Tavern on the Meta

12:42 AM

Stack Exchange Year in Review 2016

Jon Ericson on January 26, 2017

A look back on the year that was 2016.

user315433

Quantitative Finance graduated last year, too: Congratulations, Quantitative Finance is graduated! by Grace Note on meta.quant.stackexchange.com @JonEricson

Jon Ericson

@zaq Huh. Wonder why that didn't show up in my query. Thanks!

user315433

1:08 AM

2015 in review has numbers for SO and non-SO.
2016 in review has numbers for the entire network and SO.
Spreadsheet time.

user315433

SO Questions are up 4%
SO Answers are down 3.1%
SO Reviews are down 3.3%
SO Upvotes are up 5%
SO Downvotes are up 4.4%

user202362

how many percentage of old answers are obsolete?

user202362

I would rather spend time on The Great Outdoors or Physics because the relevance of those questions/answers tend to last longer

user315433

non-SO Questions are up 3.4%
non-SO Answers are up 7.7%
non-SO Reviews are flat
non-SO Upvotes are up 14%
non-SO Downvotes are up 20%

Jon Ericson

@zaq Sorry about that. I didn't want to make it harder to compare, but the way I did it last year was hard to explain in words.

@Telkitty It's hard to know. But from my perspective, I've more than once tried to upvote an SO answer that I found helpful only to discover I can't. (Sometimes because I wrote it an sometimes because I already upvoted.)

user315433

1:23 AM

ELL "error" image is not just being used, it actually links to ell.stackexchange.com/error

user202362

@JonEricson but do you remove your upvote when the answer is obsolete?

user202362

for example, answer on xcode becomes obsolete often

Jon Ericson

@Telkitty I haven't encountered that very often. I guess SQL and Lua don't change much.

user202362

true

user315433

Quantcast's list of top sites by global traffic puts stackexchange.com as #7 and stackoverflow.com as #27; superuser.com is also in top 100 (at #96)

user315433

1:35 AM

I never heard of giphy.com or littlethings.com ...

user315433

And apparently, ask.fm is another big Q&A site? At #20

Anonymous

Giphy always shows up if I google "[something] gif".

user202362

List of most popular websites

This is a list of the most popular websites worldwide according to the top 100 lists published by Alexa Internet, as of December 28, 2016, and SimilarWeb, as of November 2016. == Ranking measuresEdit == Alexa ranks websites based on a combined measure of page views and unique site users, and creates a list of most popular websites based on this ranking time-averaged over one-month periods. Only the site's highest-level domain is recorded, aggregating any subdomains. SimilarWeb ranks websites based on a panel of millions of Internet users, International/U.S. internet service providers, dir...

user202362

stackexchange is not listed, but then again I don't agree with some of the listings

user315433

Kyle Brandt's job title changed from "Director of Site Reliability" to "Technical Director Site Reliability Engineering". Does this mean there will be a non-technical director too?

user202362

1:48 AM

List of most popular websites is probably sponsored by google, looking through the ranking

Shog9

yup

user315433

Non-technical people directing SREs sounds scary...

user202362

if I open this chat page in the morning and leave it open for hours, I only visited it once?

user315433

> Wow, ui-bootstrap actually attributed stack overflow. Never seen anyone actually do that. pic.twitter.com/NDjxcGfs1p -- Andrew Nichols at 5:38 PM - 26 Jan 2017

user315433

I have that exact function copy-pasted somewhere in my code too... but it's not for distribution, so should be ok?

user315433

1:56 AM

Okay, added a comment too. That makes two of us.

user202362

OO, spammers are called 'Online advertising network' or similar on alexa ranking

user202362

2:10 AM

So the internet consist mainly of peddlers(e-commerce), herders(social network), spammers(ad companies) & pay me so I rank you on the top(search engines). How wonderful!

user202362

I need to be less cynical

user202362

2:57 AM

but then again, being a happy idiot isn't very appealing either ... and most importantly, idiots are not always happy

user202362

interestingly no one called me a cynical asshole yet, I don't know why

user202362

maybe I am a realistic person who surrounds herself with cute, interesting and funny things :p

user202362

3

Rob

To be fair though, traders, social groups and advertising were around long before the internet

user202362

3:07 AM

SmokeDetector

3:57 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, pattern-matching website in body: Find The Best Skin Serum For Lines Now! by user84997 on graphicdesign.stackexchange.com

qwer

@SmokeDetector adobe-photoshop, certainly it helps fixing the skin.

Shog9

@zaq well, I expect it'll be a technical person; just not doing technical direction.

although they might be ok with that dog directing them instead. It looks pretty friendly.

user315433

Another option: rename "Technical director of... " to "Technically, a director of..."

user202362

looks more like a wolf than a dog

user202362

4:07 AM

wolf has yellow eyes, husky has blue eyes - says internet

user202362

when a husky howls, it's basically it trolling 'woof woof, I am a wolf'

qwer

But on the the internet, nobody knows you are a dog...

user315433

Except the SREs with access to traffic logs.

user202362

could be worse - imagine that you are a dog on the internet, but everyone thinks that you are a turtle ...

Gaelan

5:48 AM

Are vBulletin questions with no code on-topic?

qwer

6:13 AM

@Gaelan on SO? I'm afraid it's off-topic since it doesn't have anything to do with programming.

Shadow Wizard

7:47 AM

plz-delete meta.stackexchange.com/a/290345/152859 useless rant @Bart @rene

Derpy

8:45 AM

@ShadowWizard still, the meaning of the rant is pretty clear. The actual answer would be something like this:

> I believe the current quality policies are too strict. I feel that often question are being delete/closed/downvoted with reasons related to "no effort" even when the original poster has tried to search for a reply before posting. IMHO many high rep users forgot that low-rew / new users may find it difficult to find the information they need simply because they lack the experience to perform more accurate research.

Obviously, that is just my translation of the post.

I tried using my Rant->English dictionary, but I could be wrong.

.... Why are the site icons different sizes when you look at “All Sites”? - I am tempted to leave a comment "because that way low traffic sites get less visibility and will therefore remain low traffic" :P

Bart

@Derpy they can try again if they write it like that

rene

9:33 AM

@ShadowWizard Patrick helped there

Shadow Wizard

9:57 AM

@Derpy well, this indeed fits as answer.

@rene yeah, where were you?! ;-)

qwer

10:20 AM

sd tpu-

same person spamming eltima on EE

Bart

Yup

Flagged again

My flag was declared helpful on other sides, but the user is still around

Stijn

Is that question on-topic for SU?

Bart

not a clue

rene

@ShadowWizard waking up and commuting to the office ...

User has another seemingly valid post. Are you sure it is spam @Bart @Stijn @qwer

qwer

The answers were plagiarized from other answers

rene

10:31 AM

@Stijn I think it is OK-ish ...

@qwer Hmmm, OK

Bart

@rene yeah, a previous search over his posts reveal they are copies.

chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/5707251#5707251 @rene

Btw, this spam from that user is still around: electronics.stackexchange.com/a/282173/6731

Shadow Wizard

10:54 AM

@rene pfft Tavern should come first. Your priorities are off! ;)

rene

11:19 AM

@ShadowWizard hmm, there was not much of a gap between waking up and commuting ... and our government is protective about their citizens so there is a high fine on holding a phone while driving a car ...

Bart

That's why I always drive with a VR headset. Handsfree all the way

Derpy

11:45 AM

Nappa, what does the Configuration Wizard say about the SharePoint upgrade completion level??

IT IS OVER 100%!!!!!!!!!!!!!

qwer

That's Microsoft for you

Shadow Wizard

12:25 PM

N00bosoft

Note to self: @Bart likes handsfree

Stijn

12:51 PM

0

A: Stackdriver Monitoring with full access scope not authorized

Replying to @codemoped without "You must have 50 reputation to comment": Enabling Google Cloud Monitoring API was the answer for me as well. I was not able to browse to it in the "API Manager" webapp, I had to search for it, which brought me to this link https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/api...

kind of NAA, but also contains useful additions

what to do with it?

Bart

@ShadowWizard ... where is that thought going?

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer: win 7 start button context menu missing by Zotax on superuser.com

qwer

@SmokeDetector doesn't seem spam. Also, I don't think AVG likes to spam

Stijn

@qwer agree. Doesn't help that a 65k user said "spam, spam, spam" in the comments

Derpy

1:30 PM

spam
spam
spam
humbug

maybe he was trying to access Ultima 6 cheaters menu?

Stijn

1:44 PM

> Daily vote limit reached; vote again in 10 hours.

I need more downvotes :(

user315433

2:22 PM

> 2016 in load balancer numbers: Page views: 23,410,799,495 HTTP hits: 72,952,268,915 SQL queries: 244,828,925,452 Redis ops: 153,677,530,084 -- Nick Craver at 6:16 AM - 27 Jan 2017

user315433

Are there 2015 numbers to compare? Searching Twitter is hard.

Derpy

^ Come on, everypony. He asked! Be kind and downvote a random @Bart post today!

.... and now I realize.... It was @Stijin, not Bart that asked for downvotes

oh, well.... my bad.... easily fixed.

Stijn

The faster mods handle flags, the sooner I can downvote again ^^

Derpy

> ^ Come on, everypony. He asked! Be kind and downvote some random @Bart & @Stijn posts today!

ok, fixed

had to leave Bart there too or he would get jealous

Stijn

2:45 PM

-1

A: Save xls in cordova from alasql

I am with the same problem! :(

oh noes :(

The new-answers-old-questions queue is an ideal way to pass time while doing performance measuring

Shadow Wizard

@Bart stored for future use... :D

@rene not much gap?! What about brushing teeth... Breakfast...

Stijn

breakfast is for people who wake up in time

I can't remember the last time I had breakfast on a work day

qwer

I had breakfast at office :|

M.A.R.

@qwer What did you have for breakfast?

qwer

Sandwiches...

And spam

Shadow Wizard

2:58 PM

Spam sandwich?

qwer

Not at the same time, and spam is not the tastiest

Bart

@Derpy thanks. Downvotes are always welcome. Especially random ones

M.A.R.

@Stijn I am the same problem! :(

Derpy

Stijn

hey @JeremyBanks I always see you lurking but never talking

we won't bite, promise! :)

except for @Telkitty maybe

M.A.R.

3:13 PM

@Stijn He stares us to death. Legend says whoever he's watching is slowly dying.

Anonymous

:]

2

M.A.R.

[:

Shadow Wizard

@Stijn so how you break your fast?

M.A.R.

@ShadowWizard On the way to work

Stijn

@ShadowWizard I survive on coffee till lunch time

Anonymous

3:15 PM

@M.A.R. can confirm.

Shadow Wizard

@Stijn he is too shy

user202362

how come everyone knows that I am a biting kitty :(

Bart

I used to be a full body @M.A.R. ... until Jeremy started looking at me

Stijn

But I usually only roll in 2 hours or 2,5 hours before lunch :)

user202362

I don't bite, I just ... nibble ...

Shadow Wizard

3:16 PM

@M.A.R. that might break the car too... 🚗

M.A.R.

@ShadowWizard Trying to interpret that smiley . . . please wait . . .

Pandya

@Moosebot wake me

user280395

> me had an airhorn conveniently placed near their sleeping place. I might have just used it.

Shadow Wizard

@Stijn poor @Stijn... At least strong coffee with lots of milk? ;-)

Stijn

@ShadowWizard black, with sugar

really healthy, I know

user202362

3:18 PM

user202362

nom nom

Derpy

@ShadowWizard not enough unicorn emoji. Let me fix that.

🦄🦄🦄🦄🦄🦄🦄

Shadow Wizard

@Stijn so no milk only sugar... Pure energy!

@Pandya heh, amazing the bot wasn't kicked out yet ;)

@Telkitty not everyone, only those who know you...

Pandya

@Moosebot believe me, Shog is really here!

user280395

@Pandya DANGER DANGER DANGER. I'M GONNA GET SUSPENDED!

user202362

3:29 PM

@ShadowWizard I know ... so hard, being a apex predator :p

user315433

In a way, all vultures are Time Vultures; some just have more patience than others.

user315433

4:18 PM

Does anyone one a tool for extracting still frames from GIF handy? Trying to read the conversation here but the spinning and moving don't help...

user315433

From Haney's blog, BTW. Dev Team Interactions: Accountability & Blame and later Dev Team Interactions: Conducting Good Code Reviews

user315433

Well there isn't much interesting there, except Michael Stum's remark that DevStory on Enterprise may be "more useful if we do Story V2".

xkcdBot

5:00 PM

Today's xkcd comic (Telescopes: Refractor vs Reflector):

$On the other hand, the refractor's limited light-gathering means it's unable to make out shadow people or the dark god Chernabog.$

jrh

5:14 PM

16

A: What's the best response to a post that can be answered really easily with a quick Google search?

Repeat after me: SO is a canonical source of information which feeds Google. Therefore any question that can be googled should be answered on SO, as if Google never existed. There is a specific goal with SE, and it is often joked that the SE home page is Google. For that reason, and that reason ...

vs

388

A: How much research effort is expected of Stack Overflow users?

A lot. An absurd amount. More than you think you are capable of. In fact, asking a question on Stack Overflow is the absolute last thing you ever want to do. You want to avoid it at all costs. You want to think of it as a horrible shame1 that will forever haunt you and pass down from you to your ...

Just out of curiosity: It looks like it took 3 years to make that change, is there anything in particular that caused the evolution from "ask as if google didn't exist" to the latter answer?

Or am I missing something and those answers aren't actually contradictory?

Bart

People actually asked all the crappy low-level questions as if Google didn't exist. ;)

Also note that the question it refers to is closed and deleted as the resource request it was.

They are however not contradictory if you add that the question you ask should be a "good question".

Then again, don't read too much into the hyperbole of the latter answer (as I mentioned in the comments)

user315433

5:44 PM

@jrh I read the advice in the second one as "answer as if Google didn't exist".

user315433

I still want the askers to do their research. I downvote them if they don't, hoping to discourage incessant repetition of "how to concatenate lists in Python".

user315433

But if an easily Google-able question was asked, and is not a duplicate, it should be answered.

user315433

Could it be that Michael Stum's ancestors' name was actually Sturn, but some registry used fonts with bad keming?

user315433

7:54 PM

The graduation-to-design table indicates an unexpected move toward simultaneous design-graduation in recent cases (Puzzling and Pi). Hm.

user315433

Speaking of Pi, their candidate pool is not impressive which is troubling because two positions are at stake.

user315433

And there is only one serious candidate, jacobm001. The other three are lacking in most ways; notably they have cast 18 downvotes combined.

rene

8:41 PM

@zaq based on those I would almost give it a try on one of the upcoming beta's to reach 1000 rep with editing, cast a bunch of flags and vote the hell out of it and then run for mod once there are elections. I might get elected without a single post on main (but plenty on their meta)

user315433

You would get good scores in my book, but I think main site voters prefer to vote for those they have seen around on the site.

user315433

An exercise: find the maximum possible candidate score that can be achieved without posts on main.

user315433

1 point for rep (1000 rep from edits, so 1101 in total, minus 50 for a bounty).
One for each of Civic Duty, Cleanup, Deputy, Electorate, Marshal, Reviewer, Steward, Copy Editor, Organizer, Strunk and White, Tag Editor, Constituent*, Convention, Enthusiast, Investor, Quorum, Yearling.
Note: Constituent is available only if there were previous elections. Total: 17-18

rene

Reviewer x 3, I think?

for each queue? Or are there only 2 < 1000

user315433

It counts once.

rene

8:53 PM

oh :(

user315433

As do other badges. You could have voted in 9 previous elections, for example, and have 9 Constituent badges.

user315433

But overall, I think you'd have a better chance in an SO election than on a beta without participation.

rene

Participation does help, yes. I don't think I would vote for a candidate that only gathered all badges but didn't show any affinity with the subject of the site.

Magisch

I just vote for whoever I feel is up for the job

My ability to gauge people isn't exceptional, but some people just rub me the wrong way, and some people I just like

can't exactly pinpoint it

Shog9

@zaq I just use Gimp for stuff like that.

rene

9:01 PM

@Magisch sorry for the rubbing then ...

Magisch

@rene I like rubbing flowers

flowers smell nice

'sides, not talking about you with rubbing the wrong way..

rene

don't make me fart

Magisch

Oh it's shog

hey shog

Shog9

'afternoon

user315433

Rafflesia arnoldii

Rafflesia arnoldii is a species of flowering plant in the parasitic genus Rafflesia. It is noted for producing the largest individual flower on earth. It has a very strong and horrible odour of decaying flesh, earning it the nickname "corpse flower". It is endemic to the rainforests of Sumatra and possibly Borneo. Although there are some plants with larger flowering organs like the titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) and talipot palm (Corypha umbraculifera), those are technically clusters of many flowers. Rafflesia arnoldii (Indonesian: padma raksasa), also called Kerubut (Devil's Betelnut Box...

Stijn

9:03 PM

@rene famous last words

Magisch

@Shog9 I'm starting to realize what you said 2 months ago about burnout was true

Shog9

of course

Magisch

I'm on here multiple hours a day, but if I had it as my day job I could probably not stomach going in my free time, too

Shog9

I'm an expert on burnout

I'd write about it and get famous for that expertise, but...

Andy

@zaq One of the final frames

Aaron Hall

9:06 PM

Hey Tavern, what's up?

Magisch

@Shog9 You seem to be doing just fine as CM on SE, though

Most would consider that a dream job

Stijn

hi @Aaron

Shog9

maybe? I donno. It's not something I ever dreamed of, but it did turn out to be a welcome break from programming.

Aaron Hall

Well you seem to have a talent for it.

Magisch

@Shog9 It's damned hard to get, for one. I'm betting if SE opened a position right now they'd get like 10k applicants or something crazy like that.

Shog9

9:08 PM

so is, I am told, counting dead fish

which, to be fair, is also a dream job for some

user315433

@Magisch I doubt that.

Magisch

@zaq working at SE seems to be sort of final destination for techies

Shog9

hard to get requires only that demand exceed availability, which is the case for many jobs

Magisch

one of the few software companies (you can count them with your hands I think) that gives a damn about employees beyond money in vs money out

Shog9

That said, it really isn't a bad job.

Magisch

9:09 PM

I can imagine

from what I hear it's half providing a shoulder to cry on and half administrative tasks like invalidating votes

or something like that.

user315433

I haven't found any wise words on burnout here, but a vaguely related thing seemed worth bookmarking: Generations of Stack Overflow

Shog9

I'm sitting in my sun room, surrounded by plants, relaxing and typing on a Friday... Can't do that a lot of places.

Magisch

@Shog9 I'll try to get a remote job later in life, too

rene

surrounded by flowers

Magisch

see even @rene 's family likes shog

user315433

9:13 PM

@Andy Thanks. No shocking revelations there, unfortunately.

Andy

Nope. Looks like a conversation I'd have at work too.

user315433

Do you have internal chat, too?

user315433

I wonder why academic departments don't. Maybe we'd spend less time in meetings if we did.

Magisch

@zaq You work at a Uni?

I've been kind of burned by university and have since soured on academia as a whole

Andy

We do. Usage appears to be generational though. The younger employees love it, the elders prefer an hour long meeting.

user315433

9:17 PM

And since in academia it's the elders making decisions most of the time... meetings it is.

user315433

Yes, I think I mentioned that on occasions. @Magisch

Andy

In a multiple decades old company, same thing.

Magisch

sigh

user315433

> Please give your views on the current state of the __ department and on issues facing the department over the next several years and into the future. Attach additional pages if needed.

user315433

Sounds like a lot of fun. Wonder if I should include a table of contents and index.

rene

9:28 PM

@zaq never knew next several years and future are different things. I always assumed the future starts now.

user315433

I think they mean "further into the future" as opposed to the very concrete timeframe of "the next several years".

rene

I think they mean: things I can achieve while I'm still here and can get the credits for and crazy plans my successor can screw up

M.A.R.

10:13 PM

I just joined 26 people in this room.