Tavern on the Meta

rene

7:00 PM

@Quill I'm on the starboard, that is what counts

enderland

@Shog9 ... probably not ;)

msh210

ergo

Adverb: ergo ‎(not comparable)

Consequently, therefore.
2003, Pirates of the Caribbean:
The pirates who invaded this fort left Sparrow locked in his cell; ergo, they are not his allies.
ergo
ergo

(3 more not shown…)

Conjunction: ergo

therefore (especially in syllogisms).
ergo
ergo
ergō
therefore, because, hence, consequently, thus

(6 more not shown…)

Verb: ergo

first-person singular present indicative of ergere
ergo
First-person singular (eu) present indicative of erguer
The ergo as a verb has a closed sound in comparison with the conjunction.

PhMgBr

@Keen -1 and what behavior does this encourage?

Keen

@Shog9 I assumed by 'ergo', they meant 'latin.'

PhMgBr

@msh210 Holy crap that one-box

Shog9

7:00 PM

BRACE YOURSELVES!

Wrzlprmft

I have no idea what you are talking about, but switching to a reasonable (non-QWERTY) keyboard layout was a blessing for my hands.

Ixrec

I AM BRACING

Ana

Alright, let's do this thing.

8

ArtOfCode

Is Smokey killed or do I need to?

Undo

@ArtOfCode I've got it

Andy

7:00 PM

@ArtOfCode It's dead

Matt Ellen

ties self to mast

Ixrec

it's been silent for a while now

enderland

@Wrzlprmft I tried doing that and using dvorak a while ago but... :(

ArtOfCode

nice

Ana

Hey all, welcome to the first Meta Stack Exchange Town Hall!

28

Sam

7:01 PM

Did anyone get coffee?

ArtOfCode

Got back to my desk 30 seconds before we started.

Bhargav Rao

@Sam I got popcorn

Vogel612's Shadow

@Sam it ain't that time of day... got a beer instead

Ana

Like I shared in this MSE post, the Community Team felt it was time to explore some new, additional ways to keep in touch with the people who work alongside us to make our software amazing. This is our first go at these town halls; it's an experiment and we're going to be working out plenty of kinks as we go. Glad to have you on board.

14

PhiNotPi

I'm here for the party.

Wrzlprmft

7:01 PM

@enderland Dvorak is only half the way.

abby hairboat

This room was placed in timeout for 1 minute; the topic of this room is "MY GOD, IT'S FULL OF STARS! Wheel of blame link bolted on for your ease of use: jsfiddle.net/Ldvwp8uv/1/embedded/result/"; - conversation should be limited to that topic.

18

Ana

@abbyhairboat will be moderating today's event. @abby Want to tell us about how things will work during today's test flight?

abby hairboat

Sure thing! I have ust a few quick notes before we get started. My role in this discussion is to keep the conversation on-topic and moving forward and to make sure things move at a pace that lets the CMs get a word in edgewise--we are thoroughly outnumbered here, after all :)

If you've got a direct question for a CM, write it in **bold**. If you'd like to see someone else's question answered by a CM, star it instead of replying +1 (for the sake of the transcript).

7

We do encourage discussion here--it's not strictly a Q&A format--but please respect the flow of the discussion. I might ask you to take a side conversation to a different room or to save it for later, or ask folks to slow down and let us catch up. This isn't to stifle discussion or silence anyone; I just need to make sure the CMs can keep up with the conversation and contribute as best we can.

As always, our network's Be Nice policy applies in chat as everywhere else. So... be nice!

3

user1228

THEM NUMBERS WERE AFTER ME!

Vogel612's Shadow

Do we have an agenda?

user1228

7:02 PM

That was scary.

abby hairboat

All that said, let's get started. The topic of today's Community Town Hall is Comment Culture. What are some questions you have for the CM team, or observations you'd like to make, or proposals you'd like to discuss?

15

TCPMAN.EXE

Order! Order!

Keen

Is there a userscript that'll highlight the CMs' chat messages?

Doorknob

Oy!

Andrew T.

The timeout looks cooler than the usual... like... a countdown to the event!

fredley

7:03 PM

0

Q: Prevent chat from scrolling while I'm mousing over controls

At the first chat meta tavern town hall thing, there were a lot of people in one room. This exposed a problem with the way chat works: when the messages are scrolling very fast, it's very hard indeed to reply to messages. Is there the possiblity that chat could not scroll when there's a new mess...

enderland

@abbyhairboat is there any chance that SE would change the name from "comment" to something else?

7

S.L. Barth

I'd like to discuss the thresholds for commenting.

Jon Ericson

@enderland I kinda like the idea of renaming comments since we don’t mean the same thing as other sites on the internet. Maybe annotations? But renaming is not a silver bullet.

Wrzlprmft

Is there any progress on Make comment flags less stupid?

3

Jon Ericson

(Yes, that's your meta answer. ;-)

Monica Cellio

7:03 PM

I'd like to better understand the perspective of people who want to participate in long comment threads but don't want to use chat.

11

ArtOfCode

@JonEricson Annotations have bad connotations on SE.

2

Quill

Timeout/expiration and Auto-Sending-To-Chat seem to be the main issues

Keen

@S.L.Barth psst use bold

Vogel612's Shadow

@ArtOfCode not everybody knows about moderator annotations

Bhargav Rao

Allow high reps to vote to delete comments like in Jon's answer

rene

7:04 PM

@MonicaCellio what keeps users from using chat?

enderland

@BhargavRao our high rep users are the problem :P

3

ArtOfCode

@Vogel612'sShadow True. But especially for moderators, looking at post annotations while we still have user annotations would be confusing.

Undo

@MonicaCellio Chat has a little more overhead associated with keeping a few tabs open, and it's much more foreign to a decent chunk of people.

PhMgBr

(Not a question from CM, but something worth discussing) What sites and why have bigger comment problems? Is there any data or query on this? Any visible trends?

7

Doorknob

@BhargavRao IIRC that was under "not gonna happen" because allowing non-mods to see deleted comments is... troublesome

Bhargav Rao

7:04 PM

@enderland Heh, true that. But comment flags are annoying for mod.

Dan Pantry

@rene It's usually quicker to discuss in comments, for one. It's a lot easier to just have a discussion right there in the comments, so maybe accessibility is an issue. Additionally, at least on my network, chat regularly times out.

enderland

@BhargavRao I never ever delete straight from the mod toolbox for comments...

Monica Cellio

@rene this is what I'd like to know. I'm not talking about the new users who can't chat yet; I mean ones who can but choose not to.

abby hairboat

Let's look at this one for starters:

1 min ago, by enderland

@abbyhairboat is there any chance that SE would change the name from "comment" to something else?

2

Monica Cellio

I'm hoping some of them are in this room.

fredley

7:05 PM

@PhMgBr On Arqade we really don't, and we're one of the bigger sites that's not SO

msh210

@Doorknob Couldn't they vote to delete but not undelete?

ArtOfCode

Is there a need?

Jaydles

@enderland I think we're open to the idea, but all the things I've seen (or been able to think of) are good at eliminating some form of misuse, but much worse at conveying the desired use. ("Asking for clarity" doesn't feel like an annotation.)

Jon Ericson

@ArtOfCode So do comments. ;-)

ArtOfCode

Hah. True enough.

abby hairboat

7:05 PM

A: Can we add some friction for exploding comment threads?

Change the name to not be "comment" On every single site on the entire Internet except here, comments are intended to discuss things, provide personal opinions, argue with others, etc. A "comment" invites discussion by its very nature. Except on Stack Exchange. This drives me nuts, because I ...

Ixrec

there's also the rep threshhold, you simply can't invite a first-time user to chat no matter how badly you might want to

ryanyuyu

@MonicaCellio Also, chat looks a lot less good to have open when my manager peeks at my screen. Vs a SO post means I'm researching a solution for my problem.

Bhargav Rao

@Doorknob Yep, That was pushed down, But the first comment did mention some privs.

Doorknob

@msh210 Well... yeah, I guess, but the asymmetry seems wrong

enderland

@abbyhairboat that looks familiar! :)

Ana

7:06 PM

@enderland What problems do you think might be solved by doing so?

Tim

That could hide abuse a lot...

Undo

'comment' means a lot of different things outside of SE.

2

Mast

Hiding isn't a solution.

Ana

@Undo Truth.

enderland

@Ana on Workplace we constantly are dealing with discussion-boards-in-comments (this happens on many more subjective sites)

3

PhMgBr

7:06 PM

@abbyhairboat Why would we? Possible reasons might be that some people take "answers" to mean "comments", and that's somehow true outside SE terminology.

ArtOfCode

The problem with comments is that people use them for discussion, which isn't their point. Apart from chat, we're not left with many places for legitimate discussion; perhaps this is an issue?

Shog9

@enderland extensive discussion here:

25

Q: Change "comment" to "critique or request clarification"

Got around to talking about comment flags with Robert Cartaino this morning... We're working on rejiggering the flagging options to make it a bit more obvious when stuff should be flagged, with the end goal of making it possible to automate some of the current flag-handling. More on that later; o...

feature-request comments user-interface

ArtOfCode

Would the CM's consider adding a discussion mechanism that isn't chat and isn't comments?

7

Jon Ericson

@Undo We see this a lot. People complain all the time that they can't comment without participating in other ways first. That's not how it normally works.

Doorknob

@Undo But it might be worth noting that calling answers "answers" hasn't stopped people from not treating them as answers

Ixrec

7:07 PM

@ArtOfCode such as...?

2

rand al'thor

Is there any chance that non-mods with sufficiently high rep could be given comment moderation powers?

8

Shog9

@ArtOfCode such as Meta?

2

ArtOfCode

@Ixrec I don't know. Something that enables discussion on-site, rather than chat.

Shog9

So, Meta.

ArtOfCode

@Shog9 No, as in discussion around a post's content, not its meta attributes.

Ixrec

7:07 PM

I'm with shog that Meta fills that role

rene

I don't think how the stuff is named is important

Gilles

@ArtOfCode so, chat in a frame?

Bhargav Rao

@randal'thor Asked earlier chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/4881721#4881721 but everyone said no

Tim

@ArtOfCode So like an enbedded chat?

Shog9

@ArtOfCode like Wikipedia's Talk page then?

Monica Cellio

7:08 PM

@Jaydles What uses (if any) are appropriate for comments in your view other than requesting clarification? Is it ever ok to say "I disagree because X"?

7

Doorknob

@ArtOfCode Is it the connotation of the word "chat" that's the problem?

Jaydles

@ArtOfCode how would that differ from just allowing discussion in comments? (I'm not suggesting we encourage that, just trying to get the diff.)

user2314737

on comments: I'd like a different color than red for the inbox icon, when that icon becomes red it's mostly bad news a.k.a. comments (as opposed to the gren of +rep points)

enderland

I've been tempted to just go "whatever" and let comment threads run wild. "Comments run wild" has a ~~nice~~ weird ring to it

ArtOfCode

Not "is this on topic", but "this is also a good solution".

Monica Cellio

7:08 PM

Knowing what they're really for needs to precede renaming them.

2

ArtOfCode

@Jaydles It wouldn't, but currently comments aren't for discussion. I'd be interested to see what happens if they were, though.

msh210

@MonicaCellio See /help/privileges/comment-everywhere

rand al'thor

@BhargavRao You didn't bold it though :-)

Vogel612's Shadow

@MonicaCellio that's a main use of comments on Code Review

PhiNotPi

On codegolf.SE, it's typical to create a chat room specific for a given question (aka challenge), and link that chat room in the body of the question.

fredley

7:08 PM

@MonicaCellio Only if the next comment is a link to a meta discussion

enderland

How strongly SHOULD moderators trim discussion comments? Particularly the 20+ comment flag situations?

4

Jon Ericson

@ArtOfCode I kicked around an idea of comments like on Medium. (Highlight the text and attach some words.) But it's a lot of work for a feature that might not be that different from what we already have.

Tim

@Jaydles Chat is very different to comments. IM is sometimes needed

fredley

@enderland ruthlessly

Bhargav Rao

@randal'thor Yep, true, Should have :D

Undo

7:09 PM

@MonicaCellio That question seems tailored for the ''softer' sites - on SO, for example, people don't really 'disagree', they say 'this is wrong because x'

Wrzlprmft

I propose to rename comments to remarks.

7

Ixrec

for short comment threads I just don't see the problem, so...I don't have much to ask here, other than what concerns do people actually have about comment mis/over/?-use, except in places where people regularly generate >20-comment chains

S.L. Barth

Did SE consider alternatives for the 50-point threshold for commenting?

3

enderland

@fredley but but the tears :(

Matt Ellen

@MonicaCellio "I disagree because X" is a request for clarification in disguise

3

Shog9

7:09 PM

@ArtOfCode I think closer linking between meta and specific posts would be beneficial in many cases. But chat scales more readily - an attached chatroom for transient discussion is something @RobertCartaino has put a good deal of thought into in the past.

user2314737

@Wrzlprmft I like that

Quill

Would the CMs consider adding a comment protection and/or lock feature?

5

PhMgBr

No place handy, for sure.

abby hairboat

One thing many have observed is that each community in the network uses comments in slightly different ways for slightly different purposes. That makes it really hard to come up with terminology that works across the board, among many other inconsistencies. Does anyone have any observations of a particular community's uses of, or culture around, comments? Maybe something that works well on some sites and doesn't work at all on others?

2

fredley

@enderland mods feed on user tears

msh210

7:09 PM

@Wrzlprmft I don't see the difference.

PhMgBr

I think the main problem in comment discussions is how there's no other place for two people to sit down and talk about a question.

Doorknob

@enderland Ooh that's a good one. I want the "comments are sticky notes and can be purged at any time" theory to work out, but sometimes people want their comments to stick around forever anyway.

Hippalectryon

@Wrzlprmft On MathsSE that would lead to even more comments on homeworky questions

ArtOfCode

@Shog9 It would be good, but chat is clunky, slow, and not really up to that task yet. If it saw some love it could well be.

rand al'thor

@enderland That varies a lot by site. I hear Workplace has problems with horribly long comment threads, but SFF for instance takes a much more laid-back attitude to comments.

Mat's Mug

7:10 PM

@enderland on CR I just move them to chat. sometimes the discussion continues there, which is somewhat of a "victory" then.

enderland

@Doorknob the less that people actually use comments correctly the more tears when they are deleted

Shog9

@ArtOfCode I DISAGREE WITH ALL OF THAT

fredley

@msh210 comments are a universal internet thing. Remarks are not. People have less expectations when they're called remarks.

Dan Pantry

@Shog9 are you disagreeing, or requesting for clarification.. ;-)

Jaydles

@MonicaCellio I think so. I often see comments of the ilk of, "well, that won't be true in the case of [something]" One might argue that an edit would better serve there, but often a commenter isn't comfortable going thtat route, or wants to get the OPs take first, etc.

enderland

7:10 PM

@randal'thor your content is... less opine-worthy ;)

Ixrec

chat is definitely not clunky, but it is slow compared to the main site (especially if you have many tabs open like us crazy people do)

ArtOfCode

Chat is the most resource-heavy tab I currently have open.

abby hairboat

Question freeze! We've got plenty to work with for now - let's try and look at the ones we've gotten so far.

17

enderland

holy shit this is hard to follow

17

bluefeet

@Quill mods already have the ability to lock posts getting too many comments

Tim

7:10 PM

Could there be a link along the "share, edit, flag" which is chat?

3

PhMgBr

@abbyhairboat Some SE sites use comments for welcoming new users and not-asked-for meta discussion like that. Then they allow flagging them as obsolete a bit later.

2

Shog9

@DanPantry Both: writing it off as "clunky and slow" when the current alternatives are comments and meta is... Kinda picky ;-)

Monica Cellio

@ArtOfCode something like another tab on a post, so you can toggle between the discussion zone and the comments (whatever they're called)?

3

Undo

@bluefeet Collateral damage, though - it takes out voting, too.

ArtOfCode

@MonicaCellio Yeah, that would work.

Doorknob

7:11 PM

@Quill As in "prevent new comments from being posted on this post"? Also, are you referring to a mod tool or a privilege?

Wrzlprmft

@msh210 It’s not preoccupied by the rest of the Internet. Also, it’s more to the point as to what we want comments to be.

Quill

@Doorknob yes, and mod tool

Dan Pantry

@Shog9 Chat being more fluid is part of the reason I like it - but it's not so easy to access (as in UX wise, it's a bit out of the way). It's clunky, for example, to be able to give someone an invitation to chat)

Ixrec

@MonicaCellio are you thinking of a Wikipedia-style "Talk Page"?

PhMgBr

Also there's this that almost all of smaller SEs are highly tolerant of "+1 thankz u" comments.

rand al'thor

7:11 PM

@enderland We can always read the transcript later. I'm not even trying to keep up with everything here, and I'm used to being in two of the busiest chatrooms on the network.

Doorknob

@Quill I think that exists?

Oh, Undo beat me to it.

Vogel612's Shadow

Before we consider moving discussions to chat, we should IMO make chat clearer to moderate both by ROs and "normal users"

3

NobodyNada

I think the thing that makes chat clunky sometimes is that it is a separate site. What if chat could also be in a little box on the main site?

PhMgBr

So that's somehow a universal "culture around".

Shog9

@DanPantry well, that's where the frequent requests for an embedded-in-page version come in

FWIW, we tried this a few years ago on April 1st...

Dan Pantry

7:12 PM

@Shog9 I'm not even sure an embedded version is the answer here - just making the link more accessible or having the link as an option next to close might work.

Cindy Meister

I think one discussin point with comments, as well as chat, is posting code. That's very relevant for Stack Overflow...

msh210

@MonicaCellio We don't need that many places for content.

2

Tim

@Shog9 So could there be a link along the "share, edit, flag" which is chat?

Mogsdad

@Ixrec that's where my head went - specific chat attached to question.

Jon Ericson

Chat does helps keep comments from getting, well, too chatty. Instead of chatting in comments, people use the site’s chat room. A few years ago we allowed moderators to move comments to chat. Not sure how well that feature is being used, though.

3

Ixrec

7:12 PM

note that "moving discussions to chat" is generally not possible to do without a way to get 1-rep users into chat, so sometimes I have to deliberately prolong a comment discussion until it triggers the chatroom creation

Quill

Chat being "clunky" isn't the main issue, it's just a potentially scary foreign land.

ArtOfCode

@Vogel612'sShadow On a related note to this, we have a wiki-style guide now on MSE. Is there some way to enable better co-operation between moderators and room owners? There's a wide distinction right now.

Doorknob

@JonEricson IMO it's been used quite effectively on PPCG.

bwDraco

We should have a mechanism to create chat rooms beyond the existing "migrate to chat" mechanism. The OP should be able to start any discussion in Chat (no matter how many comments there are) and we should have a prominent link for questions to their respective chat rooms.

Shog9

@Tim or comments transform into chat at some threshold

Vogel612's Shadow

7:12 PM

@JonEricson except it doesn't really work well...

Monica Cellio

@Undo yeah, probably; most of my experience is on the more-subjective sites. Where people love to argue, and talk, and argue some more, and...

So we can link the "what comments are for" help until we're blue in the face, but it doesn't help.

Vogel612's Shadow

@ArtOfCode that only lists the tools available IIRC. It doesn't give any guidance on how to use them

Matt Ellen

@JonEricson it is used, but often that just kills the discussion. which is fine by me, but maybe not the desired result

bwDraco

Boy, this Town Hall meeting is chaotic...

3

Bhargav Rao

@JonEricson That is highly useful only when one of the users is <20 rep. Else we can invite them. (So not much of an impact imo). But one great advantage is in meta where Shog archives comments

rand al'thor

7:13 PM

@JonEricson I think this is a great feature. It enables us to get rid of massive comment threads without destroying interesting/useful discussions.

4

ArtOfCode

@Vogel612'sShadow It gives a little, I believe.

msh210

@MonicaCellio Purging works, though.

Shog9

21

Q: How has "move comments to chat" affected users' behavior?

For a while now, moderators have had the ability to move long comment threads to new chat rooms. "Out of the box", this is only possible when an automatic flag is raised after a certain number of comments are posted in a short time, though there exists a workaround that moderators can use to for...

support comments chat moderator-tools

Mast

@MonicaCellio How does chat not provide a solution in those cases?

enderland

@Shog9 I was about to find that. hah. too slow...

PhMgBr

7:13 PM

@JonEricson The problem is not many people on a bunch of sites I frequent visit chat when asked to.

bwDraco

As I said, we need a strong connection between questions and their respective chat rooms.

3

ArtOfCode

'kay, quick meta-question for the CM's - is there going to be a place for us to feed back on the format/workings of this town-hall event later?

2

Cindy Meister

Going directly to a chat room, using a link, is a good idea. It might help if the action would copy the body of the Question to the chat room.

2

bwDraco

A prominent link in the sidebar will help a lot.

Ixrec

if people always visited chat when I asked them to, I'd probably have to stop asking people to visit chat

Mogsdad

7:14 PM

@Ixrec What if "moving conversation to chat" left it temporarily visible and accessible as comments on the post? That would address the foreign land concern.

Mast

Will there be a cliff's notes version of what came out of this discussion for those unwilling/unable to read the entire chat transcript?

6

PhMgBr

I don't remember a single instance when asking an ELL user to visit chat I wasn't turned down.

Doorknob

@bwDraco Are you proposing one chatroom per question? (As in, people don't have to explicitly create it; it automatically is upon posting the question?)

abby hairboat

Please remember to try and keep the conversation slow enough let the CMs get a word in. We don't want to all be responding to conversations halfway up the backscroll.

5

Dan Pantry

@bwDraco I definitely agree. This is what I've been saying - chat would be a much more attractive alternative if it were more accessible from an actual question page.

Jon Ericson

7:14 PM

@PhMgBr I hear that. I resisted chat for ~a year after it was introduced. Our chat isn't like other chat, just as our comments are exactly like other comments.

enderland

@abbyhairboat just freeze it

11

Jaydles

@ArtOfCode no need for feedback on the event. this medium is OBVIOUSLY perfect for this number of people all talking at once. :P

3

Mat's Mug

@ArtOfCode I suppose someone is going to mark the beginning/end of the event and bookmark a conversation

fredley

@Doorknob Beyond a certain threshold, a chatroom is created, but a snippet of the chat and a link to participate take the place of the normal comments area?

Shog9

Much, much underused @gnat. — Shog9 ♦ Apr 27 at 6:32

We should probably "archive" comment threads a bit more readily

3

Jon Ericson

7:15 PM

@Doorknob Are PPCG users pretty active on chat anyway?

ArtOfCode

@JonEricson Yep

PhiNotPi

@JonEricson yes

abby hairboat

This room was placed in timeout for 2 minutes; the topic of this room is "MY GOD, IT'S FULL OF STARS! Wheel of blame link bolted on for your ease of use: jsfiddle.net/Ldvwp8uv/1/embedded/result/"; - conversation should be limited to that topic.

Stay tuned! We're a distributed team but I can hear all my colleagues furiously typing responses from hundreds of miles around.

18

Jon Ericson

@ArtOfCode Yeah. That might be the big difference. Just like comments, people use chat differently on different sites.

Shog9

@randal'thor There is a chance, yes - BUT! We first need to decide what comment moderation should be.

As Abby mentioned before, lots of differing opinions on that.

abby hairboat

7:17 PM

Some procedural notes: Yes, there will be a bookmarked conversation of this chat, and we will work on the format via MSE posts (like the one that announced this event). And yes, there will be a notification when time is up.

2

Shog9

"You can now delete comments - go sort it out" doesn't really work.

4

Ana

@JonEricson Yep. Comment usage really varies depending on a site's topic.

Shog9

I'm personally a big fan of a wiki-style interaction where you can "edit" a comment thread, with full hitory... but... That'd be a big change.

Jaydles

In theory, I'd personally love to see a culture where sites try to err on the side of allowing comments to be used any way users want to until it creates problems, but ALSO understand that most comments will eventually be deleted. But I think it's really hard to do that in a way that doesn't put too much cleanup burden on mods (which isn't acceptable.)

5

Ixrec

it probably is best for comments to remain "second-class citizens" so we aren't encouraged to overuse them

Shog9

7:18 PM

@Quill as in, "lock comments on the post without locking the post?" Yes. We've wanted that for years, but it's a lot of dev work.

Vogel612's Shadow

@Shog9 it would make comments something close to first-class citizens ... the way I understood that's intentionally not the case

2

Wrzlprmft

@Shog9 I prophesise that this will totally fail on SE.

Monica Cellio

@JonEricson we use "move comments to chat" pretty heavily on Workplace. One problem is that we can't then add more comments to that chat room, so the 30 comments that come in later from people who didn't go to chat become a problem of their own.

ArtOfCode

@Jaydles is it worth having some sort of auto-delete mechanism? Haven't got any detail ideas, but as a principle.

4

Jon Ericson

We encourage moderators to purge comments when they get out of hand for one reason or another. It’s easy enough to undelete valuable comments, if needed. But it requires people to respect each other's decisions or a mechanism for arbitrating differences if we made it open to other users.

fredley

7:18 PM

I think one of the issues is that comments that have been moved to chat are 'gone' from the question - and comments can still be added. Once a chat migration has been performed, automagically or otherwise, that should be the only way to interact, and at least the last few messages should appear under the post instead of the comments area.

4

Quill

@Jaydles Maybe have a comment message like "Comments don't always last forever, so make them count"

Doorknob

@Vogel612'sShadow That brings up an interesting point—would comments almost be treated as answers on answers? Could there be answers on answers on answers?

Keen

@MonicaCellio It'd be nice if that action caused a link between the comments and the chat room it creates.

msh210

5 mins ago, by msh210

@MonicaCellio Purging works, though.

:-)

Ixrec

@fredley that sounds like an excellent idea

enderland

7:19 PM

@JonEricson curating 20+ comment threads is annoying and time consuming, too, though, not sure how many other sites have this problem :)

Bhargav Rao

@ArtOfCode Just like 3 flags kill an offensive comment, Make 5 flags kill a non constructive comment.

3

Andy

@ArtOfCode Or an automated process that can clean comments the community considers noise?

3

msh210

@Keen It... does?

fredley

@Quill I am against comment auto-deletion, too much useful information is in comments

3

NobodyNada

@ArtOfCode Yes, I think we need more comment deletion. Not deletion of useful comments though.

Bhargav Rao

7:20 PM

@Andy Or your auto flagger

Shog9

@Wrzlprmft without the consensus on moderation first? Of course. That's why I said we have to decide what comment moderation should look like before we can really think hard about tooling.

Jaydles

@ArtOfCode in theory auto deletion of some sort would be helpful, but it's hard to get right - lots are old, stale noise, but often an old comment is actaully saving later viewers a lot of hassle (If someone asked the OP for more detail, and none came, you know it's a waste of time to ask again, etc.)

2

Keen

@msh210 Not in a way that brings together the people who A) comment after it, and B) chat after it.

Undo

@fredley A few months of auto deletion would make people quit putting useful information in comments fairly quickly.

Jon Ericson

@enderland The Workplace is . . . unique. ;-) I tried an experiment to hide more comments there. I don’t think it slowed people down much, but it did mean more people clicked the “more comments link.

ArtOfCode

7:20 PM

Make some threshold based on votes, age, activity of the post etc

PhMgBr

I was thinking I could type a comment, then tick something that would allow the comment to be deleted automatically an arbitrary amount of time later. I'm not sure how many people would tick that box though.

NobodyNada

What about comments get auto-deleted unless they have up votes?

3

msh210

@fredley Once people know about autodeletion, they'll stop putting durable stuff there.

fredley

Often there's a slight ammendement to an SO answer in a comment that is the crucial factor in making it all work

@msh210 Hahahaha, no

Matt Ellen

@enderland purge comments isn't hard work! ;)

Jon Ericson

7:20 PM

@ArtOfCode One of my favorite ideas was a complicated scheme to hide more comments. It didn’t get implemented because we disagree internally on what purpose comments should serve. At one point Joel suggested deleting all comments after X days. I like that idea too, but it’s not going to happen.

NobodyNada

@PhMgBr Maybe make it checked by default.

Doorknob

What if there were a way to shove comments out of the way without completely deleting them?

2

Undo

@Doorknob Like moving them to chat?

2

rand al'thor

@Shog9 Maybe users could vote to delete comments in the same way as they vote to delete posts? After a certain number of votes, the comment gets deleted, but high-rep users can also view deleted comments and vote to undelete them.

Ixrec

Personally, I could support auto-deleting non-upvoted comments after X days.

3

bwDraco

7:21 PM

I'd like to see any user with at least 100 reputation have access to a "create chat room for this question" button for questions they own where they can migrate the question's comment thread to chat. It should be prominently visible so that users can easily join in. Comments should be reserved for brief discussions on questions and answers, not extended conversations.

2

Jaydles

@Quill yah, conveying that it's normal for them to be cleaned up eventually is doable in the UI; I think the actual cleanup method is what's hard on sites with much activity.

fredley

@Doorknob This. They move to chat, but they remain on the question, but the only way to interact is now via chat.

Shog9

@randal'thor there are a lot of comments

Mast

@NobodyNada A comment with upvotes isn't necessarily any better than one without, just more popular.

2

Hippalectryon

@NobodyNada IF you only keep upvoted comments, you'll likely end up with totally incoherent conversations in some cases

ArtOfCode

7:21 PM

@randal'thor viewing deleted comments is problematic

200_success

How about "click here to see auto-archived comments"?

3

enderland

@Ixrec this would destroy the ability for comments on SO to be useful when information is outdated/etc. those are really useful there

Mat's Mug

RE: 200 message ago - how about a [discuss this Q&A] button somewhere on the page, that brings up a chatroom dedicated to a given question and its answer?

Wrzlprmft

@randal'thor After a certain number of votes, the comment gets deleted, – that’s already the case.

Double AA

Any chance users will be able to see their own deleted comments on a post, or at least a notification that they have such comments, or at least such a notification for 24 hours after deletion? That way people don't complain that stuff is going missing suddenly.

4

ArtOfCode

7:21 PM

Viewing non-mod-deleted comments might work, though.

NobodyNada

@Hippalectryon Right. Maybe we should keep replies too.

Ixrec

@enderland again: non-upvoted

Double AA

@Ixrec That'd leave a lot of obsolete responses and such for manual cleanup.

PhMgBr

@Doorknob This would be a good idea. A main concern of people on ELL is that wrong answers posted as comments appear on top of all answers, no matter the vote of the answer.

Mogsdad

@bwDraco How many questions by 100+ rep users NEED discussion, compared to the first-timers? Seems back-assward to me.

enderland

7:22 PM

@Ixrec most older posts get fairly few views from registered SO users

Undo

@Ixrec Yeah, there are ways to do it sanely. I tend to agree with you.

Doorknob

@Ixrec That could become problematic on smaller sites

Shog9

@randal'thor In theory, this already exists: a sufficient number of flags will delete a comment without a moderator. But rarely do comments get that many flags unless blatantly offensive.

fredley

@200_success Does this solve any problems though? It clears up clutter from the page, but is there any other benefit?

Quill

@Jaydles I think the fear of that happening is probably powerful enough for people to change without a auto-deletion or threshold feature backing it

Jaydles

7:22 PM

@NobodyNada up votes as a filter for comments isn't very consistent. The most upvoted comments are frequently jokes or snark.

13

NobodyNada

We can always test auto-deletion by greying out comments that the system thinks should be deleted (maybe only for users that opted in to it though.)

3

fredley

@Jaydles Simple, we just ban fun

Jon Ericson

@Ixrec Upvoting correlates with interesting and funny. It's not always possible to separate the wheat from the weeds.

Bhargav Rao

@Shog9 Does it exist for non-constructive flagged comments also? (or only for offensive?)

Keen

@Shog9 Maybe a new flag: 'purge these comments' After enough people use it, all the comments on the post are purged.

Jaydles

7:22 PM

@fredley people are having fun here?!?! WHERE?

Ana

Hypothetical question for mods: What would happen if comments were deactivated on your site?

4

NobodyNada

@Jaydles Right, I'm really not sure what exactly the filters should be.

Ixrec

@Jaydles agreed, but comment upvotes are similar to regular upvotes: the most upvotes are earned by totally random posts, but the presence of at least one upvote versus no upvotes at all is a very strong indicator of something that's at least not totally worthless

Doorknob

@Ana Everything explodes

2

Undo

@Ana On SO? The server that runs meta would probably melt.

2

bwDraco

7:23 PM

@Mogsdad 100 rep is the threshold for creating a chat room.

Keen

@Ana Alot of crap answers would be posted.

S.L. Barth

@Ana We'd get even more comments posted as answers. (SO).

2

Quill

@DoubleAA That will just create more "Why was my comment deleted" posts on Meta like we get at the moment for deleted and closed posts

Jon Ericson

@Ana We didn’t start out with comments. During much of the private beta, there were only questions and answers. Comments were added because people were trying to discuss answers in other answers. You can still find these answers if you look at early questions. It's messy.

fredley

@Ana The quality of content would drop, due to the inability to request extra information and clarification - which is usually added after such a request. Answers would also contain what was previously in comments - mod nightmare.

2

Vogel612's Shadow

7:23 PM

meta-question to the procedures ... Can we have more stars for this???

3

ArtOfCode

@Ana I have no way to communicate why I've closed questions or deleted answers that don't meet the quality standards. Bad things, in other words.

2

200_success

@Ana Without comments, then people would make all kinds of inappropriate edits.

3

enderland

@Ana rioting - img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2008/athens_riots/…

Andy

@Ana Disabled completely? That'd be bad. Many questions get the comment asking for clarification which is important.

Doorknob

(More serious note: comments are heavily used on PPCG for clarification, additional questions, improvement to specification, etc. etc... although, yes, I realize we're an outlier)

2

Monica Cellio

7:24 PM

@msh210 that's what we do, and we get a fair bit of backlash for purging 'em. We're not going to stop purging, but it gets a little tedious.

Ixrec

@Ana Programmers.SE would be viewed as even more unwelcoming because we'd have no way of explaining to people why we have to close all of their bad questions

2

Wrzlprmft

@Ana New users wouldn’t get any guidance any more, stay away, the site would decline.

3

Undo

@ArtOfCode This is a good point.

rand al'thor

@Keen What if there's a whole load of purgeable comments and one or two really useful ones?

msh210

@Ana More Qs would be closed as unclear. More 2nd-party edits to Qs and As.

yo'

7:24 PM

@Ana not a mod but I can reply nontheless for TeX - LaTeX I think: we would get a lot of crap answers and people doing worse job, because we tend to comment on other people's answers (especially newcomers' ones) showing how to do stuff right. It's crucial for community moderation.

2

W5VO

Part of our problem with the 20+ comment thread is that most times it is clarification or added information (sometimes critical information). Delete these comments without incorporating the information and you've lost information. And good luck getting users to edit the question with the new information.

Doorknob

@Wrzlprmft Yes this. It would be the difference between "question salvaged and even upvoted" and "question nuked, user never comes back."

rand al'thor

@Ana Way way way more non-answers posted as answers, probably.

3

Cindy Meister

@Doorknob Same on SO...

Keen

@randal'thor Then they'd better be real useful if they justify keeping around. Comments aren't meant to be permanent.

Quill

7:25 PM

@Doorknob There's many sites with the "comment for clarifications and/or improvements" philosophy, not just you guys

Undo

I'm not sure it's crucial, but there is some good that comes from comments that isn't easily available in other mediums.

Mat's Mug

no comments allowed == bad welcoming experience. I've downvoted and hammer-closed questions where, because of comments, OP was actually thankful and happy, and later came back with a good post.

7

fredley

@Keen Developer intent and actual usage vary by a large margin on this one

Bhargav Rao

Remove comments and increase flags (as there'll be too many NAAs) -- Bad consequence

Jaydles

@W5VO what's the harm those threads are causing? (Not doubting it - digging in to how to attack it.)

PhMgBr

7:25 PM

@Ana Comments have been the main source of guidance where I come from. With no comments, many new users on sites like Chem can never get started due to steep learning curve which is because of the special formatting the site uses. (Disclaimer: Not a mod)

Double AA

@Ana A lot more flagging and downvoting. People would need a new way to say something is wrong, but would have no helpful way to say what it is exactly.

Keen

@fredley Yeah, as in all things, different SE sites use things differently.

Doorknob

@Quill Yeah, I'm having trouble wording things properly while playing level 10,000 of Tetris via chat at the same time

2

enderland

@Jaydles on workplace makes it really hard to clarify questions and allows a lot of answering/opining-without-being-voted-on stuff

bwDraco

Add a "discuss this question on chat" link.

W5VO

7:25 PM

@Jaydles Probably the main thing is that new users to the post need to wade through 20+ comments in order to understand what is going on, which isn't a great experience.

Jon Ericson

@W5VO On Documentation, we are starting with "improvement requests" as a sorta hybrid between comments and flags. They get resolved by editing. We'll see if we end up adding comments later. ;-)

Quill

@Doorknob Today is like three months worth of normal Tavern conversations

Ana

@PhMgBr So you think comments help new users navigate the SE learning curve?

Ixrec

the responses so far make it sound like a lot of sites consider comments very useful if not essential for educating new users and ensuring post quality, that's at least one good takeaway from all this

Shog9

@enderland My thoughts on this

Matt Ellen

7:26 PM

@Ana theoretically we'd have more crap answers to delete on single word requests and people who do post crap answers couldn't be told why and so correct the answer. On the other hand there would be fewer flame wars. Mostly there would be less space for clarification unless there was a place to direct the frustration (away from the "Your Answer" box)

fredley

I'm not convinced this isn't just a way of stress-testing chat

6

Gilles

@Jaydles mainly two things: the one or two useful comments (pointing out flaws in the answer) are buried in digressions and jokes and other irrelevancy, and (when the post author isn't a participant) they bother the post author

bwDraco

Strong integration between chat and the main site is a necessity if comments are spinning out of control.

Doorknob

@Quill This is the first time I've ever seen something starred which doesn't actually subsequently appear on the starboard

abby hairboat

@Quill @Doorknob @fredley let's keep the meta-conversation to a minimum for the sake of the pace, if you please (a rule I am also breaking at present)

3

Ixrec

7:26 PM

@fredley me neither, but at least it's an entertaining stress test

enderland

@Shog9 I agree, but plenty of people seem to disagree and complain about their precious comments

Tim Stone

@fredley Nah, I already did that once by accident

Shog9

people complain about everything all the time

3

Jaydles

@W5VO well, flags just indicate that someone THINKS it shouldn't happen. Sounds like the "WHY it shouldn't" is that the signal trapped there is in too much noise.

yo'

@Gilles depends on the site of course :)

Andy

7:27 PM

@Shog9 According to bluefeet's numbers, SO had 200K+ comment flags last year. I think a lot of those could be eliminated with either a process that cleans up old unvoted comments or can be automatically identified.

4

Undo

Realistically, I suspect I could go script-delete every one of the 169 flagged comments on SO right now, and no one would complain. Does that mean I should? Probably not. But it gives a window on how many comments aren't useful, and how accurate flags tend to be.

yo'

@Shog9 you're always mean </complain>

Undo

I couldn't do that with post flags.

Hippalectryon

@Ana In Maths SE also, comments are crucial in some questions to estimate the level of the OP and give an appropriate answer actually aimed at his problem (which might not actually be the problem he thought it was).

Grace Note

@fredley It's not unlike several other things we've called "Town Halls" in chat in the past, in terms of activity length.

Jaydles

7:27 PM

But that suggests that the MAIN problem isn't too many bad comments, so much as that the critical ones can't be made visible. (Which should be solvable through edits in some, but not all cases.)

Mogsdad

@Andy I would gladly mark my own moderating comments as "delete after x days".

Quill

What's the thought on reducing the threshold for the mod notification on comment threads?

4

Jon Ericson

@Undo s/Probably/Definately/

enderland

@Jaydles answers/opinions in comments are, imo, bad in general too

fredley

@GraceNote True, the pace is noticeably higher than anything I've seen before though

Doorknob

7:28 PM

@Quill There's already an auto "20 comments" flag

msh210

@Hippalectryon But those are very ephemeral comments. And only on Qs. We need comments for the same purpose on Mi Yodeya.

Doorknob

However, it is really quite useless

3

Wrzlprmft

@Quill Already exists

Shog9

@Andy I agree. I'm a particularly huge fan of the automatic thing. @DavidRobinson has done some preliminary research into identifying troublesome comments as well, with this end in mind.

3

yo'

@Wrzlprmft @Quill my point.

PhMgBr

7:28 PM

@Ana A new user doesn't have to dig in many meta posts to find meta posts about FAQ about MathJax and markdown formatting, homework policy, policy on nomenclature questions etc. when I comment and tell them about this stuff. The chance that they'll cooperate highly increases.

2

W5VO

What about adding a mod action of converting a comment (or comments) to an edit?

4

Doorknob

I feel like it could be a lot more helpful if it were scaled to the rest of the activity of the question

yo'

@Doorknob Then it should be improved

Shog9

Also, get yourself elected moderator already, @Andy. You could just solve this entire problem.

6

Doorknob

If a question gets to #1 on HNQ, of course it's gonna have a lot of comments. Same if it has a bunch of answers—that probably indicates lots of people are seeing it

yo'

7:29 PM

@W5VO How would you do that?

3

abby hairboat

This room was placed in timeout for 2 minutes; the topic of this room is "MY GOD, IT'S FULL OF STARS! Wheel of blame link bolted on for your ease of use: jsfiddle.net/Ldvwp8uv/1/embedded/result/"; - conversation should be limited to that topic.

Jaydles

@enderland right, totally, but if they're legit answers, they can be... answers. If they're challenging a point in another answer (that can be responded to or refuted with an edit), I feel like they're helpful often?

Shog9

^^^ THIS is the crux of the issue - we don't know when comments are useful and when they're not (or even when they're harmful).

8

Jon Ericson

@W5VO I thought about that a few years ago. In principle, it makes a lot of sense. But it's really hard to make work correctly And really, edits should just be edits and not comments at all.

4

We have an answer -> comment mechanism, but that because new people sometimes leave good comments as answers. Anyone can suggest an edit.

Shog9

We can't make effective decisions on how to moderate comments because - as a rule - we have zero signal on whether or not they're helpful. We did a ton of research into this a few years back (with the end-goal of finding a way to hide noise) and came up empty-handed.

fredley

7:31 PM

What about an auto-flagging mechanism that employs some basic sentiment analysis?

5

Double AA

@JonEricson What's so hard? Just append the text at the end. Mods will know that and use it when appropriate.

Shog9

It is, I must confess, incredibly frustrating.

Hippalectryon

@msh210 Those comments are also often made by the OP on the answers when they are beyond his level. They are indeed ephemeral, but they're necessary to understand afterward why the answer given might be different than the one expected.

2

Vogel612's Shadow

@W5VO too much interaction necessary. flag handling isn't suited for that and basically it's not an exceptional thing. it's nothing that needs mods to intervene. Make the community do it

Mast

@fredley Let's fix the current filters first before implementing more of those.

msh210

7:31 PM

@W5VO Great idea in theory but implementation would be very difficult -- edits are usually within the text.

Jon Ericson

@Shog9 Here, for instance.

fredley

@Mast Maybe the fix is just better filters

Monica Cellio

Comments are very important on Worldbuilding too. Often people don't know that they've left out critical info; we need to be able to ask those clarifying questions.

Ana

Is there anyone who feels like comments are working great on their site?

10

yo'

@Shog9 one option: go the facebook way and separate "useful" and "I like" comment stars

Doorknob

7:32 PM

@Shog9 Can the purpose of comments be summarized in a few words instead of a big list ("ask for clarification," "suggest improvements," etc.)? That could possibly help.

yo'

@Ana Yes, Me. (TeX - LaTeX)

Shog9

@JonEricson yeah - Hey folk, tons of good discussion on comment analysis in these two meta posts if you haven't seen 'em:

27

Q: How can we measure the cost of displaying comments?

As you can see from Jay's answer we have some internal disagreements about how much signal we lose from displaying comments and, more critically, how much hiding that signal would cost. I waved my hands by suggesting that we will "increase our information density" if we hide more comments, but t...

discussion comments testing

NobodyNada

We can come up with clear guidelines for what's useful and what's not, and have users up/down vote comments based on their usefulness.

Ana

And which site is it?

Joseph Wright

@Ana Yup, fine for us (TeX)

Doorknob

7:32 PM

@Ana That's hard to answer without anything to compare the status quo to

fredley

@Ana Generally yes, but the issue is usually bad commenters rather than bad comments

Mast

@Ana Yes, on Code Review they work awesome!

Shog9

127

Q: Hide trivial comments

Update: this particular implementation has been abandoned for now, please help us measure the cost of displaying comments instead. If you look around the internet, you'll find that: 99.9 percent of comments are either spam, off-message or simply wasted electrons.—ithacaindy (Obviously pa...

feature-request status-declined comments

Jaydles

@fredley I'd like some kind of sentiment signal. Most comments are civil, but most incivility on the site comes out in comments.

Ixrec

@Ana I have no problem at all with comments on our site (Programmers.SE). I'm honestly not sure why it's such a high priority here.

Vogel612's Shadow

7:32 PM

@Ana let's say "acceptable", at least on Code Review

Jon Ericson

@DoubleAA Ugh. Like all those "Updated:" banners people use?

Double AA

@msh210 Appending it at the end is valid, even if awkward, which is a great motivator for users to further edit.

Gilles

@Ana Yes. Emacs, French Language have no problem with comments. They are small sites. This is not a coincidence.

user1228

@Ana I don't think there's really that much of a problem on Stack Overflow :/

Lynn Crumbling

@Ana They work very well on mechanics

user1228

7:33 PM

Maybe I'm the wacko who thinks comments are pretty much okay?

Hippalectryon

@Ana ChemSE

PhMgBr

The difference in the amount of OP's cooperation when the CV's are commented and not commented on is very visible too @Ana. See this.

fredley

@Jaydles Yes, and it's not usually to do with quantity. Maybe sentiment analysis over a user's comments, rather than a post's would be more useful

Double AA

@JonEricson Ugly, but it teaches appropriate procedure, and the awkwardness is a great motivator for them to further edit.

Quill

@Ana Comments work great on sites where personal experience isn't a potential factor of your answer, otherwise everybody and their dog wants to give their two cents

2

Bhargav Rao

7:33 PM

@JonEricson Something like a horizontal line and then follows it.

rand al'thor

Would it be possible to change the current system for comment visibility, i.e. not make it depend on which comments are oldest or highest voted? (Sorry, I don't have a clear alternative suggestion right now.)

200_success

@Ana I think that comments are fine on all the technical sites.

Jon Ericson

@DoubleAA Purging comments could also motivate edits in that case. ;-)

Jaydles

w/r/t comments usefulness overall, I'd say on every site I'm on much, they do WAY more good than harm. But the harm can be burdensome, especially on the mods.

fredley

Jefromi

7:33 PM

@Ana I think they're... okay on cooking. Not that many runaway discussions, we delete a fair amount anyway, now and then ruffled feathers due to that.

NobodyNada

IMO, whatever we decide to do with comments, we first need to decide which comments are and aren't useful.

Matt Ellen

@Ana I feel comments work well for improving posts. But they're not just used for that, and half the time comments are either noise or unsubstantiated answers.

Shog9

@randal'thor short answer: yes, but not trivial and expect a huge amount of both technical and social resistance.

Double AA

@JonEricson Not really. If I say "where did you see that quote" and they respond "see Genesis 1:1" I can't just delete the response.

2

Bhargav Rao

How Long will we discuss only one topic?

2

yo'

7:34 PM

The point is: we have a group of active users who not only actively moderate the site (mod hammer is always never used), but also actively moderate the moderation, discussing issues in chat etc. And remember that while we're not huge, we're not really small either, and this is possible.

Quill

@BhargavRao Comments is the topic of this meeting

user1228

@BhargavRao chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/4881690#4881690

Mast

@NobodyNada Many comments are good the moment they're placed and obsolete within 48h. We got an 'obsolete' flag for that, which works relatively well.

NobodyNada

@BhargavRao Comments are todays topic.

PhMgBr

@Ana Comments are pretty great in Chem.SE. It might be because many high rep users there are professional chemists or graduate students and hence they value order and don't feel free to misuse the feature whenever they can. 's another reason I asked for some data on which sites complain the most and the least about comments.

fredley

7:34 PM

@BhargavRao As long as it takes

2

Jaydles

@randal'thor I don't know what's better, but agree with you - the current way it picks which to show seems to be somewhere between neutral to slightly adverse in its selection.

Doorknob

@DoubleAA You can delete yours and flag the other as obsolete, but that prevents future visitors from seeing the information (when it's more important, it could be edited into the post)

rand al'thor

@Ana I don't think they're much of a problem on SFF. We get the occasional "20 or more comments in the last 3 days" flag, but nothing too ridiculous.

enderland

is there any chance that users could get notifications (that moderators only can trigger) when their comments are deleted, with some sort of feedback?

3

PhMgBr

It seems audience plays a major role in how the site handles comments.

Double AA

7:35 PM

@Doorknob That's why I'd like to have a "convert to edit" feature.

bwDraco

20 mins ago, by Doorknob

@bwDraco Are you proposing one chatroom per question? (As in, people don't have to explicitly create it; it automatically is upon posting the question?)

Kinda, but not exactly. The room would be generated upon request of the OP, a moderator, or perhaps a high reputation user, or when there are enough comments on the question or any of its answers.

Ixrec

@enderland sounds like a great way to encourage touchy users to create more drama out of nothing

5

abby hairboat

@BhargavRao today is all comments all the time; suggestions for future topics should go on meta

Mast

@enderland Wouldn't that put extra pressure on moderators?

Quill

12 mins ago, by Quill

@DoubleAA That will just create more "Why was my comment deleted" posts on Meta like we get at the moment for deleted and closed posts

NobodyNada

7:35 PM

@Mast I never remember to flag comments. I'm just not in a habit of it, which probably means we need to encourage it more.

W5VO

@JonEricson All that does is piss off everyone participating in the comment thread, and it doesn't improve the question.

Jon Ericson

@DoubleAA I also don't much care for making this another moderator action. Seems like pointless busy work when people should be learning to edit.

enderland

@Ixrec as a moderator, it's annoying that we can't tell people "this isn't really a good comment" since comment deletions are silent. I'd LOVE a "this was deleted as offensive" type of notification other than suspending someone/mod messaging them

PhMgBr

@enderland Can't imagine this being used often.

Bhargav Rao

@abbyhairboat thanks, I thought we discuss all the answers there.

Jaydles

7:36 PM

@enderland pushing users notices that their stuff was deleted has historically NOT made mods and others' lives easier. :)

6

enderland

there is no ability to scale moderator notifications to users with commenting problems

Jon Ericson

@W5VO Surprising how often people don't notice.

Ixrec

@enderland ah, yes, the option to send users a message about a bad comment would be a good thing

Double AA

@JonEricson How do you teach them? If a mod does it once or twice they might (pray!) learn

2

fredley

@Ixrec This. Usually I'm deleting comments due to an overabundance of drama. Stealth is key.

Ixrec

7:36 PM

requiring it on every deletion not so much

enderland

randomly getting a mod message about your commenting style is bad for everyone

2

Matt Ellen

EL&U very occasionally gets meta threads about deleted comments, but mostly our members accept that mods deleted comments at will.

Ixrec

it sounds like mods and non-mods simply need more power to do comment-related things in general

W5VO

@JonEricson If they're working out technical details, they notice. Bickering back and forth, they usually get the idea.

Shog9

MOAR POWA

Mast

7:37 PM

@NobodyNada I've seen SE sites where old comments are almost never removed, they prefer it that way I guess.

Ixrec

no one seems to know of any network-wide problems with comments

Jon Ericson

@DoubleAA Ironically, more comments. Or, if it's the OP, I sometimes demonstrate by editing myself.

Mogsdad

@DoubleAA Automatic comment ban "you've had x comments mod-deleted because y. Smarten up."

Vogel612's Shadow

@Mast or mods don't get around to it, or noone flags those. You're assuming all the wrong things here, I think

Doorknob

Crazy idea: What if comments were segregated according to their purpose? I'm thinking separate sections for "clarification requests," "suggestions," etc.

6

PhMgBr

7:37 PM

I've seen it quite some times when comment moderation was interpreted as censorship or even "supporting the high-rep and removing crime evidence".

Shog9

@Ixrec can we define "Lightness" as a network-wide comment problem?

Undo

Comments might not be something we can solve at the network level, given the disparity in how they're used between sites.

fredley

Attempts to engage the community on Arqade to flag certain types of troublesome comments have been successful

Ana

@Doorknob This is interesting!

Vogel612's Shadow

@Shog9 shush, no singling out users :D

Ixrec

7:38 PM

@Shog9 umm...do we really want to go there?

yo'

@fredley Good to hear!

Quill

@Doorknob That sounds like a horrible UI experience

Shog9

@Vogel612'sShadow Hey, I didn't mention Barry at all.

Mast

@Vogel612'sShadow I've seen patterns.

bwDraco

Here on Super User I don't see lots of grossly bad comments, so I've never had to flag lots of them. The issue is how do we prevent comment threads from spiraling out of control? There are lots of marginal or bad comments but we're always told not to flag unless there's a serious problem that requires (valuable and limited) moderator attention.

Jaydles

7:38 PM

On the team, we've been using comment deletion with NO feedback more in one offs when the issue is people being just a little rude. A lecture makes them dig in and defend their tone on principle, and often its a one-off.

4

fredley

@yo' It does seem to have killed this particular issue, although it's much harder to end up on HNQs these days due to so many other sites.

Double AA

@JonEricson More comments is one tact. But they might just ignore it. Should I threaten to flag/delete their comment if they don't bother to edit??

PhMgBr

@fredley That I think is because of an active meta. More apathetic metas usually fail to pull stuff like this off.

fredley

@PhMgBr Yeah, we have a critical mass of highly engaged users who frequent both chat and meta, making this sort of thing easy to do

rand al'thor

Would it be possible for a comment flag to go first to the user who posted the comment, and then to the mods if they don't delete their own comment?

7

Jon Ericson

7:39 PM

@DoubleAA Why threaten?

rand al'thor

This is actually something I've been thinking of posting as a feature-request on main meta.

msh210

@JonEricson You don't wanna just lose the info if it's useful.

Double AA

@JonEricson You mean just do it, and they'll learn?

PhMgBr

@randal'thor No no no no!

Monica Cellio

Temporary comment bans, like review bans, might help in some cases. It's not the per-comment feedback @enderland mentioned, but it's signal and stops the bleeding in some cases.

3

fredley

7:40 PM

@randal'thor No!

Shog9

@randal'thor what behavior would you expect from this?

Jon Ericson

@DoubleAA Yeah. Pretty much.

Bhargav Rao

Comment Bans, Just like question Bans; If lot's of mod deleted comments, then ban

2

yo'

@randal'thor need to be well thought

Vogel612's Shadow

@randal'thor sounds like it could be useful for obsolete comments. For the rest? not so great idea I think.

yo'

7:40 PM

@Shog9 self-reflection, self-teaching (or how do you call it)

PhMgBr

"I knowz you flagged this you ##%^%$#"

yo'

@PhMgBr could be triggered by some threshold, like 3 flags

Matt Ellen

@Shog9 for the user to delete their comment

fredley

@PhMgBr 90% of the time two arguing users are just going to flag each other's comments and escalate the conflict

user1228

If somebody bans me from commenting, I'll kill this puppy

abby hairboat

7:41 PM

This room was placed in timeout for 2 minutes; the topic of this room is "MY GOD, IT'S FULL OF STARS! Wheel of blame link bolted on for your ease of use: jsfiddle.net/Ldvwp8uv/1/embedded/result/"; - conversation should be limited to that topic.

There's no single right answer on comments (as we can tell by how disjointed and boisterous this conversation is). The way they are used varies between communities and there isn't even consensus within the Community Team. To wit... Lots of comment-related feature requests have been shot down over the years simply because this is an ongoing debate across the board.

2

Jon Ericson

So we've had a number of goes at fixing comments and it's just been hard to agree on what to do next. In case you missed it, I got a lot of traction on this:

127

Q: Hide trivial comments

Update: this particular implementation has been abandoned for now, please help us measure the cost of displaying comments instead. If you look around the internet, you'll find that: 99.9 percent of comments are either spam, off-message or simply wasted electrons.—ithacaindy (Obviously pa...

feature-request status-declined comments

Shog9

25

A: If you really want to reduce the snark level

So, the death of WSOIN was intended to help reduce the snarky comment level. No, not really. It's intended to slow its increase. Listen... I'm actually not extremely worried about the people who are setting out to be rude, at least on Stack Overflow. The bit that worries me about WSOIN, wh...

34

Q: Automatically hide old comments

Comments are useful. Many, many posts need some small amount of meta discussion, and comments fulfill this need. Comments are also noisy and distracting. Occasionally, someone will post an insightful and informative comment that complements the post its attached to... But more often, they're ta...

feature-request comments

Previous discussions of roughly the same thing, which also went nowhere

2

1

Q: Hide most comments on "old" Stack Overflow posts

Proposal For Stack Overflow, I suggest the following modification: For the first X days of a post's existence, comments are displayed as they are now. X should be set based on the number of days an open question is likely to be active on the site. After X days, all comments associated with ...

feature-request comments

Jon Ericson

A big part of the problem is that every site has a different comment culture.

4

S.L. Barth

@BhargavRao I suggest comment suspension instead of comment ban.

enderland

@JonEricson I think this is really the fundamental problem

Gilles

7:43 PM

27

Q: Obsolete comment flags should notify the original commenter in advance of moderators

Simple enough: The OP is the best judge of whether the comment is obsolete, and has no particular incentive to be unscrupulous in leaving an old comment - and even if they did, chances are this feature will lead to more obsolete comments being cleaned up than status quo in my estimation Right n...

feature-request comments comment-flags obsolete-information

Jon Ericson

And, while I tend to devalue comments, other's find them vital.

bwDraco

I think tighter chat integration is probably the best answer.

2

Shog9

@JonEricson Right: folks have widely varying opinions on what constitutes a problem with comments.

86

Q: Make comment flags less stupid

I'm sick of comment flags, and I'm pretty sure everyone else is too. They've been a problem for five years, and they're just getting worse. Don't get me wrong: rude/vulgar/stupid comments are a plague. We don't want this to be YouTube, and know good and well it could easily go that route. But th...

feature-request comments flags 10k-tools comment-flags

yo'

Idea: Implement a "funny but irrelevant flag" for comments. If a post gets enough of these, people are warned not to post funny/irrelevant flags.

Double AA

@JonEricson I guess it depends how interested in being yelled at i'm feeling that day. Also, removing important info to teach a lesson seems against my job.

David Arenburg

7:43 PM

@Shog9 One should never reduce the snark level

msh210

@JonEricson Yeah, but that's a meta problem not a substantive problem. I mean, it's a problem with creating rules, not with having a good site.

fredley

@bwDraco Yup, I'm heavily pro this

rand al'thor

@Shog9 Less work for the mods. Notice that I'm not suggesting the comment poster gets first choice at any decision; if they don't want to delete their comment, then it goes to the mods anyway.

3

Ixrec

6 mins ago, by Ixrec

it sounds like mods and non-mods simply need more power to do comment-related things in general

fredley

@Ixrec Disagree, we can edit, delete, lock, migrate. What more is there?

rand al'thor

7:44 PM

@Vogel612'sShadow Sure, restrict it to 'obsolete' flags then.

Bhargav Rao

@S.L.Barth I meant just like question ban, But yeah suspension sounds better

Ixrec

@yo' that's gonna depend heavily on the comment culture, e.g. I'd be heavily against this on SFF

user271002

@fredley search

yo'

@Ixrec but the culture is in the hands of the people who (don't) flag, right?

S.L. Barth

@BhargavRao Ban is "until you improve". Suspension is for a limited time.

Ixrec

7:44 PM

@fredley you can, no one else can, and there's been half a dozen feature requests in this chat already for things mods can't do

Jon Ericson

@msh210 I think our tools make a pretty good compromise right now. They aren't ideal, but they are near a local maximum.

fredley

Could we impose a comment-ban on users?

6

Monica Cellio

Also relevant (and why comments have been on my mind):

31

Q: Can we add some friction for exploding comment threads?

One of my sites has a long-standing comment problem. When a CM collected stats for us in 2014, 2.1% of our posts had more than 50 comments. That's absurd, and the problem has continued. Moderators spend way too much time dealing with comments and flags on comments and complaints on meta about ...

discussion comments

Undo

@fredley Are you asking for a moderator tool?

Shog9

the problem is the three different reactions that folks here predicted (with good cause).

1) rage is what we've ACTUALLY SEEN in the past when showing folks flags on their stuff
2) Self-reflection is good
3) Deletion *might* be good, might just allow bullying

Ana

7:45 PM

@fredley @MonicaCellio asked the same thing.

fredley

@Undo Yes, a moderator ability

@Ana :(

Bhargav Rao

@fredley Exactly, Comment Suspension as @S.L.Barth mentioned

Shog9

@fredley why not just a full-on ban?

fredley

@Shog9 Because with some users, commenting is the only problem.

5

yo'

@Shog9 because you don't want to completely lose that IQ 170 badass?

Bhargav Rao

7:46 PM

@Shog9 If there are lots of mod deleted comments by the user, then comment ban/suspension

rand al'thor

@Shog9 Is abusing comments enough of a reason to ban someone from participating at all?

2

Matt Ellen

@Shog9 because they provide useful content but crap commentary?

Ana

@Shog9 and it's easy for new users to misunderstand the purpose of comments

2

Andy

@randal'thor Depends on what they are doing.

PhMgBr

Question for @all, is any of us okay with >+100 funny comments under the post which are 99% of the time just funny?

yo'

7:46 PM

@Ana you should never ban new users other than for posting real crap/spam

2

PhMgBr

Or do we want to get rid of them?

2

Monica Cellio

@Shog9 we have otherwise-productive high-rep users who just should not be allowed near a comment box.

Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2

Yah! It's beat-up on @Shog9 time :D Sorry, just another useless comment.

Shog9

Keen

@PhMgBr I'm fine with them for a 'short' time frame, but the joke loses usefulness after a few months.

Jon Ericson

7:47 PM

@DoubleAA I was actually thinking that automated deletion is a good motivator. But sometimes it's easier as a moderator to purge and undelete actually useful comments.

Shog9

See, that's the kind of succinct reasoning someone needs to put into a Feature Request. Not the usual "do this because I say so" or "here's a two-page essay on why everything sucks".

Matt Ellen

@Shog9 you're very popular

Quill

What's the thought on "comment protecting" a post after a certain threshold relating to question views has been reached?

fredley

@MonicaCellio Yup, this. Also an inability to be civil shouldn't necessarily prevent people from seeking help

NobodyNada

@PhMgBr I don't think funny comments are useful; they belong in chat.

2

Gilles

7:47 PM

@Shog9 I want this for obsolete flags, not from other kinds of flags. On Computer Science, we have a culture of flagging obsolete comments, and obsolete comments flags are almost always correct (discussions of possible improvements to the post that have been edited in). Other comment flag reasons get a lot of misuse, but not that.

rand al'thor

@Shog9 You see message ID as well as time stamp? TIL.

PhMgBr

@Keen So they again fall into the "at most good for a short period of time" period.

SNAFU

Heads up: we will be testing http://stackoverflow.com behind a different proxy provider in a few moments. Shout if you see anything crazy.

Tweeted by Nick_Craver on May 5, 2016 at 7:41 PM

Shog9

@randal'thor userscript

Cindy Meister

@PhMgBr Not everyone agrees on what is "funny", and as far as the Q&A goes, those are just noise. I flag to delete - always.

Doorknob

7:48 PM

Earlier I suggested both providing a method for shoving comments out of the way that's not deletion, and segregating comments based on their purpose. Now I'm thinking of a combination of those ideas...

What if comments were separated into "active discussion" and "resolved but still relevant/useful"?

yo'

@Quill impossible. Sometimes bug appears, people want small modifications, or really have something new to say.

Jaydles

@PhMgBr wrt lots of funny comments, depends on the site and post, IMO. I don't mind that on a light-hearted meta post, or even an answer on a site that has a culture that supports it. That said, 100 jokes below an SO question that push a needed answer to page 3 is obviously a problem.

4

ɥʇǝS

@Ana yes. They seem to work just fine on Ask Ubuntu.

Quill

@yo' It can be site specific, comment protecting on a Workplace answer has a drastically different effect than on SO

fredley

@Jaydles Yup, see my earlier post on combating this issue on Arqade

Shog9

7:49 PM

@Gilles so this would essentially be a way of saying, "confirm your comment is obsolete"?

Double AA

Can't we just put some comment flags in a review queue for 10k? Pick whichever is least controversial: obsolete?

Gilles

@Shog9 yes

NobodyNada

Am I the only one (on SO) who doesn't flag comments anywhere near as much as I should?

enderland

@DoubleAA this is a horrible idea for Workplace (and a few other sites I'm on)

S.L. Barth

@DoubleAA Please, not more review queues.

Undo

7:50 PM

@DoubleAA Main problem is that there are usually other comments around the ones that got flagged which need do go.

yo'

@Quill but I mean, you want to kill rages and useless "fun" comments, right? Not all comments

Andy

@NobodyNada I flag comments...

a lot

fredley

@DoubleAA Often 10k users are the problem

3

PhMgBr

@DoubleAA Woot. No.

Ixrec

personally, I rarely see comments that need flagging of any kind

rene

7:50 PM

@Andy you are .... special...

NobodyNada

I don't flag comments at all. I know I should, but I never remember.

abby hairboat

This room was placed in timeout for 1 minute; the topic of this room is "MY GOD, IT'S FULL OF STARS! Wheel of blame link bolted on for your ease of use: jsfiddle.net/Ldvwp8uv/1/embedded/result/"; - conversation should be limited to that topic.

WHEW. ::mops brow::

So we've got about 10 minutes left. Let's flip it over to you guys... what would you like to talk about? Any other questions for our CM team or ideas you'd like to talk about?

(We probably can't dig into much in this format, but we can at least collect questions and ideas to follow up on down the line.)

Shog9

@abbyhairboat presumably things that are NOT comments...

4

abby hairboat

@Shog9 no comment

7

Vogel612's Shadow

@fredley I daresay that depends on site size and age. on SO 10k users are the problem, yea

S.L. Barth

7:51 PM

Let's talk about the procedure.

bjb568

Ayy, looks like a party here. Won't be here for the main event tho.

Keen

@abbyhairboat Got any good muffin recipes? I'd like to get into baking more.

fredley

Can we have a better set of procedures for contacting CMs, and guidance for how and when to do so?

8

Ana

What procedure?

Shog9

Let's talk about talking about the procedure: here or meta?

enderland

7:52 PM

@S.L.Barth this doesn't make sense

ɥʇǝS

@fredley yes please!

user1228

@NobodyNada I only flag abusive comments. Like actively abusive. I really don't see the need to spend much time bothering with comment moderation...

Monica Cellio

@fredley and better visibility for the thread (not just email to the initiating mod)?

rand al'thor

@Shog9 Yes, this. Whenever I see a comment flag, the first thing I ask myself is "would the user who posted this comment agree it should be deleted?" If yes, it goes. If no, I then start asking myself more questions to decide whether or not to delete it.

Vogel612's Shadow

@fredley is that mod-only? because they have the Teacher's Lounge

Double AA

7:52 PM

FWIW we already put deletion power into lower rep users in review queues. meta.stackexchange.com/a/184568/166155 There is reliability in agreeing voices.

fredley

@Vogel612'sShadow Yes

Undo

@Vogel612'sShadow yeah, but we don't always have a whole bunch of staff around

David Arenburg

Let's talk about the never ending CV queue on SO

6

S.L. Barth

@enderland I meant, if we'd talk about other things than comments, let's talk about the procedure for the Town Hall. Today was chaotic.

Quill

@abbyhairboat feature-request bring back the podcast

Doorknob

7:52 PM

I'm repeating this again, and this discussion right now is a perfect metaphor for the issue. Thing A gets posted, then a huge discussion happens about thing B—now nobody sees thing A (this message sounds very complainy in hindsight although that's not how I meant it to sound >_>)

4 mins ago, by Doorknob

What if comments were separated into "active discussion" and "resolved but still relevant/useful"?

Cititzen

Move the 'more comments' link to the top.

5

fredley

Sometimes I forget that other people aren't mods

ɥʇǝS

@DavidArenburg you expect it to end?

PhMgBr

@Won't And not the only prominent ahem person with that mindset. Sometimes I sit back and think "darn it you're right"

abby hairboat

@fredley Yes! This is something we're working furiously on behind the scenes, for mods as well as for regular and high-rep users. Releasing better guidance about what to do and when, and how you can expect us to respond, is high on the list of priorities.

ɥʇǝS

7:53 PM

that would be a bad thing..

Jon Ericson

@fredley I have my email address in my profile . . .

David Arenburg

@ɥʇǝS We have an idea

rand al'thor

@Doorknob How would such a separation be defined in practice?

Shog9

@DoubleAA problem is, how many voices do you need per comment? And how do you make this scale to a thread?

fredley

@abbyhairboat :)

abby hairboat

7:53 PM

@Quill status-planned

rene

@DavidArenburg there is a complete chat room for that ...

Ixrec

@abbyhairboat I believe that StackExchange works best when communities can be self-moderating, so a lot of the problems that I care about (and ones that I don't such as those discussed today) I think can be solved or mitigated simply by giving more power to the users. In particular, I think some of the things only CMs can do should become regular mod powers, and some of the things only mods can do should become high-rep user powers. Does this align at all with the "official" SE/CM philosophy?

4

David Arenburg

Give me unlimited power and I delete all the things

canon

Have I missed anything Stack-Snippet™ related in this massive cluster**** of activity?

yo'

@fredley like me (you see, I don't need to be a mod to do moderation :-) )

enderland

7:53 PM

@JonEricson I think "everyone email Jon" is the wrong takeaway here :)

msh210

@DavidArenburg Let's not. That can be in a SO-specific chat.

Doorknob

@randal'thor I haven't thought about the actual implementation at all

fredley

@JonEricson brb, signing up @JonEricson for CAT FACTS

Ixrec

@canon nope

ɥʇǝS

@Ixrec I agree with this

Bhargav Rao

7:53 PM

We need a room for all CMs like how @JonEricson has

bjb568

This room is chaos.

2

David Arenburg

@rene The old methodology doesnt work

Double AA

@Shog9 6 like for posts? The fact that the number is arbitrary doesnt mean we can't pick one?

ɥʇǝS

@DavidArenburg that's not the solution >.>

Monica Cellio

@abbyhairboat I know that sometimes features get developed for one site (post notices for Skeptics, auto-comment collapse for Workplace, etc) that then spread. Does that just happen organically or do y'all have some way of evaluating those, or what? How might I know what's "in the hopper" on other sites?

2

bwDraco

7:54 PM

Mods and CMs are already very busy. As I said, we should have self-service for chat migration and prominent chat links. Greater chat integration would foster vibrant discussions and avoid cluttering questions. Offensive content can easily be flagged as all users with 15 reputation can access any chat room created in this fashion.

David Arenburg

@rene We need a new system

bjb568

Who thot town hall would work?

Monica Cellio

Wow, wordy. Sorry.

Quill

@BhargavRao You can usually contact a CM here

bjb568

… cause it don't.

Ixrec

7:54 PM

@bjb568 why do you think I just posted an essay-sized message to make myself more visible? =)

Cindy Meister

@Cititzen I agree!

PhMgBr

Please expand the star limit for the Town Hall event only to 80 stars.

5

Ethan Bierlein

@bjb568 lol not me

David Arenburg

@ɥʇǝS I know

NobodyNada

I think the problem is that comments aren't flagged as obsolete nearly as much as they should be.

3

PhMgBr

7:54 PM

I star-capped too soon.

canon

@Haney any chance we can have a discussion about Stack-Snippets™?

Quill

@PhMgBr Or periodically reset them

fredley

@PhMgBr If I had any stars left I would star this

enderland

I honestly think this format worked pretty well, not sure why a few of you are indicating otherwise

Undo

@canon What specifically?

S.L. Barth

7:54 PM

@PhMgBr Out of stars as well, still want to star a few things.

msh210

@PhMgBr +1

canon

@Undo console output (meta.stackexchange.com/a/279053/159427)

fredley

@PhMgBr ★

David Arenburg

We are thinking of an idea that there will people that will be mods only for the CV queue a CV-mods. That will be elected by the community like normal mods

user1228

@NobodyNada from the other side, the problem was people who didn't understand what "obsolete" meant.

ɥʇǝS

7:55 PM

I should read meta more. I only heard about this through the newsletter ~5 minutes ago.

Ixrec

what enderland said, also I think user participation is higher now for this first outing than it would be if this was a regular thing

rand al'thor

@enderland Because we have no clue of about 50% of what's been said here?

enderland

I'm glad the star limit exists because it's like voting, the more you have the less people who are not starring-all-the-things can star meaningfully

Gilles

@Doorknob Aren't they already? Resolved comments are deleted. Active discussion gets migrated to chat.

PhMgBr

@NobodyNada Exactly. That's why I think people should have something like a time bomb that removes the comment after some time.

Vogel612's Shadow

7:55 PM

@enderland there was waaay too much volume :/

hichris123

@enderland it seems it turned into a discussion on comments... which are second-class citizens. :P

Doorknob

@enderland It worked as a brainstorming session, but did not support in-depth discussion

4

ɥʇǝS

@enderland yes, but in in this specific instance we need more..

Jon Ericson

@MonicaCellio "Organic" is a good word for it. If an experiment is a wild success, we consider letting it spread.

Undo

@DavidArenburg I've been tossing that idea around for a while too, but there are a few hard issues there. You might throw together a meta post with your thoughts, though.

enderland

7:56 PM

@Doorknob how many "town halls" ever do?

NobodyNada

@PhMgBr I do too, but then the problem is preventing deleting useful comments.

Jaydles

@Ixrec well the general idea of empowering users better align with our philosophy - the whole damn thing is only doable at this scale thanks to that. As to whether your specific powers make sense to push out farther... it depends. Some things carry legal burdens and bring other problems, so that has to get weighed against the benefits.

Haney

@canon I don't want to hijack the conversation, but know that's it's on our radar for sure. We definitely want to do it, just a matter of finding time right now

Ana

@Ixrec You know, I think I can give you a blanket "yes" to that statement, but that doesn't mean that knowing what to open up doesn't require a lot of forethought. We're working hard all the time to maintain quality at scale, and it's a delicate dance.

bwDraco

We're spinning off-topic. We may need another time-out.

bjb568

7:56 PM

I can barely even read this fast.

5

David Arenburg

@Undo yeah someone already doing

I'm just raising awareness

Ixrec

@Jaydles true, the legal ones would be very bad candidates for "pushing down" as I described

PhMgBr

@Doorknob Pretty natural for a first session IMO.

abby hairboat

4-minute warning!

nhinkle

@Undo would make more sense to expand the tag badge close hammer abilities somehow

David Arenburg

7:56 PM

argh... What a mess

Doorknob

@Gilles I'm referring to comments that are useful enough to not delete, but not useful enough to cover up things that haven't been addressed yet

enderland

@bjb568 maybe I find the format ok because I read very fast :)

Quill

@bwDraco it's nearly over

rand al'thor

@bjb568 Transcript later?

fredley

Can we have a spritz plugin to help read chat faster?

Ixrec

7:57 PM

I read fast enough to keep up with this while watching Firefly =D

NobodyNada

So we need to come up with filters to auto-detect obsolete comments OR we need to get people to flag comments as obsolete more.

enderland

it's the trying to work part that makes it hard ;-)

Ana

@DavidArenburg but a glorious one

Mast

I really hope someone will sacrifice him/herself and put up a summary. A bookmark won't cut it.

Gilles

@Doorknob Unresolved comments, you mean? Keep them.

hichris123

7:57 PM

Since @Haney appears to be available, any update on meta.stackexchange.com/questions/278141/… (for another hijack ;)).

Bhargav Rao

@DavidArenburg Let's get the meta post up and runnin thn

bjb568

@randal'thor kinda defeats the purpose of chat

Quill

Can we have more periodic updates, so we know what's happening and being worked on?

7

yo'

Let's choose a smaller working group, having people of all different kinds and origins: mods, non-mods, powers, from large sites, small sites, quite sites, busy sites. Should be limited to 20 or so, and chosen meaningfully.

3

Jon Ericson

Please keep meta chatter to a minimum.

6

PhMgBr

7:57 PM

Any promises? Will anything discussed here take effect? Will any feature-requests take action?

4

Haney

@hichris123 being investigated this week actually

Shog9

@yo' can we call it a "steering committee"?

Quill

A postmortem would be nice

Shog9

'cause nothing steers like a committee

Vogel612's Shadow

@Quill nothing died

yo'

7:58 PM

@Shog9 if you wish. The point is: small group, but not only powers, and even not only mods. Can be difficult to build, but can be done probably.

msh210

@Quill Not "worked on" but "happening" is at meta.stackexchange.com/questions/59445/…

Doorknob

@Gilles No, comments that are resolved yet not worth deleting. I wish I wasn't so bad at describing things...

Bhargav Rao

What will happen after this meeting? Everyone goes home?

nhinkle

when every message is bold no comment is bold

bjb568

Oh, I just realized this thing ends, not starts, in 2m. Thank FSM.

Gilles

7:58 PM

@Shog9 you mean, the wheel group?

David Arenburg

@PhMgBr You can post a Meta and add the transcript

Matt Ellen

@BhargavRao I'm going to read a book

Bhargav Rao

@MattEllen I'm going to sleep

hichris123

@Haney I love you. Have a cookie?

Jon Ericson

@PhMgBr Maybe. But comments are a tough nut to crack. And I've tried. :-P

Ana

7:58 PM

@PhMgBr We promise to keep talking with you about how to make things better.

Doorknob

Last feature-request before I have to run: postmortem of all ideas proposed, please?

4

Haney

@hichris123 I like cookies

bjb568

Can I be part of this wheel group. I like wheels. Wheels are useful.

PhMgBr

@Ana That's . . . much better than before.

JNat

@MonicaCellio I know I said I'd get to that next week... two weeks ago. But I'll get to it next week :P We've been thinking hard about this, as @abby mentioned

canon

7:59 PM

@Haney Just to clarify, you definitely want to have a discussion... or definitely want to implement console visualization?

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