jeff Atwood's perception that these particular high-value contributions to the site are a form of protest. Protest occurred in the use of the words "sabotage", "bug" and other needling terms on the math.SE meta to refer to SE engineering decisions. That protest may indeed antagonize the SE management. But the equation of the comments themselves with protest and the resulting high priority on quashing the protest is entirely an invention of the SE management, possibly Atwood alone.

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@Anton: Jeff Atwood said that any bans effective on mathoverflow will also be effective on math.SE. You should probably forward him AMathSEUser's ip address and take him up on the offer.

@Harry: Can you provide a reference for where Jeff actually said that? And if what I did was ban-worthy, wouldn't the same apply for Robin Chapman?