On Meta Stack Exchange, "SEDE" (usage of acronym as proper noun) is much more commonly used than "The SEDE", and more users prefer "SEDE" over "The SEDE" (true also for SE staff).
General Preference on MSE
Here's a query of counts of "SEDE" vs "The SEDE" in comments and posts on Meta Stack Exchange (numbers as they were at the time of this writing), which shows that 89.49% of usages in posts and comments is of "SEDE" as opposed to "The SEDE":
which |
Comment Instances |
Post Instances |
"SEDE" |
1439 |
1659 |
"The SEDE" |
157 |
207 |
Comparing Preferences by User
Here's a query showing each person who has made a post or comment including "SEDE", and counting how many times they use it as "SEDE" vs "The SEDE" on Meta Stack Exchange. Notice how most of the people who talk about "SEDE" prefer "SEDE" heavily over "The SEDE", and how there are fewer people who prefer "The SEDE", and that all of the people who prefer "The SEDE" have either have only referred to "SEDE" once or twice, or use "SEDE" instead of "The SEDE" at least 25% of the time.
Here are the top three rows in the table linked above:
User |
"SEDE" |
"The SEDE" |
Total |
Preference |
rene |
187 |
41 |
228 |
"SEDE" |
Glorfindel |
107 |
22 |
129 |
"SEDE" |
Shadow Wizard |
92 |
5 |
97 |
"SEDE" |
SE Staff Preferences
The list of users who prefer "SEDE" over "The SEDE" includes the following Stack Exchange staff: @Shog9 (former staff), @animuson, @Catija, and @AdamLear (probably among others).