Tavern on the Meta

Tinkeringbell

8:00 AM

@forest You'd have to ask the other room, discussing suspensions on another site is kinda inappropriate here.

forest

:/

@Tinkeringbell Ah ok, thanks. (though I was suspended by a mod from here, not there)

I'll ask when my 30 minutes are up.

Journeyman Geek

technically...

mods here are there

and vice versa

forest

true

I'm actually going to open an MSE question. That's a bit quicker.

Journeyman Geek

man, that was a fast 30 minutes

forest

Huh? The 30 minutes isn't up.

@JourneymanGeek Honest question: Is there any way to clean the slate between us? I've been trying to get past my drama days, but it feels like I have a target painted on my back that's attracting mod abuse. Obviously there's a sensitivity between us, but I'd love if it could be resolved.

Journeyman Geek

8:09 AM

@forest Honestly? Stop digging up drama?

forest

And e.g. being suspended for telling another person about the conversation we just had feels, to me, like I'm being targeted unfairly by a system that does not permit appeals.

Journeyman Geek

I mean, we often ask you nicely with no real return

The exact words you used...

forest

@JourneymanGeek Every time you ask me to stop talking about something, I do.

Journeyman Geek

sounded precisely like the sort of accusation we ask you not to make

forest

I'm sorry if I sounded like I was making any accusations.

Journeyman Geek

8:10 AM

You did

You need to be more mindful

Now, I'm going to lift the suspension

I'm going to assume you were entirely unaware of how that sounded.

forest

Thank you. Am I permitted to discuss, with others, anything about this? I honestly did not mean to accuse anyone, just report that staff don't want me to bring up past staff controversies.

Journeyman Geek

Now, exact wording

forest

Which I feel I explained without pointing fingers or making accusations.

Journeyman Geek

> because staff don't want controversial questions that point out misbehavior by staff highlighted. :D

That was totally an accusation

forest

It is?

Journeyman Geek

8:12 AM

If you don't realise that, well, I can't help you

forest

Wait, who am I accusing of what?

Journeyman Geek

Now, get off that high, and consider it ;)

Cause this is important. Even homework

Cause this is what gets you in trouble

You want to wipe the slate? I absolutely need you to show good intent and actually think about why this might be seen as an accusation.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@JourneymanGeek @forest Unless you received another message from staff stating that, that's a lie.

Journeyman Geek

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog well, yes... that too...

forest

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog But that's exactly what they were telling me, wtf

(no accusations are meant in the above. This is just my understanding)

Journeyman Geek

8:14 AM

@forest sigh

work it out

forest

I'm trying to be honest here .:/

"work out out"?

Journeyman Geek

You're not dumb

but things don't get better until you realise why stuff you say rubs folks the wrong way

forest

I think it's possible that 99% of our animosity is caused by a language barrier.

Could that be one of the reasons?

Mithrandir

*sigh*

Journeyman Geek

@forest hence you needing to be more mindful of how you say things.

forest

8:16 AM

E.g. you thinking that hypocrisy means lying? (from a while back)

@JourneymanGeek You weren't my intended audience though.

Journeyman Geek

Protip.

SE chat is public

If you want to talk privately without folks taking offence to unfortunately worded things... there's other places

forest

Hm, maybe if a word makes something sound like an accusation to you, you could ask me what I mean by it? Then I could explain the definition or, if I got the definition wrong, correct myself.

Journeyman Geek

Or actually realise that you're constantly wording stuff like that

This has happened many times

As you realise

But hey, if you want to mend fences I can't be fetching all the lumber and the nails and doing all the work

forest

Well, with the hypocrisy example, do you still believe that?

Journeyman Geek

yup

forest

8:20 AM

OK, this must be a language barrier. I'm not sure what else it could be.

You believe that hypocrisy is synonymous with lying? I'll open an ELU question.

Journeyman Geek

snort

forest

English.SE or ELU (I actually am not sure what their per-site topic policies are)

Journeyman Geek

See, I don't see any attempt at going "Oh, right, that's why you feel that way. I might not agree but I will make an attempt to be a better person"

forest

@JourneymanGeek That's what I meant by saying it's a language barrier.

Journeyman Geek

Its ok. I will try my best to help. Even if it means annoying you to tears again

@forest how about trying to adjust your language so people see it less inflammatoriily?

forest

8:22 AM

I can certainly try. It's a bit difficult when we're not using the same definitions, though.

Journeyman Geek

All you need is one simple trick

"Does this sound like I'm accusing someone at all?"

If the answer is yes, someone might actually feel like you're accusing someone.

forest

Every time you've accused me of accusing someone, my mental answer was "not whatsoever".

With the occasional exception when I'm being snide, and usually you call me out on that rightly.

Journeyman Geek

Which is exactly something that needs to be fixed

forest

If only we had a common language with well-known definitions. :P

Journeyman Geek

My response to "hey geek that was out of line" is to shut up, read back a half dozen times, and sometimes go "You're right, that was out of line, I'm sorry"

You should try that. Empathy and introspection are really useful tools in dealing with people and oneself

forest

8:26 AM

Introspection maybe. Not sure where empathy comes in.

Journeyman Geek

Understanding the point of view of others around you is an absolutely amazing tool of communication

Occationally even when its folks not directly involved in the conversation

forest

If you were shown that hypocrisy is not synonymous with lie, would you do the same?

Would you look back and think "huh, maybe I was reading into this too much"?

Journeyman Geek

I still wouldn't use those terms

Those terms are about people

People feel

I choose to talk about issues and events

forest

Wait, what? Lie is, but hypocrisy is about action.

Journeyman Geek

dosen't matter

forest

8:28 AM

If you remember, what I said was that a post feels hypocritical.

Journeyman Geek

someone wrote that post

forest

That's not about a person, but about an action. It's like the difference between "this post, that you wrote, is wrong" and "you, as a person, are an idiot for being wrong".

Journeyman Geek

consider alternatively "Foo is at odds with what bar said on this previous post"

Its a lot less emotive, yet actually brings across the specific point well.

forest

My personal belief is that doublethink is at fault. That's a mental state, but not of dishonesty.

Journeyman Geek

and is amazingly neutral

Its not doublethink though

it brings across the same point.

But if your language is accusatory, people take it worse

forest

8:30 AM

Well, I wasn't trying to be neutral (I have my own biases, of course). I was just trying to avoid being rude or accusing people. To me, as a native English speaker, "this sounds hypocritical" doesn't imply the intent to deceive, which would be a lie.

Journeyman Geek

@forest Its the same thing

you avoid being rude or accusing people by being neutral

Emotive language is powerful and you get a lot more done without throwing it around all the time

And well if you're arguing that other people mistread what you say

empathy helps you understand why ;)

forest

Just you, here. As for empathy, I've never really had a lot.

(Not that it makes me a jerk, of course. Not always!)

Journeyman Geek

Well then, I guess that's part of it

forest

I would like it if you could assume that the words I am using are not chosen to accuse people, even if I do not think very highly of certain staff (that is not an accusation, but my opinion). I have and will continue to try not to make accusatory statements, but I cannot avoid making statements that are negative or do not portray something in a positive light.

Journeyman Geek

8:47 AM

@forest well, if you can't make the effort, why would I be expected to?

forest

I'm making the effort, but I'm using words that, to the best of my knowledge from both growing up speaking English, Wikipedia, and other English natives I talk to, hold the meanings I think they hold. It's like someone trying to send an HTTP request to an FTP port.

Journeyman Geek

42 mins ago, by forest

@JourneymanGeek Honest question: Is there any way to clean the slate between us? I've been trying to get past my drama days, but it feels like I have a target painted on my back that's attracting mod abuse. Obviously there's a sensitivity between us, but I'd love if it could be resolved.

Well, that's what it'll take

or at least a clear attempt to

I hope I'm entirely clear. At this point the ball is entirely in your court.

Now I need to walk an elderly terrier

forest

Understood. The best I can do, short of reading your mind, is to put disclaimers that I mean not to accuse anyone if I am saying something negative. Hopefully that will help.

Tinkeringbell

@forest 'I don't want to be accusatory but $something accusatory$' ... yeah, that's going to make people see something isn't accusatory. Seriously, drop this already. I for one have a hard time believing you don't know exactly what you've been doing right now.

forest

Right now? I mean yeah I'm being argumentative right now. I admit that.

But using the term hypocritical to describe a post and being suspended for "accusing someone of lying" still leaves me bitter. I don't think you have the full context, currently.

I absolutely do not mean to ever say "I don't mean to say X, but X", and that's not what it's about.

Tinkeringbell

9:00 AM

@forest hypocritical means pretending to have standards you do not uphold. That's basically lying in simplified English, in fact it's shown as a synonym on Google. Sorry, yeah, you're being argumentative and you don't even have an argument.

And with that, we're going to end this episode.

forest

I'm going to ask on the English site for details, but, while "you are a hypocrite" can be synonymous with lying, "hypocritical post" does not mean the author of the post is lying.

OK.

Tinkeringbell

Where's MAR with a good topic change when you need him?

Journeyman Geek

Ohhh k....

Tinkeringbell

Back to discussing banana's it is.

Journeyman Geek

Yup

forest

9:05 AM

Aha! The moderator message does display who sent it! I wasn't just going crazy!

Tinkeringbell

Now I'm hungry. I want a strawberry salad.

@forest Now, saying OK and then starting stuff again... that might just be a tad hypocritical. DROP IT!

forest

That was about something different, not the ongoing drama. I can avoid talking about that as well, if you want. Sorry.

Journeyman Geek

9:53 AM

back

Mithrandir

front

Tinkeringbell

10:27 AM

Left

ArtOfCode

right

we playing word association now?

Tinkeringbell

Maybe

Journeyman Geek

Woof

Tinkeringbell

CRACKERS!

Apparently there will be fish for lunch soon :)

Journeyman Geek

10:57 AM

Goldfish crackers?

Tinkeringbell

11:24 AM

Maybe :P No... Fried fish. Mine had grates, it's wasn't supposed to have those :/

Journeyman Geek

11:35 AM

Grates?

Tinkeringbell

Tiny bones... apparently not called grates in English XD

John Dvorak

I think it's a grate name for tiny bones in fish

Tinkeringbell

XD

They're called graatjes in Dutch, apparently fish grate braids are something different and the correct term thus is 'pin bones'. :P

John Dvorak

11:51 AM

Ah, now that's something I can look up. Thanks.

Tinkeringbell

You're welcome :)

Journeyman Geek

Ohhh

@JohnDvorak booooo

John Dvorak

12:08 PM

New objective: make more homophone puns

Tinkeringbell

I'm waiting :P

John Dvorak

I feel like JG would just keep repeating "booooo" to me if I did...

Tinkeringbell

I'll make sure he doesn't ;)

John Dvorak

nice

Journeyman Geek

>_>

@JohnDvorak eh, I only boo the grate but terrible ones.

John Dvorak

12:29 PM

Let's just say that if you got caught in a loop of replying "boo" to all of my messages, that would definitely be boo-ring.

Tinkeringbell

@JohnDvorak booo :P

Anne Daunted

So today I do not need to travel the long way to MSO to witness drama, I can stay right here!

Journeyman Geek

:/

Anne Daunted

Interestingly, that old joke complaint was at the basis of this all. It surprised me, although it probably shouldn't have.

Tinkeringbell

@AnneDaunted We do try to keep the crowds entertained and the chatroom populated ;)

John Dvorak

12:43 PM

I'm afraid I'll get suspended for 30 days if I ask why Forest was suspended

Mithrandir

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak Honestly? That's not likely to happen

John Dvorak

Good to know, thanks

Journeyman Geek

You're probably aware of my moderation style by now, and if something's an issue, I really try hard to communicate that it is

John Dvorak

now, what would make it happen, so that I avoid that case?

Journeyman Geek

12:44 PM

@JohnDvorak honestly? You're not doing anything that anyone else wouldn't do

Just be excellent to other people.

Be mindful of the folk around you.

yanno. Being a decent human being and help make this place, well, somewhere worth hanging out

IE. You're doing fine.

Anne Daunted

@Tinkeringbell That's really great service!

John Dvorak

In that case, what am I missing about what happened two hours ago?

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak honestly? The broader pattern of interactions

Anne Daunted

Not to be too picky, but you need to step up your game if you want to keep me entertained.

Journeyman Geek

(or ask yourself - what got geek so annoyed ?)

Tinkeringbell

12:47 PM

@AnneDaunted What, you've already ran out of transcript?... Pfft. I had hoped we filled enough to keep people busy for a few hours reading up.

John Dvorak

discussion topic: should "got a moderator annoyed" be a valid suspension reason?

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak it is not.

John Dvorak

good.

Journeyman Geek

It is usually an invitation for a moderator to take a walk.

Anne Daunted

@Tinkeringbell Next time, choose an actual complaint. Something really controversial. I still remember the controversy around the bountied question, and it never had much substance to it. It was boring from the very start. Sorry, but this feels like a Michael Bay movie without even the 'splosions.

Tinkeringbell

12:51 PM

@AnneDaunted Ooof... Maybe we can take MSE out of the HNQ? :P

Anne Daunted

@Tinkeringbell ;-)

How about throwing IPS off the HNQ again? ;-)

Tinkeringbell

@AnneDaunted Kinda not really needed? We only have 1 eligible spot and haven't had that many questions recently that can take it...

John Dvorak

'splosions = Forest's 30-day suspension, and the threat of further suspensions arising from the uncertainty of what caused the first one

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak no one's threatening.

Well, I'm threatening to boo your puns...

John Dvorak

not a person, but the situation itself does the threatening

Tinkeringbell

12:54 PM

@JohnDvorak Don't be afraid. We have cookies, join the dark side, wanna see a puppy? We don't discuss suspensions, but I think I can say there's not 1 thing but a pattern of behaviour over a long period of time that led up to this :) And you haven't shown the same pattern, so you're safe.

Journeyman Geek

As I said

if we're seeing a problem behaviour, we'll try our best to let you know

John Dvorak

@Tinkeringbell Thanks for your reply.

Anne Daunted

@JohnDvorak That's between the user and the moderators. Absolutely nothing to discuss (or speculate about) in public.

John Dvorak

@AnneDaunted I'm just looking for ways to avoid tripping the patience of someone with power. I do suspect my worries are often unwarranted though.

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak protip. I actually dislike needing to suspend people

Positional power is pretty useless

And if you think about it, this is the site with the most oversight.

John Dvorak

1:00 PM

That's true

Tinkeringbell

@JohnDvorak You're welcome!

Did anything fun lately?

John Dvorak

On the other hand, a suspension is still invisible except after the fact or through sockpuppetry. That makes oversight more difficult.

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak people notice

You did

Lots of people did

John Dvorak

I only noticed after Forest asked about his suspension (which landed him another one).

Anne Daunted

@JohnDvorak I guess you needn't worry much. I guess the bounty must really have looked like nothing but a provocation, considering the question they chose.

John Dvorak

1:06 PM

I suppose that is a possibility.

Anne Daunted

The excuse can only be that they didn't know what that complaint was about, but then why bother and start a bounty?

John Dvorak

I wish we could ask the person who did

Anne Daunted

What for?

John Dvorak

right to defend yourself

Anne Daunted

@JohnDvorak Get rid of moderators and have polls deciding who gets suspended etc.?

Journeyman Geek

1:11 PM

@AnneDaunted Didn't athens do that? ;p

Well, ostracized. Literally. Also inspired the term blackballed if memory serves.

John Dvorak

then you get hit by the tragedy of the commons, as well as tragedy of giving power to those who don't know how to wield it. Also it's a logistical nightmare.

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek That certainly would be entertainment!

Journeyman Geek

though ostrakons were bits of potshards....

@JohnDvorak tbh, most mods start out that way

you actually learn a lot on the job, so to speak

John Dvorak

Good thing there's a chatroom that helps them catch up

Journeyman Geek

And even when we have good intent, we might not get the specifics right. We're only himan ;)

lol. And a teams I guess

But a lot of stuff isn't mechanics

its well, ... squishy stuff

and that transfers badly

John Dvorak

1:14 PM

TIL. Is that like MSE, except more covert?

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak eh, vagely

People are people

John Dvorak

... and that's the thing that causes a lot of trouble in all branches of life.

Journeyman Geek

Until they can replace us with bots ;p

But its a lot easier when you can accept there's more than one way to do things, and sometimes you can get great advice from people disagreeing with you

John Dvorak

Charcoal is already working on the replacement ;)

Journeyman Geek

Well let me know one that can handle people ;p

Anne Daunted

1:21 PM

I think it's a good sign. I mean, there can't be serious problems, when such complaints are issued and tried to be brought back to light again and again. That is, unless it's an evil scheme by the Powers That Be, raising them themselves to trick us and distract us from the actually evil things going on ;-)

John Dvorak

"actually evil things" such as changing the focus of Stack Overflow towards more quantity at the expense of quality? :P

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak eh, different perspectives on what SO needs to be morelike

but the trick is nudging things towards somewhere between where people are not constantly complaining about how terrible we are (and sometimes being right) and turning into yahoo answers.

Anne Daunted

@JohnDvorak That's what I travel to MSO to to witness.

John Dvorak

so, not quite as bad as YA, but still bad enough to get people to notice and vocalize? I suspect that's not what you meant to say.

Anne Daunted

@JohnDvorak I guess he means terrible in the sense of being unwelcoming, i. e. having quality control mechanisms, in contrast to allowing every kind of question and answer (and being like YA).

John Dvorak

1:28 PM

ah, makes sense then

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted I'm a firm believer in polite quality control

Its just so much work some days :/

John Dvorak

but then "somewhere between" becomes a rather broad range of possibilities

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak it is

but its a start ;p

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek And what about our quality control mechanisms is not polite?

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted well, the way some folks do it might not be.

and honestly - if folks agreed on a direction - would SO have as much drama? ;p

Anne Daunted

1:32 PM

@JourneymanGeek Voting to close off topic questions? Downvoting bad content? Flagging unneeded comments?

John Dvorak

Tragedy of the commons. Following the majority = Yahoo Answers.

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted for the former? I'm a fan of trying to post guidence where I can

for the second? I'm personally terrible about downvoting anything but the worst of the worst.

Tinkeringbell

Blame is a weird thing... it's often confused with cause: If something is a cause of something, certainly it's also to blame... which isn't always true...

Journeyman Geek

Comments? I've desired better guidence

But also, it would be nice if we knew the folks who posted OT stuff did so willfully (which the ask a question wizard probably helps with)

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek It's not like there is a lack of guidance. Of course, if people ignore that, just post their question or request, whatever it is...

Journeyman Geek

1:34 PM

@AnneDaunted well then, have at em

Friendly dosen't mean doormat

Anne Daunted

And whenever someone complains on some meta about their closed question, turns out they got plenty helpful comments and, of course, ignored them.

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted we lead the horse to water

If it won't drink... not much we can do

but as I said

I do realise its a lot of work

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek Except for taking the blame, being called unfriendly and then have a discussion about why SO is so unfriendly, like we just had?

Journeyman Geek

so... we can't expect folks to always do it

@AnneDaunted sure, but that needs work, and building bridges.

and well, for folks to try to see good intent in most folks and working with it

I don't always care for the direction SO takes

or their messaging

On the other hand, the best way I can see to actually try to change stuff is to make sure that the voices that get heard are also the ones that actually have an investment in the community and network for its own sake.

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek And when they do and it's being ignored? I've seen people complain of downvotes and believing a commenter must be the downvoter. So basically a guy sees the question, notices something (maybe some missing info, or unclear formatting or whatever), volunteers their free time to point that out and when a DV is cast at around the same time, they are even blamed by the OP or their sympathizer.

Journeyman Geek

1:44 PM

@AnneDaunted Well, that happens to me sometimes. And that's part of something that I think we kinda failed at as we got bigger

(but hey, if it was easy, maybe I'd start a SO clone with... magic, and make megabucks, and retire to, I donno... some nice village in india...)

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek That's why it's so sad when a complaint like the one that was supposed to get a bounty is brought up again and again.

Tinkeringbell

@AnneDaunted That's.. an unfortunate side effect of the way the system currently works, and it would be awesome if SE ever manages to fix both sides of that... But in the end, the problem is mostly mentally I think, and won't be easily solveable unless you can get people to recognize that being blamed for casting a downvote doesn't mean they're the cause of unwelcoming behaviour.

It's hard, because people look at blaming the person behind the downvote instead of the downvote itself.

John Dvorak

Even God says he can't fix people if they don't want to, as that would encroach their right to free will.

Anne Daunted

@Tinkeringbell Maybe the problem cannot be solved. You get new users with many wildly differing expectations.

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak citation needed

@JohnDvorak eh, nothing is unfixable.

Tinkeringbell

1:48 PM

@JourneymanGeek I second that, does that count? :P

John Dvorak

You can't even fix an obvious typo in javascript code if the website owner says it's fine the way it is.

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak also the religious concept of free will isn't universal ;p

Ranging from "Do as per my rules or else" to complete predestination....

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek "Do as per my will" is the expectation of some new users, that's true

John Dvorak

the former would be advocating anarchy. And we know that that doesn't work.

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak well - why give free will if you cannot excercise it?

John Dvorak

1:50 PM

@AnneDaunted as it should be, except in the opposite direction.

Journeyman Geek

And well, you can choose order too

John Dvorak

@JourneymanGeek by that interpretation, SO users aren't free beings in the context of the site.

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak actually in that context

SO's more of a microcausm of a society

There's a social contract and not everyone new is going to get all of it

but everyone wants in because they hear good things

John Dvorak

Now, wouldn't you expect the leader of a 7e9-headed society be even more expected to set up some rules and then enforce those rules?

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek Free online slaves who do your (home)work for you if you dump it there. And if they refuse, you can complain and call them "unwelcoming"

Journeyman Geek

1:53 PM

Well, you can set lots of rules

John Dvorak

(and when He does, there will be good things to be heard for sure)

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted so, close those.

So, here's a big problem with the way I see people seeing things

Its absolutes. Its group A vs group B.

The people dumping questions will do that somewhere

We had someone dump a totally off topic question on SU, then complain on medium that its closed

I'd link the medium page but... its gone

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek No, it's just that some people cry louder than others and they usually get heard. But that doesn't mean they are (in the) right or even complaining about the actual issues.

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted So, a lot of the... well stuff I feel we need to do is working on that.

Like the twitter thing

John Dvorak

Kinda like the bug wars series? Askers have the power of organized attack, but Curators have the power of privileges. It's a tough battle with no clear winner. Who will succeed, and who becomes the content of something's stomach? Find out with us after the commercial break!

Journeyman Geek

1:56 PM

On one hand, i think the community team realises that meta by twitter is going to be bad

yet we have people harping on that.

@JohnDvorak once again though, we're creating divisions between groups of people for the sake of arguement

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek They already do? Or when will they? I remember there was something bizarre on SO not long ago. A forced edit even changing code, after a Twitter complaint

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted That was interesting if memory serves.

And it was someone doing a suggested edit, then complaining it got rolled back

I recall some pointed feedback

John Dvorak

@JourneymanGeek I'm just discussing the point you mentioned, "group A vs group B".

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak I feel that's particularly non constructive in general ;p

John Dvorak

Ah, you mean that it's bad that people see it as absolutes? I misread that in that case.

Journeyman Geek

2:00 PM

@JohnDvorak precisely

Anne Daunted

-25

A: Is editing code in posts to remove gender frowned upon?

I'd originally answered this by saying that one should remove offensive language from code blocks, but that changing variable names and things around was probably not the best use of the peer review system. I've changed my opinion on that, and this is why: I originally thought "Well, variables?...

Journeyman Geek

I'd rather frame it in terms of the community as a whole, new and old, and keeping it healthy

@AnneDaunted I consider meta by twitter unhealthy as a whole

Anne Daunted

<sarcasm>I consider it the best thing ever.</sarcasm>

Journeyman Geek

On the other hand, there's two seperate issues

there's the folks who feel meta is too damned scary.

That we can slowly work on

The second is folks who just don't care about doing things well, the way we do things

Anne Daunted

And there are people who feel that they can't get their will via meta but Twitter. So they choose the latter.

Journeyman Geek

2:06 PM

Well, I'd love to minimise that somehow

John Dvorak

The worst part is that even employees are scared of meta.

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak well, yeah, that's something that needs working on

I'm not sure how, but...

John Dvorak

2:21 PM

Step 1: let's not force them to bring bad news to the masses. Preferred method: let there be nothing bad to bring news about in the first place.

Anne Daunted

At least, no one needs to be afraid of me

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak its not going to be obvious news is well, bad news

John Dvorak

Often it is. I doubt anyone responsible for the change thought it would be welcome if they changed the homepage into a full-page ad for the majority of viewers.

And yet I suspect the person tasked to bring that up to meta had any say in whether it should happen, even though they'd be the one receiving all the feedback from the community.

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak Actually, they might have literally thought no one would notice.

Anne Daunted

People don't feel heard.

Journeyman Geek

2:28 PM

Does Anyone Actually Visit Stack Overflow’s Home Page?

David Robinson on March 09, 2017

Yesterday we were amused to see this post on Reddit’s sysadmin forum:

Our architecture lead Nick Craver looked into this and gave a great answer, including that about 29% of the previous day’s Stack Overflow traffic was to the home page.

From his perspective as a system administrator, that’s exactly the right analysis. Nick’s team has to ensure the site renders reliably and quickly, so counting the number of requests make sense. However, as a data scientist I’m more interested in how users view the site, and the vast majority of our traffic comes from automated traffic, including search engines and scrapers. …

So basically they just pumped all the bots into a full page SE enterprise ad....

John Dvorak

That's... actually a bad thing, isn't it?

Journeyman Geek

It depends

Anne Daunted

@JohnDvorak For the bots, yes

Journeyman Geek

I don't know how SEO works but... least on the short term...

as a bonus, the page is probably fairly cachable?

John Dvorak

If render speed for bots is the only issue, you could just cache the view (which is the same for everyone) for a few minutes.

Journeyman Geek

2:34 PM

@JohnDvorak and taking advatage of them picking up on the "full page ad"

I was pretty outraged too

Now I'm slightly impressed

John Dvorak

Even then, it would be nice to fingerprint the user agent and only serve spam to actual robots and not to the occasional human visitor.

Kevin B

3:19 PM

err

it doesn't differentiate between logged in users and not logged in users, which is important... considering the home page is vastly different between the two.

nvm, maybe i should finish reading

The home page is my primary window into SO, i don't see why it'd be so low

Rob

4:10 PM

@JourneymanGeek Could we get a lock on this question for repeat vandalism. It had a few rollbacks but doesn't seem to lock the post.

Any of a dozen others could do that if they would be so kind.

They seem to have discontinued for some reason, but doesn't look protected.

ArtOfCode

4:27 PM

@Rob suspended is why

Rob

5:00 PM

@ArtOfCode for us having to rollback a few times (for adding many 100's of exclamation marks to the end of the post). They edited faster than they could have checked the suggested duplicates, one of which does contain the answer why even if the actual question doesn't seem a dupe. That suspension was applied after my comment, unless there's some delay in it showing up in the profile. I looked there to see what their other posts were like.

ArtOfCode

→ 2 messages moved to Sandbox/Trash Bin/Something

John Dvorak

@ArtOfCode I think it would have been useful to keep the link here

ArtOfCode

I... do not

Tinkeringbell

5:21 PM

Hey @M.A.R. next thing is done: pasteboard.co/Iv7kBID.jpg :P

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Tinkeringbell I kinda feel sad for the little person's head being used as a pincushion

Tinkeringbell

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog Oh, don't worry :P Look at it like acupuncture :P

Anne Daunted

This post was just reopened

31

Q: How could I have handled this better in chat (flag apparently led to suspension)?

I was recently suspended in chat here on Meta.SE. I would like to know how I could have handled this situation better and avoided a suspension. Link to transcript: https://chat.meta.stackexchange.com/rooms/89/conversation/suspended-due-to-a-flag I was in the Tavern on the Meta chatroom here on...

Tinkeringbell

@AnneDaunted Ah. I fixed that :)

Anne Daunted

@Tinkeringbell Thanks!

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

5:29 PM

@Tinkeringbell There were four reopen votes, and I felt it should still be closed despite an inevitable fifth reopen vote, so I cast it strategically with the intention of casting a close vote immediately. (I've done that in the reverse before: casting the fifth close vote then immediately the first reopen vote.)

ArtOfCode

that's... backwards

Tinkeringbell

And you were apparently too slow too :P

It's okay. It's fixed.

I don't want any more arguments today XD

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@ArtOfCode Inevitably someone will cast a fifth reopen vote, after which I or someone else has to notice and then cast a close vote. Or I could hasten the overall process by casting the fifth vote myself and immediately kickstarting the opposite process.

@Tinkeringbell I got sidetracked...thanks for fixing it.

Kevin B

5:52 PM

I mean... that seems like a rather odd close reason for that question,

Transcript for