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Undo
Undo
7:00 AM
Well... That's happened several times. Shog told us to post on mSE.
 
angussidney
angussidney
@JourneymanGeek IIRC someone asked Shog before we decided to go with a network-wide post instead of per-site posts
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
Aye. I suspect if we go to a CM, they'll just go with the outcome of the meta post, since that's basically the reason for it existing.
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
@ArtOfCode still dosen't quite get around the feeling of folks deciding what to do for us.
 
Undo
Undo
Look, it's pretty clear we won't reach an agreement here - too much philosophical difference. Just one meta post with consensus to opt out, if a community really feels that it wants to handle its own spam.
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
@Undo my issue isn't with smokey or even autoflagging - its with the threshold getting raised
 
Undo
Undo
7:02 AM
You can opt out of that if you want. Same process.
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
@Undo I think we can disagree on what the default should be.
(which is kind of the crux of my post anyway)
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@Undo Might be important to try, though. That message has the "this is what we've decided so we're doing it" vibe. I think we all know that's not what you meant, but suspect this is the sort of issue that vibe comes from.
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
@ArtOfCode and that's been raised before a few times too
 
Undo
Undo
Here are my constraints:
(1) I don't have the manpower to do 170 meta posts
(2) We want to do 5 flags in some capacity
 
angussidney
angussidney
Here's our point of view on the default: we want to make sure that the majority of all users are clearly in favour of the new thresholds before we implement it. Asking on a site-by-site basis to opt in is a huge waste of time and effort when we can just ask them beforehand; if anyone has any objections we can easily comply.
 
Undo
Undo
7:08 AM
(3) It doesn't feel right to restrain proven technology beyond reason
(meta.stackexchange.com/questions/307585/… is a pretty big driver there)
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
@Undo 2 and 3 arn't constraints.
I'd grant 1. But its pretty much "we know this works, trust us to do 99% of it"
 
Undo
Undo
So it feels like a pretty good compromise to do one meta post - appearing on all sites, far more visibility for site members than individual meta posts ever would be - and allow sites to opt out.
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
(but eh, you've heard that already)
@Undo or go "ok, we can do this - have a mod give us a ping if you're happy with it"
moves the work off from you, and its still opt in.
then it comes down to 1) awareness from mods that they can
2) mods letting you know you can flip that switch
 
Undo
Undo
Moderators are awesome representatives, unless it's practical to go directly to communities. This is a case where it is.
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
and keeps people happier
see, that frustrates me.
 
user202362
7:12 AM
on the internet, nobody knows there are 2 dogs chatting
3
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] URL in title, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, blacklisted website in body, blacklisted website in title, +3 more: beaudermaskincare.com/le-derme-luxe/ by Antoncantu on drupal.SE
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
cause it feels like "we're basically going to pick the option that is less work for us, ignore a bunch of folk who put in time on their specific site, and do it anyway"
 
HTTP
HTTP
@TelautonomousKitty always JasonC...
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
Thing is, we were planning to do all 153 meta posts. Then Shog told us to post on MSE instead. So... we did.
 
Undo
Undo
@JourneymanGeek I don't understand where the 'ignore' part is coming from. Help me understand why you feel ignored when this should go to all the sidebars eventually?
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
7:15 AM
@Undo well "Moderators are awesome representatives, unless it's practical to go directly to communities. This is a case where it is." says that to me.
 
HTTP
HTTP
so.. should I ping my mods to let them know about that MSE post?
 
Undo
Undo
@JourneymanGeek You're a community member too. No reason you can't make that meta post.
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
@HTTP apparently won't be necessary.
 
angussidney
angussidney
You can; Shog was going to feature it at some point anyway
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
@Undo and your mods are still the POC.
 
Undo
Undo
7:17 AM
But yes, at some level you're right: I'm making the call that most sites will want this. It's not on in force yet; if the MSE post turns out badly we won't turn it on.
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
How I'd see it working is - you let folk know "we can opt in to 5 flags" - mods discuss, post on meta, get back to you. I'd like to have the option of a mod veto, however unlikely it is and positive feedback from a site before its turned on
 
angussidney
angussidney
I honestly don't see the difference between opt-in and instant opt-out. We're not taking that decision away from you, instead we're asking the overall community for their opinion on what the default should be (whether it would be reasonable to turn it on) until any communities/mods ask to turn it off. If you want it off, tell us now.
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
@angussidney opt out does, to me.
but hey, all I do is moderate a site.
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@JourneymanGeek re "positive feedback", that's where this problem comes in:
in Charcoal HQ on The Stack Exchange Network Chat, 35 mins ago, by ArtOfCode
@Rob Problem with opt-in is that lots of smaller sites won't be able to build significant community support on meta as opposed to apathy - so turning it on on those sites would lead to questions about whether we have permission from the community to do it. It's easier to make it default-on with an easy offer to turn it off.
 
HTTP
HTTP
reminded me something: can ML be used on Smokey to analyze the average flagging time per-site, and adjust the number of autoflag? (I haven't read the post, and I'll read it now...)
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
7:19 AM
@ArtOfCode but that also dosen't mean the decision should be entirely up to a group of folk not directly involved in the site.
 
Undo
Undo
@HTTP We'd use tricks like that if we needed to. 100.00% accuracy gives us the luxury of not needing to.
 
angussidney
angussidney
@HTTP we've tried ML, but it's always been vastly inaccurate comared to our existing methods
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
tbh, I think part of the disconnect here is you guys are seeing this purely as an engineering problem
 
Ano
Ano
@Derpy ^^
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@JourneymanGeek No, but it swings the balance in favour of making the community's part of the decision the opt-out part rather than the opt-in. In the face of "meh" community response, it's easier to say "it's not obvious you want this so we turned it off" than it is to say "it's not obvious you want this so we turned it on"
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
7:21 AM
@ArtOfCode well, most folks arn't going to notice say 30s vs 10s time to deletion
 
Undo
Undo
FWIW, there's no reason you can't post something on SU now asking for community consensus to opt out of five flags.
 
angussidney
angussidney
@JourneymanGeek we're focusing on outliers, not the average time
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@JourneymanGeek 50s vs 10s is the current average, FWIW. But that's not going to be the major benefit - what angus said.
 
Ano
Ano
@Undo Or a general discussion asking about it and asking for opinions in general
 
angussidney
angussidney
Anyway, I'm going to stop chatting now, I feel like I'm piling on
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
7:22 AM
@angussidney its fine!
 
Undo
Undo
@Ano Mostly the same, aye.
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
@ArtOfCode heh, based off what I manage to catch the tail end of on SU.
and this isn't about "no smokey" vs "yes smokey" or even 5 flags.
 
angussidney
angussidney
By the way, I want to say it again - we may disagree with some of your opinions, but we don't hate you for it. Sorry if it comes across that way. All we want is a discussion :)
 
HTTP
HTTP
Wait, what's the score threshold for a question to not be shown on the homepage, once again?
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
@angussidney NONE taken at all.
 
Ano
Ano
7:25 AM
@HTTP -4 main Q&A sites and -8 meta sites
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
we've had a good chunk of the same points raised repeatedly before.
tbh, I think I PROBABLY should make the fact/reasons I oppose it clearer.
 
Undo
Undo
Anyway, gotta run. It's like midnight here... which is too late for dogs.
 
Rob
Rob
@Undo While I fully support 5-flagging, I completely see where JG is coming from. Forcing sites to write meta posts to opt-out is creating work for other communities. Is there any reason Charcoal cannot email the moderator mailing list, asking for vetos?
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
there isn't really a mailing list of that sort
 
Rob
Rob
After all; moderators are elected to represent the community. If the community disagrees with the mod's veto; that's for them to discuss
 
HTTP
HTTP
7:26 AM
So the proposed change will hide the spam automatically from the homepage, whether it's a good change or not, hmm....
 
Ano
Ano
@Undo You in CA?
 
HTTP
HTTP
(unrelated, stream of consciousness)
 
Rob
Rob
@JourneymanGeek Teachers lounge? Or surely, the SE team has such a list.
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
@Rob not all mods are on TL
 
angussidney
angussidney
@Rob not all mods read the TL
Lol, ninja'd
 
Rob
Rob
7:28 AM
Well then, scratch that. Though my point still stands; moderators should be able to veto this without having a community decision
 
Ano
Ano
I'm sure mods pay attention to site metas.
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
@Rob I'd agree, but I kinda said that earlier too ;p
also, the voting on my answer is... interesting
(at +5/-6 but mostly on 0 or -1 net)
 
angussidney
angussidney
@JourneymanGeek I'd like to see who voted
 
Rob
Rob
@JourneymanGeek Oops, missed that. Then take what I wrote above as a vote of support ;)
 
angussidney
angussidney
Also, @JourneymanGeek, would you be willing to remove the sentence in your post regarding flags being cast without the user's knowledge? It's simply wrong, and kinda paints a picture that our system is using people's accounts without their permission, which I think is unfair. That sentence was the main reason why I downvoted.
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
7:33 AM
@angussidney eh. Can we compromise?
 
Rob
Rob
I think it's a valid point.. as it has happened. Though perhaps, wording it as 'people have signed up, and forgotten it's still running'
 
angussidney
angussidney
Sure
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
I'll leave that in, but adjust thr wording a little?
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
I'm not comfortable with a mod-only veto. Recent discussions have made me feel that a number of mods would veto it where I feel the community would support it, and the community wouldn't necessarily know anything about it. Requiring a meta post to veto to make sure the community sees it allays that.
 
Rob
Rob
@ArtOfCode Isn't the point of this meta to make people aware, though? The same can be said for sites not knowing they can opt out
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
7:35 AM
@angussidney "There's been [a case of voting without knowing you did][1], I'm assured that its unlikely but its possible someone can opt in and forget. "
 
Rob
Rob
If it comes down to trusting mods of other sites; that's something for the community to handle over there
 
angussidney
angussidney
Also, there have been a number of complaints by non-mods about how non-mods are being treated as insignificant peasants in the decision process
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
does this sound better?
 
HTTP
HTTP
FWIW, I opted-in, and the only time I noticed if Smokey use mine for auto-flagging is when I open the post and was confused why I already flagged it, so the sentence is true for me...
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@Rob Yes? Not sure I see your point there. This meta post should make communities aware that they can opt-out if they want to.
 
angussidney
angussidney
7:35 AM
@JourneymanGeek sounds awesome, thanks :)
 
Rob
Rob
@ArtOfCode Yes, and that brings me to my point from before. You're creating work for other communities by making it opt-out by meta post only.
If mods veto it, then it's on the community to vote it back in, if they care enough
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@Rob eeh. Creating a meta post is minimal work, really.
 
angussidney
angussidney
Compared to the work we have to put in for the other way around
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
My point here is that the communities may not know about it to be able to start voting it back in
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
@ArtOfCode oh I'd consider the meta post route essential for SU
 
HTTP
HTTP
7:36 AM
letting every site notice the MSE post first, though...
 
Rob
Rob
@angussidney There is no additional work. I'm proposing it to be on by default, mods can veto it. The community (if they care enough and disagree with the mod) can raise a meta post
It's the path of least resistance, really.
Saying you know there's mods that would veto it; and thus won't let them veto it, isn't really a good reason
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@Rob Not quite what I'm saying.
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
Perhaps have Charcoal spam every site's meta with "Do you mind us picking up trash on your property and how much may we pick up"?
 
Rob
Rob
@ArtOfCode How do you know the community would support it, if they also don't know about it?
^ Those are the assumptions which I feel are dangerous
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
I suspect there might be a few mods who veto it against the will of their community, so I'm unwilling to let them veto it without demonstrating community support.
 
Rob
Rob
7:40 AM
That's really a community problem, then
Not charcoal's
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
@ArtOfCode and that's literally something that community needs to deal with
 
angussidney
angussidney
@Rob FYI the entire premise of our argument is that Shog will [feature] the Meta post so that it appears across the whole network. If it doesn't.... then we can agree that not enough has been done to let people know
 
rene
rene
still feels like you're trying to prevent any push back
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
@Rob I'd say it's the mod's problem. Other mods on the site might still want it.
 
HTTP
HTTP
Even if it's featured, I don't think all mods have been on MSE. At least I know some mods that only have their own site as the only account (though that's not a strong proof they haven't visited MSE though).
 
Rob
Rob
7:41 AM
@JohnDvorak And then comes the next stage in my proposal; at that point a meta post is raised
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
huh...
 
angussidney
angussidney
@HTTP it will appear on the sidebar across every site on the network. It's impossible to miss.
 
Rob
Rob
@angussidney Sure. But I still don't see why a meta post should override the decisions of moderators of their own community
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
Eh. I don't think it's unreasonable for us to ask for demonstrated support for a veto before doing it. It's non-trivial effort for us to disable a site for autoflagging, so letting it be done by a trivial effort of a mod looking and saying "no" feels imbalanced.
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
let mods opt out their communities, then said communities if they should overrule that mod? That sounds like a great way to raise blood pressure either way it goes.
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
7:42 AM
@JohnDvorak most healthy sites have a fairly well organised way to deal with it.
 
HTTP
HTTP
@angussidney Then I hope that they (e.g. someone on Buddhism.SE) read it, but haven't joined MSE.
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
@JohnDvorak Unless something's fundamentally against the TOS...
 
HTTP
HTTP
or hid their MSE account for whatever reason
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
that's hopefully a sign that the mod goes "Ok guys, lets just do this"
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
Hmm... is undisclosed affiliation fundamentally against the TOS?
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
7:44 AM
@JohnDvorak well technically its against the rules.
 
angussidney
angussidney
@Rob that's why we will let people opt-out whenever they want. If a mod or community is against the status quo, let us know and we will comply
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
@JourneymanGeek because Bi wants free rein to do just that
 
Rob
Rob
@angussidney No, I get that. But my point being is this creates (however small) work for other communities. That's not a good thing to force onto people
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
who is Bi?
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@JourneymanGeek Bioinformatics
that particular situation has been resolved as far as we're concerned
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
7:45 AM
@ArtOfCode ah, OH
I remember that conversation
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
further discussion on that is BI site policy, not a Charcoal issue
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
@ArtOfCode and that's precisely a situation where... well frankly, its their decision.
 
Rob
Rob
@ArtOfCode I mean, that's something that could be architectured to make as simple as a button click. It's still not a reason to offload the burden to others
 
angussidney
angussidney
@Rob I still stand by my argument that a very small amount of work for one person is not unreasonable to expect, compared to the work required for us, when we have already determined that the status quo is 'turn it on'
 
Rob
Rob
Anyways, that's my 2c. I do hope 5-flags gets enabled on most sites
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
7:46 AM
@angussidney to split hairs... that's not what a status quo is
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
@JourneymanGeek and yet I feel overriding a site-wide policy could be problematic for reasons other than spamfighting
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@Rob that's also imbalanced. It's asking us to do significant work to re-architect the system, so that communities can avoid the small effort of making a meta post.
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
also... once again "we have already determined" is...
 
angussidney
angussidney
@JourneymanGeek yeah, that was wrong
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
@JohnDvorak I've kinda seen the arguement there, and that's something that's probably better handled in house.
and I'd rather have actual/human users educated over swatted in many cases
 
Rob
Rob
7:47 AM
@ArtOfCode I get you, really. But that's still not a reason to offload work onto others. No one is asking Charcoal to do anything.
 
HTTP
HTTP
itt: "Charcoal on the Meta"
 
angussidney
angussidney
@JourneymanGeek Everything I say is assuming that the community response to this post is positive. If it's not, then we're not going to switch this on - at least without another large discussion with everyone who should be involved.
 
HTTP
HTTP
(back to work)
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
If we want a loose swarm of city states, better lower tourist expectations before they find out the hard way.
 
angussidney
angussidney
51 mins ago, by Ano
Maybe it's just better to have this discussion in CHQ than to fork it across multiple rooms?
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
7:49 AM
@JohnDvorak so, as far as I'm concerned, I literally have only two groups of people to answer to as a SU mod
SU users and the community management team.
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
eh, venue doesn't really matter
 
angussidney
angussidney
Anyway, gtg
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
The latter's typically gone "oh, ok"
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
Tavern is slightly more discoverable from that meta post than CHQ
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
and the BI mods are on the ground
they're looking at the situation and are the best people to deal with what they have.
So, if they choose to enforce rules differently - its something they probably have a reason for, and is best handled on their meta.
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
7:51 AM
I'm off for a while
 
Travis J
Travis J
I think creepier than the autospam flagging is the fact that there are 200 SE user accounts being used as a botnet. At least it is being used for good... for now.
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
It's an opt-in botnet
 
Travis J
Travis J
And?
 
HTTP
HTTP
because... Marshall badge. hide again
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
that... might be the most amusing phrase of the month
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
7:57 AM
Another opt-in botnet example is boinc. Nobody raises an eyebrow against that.
... and we don't max out our bots' CPUs
 
Travis J
Travis J
Apples, meet oranges.
 
HTTP
HTTP
Hi oranges!
 
Travis J
Travis J
Hi Appl-uagh! Window =/ Hi Apples!
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
Yeah, I'm digressing
 
Travis J
Travis J
I don't find your explanations really helping at all with the situation to be honest.
If anything, the glib dismissal makes it worse.
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
7:59 AM
does it?
 
Travis J
Travis J
Yes, it shows a disregard for the seriousness that this issue should have.
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
It's a valid point, but it's one that's been discussed pretty thoroughly when we started flagging for the first time
 
Travis J
Travis J
The fact that it is possible users don't even realize that the one-click auto-association button on entry allows this is rather strong gray area.
 
Anonymous
 
Anonymous
HI GOOGLEBOT INDEX ME
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
8:01 AM
It's not one-click
 
Travis J
Travis J
How about you publicize the list of auto flagging accounts?
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
and they get a pretty big disclaimer to click under
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@TravisJ for reference, this is prominently shown to every user before they enable autoflagging:
 
Travis J
Travis J
Have you ever seen the outlook on how much users here read when clicking through?
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
Accounts in use:
Undo, ArtOfCode, Ferrybig, Yvette, Andrew T., MAR, ProgramFOX, Andy, Magisch, Ashish Ahuja, angussidney, ByteCommander, Kyll, FrankerZ, rene, John Dvorak, DavidPostill, KazWolfe, tripleee, QPaysTaxes, NobodyNada, dorukayhan, teward, DJMcMayhem, avery, Cerbrus, Glorfindel, nathan-osman, Floern, DraconicPenguin, Mithrandir, kevin-brown, Mego, J F, Jamal, caffeineaddiction, Riker, AdriaanV, Makyen, paulroub, Marco Borchert, Supreme Leader SnokeDetector, quartata, battery.cord, Mr. Bultitude, muddyfish, Jeutnarg, Amittai Shapira, Sconibulus, BCdotWEB, Nathan Arthur, Cᴏʀʏ, Legio…
 
Travis J
Travis J
8:03 AM
Nice, full disclosure :D
Which exchange are those usernames relative to?
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
Network profile, I would guess
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@TravisJ that's not something we can realistically get stats for, but I'd expect it to be reasonably high since users are generally unfamiliar with what they're doing (which is a situation in which people tend to read more and do less)
Yeah, network
I quite literally have a raw database in front of me, so I can get pretty much anything you ask for :P
 
Travis J
Travis J
Okay, fair enough. At least there is a list somewhere that can be used for auditing if oddities show up.
That pretty much sums up any sort of oversight though, from my point of view. With a public list if anything shows up, it is easy to audit.
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
Metasmoke even lists specific flags that were used for each report
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
Oh, yeah. Absolutely more than happy to give y'all data on stuff if you want it - there's quite a lot already available on metasmoke, but we can always do more.
You can have a raw database dump if you want it, minus PII
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
8:06 AM
sede.ms?
 
HTTP
HTTP
> 0 flags used today.
sad
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
I'd like sede.ms
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
JS data explorer
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
oh, awesome
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
8:07 AM
We've looked into doing a full SQL data explorer, but the security issues on that are not fun
 
user315433
@JeremyBanks So it's no longer startups-2014, how to tell it from v2?
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
but if you know SQL and want to do exploring with that, just ping someone for a dump
 
Rob
Rob
@ArtOfCode You can create a read-only user and give it access to whatever views are necessary
Easiest way I found, when I did something similar
 
Anonymous
@FTP That's going to be onstartups, since the site name was really "Answers on Startups". (Or, per Area 51, startups-business, but that seems worse.)
 
Travis J
Travis J
@JeremyBanks That's cool! Would it be possible to get it sorted by upvote? :P
 
Anonymous
8:08 AM
Going to put that up tonight.
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@Rob yeah, that gets most of it, there's just a few last bits that were holding it back (and, honestly, the sysadmin stuff). Can't remember what they were, though.
 
Anonymous
@TravisJ Good point, I'll do that.
 
HTTP
HTTP
I smell a Data Dump Explorer app going up soon...
 
Travis J
Travis J
@JeremyBanks Thanks, that is really awesome
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
is store available client-side so that I could play with it in the browser console?
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
8:09 AM
@JohnDvorak uh
that... is an excellent question
standby
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
right now I'm mostly interested in what data is available.
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
Yes, yes it is. window.store.
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
nice!
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
It'll give you literally anything you ask for, PII excluded. Asking for lots of rows will take a significant time to load, though.
and joins are a pain
it's useful for small things, but if you want complex data analysis SQL is probably better
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
Oh, the schema is displayed directly when you select a table.
 
user315433
8:12 AM
@JeremyBanks Speaking of score, on every page all answers have the same score as the question.
 
Magisch
Magisch
@ArtOfCode If you need help designing sql queries, i can help
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@JohnDvorak yup, figured that might be useful
 
Anonymous
@FTP Oops. Fixing, thanks.
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@Magisch too right you can
We had some fun getting the TTD-per-flag-count query right
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
@ArtOfCode certainly is :D
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
8:13 AM
SELECT
	COUNT(DISTINCT q.id) AS 'PostCount',
	MAX(q.flag_count) AS 'FlagCount',
	AVG(TIMESTAMPDIFF(SECOND, q.created_at, q.deleted_at)) AS 'ATTD',
	ROUND(STDDEV(TIMESTAMPDIFF(SECOND, q.created_at, q.deleted_at)), 2) AS 'StdDev',
	ROUND(AVG(TIMESTAMPDIFF(SECOND, q.created_at, q.deleted_at)) + (2 * STDDEV(TIMESTAMPDIFF(SECOND, q.created_at, q.deleted_at))), 2) AS 'CommonMax'
FROM (
	SELECT
		t.id,
		t.created_at,
		t.deleted_at,
		t.reason_weight,
		sites.max_flags_per_post,
		COUNT(DISTINCT flag_logs.id) AS 'flag_count'
 
Magisch
Magisch
Looks not that hard tbh
Looks intimidating because it's nested and 3 aggregation layers deep but very straightforward
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
Not hard once you've got it right, but was interesting to figure out what constraints we needed to get the right data
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
It's interesting that store holds old keys that were removed from the add section
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@JohnDvorak yeah, that's known as "Art doesn't clean up after himself"
 
Magisch
Magisch
@ArtOfCode Thats always my favorite part about writing large queries
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
8:16 AM
I've been having a lot of interesting SQL issues recently
The query for autoflaggers on the new site dash was fun to optimize
ended up with a COUNT(DISTINCT IF()), which I don't think I've had cause to use before
 
Magisch
Magisch
\o/ for optimization
and I'm sitting here reading the new european data protection law
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
Totally. That ATTD query was originally something like 60s, now it's around 60ms
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
TIL we have 18 Smokeys
Private columns (such as users#encrypted_password) shouldn't be listed in the schema
wait, hold on... encrypted_password, not hashed_password?
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@JohnDvorak eh, people knowing they're there ain't too much of an issue, they're public in the schema file anyway. There's no data in them from the data explorer.
@JohnDvorak Blame Devise... it's definitely hashed, bcrypt.
Undo doesn't know what your password is
Anyway, really out now
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
@ArtOfCode true. Mark them as private, though, so that people don't expect to find them in the data?
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
8:24 AM
could do, most of them should be reasonably obvious
 
Anonymous
xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError: reference to invalid character number: line 77631, column 681
 
Anonymous
Python's painful libraries are part of what make XML such a pain to deal with.
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
@Magisch @Magisch man, do you also wear hair shirts and sleep in a bed of broken glass? ;p
 
Anonymous
I wanted a nice clean script without any dependencies, but I remember that the only way to deal with "invalid" XML entities in Python requires a non-standard XML data structure library. FFS.
 
Magisch
Magisch
@JourneymanGeek I'm the new dpo in my company so I kind of have to
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
8:33 AM
ah
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
XML is plaintext turned into plaintext with formatting marks turned into a soup of formatting marks with some plaintext hidden in the middle turned into a bloated data storage format with plaintext support present mostly as a historical accident
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
so. is it plaintext?
 
Anonymous
IIRC it's something like the actual XML spec saying "you aren't allowed to use the Ӓ escape for certain specific characters", even though the meaning is clear, and this is the only parser that actually follows that rule.
 
Anonymous
whatever. Fortunately it was only in the posthistory table so I can ignore the error for now.
 
Anonymous
The next error is that there's a question in the OnStartups dump that points to an accepted answer that isn't in the dump. :P Maybe some missing clean-up around deletion.
 
Derpy
Derpy
9:01 AM
@JeremyBanks opinions, sorry. IMHO, I won't get in a sword fight "by chance". But it is very possible that Youtube serves me bitcoin-miner infected ads. If an antivirus heuristic engine can catch that and stop the exploit (or at least manage to raise some red flags to the user) I would gladly get it.
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
how about an "all ads are bad" heuristic?
 
Anonymous
@Derpy As discussed, that's not a security issue.
 
Anonymous
And it's hardly even a problem.
 
Anonymous
It's no justification for an aggressive security posture.
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
I'd be fine with invisible ads that mine bitcoins.
 
Travis J
Travis J
9:04 AM
If they are mining, then isn't it going to be kinda visible?
 
Anonymous
It'll make your site run terribly. But most sites that include them are already awful.
 
HTTP
HTTP
@TravisJ like, the seekbar?
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
I was under the impression one couldn't choose what ads they show
 
Travis J
Travis J
@HTTP I meant more what Jeremy said, that it will degrade performance.
 
Derpy
Derpy
@JohnDvorak No, thanks.Don't need that on my pc or my smartphone
 
Anonymous
9:08 AM
Both of those are examples of persistent background malware. Days of continuously pegging your CPU is hardly the same thing as seconds while you pass through a sketchy web page.
 
Magisch
Magisch
@JohnDvorak Hell no. I'm borderline fine with non animated, non flashy, non moving curated ads. Anything above that will incite adblock from me
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
@Magisch agreed, but these are really hard to come by.
 
Anonymous
Fortunately, much of what we're expressing here is in-line with the new Acceptable Ads standard that Chrome will (very coarsely and slowly) begin enforcing, which should at least drive crap off of major sites that were so dumb.
 
Anonymous
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
Any chance Chrome will turn blind eye on Google's own ads?
 
Anonymous
9:13 AM
@JohnDvorak Enforcement is delayed for like a month after the violating ads are detected, so presumably Google would comply with its own policies to avoid being subject to the blocks.
 
Anonymous
It's a fairly timid system by most standards, but coming from Google it should still have influence.
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
while adblock didn't?
 
Anonymous
I assume Chrome has many times more reach than any ad-blocker, at least in western markets.
 
Ano
Ano
@JeremyBanks Google ran TV commercials for Google Chrome in India for a long time
 
Anonymous
@Ano Nice, looks like they're #1 there as well.
 
Travis J
Travis J
9:16 AM
AdBlock always scared me a little because it inspects your traffic, and I don't want anyone looking at my request headers
 
Anonymous
In theory that's done client side and I guess you can inspect the code to make sure it's not sending your data off? I dunno; I don't use them.
 
Travis J
Travis J
Yeah, in theory, and you could probably unpack stuff or whatnot, but meh, not worth it for the small amount of return.
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
@TravisJ ads look at way more stuff than just your traffic stats
not seeing ads is a pretty big amount of return
 
Travis J
Travis J
@JohnDvorak Blocking iframes is easy enough.
Can block an iframe before it loads no problem.
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
So, you're rolling your own adblocker?
 
Travis J
Travis J
9:19 AM
I have one at work that I use. To be honest, I don't really see many ads, if a place has too many ads, I just don't go there.
 
Anonymous
I pay/register to remove ads on the sites I visit most often. Ads are the cost for free content elsewhere. If they're too obnoxious and that cost is too high, I don't visit the site. Easy.
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
That's a nice approach. How much does it cost you?
 
Anonymous
Not sure. Most news sites are annual subscriptions so I'm rarely reminded. YouTube Red is fantastic ROI.
 
Ano
Ano
Feedback please:
3
Q: Let reviewers know if a suggested edit will push the question into the reopen queue

AnoMany times, someone will suggest an edit to a post that was closed within the last five days. The edit itself may be benign, and correct valid things such as grammar issues or a bad title. However, such edits may cause the post to be pushed into the Reopen Votes queue if there were no edits since...

feature-request review suggested-edits
 
Travis J
Travis J
I've seen that before, somewhere.
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
9:25 AM
Red doesn't work in Czechia
 
Ano
Ano
@JohnDvorak I use Nano Defender with Nano Adblocker
 
John Dvorak
John Dvorak
and I wouldn't want it anyways
 
Magisch
Magisch
@JeremyBanks I have YT red too
Means you're about 10-15x more valueable to the content creator too
 
Derpy
Derpy
@JeremyBanks Again, sorry but we have different expectations.
 
user202362
adblock works perfectly on youtube on certain brower with certain OS
 
user202362
9:27 AM
so I ever bothered to get YT red
 
Anonymous
Background (and sometimes offline) mobile playback is another good benefit of it.
 
Anonymous
@Derpy Your opinions on security seem to be a defeatist paranoia detached without a coherent threat model.
 
Anonymous
Which is to say: I am right, and you are fearmongering.
 
HTTP
HTTP
@TelautonomousKitty but on mobile app...
 
user202362
I am not into subscription based payments, because people tend to increase their subscriptions of various things. That means from financial control point, your expense will be always going up.
 
Ano
Ano
9:31 AM
@JeremyBanks That feature was briefly available to me for free, though that could be because I was traveling internationally at the time
 
Travis J
Travis J
@TelautonomousKitty Counter rising expense with rising income :P
 
Derpy
Derpy
@JeremyBanks yep yep. You win, I lose. Sorry, but I think that closes off our discussion. Say goodbye.
 
user202362
@TravisJ just because you have a million dollars, it doesn't mean you need to spend it all
 
Travis J
Travis J
lol I liked the first version better
If you don't spend it, and end up with much more, then wouldn't it have been silly not to have purchased something as simple as a YT red subscription?
 
Ano
Ano
 
user202362
9:34 AM
Other hobbies cost money too, autonomous car project, drones, also travel. And I would like a healthy emergency fund on top of repaying my mortgage, thanks a lot ...
 
Derpy
Derpy
@Ano Can I vote for "Amy's boyfriend"?
 
Ano
Ano
@Derpy Does it contain the words "Sonic", "Ano", or "Anonymous"?
(That can be trivially resolved)
 
Derpy
Derpy
@Ano wait, aren't synonym counted too? I think my suggestion should fit as a synonym for "Sonic"
 
Ano
Ano
@Derpy Haha no
1 min ago, by Ano
(That can be trivially resolved)
 
Derpy
Derpy
@Ano ok, then change it to "Amy's anonymous boyfriend"
 
Ano
Ano
9:39 AM
@Derpy Yep!
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@Ano probably a good idea to not spam that
 
Ano
Ano
@ArtOfCode Not exactly spamming that. My first post was in a quote and thus not really noticeable, as it was directed at a specific user. It was too late to delete it, so I posted it again making it more clear that it was general to all users.
Also, the other room where I posted that: two other username polls were posted there before and accepted by the main RO.
One by @Shadow himself.
 
Shadow Wizard
Shadow Wizard
@Ano hmm?
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
quotes are just as noticeable as messages, since they, uh, quote
 
Ano
Ano
@ArtOfCode I meant, people would overlook it not only for that, but also because it looks like it was directed for another user.
 
Shadow Wizard
Shadow Wizard
9:50 AM
@Ano well, this isn't a fun room, unlike Den, so asking people to take part in the poll once is enough... more than that is indeed frowned upon.
Quoting the Den's message was enough. :)
 
Ano
Ano
@ShadowWizard Yeah, if I hadn't pinged Derpy right after that I probably wouldn't have reposted that.
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
separate messages will generally be taken individually... even then most people read the lot whether it's addressed at them or not
 
Shadow Wizard
Shadow Wizard
@Ano think @Derpy is the only one here who really needed that link, all other people who might vote are in Den anyway, probably. :)
 
Ano
Ano
@ArtOfCode I generally don't. That's why I prefer that people always reply to me even in conversations (a behavior which a few people find annoying)
@ShadowWizard I wanted more people to vote, not just the "fun" audience
 
Mithrandir
Mithrandir
@ArtOfCode and then there are those who just lurk and you never know if they're actually there or not
 
Ano
Ano
9:53 AM
Also, I pinged Derpy here because he wasn't pingable in Den.
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@Ano compare: "most people" and "I"
not the same thing
 
Ano
Ano
@ArtOfCode Meaning?
 
Shadow Wizard
Shadow Wizard
@Ano but those who are less into fun are less likely to take part anyway... :)
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@Ano Meaning whether you do a thing or not does not affect whether the majority do it.
 
Shadow Wizard
Shadow Wizard
@Ano he left the Den long ago, yeah.
 
Ano
Ano
9:56 AM
@Derpy You didn't vote "Other"?
 
Derpy
Derpy
@Ano to be fair, I didn't vote yet.
 
Ano
Ano
@Derpy Ah, right, you were just considering it. Carefully reread.
 
 
4 hours later…
Petter Friberg
Petter Friberg
1:32 PM
@Ano you are missing the option "What ever is ok for me as long as it is not Ano since I know Italian" :D
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
lol
 
HTTP
HTTP
あの、アノです…
 
Derpy
Derpy
2:34 PM
and for the bad moderation sample of the day, the following was disputed as Not An Answer.
0
A: Cannot add the specified assembly to the global assembly cache: log4net.dll.

Andy BurnsAt the risk of answering a question with a question, why use Log4Net? Why not use SharePoint's Unified Logging Service? It isn't that hard to use, though it does have a few kinks. And it would mean all your administration and logs are in the one place.

 
Fawad
Fawad
 
Taryn
Taryn
@Fawad the answer was converted to a comment by a mod
 
Fawad
Fawad
@Taryn 👍👏
 
Journeyman Geek
Journeyman Geek
which is a very common thing to do ^^
(and one of those things I'll complain about the UI of some day ;p)
hm, thumbs up taco?
 
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