Tavern on the Meta

mfw I go to a post, and realise I'm logged into my sock at work.

.___________.

2:29 AM

@Unihedron a method of minimization that simplifies equations by removing redundancies

^ in a nutshell (though "rapid repeated integration by parts" is still my best explanation on what it actually is)

@JohnDvorak There is a really interesting article about "themself" by the Canadian Department of Justice which also has their statement that "they" can be considered both plural or singular within legal texts

@Unihedron Lest we forget, "rap rock" was in ascendency during this period. Fred Durst. It wasn't all that.

2:46 AM

I thought "rap rock" was a late 80s thing (and early 90s)

then again to me rap rock means "Beastie Boys". I wasn't really in the "Limp Bizkit" scene (and Linkin Park is the exception that makes the rule)

user310756

@Shog9 I'm writing to the legal team about a pattern of harassment on this site. I'm letting you know and the ROs here know, so it can be rigorously monitored and removed from this room at least. It's going to stop. The network is not here to provide a server for people to endlessly insult people.

user310756

I'm taking the very same advice I gave Monica.

user310756

Please do not trash my message to Shog there ^^

user310756

People seem to think this site is all fun and games. The older people do not and anyone with any sense. While it is clear that Monica's reputation has been affected, ongoing hatred or maligning of individuals also affects their reputation. This type of pile on and bullying takes its toll on individuals and also has consequences. People may think they are safe behind their keyboards to engage in this behaviour, but if it costs me one cent I will be seeking compensation.

user310756

This is not social media. These are semi professional sites people use to demonstrate their skills. There is also a community. But the main attraction is to show expertise (as an answer contributor). Bombarding people who have different opinions under whatever guise, "free speech", maligning them in chat, in comments is not acceptable.

user310756

2:59 AM

People need to surely focus on their own behaviour rather then target one individual and make them a scapegoat for the community, much as Monica (appears/allegedly) was made a scapegoat for the network.

user310756

Take this under advisement.

3:10 AM

@Nobody flags?

user310756

@Shog9 I can CC you into the email if you like, I have raised a couple of new flags

user310756

I was going to leave the network, but I need my Stack Overflow profile for my work and I need to be able to use my full name. So I am sorting this out

user310756

Caveat: most people on the network are ok. The current climate has allowed destructive behavioural trends to develop and the people behaving this way are taking advantage of the network being held over a barrel and being accused of "silencing" or censorship if they delete stuff or suspend people. Plus they're uber busy. The ToS state clearly the rights the network has over the site. It's time it's customers realised this.

2

Is the data Access Request the best way to go about dealing with my situation which I mentioned earlier? (basically, ensuring that my address/phone & other location identifying information is removed or just not tracked)

I think I've gotten all the obvious references (including the network profile) but cannot remember if I provided that for Careers or Teams at some point - and as it is just my public email so far its not a huge issue yet (but people threatening me having a way to get my address would worry me so I would like to ensure that is not possible)

@Nobody Look... I can't tell you who to contact right now, but... I can say, we're all pretty buried. The employees and MSE mods are trying to stay on top of stuff, but there's so much stuff.

It ain't for lack of desire. We're just... Being pulled in 20 directions at once. And so, so tired.

So stuff's hitting the floor.

I know that's not ok.

user310756

3:20 AM

@Shog9 I totally understand- and I feel for you. I'm deliberately posting this here, so at least the stream in here will stop. And hopefully said users will be kicked if they continue. I'm not posting on the site for now. Letting it all slide and leave it to others to fix. I've made my points clear. But in the meantime, there's still toxic stuff that needs to be cleaned up. And some other issues addressed. Take care Shoggles. I do not blame you or your peers.

We will clean, eventually

it will take time

user310756

yes.

I wish I could promise better

user310756

I hope you all survive this.

But I must be honest

user194636

3:31 AM

There’s an argument to say that any site without effective moderation should be read only

user310756

I totally agree

user310756

It's not to silence people. It's to mitigate against further damage on the site

user310756

It's even in the interest of the people with objections to the network

user310756

as the community is being destroyed in places

user310756

I'm in here right now, but do not want to be a part of any more explosive discourse either in here or on the site.

user194636

3:35 AM

SE put themselves in this position. If they’re not coping they need to act to reflect that in some way. Painful and undesirable as it may be. Applies to chat too.

Journeyman Geek

@194636 and yet closing off the site means the folks who want things to be better don't have a voice either

user310756

@194636 yep, agree

user194636

@JourneymanGeek Yes. Painful and undesirable. The alternative may be worse. I’m just going by what Shog and Nobody were saying above.

user310756

@JourneymanGeek yeh, but it's pretty much been well articulated. The ball is now in the networks court and nothing can be done until they literally catch up and are able to formulate strategy going forward.

Or can I edit it? Address seems to be swag & arbitration opt-out while phone is on several products so seems I need to be most worried about my phone number.

3:41 AM

@Nobody There's the company and the people.

user310756

Continually having things being piled on top of the already huge moderation heap is not helping.

@Nobody and tbh, adding to the drama, even with good intentions dosen't quite help

user310756

@Aibobot yeh the company (heads of) will decide what to do and the CMs (long suffering serfs) will enact it

user194636

@LinkBerest Only staff can answer those questions for you

user310756

@Aibobot how is making meta read only adding to the drama?

3:42 AM

@Nobody we kinda basically lose control of the narrative

user310756

it's all be said by now

yeah, I'm going to use contact us - I wondered if it was an easy question to answer though as I hadn't had time to go through the pages of agreements

user310756

and there's a lot of nastiness coming through

user310756

with it

everything goes offsite where we can't really handle it, and it will certainly hurt folks who actually care about the network more than the drama seekers and the folks who will go "Look! SE is evil! Censorship!

3:43 AM

I really don't feel like getting even less sleep than I normally do for a month while I wait on an answer to this

user194636

@Aibobot Can you think of a recent example where telling people not to discuss things that were bothering them to avoid drama didn’t work out so well?

The best thing we can do is mitigate the worst of it, and trust the CMs to do their jobs.

user310756

the CMs don't have enough hours in the day

@194636 Its not what you say, its how you say it

@LinkBerest I didn't find my address in mine which, I hope, means SE don't keep it.

3:44 AM

@Nobody at least on the short term, the focus is going to be on monica's situation

That's a fact.

@terdon a little comforting at least, thanks

user310756

I honestly don't think it's helping

(this is Geek by the way, for those new here. On my work PC)

user310756

it may be doing just the opposite

user194636

@Aibobot It can also be what you won’t say

3:45 AM

@Nobody telling people not to focus on it is like telling them not to think of elephants

user310756

it depends on what the drive is. If they truly want to prove a point they won't reinstate her without her going through the new process

There's folks on it. It will probably be handled.

user194636

🐘

@Nobody and that's literally not our decision to make

user310756

so it's a stalemate. The network will ultimately win - as they have the traffic and own the site

user310756

3:46 AM

@Aibobot I think you're kinda missing what I'm driving at

user310756

Imo. The network is taking a stand and making a huge change to a certain direction

traffic comes from somewhere

user310756

If they want to drive the point home - and it seems that's the case - it's been some weeks

user310756

They will stand by their guns

@Nobody and?

3:47 AM

for instance, I don't have a lot of rep on the site but I have hundreds of students who I used to regularly point to SO as they began their programming careers - I don't do that anymore

@Nobody and certain aspects of what has happened hasn't been acceptable

user310756

@Aibobot I'm getting there LOL be patient I canno type so fast

user310756

@Aibobot ok I will type and post it all at once

I will wait then ;p

If more of their loyal users (what many businesses call "regulars" but are actually even more of a thing here as they are also contributors) start to pull out it will become an issue

user194636

3:48 AM

@LinkBerest every little helps

a slow issue to be sure, won't feel it in the first quarter, but an issue

user310756

> - the network is making a change
- They've made it clear that the active meta communities are small percentage of their target community
- yes the loss of moderation is a temporary setback, they will get new moderators (for sure)
- if they were going to reinstate M by now they would have (it's been too many weeks)
- ultimately they own the site and it's all clearly in the ToS and we can put up or shut up (in terms of the fact they're the site owners)
- if meta and chat are too detrimental the networks end game - they will be utterly changed or removed.

user310756

meh - it's kinda adhoc and all over the place. They're random, but connected thoughts

@Nobody

- One person did, and she's probably learning a lot
- this is a perfect storm, we had enough under most circumstances
- this is *messy* and there's a lot of things that no one expected. Things are easy to break, hard to fix
- Yes they do, but the community involvement is a unique part of this network. It would survive but be poorer for it
- Things that are neglected molder. Chat and meta need a certain degree of love to be healthy
- In some ways it might, but its slightly out of control

In order, unless I missed a point ;p

HDE 226868

@Aibobot That . . . makes a good deal of sense. A seamless transition from account to account mid-conversation, though. :P

3:58 AM

@HDE226868 oh cough

personal account on my phone, this is on my work pc

you know after a very stressful and long day - my wife made it better by having two things for me when I got home:

@Nobody and well - at some point we hope to reach normality. most of chat serves its purpose. Some of it needs to change and grow

Tacos! and Cerveza!

The same can be said of people, and organisations ;)

user310756

@Aibobot yep. and having said all that. I don't have the answers. at all

user310756

4:00 AM

I have to go.. it's been good to chat

@Nobody if anyone did, I'd like to hear them ;p

user310756

aye

To quote another part of my mispent childhood as a sci fi geek...

"Sometimes all you can do is put one foot before another"

@Aibobot .....how is that misspent? :P ;)

@LinkBerest apparently I should have studied harder and become an engineer ;p

4:02 AM

engineer that didn't read scifi = NAN

lol

My brother didn't

He is very ... ⬛

make him; just talk about some plot but never finish it

One can bring a spice worm to water...

then another and another and another

granted that will kill it ;p

4:04 AM

eventually he will have too much of an engineer's "I have to see if I was right about how that should end up" impulse running through his veins and have to read to find out

maybe

but most engineers in singapore end up managers ._.

unless they are sandtrout that are just trying to become worms

@Aibobot that job where they won't let me build stuff just tell people how to build stuff? blech

Yes

granted my job is to stare at stuff and tell folks what's broken

That was my last job

great job when your trying to write a dissertation :)

6:54 AM

@Randal'Thor I've kicked a user y'day and moved out messages from this transcript that tried to stir-up this discussion. Let me make my position clear on this: While I look in amazement what arguments take place and often shake my petals in disbelief, this room is not the place to counsel and/or force users to change their own self-being. If you have well meant "personal" advice for any user I suggest you (and others) create a separate room and share your advice/tips/insults/berating there. Thanks!

→ 6 messages moved to Trashcan

Let me know if you have a new room where you want those messages to be, an RO will be happy to move them there for you.

7:09 AM

I have come to a conclusion hell is a cinema with small seats and corporate education videos

mag

corporate education videos

calm down satan

10:26 AM

→ 15 messages moved to Chimney

11:13 AM

Afternoon @rene

Q: Make it possible for localized sites to correctly translate privileges on the pages, which can't be accessed by a member with low reputation

indeed

Suvitruf

11:44 AM

Hello there. Could someone help with reopening it? (:

20

As we have discussed here, it's OK for English sites in the SE network to place dots and commas inside quotes, because it's correct in US English, and in the interface US English is used. But for Russian, it's incorrect. Commas and dots should be outside the quotes. https://ru.stackoverflow.com...

Duplicate is about English version.
Bit for eng this spelling is correct.

Jose Antonio Dura Olmos

The other question already mentions ruSO

If I ever get to I'll vote to keep closed.

Suvitruf

@JoseAntonioDuraOlmos yes, but it's mostly about English spelling.

As you can see in discussion in comments and answer.

Suvitruf

12:13 PM

Thanks (:

2:33 PM

Question (not an attempt to create a flag brigade): this reads as a bigoted statement to me. Am I off base here? It seems that moderators and I tend to have a different opinion on what bigotry is

@DeNovo I think it comes down to what "male and female" means. Personally, I agree with that comment. I am a biologist and to me, "male" and "female" refer to sex, not gender. I would change it to 99.9% since there are exceptions, but I would much rather edit Cesar's post to use "some people are neither men nor women".

3

The concepts of "man" and "woman" are about gender, not sex. But male and female refer to sex, for me.

Note that that is actually the wording in the FAQ itself and probably for this reason.

@terdon hat's very surprising to me. As a physician, that statement is incorrect (for both sex and gender), and reads as bigoted because it denies the existence of people who aren't either male or female.

@DeNovo Those are a tiny proportion though. But yes, we do have various trisomies and the like. But apart from those, all humans are going to be either male or female in terms of their karyotype.

@EmanueleCiriachi the FAQ, correctly, uses "men" and "women" instead of "male" and "female". While it is absolutely true that 99.9% (not 100, actually) of humans are either biologically male or biologically female, the concepts of "man" and "woman" refer to gender, not biological sex. — terdon 1 min ago

Hmm. I don't know what percentage of humans are neither XY nor XX. It may well be more than 0.1%. But it isn't wrong to say the vast majority of humans will be either biologically male or biologically female. It just is irrelevant in this context since we're not discussing biological sex but gender.

@terdon this is probably not the place for this argument, but whether you use chromosomal or genital or some other definition of sex, there is a significant proportion that aren't either male or female. the medical community has come to an agreement that, yes, many people are neither male or female

@DeNovo Is it really significant? (to clarify: I don't care if it is one in a billion, it exists and I don't want to minimize it, I'm just curious about how common it is)

And isn't genital sex always connected to chromosomal? (happy to move this to The Biosphere, I am only interested in the biology here and don't want to use it as an argument about people's gender).

> Klinefelter syndrome is one of the most common chromosomal disorders, occurring in one to two per 1,000 live male births.

Dang! That's considerably more common than I thought!

2:51 PM

There are some people who just adamantly don't want to disclose their genders despite being totally cis-binary.

Of course.

@terdon Turner is even more common, and a not insignificant proportion of XY individuals appear to be women due to their expression of androgen receptors. There are many more examples

Journeyman Geek

@terdon got a friend with that

@DeNovo The overall line of argument across the comments from that user do read like an attempt to debate "the validity of people's identities or gender expressions", as Cesar puts it in the question.

@DeNovo Fair enough. Although I wouldn't expect appearance to be relevant, I would argue that biological sex is defined by chromosomes only, but then I work in genetics, so I tend to only think in terms of DNA.

@terdon the words gender and sex can be used interchangeably. — Emanuele Ciriachi 3 mins ago

@EmanueleCiriachi ah no, they can't. I think that's where the confusion comes from. They are two very different and separate concepts. See, for example: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_gender_distinction. — terdon 21 secs ago

Maybe a misunderstanding?

2:58 PM

I predict those comments will eventually be deleted, be it directly for that reason or as part of some general comment cleanup, and that yet more hollow cries of censorship will follow.

user194636

The only good comment is a deleted comment

9

@DeNovo My understanding is that "male" and "female" have always been biological terms, but I'm not sure if they're strictly about genotype or if there are aspects of phenotype wrapped up in there. There's more info at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_sex-determination_system.

And of course phenotype and gender identity are also distinct.

@DavidA That will likely depend on your field. In mine, only genotype matters, but I'm a geneticist. I wouldn't be surprised if physicians also took phenotype into account.

Yeah I tend to be wary of a lot of social science stuff due to a bit of a replication crisis and general lack of rigor.

@terdon yes, we do

3:03 PM

In the vast majority of cases, genetics, external phenotype, and gender identity align. Of course some of this is due to extreme lack of tolerance for deviation from the norm.

@DeNovo In what sense? Can it be medically relevant? I mean, do you use phenotype as a shortcut to infer genotype or can there be cases where for the same, known genotype, phenotypical differences can affect medical outcome?

@terdon Well the whole field of taxonomy used phenotypes in lieu of genotypes because it predated the modern understanding of genetics. Linnaeus preceded Mendel, and Mendel preceded Watson, Crick, and everyone else.

@DavidA Yes and the whole field of taxonomy was very, very wrong for a long time :)

Convergent evolution is a pain ;)

And remember that this stuff isn't happening in isolation. There's the backdrop of James Younger, Jordan Peterson, and (cough) Yaniv.

Biology talk O.o o.O O.o o.O

3:15 PM

@terdon no it's not necessarily a shortcut to infer genotype. It's often expression that is more relevant, clinically, but I'm in infectious disease, not endocrinology

A layman punt (please call it out if I'm not making sense): physicians often don't think in terms of genotypes, because it is not particularly useful to what they are trying to do right now.

@DeNovo Ah, so phenotype can give you a clue for a specific biochemical deficiency, say? Or perhaps on whether an individual with trisomy is leaning more towards male or female which can affect what, immune status?

It's kinda like chemists don't always think in terms of quantum mechanics, even though it underlies a good chunk of what goes on.

@duplode Yep, but DeNovo is a physician, I'm a geneticist :) So I always think in terms of genotype, I can't really help it.

@duplode Hey, physicians are different . . . Our talks make sense

3:19 PM

That's physicists, not physicians and no, your talks make no sense at all!

Fascinating, yes. But not makers of sense.

This sort of thing is more helpful in improving the place than legalese: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/390722/a-be-nice-review

That's a good Q&A, and in particular Travis' answer is excellent.

@terdon In infectious disease, it's more of a what bucket are you in so what other things do I have to worry about more or less.

> "RTFM" got a rude reputation because of that "F". I see comments linking to a relevant portion of the manual as useful comments. Prefer to phrase them matter-of-factly, without any F's; e.g.: "The relevant documentation is example.com/docs.html." – Cody Gray♦

@DeNovo Yes, I can see that.

3:29 PM

This.

I gotta do a few errands now. See you later :)

djsmiley2k - CoW

5:37 PM

y o o o o oo o o o o o o o

wow wh at on earth h apen

errrrr ok thatsbetter

Tinkeringbell

I think space is broken..

Perhaps time too

user58

6:18 PM

@Tinkeringbell sorry

@rene Both deleted

→ 14 messages moved to Chimney

7:10 PM

One more delete vote needed for this one

ArtOfCode

'sploded

> dogpiling

That's more like it. Oh the good ol' days

IOW

Can I go back to being the bad guy please? That was so established it was actually relaxing.

If it helps, in my mind you're still the bad guy.

<3

8:41 PM

@JNat Cross-site spammer: stackexchange.com/users/7192999/brucey

That's a correct link @SonictheReinstateMonica-hog? Surprising for an account that "old".

@Bart Yes, it is.

Can someone tl;dr me on what happened since I was gone?

It looks like there's been a mass moderator exodus or something?

Q: Summing up the main issues (The Story So Far)

136

Could we have a neutral summing up of the issues (without any editorializing)? I will attempt to do so in an answer, big picture style. Or you could think of this as "The Story So Far" for those who came in in the middle, or who are confused about what the heck just happened to Stack Exchange. ...

discussion moderators code-of-conduct

@forest dumpster go flamey flame.

8:52 PM

hm

user58

BOOM

I mean, I came back after like a month of being out of the country with no real internet...

And I come back to a bunch of mods leaving or getting fired. O_o

Long story short, it's pretty much all your fault for leaving us alone.

heh

user194636

only you can prevent forest fires

8:56 PM

How's the prognosis for this drama?

They'll live, but there will be scars.

And the likely winner?

Nobody.

:D

I mean, I'm seeing a non-negligible number of mods resigning.

Yeah seems like it.

So how does this apply to random people like me? Do I have to use preferred pronouns and the like, or is that just for mods? I mean I don't really care, but it is a new policy it seems.

> Chipps's reply refers to the unnamed moderator using the plural "they," a common fallback for the lack of an agreed upon gender-neutral pronoun in English. Cellio, for what it's worth, does not include any preferred pronouns on her Twitter account.

I use "they" all the time. :/

There's a new FAQ about that. The brief gist of it is...

Using people's stated pronouns is okay. Using gender-neutral language is okay. Using pronouns contrary to someone's stated pronouns is not okay.

8:59 PM

Also the whole retroactive relicensing thing. I've been considering talking to a lawyer about that.

And conspicuously and intentionally using stated pronouns for some people, while avoiding them for other people, is not okay.

@TannerSwett Oh that's good. I'd like to be called "apache". Either that, or "your highness".

@TannerSwett Yeah that's fair.

@forest yeah ... let's not do that please.

@Bart I know I'm kidding. :P

I know you are ... but we've had quite the month with lots of people making that "joke" ... it's been rough.

9:00 PM

ah

Someone asked to be referred to using the neopronoun "aps." I don't know if aps was actually being sincere in that request, but I intend to take aps at aps word.

user194636

it's hard to be original at this point

So the overall tl;dr is: SE violates licensing and copyright law, CEO changes, inclusiveness push results in a torrent of mods resigning or being fired. Drama still going for a month?

More or less.

As I see it, the major issue is that Monica was removed as a moderator for reasons which are unclear and which were not disclosed even to her.

@forest kinda sorta but also no. tl;drs don't really do the crapstorm justice anymore

user194636

9:02 PM

well it's more the firing and the implementation than the CoC itself

wow

It's generally believed that she was removed for no good reason at all.

Yeah that's the idea I'm getting as well.

user194636

at best SE were technically correct

user194636

cue xkcd

9:04 PM

A lot of people are upset about the new pronoun policy, too.

user194636

yeah it's hard to capture all the angles

I'm more upset about everything that's happened in the last few months.

user194636

> A lot of people are upset

@194636 best tl;dr

A pronoun policy isn't that extreme compared to, like you said, the implementation.

Oh yeah, I forgot the fingerprinting ads.

That's another one.

user194636

9:05 PM

It was heroically bad at times

ikr

@TannerSwett the recent post from heather pretty much says what happened.

user194636

Like they consulted with mods on the CoC wording then didn't on the FAQ, which completely undermined it.

Well, I said "the pronoun policy," by which I mean the actual policy which was put into place.

Monica avoided using "they/them" on purpose.

9:06 PM

Is the current state of things highly conducive for snowballing drama yet?

With so many mods gone, it would suck if there was mass spam from someone in retaliation.

But if those who should be offended forgive her, so should SE.

Agreed.

And it's not like she did that to be rude or offensive.

Fortunately, we don't really need moderators to deal with spam.

user194636

@Shadow Before there was clear guidance on the issue. Well, insofaras there is clear guidance now.

@194636 maybe SE took it as not being nice.

I don't justify SE, but finally see what happened.

9:08 PM

@TannerSwett I was thinking more like, sh*tpost spam, not commercial spam.

user194636

@Shadow Yes.

user194636

They completely mishandled the whole episode, unfortunately.

I admire people like heather. If SE survives this, it's thanks to such people.

Who is Heather?

And @JourneymanGeek who was also deeply involved. Kudos!

user194636

9:09 PM

QC pro-tem mod

user194636

Yes it was nice to see a positive thing happen.

Q: To reach out: on Monica, the Lavender community, and the future of the Stack Exchange network

313

Over the past weeks, the uproar has been vast, spanning the new Code of Conduct, Stack Exchange's conduct over the years, and more. Gallons of internet ink have been spilled by everyone involved, including myself. If you don't know me, I'm heather. I am a moderator on Quantum Computing Stack Exc...

discussion etiquette users company

ah

Respect++

:)

I just hope Monica is reinstated. I've always thought she was a good mod.

user194636

9:13 PM

Not really. It's a failure of process as much as a failure of individuals

user194636

Mostly a failure to communicate and consult

user194636

As I see it anyway

> They have been making vague personal attacks against me both publicly and privately. Meanwhile, they aren't answering my email (in which I have remained courteous, solution-oriented, and restrained).

So it's a regular thing then. Damn. :/

@194636 9