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rene

5:02 PM

@Bart Ah, yeah. Calgon with their epic commercial

Bart

:D

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Stack Overflow: Helping One Million Developers Exit Vim

David Robinson on May 23, 2017

This morning, a popular Stack Overflow question hit a major milestone:

You’re not alone, jclancy. In the five years since this question was asked, there have been over a million other developers who got stuck in Vim and couldn’t escape without a bit of help. Indeed, the difficulty of quitting the Vim editor is a common joke among developers.

I’ve been told by experienced Vim users that this reputation is unfair, and I’m sure they’re right (even I’ve gotten the hang of it in the last few years). I think there are two reasons it’s easy to forget how to exi …

user315433

> We would have launched HTTPS sooner, but I tried to make a load balancer change and got trapped in vim for most of 2015. Sorry. -- Nick Craver at 3:45 AM - 23 May 2017

rene

Ukraine not only won the Eurovision song context last year they are also on top for being stuck in Vim. Two facts you want to be known for I guess.

user315433

They also have a pretty successful SE site, Ukrainian Language

rene

5:16 PM

I don't have an account there. Not much spam I guess

user315433

Yes, it's still not a hugely visible site, being so new. But has clear potential. In the last 30 days, it got 51 questions, versus 41 on Russian Language (with many more native speakers)

Jason C

@TimStone I know you've often mentioned fixing up sede so magic column queries aren't so intense. Is there some canonicalesque MSE bug report post for performance issues there?

user287113

Hi!

user287113

I would like to share with your my opinions regarding the AI community on the SE, i.e ai.stackexchange.com.

Jason C

I MERCILESSLY REJECT YOUR OPINIONS

Andy

5:20 PM

Sssh...let them say the opinions first before you reject them. You skipped a step.

user287113

First of all, the moderators do not seem to be very active in the process of maintaining the community, and this is very bad. For example, there are questions which are undoubtedly very broad but are not closed. Moreover, many of the questions and answers are primarily opinion-based, which makes the website essentially a second version of the philosophy website or any other random website on the web which is based on opinions.

user315433

Have you tried to make these points on their meta site?

Jason C

Well, that seems like a good topic for ai.meta.stackexchange.com.

user287113

No, and I don't intend to. That community, including moderators, seem to be very close-minded. I flagged something as "not constructive" (and it clearly was not constructive) and it was rejected. I do this a lot of times on SO, my flags are almost never rejected there.

Jason C

If a community needs focus or is having issues like that, that's what metas are for. In this room you can only talk to a couple of random people. On meta you can get the people that actually matter involved.

Andy

5:22 PM

One question that will probably be asked of you...are you flagging this content for the community and review queues?

Jason C

Well if you don't want to bring it up on their meta (which is fine), then, why bother? Let the community go its own way, it'll either succeed or fail, if you're not interested in taking part in it on that level then there's no sense stressing over it.

user315433

@Andy You know how review queues work on tiny beta sites...

user315433

(CB may be something of an exception because the usership is by definition moderation-minded.)

Jason C

Focus on something more relevant to you instead, for example, watch dash cam videos of car accidents in Russia on YouTube, or videos of things in vacuum chambers. Debate whether the Earth is really round. Put a caption on your favorite picture of a celebrity making a weird face. Play Clicker Heroes. Etc.

Andy

@Gerry I know, but if the user isn't raising flags on this content or talking about it on meta, not much can be discussed.

Jason C

5:26 PM

youtube.com/channel/UCcMDMoNu66_1Hwi5-MeiQgw and youtube.com/channel/UCl9OJE9OpXui-gRsnWjSrlA are pretty great.

user315433

@nbro Flag and vote according with your ideas of what is good for the site... Failing at that, raise issues on meta to get more people on your side... failing that, find a way to use the site seeing only the parts worth of your attention, and ignore the rest... failing that, ignore the site altogether.

user287113

I'm actually interested in that community or, at least, I'm a person who, right now, is involved in serious AI topics, not philosophical bullshit questions. Instead, there, they downvote you or close a question if you ask something that is really important, regarding e.g. real world AI algorithms, etc.

Jason C

Then post on their meta. Who cares if the community feels closed. There's no down side to writing the post anyways. Here in the Tavern, nothing can come of the discussion.

user287113

The ideal path (from my perspective) of that community has already been deviated a long time ago.

Andy

@nbro depending on your focus, you may be interested in either the Data Science or Cross Validated communities

user315433

5:28 PM

@nbro I think the premise of this AI site is that the algorithms are well covered by other SE sites, and so they are going to talk softer, philosophical aspects of it.

user287113

But it's also true that there're other websites, such as CrossValidated and Data Science, which are more practical and algorithmic-oriented, but are not just related to AI...

Jason C

I mean there are probably others in AI who feel the same way you do but haven't posted about it, making a post is a good way to bring that out.

user315433

@nbro The site was created last August, it's not even a year old. They "deviated" from the beginning, by design.

user287113

Let me make a concrete example.

user287113

Look at this question.

user287113

5:33 PM

3

Q: Open-source tool for home AI learning/experimentation?

I'd like to do some experimenting with neural net evolution (NEAT). I wrote some GA and neural net code in C++ back in the 90s just to play around with, but the DIY approach proved to be labor-intensive enough that I eventually dropped it. Things have changed a lot since then, and there are lots...

user315433

@Andy or in the machine-learning tag on SO, over 16K questions

user287113

Clearly, too broad and off-topic, since there's already a website for software recommendations.

user287113

And it's one of the questions that has been upvoted most.

user287113

Incredible!

user287113

Moderators have done nothing so far.

user315433

5:34 PM

@nbro Being on topic on another site does not automatically make it off-topic there.

user287113

ai.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic

Jason C

You need to bring this up on their meta.

user287113

It does not look to me that software recommendations is on topic.

user287113

What the hell is "human factors in AI development"?

rene

@nbro you did close vote that question?

user287113

5:36 PM

@rene yes

rene

when?

user287113

A few minutes ago

user315433

Is asking about AI algorithms or frameworks recommendation on-topic?

user315433

and What should we do about programming resource recommendation questions? by Ben N on ai.meta.stackexchange.com

user287113

but the job of the moderators is to go around and look at the questions to see if they are or not on topic or if they have to be closed for some other reason. I'm not obligated to flag it to be closed...

user315433

5:38 PM

Looks like at least one mod thinks those are off-topic.

user315433

@nbro That is a false statement.

Jason C

@nbro Yes you are. That's why these sites are called community-moderated. The job of diamond moderators is only to pick up slack where the community can't.

rene

@nbro it can take days on small sites before the community handles reviews.

user287113

@Gerry That's more than one statement.

Jason C

You are specifically responsible for doing those kinds of things.

user315433

5:39 PM

They are all false. On Stack Exchange, moderators are expected to do as little as possible.

user287113

@JasonC No, I'm not, sorry.

user287113

@Gerry Then moderators are useless.

Jason C

@nbro These are community moderated sites. If you're not willing to contribute to the positive development of a site, you don't get to have discussions about why things aren't the way you want them to be.

user287113

@JasonC I contribute when my contribution is worth it, but if my flags are declined and my intervention is useless, sorry, but I have other things to do.

Jason C

28

Q: What is community moderation, and what can I do to help?

What is community moderation? Why is it important for me to get involved? What can I do to help, and where do I start?

support moderation faq-proposed community

user315433

5:40 PM

A Theory of Moderation

Jeff Atwood on May 18, 2009

We believe deeply in community moderation. That’s why we appoint Pro Tempore Moderators and, ideally, democratically elected community moderators for every site in our network. But what do community moderators do? The short answer is, as little as possible!

From the very first version of Stack Overflow faq way back in mid-2008, our goal has always been to give power back to the community:

Stack Overflow is run by you! If you want to help us run Stack Overflow, you’ll need reputation first. Reputation is a (very) rough measurement of how much the Stack Overflow community trusts you. R …

Jason C

That's how things work here. If you don't like it, either leave, or don't complain. Period.

That's the foundation of this entire system.

It's like, philosophy #1.

user287113

"Period." is a redundant statement.

Jason C

That was probably redundant, too.

rene

Period.

BoundaryImposition

Kicking for that was a bit harsh, wasn't it?

Jon Ericson

5:52 PM

@nbro For what it's worth, life on a small site is very different than on SO. For one thing, moderators can take a more personal approach. For another, there are active community members who read nearly everything posted and use their close votes. Finally, each site has it's own culture of what they expect. That culture is often defined on meta.

Jason C

^

BoundaryImposition

Still no reason to kick. Shame.

Jason C

Deal with it.

user315433

6:19 PM

A post was locked for historical significance in 15 minutes... a record?

Jason C

Lol

Ah, back in the day, 15 minutes ago.