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Anna Lear

21:00

@JanDvorak It's fixable with a simple edit. What about that question is saying "BURN IT WITH FIRE ASAP" to you?

because that's what both offensive and VLQ flags are for.

Jan Dvorak

The title did

animuson

I think he was focused on the odd spacing that Word 2013 uses for its default style.

Anna Lear

See above: fixable with a simple edit. Fix first, flag later. :)

rene

@Bart You got away with that one....

Bart

:D I see

Jan Dvorak

21:01

That assumes a real question. I didn't understand the question part of that rant.

Thanks

rene

@JanDvorak Nah, JasonC answer is perfect...

Jason C

I don't actually know if my answer is correct, it's from 2007 docs not 2013. I'm just going to let votes decide on that one.

Jan Dvorak

Oooh. I love guessing answers.

Compounded by the "it's long so it must be good" voter mentality

... superuser.com/questions/844952/…

Jason C

Now it's driving me crazy, and I'm getting into an MSOffice 2013 document search hole; I hope somebody posts "works for me" or "this is totally wrong" soon. I don't actually have MS Office to test.

Jan Dvorak

I can check if it works in the random version of OpenOffice that I have

Jason C

21:11

If by that you mean int random () { return seed = (seed * 0 + 2013); } I think it can help.

Jan Dvorak

I'm afraid I don't have OpenOffice 2013 at hand

Jason C

Oh, OpenOffice. Dammit. I suck at being clever.

animuson goes in for the kill! superuser.com/a/845010/245945

animuson

I answered based on my interpretation of the very vague question.

Jason C

The OP clearly wanted to know the name of the Microsoft employee responsible for making the decision.

animuson

Heh, I found that odd spacing thing very irritating myself.

I mostly use Word to print off various details about video games that only I am ever going to read, and I'm not incredibly concerned about the spacing. I'd much rather fit it all onto one piece of paper.

Jan Dvorak

21:18

I'd use HTML for that

Jason C

I solved all my Word problems by just refusing to write any documentation entirely.

animuson

@JanDvorak I do use HTML and CSS for my resume.

Jan Dvorak

I love titles like these stackoverflow.com/questions/27135675/…

Jason C

@animuson You should write "Created with Notepad: The right way" at the bottom of your resume.

Best Viewed in IE3

animuson

I only use the webpage to actually create it. Then I print it to a PDF because most online services won't let you submit a HTML document as a resume.

Jason C

21:20

@JanDvorak My favorite are the ones like, "if...else does not work correctly in Java".

"C++ integer math is broken"

animuson

That's the first Super User question that I've answered and didn't also ask...

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector ] All-caps title: DELETE PLEASE NOT NEEDED by james1395 on math.stackexchange.com

user259867

^ Yet another instance of unregistered user trying to delete own post and not able to.

Jason C

Does that happen a lot?

Maybe some sort of automatic banner that pops up with instructions if title / post is edited to contain "DELETE" by an unregistered user.

user259867

Yes; happens a lot, which was one of reasons that drove me to propose disallowing unreg questions The proposal is on hold until Anna Lear develops new user login system, as I gather.

Mooseman

21:30

cv-pls stackoverflow.com/q/27136948/1234256

Anna Lear

@Rafflesiaarnoldii The login stuff I'm working on is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with allowing unregistered users.

Mooseman

0

Q: Inline tag edits don't show my edit until the page is refreshed

I often use the inline tag editor on Stack Overflow. However, the "Edited [time] ago" box below doesn't appear until after the page is refreshed. This is different than the behavior if I use the edit link; doing this will show "edited [time] ago" immediately. Is this status-bydesign or a bug?

user259867

@AnnaLear I was extrapolating from this comment:

user259867

Nov 19 at 3:55, by Shog9

If you play the spoken-word version of that answer backwards, you hear a voice saying "Help me, Anna Lear, you're our only hope" over and over again.

Anna Lear

Yeah, Shog's meta post is talking about making massive code changes (like removing unregistered users entirely) out of the question right now. Flipping an existing setting on on a single site is fine... barring any other reasons not to do it.

user259867

21:37

I guess the other reason was Shog's lack of desire to get more support emails from unregistered users who are no longer able to post after the switch is flipped.

rene

@Bart Is there magic that I'm unaware of in Unity and MonoBehavior base classes? I assume the OP is lost somewhere but I'm unsure how to help him further given my current answer. One tip please?

Jason C

I walked into the bedroom and both of my cats were sitting on the window sill having a stare down with three squirrels, just sitting there on the fire escape right next to the window.

I wish I could've got my camera before they all ran away.

rene

@JasonC Do the cats manage to catch a squirrel?

Jason C

@rene No there's a screen in the way I don't let them run around outside.

Bart

@rene Why would he make StoreData a MonoBehaviour to begin with? I'd say your code should work though, unless I'm missing something. MonoBehaviours are a bit tricky where it comes to serialization. (Well, anything from UnityEngine.Object really)

rene

21:45

@Bart OK, we'll see what happens... tnx for checking...

Bart

If he doesn't resolve it, ping me again tomorrow @rene. I might have a better look tomorrow evening.

rene

I will...

hichris123

Someone today said '@Bart sounds like a bad person'.

Not referring to any specific Bart, of course.

Bart

Spot on though

Shog9

there's three reasons outlined in that post.
1) It's not feasible to disable unregistered users *as a concept* right now. (as Anna noted, it's possible to make it so they can't *do* anything, but that's not what was requested)
2) Making more support work makes me sad.
3) Making it harder for people to contribute good stuff because you're afraid of the people posting bad stuff is just a bad philosophy, and in my experience doesn't work well. Focus on making it harder to post bad stuff.

I should've just done a tl;dr

Jan Dvorak

21:49

re #3: 50 rep on comments

user259867

2) ends up making more support work for users of the site -- explaining to unreg users why they suddenly can't comment on own posts, or why they can't delete.

Shog9

@JanDvorak comments are not good stuff

user259867

That said, the user who prompted all this right now has successfully registered and promptly deleted own previously-vandalized question (and a few more along the way, it seems). Success!

Shog9

"necessary evil" maybe

Jan Dvorak

@Shog9 if I had 50 cents for every answer that starts with "I don't have 50 reputation, but..." ...

Shog9

21:52

Sometimes, those are actually answers

When they're not, there's a really good chance we'd just be deleting the comments

Which right now means moderators would be deleting the comments

Jan Dvorak

hmm...

user259867

Yeah. Weird how we delete posts left and right, but mods are called for practically every comment. Except those auto-nuked.

Shog9

So the choice is:
1) make more work for moderators
2) build new tools for community-moderation of comments, then encourage folks to post crap as comments instead of answers
3) use the tools we've already built to detect, block or remove crap answers

user259867

Okay I'll go with 3), the status quo.

Jan Dvorak

I like #2 with maybe a grain of #3

Bart

21:55

I'll go for the cash equivalent

Shog9

#2 is in no way trivial, btw. It's not just "hey, one more review queue" - there's no visibility for deleted comments so no real oversight, there's no revision history so no way to track changes, comments don't bump, etc. etc.

Some of that we should build anyway - it ain't like 50 rep users never post yards of crap comments

Anna Lear

@Shog9 Well, there is a revision history... just not in a usable way.

Shog9

@AnnaLear right, deleted comments are saved too - we just have no UI or privilege levels for any of that

Jason C

@Shog9 How's that cranberry sauce?

Anna Lear

@Shog9 Suggested edits for comments!

Jan Dvorak

21:56

Should there be a priv to see deleted comments?

user259867

I remember Ilmari Karonen came up with UI of his own for deleted comments. :-)

Shog9

@JasonC awesome

Jon Ericson

@JanDvorak Not unless there's something to be done about them.

bjb568

Bawawawawa woke up from a cat nap.

@Shog9 Can't we do all 3?

user259867

Yes, that podcast nearly put me to sleep, too.

bjb568

21:59

:P

Shadow Wizard

@rene why lose? You got 25 shiny points... :D

Jan Dvorak

nuke-pls stackoverflow.com/questions/27137570/…

user259867

When a chat message is quoted, the author's name is not hyperlinked. Bug?

user259867

11 mins ago, by Bart

I'll go for the cash equivalent

Jan Dvorak

Meh.

user259867

22:07

It is for comments oneboxed from the sites.

Jan Dvorak

I like that better, actually

user259867

Hyperlink all the things

Jason C

I like the less links too.

Jan Dvorak

@Rafflesiaarnoldii where do you click to focus, then?

user259867

Window header, maybe. No worries; new SE themes will have 50% more whitespace to click on, if Meta.SO is any indication.

Jason C

22:09

@JanDvorak No clicks; mouse over, twm style.

Jan Dvorak

What about touchscreens?

Jason C

@JanDvorak Point and laugh at the ipads next time you're at starbucks.

And show them your glorious mouse-over focus.

Jan Dvorak

What about my Nokia 5230?

Jason C

Point and laugh at all the things

Jan Dvorak

points at JasonC ha!

Jason C

22:11

Then once mouse-over focus frustrates you to the point of you punching a hole in your monitor, apologize profusely for pointing and laughing at all the touch screen users.

twm style.

bjb568

CV stackoverflow.com/q/11039119/2371861

user259867

@bjb568 reason being?

bjb568

@Rafflesiaarnoldii question info external, i.e. unclear

Jan Dvorak

nuke-pls stackoverflow.com/questions/27137835/…

needs two more close votes: stackoverflow.com/questions/27137570/…

Shog9

@JanDvorak so... here's the thing... Comments, much more than questions and answers, are often used to construct a conversation. Applying the normal tooling to conversations gets weird fast.

We could probably get away with a "view 3rd-party deleted comments" privilege

Jan Dvorak

22:24

true...

Shog9

But imagine the case where I post something and then realize I really shouldn't have said that.

Or even just miss the editing window and have to delete it to post a revision.

Now there's a deleted comment there, but... Realistically, no one is better off knowing that.

bjb568

@Shog9 Metaers would run out of pitchforks.

Jan Dvorak

True

Shog9

Outside of extreme edge-cases where someone is trolling and you'd want to get mods involved anyway

Jan Dvorak

The editing window thing is still an issue if it rearranges the comments

Shog9

22:26

Comments, more than any other part of the system, are prone to creating a fire hazard when they pile up

user259867

Podcast #61 had way too much discussion of "Be Nice" policy that nobody reads, and not nearly enough of comments (their lifespan) that everyone reads.

Shog9

No one wants to talk about comments

The hard truth is, any change we make to how comments are handled is gonna piss off someone

Probably a lot of someones

I find it useful to think of Twitter whenever I think of comments on our sites.

Jon Ericson

@Shog9 +1

Shog9

kicks @Jon

If a behavior is common on Twitter, chances are we should be discouraging it

Comments are pretty damn useful, but... They're extremely prone to abuse. And that potential isn't reduced very much with reputation or experience.

bjb568

user259867

22:30

Giving commenters a checkbox option "delete/expire this comment in N days" would not piss anyone off.

Shog9

@Rafflesiaarnoldii it would if that preference applied to the entire conversation, if one arose

And... It would have to

Either automatically or via mod-flags

user259867

The choice should be visible to others, so they'll know that is going to happen.

Jan Dvorak

@Rafflesiaarnoldii You would. Either those who want the checkbox effect public, or those who don't

user259867

If they don't want to talk to themselves, they can check the box too.

Shadow Wizard

@Rafflesiaarnoldii it would piss off the dev who will have to write code for that, then fix all the bugs it's going to cause (:

user259867

22:32

And the toggle could stay available for a while longer than the edit button. (@ShadowWizard of course. But Miiiiinecraft).

Shadow Wizard

umm.... all messages in star wall says "just now" - only for me?

user259867

Out of N comments I left today, nearly all will be irrelevant / pure noise in two days.

Jon Ericson

@ShadowWizard "just now"? just you.

Shog9

Also, checkbox options tend to be... Well, ideally they're used when there are two contradictory but equally-valid options and which one is appropriate depends heavily on the situation. In practice, they're often used when someone is unwilling to find a solution that takes context into account without forcing a conscious decision and punts - with the end-result being a feature that no one uses and catches folks off-guard when it is used.

See also: Community Wiki

See also: Improve as Unhelpful (suggested edits)

Shadow Wizard

bjb568

22:36

@ShadowWizard Try hard reloading.

Shadow Wizard

my clock is fine as far as I can tell, didn't mess up with it recently

Shog9

I've learned to be very, very wary whenever someone suggests a checkbox.

Shadow Wizard

@bjb568 grrr... worked.

Bart

@ShadowWizard you're getting old. Anything to you feels as if it happened "just now".

user259867

You must be scared of the new Recommended tab, then.

animuson

22:36

I suggest a checkbox to turn Shog's wariness on/off.

2

bjb568

@Shog9 ☐ … ☑

Shog9

kicks @bjb568

bjb568

ow

Shadow Wizard

\o

bjb568

hiss

Shog9

22:38

@Rafflesiaarnoldii Good example: that's a terrible UI for a homepage. But, that's not really the purpose - it's to let folks test different options.

Shadow Wizard

dang, forgot to make coffee. Need to boil the water again. :(

Shog9

Compare it to filters in /review: almost no one uses that, but put quick links to filtered queues on the main page & they get used.

Jason C

22:49

People really need to ask themselves "Why is the OP asking this question and what is actually meaningful to address in an answer?" before posting an answer or leaving worthless comments.

@animuson (+1) That is a great idea.

user259867

inb4 "answers are not just for the OP"

Jason C

@Rafflesiaarnoldii That's not what I meant though. Case in point: stackoverflow.com/questions/27137247/…

"Why is the OP asking this question" can translate to "Why would anybody be asking this question and reading the answers"?

Although that's just a mild example. Next time a real gem of a worthless comment comes up, I'll have a better example. I see it all the time though.

Those "you should use std::vector instead of an array" comments I was bitching about yesterday are right up there.

Any comments specific pertaining to the specific weirdness of a contrived illustrative example fall in that category too. "Q: Intelligent question about class structure in this example?" "Comment: You shouldn't name your classes with lowercase letters, and you forgot a semicolon, also use List."

Oh crap is this another episode of Jason C talks to himself?

3

Argh, it totally is.

user259867

I remember podcast mentioning that beer.SE is slow. Maybe this should be migrated there.

user259867

0

Q: How to perform some calculations related to blood alcohol concentrations?

What is the estimated blood alcohol concentration for a 135 lb female drinking 350mL of 10.70% alcohol (1 Gulden Draak 9000 Quadrupole beer) after a 1 hour period? What would her BAC be after drinking another beer each hour for three hours (...

word-problem

user259867

I never tried Gulden Draak 9000 Quadruple.... or even heard of it.

SmokeDetector

23:21

[ SmokeDetector ] All-caps title: CÁLCULO DE HORAS JAVA 8 by Cristiano Bombazar on pt.stackoverflow.com

bjb568

SHE HAS VERY POOR QUALITY

2

hichris123

... what?

user259867

bjb translated flag dialog from pt.SO using Google translate or something.

hichris123

ah

bjb568

Yeah. Blame google.

user259867

23:30

How do you say "What have you tried" in Portuguese?

user259867

... and is it blocked there?

bjb568

O que você já tentou?

(says google)

hichris123

@Rafflesiaarnoldii If you have to ask, don't do it. ;)

user202362

Jason C

Still a pretty good X.

user259867

23:45

not enough Gulden Draak 9000 Quadruple

bjb568

Da hell… hu cum up with dat name?

user259867

Is it me, or is Meta.SE really boring in recent days? I now only check it between 4 and 6 UTC, for spam.

bjb568

Boring.

crackstation.net/hashing-security.htm herm… fixing DD

Jason C

@Rafflesiaarnoldii It's boring. My cornify bookmarklet has been getting a lot of use lately.

Everything's boring. Everything's saaaad. I'm going to write a bad poem about it in my blog now. Sigh.

popten.net/2011/10/…

Mooseman

►

Jason C

23:55

Lol, Fiver made the list.

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