Tavern on the Meta

12:00 AM

@drachenstern About our discussion/debate a few hours ago, I don't know if you saw the question I posted on Meta, but it's here, just FYI, in case you have anything to add.

drachenstern

@waiwai933 nothing to add atm. Grace is one of the people I've been listening to as re: policy. So if anything, I'm parroting her. I agree that age seems to be the primary motivator in most of the questions, and I'm curious if you know that migrating any question to another site puts it at the top of the new questions list. On SO that means 3 more minutes of infamy. On other sites that means days or weeks of noteriety. There's no reason to do that to the target site if the question ...

favorably answered and old. I don't know what we can do about age accounting, but I'm glad you've got a discussion on meta about it, where more people are likely to weigh in. Give it till this weekend and see what gets churned up.

waiwai933

Right, well, I'm saying that a mod needs to close the question, at least, which was not being done (the flag was completely dismissed, as far as I could tell). Grace seems to be agreeing with me. Are you and I just having a bad day communicating?

drachenstern

Why should the question be closed tho? What does that gain anyone?

waiwai933

Because it's off-topic at SO. And off-topic questions should be closed, no matter how old they are. (Being off topic overrides age)

drachenstern

Then if you flag it to be closed, a mod dismisses your flag and does not close it (you have no way to know about the former) then you have room to complain about it. The best forum to complain about it is meta. Alternately, come here and post in the regulator headquarters and get community support to close it by 5+ votes

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Q: Should we automatically protect questions that are at least a certain age?

I came across a question on serverfault today that is about 18 months old. The reason I found it is that a 1 rep user had just added an answer. I didn't notice the date at first, and added my own answer as well. This isn't a huge deal for one question, but what about the general case? Does it...

waiwai933

12:10 AM

@drachenstern And the original user (I forget his name) did flag the post, and no action was taken. Which you then supported the mod in not taking action. Right?

drachenstern

@waiwai933 yeah, and there were some "suggestions" made to other mods from the same site ("leave the flag for a while so other mods can see it too")

Also note that mods can communicate with each other via the site if they so choose.

But it doesn't have a record to know who cleared a flag as valid/invalid (at least not from the interface, I imagine the database knows)

waiwai933

Right, I'm aware of that, but a several hour gap usually indicates that the flag was dismissed, without the question being closed as it should have been. SO moves very, very quickly.

drachenstern

Yes. I'm saying the mod in question shouldn't have acted so rashly. I reckon you're right on it should've been closed (Altho I don't personally see the point, but that's just me) but my philosophy when confronted with a flag I'm not sure on clearing is to ask other people and not try to go it alone.

I can't say why that mod didn't at least ask about, but I don't think they did (given that none of the other mods were aware)

waiwai933

Ok, so it seems like you agree that some action should have been taken? I'm not going to fault the mod in this case—he/she could just have been tired or something. In that case, I'll let the question sit on Meta to see if anything comes up, but I think we're in agreement?

drachenstern

@waiwai933 sorry, several trains of thought. I supported the mod not migrating the question. That was the requested flag.

I didn't really ponder the case for closing the question. I'm ambivalent in that regard. I could be for or against it with no loss of noise to myself.

waiwai933

12:20 AM

Yes, close vs migrate is often subjective, but I'm of the line of thought that if a question is flagged, the mod should examine it even if the specific flag reason is incorrect, in case the wrong button was clicked or something. I was just surprised that it was completely dismissed.

drachenstern

So, on that note, I really need to jet. Should've left a few hours ago. I may be back.

ciao ciao

badp, Dr.

12:44 AM

Is there a joke here? :|

So I just bought Minecraft for the 8yr old. Will I ever see him again?

Tweeted by jzy on February 22, 2011 at 11:36 PM

He just died from drowning :(

Tweeted by jzy on February 22, 2011 at 11:40 PM

I mean, he died ingame right? :|

mootinator

@badpDr Can you die from that in multiplayer yet?

badp, Dr.

@mootinator Damage in multiplayer has been added in a while now

mootinator

Ahahaha.

Darn, I liked not dying.

I miss my Hotel/Casino

I nearly made a server plugin for it.

Michael Mrozek

2:59 AM

I just discovered there's combined flair available. And then realized it's already on my website. It worries me that I'd completely forgotten it existed

George Marian

lol

It's just a sign of your advancing age. ;)

Rebecca Chernoff

Gah - why is it that when I'm looking for something specific, I can never find it?

George Marian

Because, you're looking for it; of course. :)

Tim Stone

I guess that depends on what it is.

Rebecca Chernoff

I need a post on SO that has a code block for html and a separate code block for js, maybe a 3rd for css. Something that would translate to a jsfiddle with a code block for each.