Tavern on the Meta

8:00 PM

So that's how the queue went from 600 to 0 in twenty minutes flat. Everyone's skipping everything. — BoltClock ♦ 1 hour ago

user259867

Skip wouldn't de-queue an item, would it?

user259867

Seems like people don't realize just commenting handles it (or at least thats how I read the original post). If you need the OP to clarify, leave a comment. Of course if its just crap, thats another story. — BradleyDotNET 1 hour ago

user259867

Um. A comment could be just as well left from Triage. It's not a great workflow for someone to identify a missing element of the question, and then push it to another place, where someone else will look for what's missing again, and comment.

AstroCB

How did he mark this as status-completed without a diamond?

Shog9

magic

designers are magic

2

user259867

8:10 PM

@AstroCB I can't find a reference, but I remember reading somewhere that the internal flag is_employee enables that.

Shog9

@FamousBlueRaincoat the problem with a queue like this is that it's nearly impossible to stop folks from fixating on what they can't do.

user259867

Actually, the flag isn't entirely internal; it's available through the API /users/ method.

Shog9

"Here's a queue where you can help people by editing."
"But I want to comment! I don't see how an edit can help."
"Then skip. This is for editing."
"I know the answer! Can I answer here?"
"Editing."
"Maybe I can vote. Voting's good, right?"
"E.d.i.t.i.n.g."
"I know! Maybe I can answer in the comments, and then upvote those?"
"Edi... sure. whatever."

2

user259867

Just replace the queue with a button that takes the user to a random post with needs_improvement flag. Or better yet, make that flag a search parameter.

AstroCB

@bjb568 tinyurl.com/aorbday

user259867

8:17 PM

Few people are willing to sit and edit-edit-edit posts on disparate topics, giving each proper attention.

Shog9

If only we could just get everyone else out of the queue.

...maybe I need more exclamation points

(Trivia: 85% skip rate for HIqueue so far - a new record!)

user259867

My point is, it's not really review. It's a time consuming task that won't be properly done 20 times in a row. The queue format does not fit it.

Shog9

strictly-speaking, it's a work queue

there should be someone serving gruel

Frank

*waffles

Shog9

We'll see. I proposed dropping First Posts & folks said they would miss the editing - so now they get to put their actions where their gruel-loving mouths are.

Frank

8:20 PM

*waffle-loving

Shog9

what is a waffle if not pattern-fried gruel?

good honest worker food, none of that fancy pancake nonsense

Frank

pattern fried gruel that contains eggs and Sodium bicarbonate

Shog9

or yeast

user259867

Compare two workflows:
(A) I think this needs an edit, and I'm going to edit it.
(B) I think this needs an edit, and I'm going to tell someone to edit it, for a reason I won't tell them. Then I will be given a bunch of posts that someone else thinks should be edited, for a reason they didn't tell me.

Frank

@Shog9 not generally

Shog9

8:22 PM

depends on how long you let the gruel sit out

Frank

lol

Shog9

(I prefer yeast waffles)

Frank

@Shog9 Good honest worker food == lots of steak

Shog9

eggs

Frank

steak

Shog9

8:23 PM

steak n eggs

w/ potatoes

Frank

but eggs are gross.

Unless you take the time to fry them

or boil them

Shog9

27

Q: Flagging a question for improvement without voting to close

Just thinking about my post about describing close reasons it strikes me that there are two very distinct kind of questions which are currently being closed: Questions which you believe really shouldn't be open, and you'd like to see deleted eventually Questions which aren't good in their curre...

read discussion

@Frank little bit of salt they're fine

maybe some horseradish

Alexis King

Aha, just came in to see the new queue up and running! Thanks, @Shog9!

Shog9

cheers - have some gruel

huh, I answered that. And then directly contradicted myself in an answer to a related question.

...I've been here too long.

4

Frank

@Shog9 skunks love eggs. I love steak.

and ice cream.

and coffee.

and waffles

.

SmokeDetector

8:39 PM

[ SmokeDetector ] URL in title: Question about lemma 3.1 of :eudml.org/doc/125333 by Vrouvrou on math.stackexchange.com

bjb568

Me internet brokey :(

hichris123

... are you going to contradict yourself again, @bjb568?

bjb568

Huh?

hichris123

"My internet is broken" - said the person using the internet to communicate

If not contradictory, then ironic.

bjb568

Meh, me ISP suk. Coz they all do. But LTEs worky

6

Q: Should I allow or forbid my son to visit the education of a religion that I do not share?

I'm an Agnostic. When the topic comes to religion, I try to explain to my seven year old son what religious persons believe and why I don't share that belief. Until recently, he shared my scepticism. Were we live (Germany), pupils in elementary school must visit two hours per week of either reli...

education school religion

Ugh, what a toxic environment.

Alexis King

8:52 PM

The Help and Improvement queue is going to be immediately overrun, isn't it?

bjb568

I don't see how schools teaching religion isn't a basic human rights violation.

@AlexisKing overrun by what?

Alexis King

@bjb568 By questions needing improvement!

bjb568

Oh, overflow'd

Hm… That might happen.

Shog9

@AlexisKing no. There's really no need to keep things in there forever.

user259867

They should age pretty quickly. I mean, what's the urgency of editing a week old question with an accepted answer? It could benefit from an edit, sure -- but no need to stay in the queue.

Alexis King

8:54 PM

@Shog9 Then won't a tiny fraction of them actually get reviewed?

Shog9

@AlexisKing yup

That's a tiny fraction that wouldn't get reviewed without the queue.

Alexis King

@Shog9 I guess that's true.

Shog9

We'll also encourage answerers to edit, and especially askers to edit if they return.

But... if they don't... If no one answers, and no one cares... They'll drift out to sea and be lost in the great swirl of detritus slowly breaking down and sinking beneath the waves.

user259867

Something like a banner over the question (this has been marked as needing improvement?) That would make sense.

bjb568

Ooh DD is so going to have a "could this question be improved?" thing after answering.

Shog9

8:57 PM

@FamousBlueRaincoat yeah, something like that

user259867

I'm not convinced that the tiny fraction is actually a benefit. The time spent reading and deciding to click Skip is time not spent doing anything else.

Shog9

That's a personal choice

user259867

If the front page had a smallish tab "questions needing improvement", the personal choice would be easier.

Shog9

Maybe

Realistically, that's usually /questions?sort=newest

Almost every question could use a bit of attention; if you specifically want to play Mother Teresa Among The Lepers, well, now you can.

Alexis King

@Shog9 I see the rationale behind the decision to make edit reasons required in the H&I queue, but I'm already feeling frustrated that I have to explain "fixed your spelling & grammar" over and over again.

okay, how the hell did this get marked "should be improved"?

cv-pls stackoverflow.com/q/28846721/465378

Shog9

9:04 PM

@AlexisKing yeah... it wasn't actually supposed to be required. Bit of a subtle mistake there: you're supposed to be able to enter either 0 or > 20 characters.

will be fixed.

Alexis King

Ah, perfect, thank you.

Kevin Brown

Question about the queue: Do questions with answers still sit in the Help/Improvement queue or are they kicked out ahead of time? So will I ever encounter a question in there that already has an answer?

Alexis King

@KevinBrown I encountered one with an answer, though it had 0 votes, so that sometimes counts as "unanswered" in the SE definition.

AstroCB

@AlexisKing Someone was out of close votes.

Alexis King

cv-pls stackoverflow.com/q/28851086/465378

@AstroCB This is why I think Triage should boot you out if you're out of close votes.

Kevin Brown

9:08 PM

I'm getting a lot of questions from yesterday, so I could see there being a possibility of it already being answered

Alexis King

cv-pls stackoverflow.com/q/28854206/465378

cv-pls stackoverflow.com/q/28852291/465378

rene

@Shog9 Not sure if this goes unnoticed due to the high volume of answers and comments and that meta post, but you have a link to the dev tier in the help guidance.

Alexis King

cv-pls stackoverflow.com/q/28845448/465378

Shog9

@rene ha!

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector ] URL in title: Question about lemma 3.1 of :eudml.org/doc/125333 by Vrouvrou on math.stackexchange.com

rene

9:18 PM

@SmokeDetector ignore

SmokeDetector

@rene Post ignored; alerts about it will no longer be posted.

AstroCB

Six downvotes; I love it.

I should have added a tl;dr.

Kevin Brown

If a question would be put "on hold" because the OP needs to add some stuff (like missing code, for example), does it still make sense to edit it within the queue?

Jan Dvorak

Normally I read "needs some editing" as "by OP". Are those unsalvageable?

user259867

@JanDvorak The Triage "details" still say "Should Be Improved for questions where edits by the author or others would result in a question that is clear and answerable"

AstroCB

9:33 PM

@KevinBrown Usually, if there's not enough information, there are lots of other problems with the post that need to be fixed, as well.

Jan Dvorak

... but then they end up in HIQ

user259867

2 hours ago, by Famous Blue Raincoat

I think this addition is going to make clear that "Unsalvageable" is too strong a word for the third option in Triage, and that Should be Improved is too vague.

AstroCB

^

user259867

Until/unless something changes, better to put "OP should edit things" into Unsalvageable instead.

Shog9

maybe

what happens to a question that can't be answered without edits from the OP if it doesn't get edits from the OP?

Kevin Brown

9:35 PM

Then it stays unanswered with low views and eventually gets cleaned up by the roomba?

Jan Dvorak

It should be closed and roomba'd

user259867

@Shog9 It gets stupid answers: maybe it's that typo in line 20 ... no it's not... then I don't know.

Shog9

all of those CAN happen

Jan Dvorak

"unsalvageable" should read "except by OP"

Shog9

what if we could... put a finger on one side of the plate, tip it in a certain direction

maybe keep the number of views as low as possible

Jan Dvorak

9:37 PM

until OP comes?

Shog9

until something comes

something that cares about the question

Jan Dvorak

Roomba, I assume?

user259867

Roomba doesn't care.

Shog9

either because they wrote it, or because it's sitting there looking crappy & getting no other attention

Jan Dvorak

Google might notice and not be happy

Shog9

9:39 PM

the problem with closing these is that closing chews up an awful lot of a limited resource

And there are a lot of these questions

130

Q: Off topic questions have to be cleared out of the way, but NOT via closure

Recently I ran across a particular question on Stack Overflow. Despite its being quite easy to answer, it has got no answer yet (and most likely won't, as questions older than a hour hardly receive any attention anymore). Besides that, the OP told me that he wants an answer from a professional de...

discussion

Kevin Brown

~~The roomba surely gets hungry, I imagine it might care a little.~~ So, if we would normally close the question for "unclear" or "add some code pls", then it should really be marked "unsalveagable" in the triage queue?

Shog9

> And it seems I have found the reason: it's the number of [awful quality] questions that prevents a professional from coming across the question in question.

hichris123

Ooh, roomba. Which reminds me @Shog9: anything happen to that roomba proposal of yours?

user259867

I wish the meta post made this more clear.
1. The questions marked as Needing Improvement are going to be semi-ignored (suppressed from view)
2. If you really care, edit in NI but otherwise ignore. "Skip" = "ignore".

Shog9

So here's a thought... A question ends up in the helper queue; no one edits it (because they can't). The OP never returns. It never gets answered. Why not just delete those?

Jan Dvorak

9:44 PM

Sounds like a new button

Shog9

Instead of trying to squeeze ever more intelligence out of some nebulous combination of chicken entrails, views and votes, just look for things that no one cares about.

And stop trying to make people care about things we have good reason to think are crap.

Jan Dvorak

What if said crap gets answered and thus never deleted?

Shog9

Then remind the answerer that, if they want their answer to matter, they should edit.

Kevin Brown

@JanDvorak Then wouldn't that fail the "no ones cares about" part?

rene

@Shog9 great plan!

Jan Dvorak

9:46 PM

@KevinBrown If so, there's no such thing as questions nobody cares about

Shog9

Answered, in Stack Exchange's Humpty Dumpty Dictionary, means "got an answer that someone cared about."

OP long gone? No one else sees it or thinks it worth voting on? It ain't answered.

Jan Dvorak

except upvotes mean "somebody saw it and thought it was true"

Shog9

maybe

awful lot of answers that don't even get that

Jan Dvorak

Then there's that chat room that thinks answering off-topic questions is useful

(and that chat flags are nothing but a nuisance and nothing is truly offensive)

user259867

@JanDvorak Stray upvotes on worthless answers to closable posts keep Roombatron500 employed.

SmokeDetector

9:50 PM

[ SmokeDetector ] All-caps title: HELLPPPP MEEEEEE by user13079 on anime.stackexchange.com

Kevin Brown

@SmokeDetector tp

SmokeDetector

@KevinBrown Registered question as true positive: added title to the Bayesian doctype 'bad'.

hichris123

[ SmokeDetector ] Repeating characters in body: How to disable Buttons inside a Tableview added programmatically ios by Irfanlone on stackoverflow.com

Kevin Brown

So, twice so far I think I've found questions which really didn't need improvements, the opposite issue of what most of us have seen. Maybe even just linking to meta.stackoverflow.com/q/287024/359284 from the help might improve the sorting?

user259867

@Roombatron5000 overtook @HoboSapiens for #5 on the all-time SO downvoters list. In other news, Quentin is about to take #1 from Wooble! Stay tuned.

user202362

10:08 PM

3

user202362

cat gotta eat

bjb568

Aww, already used all teh starz :(

Mooseman

stars obo @bjb

Doorknob

What's an obo?

Undo

10:28 PM

or best offer

nicael

1

A: Categorized views in past flags (helpful/declined/disputed)

I think it's just the great idea. I made a script which will load all of your helpful/ declined/ disputed flags. To use, first go to your flags stats. Then run one of the following scripts, but replace {your-user-id} with your user id. To show declined: javascript:var pn=$(".pager.fr > a").le...

Anyone wanna test?

Mooseman

> on behalf of

@nicael http://meta.stackexchange.com/users/flag-summary/current is broken

nicael

Oh, I know already

7

Q: Current user flag summary link

Currently we can link to the current user's page (i.e. when a user clicks the link it'll link to their own page) by using http://SE-site.com/users/current which is great! We can also link to specific tabs by using .../current?tab=reputation - also great. However, it'd be lovely if we could link...

feature-request hyperlinks flag-history

Kevin Brown

10:44 PM

0

A: Help Improve The Help & Improvement Queue!

I just finished my 20 reviews for today (the fifth person!) and I can sum up my thoughts on the new queue pretty quickly. In theory, it's a great queue that will allow questions that can be improved to create a clear, understandable question be improved. In reality, it's full of badly triaged...

hichris123

cv-plz stackoverflow.com/questions/28887937/input-data-in-tkintertable

cv-plz stackoverflow.com/questions/28848026/…

user259867

@KevinBrown "Allow questions to be pushed back to the triage queue"... maybe it's better to just drop them out if they are skipped by ... 5 editors, say. If it's not going to get improved, forget it. And by then the question already had enough views so that if it's egregiously bad, it would be VTCed by someone.

Undo

@hichris123 done and done

Jan Dvorak

> We're still doing half-way okay. And by that I mean that half of our colonists have lost half of their bodies

Mooseman

cv-pls "gimme teh codez" stackoverflow.com/q/28828985/1234256

user259867

10:58 PM

A non-existent close reason.

Kevin Brown

@FamousBlueRaincoat But the queue is for editing questions to improve them. If an unsalvageable question has made it to the queue, there was an issue when triaging it.

Jan Dvorak

The issue is that questions that need an edit by the OP get to a queue where we are supposed to edit it (rather than just tell the OP what to add)

Mooseman

@FamousBlueRaincoat "too broad"

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector ] All-caps title: MYSQL QUERY ABOUT THE TABLES AND THEIR CONTENT by Siddharth Singh on stackoverflow.com

Jan Dvorak

^unclear

user259867

11:02 PM

@KevinBrown Sure, but the issue is that some reviewer is confused or careless. So they miscategorized. Now you saw it and identified it as unsalvagable; no need to send to triage again, just take an action on the post (VTC).

user259867

It'd be great to show the post again to the same reviewer saying "hey, this was unsalvageable", but that's not going to happen.

user259867

* On February 27, Jason C came back to SO
* Yesterday he came to meta.SO
* When will he arrive here?

bjb568

2 minutes before noon.