Tavern on the Meta

410

12:52 AM

Let's create a separate, independent Advanced Tavern.

Stormblessed

1:08 AM

@Glorfindel how can I run your image fixer script?

Alex

@Stormblessed Wouldn't that be redundant?

Stormblessed

@Alex well there're a lot of images to fix is the thing

He only runs it every 36 hours, too gist.github.com/Glorfindel83/9d954d34385d2ac2597bbe864466259f

Alex

@Stormblessed But I think Glorfindel specifically limits the rate that it works at.

Stormblessed

@Alex well I mean manually running the program on a post to speed editing up

Alex

1:31 AM

@Stormblessed I think the rate is deliberate.

Journeyman Geek

1:42 AM

Yup

Cause flooding the site is bad

Stormblessed

2:20 AM

@Alex well I wouldn’t run it much

Just to find a broken image if I encountered a post with one

Alex

@Stormblessed Can't you do that manually?

Shog9

2:34 AM

@410 2012... Was a very good year...

Jan 22 at 1:09, by Shog9

Evening SEDE amusement: Answers by year author joined the site, by month

Stormblessed

@Alex well I could but this is faster

rene

7:13 AM

@Shog9 if you told me that was the exchange rate for crypto currencies I would have believed you as well ....

Basically you need to invest in new users that provide answers in the first two years, after that they become ballast ...

202324

Now there's only one @john. :)

rene

7:39 AM

→ 5 messages moved to Trashcan

→ 34 messages moved to Chimney

user194636

9:20 AM

62

Q: The ship is sinking, but communication is down (need orders from the captain (CEO))

It looks like we have far more serious problems than just following the CoC in every thinkable correct way. The engineer from the machine room reports to the bridge: The ship is sinking. Give orders. Response from the captain at the bridge: First of all you have to call me Sir. Also ...

user194636

> put on hold as off-topic by Simon Forsberg, Robert Columbia, Ward, Optimus Prime, Tim Post♦ 6 hours ago
This question appears to be off-topic. The users who voted to close gave this specific reason:

"This question does not appear to seek input and discussion from the community.

user194636

🤔

rene

yeah, that is a bit weird but I could easily close it as a duplicate of one of the other "communication" posts

user194636

It feels a bit off for them to be closed by staff.

user194636

Perhaps the prescribed venting period is coming to a close.

Glorfindel

9:28 AM

@Stormblessed there are several reasons it's not possible, 1) as others said, rate limiting 2) the source code is a bit of a mess, it's one thing to refactor credentials/tokens out of it but there are some parameters/settings which are equally important and mysterious 3) it depends on a few ... undocumented ... features of the API.

Also, the script is momentarily only active on nine sites, it has fixed everything it can on all other 160+ sites. (Though other images could have become broken since.)

I am planning to release/publish a 'light' version which just improves links: stackapps.com/q/8039/34061

Journeyman Geek

Well, there's a long tradition of waiting for 4 votes and using the last vote a pusdounhammer ;p

however that's mispelled

Also, zat last edit.

I'd CV that

user351483

9:52 AM

@JourneymanGeek I do this. I generally accept that I have twice the power of other users for close votes. If three people have voted and I agree, then I'll use the hammer.

Journeyman Geek

As do I

Bart

@JourneymanGeek myeah, pushes it into "yeah, not looking for answers from you" territory

user194636

10:30 AM

@JourneymanGeek Sure. The optics though. Just at the moment?

user194636

Anyway, it has been reopened.

Journeyman Geek

I think he has it wrong though

I don't think we need statements

user194636

10:52 AM

Who is "he" there?

Journeyman Geek

Oh navta

user194636

When I disagree with a post I typically downvote it

user194636

Closing it as not seeking community input seems a bit weird when there are 9 answers and 40 ish comments on the question alone.

Journeyman Geek

I felt there was a minimal good faith attempt to communicate until OP posted an attack on the new CEO

And it is a bit of a rant.

user194636

I feel like we should be quite tolerant of mini-rants at the moment

3

user194636

11:02 AM

I am also very wary of the tendency to close/delete opinions people disagree with

Andras Deak

@JourneymanGeek panta ;)

Journeyman Geek

11:17 AM

@PaulWhite maybe

But we also need to remind folks of the parameters of civilised discourse

Attacking the new CEO is hardly a great way to be seen as the reasonable party

In the military you often found that the NCOs had more power and knowledge than the officers anyway

An appeal to authority also needs well...

For the authority to be inclined to listen, which attacking them hardly helps with

user194636

@JourneymanGeek Seems more like grounds for an edit or rollback than closure

user194636

11:40 AM

The OP edited as you requested

Journeyman Geek

11:54 AM

Yup

Magisch

12:12 PM

On a completly unrelated note

I now know I never want to work in finance, and I hate stocks and the bond market with a passion I never believed possible on such a mundane topic

Andras Deak

12:32 PM

@Magisch I've known that for a very long time

Magisch

I started out trying to learn some about how to invest for retirement

now I have a newfound hatred for the stock market and anything that touches it

Andras Deak

It's not that it doesn't interest me; it's the opposite of interest

Magisch

It's not even that, or that the whole thing is particularly complicated or involved. I mean it is, but that's not the issue. I feel dirty even reading about it all

user194636

2:07 PM

-7

Q: I am slamming the door oh so hard right now and leaving! (not really)

When I first registered on StackExchange, years ago - on StackOverflow specifically - those were different times: You would get derided for asking imperfect questions! Your less-than-perfect questions would get lots of downvotes right away! People would tell you that "what you really want to be...

discussion sarcasm

user194636

Closure and deletion is too good for that post IMO.

user194636

Pointless.

ArtOfCode

and gone

self-deleted

user194636

quite right too

user194636

I wouldn't have minded if the "sarcasm" had been clever or original in some way

user194636

2:16 PM

normally I'd be more tolerant of mistakes

user194636

but y'know, circumstances

Journeyman Geek

2:55 PM

I hope he saw the light there

I was tempted to close and dv but

..

Eh

Bart

3:37 PM

o/ Is everything still on fire and are people letting out bloodcurling screams?

user384163

Hi all. I suggested an edit on this question removing the statement by the OP refering to being LGBTQ as a choice. That statement has absolutely no bearing on the OP's message but is potentially very offensive to many people. The edit was rejected. Would anyone here look at it closer and reconsider?

Journeyman Geek

@Bart yes

Bart

@bruglesco do you have a link to your suggested edit? I'm kinda hesitating to be honest.

Journeyman Geek

I was going to ask the same

user384163

meta.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/67368

user384163

3:42 PM

I understand anyone who doesn't want to touch it with a ten foot pole

Bart

Would stating "who they are" instead be fair?

"because of who they are"

user384163

yes

Journeyman Geek

@bruglesco it's interesting times :/

Bart

@JourneymanGeek any feedback? I might give that a go

user384163

I have no desire to change OP's tone. Just to completely remove anything to do with "choice" from the discourse

user384163

3:44 PM

That is not a rabbit hole we need to add to this fire

Journeyman Geek

Honestly about to go to bed and I don't quite feel up to deciding

user384163

I'm mixing my analogies

Journeyman Geek

I trust you will act wisely

Bart

No worry doggo. Go sleep. I've edited.

Hahaha, well, that's your first mistake.

user384163

Thank you

M.A.R.

4:57 PM

@bruglesco We shouldn't go down the wormhole to open the can of rabbits

user58

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

M.A.R.

Come on, it's not plastic science

@user58 Is that you Anne Hathaway

user384163

@M.A.R. See when you phrase it like I actually do want to go through with it.

user384163

If Stargate has taught me anything it is just how awesome wormholes are. And I can't imagine anyhthing cuter than a can of rabbits.

user58

I can. Rabbits not in a can.

Stormblessed

5:12 PM

124

Q: The Stack Overflow Conspiracy - don't tell Jeff I'm on to him

Judging from the fact that there's been a lot of talk of venture capital being pumped into Stack Overflow lately, something hasn't been sitting well with me at all. Then I got to thinking. Ever think about Jeff's user ID? It's 1. Seems innocuous, right? Like maybe he was the first user or someth...

discussion fun jeff-atwood

Hey I got Animuson to fix the image on this, that's pretty cool

Also the pingable page for this room is broken?

chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/pingable/89

@user58 Is the Teacher's Lounge's ID 4?

user384163

@user58 But it's like cats in undersized boxes. Except rabbits. In cans.

Anne Daunted

A question mods and ex-mods: Are there no "internal" means to discipline a mod, like kicking from TL or something? There seem to be a hundred question asking for more info what went on. And the reason is, all of it happened in non-public chat rooms etc. No non-moderators or SE employees were involved. But the decision taken mostly affects them (us).

ArtOfCode

Not really

Kicking moderators isn't supposed to be possible in chat.

Likewise, none of our other diamond tools are really functional, because we've all got them

Anne Daunted

@ArtOfCode But not even employees can do something?

ArtOfCode

Employees can, aye. They can de-mod.

Chat tools really aren't great

Anne Daunted

5:19 PM

Thanks! This just seems kind of bizarre.

Stormblessed

It was simply a mistake while fiddling with another answer. — animuson ♦ 34 secs ago

@Zoethetransgirl this is the response I got about the bounty message, not saying if I believe it or not but this is what they say

Mgetz

@ArtOfCode this has been a central complaint for how long?

rene

6 to 8 weeks at least

ArtOfCode

@Mgetz several

Mgetz

5:34 PM

164

Q: Add escalation system to chat flags

The offensive/spam flags in chat are shown to every moderator from a parent site (on chat.stackexchange.com that is every SE 2.0 moderator, more than 200 right now) and 10k chat users as well. This is potentially far more users than a flag on an SE site itself is shown to. I don't think it is n...

feature-request chat flags

160

Q: Flags in chat are defective by design

Yes, I know the topic has been discussed before. I know that Meta already has threads that complain about how flagging doesn't work. I wanted to give a practical example. Today, a user came in to the JavaScript chat and asked the following question: Hey guys, as soon as I embed javascript,...

discussion feature-request chat behavior chat-flags

if you look at those they both even admit they aren't the first discussions... they are just the highest upvoted I could find quickly

Stormblessed

I only realized that 10K total users can be shown flags a week ago

in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe on The Stack Exchange Network Chat, Oct 2 at 12:04, by Stormblessed

Mgetz

@Stormblessed yep, and it alerts ALL of them on any specific site

Stormblessed

@Mgetz yup

Mgetz

the thing to remember about chat is that it doesn't make money. It exists purely as an overflow from questions in effect. Thus it's not worth spending time or money on.

Internally SE employees use slack I believe. And externally a lot of people that used to frequent the chat use discord

user58

Internal SE uses SE chat a lot as well, especially the CMs and dev teams.

From what I've seen, that is.

Mgetz

5:44 PM

@user58 from the blog awhile back slack was mentioned. I don't know if that's universal though I've never worked there

Stormblessed

6:10 PM

@Mgetz well other than SO nothing made money until just a few months ago

-386

Q: We're testing advertisements across the network

For several years we've had advertising solely on technology-related sites. But many of our sites aren't about technology at all, so we haven't sold ads for them. Traditionally, that hasn't been a hardship since Stack Exchange sites have required only a small investment from the company to set up...

discussion advertising announcements

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Stormblessed Check the domain there

chat.meta.stackexchange.com/rooms/pingable/89

kush

6:33 PM

Do users get notified when someone deletes their comment on meta?

ArtOfCode

nope

Alex

:7948483

kush

Or failing that, all the content here is CC licensed, right?

rene

@kush I don't think personal attacks are welcome on Meta or in this room for that matter. Feel free to write that on your own blog.

kush

This is not a personal attack.

You can look at the logs about how respectful I have been throughout this

rene

6:41 PM

To me it reads that way

→ 2 messages moved to Trashcan

ArtOfCode

Yes, it is. Telling someone they should resign is equivalent to saying "you can't do your job properly", however you say it. That's a personal attack. I'm not surprised it got deleted.

kush

Welp

rene

→ 3 messages moved to Trashcan

kush

Thanks @rene

rene

you're welcome

2

Ælis

6:46 PM

I'm confused, is this person a moderator? meta.stackexchange.com/q/334538/400547 Or are they just a regular user who wants to... lose their rep privilege, I guess?

ArtOfCode

Yes, they're a moderator on at least one site

two sites

Zoe the transgirl

@Stormblessed I can't get that to add up

Ælis

Good to know, I won't be the one asking a stupid question in comments then ^^

@Zoethetransgirl Did you get your bounty rep back?

Zoe the transgirl

It was a bounty message removal, the bounty itself wasn't canceled

Gonna mess around with some HTML to show the difference

Ælis

Oh, I guess can't do much about it then :/

Zoe the transgirl

6:51 PM

After the removal of the notice, it looked something like this:

Ælis

Didn't know one could cancel the notice without canceling the bounty. But, at least, it stayed up for three days

Zoe the transgirl

The bounty is just a bounty and a notice

it's a bit like a lock and a notice, or just a plain notice. A question can have a lock or a bounty without a notice, or a notice without a lock or a bounty

Us mortals can't remove notices, even when we created them (bounties only)

Right, I'm off meta again. Thanks for the ping, might've missed the question otherwise.

Later o/

Ælis

Bye and thanks for the explanations :)

Gryphon

7:21 PM

Question for staff members: In her blog post, Monica referred to an answer she wrote and posted on the private moderator Q&A area. She stated that "I would be happy to have this answer, along with its question for context, made public to challenge this claim, but I don't think it's legal for me to release even an answer I wrote myself." Would it be possible for this answer to be released, as the author has given consent for it to be?

4

And as she also requests that the question be released, would it be possible for that to happen if the question author gives consent?

Bart

Don't hold your breath.

Andras Deak

I don't expect the company to go out of its way so that they can prove that Monica was mistreated

not throwing filth at her way at every opportunity would be much simpler and yet

Gryphon

I would like to think that, as Monica is willing to have pretty much everything revealed, and the company has made severe allegations against her, if those allgations were true the company would be happy to prove them by revealing everything Monica is willing to reveal.

user58

Not necessarily. The transcripts of the chat discussions, for one thing, are something that will never be released, because they were posted in private and it would be a huge violation of trust to make it public. You cannot always make private stuff public, even if it would benefit you.

Gryphon

7:39 PM

@user58 Disregarding the fact that this request was for a specific answer, not chat transcripts, if both parties are willing, could SE at least release Monica's comments (redacting usernames and other information that needs to remain confidential), but not release the comments of any users who aren't willing to have their comments made public?

user58

Unlikely, since who posted stuff is kinda relevant.

Gryphon

@user58 But they would only be releasing stuff Monica posted (and anyone else who was willing to have their comments released to the public). So they wouldn't be releasing who posted anything else, or anything else that was posted? I'm somewhat confused by what you mean here.

user58

What Monica posted was at times direct replies to what other people posted. The identity of who she is speaking to is relevant, and cannot be revealed publicly.

Andras Deak

note that Gryphon is talking about a teams Q&A, not chat

user58

I am aware.

Gryphon

7:44 PM

@user58 Thus me stating that SE would be releasing "Monica's comments (redacting usernames and other information that needs to remain confidential)". So who posted what would not be revealed publicly, as it would be redacted.

I'm not really sure what the issue is here.

user58

@Gryphon And I'm saying that redacting who posted what would be omitting relevant information that is necessary for understanding the situation.

Andras Deak

meh

Gryphon

@user58 I would argue that any information is unlikely to be worse than no information, even if it's heavily redacted. But you may disagree.

user384163

@Gryphon If SE releases the name of the individual that Monica was talking to, this mob will ~~string them up~~ make their life miserable

Gryphon

@bruglesco Precisely, so they don't release the name, and we get redacted information, which in my view is still likely to be better than no information.

That's what I'm arguing for here.

user384163

7:49 PM

What if they get it wrong. What if it isn't redacted well enough

user384163

People are especially good at solving puzzles.

Gryphon

But my original request was for the answer Monica referred to in her blog post to be released, which then got segued into talking about TL chat.

user58

I just went and reread the post. I'm not sure it'd do any good to release it without going heavily into the surrounding context.

...also, holy squirrels, there are nearly 50 comments there. Sheesh.

Gryphon

It'd be helpful if SE stated where exactly the believe Monica violated the CoC, even if they can't release the actual document/transcript (e.g., "In the TL on this specific day"). Or at least told Monica.

Mad Scientist

There's a whole chat room full of mods that can see the transcript, and still can't agree on what happened

There are 28k chat messages in TL over the last 2 week, almost entirely about this issue

it also matters less and less what happened in private, when SE keeps messing up in public now repeatedly

Gryphon

7:58 PM

@MadScientist SE are the ones who said "Monica did something bad enough to demmod her", so they should be able to point to what that bad thing was. If there were multiple issues, Monica should have gotten a warning first, so there should be some single thing that, in SE's eyes, was a CoC violation.

rene

waffles

Andras Deak

@Gryphon you keep acting as if the company was obliged to do anything

Gryphon

@AndrasDeak They aren't obliged to do anything. I'm just pointing out some things that would be helpful, were they to do them.

user384163

I don't think it would help them at this point

user384163

They aren't going to convince anyone. They are better off trying to fix things after the tension dies down

user384163

8:13 PM

Hell most people would still be incredibly angry even if SE proved everything irrefutably right this second. Many people object to the lack of tact.

John Dvorak

8:23 PM

That. That there was a demodding is the smallest bit, but the staff behavior. Proving they were correct in firing her (even if true) would change none of that.

TRiG is Timothy Richard Green

8:45 PM

-1

Q: How much experience does SE staff have on diversity issues?

Stack Exchange sites are used by people all around the world, from a vast number of cultures. A very large percentage of the users do not have English as a first language. That’s a lot of diversity right there. Furthermore, there are people with different educational levels, different ages, diffe...

discussion etiquette diversity

↑ makes sense in my head

I've been writing it in pieces all afternoon, and have probably confused myself. I'm not now at all sure that it's actually a useful contribution to the conversation, but here it is anyway.

user1306322

has anyone seen that "Ugly truth about design systems" vid from the Overflow blog post? I had a hard time trying to figure out what the presenter was talking about

Magisch

@bruglesco Yeah. They'll probably sit this out. They already decided they'll stick to their action, and every bit of explaination they would be prepared to provide would be unsatisfactory for people currently angry

Time heals all wounds even deep ones. Sure, there'll be some more mistrust, some people will leave, and the general sentiment towards staff will take another hard hit, but all these things would happen anyways if they explained more, unless they also reversed the decision, which they're clearly unprepared to do.

John Dvorak

9:05 PM

Counterexample: time can't heal a deep cut in the neck. the kind that was rather common in 18cl France.

Magisch

for all our clamoring, we're not a big enough piece of the community to be a catastrophe to piss off

John Dvorak

succinctly put

Magisch

quality of moderation might suffer, even long term, but not fatally.

user58

17

Q: An apology to our community, and next steps

I’m David Fullerton, Stack Overflow’s CTO, responsible for the product, engineering, and community teams. I joined Stack Overflow in 2010 because I believed in the vision and mission of Stack Overflow. I wanted to be a part of building a community where programmers come together to help one anot...

discussion moderation code-of-conduct

Magisch

well i'll be...

ArtOfCode

9:14 PM

:)

user384163

wow

Magisch

either someone took some inspiration from george's post or they took some serious introspection

either way, I can't fault this. This is about as good as you can do with words. Lets see how they follow it up

user384163

It's an actual apology

2

TRiG is Timothy Richard Green

@Magisch Looks top class, yes.

Andras Deak

9:39 PM

wow, watch those upvotes pouring in

> Going forward, we will be working with the community to overhaul how we gather input and feedback from our moderators and members of the community to make sure that your voices are heard and involved in the process, not just informed after decisions have been made.

Also:

(hmm, found a bug)

> This post was written with the input and support of Sara Chipps, Tim Post, and the community management team.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@AndrasDeak Oxford comma?

Andras Deak

that's not a bug if you ask me

John Dvorak

Maybe they are saying that the two are no longer a part of the community management team?

I don't think they do, though

Andras Deak

No, he's making it explicit that it's not "Finally someone makes sense, look what Sara and Tim did for us". He's making it clear that those who people like to hate are also behind this apology.

John Dvorak

That would make sense. In that case, I suggest "and everyone else in the community management team"

Andras Deak

9:49 PM

meh

Sara for instance is not a CM, she's director of public Q&A. Not sure what Tim is, actually

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@AndrasDeak Community Evangelist

Andras Deak

I can't tell if you're being serious, but you're not the type who jokes often :D

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

I do not

Andras Deak

I can see the title on his twitter, but no title on his profile. I guess that's close enough.

Magisch

Isn't Tim the director of community strategy?

Andras Deak

9:51 PM

there's no "who are we?" on the company page anymore, right?

bah, my typing has been disastrous for a week

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Magisch Was

Andras Deak

so there's Management but our guys are too low-level to show up there

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

Will Joel Spolsky retain "honorary moderator for life" status like Jeff?

Andras Deak

not bad to get an apology from one of ^ those dudes

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog what's an "honorary moderator" without a diamond?

Magisch

@AndrasDeak Jeff asked for it to be removed

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

9:55 PM

@AndrasDeak Jeff's diamond was revoked purely for procedural reasons; he retains the right to have it reinstated if he so chooses

Andras Deak

@Magisch ah, I didn't know that, thanks

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

Otherwise, his diamond would have been revoked back when he left in 2012

Magisch

Jeff asked for them to remove it when he went on a complete internet break. He has not (afaik) asked for his diamond back

Andras Deak

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog Well, a few things have changed since. It's no longer appropriate to bludgeon people with large S-es, so he could've become a sort of liability in the meantime

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@AndrasDeak Between 2012-2017 there's no criminal records to suggest he did that

Andras Deak

9:57 PM

yeah, I understand

Magisch

ominously eyes the giant foam S parked in the corner

yeah, you're probably right. Attacking people with oversized letters is not a good idea anymore...

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

I definitely agree with the decision to officially deprecate that meme.

Stormblessed

10:18 PM

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog what are you talking about?

user384163

@Stormblessed this

ArtOfCode

14

Q: Dear Stack Exchange - a statement and a letter from your moderators

Dear Stack Exchange, Inc., We know you know about this already, so we'll keep this brief. The past two weeks have been rough. Lots of moderators have lost confidence in you; for some, it was the final straw. For many of us, though, we like being here and we don't want it to get to that point. So...

discussion moderators

10

Andras Deak

Race condition! The company wins ;)

Stormblessed

187

A: The Many Memes of Meta

This meme is officially deprecated. Please do not use this meme. It remains here while links to it are still quite 'out in the wild' as a reference to inform folks that they shouldn't be using it, and should be flagging comments linking to it for removal. While at the time it was se...

Why’s it deprecated? What’s out of line with the CoC about it?

ArtOfCode

@AndrasDeak that's cuz they saw us working on it and cheated by working on a weekend ;)

(no hard feelings, SE :P )

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

10:21 PM

@ArtOfCode With regard to the note regarding company names at the bottom, it's probably worthwhile to also mention the fact that the official, legal name of the company is "Stack Exchange, Inc."

ArtOfCode

Nah. It says what it needs to say - that particular note is more aimed at folks like the marketing department who work for SO and don't particularly need to know there's a whole network as well

This letter represents about 100 hours of work overall, from a large number of moderators. It's been pretty thoroughly edited :)

Andras Deak

> Signed,
75 moderators and ex-moderators. [And Sonic]

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@ArtOfCode It's probably also worth providing a mechanism for people who've deleted their entire network profile as a result of this scandal to sign the form

ArtOfCode

status-declined

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@AndrasDeak Hey, I was among the first to express dissatisfaction regarding the lack of official responses to meta posts.

@ArtOfCode Why decline?

ArtOfCode

10:27 PM

SE accounts are an easy way to prevent signature abuse; too much work to implement something else reasonable as well

I've already spent about 25 hours or so total on spinning that site up in the last three-four days; I don't need more unnecessary work

Andras Deak

@ArtOfCode nicely written

Gryphon

@ArtOfCode Excellent job. I've signed it.

ArtOfCode

Cheers

Journeyman Geek

Good morning folks

It appears I have much to catch up on

Andras Deak

we only have a short head start

Journeyman Geek

10:39 PM

@AndrasDeak they also don't let us mail users bobcats any more

Andras Deak

we can still use xkcd's parcel service for that

Shadow

@Stormblessed nothing direct, but "bludgeon you to death" isn't really welcoming.

So, everyone here are happy with David's apology?

(I'm not)

Andras Deak

I think most people are on the "very good start, let's see where it goes" side

@Shadow what in particular are you unhappy about?

Shadow

I don't consider it even a start.

Andras Deak

how so?

Shadow

10:42 PM

Sorry but this conflicts directly with other non-apology posted only few days ago. To me it looks like a forced apology posted only because the mod resignations started to cause you real trouble. Otherwise you'd never even think to apologize. I can't believe this is real and sincere effort until I see actual actions being done, first of all bring Monica back or let her resign by herself. — Shadow 3 mins ago

Gryphon

Happy in the sense that it's better than the place we were before? Yes. Happy in the sense that this fixes all the problems? Very firmly no.

Shadow

As I see it, it's very possible nothing will happen. People will start asking in 1-2 weeks, and..... rumbling silence from SE side.

So until then, I don't move an inch from my position.

Gryphon

I mean, they gave us three very specific dates, and Monica's going to let us know when they contact her. So that's something at least.

Andras Deak

@Shadow you don't have to move but you should allow to accept their olive branch, should they support it with actions

Shadow

Also @user58 mentioned something about leaking real names of users in public media, anyone knows where it stands?

Andras Deak

10:44 PM

rejecting their attempt to fix things would ruin things for good

Shadow

@AndrasDeak I don't reject it. I don't accept it for now.

I didn't vote on the post.

Andras Deak

I was speaking generally

Shadow

@AndrasDeak that's true.

Andras Deak

making judgement before they can prove anything has a terrible quenching effect on improvement

Shadow

It was way better if that was posted instead of the previous non-apology post.

But it wasn't.

Andras Deak

10:47 PM

deleting the original one would've also led to uproar, with all that angry feedback

at least three meta posts would've sprouted (on both metas) asking where it went and why and who do we kill :P

Gryphon

@AndrasDeak Yeah, I'm glad they didn't delete the original "apology". I wish they'd never posted it, but you can't change the past.

Andras Deak

yup, transparency should be top priority (among all the other top priorities such as fairness and listening :P)

Andras Deak

11:00 PM

So we really do live in interesting times

ArtOfCode

@Aza @Sonic Signatures for that second letter are now on the website rather than in the post; you'll need to sign again

→ 8 messages moved to Chimney

Andras Deak

@ArtOfCode is it [status-bydesign] that there's no link between the letters? Assuming I'm not just being dumb

ArtOfCode

[status-byomission] is probably more accurate

they're both linked on meta though, so I'm not too bothered

Journeyman Geek

@Shadow it was a mistake

Andras Deak

Yeah, I was just asking. Thanks.

Journeyman Geek

11:09 PM

That's the whole point

user206222

@ArtOfCode I'm a former moderator; can you add me manually?

ArtOfCode

yup, standby...

user206222

Thanks!

ArtOfCode

Just the Lavender letter, or both?

user206222

Just the Lavender letter.

ArtOfCode

11:18 PM

Done :)

user206222

:)

user206222

0

Q: Ask hard questions on the Moderator Questionnaire

The Stack Exchange Moderator Questionnaire is a routine part of the election process. It's a way for the community to gauge the candidates' fitness for the job; for voters to read a bit into who people are, their role on the site, and the value they can bring to their community. These questions ...

discussion moderation election nominations

user206222

I'd also appreciate y'all's thoughts and attention here, if you have a moment. I sincerely think we have a pretty big gap in what we ask of our moderators.

user206222

We tend to focus in real hard on "can this person keep the quality of the site high and keep peace?" and less on, "how does this person approach complex interpersonal conflict?"

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Aza The vast majority of moderator questionnaires are actually community-generated.

user206222

11:22 PM

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog They all draw from a common template.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

There are two default questions that are always asked, then the rest is community-selected.

ArtOfCode

@Aza You've got a good point there. We should probably not ask all of those questions at the same time, though :)

user206222

Yeah, what I'm asking for is for that default template to be expanded and changed.

user206222

I'll clarify.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

There are also three other default questions that are selected in case the community doesn't supply enough questions to make a total of eight.

@Aza I'd be in favor of making a few of those questions part of those extra three.

user206222

11:24 PM

@ArtOfCode I'm sincerely curious why you say!

user206222

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog Yeah, for sure I think this could expand to fill that gap.

ArtOfCode

@Aza Mod questionnaires take long enough to answer as it is, at 10 questions. If we ask all of the questions you suggest in every mod questionnaire, then either we have to expand the questionnaires, or we have to significantly reduce what we can ask about other things.

user206222

...+5/-3 is a weird vote split, I wasn't expecting that proposal to be contentious.

ArtOfCode

Don't get me wrong, I think it's important to ask about the things you're proposing, but I don't think they should be a majority of every questionnaire.

user206222

@ArtOfCode Oh, yeah, that's true. Wasn't thinking about raw length.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

11:26 PM

@Aza I'm sure you'd get more votes if you demonstrated more knowledge as to how exactly the questionnaires are generated, and where exactly you'd want those extra questions to be (in the "always ask" section, or the "extra in case community doesn't supply enough" section).

user206222

I.. don't honestly know what else I could put in this question to do that? I mean I can mention that I think at least some should be always asked and some can be filler, but I'm not sure that's really what people are voting on.

Journeyman Geek

@Aza keeping the peace often involves complex interpersonal conflict

And if it's one or two - could be included in the default set.

user206222

@JourneymanGeek Honestly, I agree, but I also know mods who've kind of expressed the opposite. It's part of why I don't think these questions are gonna be as clear-cut.

user206222

I'm gonna edit out the pronouns one, I think people might think I'm taking a jab or something.

Journeyman Geek

Also hm there's a bit of an interesting question

Is a moderator purely a functional role or is it political?

I joke it's like being an MP

And I have constituents

Gryphon

11:38 PM

That MP analogy falls apart a bit at the moment. Monica's constituents are very happy with her, but she was removed by SE, which doesn't really have an equivalent in politics.

user206222

If you want the postmodernist answer, all things are political...

Gryphon

@Aza Postmodernist answers are very rarely useful.

user206222

But in seriousness, it's both, right? You've been gifted influence -- either by SE if pro-tem, or by the community if elected. How you use that influence isn't just a janitorial decision, it's also a communal one. Any time you start to talk about tone, culture, form, etc. you get into the grey area of "politics."

user206222

Whether you consider it a part of being a moderator is irrelevant; now that you are a moderator, people will listen to you in a way they won't listen to each other, when you talk about those things.

user384163

@JourneymanGeek Or are they role models?

user206222

11:43 PM

(Same thing goes, any time you act in a way that leads tone and culture.)

Shog9