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5:17 AM
@terdon I don't really like downvoting duplicates either unless they are blatantly not making any research effort (most do make enough to not warrant one in my opinion).
@MadScientist Yes, when I do close questions as duplicates of FAQs, I'm careful to edit the autocomment to point out where exactly the question is answered in the target. If the author insists, I do point them to the relevant policy pages where it says it's OK to close questions as duplicates for that reason.
@MadScientist Yes, I have closed feature requests as duplicates of much earlier ones, but I also make a point of educating the author on relevant policies (if it doesn't have a response, how to get attention for the original request, or if it's declined, how to edit the new post into a reconsideration request - state awareness of the earlier request, address the reasons for declining it, and introduce new arguments).
@Mithical Am I complicit in this?
@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog I posted about this as a new mod 😁
@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog yes
@Mithical How so? Examples and explanations please?
Yes, I do close questions, but I do educate the user on why the close reason applies (e.g. where exactly their question is answered in an FAQ, how to get attention for an earlier request, etc.)
Not pulling up examples at the moment, but I've seen a lot of overenthusiastic (IMO) "no longer reproducible" closures, as well as duplicate closures.
@Mithical I do avoid "no longer reproducible" closures in many cases where people use them, and have often passionately argued against their use on some questions. (I even made a request to change the wording of that close reason to make it more narrow, but that request was downvoted.)
 
2 hours later…
7:45 AM
@JourneymanGeek Which? Downvoting duplicates, closing as duplicates of FAQs, or closing FRs as duplicates of earlier ones?
@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog the second. The third wasn't something I thought about until recent
@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog think our habit of closing based on "has answer elsewhere" even when the question itself is not direct duplicate is the problem. I'm to blame here too, since you appear to follow some of the non written "rules" I've set by example over time.
"Neatness" shouldn't be more important than utility. But I also consider meta the 'helpdesk' of the network
it wasn't a very popular viewpoint :D
I lowered my hammer usage in last months, especially in that case of non-direct-obvious dupes.
7:47 AM
@Shadow9 While yes, it is a gray area on main Q&A sites, there is an explicit policy allowing for such closures here on Meta.SE. I follow that policy, but also in addition make it helpful to the author (i.e. edit the comment to explain how, where, or why the question is answered in the target).
for FR's I think we've had a few cases where our friendly neighbourhood dev might have mentioned missing a few.
But "is this useful" is a rule so fuzzy its almost useless to many :D
And in my previous incarnation I intentionally posted duplicates of FRs or bugs to get attention for the original reports (sometimes not acknowledging it, other times asking "why wasn't this done yet")
I think the "important" part is working out how best it works for everyone :D
Also
when did that get a positive score 0_0
I do have a feature request planned for a better architecture for FAQs, but the recent controversy outbreak derailed plans to post that.
:D
It derailed a lot of things
7:51 AM
@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog what "explicit policy"? Are you sure the current site mods agree to it?
:D
:D
I THINK my views on this is clear, but I'd rather y'all make your own minds up rather than dropping fiat on you :D
@Shadow9 It's outlined in this post (was enacted by a then-CM in April 2011)
Also, in the early days of my second incarnation, when I didn't know about the policy, I was about to answer a question asking about badge criteria, only for it to be closed as a dupe of the full list of all badge criteria. I asked why they were closing as a dupe of such a convoluted question, only to be told of that policy.
I think things were a bit different nine years ago.
@Mithical The fact that the policy was cited and used a mere two years ago tells a lot, though.
7:59 AM
@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog the CM approval of this has long expired.
It needs to be reviewed again by @Journeyman, in the very least, and either edited to reflect current policy, or deleted if the mod team agree to have no policy set.
@Shadow9 Just because they're no longer an employee? Would you say, by token, that every policy enacted by Shog or Robert is no longer in effect?
(since he's the only active mod ATM.)
@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog not only... as @Mith said, things have changed.
@Shadow9 and that dosen't give me executive power :D
8:01 AM
@JourneymanGeek it does, since we're kind of alone in this now.
It still dosen't
No Shog, no CM to take active part in this anymore.
@Shadow9 and its essential I don't ram through what I think is right, no matter the cost especially due to that
tl;dr when it comes to general things, I do try to follow policy or established community consensus, even if I personally disagree with it. Example: I'm against closing questions as duplicates if they're already asked as answers to announcements, but since the consensus is to do so, I do vote to close them if they come in review.
@JourneymanGeek the alternative is for users to keep closing as dupe, just to be faced with "but it's overzealous" from other users... not good, IMO.
8:02 AM
Yeah, we've all got to be ready with our rolled up newspapers
@Shadow9 so - how do we bring this up and get support for it?
@JourneymanGeek support from whom?
Who's Yanno?
Yannis.... hmm...
Other people who use the site. There's not that many folks who're actively involved in curation
8:03 AM
This guy? ^
If he's closevoting :D
there's not that many people who do it. And winning over gold badge owners might be a start
Honestly, I'd rather answer with quotes to the FAQ rather than close as duplicate in the majority of cases, but since the policy exists, that's what I do.
Until we get a better architecture for FAQs
The current post -fragment is a great starting point.
> On meta sites, however, it's not unusual for a question to be closed as a duplicate of another question that may not be asking the exact same question, if the answers to that post address the question being asked (especially if the target is tagged faq or is the "official documentation" regarding something).
seems a great point to address
Why is meta different? And what other meta sites do this? On SU we frankly don't bother
How would discussing this not be a dupe of my old question?
@JourneymanGeek I do expand on that policy and its actual use in the general dupe FAQ (the last section).
(See? The fact that I can't directly link to a relevant section is one reason why FAQs in their current form are inadequate.)
@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog there's another practical point...
8:09 AM
@JourneymanGeek I think your existing post is rather broad as it is. It's intertwining multiple types of dupe closures (of FAQs, of old requests, etc.) into one. I'd have separate posts for each type.
FAQs are references and we tend to overuse them as canonical sources
@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog Well it was aimed at encouraging change of a broad issue
0_0
 
2 hours later…
10:04 AM
I wonder how much trouble a screen reader is to set up...
For a blind person?
for an answer :D
I wouldn't worry about trouble for an actual blind person
I believe they would be able to do it, since it seems to be a natural task for them.
amusingly lynx and elinks render ugly unicode well
6
A: Are there any particular characters or sequences that should never be put in an image description?

Journeyman Geek result in undesirable or unexpected behavior? Consider the idea is screenreaders should be able to read it, and it should describe the image. You're probably better off not using many of these Emoji 🤔 𝖀𝖓𝖎𝖈𝖔𝖉𝖊 𝖋𝖔𝖗 𝖘𝖎𝖒𝖚𝖑𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖋𝖆𝖓𝖈𝖞 𝖋𝖔𝖓𝖙𝖘 ssǝuıןןıs ɹǝɥʇo ɹO Of...

I believe that modern screen readers should recognize smileys and any kind of unicode characters well.
Otherwise they wouldn't be very helpful tools for browsing the web.
10:16 AM
I would like to confirm
I agree regarding the Zalgo text though :P (I've upvoted your answer anyways)
And reading out the name of the character is unhelpful here 🤣
10:36 AM
@JourneymanGeek I couldn't figure it out in five minutes, gave up, meant to come back to it later, never did
:D
Sounds about right
 
1 hour later…
11:50 AM
Hello :)
I have a question about account merging. I would like to merge this account with an old one I have, are question/answer ownership also transferred to the remaining account?
Rob
Rob
@JourneymanGeek There are too many different screen readers to give a single answer as to how difficult they are to setup. Here's a couple of lists from reputable sites: afb.org/blindness-and-low-vision/using-technology/… and disabled-world.com/assistivedevices/computer/screen-readers.php - huge range of prices, capabilities, and 'how to use' - so no one answer. From a practical point it would be no more difficult than for a person
to purchase (or download for free) a program (or purchase a peripheral) and install it on the computer.
@vicpermir What's your particular question that isn't covered at the FAQ?
And yes, any posts would be transferred to the remaining account, what are your particular doubts about that?
Can you point me to where the account merging faq is?
can't seem to find it
12:06 PM
162
Q: How can one link / merge / combine / associate two accounts / users? (Anonymous / unregistered / cookie, or Google / Facebook / registered)

pauldunlopI accidentally posted a question without being logged in. Is there a way to associate that question with my account? Return to FAQ Index For more information, visit "I accidentally created two accounts; how do I merge them?" in the Help Center. a.k.a. How can you link a registered accoun...

Thank you, I read that already. And didn't find anywhere that said the ownership was to be transferred too. Maybe it's there but I didn't see it.
Well, account merging implies that, no?
I suppose, yes. Just wasn't sure and it felt like an important step to take. Sorry
@vicpermir no worry, it's not super trivial.
Welcome to the Tavern by the way! Coffee or Tea? @vic
Just didn't want to lose any question/answer even though I dont have that much rep, hehe :)
Thanks guys =)
12:14 PM
@vicpermir you won't, but these days the people who handle the requests to merge accounts are super busy, so please be patient when you request merge.
Totally understandable, and no worries. I'll be able to still use them while the merge is queued?
Thanks for the coffee @Mithi
@vicpermir nothing will happen until the merge actually occurs, yes.
Nice, I just clicked the "OK" button. Seems I lost a bunch of badges though.
Probably an automated merge, yes?
Sorry to bother you so much with this
Ah wait, I read somewhere badges are cached. Probably that
there's no hurry
I was about to blame caching ...
-6
Q: Re-awarding badges after merging accounts?

user393523When animuson answered my question on Merging Accounts Question Roundup, in part of their answer they said: "Badges are not transferred, but will be automatically re-awarded as the processes run again." Suppose I had the badge "Scholar" with my secondary account, and I did not with my main ...

Well, it's not exactly caching, but the badges are recalculated after the merge.
And that takes some time ....
@vicpermir Nevermind, better ask at chat before asking questions at the main site ;-)
12:55 PM
@vicpermir hmm, interesting. You remember what was written there? Where you clicked "OK"?
Was this answer posted by your old account that got auto merged? @vic
1:22 PM
@Shadow9 said something like "you have confirmed ownership of both accounts, click "OK" to proceed with the merge. The account "vicpermir" will be deleted and votes will be moved to the other one".
also yes, that answer (and everything else) was merged properly it seems.
1:37 PM
@vicpermir so it means you already asked to merge... well, glad it worked. :)
2:03 PM
@JNat possible cross site spammer, but better check for previous spam on this one. (Not 100% sure.)
2:28 PM
So, yesterday we were talking about the tendency of MSE to close things as dupes. Here's a great example:
-4
Q: If a mod tries to migrate a question of mine to another site in which I'm blocked (probably without me knowing it), is it problematic for me?

JohnDoeaIt is unclear to me if a mod's try to migrate a question of mine to another site in which I'm blocked (which obviously cannot happen), is problematic for me in the sense, for example, that it can lengthen the duration of a block of asking questions in that particular website to which that mod tri...

That was downvoted for no reason I can see, and closed as a dupe of things that don't answer the OP's question.
MSE is supposed to be where users come to ask questions about how the SE system works. And yet, this guy was downvoted to oblivion (-5!) and had his question closed as a dupe of things that don't answer it. How is this good for anyone involved?
@πάνταῥεῖ nah that's the usual "my question is closed!!!11!!1!" useless rant, we always had it from new users.
oh, and not new but users who are totally unaware what is Stack Overflow, even after years of using it.
@terdon agree about wrong closure, reopened.
@terdon OP wants me to delete it :(
Downvotes might be due to the ranty nature of such questions, dunno.
@terdon Possibility of abuse? Some folks, unfortunately, post on the wrong site and hope it gets migrated
in some cases, its pretty obvious.
@Shadow9 It wasn't ranty at all though. Granted, the first iteration was very badly written, but the OP isn't a native English speaker.
@JourneymanGeek Sure, but that wasn't what the OP was asking at all.
2:37 PM
@terdon Eh :D
The question was if a mod decided to migrate and I am banned on the target site, will that count against me and extend my ban?
Which is what I answered
buuut not everyone assumes the best of intents
@JourneymanGeek Yes indeed. Your answer is fine, I just don't see why you'd mention abuse.
@terdon as a MSE and SU mod? :D
After all, it can't be abused since the migration will be blocked.
2:39 PM
@terdon not all people know that
@JourneymanGeek Sure, but the point is that it cannot be abused. So even if someone does try to post on siteA in the hopes that it will be migrated to siteB where they're blocked, it won't work. So no abuse can actually happen, right?
@Shadow9 Thanks
NEVER stops people from trying :(
Only thing is most misplaced questions from Qbanned people tend to be poor. Since yanno, if they asked great questions...
@JourneymanGeek it might be good to actually mention that the ban isn't affected in your answer. You don't address that.
@JourneymanGeek Tell me about it.
2:41 PM
@terdon Well no cause the question is unlikely to reach the other site :D
I added a paragraph addressing the specific point. Feel free to remove it, of course.
That was ODDLY CLOSE to what I was going to add
so meh. Get out of my brain :D
heh :) No. I like it here. It has puppies.
@JourneymanGeek exactly. So people were posting questions on the wrong site on purpose, counting on the site mods to migrate the questions to the proper site for them, thus they could get what they wanted. aka abuse. /cc @terdon
AKA attempted abuse that cannot actually happen and is therefore irrelevant?
2:47 PM
@terdon in Mr. Geek's brain?! I see sharp teeth! :P
@Shadow9 or an old dog, with almost no teeth :D
@terdon they don't know it can't happen
Nah, all I see here are fluffy puppies and the odd dead cat.
@terdon I actually like cats :D
@Shadow9 I know, but that makes no difference: it cannot happen, so meh.
@JourneymanGeek So do I. They're just not dogs, but that's not their fault.
They're still better than nothing.
2:48 PM
@terdon So...
we have something like a "party" block office
only its supposed to be more of a "office for an organisation that's totally got nothing to do with the government" only... YOU GET THE IDEA
the wife of the person in charge hates cats and had all the local cats removed. Including my favourite cat..
I hope she gets run over by a rogue delivery man so she'd get rid of them...
Define "removed".
@terdon We're not sure
Hopefully relocated
wow.
That cat once looked at me, miaoed at a ledge she was too lazy to jump to, and heabutted me in gratitude for lifting her up
she was a SMART cat
Ironically the only two cats that escaped are the useless car park cats
Oh yes
and ol one eye
There used to be a giant one eyed ginger tom in my neighbourhood
Scarred mean looking fella
who would walk up in front of someone random, then roll over dramatically and demand belly rubs
(he alas, lost a battle with a snake.)
2:54 PM
awww
Ah!
I think this is the one eyed cat
Funny thing was he was a softie. The black cat that kept convincing people it was dead was the badass. Chased off a king cobra once
whaaa?
Yeah, that's a badass.
Gorgeous snakes though.
I've held one once, as a kid!
also would lie in a drain, tongue sticking out ....
Cobras aren't agressive
if they can't eat something, and its not a threat, they normally steer clear
4:04 PM
@terdon yikes
I would never feel comfortable handling a highly venomous snake
aggressive or not the concept of "a mood swing of this thing could end me easily" is rather unsettling
@Magisch Which is why you're on Stack Exchange, amirite? :P
Snakes are easy to read.
Snakes that have a skin fold that they only unfold when they want you to back off especially so ;)
That still doesn't mean I would handle a cobra
if I saw one out somewhere I would call animal services. In a zoo I like to look at them but sure as hell not actually handle them
no issues with non venomous snakes or the really weak ones like the common adder
4:23 PM
@Magisch Well, this wasn't in the wild. It was in a snake museum, under supervision by professionals. I would also guess the snake's venom had been removed.
Yeah, I didn't just see one in the street and then went "ooh, shiny! Come here cutseypoo!" and picked it up. I may be dumb, but not that dumb!
... I don't think you can just remove a snake's venom, can you?
@JohnDvorak Sure. Either by harvesting it on a regular basis (it takes some time to produce more) or, I would guess, by removing/clipping the fangs.
You could probably also remove the venom glands completely, for all I know.
...snake venom also has medicinal uses, so zoos will often "milk" their snakes regularly.
4:27 PM
Don't they kinda need it to feed themselves?
@JohnDvorak In the wild, yes. In captivity, no.
> Today, removing a snake’s venom glands is the preferred method of making the snake harmless. The procedure is surgical: an incision is made, the glands are removed, the incision is sewn shut, and the wound is then treated to prevent infection. This is far safer for the snake than removing the fangs themselves. And the snake can continue eating prey that’s already been killed.
@Mithical that's what I was thinking too. Maybe even for vaccines?
To alleviate the symptoms in allergic people
At least that's how we do with bees
The need for prey to be prekilled is what I'm worried about. Some animals won't eat dead prey.
And even if they can, I'm not sure they'd like it
@JohnDvorak Which is a good reason not to do this, yes. It doesn't mean it's impossible though.
4:47 PM
@Journeyman possible troll, the question they posted is more than just the ordinary off topic crap, judging from the comments it's intentional trolling. I've already flagged as abusive. What do you think?
5:05 PM
gone
 
1 hour later…
6:26 PM
thanks love
Rob
Rob
6:36 PM
The white cobra and the 20 ft. long cobra (not shown) are some of the neat cobra images I found, the one drinking bottled water was pretty good too. One cobra can kill an elephant or inject enough venom to kill 20 people; so handling them is ill advised.
 
1 hour later…
Rob
Rob
8:43 PM
@Glorfindel Thanks.

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