Well, there is an attempt, at least on SO, to dvelop a wizard-type interface to guide new accounts to cough up all the information that they have about their problems, instead of the all-too-common code dump and "doesn't work". I suspect it's too late to stave off the business-driven 'let the newbs post their homework dupes, we get ad-views and the curators work for free, so who cares' approach to moderation:(

The wizard sounds like a promising idea, @MartinJames. Can we have something similar on other largish SE-sites as well? I do realize that SO has seen everything Math.SE has, and I am also looking forward to hearing how they have dealt with related problems. Even though I lost the diamond powers I can still promote solutions :-)

I don't have high hopes the wizard will produce good questions. But it might make the noobs have fewer excuses than they have now...

The first published prototype is of the SO wizard is explained/linked/discussed here: meta.stackoverflow.com/q/369682/758133 I susepct it's too dedicated to SO to be more than peripherally useful to other SE sites but, for sure, it may give youself, or others, some useful pointers:)

For the record: the users I lashed out were more of type 3 as opposed to being noobs. Anyway, controlling type 3 also gives control of type 2. Type 3 has more skin in this game, and should IMHO be the one we really target.

@JyrkiLahtonen I would go with that. The type-3's, (we call them 'cucumbers' on SO now, the earlier term was deemed too offensive), should be discouraged from answering the bad questions, and we all wish that a sufficiently acceptable way to do it had been found already:(

The cynical part of me says that SE is prioritizing growth at the expense of their curators, and have no qualms dumping more work on us in the quest to Get Bigger.

@fbueckert I was pretty sure of that before 'the blog', now I'm convinced:( Curators stop questions getting answered, drive [bad] 'new users' away and don't read ads. Why bother with them? They were stu...naiv...willing enough to work for free before, so why should they not take on more work now? Who gets priority, stakeholders or slaves? Not hard:(

@MartinJames I'd like a straight statement from SE, confirming or denying that SE's viewpoint is what Nick posted a couple months ago. If it's is, I'm gone; I'm not getting paid to put up with this abuse. I ain't no call center worker that has to take it.

@fbueckert: Why don't you ask a question specifically about that here on MSE?

You don't have to, just look at their existing responses/actions. Clearly, we are in the minority, and we're replaceable.

@fbueckert "I ain't no call center worker" of course not - you don't get paid at all:(

@NicolBolas I might, but I think I'd have trouble wording it as something that's not confrontational, and having it dismissed as a rant. I currently feel that SE believes it to be their prevailing attitude, but can't come out and say it without alienating all their quality-minded users. I might have to perk on it for a bit, see if I can pick it out into something approaching constructive.

@fbueckert It's not about getting bigger. At this point all I can do is honestly say it's about not getting any smaller. But we have no intention of dumping extra work on anyone, asking people to simply not comment if they have nothing nice to say isn't asking anyone to do anything more, in fact it's asking people to do less if you look at it. Our engagement numbers are real, and our attrition rate is frightening. We must do more to meet new generations of programmers warmly, or risk our relevance. That's as plainly as I can state it.

@TimPost Are you willing to risk your current generations of users in this rush to meet new generations? Because that's what you're doing. Us curators are getting, frankly (heh), a frightening amount of pressure to just absorb the abuse. That's my core takeaway from your previous post. If you continue this process, I am going to leave. I don't feel I am being heard, or worse, I am being heard, and ignored. I doubt I'm the only one with that sentiment.

@fbueckert If I'm 'risking' you by asking you to not be condescending to new users, then I'm probably going to need to evaluate the value of our current relationship. And that's all I've got to say about that.

@TimPost I think I'm wording this badly. I don't want to defend condescension and snarkiness; I do believe they are contributing to the unwelcoming perception, and we all need to improve on that aspect. At Arqade, our stance for years has been to be more welcoming by trying to explain what's going on when we downvote or vote to close. So my starting point was the responses we get to those messages. Which is why I am seeing as doing nothing as just absorbing abuse, as we get a lot of hostility to those initial messages. [1/2]

[2/2] @TimPost If the starting point is just not commenting, yes, I can see your perspective. It may reduce the hostility and frustration spirals that contribute to the unwelcoming atmosphere. I'm concerned it doesn't do anything to really help with our elitest reputation, though; that's why we started leaving those comments in the first place. But I guess the process is baby steps.

@Ash At some point, we're entering an area of comment correctness. We can always try our hardest to word comments constructively, and should. But even that wording is crazy subjective; just look at the arguments on Tim's previous post. Some people see welcoming statements as being passive aggressive. Some others see it as absolutely required to really be welcoming. There's some culture shock in there as well, and I don't think it can be simplified to, "Be Nice". In a site at this scale, it's a virtual certainty someone will find such comments rude.

@fbueckert I've not seen anyone ever say that this is a panacea and following it to the letter will make everything rainbows and sugar pops. We're working with text, not spoken language, so there's no way to read tone. But we can absolutely do better than we are and implying that it's impossible to please everyone just reads like an argument to not even try... I'm not saying that's what you're doing... but a good number of the answers on Tim's post - are.

@fbueckert: "In a site at this scale, it's a virtual certainty someone will find such comments rude." And then what happens? If a comment that's perhaps arguable is flagged for being rude... what happens?

@NicolBolas if the moderator who looks at it, disagrees... nothing. Which is the point. These flags aren't unilateral. There's someone on the other side of it actually reviewing them and making a judgement. Comment flags that are invalid don't hurt anyone... And even if they're deemed valid, it's unlikely anything will result from it unless that user has a pattern of comments flagged as r/a that were validated.

@Catija implying that it's impossible to please everyone just reads like an argument to not even try... This is what I'm trying very hard to not imply, because that is the logical corollary. We should try, and we do try. All we can do is try harder. But I find it hard to blame people that see this as political correctness, and are frustrated and just shut down, because they have been trying, and it's not working. I'm worried it'll just alienate contributors because it feels like nothing they do is acceptable, so they just do nothing.

@Catija: "if the moderator who looks at it, disagrees... nothing." That would be more comforting if I trusted my site's moderators. However, after a ranting diatribe from a moderator (that was since deleted, but even that took over a week), I can't say that I have faith that my community's moderators share my ideas of what is considered "rude". Or at least, not all of them.

@NicolBolas I'm generally rather terse and blunt. I'm sure I've had my share of comments flagged as such. Some have disappeared, so I'm guessing that's what happened. It's a constant struggle for me, and I'm working on improving it, regardless. I'm still here, despite my many disagreements with moderators. But I share your concern with the subjective moderation decision making