Online communities and their host platforms are mutually dependent yet conflict-prone. When platform policies clash with community values, communities have resisted through strikes, blackouts, and even migration to other platforms. Through such collective actions, communities have sometimes won concessions but these have frequently proved temporary. Prior research has investigated strike events and migration chains, but the processes by which community-platform conflict unfolds remain obscure. How do community-platform relationships deteriorate? How do communities organize collective action? How do participants proceed in the aftermath? We investigate a conflict between the Stack Exchange platform and community that occurred in 2023 around an emergency arising from the release of large language models (LLMs). Based on a qualitative thematic analysis of 2,070 messages on Meta Stack Exchange and 14 interviews with community members, we surface how the 2023 conflict was preceded by a long-term deterioration in the community-platform relationship driven in particular by the platform's disregard for the community's highly-valued participatory role in governance. Moreover, the platform's policy response to LLMs aggravated the community's sense of crisis triggering the strike mobilization. We analyze how the mobilization was coordinated through a tiered leadership and communication structure, as well as how community members pivoted in the aftermath. Building on recent theoretical scholarship in social computing, we use Hirshman's exit, voice and loyalty framework to theorize the challenges of community-platform relations evinced in our data. Finally, we recommend ways that platforms and communities can institute participatory governance to be durable and effective.

翻译：在线社区与其托管平台相互依存却又易生冲突。当平台政策与社区价值观产生矛盾时，社区常通过罢工、停摆乃至迁移至其他平台等方式进行抵制。此类集体行动虽偶获让步，但成果往往难以持久。既有研究已关注罢工事件与迁移链条，但社区-平台冲突的演化机制仍不明晰：社区与平台关系如何恶化？社区如何组织集体行动？参与者在事后如何应对？本研究以2023年Stack Exchange平台与社区围绕大语言模型（LLMs）发布所引发的紧急事件为案例，通过对Meta Stack Exchange上2070条帖子的质性主题分析及14位社区成员的深度访谈，揭示出：2023年冲突爆发前，社区-平台关系已因平台长期忽视社区高度珍视的治理参与权而持续恶化；平台针对LLMs的政策回应进一步激化社区危机感，最终触发罢工动员。我们剖析了通过分层领导与通信结构协调动员的机制，以及社区成员在事后的策略转向。基于社会计算领域的最新理论成果，运用赫希曼的退出、呼吁与忠诚框架，对案例中显现的社区-平台关系困境进行理论建构。最后，为平台与社区建立持久有效的参与式治理机制提出建议。