Tavern on the Meta

1:45 AM

What are y'all doing on inauguration day?

I'm expecting no skewling to happen tomorrow.

user315433

I teach two classes, sit in a 3-hour meeting, meet a former student and Skype with some folks on another continent.

user315433

Probably flag some spam and comments in between.

user315433

And eat, if possible.

user315433

2:04 AM

Someone remind me why I still post on meta from time to time...

2:25 AM

Sanity or something. Oh, wait.

Speaking of that, I can't even find an application deadline on education.wolfram.com/summer/school o_0

3:48 AM

I failed a turning test in my vocabulary assignment since the images were small o_0

Am I sentient?

user315433

4:01 AM

What kind of class is that?

user347575

huh? didn't get a census badge... (and yes, I did supply my profile details)

AFAIK, they're only partially awarded

Jon'll probably get to the rest of 'em tomorrow

user347575

ah ok - that would make sense

but for now, my demographics count and yours don't.

user347575

LOL

user347575

4:23 AM

Thank you for that @Shog9 - am happy to wait for the badge

user202362

Got a card telling me to go to the post office to pick up a parcel, me thinks it's the arrival of my underwater cam. Went there but was told that they couldn't find the item. Now waiting for their call ... I mean all those fishes & octopus & squid r waiting 4 da cam so they can be stalked by it

Journeyman Geek

4:50 AM

sounds like post officies.

(also, Hi. I just remembered this place existed, and its amusing not to be a mod on chat ;p)

angussidney

6:41 AM

!!/reboot

SmokeDetector

Goodbye, cruel world

Journeyman Geek

0_0

You killed smokey you...

;p

angussidney

Connection dropped off in CHQ, I had to think ~~long and hard~~ for 1 second before I made the decision to end it's life.... :(

user202362

7:59 AM

if not dead, then can not be resurrected ...

10:34 AM

Got to love Unity's buggy Mono implementation boxing all my foreach enumerators

and then you wonder for a while where the heck the allocations are coming from

10:50 AM

@Bart are they working on replacing Mono with .NET Core?

that should improve things I guess

Not immediately it seems. They are moving towards an updated Mono and a better GC. But they also have their IL2CPP endeavours going on. (Although I don't think that will come to PC platforms)

But it's slow ... very slow ...

I tried Mono a few years ago to run ASP.NET on Linux, and eventually I got it working, but the development experience was rather terrible

Up to date Mono versions are quite okay. Would love to move to .Net Core for some other stuff, but can't just yet. But on Unity's side we're still dealing with .Net 2.0 with a sprinkling of some more "advanced" stuff. So if they could bring that to 4.6 as they seem to be trying that would be great already

11:05 AM

Can a beta community have moderator election before graduation?

or can request?

I'd guess not, why? (Well, they could always request it of course :D )

Q: Moderator elections in beta sites?

2

Per my previous question, it seems like the beta phase of sites is continuing much longer than previously. Currently, pro-temp moderators are nominated when a site is only a few weeks old, when the site is still very new and unshaped. They continue until they are unable to moderate, or the site g...

If they are in public beta they'll move to pro tempore mods anyway

Q: Who do we ask if we want another moderator added during our beta?

8

I see from Moderator elections in beta sites? that it is possible to have additional moderators added during a site's beta. We've recently had a request from an active site member to be added as a moderator since the current three are all in North America and he's in NZ. The existing moderators (...

support beta-sites pro-tem-moderators

GHOSTBUSTERS

Ah no wait .. that's who we call

11:09 AM

thanks a lot @Bart

now the tune is stuck in my head

You're welcome

for a moment It looks this is an answer of @Bart Haha!

That's my sockpuppet ... or I'm his ... we lost track

meta.stackexchange.com/questions/… lol

It's the glasses. They sparkle like diamonds.

11:19 AM

@Stijn That sounds closer to what I'm looking for; Thanks!

> If, by any chance, there was some error in awarding the badge, please use the contact form to let us know.

So I just filled in the contact form, either I'm one of the 10 who failed at filling that field properly, or something else went wrong...

11:35 AM

Didn't get it either

And it says 884 awarded for the badge count

Not 885

Makes me wonder if my input was registered at all

11:48 AM

I... still don't see Census on Badge's main page.

@qwer nvm, I'm stupid.

user347575

12:32 PM

@Bart same...

Poke poke @JonEricson ... wassup with the Census badges? You got more feedback about unawarded badges?

user347575

maybe he doesn't like us....

user347575

;)

Can't blame him

!!/blame

SmokeDetector

12:35 PM

@Stijn It's Doc's fault.

user347575

bwahahahahahaha!

user347575

@Bart must be your free-floating glasses

user347575

we should start a ruckus

user347575

!!/blame

SmokeDetector

@Doc It's Stijn's fault.

user347575

12:40 PM

bwahahahhaha!

That bot only takes active chat users doesn't it.. :p

user202362

that random function needs to be worked on ...

user347575

new toy

> I've awarded the first batch of Census badges. In the first week of the survey, 885 people submitted their profile links to get a shiny new silver badge.

I can't remember mine :(

user347575

same

user347575

12:44 PM

the silver was probably melted down to make a door handle

Reddit: What the mods of Stackoverflow think every single person who ask questions look like

user347575

ruckus time

user315433

> When I was your age, we had to make our own emojis. Out of ASCII. -- Ben Dumke-v. d. Ehe at 1:13 AM - 20 Jan 2017

user347575

we used 0's and 1's... without the 0's

user315433

@Stijn Yeah, and as usual it needs a correction: ~~mods~~ other programmers

user315433

12:52 PM

- "I asked a question on Stack Overflow, but other programmers closed it."
- "Yeah, other programmers are assholes."

user202362

@Telkitty how does that happen? I mean, the donkey has to fall in it while walking backwards?

Who says the donkey isn't escaping from prison?

user347575

whack-a-donkey!!!!

Got a reply from the team

> The process to award the badges is a manual one and we are still collecting profile URLs to award the badge to.

I guess that means they have to copy-paste answers to extract user IDs

user347575

12:57 PM

eeek

@Stijn ... didn't expect that answer

user315433

What other choices are there, integrating SO database with SurveyMonkey?

@Bart I've asked Jon to clarify, on his answer

user315433

I imagine Jon gets a spreadsheet from SurveyMonkey, extracts a comma-separated list of URLs and puts it in some quickly put together tool that does the rest.

@zaq I haven't worked with SurveyMonkey before, but I'd assume there's a way to export the responses and parse them in an automated way. Guess not.

user347575

12:59 PM

I still reckon it is the free-floating bart glasses

/me grabs smiting stick

user347575

bring. it. on....

user347575

lol

user347575

lol

user347575

I live on the beach and I just saw a seagull trip over a chip

user202362

1:10 PM

user347575

yum!

user202362

It's almost midnight and I'm hungry... >_>

user347575

hi hungry!

hi Doc!

user347575

1:21 PM

how you be? (asides from hungry)

thirsty.

user347575

lol

1:38 PM

stackoverflow.com/posts/41764863/timeline same weird uppercase usage as the OP, accepted 18 seconds after being posted. That just screams sock puppet, right?

Oh and there's another self-answer by OP, containing most of that answer's content, but it's been deleted

Subhankar Core = Subhac05

I've flagged it for mod attention

@Stijn yeah, blatant.

@Stijn and to think that with a bit of care a self-answer would have been fine and might even have gathered some upvotes.

1:56 PM

@Bart I bumped into a duplicate question further down in the new-answers-old-questions queue, asked and answered by those same accounts. But that one did have a decent answer posted by another legit user.

There are several cases of the sock-self-answer for those users. Stupid move

It's like watching kids do something stupid, thinking they're so smart and that they'll get away with it :)

And I'm guessing this account is involved as well

scary!

(it's gone after refreshing though)

I think that's the "tracking" system Shog was talking about a few days ago? The one that isn't entirely accurate

<a href="http://chat.stackoverflow.com" class="js-gps-track"     data-gps-track="site_switcher.click({ item_type:6 })">chat</a>

2:07 PM

And the users are being nuked

Victory!

user315433

2:19 PM

> Here at Stack Overflow, we really try our best to get the most out of our servers: pic.twitter.com/fuiPZA4w4V -- Nick Craver at 6:10 AM - 20 Jan 2017

glad I never bought a Wii U, only 4 years after its introduction it's been declared EOL

user202362

2:55 PM

there is a gigantic discoloured cockroach in my bedroom, disappeared under the bed, wot 2 do

@Telkitty kill it with fire, of course

Name it and teach it tricks

user202362

I am off to sleep, it better not come out and eat me

try not to have bad dreams of cockroaches :p

It has been nice knowing her

3:07 PM

o/

heyo

Does this qualify as spam? The user name is EDAUtils Support, so one could argue whether author affiliation is disclosed.

spam.

At best it's link-only

"promote a product or service"

3:12 PM

@SamsungNote7Plus yes, but the flag reason is: Exists only to promote a product or service, does not disclose the author's affiliation.

oh you got me

it falls short of the first 3 points in that link though

It only talks about the project, doesn't show anything and is not in support of other parts of the post.

yeah

go get'em @Bart

OK you've convinced me

spam it is

And they're spamming all over at the moment it seems

3:14 PM

ooh, free flags

what is @SmokeDetector doing? DO YOUR JOB

stackoverflow.com/users/5899624/edautils-support?tab=answers

inb4 Meta post

spammers come to Meta to complain about their posts being deleted?

It's Friday. You never know

I mean, just a few more hours and Trump is president. Stranger things do happen a period

@Bart if you added a period on the end of that sentence, you will get a star from me :3

3:20 PM

I think this Friday was crazy enough already, with that J Doe guy drama again

I think it's a contender for most downvoted question on MSO

@SamsungNote7Plus done

Oh, you!

@Bart lol look at what i was replying to

dammit

We should have a sign. Please don't feed the Bart any stars, he gets plenty as it is.

2

3:27 PM

lol

user315433

@Stijn No way, that honor belongs to Should we discourage leading +/-1 on comments? by Shog9 on meta.stackoverflow.com

user315433

-205 is hard to beat

user315433

Which is likely the network-wide record for questions on per-site metas (other metas don't have enough voters to bring anything below -100).

user315433

However, one question on Meta.SE scores lower: A New Code License: The MIT, this time with Attribution Required by samthebrand on meta.stackexchange.com

@zaq was there ever a follow-up for that one?

user315433

3:40 PM

@Stijn This post is the closest to a follow-up, but its message is "as long as it takes".

Heard a joke on the radio that I just have to share

Why does a chicken lay eggs? ......... If she throws them, they'd break!

What is brown and sticky? A stick!

What is brown and dirty? Dirt!

sorry guys ill leave now

hey it's Friday

anything goes

don't hold back

@Stijn that joke was eggcellent

i will egg you on

user315433

4:26 PM

Not actually possible for a moderator (or anyone else, without direct db manipulation) to remove all credentials from an account, @AHB, so that answer is either out of date or speculative anyway. You can, of course, trivially change your own password to something impossible to guess and then not save it anywhere, rendering the same effect without anyone else's assistance. — Shog9 ♦ 14 mins ago

user315433

Yeah, except one can't change the password for SE OpenID if the email associated to it is invalid... and can't change the email either, if it is invalid.

user315433

Hence, I'm still using the same account since May 2014 like some normal person. :(

user315433

This is openid.stackexchange.com/user/edit

user315433

Is it supposed to be perfectly clear what the fields mean?

user315433

4:32 PM

I grant that it's clear they are optional.

You type John Smith in the first one, jon.smith in the second, but only if you feel like it

could not be more clear on that

user315433

Oh, I thought I had to add (optional) in parentheses.

(there are, if memory serves, some instructions when signing up)

user315433

Don't remember. There aren't any on the edit page. And if the account was created several years ago, it's safe to say nobody remembers those instructions.

most folks just put their name in both fields

Jon Ericson

5:00 PM

@Bart Yeah. I updated my answer. I was kinda curious why I wasn't on the list myself. Turns out I took the survey too early.

xkcdBot

Today's xkcd comic (Barge):

My life goal is to launch a barge into the air and have it land on one of Elon Musk's rockets.

Jon Ericson

There's a reason we haven't had manually awarded badges in the past. I'd really like to automate this thing for next year.

@JonEricson ah, haha. Okay.

user315433

6:21 PM

What is the difference between Physical Geography and Earth Science? Maybe @hichris123 knows...

user315433

Google search results: 1) reddit 2) Quora 3) Yahoo Answers.

user315433

(Asking for a friend who has a committee meeting about one of these subjects coming up.)

A: Are ecology questions on topic?

earthscience.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic

4

As with many other subjects Earth Science and, perhaps particularly, Physical Geography overlaps with many other disciplines. In my department we have a strong group of Landscape ecologists that study the geography of ecology (i.e. plant dispersal, historical changes in the landscapes (ecology) t...

Physical Geography would appear to be an Earth Science?

7:01 PM

@zaq inglés

8:10 PM

WTH is this?

Just because you assumed AB and got ⊥, !(AB) doesn't imply !A. The correct setup is assume A. Show !(AB). Therefore !B.

user315433

@Shog9 Our Department of Earth Sciences might agree, but the members of Geography Department who work in Physical Geography might not.

user315433

The latter also keep mentioning the lab space that was taken away and given to the former.

user315433

Add to this that ES is in the division of natural sciences, while Geo is in the Social Sciences.

user315433

Birds are Aves, which is part of the clade Theropoda, which is in Saurischia, which is in Dinosauria. Those birds outside our windows are dinosaurs. We can clear out the rest of our brains because we now have the best fact.

user315433

I think this is an accurate summary of the situation.

user315433

8:18 PM

@bjb568 line 7 should be changed to what is actually being proved, namely A=>B

user315433

I think. I hate this stuff, to be honest.

user315433

Obligatory reference to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mathematician's_Lament

user315433

"Are we proving that A implies B, or are we proving B, assuming A?" Argh.

user315433

8:43 PM

Stack Overflow was visited over 6 billion times in 2016, by software developers all over the world. Here's where th… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/822475466812563457

Tweeted by drob on January 20, 2017 at 4:06 PM

user315433

Log scale pls, too spiky.

user315433

Maybe linear scalar makes the point properly, but nearly everything ends up being dark.

user315433

Knuth Paper-Stack Notation: Write down the number on pages. Stack them. If the stack is too tall to fit in the room, write down the number of pages it would take to write down the number. THAT number won't fit in the room? Repeat. When a stack fits, write the number of iterations on a card. Pin it to the stack.

user315433

9:18 PM

Remember site self-evaluations?

user315433

As far as escalating reports goes, my email's always open (address is in my profile). With the caveat that it's not a "make a dev drop everything and take care of my pet issue" hotline. If it's something trivial or low priority that would be just fine on meta for a while, I'm unlikely to mince words about that. — Adam Lear ♦ 27 mins ago

user315433

Now I wonder what the unminced words of Adam Lear sound like.

When Jeff loses his avatar...

@ShadowWizard looks like nobody is safe

9:33 PM

@Stijn yup. Gravatar is destroying everything...

@ShadowWizard delete pls: stackoverflow.com/questions/5536431/… and flag the other comment as too chatty if you want

@rene heh, done. Isn't there an instant-kill for comments with "accept" in them? (i.e. deleted with one flag)

yes, but I'm out of comment flags for today ;)

So that's what you're doing all day long... :D

and I didn't want to return to that Q/A tomorrow

9:46 PM

wondering how many of my comments @rene already nuked ;)

depends on when you left them

10:25 PM

I'm preparing to farm rep by answering questions.

Is this correct? If the fix has already been implemented by Prettify but is still not working here, please raise a feature request on Meta to request that a new version of Prettify be deployed. So to have this bug [status-completed] you need to post an FR? Doesn't sound like the simplest process that can work ...

10:51 PM

Don't mind my advice stealing, but what article should I do for my monthly recent science event project? Recent is defined as within 3 months. My first was on neural networks and the algorithm that powers deepart.io.

user202362

@zaq don't mix different energy levels - chemical vs nuclear

user315433

11:08 PM

Did most of the things on my agenda for today, but fell a little behind of flagging and eating.

A: On the performance of the low quality review queue

Did you spend the time closing and closing (instead of eating)?

user202362

for someone who is too busy to eat, you are awfully free to post various comments here

user315433

I decided I don't like close review.

user315433

in The Reading Room on The Stack Exchange Network Chat, 20 hours ago, by Shog9

Robert Cartaino has suggested elsewhere that it might even be a good idea to limit discussions to those problems of which at least 5 concrete examples can be found

user315433

Applying this to closing: unless 5 people with closing power happen to see a question and be sufficiently put off by it to VTC, the question isn't that much of a problem.

user202362

11:33 PM

you were playing with my chat probably ... that blank at the top of my screen for a split of a second

user315433

11:53 PM

> New users are like injured animals; you're liable to get bit when you reach out to help. So be prepared. pic.twitter.com/Dmpjd9kP4R -- Shog9 at 1:35 PM - 20 Jan 2017

user315433

4

tl;dr; A very small percentage of VLQ & NAA flags bypass the review queue and go directly to the moderators. The vast majority of these flags go directly to the LQRQ review queue to handle, but most reviews are taking over 4 hours to complete. As a result, the moderators are stepping in and hand...

user315433

Reduce the number of required "rec del" if the post has negative score. -1 requires 5 recdels, -2 requires 4, and <=-3 requires 3.