Sunday bloody silent sunday....

Naught stirs but lost souls asking maths questions...

And since I literally just found out this existed...

meta.stackexchange.com/questions/greatest-hits?page=1

@JourneymanGeek hehe.... well, on Meta it's mostly list of the faqs.

more or less yes

70% yes

plz-delete batch of three. Play a video, imageview, and Azure key vault. @rene @Bart @Glorfindel

@ShaWiz all gone, and the first two already had my vote

lol dog ate them silently while you were away. Typical. :D

Who left the dogs out?

who who who

chewing noises

:/

I know that's supposed to be humourous, but there's just so much... stuff there that's not right.

there's some that's a little true, owishly

SE didn't fire devs to hire sales folks as far as I know.

also snap some of this is a little on the nose though

Its a nice little mix of stuff that's kinda true, and stuff someone familiar with the network would talk about, and a few cherrypicked misconceptions

The bit about "slap me emoji" was a little harsh, though I do believe it was Meta that first came to the connection

One critical point? A lot of the stuff wasn't CM driven.

The focus on careers? I doubt they had much to do with it

The core idea is that the users feel they are being ignored. And if the sales reps decide to go full malvertising, it will be the nail in the coffin of most of those who haven't left yet, and the rest will bring adblock and popcorn. My full prediction? If the sales reps decide to go full malvertising, ad revenue will plummet, and take teamsterprise with it.

@JohnDvorak eh, I don't think teamsterprise's going to fail that easy

As for the ads? SE's kinda run their own setup for quite a bit - at least in terms of ad selection. And well, I don't think the CMs pick the ad sources, just deal with the fallout

So blaming them for a lot of this seems, counterproductive

Honestly, that feels entirely mean spirited, and throwing blame the wrong way

If you go Google ads, you can't pick your sources. And the fallout is 1) MSE turning to gallery of objectionable stuff that Google serves (if you're lucky, it will be collated by how they disgust users, if not, you'll get one post per ad until it becomes impossible to sift through the duplicates), and 2) top users either leaving or installing adblock. Or both.

Which means that if SE decides to stay with Google ads, they're on the highway to hell, in a bus that explodes if you slow down below 130 km/h.

I disagree with mean spirited. It may be a little exaggerated, but it does capture the atmosphere around MSE.

It's not that sales reps willingly pick the worst ads from Google. But if you go with Google, you'll inevitably end up with malvertising on the site. And the sooner reps realize that, the less fallout there will be.

@JohnDvorak actually ... lots of top users probably already use adblock

@JohnDvorak MSE? naw

MSO.... I suspect

True, that they do, but many have said they'd disabled Adblock for Stack Exchange. You don't want to lose that kind of trust.

As for the niceness initiatives - they literally don't make SO any money. And the twitter wars? I think we kinda worked out a better accomodation to how to deal with it.

IPS is back on the HNQ list, we got better tools - both per question and for mods to get CM eyes on social media s*** storms.

The new SO front page feels like a terrible idea

But that's a bit of a petard that they hoisted themselves on + some of the reactions I got from folks on SO makes me care just a little less :/

Not sure what you mean by the last bit.

@JohnDvorak well - SO's front page is now the 'corporate' front page cause the company calls itself SO

And that's cause they were hyperfocused on using SO as the vehicle for careers and other things

yuck

As for the latter, someone ranted at me for apparently feeling other sites matter, and other sites relied on SO for resources.

But hey, I moderate a smaller site

They're my constituency so to speak, and SO's got plenty of folks advocating for them.

I wouldn't call SU a smaller site

;)

Apparently we are XD

That's fine, we do have have a pretty cosy core community

@JourneymanGeek I had a great laugh, it catch many of the current problems and feelings of users in a funny way. It's kind of time to laugh and have fun...

@PetterFriberg Maybe its a cultural divide - but it feels meanspirited, blames the wrong people, and has a few things that seem false in between a lot of stuff we know/feel is true

(that's to say, I personally didn't really see the humour in it)

I think you see too much blame and meanspirit (which maybe currently is the core problem), I instead had a laugh, humour sometimes to be funny needs to be a bit dark and throw in some 1/2 truths.

@PetterFriberg maybe. The folks being blamed are people I work with (as a mod) quite a lot - and I personally feel that a lot of the stuff they get 'blamed' for is probably higher up the totem pole

I don't begrudge you your right to find it funny though

and I'm certainly not mad at anyone who linked it. (The creator on the other hand... ;p)

There is no blame... A sane CM should have a nice laugh

@PetterFriberg Well - it could be seen as such

It certainly depicts them as moustache twirling villans

Having a nice laugh, baah anyway I hope they laugh, if not so maybe we have problem...

(I mean, I'm a mod, I'm occationally rather frustrated at the way stuff happens here)

@PetterFriberg problems are never in short supply :/

I mean any grumpy user, mod, CM, staff, just take a moment and have some fun... instead of beeing grump about it :)

@PetterFriberg I suspect humour, much like fun's entirely relevant on your point of view.

(so I don't really think that's the kinda humour I'd enjoy.)

What's that phrase...

"It hits far too close to home"

Well, anyway I will continue to enjoy my Sunday mowing the lawn, I hope you have some fun to.

Works for me ;)

@JourneymanGeek We totally should create a new video which is accurate ...

Mention more about the effects of the new SO main page ...

@BhargavRao Honestly?

That needs the downfall video

I know, its not cool any more

Also hey, the non SO mods were fighting for more equality ... time to get the other sites on the same line as SO

I still think its a bit of a .... headscratcher to why they felt it was a good idea

@BhargavRao that rated one of my more.. colourful rants.

Only SU got those!

I didn't even cheat and get help

SU home page also has ads now?

I think its had them a while

Nah

but I've adblocked since forever

There's none

Check SU and SO side by side ...

The video is just a bit late

Oh I guess not

The issues that we face now are more about the new direction on putting Teams ads ...

I get the ads on the top bar

@BhargavRao well critically the folks who make this decision are a little higher up than CMs

We did have Jobs links in the top bar from long back ... it was only recently removed

ugm

I don't see any ads in incognito mode

._.

@JourneymanGeek Cool, then in our video, let's call it as "top level management talks about managing SO" ...

Should be more accurate

@JourneymanGeek exactly. Superuser has none

Wait, why am I making a video?

@BhargavRao no, on SO

._.

wait teams ads in questions?

Eh, turn off adblocker

incognito mode

no adblock right?

lemme try another browser

The entire front page is an ad, right?

Oh

that yes

that I have ranted in detail

I don't see say, sidebar ads

Ah, yeah, they've removed the pop up

And then there was another ad that was covering content

Which was then replaced with the ad that appears before every answer

Anyway, I am fine with ads

I mean, SO devs need to eat and sleep as well.

I mean, all the ads I thought were on SO vanished

I've tried vivaldi (incognito) firefox, edge and IE

It isn't a bug per say

but odd

Where all did you think that there were ads?

Ads as in "product placements"

I mean ad ads'

yanno banners, sidebars

for things that SO isn't selling themselves

stuff like meta.stackexchange.com/a/330162/135565

The external ads are present only in the right side bar and appears on the question pages

Oh, yeah, and the small banner at the top.

I am literally seeing none of that

Those are on question pages only.

with adblock turned off

or on other browsers with no adblock

That's weird.

But that's not the issue at hand, though.

No

Those are valid ads, which is fine.

Its that the front page is one giant ad ;p

The problem was with product placements

uhm

like?

It started with a small Teams ad in the left side bar

And then with a pop over Teams ad that covered content

oh, and the little teams ad under a question?

wait, pop overs?

sigh

Yeah, that seems... silly

And then with an Teams and other Products ad in the topbar

and a bit like the hyphen-siteish

And then a small Teams ad in between every question and answer

sigh

And then finally the entire homepage

Ya, I think I get the frustration.

The pop over was removed after a meta post

It isn't frustration ... more like "information"

Information over frustration?

Honestly MSO feels a lot like a powderkeg

or pre all hell breaking loose SF

I am fine with ads except the front page one

ya

The top bar placement is fine too

The front page just feels.. silly

We always had Jobs in the top bar

That is totally fine

It certainly is redundant, misleading and less useful

But that's a different issue

It isn't actively harmful.

The pop over ad is also fine

I mean, how else can you get one's attention ...

uhm

Pop over ads are never fine :/

I think that is entirely based on your POV

Pop over ads are the best way to get attention

But given the fact that they were covering actual Stack Overflow content ... they were removed

@BhargavRao there's good getting attention, like a puppy sitting at your feet, and bad attention, like mosquitos.

That's the latter

The ads in between every question and answer is also fine given that they replaced the pop over ads with it

So anyway ... we've now got enough material for our more accurate video

I'm still confused by the our ;p

Well you were the one who was a bit distracted by the inaccuracies of a video ...

so gotta fix that ...

I was stating an opinion, not volunteering...

...

I mean, I get volunteered for enough at home without even stating an opinion

I'm here to get away from that!

Ah cool ... I'll work the accurate video

(also for those expecting drama. Meh ;p)

I didn't get you ...

@BhargavRao Oh, poked into the SOVCR transcript ;p

There certainly are some stuff in the video that is quite accurate

like the site graduation

and the 2nd iteration

Yeah

those things do need to be fixed

and the mobile app

and the [status-review]

eh, you're familiar with the overall mess with those

do folks even status-review much?

And it (least from MSE) seems to be a bit better

You guys are lucky on MSE and other SE sites

Its not perfect, certainly, and there's still a lot of stuff not quite right

We're the ones that suffer :'(

@BhargavRao technically, we get the stuff that's broken for everyone

We get specially broken stuff

Well... yeah

but that kinda comes from the overloading of your site...

(but, I think many rants have been had about that, and mentions of petard hoisting)

@JourneymanGeek Some stuff from the top of my head ... and I don't even need to search the site :D ... 1. meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/295683/… 2. meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/294318/… 3. meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/253305/…

meta.stackoverflow.com/posts/288274/revisions

That was Hans Passant's post

The IPS stuff from the video is also accurate

Calling top users "hostile jerks" was a bit over ... yeah

@BhargavRao Well, yes, and you know as well as anyone that actually kinda got stuff rolling

I mean Hanlon did mention about it in the blog post that "we all are hostile jerks" and not just top users

so it includes new users as well ;p

@BhargavRao trying to enforce cultural change from the top down is one of the things I feel SO inc is completely boneheaded about.

It never works.

And the current structure of things makes it insanely hard for it to work

Hmm

The shift focus to jobs is also true ..

(rewatching the video)

But they didn't fire devs due to it

I mentioned about it in the TL as well.

They focused more on that and SO

Yeah .. the fire devs is wrong

They fired devs and PMs too..

and they didn't hire sales reps

after it failed

Can't comment much on CSS library as I don't know

Now I'm not blindly defending SO here.

That bit seems a bit odd

and very specific.

The way the site redesigns started was problematic

Maybe they're referring to the latest AFJ?

@JourneymanGeek truth hurtz

AFJ?

Alliance For Justice

@BhargavRao True, but truth also sometimes needs to be put in terms people can actually accept

April Fools joke

@JohnDvorak naw

I think they actually mean stacks

that one you had to disable for each question separately.

that one that made Stack Exchange look like it had been hacked

That they didn't mention the AFD Joke was a bit odd yes

Advanced Freedom Jalopy

@JohnDvorak naw, pretty sure that felt like a reference to the site redesigns

Looks like it is some old video ... tbh

Created sometime in the last year

But the only inaccuracy I found was the "fired devs" and the "slap emoji"

The CSS tone down was years ago - it hit sites like SFF, toned them a bit to make them more uniform. This was before the latest redesigns.

@BhargavRao oh and the broader thing that CMs decided any of this

So that proves the statement that it's an old video

Yeah, that should have been "SO management"

and it was a dev who removed IPS from HNQ

eh, funny, I was thinking, but not saying it was odd its a new account, that only posted these.

CMs (atleast a handful of them) are doing a pretty good job ...

@BhargavRao the IPS removal kinda ended up getting 1) improvements to HNQ, including the ability to kick stuff off 2) significantly better communications in similar situations

I'm kinda on the site because of the community and because of some of the CMs

@BhargavRao if anything, there's not enough of them

@JourneymanGeek ... That pretty much is related to what the video says ... something bout "them not caring about what had been asked before"

but increasing that number's going to need to get folks further up to agree

"slap emoji" isn't inaccurate. Up to interpretation, yes, but not inaccurate.

I also don't quite agree about the "we want to make money" part ...

SO isn't making much money ...

I'd totally donate money to SO, if I had some

@BhargavRao well, no one knows what's the score on that.

According to what I've seen, SO is in a better place financially than they've been in quite a while. Taking into account Tim's recent post.

there's literally no good reason to put Google ads on your website other than farming money or willingly decimating your user base

I mean, literally at no point has anyone talked about actual losses

@JohnDvorak well cynically speaking

Eh, it isn't hard to put 2 and 2 together ...

SO's pretty much set.

The last VC blog post was from 2015

(ok, sometimes I'm not sure if that's a good thing)

after that Docs failed

and then the original "Teams" failed

@BhargavRao well, Joel's been talking about going public

after that the lay offs happened

Teams seems like a last ditch effort to get things back ..

So pretty sure they're not "making money" like the video claims ...

Also I am really not sure why we are discussing this ...

I'm not sure either. Carthasis?

I had clearly mentioned earlier that it was a rant

And that the more we discuss, the ranter (is that what they're called?) wins

Teams failed mainly because it was ridiculously expensive.

@BhargavRao \o/

I don't even remember what that iteration of teams was

It was like Thomas Orozco's project and when he left they sunset it ...

I mean, what was it, five dollars per user per month?

Similar to the Question new nav

It was free

It wasn't a paid product, but they were planning to monetize it

@BhargavRao if there was anything I can accuse SO inc of...

its lack of focus

They built one thing that worked incredibly well, added in really good tooling and community support...

then got bored and wandered off for a few years.

That seems to be the point of the video...

but that's a bit on the dark humor side

@BhargavRao which is probably significantly part of my problem with it ;)

If they wanted to provide constructive feedback, they would have posted on MSO

So yeah, take it as a joke, laugh it off and move on

There is really no use debating on it

except that posting on MSO seems to do nothing

Or just move on ;p

Which is why I post on Twitter

Which I am happy to do

This is one of the reasons why I quit visiting TL ... over analysis of simple stuff ...

Anyway, howz ya Sunday goin?

Always fun to wake up to an acerbic, snarky comment.

You need to be more precise, there were many of them.

Well I wasn't working, so it was an actual sunday

Not a sneaky sneaky monday in disguise