Tavern on the Meta

Shadow Wizard

00:00

You took 8 years until you got married?? Man....

lol

It's fine only if you're young. ;)

I got married when I was 30, kind of late-ish too.

user315433

user315433

No more Denver office (and I suppose, no more data center there).

user315433

A former employee quoted ~20% on Twitter. It's only 15% in Engineering, so it would seem Sales/Marketing lost more (I didn't trawl through those lists).

Catija

@ShadowWizard My husband took some... convincing.

Journeyman Geek

@Desire kinda seems plausible if they're pivoting back to Q&A as their main thing

Catija

00:05

@ShadowWizard I was 32. eek. :D

Journeyman Geek

@Desire data centre dosen't necessarily need someone there, and even if they shuttered that, it would take a while

user202362

00:37

Sometimes I think I deserve to be single forever. So the last guy I dated want to become more serious in our relationship and I said no, then the other guy asked me out and I said no. So at this wedding a guy came and sit next to me and said 'you look lonely', I said 'I am alone but I am not lonely'.

user202362

how to be remembered as old granny that no one wants ...

Oded

@Desire where did you get that from? More details than I've seen anywhere so far.

Journeyman Geek

00:57

@Oded looks like techcrunch.com/2017/11/02/stack-overflow-lays-off-staff/…

Oded

Thanks

user315433

Payroll down from 318 to 257, about 20% indeed.

user315433

> Stack Overflow customers and loyal users will see no interruption in service

user315433

If you see any interruption, blame the lack of your loyalty.

Journeyman Geek

ow

hichris123

01:25

@Desire All cuts? Those are some longtime employees... Pops, Jin, Oded.

user315433

Yes. You must have missed a day's worth of conversation here.

Journeyman Geek

@Desire abooot 9 hours?

hichris123

@Desire I'm around somewhat, just skimming mostly. But yeah, I definitely missed that.

Yikes. Good luck with the job hunts @JeremyBanks @Oded.

Guess I can't exactly be shocked that cuts happened. But SE lost some good people...

Shog9

yep

user202362

and then there are always re-hirings once things improve ...

Journeyman Geek

01:38

One can hope!

user315433

On the plus side: none of the moderators were laid off today.

user202362

moderators don't get paid, can we be more obvious ...

user315433

I heard about $100/year donated per moderator, that adds up too.

user202362

...

Journeyman Geek

@Desire in theory they could just adjust that

ya, its about that much

user315433

01:50

Four teams that had no cuts: Executive, Enterprise, People, and Sales-Ads.

Journeyman Geek

@Desire two directors got cut, that's Executive?

user315433

They weren't listed at that level, though. I'm following the team designation of /company/team

user315433

Community Team has 3 people with "Director" in job title, but they aren't listed under Executive either.

Journeyman Geek

director of vs "foo director"

user315433

Among the marketing cuts are the Executive Producer of SO Podcast, and the author of most of the "code for a living" blog articles.

Journeyman Geek

01:57

Enterprise is their next coming thing. People... is relatively small? Sales ads, presumably actually makes em money.

user315433

Expect less blog activity in the near future, which frankly feels like a relief right now. Was overdone.

Journeyman Geek

Relief is... kinda not the best word

(I kinda feel the tinest bit guilty for complaining about those all the time)

user202362

02:18

@Desire increasing revenues & reduce costs ... you know people are going to speculate on what this means right?

Success

02:39

500+ unread messages and... it's a sad conversation :(

@JeremyBanks @Oded wish you all the best for your future!

Anonymous

Thanks

Anonymous

Some executives were cut. This was pretty broad.

Journeyman Geek

03:07

@JeremyBanks from the part of the company that felt like it was getting the most visibility too.

Success

I guess there's no meta post about this occurence, for its own good

user202362

As a person who lacks interpersonal skills, I should just shut up in this circumstance ...

Journeyman Geek

@Success yeaaah. Probably for the better

user202362

sometimes I have this feeling, the more I say, the great chance someone is going to get me with some blunt/sharp weapon ...

Success

though sooner or later, it might show up (e.g. "What happened to Jeremy Bank and Oded's diamonds!?!?!")

@Telkitty nah... the opponent is too thin-skinned...

(read: low armor -> low defense)

user202362

03:16

are you sure there is only 1 opponent - the internet is vast, there could be a shadow at every corner ...

Journeyman Geek

@Telkitty eh, this is SE

at worst everyone ignores you

We hardly ever get stalkers

Success

@SmokeDetector f

Success

03:53

There's "Brainf*ck" PCG HNQ question right now (the actual title is uncensored).

wondering employees who got blocked when accessing SO due to "expletive" company IT's filter

InsaneCat

05:38

Good Morning guys

Journeyman Geek

07:08

→ 15 messages moved to Chimney

Magisch

07:20

@Telkitty It's never too late to make a change, you know

@Catija You need to run in the first IPS election then, no?

Journeyman Geek

@Magisch in theory, but that seems logical, yes ;p

Journeyman Geek

07:46

meta.stackexchange.com/questions/302805/… this needs closevotes

and this meta.stackexchange.com/questions/302807/…

Magisch

voted on both

Journeyman Geek

Turns out I still know my way around a linux box \o/

user202362

I need to run a server so I can not completely forget how to use a linux box

Journeyman Geek

@Telkitty heh. I've had this a while. Just wasn't in the right state of mind to actually do it.

reinstalled a few things (off my notes), currently rsyncing over the contents of the old server to the new server as backup. though I might snarf it down to my home system instead...

user202362

I also learn new things every now and then because sometimes things break down and I need to fix them - everytime I chat to helpdesk, I record steps taken so I don't need their help again the next time same thing happens ...

Magisch

08:00

@Telkitty Why don't you work for my company

You could teach the older chemists and engineers a thing or two

frustrated about having to fix the damn screen for the 5th time for the same person

user202362

lol

InsaneCat

10:04

oops

1>https://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/19132/android-era-with-kotlin-and-java
2> https://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/152330/machine-learning

Magisch

10:32

@InsaneCat second one also got frozen, apparently

Journeyman Geek

@InsaneCat might be awesome to link to the transcripts rather than the rooms

InsaneCat

10:57

hmmmm

Success

11:31

cue a chat room drama on MSO again

rene

It is awesome how everybody takes me serious ...

and back to work

Success

I bit, let's see how they'll react

user202362

11:48

@6'whitemale have you thought about adding a ' to your name?

Success

ugh, mosquito attack...

user202362

"squirrels are just rats with fancy tails" - my cousin

user202362

also you are too sensitive

Success

ergh.... image reverse-searching ~~@Desire~~ 6'white male's profile picture is not encouraged...

anyway, wth with the display name -_-

user202362

tell mama why you are so sensitive to certain descriptions, little @Success, don't be shy

Bart

12:05

user202362

tree spider

Success

@Telkitty not really sensitive, just... confused @_@

user202362

don't worry, I am not your real mom

Journeyman Geek

12:22

@Telkitty as far as you know.

InsaneCat

so what, but you gave a love like real mom ^

Success

if it means Black Widow...

user202362

internet black widow, rofl, good one, may you live in the cyber world forever

InsaneCat

ha ha ha ha

Jaydles

12:43

All, we need to ask that folks not post lists of employees that appear to have lost their jobs in here. What’s happened isn’t a secret, and we’re willing to talk about the situuation, but a list of people who (presumably) lost their jobs being posted in public isn’t fair to the affected employees. I’m 100% clear that no one here meant any harm - the goal was just clarity, but we need to take the links down.

8

Success

suddenly this room feel eerie...

Bart

Meh, it's the Tavern. It has always been eerie.

Magisch

@Jaydles I may or may not have linked the github md5 of offense to another chatroom. Should I provide a link to the message for you to remove?

Bart

... why are people even making those lists? If you don't have jobs to offer, there's no point.

Success

Either For Science™, or Curiosity Kills the Cat™

user202362

12:54

this place is never eerie, just sometimes it doesn't go your way

bluefeet

@Magisch on SO chat?

Magisch

@bluefeet se chat

charcoal hq to be precise

Journeyman Geek

@Jaydles as a RO... ehh. I kinda think it wouldn't be out of line to remove it?

Jaydles

@Magisch would you mind just editing it yourself? I’d appreciate it.

bluefeet

@Magisch If you don't mind, I'll find it and delete it

Magisch

12:56

@Jaydles The message is older, I don't have mod privileges

@bluefeet It's here chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/40931735#40931735

Nuke at your discretion

bluefeet

appreciate that

Journeyman Geek

@Magisch practically no one does

Magisch

People without a blue name can't actually edit posts older then 5 mins I don't think

Bart

@Telkitty that's eerie! Everything should go my way!

Journeyman Geek

(Ironically, I don't remember what RO permissions are, outside the ability to kick and move)

@Magisch nope

Jaydles

12:58

Furthering @Bart’s point, if anyone’s company is hiring, we’d be ecstatic to hear and to pass the info on to the impacted folks from the right department.

user202362

@Bart you have not drunk enough alcohol apparently ...

Magisch

I'm almost 100% certain nobody of the caliber of SO's staff want to work for my company

Bart

@Telkitty I don't drink ... so that may explain a lot

Journeyman Geek

@Bart boredom I presume. And mild voyeurism.

Magisch

@Bart me neither o/

Bart

12:59

@Jaydles I don't know how many are on the US west coast, but Oculus seems to be hiring quite a lot atm.

Magisch

@bluefeet can you kill this too: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/40931941#40931941

In the same interest of privacy

Success

@Magisch it's mentioned on this news article, not really a private info

Journeyman Geek

@Magisch probably might be worth waiting a few days before asking. Having been in the whole 'process' before...

bluefeet

@Magisch that one is fine. It's specifically identifying people that we're concerned with

Journeyman Geek

@bluefeet they mention one of the (ex) CMs, and one fairly unique role a few lines up.

Magisch

13:05

We had a discussion about this since it pertains to charcoal in a way that is in the middle of that

Journeyman Geek

yeaaah

bluefeet

@JourneymanGeek I think that one is fine, it's not his real name.

Journeyman Geek

(also, having been through one of these exercises, its... probably going to be a bummer the next few days. Unlike contracts ending or quitting) Might be worth waiting a few days before seeing who the new smokey contact is.

@bluefeet Ah, right.

Success

Yesterday and today's not been a good day. I should drink and sleep.

Magisch

@JourneymanGeek I'll trust Undo and Art's discretion there

Part of why I don't go around on my own asking about it :p

InsaneCat

13:20

lol @TejasSolanki

Jaydles

13:44

thanks @Magisch @JourneymanGeek and others for helping there.

@6'whitemale would you be willing to consider taking that list off Github? It's obviously your decision, but we want to do everything we can to respect folks' privacy, and in this case, everything is me asking you for help. I appreciate the consideration.

@Bart thanks - will pass that on to the person coordinating!

Feeds

14:09

NO DRAMA ZONE -> If I've made you sad, you'd better not tell me, because I am TERRIFIED of that situation and have NO IDEA how to handle it.

3

Journeyman Geek

Ok, that's mildly creepy XKCD ;p

John Dvorak

Perhaps too accurate?

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak just contextually so.

John Dvorak

I mean, in the sense that some people are just bad at talking to others and have no foul intentions after all

Journeyman Geek

that too!

Journeyman Geek

14:37

→ 10 messages moved to Chimney

Catija

15:13

@Magisch I don't think I'll have to worry about that soon... we're only at ~5 qpd, so work is needed before we hit 10. Plus, I've got A&C as my first mod site, unproblematic child. :D

Magisch

@Catija Hah :D

If you end up running in an election there, i'll vote for you

Journeyman Geek

@Catija I'm suprised - I figured it was active. I guess lots of answers?

@Catija hah. I actually didn't stand on SR.SE cause I realised I was processing like... no flags

and quite a lot on SU

Success

lots of HNQ fuel and thus comments and answers though

Magisch

@JourneymanGeek You are a glutton for flags after all :p

Journeyman Geek

@Magisch Its nice to feel useful ;p

Also, that's roughly when job -2 closed so... I figured I'd focus on SU

Catija

15:17

@Magisch Thanks :D

Journeyman Geek

Odd how that's coming up a lot today ._.

Catija

@JourneymanGeek We actually hit 10 QPD briefly a few weeks after hitting public beta but it's slowed down since. I'm actually glad. It's giving us as a site the chance to do the work of building a good community and setting policy for when we do have 10+ QPD.

Journeyman Geek

@Catija that said, I think QPD's kinda a surrogate for overall activity

and your site seems somewhat active?

Catija

@Success We're apparently deleting as many comments over a 30 day period as the Workplace mods... so... yeah, comments are a problem And our answer average is insane.

834 questions
4,266 answers

Journeyman Geek

@Catija I wonder if Jon's new working would help

Catija

15:19

@JourneymanGeek ? Working?

Journeyman Geek

wording

Catija

You mean Robert's new wording?

Journeyman Geek

Sorry, spellcheck missed that

Clearly My brain needs a kick

PROBABLY

Catija

77

Q: Fixing comments in 5 minutes. Intrigued? Let's discuss

I made a quick change to Area 51 recently, and it had a profound effect on how people used that site, so let's discuss. Background: The basic building blocks of every SE site are the QUESTION and the ANSWER. They are clearly portrayed as such, so if anyone puts "something else" in that space, ...

Journeyman Geek

ya that

Catija

15:21

^ That has already been requested and is in consideration. We're hoping the devs will decide to do it for us.

Journeyman Geek

nods

Catija

9

A: This one weird trick gets rid of all off-topic comments. Let's use it!

A quick update on this request: Yes, the Community Team has submitted a request to have this feature change implemented using Interpersonal SE to test it. Acceptance by the dev team is still pending, but with the pent up demand and backlog of feature-requests, it is still unclear how this will...

Journeyman Geek

You're probably an ideal test case for... a lot of things ;p

Catija

Indeed!

Regardless, by other metrics, the site's really not ready to graduate at this point.

Journeyman Geek

lol. I only really pop into IPS when there's drama ._.

Catija

15:25

Bah. If that were true, you'd be there a lot more ;)

Journeyman Geek

lol

At the moment, besides SU (natch) I think meta and pets are my "bookmarked" sites

I only go into IPS when people mention it ;p

Success

@JourneymanGeek Regarding that, my current communities are: SO, Android, Anime&Manga (for participating)... and MSO, MSE, Arcade (for ~~entertainment~~ reading material during lunch)

Journeyman Geek

@Success Used to be more active on SF, and I'm on a bunch of chats

meta.stackexchange.com/questions/302830/… ._.

And on that bombshell, gnight.

Success

night :)

Success

16:53

@alephzero flag: not a comment. This was posted as a comment, but it does attempt to answer the question. It should possibly be an edit, an answer, another answer, or kept as it is. — leftaroundabout 3 hours ago

heh :)

Jeremy

@ShadowWizard Still gotta work my way towards my 100K swag box.

although I did manage to get a box of Stack Overflow lip balm on my way out, and that stuff is surprisingly great.

Jon Ericson

@Jeremy "I got cat oil. Fresh cat oil."

I'm glad you're not totally put off by this mess.

Jeremy

17:11

It is what it is. I am somewhat disappointed/frustrated/upset/shocked, but I understand, and the company has handled it fairly well, considering. I just hope good use is made of the time this bought.

Jon Ericson

Me too.

Magisch

17:41

I wonder if this is because VC money is running dry or just normal operations

Is SE still in startup mode?

Success

That made me wondered too when reading the article: startup. But perhaps my definition of startup company (based on time since founded) is different than what it should be.

Shog9

let's check the source of truth:

Jeremy

:P

Magisch

Heh

@Shog9 Now your backlog will build even faster

With 1 cm less

Shog9

also fewer mktg, fewer dev... So yes. Time to take back some legos

Success

17:48

Suggested Edits Review Queue on MSE is red! But I don't see any review...

Shog9

all tag wikis

Magisch

@Shog9 I wonder, does fewer devs and mktg directly translate into more work for you?

Are the roles at stack this fluid?

Catija

"Time this bought" sounds ... scary.

Magisch

Time this bought sounds suspiciously like they need to raise revenue a lot to stay open in the future

Shog9

@Magisch no, not directly.

But indirectly... Well, obvious example: same crap to delete on MSE, one fewer ultra-active deletionist.

Catija

17:52

Shog will now be in charge of SO advertising.

Shog9

good lord no

Magisch

Full Screen TV Ad "Recommended by leading tilted floating heads "

Success

Speaking of TV.... SO TV...

Catija

What, like Chive TV?

Success

644

Q: An experiment: Stack Overflow TV

Stack Overflow is beginning an experiment called Stack Overflow TV, or SOTV for short. It will be a series of fast, smart videos for experienced programmers who want to learn a new thing. The videos will serve as a complement to Stack’s Q&A, and are intended for that community. Of course, they w...

discussion education

donno about the latest status though

Catija

17:57

Actually... you could have a lot of fun with that... Wouldn't even have to be SO related.

rene

→ 2 messages moved to Chimney

Success

It's kind of funny when things didn't work on SO (SO Docs, SOTV!?), might work on other sites...

Perhaps it's true that SO might not be the best place to experiment things...

Catija

And they're doing more experimentation on other parts of the network.

For example, Literature being the first site to get the longer tag length.

Not quite the same scale of things but... it's actually happening.

Success

True though, also, comment on Area 51

Catija

Yes. Comment -> suggest improvement on A51 but moving to network testing on IPS after rather than full network implementation.

Jon Ericson

18:03

@Success Docs had structural problems that would prevent it working anywhere. It was just too hard to browse or even find the content. The work would have been the same to make it work on another site as on SO.

That said, it would have been a different product if we'd started designing for another site. Maybe it would have worked out if we'd started with, say, English.

Catija

And major tech companies have these sorts of false starts all the time... Part of what they're doing is taking some risk to see if they can make something that changes how we do... stuff. Look at all of the stuff Google has tried at and failed.

@JonEricson What would it have even been on ELU/ELL? A dictionary of linguistic terminology?

Magisch

@Catija with the fine distinction that google has nearly unlimited funding to them owning what is like half the internet

Jeremy

I think those already exist. They're called dictionaries. ;)

user168476

I think the thing that makes this harder is the fact that SE has always been super transparent about stuff, so everyone's got a theory, and we're all very used to being super involved, I guess, for lack of a better word, when there are changes

Catija

@Magisch No arguments from me on that front. I don't really consider SO, Inc. a "major tech company" :P

Magisch

18:08

The entire SE community is used to being deeply involved and informed about nearly everything happening at the company

user168476

@Magisch Exactly! So something like this happens, and it's hard not to feel...idk, scared or whatever, like someone yanked the carpet out from under you

Jon Ericson

@Catija Yep. I was thinking of a better Urban Dictionary without all the sexual innuendo. Or something better than Wiktionary. (But all of this is entirely theoretical at this point.)

Shog9

@Ash the problem with that here is... These are people, who gotta get on with their lives, and may not appreciate (in some cases expressly do not want) being tossed into the spotlight for the hell of it.

Catija

@JonEricson Could [have] be[en] interesting. But SE has come back to things they thought were dead end in the past... like Enterprise... They shuttered it and now they've not only brought it back but are adding Channels on and (as of yesterday) have shown that it's going to be their focus for future revenue streams.

Magisch

@Shog9 I think it's just the voyeuristic nature of the internet

user168476

18:13

@Shog9 Oh, I'm not saying we should get all of that knowledge, especially in this case

Magisch

Of course lots of people would like a detailed post explaining why and whom was let go, but that would be pretty terrible if SO would actually publish that

user168476

In this case we extra shouldn't.

Shog9

@Magisch no, that's something else. Obviously this stuff is impossible to keep secret from someone determined to find it, but that's different from the company ( / its representatives) publicly airing it under the guise of transparency.

Magisch

@Shog9 See what I wrote directly underneath

user168476

And I'm not really speaking about the list of actual humans whose lives got...disrupted, for lack of a better term, but more the general unexpectedness of this whole event as a happening

Magisch

18:14

I can appreciate that y'all don't want this aired on SO/SE or chat.SO/SE especially when you can help it

Jon Ericson

@Catija Yes. I think Docs will come back in some form or another. But yesterday probably delayed that years.

Magisch

It's nice that you're making such an effort to protect the former employees. Many employers wouldn't

user168476

Basically, a lot of people saw SE as bulletproof magic juice, and now maybe it's not, and that's scary

Magisch

I am somewhat guilty of that...

Mad Scientist

@Shog9 I'd suspect that the lack of any official information played a large part here. Even after hearing the initial news I was very surprised when I later saw the actual count, which was much larger than I expected. The list of actual people is none of our business, but the general scale of the layoffs does make a difference to the community

Jon Ericson

18:16

@Ash Heh. Clearly we haven't been nearly transparent enough.

Catija

Not only protect but help them find what's next. And there's likely someone here working in just about every corner of the industry who can help people find great positions.

Magisch

@JonEricson I think it's more that SE represents what most developers want from a company

If I see a tech company, I want it to be like SE. And almost none of them are, not even remotely

Catija

@JonEricson As a privately held company, there's obviously only so much that corporate is going to share. There's a huge difference between sharing projects that are being worked on and sharing your balance sheets.

Magisch

So the hope (implicitely) is that SE does really really well and can serve as a model

Seeing it falter if only a little does instill a fear that things might not turn out that way

And that all the progress towards companies not treating people like cattle will be undone and in future it'll be held as an example that transparency and decency doesn't work in this society

for what it's worth these are my personal fears that were sparked by this. Not sure if other people share these, but this is why I'm concerned

Jon Ericson

Ah yes. I do think we've done well by the employees we let go. It's too bad the details can't be shared. (I don't even know most of the details.) Layoffs are another part of a company lifecycle, unfortunately.

Shog9

18:19

@MadScientist there's... A nasty tendency for folks to make bad assumptions in situations like this (not helped when some companies make excuses about layoffs as being "yearly review" or stack-rank based - "the money is just a bonus, we're really getting rid of dead wood"). We're not gonna do that; it's not honest, and no one who has actually interacted with the folks involved would believe it.

user168476

I think at the end of the day, all of us want to make sure this thing we've all collectively helped build/nurture/what have you gets to still be an awesome part of the internet for as long as possible.

Shog9

These were really good people, brilliant to work with, and filling their shoes is gonna be a struggle - so our first goal is to help them hit the ground running - if/when public communication facilitates that, great, but otherwise it's at best a distraction at this point.

Our next goal: prioritizing the work to be done so that we who remain don't drop anything critical.

And... That does involve public communication, but not navel-gazing.

Magisch

@Shog9 I guess it's also because most people aren't used to a company showing even a hint of weakness

usually corporate mouthpieces spin layoffs as a "growth" opportunity or "pruning dead weight" or somesuch bs

So there is a fear that the locusts will smell a weakness and go for the kill

Shadow Wizard

@Jeremy I still don't get why you're now using a zombie chat account?

Shog9

@Magisch yeah. Which is massively unfair to the folks affected, both those leaving and those who remain.

Shadow Wizard

18:22

(but happy to see you in a good mood! ;))

Magisch

@Shog9 aye. it is what it is

Everyone of us here in chat and on the various sites is invested in SE succeeding

Shadow Wizard

We are?

:D

Magisch

Even though we might not be monetarily, we all spend our time and our effort (that is worth actual money since most of us are also professionals) improving this

So of course we'll all get concerned if things don't go right

Catija

@Magisch Well... not literally. ;)

Magisch

@Catija invested means has an interest in, no?

Doesn't have to be flat out money

Catija

18:24

Even "has an interest in" has a monetary connotation. But, yes. That's why there was a ;).

Magisch

I could care less if 2000$ disappeared from my bank account tomorrow, but if SO went down that would really sting

there is a lot of passionate effort in there, and that is not measured up with just some money

Shog9

@Magisch We gotta make money; at one point there was a crossroads between running SO (only) on a skeleton crew and making a modest profit or expanding; that choice was made a long, long time ago. Specifics aside, we're not doing too badly - but we bet on doing a little better and that bet didn't pay off.

So, slightly different direction, going back to our core competencies while maintaining what actually worked without continuing to pour money into an increasingly unlikely bet (changing an entire industry).

Concrete details on that are already public to some extent and will follow in much more detail in the near future. But... First things first.

Catija

@Shog9 Which is something that I think pretty much everyone is happy to hear. I don't spend a lot of time on SO but I still manage to hear a lot of commentary about SE having their priorities mixed up.

Shog9

The single best part of this org to me has always been how closely it has worked with, drawn from, and given to the folks who make up the communities that we purport to serve.

Magisch

@Shog9 I'd wager this is the reason why most of us are still here

Shog9

18:27

And right now... A good number of them could use a bit of assistance, so we're gonna focus our efforts there.

Magisch

And why there is like an entire team of software professionals that derives pleasure from doing housekeeping for free for this site

Catija

@Magisch "software professionals"? Are you talking about stackapps people and charcoal?

Magisch

I was more thinking about everyone on SO in the review queues

But charcoal is ... more complicated

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of answer: Is reinstalling windows enough for deleting all data? by Carter Temm on superuser.com

Catija

How appropriately timed.

Success

18:30

Well, Wikipedia on the background scene also does many housekeeping (even automated, like anti-vandlism bot, etc)

Magisch

wikipedia is also an organized and internationally recognized charity

not a for profit company

Catija

SE could be a non-profit :P

Magisch

I think the angel investors would have something against that

Jeremy

18:58

@ShadowWizard Because it's an edge case and I like using edge cases.

user330457

19:14

I didn't have a chance to visit Meta SE/SO for a couple of days and my search didn't yield anything. Is there any post about the recent layoffs and company's situation?

Success

no, but there are news article outside SE.

user330457

I saw the one on TechCrunch but it sounds like a mystery. Let me read the chat then. Thank you.

Catija

@ayhan Pretty much starts with the pinned 4 star message by Tim Post.

sh1

Is this why my support request wasn't answered the very minute I sent it?

Jon Ericson

Um... Sure. If that works for you.

sh1

19:26

Excellent. That's that mystery solved.

Magisch

I've had an open ticket for over two months

curses about impatient whippersnappers

old people noises

Jeremy

If it was assigned to me, I'm sorry. :P

sh1

The form doesn't really give any indication that that might happen. At some point I was going to wonder if mine fell down a hole because I had a + in my email address.

Magisch

@Jeremy Nah, that's all shog's fault

:p

sh1

That happens sometimes, and it just makes me want to put more of them in there and complain harder.

Magisch

19:29

Although I guess yesterday's events mean I'll have to wait into 2018 with that

Jeremy

/me signs up for the channels beta.

sh1

I was going to say you'd have to wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas to pass anyway, but on second thought I wonder if that doesn't just make the office quieter and cause the remaining people to gain a whole lot of productivity where they sweep through many outstanding issues.

canon

Deploy cryptocurrency clientscript across the SE network. Hire everyone back.

sh1

/me realises he's just made a quiet-office joke after layoffs, and regrets that.

canon

19:45

@Jeremy I don't know how on Earth that's going to work without the benefit of broader community involvement/moderation. Fingers crossed.

Catija

@canon What do you mean by "community moderation"? We have local wikis/confluences at work and no one spams them or fills them with crap. Why would a Stack Channel be any different than that?

Jeremy

I've used an internal Q&A system at another company before, and usually teams ended up answering and organizing/moderating questions about their areas of expertise.

(The best internal users were also Stack Overflow users, of course.)

Catija

Plus, if questions are "polls" or "subjective"... does it really matter? I'm not sure I see that sort of thing as a problem. It's a tool for a company to use internally. How neat they keep it is up to them but I'm guessing that they're not going to give people who haven't signed an NDA access to internal documentation.

canon

I've seen plenty of intranet knowledge bases which are absolute crap. I'm glad you've had a more positive experience... but I still don't see how it's going to be anymore useful than current tools in that space when it doesn't come with community backing. Like I said, it will be interesting to see how it goes.

Catija

If it's not useful to a company, presumably they will stop paying for it, download what data they have and move on... or just keep paying for it in case someone chooses to use it from time to time... just like any other tool. If you set up a media wiki - no one helps you maintain it... it's up to the people using it to either use it and maintain it or not... I don't see the difference here.

canon

19:56

Exactly...?

Catija

You're sort of assuming that everyone will stop using it simultaneously with no new companies starting... that's not likely what would happen.

sh1

Surely it's selling a decent user interface developed against users from all over the internet? A lot of internal tools I have seen in the past are horribly primitive because they don't have a world-facing version to get world-facing-scale feedback to make it right.

Shog9

@canon an awful lot of 'em are designed and built for "enterprise" customers - with all that entails. Checklist-based design, heavy-handed permission systems (gotta love a wiki that only 3 people in the company can edit...), shitty performance and/or/due-to unrealistic hardware requirements, UI built for demos rather than users...

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