Tavern on the Meta

Sure @Louis. But 6 spam flags and it's gone. Add extra downvotes and you'll have a post at -7 with 2 spam flags and it will live on for far longer than it has to, especially on smaller sites.

Shadow Wizard

@Bart this time I don't agree with you. I know, I need backup. Is Tim Post enough backup? :)

8

A: Casting a spam flag shouldn't auto-downvote a question

Once it's been identified as spam, we want it off the front page. Nothing is more off-putting to a potential contributor than arriving to a site and finding the streets littered with discount Gucci bags. Once it's tagged - it's quickly purged. Moderators see spam flagged posts in a different so...

Jan Dvorak

BTW, Chrome now has a speech synthesis API. Who wants to try it out? Run this in your console:

$(function(){
  new MutationObserver(function(records){
    records.forEach(function(record){
      [].forEach.call(record.addedNodes, function(node){
        if(node.classList
           && node.classList.contains("message")
           && !node.classList.contains("pending")
        ){
          speechSynthesis.speak(new SpeechSynthesisUtterance(node.textContent))
        }
      })
    })
  }).observe(document.getElementById("chat"),
             {childList:true, subtree:true});
}())

Bart

Pff, since when does a Tim know stuff @ShadowWizard.

Shadow Wizard

1:10 PM

@JanDvorak do I see there a hidden money.send("Jan Dvorak", "100000");?

2

Jan Dvorak

@ShadowWizard nope

Shadow Wizard

@JanDvorak oh, good. I was starting to worry. :D

@Bart he knows how to nuke spammers, that's for sure!

Bart

I'm still around @ShadowWizard

Louis

@ShadowWizard Nice find, that post.

Bart

Btw @ShadowWizard, this user has a point

I beg to disagree about "deleted within minutes". Proof. 34 minutes and still counting, and it's not a small site. (deleted now, but still... 34 is more than a few) anyway this means moderators are NOT always available so it's vital for spam to stay in the front page where ordinary users with 15+ rep can see and flag it. — Shadow Wizard May 1 at 7:01

Shadow Wizard

1:13 PM

@Bart nah, that's not me. It's a shadow of mine and I've punished him since then. :D

DroidDev

@JanDvorak Sadly, I am just an Android guy and don't know anything about these things. Thank you for this, but it'll take me sometime to figure it out.

Bart

Pff, time for lunch. Far too much nonsense going on today. This was supposed to be a holiday for goodness sake.

Shadow Wizard

@Bart any day in the tavern is a holiday, isn't it?

Bart

Not for the barman @ShadowWizard. But for us, sure.

Shadow Wizard

@Bart the good thing is we have no barman here. We take our own drinks and mix our own cocktails here. :)

rene

1:26 PM

@ShadowWizard That reminds me of the beer I still have in the fridge...the weather asks for cognac and hot chocolate though...

speech works...

scary

Jhawins

@AndrewBarber ? (couldn't reply to that message again, but I didn't read a sentence out of yours yesterday. I didn't realize there were noticeable past flags )

Bart

OH DEAR DEITY NO!!! HE SUMMONED THE BARBER!!

Jhawins

Awwwwww shit

rene

@Bart the speech engine did try to yell at me...

Bart

:D

Jan Dvorak

1:34 PM

next step: determine each user's gender and select a male voice or female voice appropriately.

Jhawins

Hey @Jan

Random

Shadow Wizard

@JanDvorak you also need a unicorn then.

And of course, difference voice according to age.

Jan Dvorak

unfortunately I don't know what voices are available by default or if wiggling the pitch will even have any effect.

rene

You all sound like Stephen Hawking...

Shadow Wizard

@JanDvorak ultimate goal as I see it is using the user's own voice.

Jan Dvorak

1:39 PM

@rene Download a better voice.

Shadow Wizard

@RENE DOES IT REALLY SHOUT WHEN USING UPPER CASE LETTERS?

rene

YES!

Jan Dvorak

@rene Natural female voice by Google: chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/…

DroidDev

meanwhile I got my first ever gold badge on SO. YES!!

Shadow Wizard

@DroidDev congrats! It's very shiny!

Use it wisely ;)

@rene I want to try something. What you hear when I write שלום עולם מה שלום כולם?

rene

1:51 PM

OK

DroidDev

@ShadowWizard thank you, I am gonna place it on top bar of SO and a reference in badges field in my profile.

rene

@ShadowWizard The last part didn't make it

Shadow Wizard

@rene yeah, I would be very surprised if it did. Only English!

@DroidDev don't forget in your resume as well :)

DroidDev

@ShadowWizard I heard some echoes of העולם הוא טוב, מה שלומך?

rene

@ShadowWizard I thought it filtered on swearwords...

Shadow Wizard

1:56 PM

@rene I doubt it's doing it even in English! (who want to try? ;))

@DroidDev nice! Google Translate?

Bartek Banachewicz

chat flags are so defective I want to cry.

Jan Dvorak

@BartekBanachewicz in what context were you using the word that has been flagged?

Bartek Banachewicz

@JanDvorak I was expressing disagreement (and annoyance) with the community by saying the insult without the context or particular target.

Jan Dvorak

@BartekBanachewicz in which case, the target is assumed to be the entire chat room. Not nice.

Bartek Banachewicz

@JanDvorak No, it's assumed to be the whole Stack Overflow community that doesn't agree with me.

Jan Dvorak

2:02 PM

@BartekBanachewicz then the flag looks valid to me :-)

Bart

Chat flags? Insults? What did I miss?

Bartek Banachewicz

I was banned and now you're forced to listen to my mildly annoying complaints.

Jan Dvorak

@Bart Bartek used some not-nice words against the community, then comes here to complain they were validated as offensive.

DroidDev

@ShadowWizard I used it first time for chatting here, although I have used it many times on skype. My colleagues always use it on facebook.

Bart

Mildly annoying @BartekBanachewicz? Surely you can do better than that. :)

Jan Dvorak

2:05 PM

@Bart the complains are going to be mildly annoying. The word he used was downright offensive..

Bartek Banachewicz

it's especially funny if you look at my last message before the ban.

in Lounge<C++> on Stack Overflow Chat, 12 mins ago, by Bartek Banachewicz

did you just remove "dickwad" from your post and then flag me?

It's just peculiar how some indirect insults are fired on on sight, while the en-masse profanity escapes.

Jan Dvorak

"while the en-masse profanity escapes." - examples?

(so we can flag them)

Bartek Banachewicz

@JanDvorak I remember that one time when someone went trough some year-old posts in the Lounge and flagged a considerable amount of them.

Jan Dvorak

@BartekBanachewicz did they take effect?

Bartek Banachewicz

if you were to remove every insulting and/or offensive post from the chat, the transcript would shrink considerably.

@JanDvorak I think most of the people were invalidating them.

Bart

2:09 PM

@JanDvorak That only raises my curiosity

Jan Dvorak

@Bart actually, that word can also be used non-offensively if reffering to musical instruments.

Shadow Wizard

@JanDvorak saxofone?

Bartek Banachewicz

I was expecting "a violin?" :)

Bart

Fiddle

Jan Dvorak

Hint #2: archaic unit of measurement for bundles of sticks

Shadow Wizard

2:12 PM

@Bart fiddle is super offensive, no doubt.

Bartek Banachewicz

Oh, no need to condemn every example of JavaScript code as offensive. Oh wait.

Shadow Wizard

@JanDvorak oh, I see. Not a nice word indeed!

Bartek Banachewicz

@Bart I'm not so mad yet to come here shouting that I was banned for using offensive language.

Jan Dvorak

@BartekBanachewicz please don't shout while my TTS script is running ;-)

Bart

SORRY JAN

Bartek Banachewicz

2:15 PM

@JanDvorak woah, have you written that already? Does it read CAPS louder? :)

Jan Dvorak

@BartekBanachewicz not really, but I could ;-)

also, I should slow down while reading italics

Bartek Banachewicz

incidentally I was thinking earlier today that we might soon get recognition/synthesizers to the point where two people can have a conversation with text at one end and speech at another.

Jan Dvorak

@BartekBanachewicz this is how sum people already %uh%

incidentally, computers still suck at ()(R

g2g, sorry (food)

Bartek Banachewicz

@JanDvorak at twerk rambo demolition? :)

Jan Dvorak

OCR

Bartek Banachewicz

2:21 PM

oh, now I see it.

Louis

OMG! We're being schooled again!

-18

Q: About The Vote Down Thing

The "vote down" thing is making everyone avoid answering to the question, and when someone votes down they feel like god. It destroys the fun of asking questions here. I am looking for answers not for vote downs! The vote thing should be on the answer's of the question and not on the question i...

I must be defective because I don't feel like god when I downvote.

Bart

Sigh ...

Martijn Pieters

Any diamonds about?

Jan Dvorak

@MartijnPieters Check level 12 and below

Martijn Pieters

I am trying to get rid of the useless 'attitude' tag on Meta.SO, but this question is locked.

@ThiefMaster: you are the lucky winner of a poke! You were most recently active here. :-P

Although I am not beneath poking @TimPost or @Shog for the task as well.

Bart

2:33 PM

Complain about that @MartijnPieters and tag it rant

Martijn Pieters

You cannot flag the locked post, so I have to resort to this.

Jan Dvorak

The rant is being closed as not seeking discussion. Is that legit?

Martijn Pieters

@JanDvorak Newbs on Meta.SO are trying to close any discussion as opinion based these days.

I think that that post is now locked after umpteen close / reopen cycles.

Bart

Not really @JanDvorak. Unless the OP really goes off on a wild tangent and starts to spout nonsense.

Martijn Pieters

meta.stackoverflow.com/posts/251758/revisions

Gosh, diamonds on both sides of that fence.

3ventic

2:36 PM

@MartijnPieters The only response to that is ...

Bart

Interpretive Dance!

Right @3ventic?

Cole Johnson

1

A: About The Vote Down Thing

Please tell me what I'm doing wrong. Because I certainly don't feel like a god when I downvote.

3ventic

Why CW?

Cole Johnson

@3ventic whoops. On mobile. Mistapped

(removed)

> You're not downvoting enough, that's your problem. Your upvote/downvote ratio is just way, way too high. it appears that you're not downvoting all of the bad posts that you actually read. – Servy 51 secs ago

Bart

Best tip I can give you @ColeJohnson, just downvote a post, then read it and see if you might have to reverse it.

6

And whatever you do, don't explain downvotes.

3ventic

2:43 PM

Cole Johnson

And if it takes longer than 5 minutes to read, it deserves the downvote

3ventic

Someone mentioned high up/down vote ratio?

Martijn Pieters

Cole Johnson

> Of the votes cast, 4,180 were up-votes and 221 were down-votes. Cole Johnson voted on questions 1,955 times and 2,446 times on answers.

Martijn Pieters

I am too nice.

Cole Johnson

2:44 PM

same

Bart

You disgust me @MartijnPieters

Martijn Pieters

i know!

I am terrible.

Bart

Please tell me you at least insult newbz

Cole Johnson

My StackOverflow vote count is more reasonable:

> Of the votes cast, 3,627 were up-votes and 1,551 were down-votes. Cole Johnson voted on questions 2,169 times and 3,009 times on answers.

@Bart of course! How else would we feel like gods!?

Martijn Pieters

I should aspire to be like him.

But, oh, wait, he has been perma banned, network wide.

> This account is temporarily suspended network-wide. The suspension period ends on Feb 28 '25 at 6:40.

Louis

2:47 PM

I'm puzzled by the migration attempt box that appears just under comments on the question that lead to the current discussion. (Handy link: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/256626/…)

I can't conceive someone would have tried to migrate it manually.

Bart

3ventic

Louis

Does a migration attempt happen automatically when a question on Meta is closed for "does not appear to seek discussion"?

SPArchaeologist

Bart

Migration attempt @Louis? No.

Might result in a rejected migration though, if it was originally migrated TO meta

SPArchaeologist

2:49 PM

(actually applicable to all form of SharePoint development)

Louis

"migration rejected from stackoverflow.com" sounds to me like someone was trying to migrate it to the main site from Meta. (And there was a rejection from the destination site.)

Cole Johnson

> give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach him to fish... – Plutonix 22 mins ago

> @Plutonix and he'll overfish the ocean and destroy the ecosystem? :) – DavidG 20 mins ago

Bart

No, that's coming "from Stack Overflow" and was then rejected.

Cole Johnson

And yet it's on MSO?

Bart

The blurb below it indicates as much @Louis

For a while, yes @ColeJohnson

Louis

2:53 PM

@Bart I hear you saying that the box is about the migration from SO to MSO, but it was migrated.

It does not make sense to declare the migration rejected.

Bart

Sure it does

A migration to another site is dependent on the acceptance of the target site. If they close it, that signals it apparently wasn't a good migration. And as a result it's subsequently rejected.

Louis

The word order in the message is not idiomatic, and I'm not the only one thinking so:

6

Q: More idiomatic word order on rejected migration banner

When a question is migrated from site A to site B and then closed on site B, the migration is said to be rejected. The copy of the question on A is unlocked and becomes merely closed with only the revision history showing the migration attempt. The copy on B is unlocked and a banner under the que...

feature-request user-interface migration migration-rejection

GnomeSlice

Today's Listening | classical/acoustic piano

Tim Post

@MartijnPieters gone

Martijn Pieters

@TimPost: much obliged.

Martijn Pieters

3:20 PM

I knew I shouldn't have waded into that.

Why did I anyway?

Note to self: stay away from touching Lance's hobby horse.

Bart

Myeah, that gets pointless pretty fast @MartijnPieters. I've cast my votes and I'm out.

Martijn Pieters

I've said my thing, bowing out now.

Amal Murali

Wow. How in the world does this answer have 11 upvotes?

-8

A: Flag 'Try This: {code}' Answers as "Very Low Quality"?

Stack Overflow has no quality control mechanism. Period. Learn to swallow it. This site is not for the quality answers, this site is for collecting points and badges. With your silly demands you are just spoiling someone's game. That silly voting measure suggested in accepted answer is just ...

rene

4:13 PM

Is there something I missed? Is Apple now part of Microsoft?

Why is this tagged c#? — rene 1 min ago

Bart

Well, I write all my iOS apps in C# @rene. True story.

rene

Is that with Xamarin stuff?

Louis

cv-pls stackoverflow.com/questions/23937868/…

Bart

Basically @rene. Though I'm not sure that's what the OP is going for.

rene

OK, in that case my comment stands...

Louis

4:21 PM

cv-pls-no-repro stackoverflow.com/questions/23933588/…

The OP self-answered.

And the self-answer is of the "oops, I forgot that" variety. (And the question is framed to send people in a different direction.)

cv-pls-lacks-info stackoverflow.com/questions/23914263/…

I use jsdoc day-in and day-out, and I don't know what the heck the OP is trying to do.

Laszlo Papp

4:52 PM

@AmalMurali: I partially agree with that answer.

@MartijnPieters: there is someone with 2K upvote, 19K downvote.

2254/6 here: stackoverflow.com/users/103842/kaleb-pederson

Laszlo Papp

5:09 PM

@Louis: voted for them

Louis

@LaszloPapp Thanks.

TGMCians

\o

let me vote also

done

Louis

@TGMCians Thanks.

TGMCians

No problem :)

go please here cv-pls-off-topic stackoverflow.com/questions/23938655/…

Louis

5:30 PM

"the devices must [....] exchange massages"

TGMCians

hehe

Louis

7:32 PM

By the way, our noisy friend got a suspension: stackoverflow.com/users/3586251/dondom

Jan Dvorak

@Louis nice

Louis

Chasing after the offensive or noisy comments was getting tiresome. I'm glad a suspension happened.

Bart

8:10 PM

If I "other" flag a comment, but the comment gets auto-nuked because it also included a word which causes that, do moderators still see the flag? Given that it's also dismissed as "helpful" immediately, I'd guess not.

Jan Dvorak

@Bart that's news for me

Bart

It's annoying @JanDvorak. Because now the flag is dismissed for another reason than I raised it.

Cole Johnson

9:35 PM

cv-plz stackoverflow.com/questions/10410942/…

All this guy's questions have no code and are asking for tool reccomendations

cv-plz-too-broad-maybe stackoverflow.com/questions/61/…

bjb568

10:40 PM

What's wrong with my answer? meta.stackoverflow.com/a/256684/2888561

jadarnel27

"Unclear what you're answering? -1."

bjb568

Yup, pretty much what I do and see.

jadarnel27

@bjb568 The OP specifically asked (essentially), "Should you downvote questions where the OP didn't show / explain what they tried?" Your answer...doesn't really answer that question.

bjb568

I list reasons to downvote and closevote. At the end I said yes.

Sigh… I'll make it an <h1>.

jadarnel27

It's sort of a rambling explanation of why you downvote / closevote various questions.

Maybe just skip the unnecessary list altogether?

Answer the question, justify your answer, done.

bjb568

10:50 PM

Ugh, is it better?

I like rambling.

jadarnel27

I wouldn't say it's notably better.

It's less not good than it was before.

bjb568

0

A: Should An Original Post Include an Attempt to Solve?

Yes. "How to" can be closed and -1'd for a lot for reasons (at least -1 for no effort (This question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful), but probably comes with other problems that would justify closing like unclear, recommending tool…, duplicate, and too broad). We...