Tavern on the Meta

Shog9

8:00 PM

not currently

Anthony Pham

In that case, at least have a notice under the answer for lack of "back-it-up" details

user160606

@MonicaCellio in my opinion, giving the community the ability to add post notices.

Shadow Wizard

@Bart you speak from experience, I guess? ;)

user0042

@πάνταῥεῖ Hmmm, they have to sort out the contexts 1st. Syntax errors, runtime exceptions, logical flaws. That's all an overwhelming swamp for newbs.

bwDraco

Thanks, @Shog9. It's no biggie, just a mistake.

Shog9

8:00 PM

ya

user160606

And then automatically deleting answers that have post notices but haven't been edited.

user160606

And creating a review que for people to review answers with post notices that have been edited.

user160606

In other words, closing but for answers.

EBrown

> By forcing them to earn reputation until they have a high enough amount to do something by which time many have burnt out.

Anthony Pham

@Hamlet I think it's more preferable to send those answers straight to the VLQ

user160606

8:01 PM

@AnthonyPham you can't if they're upvoted.

user160606

@AnthonyPham and if you delete them right away, people won't have a chance to improve the answer.

user160606

The answer might be improved, it might not, but the writer should be given a chance.

Shog9

@AnthonyPham There is potential there

Anthony Pham

That complicates the situation with what to do with them. I guess start with the notice and work from there?

Shadow Wizard

@TravisJ something about @SagarV asking if it's legit to post self answered question on SO which might be too broad, yeah. It's kind of resolved now, thanks!

Jon Ericson

8:03 PM

@Hamlet This (and/or auto-deletion) is the missing feature that might make post notices useful.

2

Monica Cellio

5

A: Should we delete answers that don't meet the requirements of the hard-science tag?

I'm a moderator on The Workplace, where we have a "back it up" rule. Answers that don't comply, that come to moderators' attention, get post notices, and if a couple weeks go by without it being fixed and that comes to moderators' attention, we delete the answer. (We have a user who pretty regu...

canon

hmm

Anthony Pham

Adding the appropriate links would be nice (having another user add them of course) if the OP is not there but I'm not sure if the edits would be conflicting with the OP's intent

Travis J

@ShadowWizard Okay :)

user160606

@AnthonyPham yeah, but only moderators can add notices. Which means that adding a notice will always feel like top down moderation. If adding notices was a community tool, then a consensus could build around it organically.

canon

8:03 PM

user posts a PHP answer to a JavaScript question

πάντα ῥεῖ

@user0042 Is that a legit excuse to ask VLQ and low researched questions at Stack Overflow or any other SE sites?

canon

gets called out

adds a javascript answer

bwDraco

12

Q: Allow high-reputation users to add post notices (perhaps as a 30k privilege?)

Post notices are a good way for moderators to help encourage better content. However, since these notices do not directly alter the state of a question or answer, can we allow experienced users to add post notices? This can further encourage high-quality content, and is a feature that is not lik...

canon

leaves the PHP portion

Shog9

So... It's actually possible to send an answer - even an upvoted answer - to LQ review by using the NAA flag.

Anthony Pham

8:04 PM

@Hamlet Thus using a flag. Of course, I'm not going to unless there's some consensus or some basic rules about when and when not to

Shog9

It can't actually be deleted via review, but if the consensus is "delete" then a moderator flag will be raised.

Shadow Wizard

ohhhhhhhh there was Town Hall again..

canon

hmmm

Shadow Wizard

It's like an earthquake, having sub-quakes afterwards for hours.... :D

Jon Ericson

@bwDraco Hey. The answer to that is pretty smart!

Shog9

8:04 PM

(In theory, we could adjust the threshold for deletion as well, but I don't know if that's wise)

Shadow Wizard

(or whatever they're called..)

user0042

@πάνταῥεῖ I didn't say that's a "legit excuse", just pointing out their blurred view of things.

user160606

@JonEricson I know developer time is scarce, but I feel like this is a feature that a lot of sites really need, but that a lot of sites don't know they need.

Anthony Pham

@JonEricson Is that self-promotion I see?

Jon Ericson

@ShadowWizard We call them aftershocks here. ;-)

Bart

8:05 PM

@JonEricson meh, another one of those "Jon Ericson" answers ... you know the guy ...

Shadow Wizard

@JonEricson right! Better wording. :)

Shog9

So, for one of these "back it up" sites, if we wanted to empower more community-moderation for answers, we could adjust the number of reviews required (very low by default) and encourage folks to use NAA flags to trigger review of answers that don't meet the site's standards. Then leave moderators to apply (or override) the community's decision. @Hamlet

Shadow Wizard

So the whole Town Hall was about NAA?

Shog9

@ShadowWizard none of the THC was about NAA

Shadow Wizard

oh

Anthony Pham

8:06 PM

This discussion was after the Town Hall

Shog9

Town Hall #4 - 26 July 2017

2 hours ago, 30 minutes total – 199 messages, 21 users, 57 stars

Bookmarked 1 hour ago by hairboat

Shadow Wizard

@AnthonyPham What sparked it then?

Jon Ericson

It was mostly about chat flags. As always.

canon

@ShadowWizard It was about Yvette's election scandal

Shog9

headdesks

Shadow Wizard

8:07 PM

@JonEricson well, they are bad, no doubt in that...

Anthony Pham

Say what scandal?

Shadow Wizard

@canon grabs popcorn

Anthony Pham

grabs high-quality chocolate covered popcorn

Shadow Wizard

No pink unicorns in the THC this time?

πάντα ῥεῖ

@Shog9 Going with the CBD's will get the whole thing more chilled ;-)

canon

8:08 PM

@AnthonyPham Someone criticized Yvette and she went all Trump on him. :P

Jon Ericson

Can't trust everything you read ~~on the internet~~ in this room.

canon

lol

Shadow Wizard

@canon oh that single comment about her reviewing and programming skills?

Shog9

@πάνταῥεῖ I just scheduled the next one at 10:30AM my time - staying awake is gonna be a problem already

canon

@ShadowWizard yeah, just making light of it.

πάντα ῥεῖ

8:09 PM

@Shog9 I'm ready to brew some coffee for you if you like so ;-)

user160606

@Shog9 (1) intuitively, not an answer means that the answer talks about something unrelated to the question. So it really should be a review que with a different name.

Anthony Pham

Why not just enough sleep for once?

Shog9

@Hamlet philosophically, it's problematic. Practically, a given site can decide on whatever policies it wants

"enough" sleep

Anthony Pham

Based on your age, 6-7 hours is enough. I get 9+ every day

Shog9

(trivia: the folks running these chats do a hangout for the duration. Mostly filled with the sound of me typing, Jon making annoyed noises, and Abby doing stage-direction)

Jon Ericson

8:11 PM

@Hamlet The difficulty with working on the feature is we don't know how much sites actually need/would use it. (For what it's worth, that's one of the reasons we haven't done much the mentoring thing until today.)

πάντα ῥεῖ

@Shog9 Enough get's relative ye older you get. It never was enough at any age though ...

Shadow Wizard

@πάνταῥεῖ sounds like a bribe!

canon

@Shog9 I picture @JonEricson as a haggard foreman with a schedule on a clipboard

Shadow Wizard

Are we allowed to bribe CMs? :D

Jon Ericson

@Shog9 I never knew how I annoying I was until today's chat.

Shog9

8:12 PM

@JonEricson not particularly annoying to me, you just sounded annoyed :-P

Shadow Wizard

@AnthonyPham make it 5. I didn't sleep 7 hours for... over 10 years.

user160606

@JonEricson But I think about half of the sites should be using the feature. Whether they know it or not is a different question.

Shog9

@πάνταῥεῖ I actually got almost 8 hours last night, hence my current sunny disposition

πάντα ῥεῖ

@ShadowWizard No, just a friendly favor ;-)

Anthony Pham

sleepfoundation.org/excessivesleepiness/content/…

Shog9

8:13 PM

@ShadowWizard I'm particularly open to offers of beer and bratwurst

user160606

> Opinion, by itself, is noise. The Back It Up! principle, together with the voting and reputation systems of the website, amplifies the signal and dampens the noise.

Moms4mom works because it taps into the wisdom of crowds. It is the combination of answers, references, comments, and votes by members of the community that make it possible for readers to find helpful information without needing to know that any one person is an "expert".

Anthony Pham

That's a fun link about sleep

user160606

(Original Moms4Moms back it up page‌)

Shadow Wizard

@πάνταῥεῖ yeah right ;)

πάντα ῥεῖ

@Shog9 I'll even add some Sauerkraut :-D

Shog9

8:14 PM

I prefer kimchi, but kraut will do

user160606

@Hamlet it's not votes or a back it up rule. It's votes and a back it up rule.

Anthony Pham

At this rate, one might as well write up a blog/meta-discussion post about "back-it-up" and its necessity in answers where needed

Jon Ericson

@Hamlet What I worry about (and not without evidence) is that answer deletion will become a wedge between factions on a site. For instance, on parenting there might be a pro-allowance and an anti-allowance faction that could spend inordinate effort deleting each other's answers. Sometimes the evidence is less clear than we'd like.

Shadow Wizard

Shog9

mmm... taters

Anthony Pham

8:15 PM

"So raw, I can still hear Squidward yelling at Spongebob!" - Gordon Ramsey

user160606

@JonEricson well, that's why it should be collaborative. I.e. five people need to agree to "close" the answer for not following a back it up rule.

Anthony Pham

@Hamlet But what would closing the answer do?

Monica Cellio

@Hamlet you probably need "undo" logic, like reopen votes/queue.

I don't know what that looks like for answer deletion.

user160606

@MonicaCellio exactly.

user160606

@AnthonyPham move it to the bottom of the page.

Monica Cellio

8:17 PM

Everybody can still see a closed question (and that it's closed), but deletion means gone.

Except for 10k+.

Anthony Pham

Would closing an answer basically hide an answer from any user that can't close an answer?

Vogel612's Shadow

~reaches with a long arm from the den and snatches an empty glass jar that flew in, propelled by rockets

user160606

@AnthonyPham maybe?

user160606

It would make the answer harder to find.

user160606

And delete it in a month if it hasn't been edited.

πάντα ῥεῖ

8:18 PM

Monica Cellio

@Hamlet bottom of page + notice could work. If anybody contests it (UI TBD), then it can get reviewed or just hang around.

πάντα ῥεῖ

^Mit Kraut

user160606

@MonicaCellio yeah, exactly.

Shadow Wizard

@πάνταῥεῖ what's the difference?

πάντα ῥεῖ

@ShadowWizard The Sauerkraut

Monica Cellio

8:19 PM

@Hamlet no edit -> delete, but edit can still be insufficient edit so think about that case.

Vogel612's Shadow

@Shog9 drop by when you're in the area. Can get you real Fildersauerkraut and Bratwurst. And I'll definitely be able to procure a few beers of your liking

Shadow Wizard

grabbing @Vog's jar, removing rockets, and throwing back to Den

Monica Cellio

(Trivial edit to get rid of the notice is the degenerate case.)

Shog9

@Vogel612'sShadow what's the area?

Vogel612's Shadow

Stuttgart, BW, Germany

Shog9

8:19 PM

So, the reason I tossed out LQ review, @Hamlet, is that it already offers a bit of functionality that isn't available anywhere else: if n users agree that an answer should be deleted, it gets deleted - but in a special way that allows the author to undelete it (and raises a mod flag if they do). Also the flag behavior for not-deleteable answers I mentioned above.

If we wanted to test such a system, we could set that up fairly easily

Anthony Pham

And test it in Stack Overflow

user160606

@Shog9 oh, I was unaware.

Shog9

Contrast with building new functionality, which... Let's be honest, is a 6-8 year thing

Shadow Wizard

@πάνταῥεῖ oh

Anthony Pham

@Shog9 Not 6-8 months?

Shog9

8:20 PM

@Vogel612'sShadow heh, if I ever make it that far I'll look you up.

user160606

@Shog9 makes a lot of sense.

Monica Cellio

@Shog9 that sounds workable. No don't test on SO; test on a site that has the problem and wants a solution. I bet Workplace would go for it.

πάντα ῥεῖ

@ShadowWizard Back to the "context" (extrapolating a bit)

Shog9

@MonicaCellio well, strictly-speaking this is already live on SO and has been continuously tested and refined there for a few years.

Monica Cellio

It needs messaging; we've (all, not just TWP) been telling people that low-quality is for gibberish and NAA is for doesn't meet requirements.

Shadow Wizard

8:21 PM

@πάνταῥεῖ is there a context?

Shog9

It's just not well-used elsewhere due to much fewer reviewers and less accommodating parameters.

Monica Cellio

@Shog9 I meant application to @Hamlet's case, using that queue as part of the tool chain for handling violations of the back-it-up rule.

Jon Ericson

@Hamlet If pro-allowance has five people and anti-allowance has 4, does that mean there shouldn't be any anti-allowance answers? Remember there are going to be authoritative sources for each side.

πάντα ῥεῖ

@ShadowWizard Sure, there is. Bratwurst is nice. But in context of Sauerkraut it starts to make sense.

Shog9

@MonicaCellio The tricky part there is getting folks to agree on the policy. That is, agree to delete answers that don't meet the site's rules.

Vogel612's Shadow

8:23 PM

@Shog9 that has been done before... it's happened on Code Review and on Skeptics

Shog9

on SO this stuff tends to happen organically because, regardless of what gets said on meta, what actually applies is the rules folks internalize

Shadow Wizard

@πάνταῥεῖ meh.... it's all Gibberish to me... :(

Anthony Pham

I feel an implementation of something in Language Learners SE would work: implement a tag that forces users to have answers with citations. This would give reasonable cause to outright delete an answer or at least after a while once someone pings the OP that the answer needs citations, languagelearning.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/…

Vogel612's Shadow

IIUC Softwareengineering also is in agreement about deleting stuff on meta

Shog9

On a site where you only have, say, a half-dozen reviewers... You'd effectively need all of them to have some agreement as to a policy.

user160606

8:23 PM

@JonEricson well, I'm hoping that (1) people will be good and use the feature for it's intended purpose, and that (2) moderators, the exception handlers, would be able to handle cases when the feature isn't being used correctly.

Vogel612's Shadow

@Shog9 but on a site with a half-dozen said agreement might be easier to achieve

user160606

Optimistic? Maybe. But this isn't a big problem with closing questions. Do people close questions specifically because they're about allowances?

Monica Cellio

@Shog9 actually, on Workplace the tricky part is reaching agreement on what counts as backing it up. But we do actually get community deletions (when not barred by votes), and we have gnat for post notices and eventual mod deletions if unedited.

user0042

@πάνταῥεῖ Well, outing myself: I'm german as well (didn't expect that from your nick), but I don't see how "Sauerkraut" makes "Bratwurst" superior??

Vogel612's Shadow

@user0042 the taste of Bratwurst (like... actual Bratwurst and not Nürnbergerle or Rote or ...) is basically intended for Sauerkraut to complement

Monica Cellio

8:27 PM

@JonEricson the existence of authoritative sources needs to be able to prevent deletion by the people who disagree. But I don't know how you do that. Persistent abuse could lead to the big stick of mod action, of course. It should never be about removing the stuff you disagree with; it should be about removing the unsupported claims.

πάντα ῥεῖ

@Vogel612'sShadow Okay, but what about "Currywurst"?

Monica Cellio

A big test of this is whether somebody will vote to remove something from his own side if it violates site rules.

I've done that. I've seen others do it. And I've seen others...not.

Vogel612's Shadow

@πάνταῥεῖ waiiiit... you eat Currywurst with Sauerkraut?

πάντα ῥεῖ

@Vogel612'sShadow Certainly not, that's what "context" is all about.

Vogel612's Shadow

but currywurst isn't bratwurst.

they don't even use the same sausage

Travis J

8:29 PM

Sauerkraut makes everything better, except for soups... like cereal.

Anthony Pham

And also itself. It can't make itself better

Monica Cellio

If your site is too factionalized, then the problem isn't really the unsupported answers; is that people don't "police their own" but jump at the other side. That's toxic.

Travis J

@AnthonyPham Can't improve perfection ;)

Monica Cellio

@AnthonyPham isn't more better than less?

Anthony Pham

A longer suspension (or realistically prison) time is not better

user0042

8:30 PM

@πάνταῥεῖ OK. I start to see what that metaphor is all about :-P ...

Monica Cellio

@AnthonyPham I thought we were scoped for food.

Anthony Pham

@MonicaCellio More spoiled food isn't going to help

Eating too much food can poison you and so can water

Monica Cellio

Fair enough. Ok, @AnthonyPham has a sauerkraut limit.

Travis J

@AnthonyPham #holdyourpeeforawii #disaster

πάντα ῥεῖ

@TravisJ Well, not really everything. But Szegedin Goulash is extraordinary good stuff:

user160606

8:41 PM

@MonicaCellio @Shog9 @JonEricson thanks for all the insight, this was really helpful.

Shog9

np

πάντα ῥεῖ

@MonicaCellio We're disnazified meanwhile, no?

user160606

@Shog9 using the LQ review as a trial of the feature is a really good idea, thank you. I hope there's a chance to try it on a few sites to see how this might work in practice.

Travis J

@πάνταῥεῖ That soup looks amaazing! ;)

πάντα ῥεῖ

@TravisJ That stuff is really yummy, for sure.

Travis J

8:45 PM

If I had time I would love to cook stuff like at night

Monica Cellio

@πάνταῥεῖ ? did you mean to reply to me?

πάντα ῥεῖ

Czech stuff. @Monica Not sure at all ;-) It was about the sauerkraut limit

Shog9

@Hamlet the critical bit, as I mentioned above, is getting agreement from within a community that such answers should be flagged and reviewed with the site's standards in mind.

πάντα ῥεῖ

@TravisJ Easy BTW, there are a lot of recipes available on the interwebz. It's not much efforts, just let the stuff boil long enough for itself and stir from time to time.

Shog9

borscht w/ sauerkraut is pretty good stuff too if anyone happens to have an excess of beets

πάντα ῥεῖ

8:53 PM

@Shog9 Ahhh well, I just <3 borscht as well. It's similar. But we're leaving "context", do we?

Travis J

@πάνταῥεῖ Yeah, but... Gotta go to store, buy ingredients. Gotta use the food processor to chop the ingredients. Have to cook the stuff and be overall attentive prior to boiling in order to get a nice underlying flavor. Then after all that, have to clean everything up, and get the dishes all set for the dishwasher. It may not seem like much time, perhaps overall 75 minutes, but I swear I do not have that much time at night for all that on a daily basis.

Not to mention how long the store takes.

Maybe another 30-45 depending on traffic and how many people are shopping.

Shog9

@TravisJ get a cheap cutting board and a $20 knife, save your food processor cleaning for large batches

πάντα ῥεῖ

@TravisJ Blame McDonalds that they don't offer stuff like that :-P

Travis J

Ugh, mcd's is awful and I would rather not eat

@Shog9 Food processor saves a lot of prep time.

Shog9

@TravisJ only if you're preparing a LOT of something

Even then, not very efficient when you factor in cleaning time

Travis J

8:56 PM

Dishwasher helps alleviate cleaning time.

Shog9

yeah, if you're doing 5+ gallons of kraut a food processor is nice (food shredder - continuous operation - still way more efficient)

Travis J

For a long time I was cooking 6 blue apron meals a week, maybe for like 9 months. I found the food processor definitely helped cut the prep time nearly in half.

πάντα ῥεῖ

@TravisJ Sounds like you need a "replicator" rather than a food processor.

Travis J

LOL if only!

I really do need a replicator. We all do. We should start a movement!

Shog9

A mandolin or kraut cutter is a somewhat more specialized hand tool that ends up being about as fast as a food processor albeit with slightly more chance of cutting off part of a finger

I use a food processor only when I need something finely chopped - like pâté

Travis J

9:00 PM

Yeah, but julienneing creates a different texture as opposed to chopping or dicing.

Shog9

sharp knife can do either

user0042

Is someone still talking about the homework and mentoring / tutoring problem BTW? You guys are just weird and leave me hungry now :-P

Travis J

True, but again, the time issue comes into play

Shog9

practice!

Travis J

I have good knife skills, but it is still faster to use a food processor lol

load, zoom zoom, fin.

Shog9

9:02 PM

(I hate, hate, hate washing up, so... Heavily motivated to reduce that time even at the cost of time spent elsewhere)

Travis J

Don't you have a dishwasher for that?

My food processor has 3 parts and come apart very easily and fit easily into the dishwasher.

Shog9

Yeah, but... Food processor takes up a lot of room and doesn't get as clean as hand-washing

πάντα ῥεῖ

@Shog9 That's why my kitchen looks so scewed up :-P

Shog9

Perhaps if I had a better dishwasher

Travis J

If you rinse it with water right after emptying it then it cleans real easy.

Shog9

9:04 PM

They've got these monsters in the offices that do a whole load in minutes. That... would change the balance considerably.

Travis J

lol

Wow in minutes?

#jelly

πάντα ῥεῖ

@Shog9 Get a dishwasher with small hands, they're better to reach the difficult regions.

Travis J

Can you sous-vide a fish in there too? ;)

Shog9

heh

πάντα ῥεῖ

@user0042 Sure, we're still on-topic!

Petter Friberg

9:09 PM

@user0042 I was but I gave up ;), food is more interesting

Monica Cellio

@TravisJ if you're prepping enough to use the food processor, you shouldn't be doing it every night (unless you have a big family or something). I sometimes do big cooking stuff on Sunday for the week. And some stuff freezes.

user0042

@PetterFriberg Seems all the people are driven by reflex here (and yeah I'm hungry now). But @πάνταῥεῖ's POV seems to be interesting though. As far I understood he (or she) makes the point about newbs are mostly missing the context of what they're asking about. It's much like a XY-Problem: They're laying out their task in detail and what they are supposed to achieve, but the problem statement is trivial regarding some language related syntax basics.

^ I don't believe such questions (even if answered) are useful to contribute for the Q&A repository in the long term.

Travis J

@MonicaCellio Just for two people. It is just much faster to prep 5 different vegetables in the food processor than it is to do it by hand. If it is just one thing, sure, but if you need to do garlic, onion, chive, bell pepper, and ginger - for example - the food processor will be faster.

lol, so TIL that background-color:wheat is an option (accidentally chose that instead of white)

Petter Friberg

9:30 PM

@user0042 Not sure that was his idea, it was response to my comment that I put him in a context that he will be nice in anyway my very vague idea and question was related to if on area51 we should create a "Home work" site, to move this kind of traffic away from other sites and get better answers to these type of question.

amanaP lanaC A nalP A naM A

I updated my "theme" apps.neallub.in

Petter Friberg

There is a lot of meta on SO on how to ask homework question, what you tried ecc, however I was searching for information about another direction, hence create a environment with different rules where these question are welcome and the answers are not code dumps of solution, but mentoring. (To be total honest I would like to remove mostly of them from SO, since they create tons of problem, but I also think the youngster do not have a great user experience asking them)

I only have experience of SO, so still trying to grasp area51, how SE works ecc., hence I'm only trying to gain some info and input about this issue.

user315433

9:56 PM

I can imagine something like: (a) user types up a question; (b) before clicking "submit", they see a link to chat strategically placed next to that button; (c) they are told to grab a screenshot of their draft to post in that room [given the drafts aren't shareable]; (d) someone says "too much code; remove what's not necessary to reproduce the problem, see [mcve] page, and add tag X". Or "don't ask for a library, just ask how to do that thing"...

user315433

Is this too much or too little to hope for?

user315433

Another likely scenario is 5 users posting their questions in chat bit by bit (because of length restriction), getting interlaced.

user315433

I wouldn't want to read that.

Travis J

@bluefeet it took a while to process

Shog9

If memory serves, it's possible to post stuff to chat via the API that's exempt from the normal length restrictions; would be possible to dump someone's draft into chat along with them.

(not sure that's advisable, but...)

Travis J

10:01 PM

One issue with that is I think it should probably be an option for the mentoring to start prior to the post even being written, or at least prior to all fields being populated. New users struggle with tags and with titles (I mean, titles are complicated), and so you would need to be able to see their edits somewhere too I think.

user315433

I suspect that not as many would want to read question-dumped-in-chat things. And tags are important.

Shog9

Stealing the whole "draft sharing" thing from Docs would make this all a lot easier

Petter Friberg

@TravisJ nice post, but seems to early, to me it seems that they are just going to test some to get a general grasp on how to improve the ask interface in general. Hence as little dev time as possibile

Travis J

That's fine @PetterFriberg. To be honest, I didn't mean to flesh out such an involved answer, it just kinda happened.

user315433

Or just steal from Channels; the users have an option to post to a mentors-only channel, and make it public later.

Petter Friberg

10:07 PM

@TravisJ I'm actually also curious what kind of users are going to use this, maybe it becomes just a find duplicate service.

Travis J

There is that potential. Although, that is usually a fast process and then move on without causing clutter. To be honest, a whole lot of users just want to help people here, and getting some thanks in chat for a single link and moving on can be more gratifying than a green +10 from an anonymous source. Moreover, preventing duplication (especially in the form of low quality) prior to it being posted would be huge.

user315433

Staffing a help desk and directing people to Isle 7 all day... Sounds fun.

Travis J

Sometimes after a long day of trying to figure out a neural network solution to a car laser grid makes you want something mindless when you get home.

Petter Friberg

I agree, I have no doubt that we can find tons of good mentors who don't care about the rep, but if it moves to duplicate service (I did a test with Tunaki when he was still on SO, we duplicated all new questions (expect 1) on java recent questions) it quickly moves to become a answer my question quickly option.

which is not the intent

Travis J

I agree that is certainly not the intent.

Petter Friberg

10:13 PM

anyway always fun test some new stuff and if it improves the ask question interface to create better questions, it's certainly worth it.

Travis J

I still think the best way to improve the ask question page would be to include the tags in the Questions that may already have your answer section

Petter Friberg

I have no exact clue exactly how it should be, but surely my early (still fresh) impression was that current ask question is not helpful for new users. However my experience from mentoring is that user (often >1k), pings me in chat room, present his problem, I pass a link to solution on SO and some comment to explain why). Normally there is no need to actually post the Q

@TravisJ Improving search is surely a prio to hopefully avoid some dups.

Travis J

There is certainly a balance to strike between being a glorified search engine just spewing out solved problems, and being a translator assisting in narrowing down a problem to something solveable.

Petter Friberg

10:36 PM

since tons of question (even if we like them the least) are debugging, if we know where the stack trace is, it's normally easy to find duplicate. However doing this community side has no sense we already have to many possibile duplicates that very few or none review. SO needs a way to stop as many of these as possibile before they arrive.

user315433

Or, a better way to ignore and dispose of them after they arrive.

Petter Friberg

meeh once they arrive, you have tons of other fun, bad comments, rep hunting, plagiarism, meta etc.

@Alex the community can't handle the disposing anymore, you can stay in that room for 1h then you will see that you get fairly tired of duplicates and get back to tavern to chat.

Journeyman Geek

@PetterFriberg I think the problem with building a site for newbs is, it basically lets them think its fine elsewhere. Also, that the people who actually can answer stuff, are not going to want to do the trivial.

Petter Friberg

@JourneymanGeek your are referring to my area51: Home work question, vague idea?

if that, this is my vague idea related to your issue: 1) They already think so and currently there is no other place to direct'em, hence there is no alternative (except out of SE), 2) Yeah that's a common taught, but if the answer style is different, if SO/Math user can see the benefit of not flooding the home site, why not, it's similar to code golf, code review, just simpler.

Then people always like rep

Please note, for me it's not a site for newbs, it's a place to get help with homework problems, which is different for me.

Journeyman Geek

11:04 PM

@PetterFriberg yes

@PetterFriberg People need to actually spend a little time to learn about the places they're in.

Sure, it is september ... but that's no excuse

Petter Friberg

@JourneymanGeek well they learn quickly if they post on SO ;), anyway bed time, I still need to think about this subject and what data I need, thanks for input.

ɥʇǝS

lost this tab somehow

user315433

11:51 PM

New job ad, SRE generalist stackoverflow.com/company/work-here/701411/…

user202362

LOL CentOS - seems to be a popular choice for hosting programs that requires low latency/handle high traffic

Town Hall #4 - 26 July 2017

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