I'm considering using Channels to overcome the issues I'm facing with an underdocumented toolstack our teams have to use. I'm hoping it would enable users/devs to create and find very focused and practical solutions, instead of having to wait for 6 to 8 weeks before everything is only half documented. The wiki we have doesn't fly.

for years we handled a regular stream of emails from folks wanting to buy a version of SO for internal use with a canned email that strongly encouraged them to look elsewhere (I had a big long list of clones I'd send 'em). Didn't... make 'em happy. They wanted SO because they could see that it worked, live, in public, every day; you don't get that from someone's knock-off.

The Q/A model is sound.

It's not doing much to resolve out-of-date documentation.

Oh, actually, it is doing one thing. It's showing dates on responses. I've seen internal tools that omit dates, so you can't tell if what you're looking at is current or not.

I would guess that for these Channels and Enterprise installations they can "enhance" them by recommending review of old posts from time to time... with a setting to somehow remove from circulation old information for products no longer being maintained.

@sh1 Eh... Maybe more than you think. There's no silver-bullet there; someone has to write an update. Whether that's an editor or a new answer or an entirely new question, someone has to write it - it won't happen by magic.

But it does happen

I may hope I can still down vote in the Enterprise Edition ...

The issue is said new answers are buried below the old and outdated ones

I'm pretty sure I've seen requests around for how we can keep old questions on SO up to date... same solution used here could be used on private sites but possibly only bug specific people about keeping them updated rather than a general userbase.

I'm kinda crap at SQL, so there are a few topics I regularly visit when doing stuff on SEDE. I've watched them gain new information on new versions of SQL Server over the past 6 years.

oh - and I sort by "last active" when visiting them, so that I know when there's new info added (whether new answer or edit)

@JohnDvorak But that's a setting because of the public nature of things... on a private site, you could likely disable voting entirely to some degree... there's probably only going to be one "current" answer... and you could even give "accept" status to specific people rather than to the OP of the question.

@Shog9 You don't come across as crap at sql

unless your definition of crap is assuming a very high standard

How about we age away upvotes? Let's say, 50%/yr

Downvoting in a small company's Channel... I can foresee a drama...

@Magisch I work with bluefeet and Nick Craver. So, yes.

If you are crap at SQL, what am I?

Super uber bad of doom ^ 42?

@Magisch Still probably better than me.

@Magisch definitely better than me

None of you code for a living, I think

At least @Success has 4K on SO...

So the comparison isn't fair. I'm being paid to not be shit at it and apparently there are still lots of people eons better :p

I'm thinking in programming language space, not in SQL. Like the "spoiler%" question I asked, I already did it in Python, but no clue in SQL.

@Magisch Ironically, I was much, much worse with SQL when my job depended on writing it for production use. My go-to technique was "pull entire table into memory, index and filter with bespoke C++" - the results were just as bad as it sounds.

@Shog9 Yeah I cant do that

@Shog9 I appreciate that, but you're not too shabby when it comes to it.

due to various bad design decisions, some of the tables I work with hold 70m+ records

you'd be amazed at what you can accomplish if you're determined to do something the wrong way...

I'm not sure filing a ticket to have you review my query was the right idea then

"Good attempt, needs more c++" - Shog9, 2017 probably

oh, these days I'm all about indexing and filtering with JavaScript.

> Needs more Unicode. —Shog 2038

@Shog9 "But why" - Magisch, 2017

poop emoji makes everything faster

really gets things... moving

@Shog9 serious for a second, will yesterday's events delay the implementation of your project on SO regarding invalidating votes?

Did that depend on dev support?

@Magisch I have no idea at this point.

mhm

@bluefeet that's high praise, thanks

sorting query results in javascript is ... a thing

@Shog9 there are plenty of times, I see a query you've written and I'm like how the heck did you get that result. ;)

I prefer to avoid javascript where possible. To the extent that I outsource business logic into SPs because I don't like doing lots of javascript stuff

@bluefeet yeah, rube goldberg machines can be a bit hard to follow ;-)

:)

In more than one sense of the phrase "hard to follow"

@Shog9 I would be really curious to see some of your queries

But they're probably company secrets so

@Jeremy with Edge browser? ;)

@Jeremy ^

Good song!

@Magisch some scattered across the public SEDE. But, since I don't generally bother to log in, not all that easy to find.

@Shog9 A kingdom to see the logic behind what y'all doing for serial voting atm

I understand why it's a secret but I'd be damned if I wasn't massively interested in it

ah... Yeah, that's a rube-goldberg machine to be sure. Years of accumulated checks + JavaScript for visualization of the results.

@Shog9 Half of your queries you write when you're not even signed in... :/

more'n half

I hate logging in. It always logs me back out again.

It makes it complicated to find them... is my point :P

Never mind. I missed half of your statement.

Some are probably documented on the metas... any metas...

@Shog9 I believe @TimStone has still some fixes in the pipeline for SEDE login (6 to 8 weeks ago he still had) ....

There are probably some in chat, too.

But I think searching for links in chat is... complicated? But I may be misremembering.

@Success there's an old & terrible query linked here: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/334866/…

> -- I would expand and comment the expression below, but I don't want to encourage anyone to do string manipulation in SQL.

@Catija oh, not that bad... if you'll hurry up you can manage two more kids..... :P

@ShadowWizard ... they call women who are pregnant after 35 "geriatric pregnancies". That's ... not something I like the sound of.

@jadarnel27 I had no idea it's a sad day when pinging you, was just acting upon @Oded's "brown" message... so blame him. ;)

@Shog9 do you have the same limitations like no user defined functions on the internal instance of SEDE?

@rene I believe so, yes

Oh ....

@ShadowWizard things were brown when I wrote then.

They became less brown later on.

@Catija ouch. Well, my wife was 38 when carrying our latest creation. And all was just well. :)

@ShadowWizard Oh, sure. I was 34 when I had Ben and my health hasn't changed much at all... so I'm not expecting some crazy change... but the terminology could use some... bedside manner.

@Oded happy to hear! What made them less brown? The support here? :)

hugs @Oded

@ShadowWizard You have it backwards. Brown is always is a good thing.

@jadarnel27 not me, @Oded. I also love brown.

@Catija lol...

(just had something similar, so happy ;))

man, who are these people using Opera mini? I know Opera has a fanatic following... but it seems like Opera mini hasn't implemented any interesting features. It's always a red box on caniuse.com

... and I think Opera was going to use blink for its rendering engine too.

@Catija yep. Wait, so you do plan more? ;)

IME, people on really crappy connections and spammers. Sometimes both.

@canon isn't it coming as default browser on some mobile devices?

@ShadowWizard On the fence. Ben is great. We love focusing on him. But I was an only child and I think (with absolutely no personal knowledge of being a sibling) that it'd be better to not be an only child.

it may be

I think they changed the default behavior at some point so it doesn't defer rendering to Opera servers

@canon well, so this explains it. Most people never bother to switch to other browser.

:/

^

It was the default on my Blackberry, like, 8 years ago.

@Catija I think you're totally correct. Not from experience though, got brother and sister. :)

So hurry up, clock is ticking... ;)

</mother-lecture> ;)

@ShadowWizard I can confirm it is correct ...

Having a twin brother is cool, but it sounds like your first already missed their chance at that.

@jadarnel27 ouch

@rene you mean you are the only child and it... wasn't/isn't good?

@jadarnel27 if you still have the receipt you can maybe return it?

I was an only child until I was eight. I'm still a mess.

@jadarnel27 twins is special case. :)

@jadarnel27 My dream was to have a pair of mix gendered twins I could name Sebastian and Viola.

@ShadowWizard no, it was/is awesome!

*Voila, imo

@canon lol... 8 years diff is a lot, can't really bond with such difference.

Yeah, 2-3 years is good.

At that point it becomes more of a paternal relationship

@canon exactly

@Catija Great name choices.

My wife and I are riding the "no kids" train. We freely admit that we're not qualified to be responsible for the physical and mental well-being of another human being.

An 8-year-old parent?

Hey, man... parents of no nation.

@jadarnel27 I wish I could take credit but Shakespeare wins.

@canon you sound like @Magisch with this. :)

@Catija Ah, I feel so uncultured now.

@Ash Indeed. It's my favorite of them all.

See... you get to use it sometimes.

@canon well, to be serious, we're not really "responsible for the physical and mental well-being of another human being". We just show the way, give some tools, and hope for the best. :)

You're responsible to a point, i.e.: while they're in your care. Parents can do tremendous damage.

@canon I freely admit the same. Undeterred, I'm just setting up a therapy fund alongside the college fund.

lol, good.

The amazing part of being a parent is seeing how capable your kids, even at an extremely young age, are ... it's amazing.

Same thing with programming

@JohnDvorak yeah those bugs are evolving.

Except there are no legal repercussions to abandoning a 16 year old project because it's become an unmaintainable mess.

LOL

I've heard of some projects suing for emancipation...

My 2 years old project is also a huge mess by now. But I don't give up. He's strong.

WTH? Posted a FR over on SO meta and literally between the time I pressed the button and then scrolled to the top of the page, some a***ole downvoted it!

I know it's been asked before, but can we PERMANENTLY LIFETIME BAN jerks that downvote without even pretending to read?

@AwesomePoodles umm.... no?

@ShadowWizard I know, but it really torqued me. </rant>

@AwesomePoodles it's just.. meta. Probably someone saw you wrote a lot, with code and stuff, and didn't like it. That is it.

(or, someone lost their keys.)

@JohnDvorak The problem with decaying votes is that they're constantly reinforced by people who only read and upvote the first answer that "seems to work". So outdated answers can still get stuck at the top so long as they work even after they develop serious caveats.

I know, code and stuff on SO. How DARE me?

@Awesome BTW, it was already asked before:

My hammer is not cross site though.

@ShadowWizard Yes, but not on MetaSO, I Checked. Also, no love on Meta SE for 2+ years. :(

@AwesomePoodles sure, 99% of the requests get no love, many for 7-8 years.

And now with 20% less team, they'll get even less love.

But still, we have hope.

@JohnDvorak I think @AaronHall mentioned this, more than once...

@AwesomePoodles just don't propose stuff that will put my browser at risk. It is that simple.

@rene That particular issue Nick was supposed to fix

Oh, in 6 to 8 weeks ... :)

I actually did fix something with the login but I'm not sure if it ever got reviewed, I'll have to check

But also yes, I am quite behind on everything :/

That is what happens, life and priorities

@rene , I didn't. I'm not aware of any risk that this would create. Provide details if you know otherwise.

@AwesomePoodles I commented on your MSO question with everything I know. Please address those concerns.

@Shog9 Yeah I'd not be terribly interested in the Javascript part of it

Just the backend

I love playing with data

tickling interpretations and lists out of a massive chunk of data is like making music to me

on some days SEDE is my cocaine

@rene , I can't address vague FUD. That's a lose-lose proposition. I just googled for exploits and so far haven't found anything that wasn't patched years ago.

Maybe I should become a data analyst

get to invent new ways of making numbers look pretty all day

@AwesomePoodles fair enough, removed the comment

@rene Thanks.

Speaking of exploits; is it WAI that meta.stackexchange.com/help/security-reports points to the same form as would be used by people who think that SE made a dog look at them funny?

@sh1 Currently, yes.

It's just my own "I have something important to say!" arrogance that makes me overlook the ultimate futility of listening to people on the internet, isn't it.

(FTR, I don't think any dog has ever looked at me funny as a consequence of something it read on SE)

Well, I think it's pretty amazing that your dog can read?

Can you script automatic dvs based on keywords or tags or ... anything like that?

@Catija sure

... so it's possible that the DV on that question wasn't due to someone manually downvoting it when it was posted but, instead, someone with a script that did so?

yes

@Catija see chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/89?m=5004181#5004181

Pff, who flagged that ?

@Catija gets flagged .... :(

:(

→ 1 message moved to ‮Shadow's Sandbox

sorry

But... It's a SE image. If you don't like it... maybe you should complain that it's the Stack Apps 404 page.

I don't want to have you chat banned ...

@Catija I think that has been brought up before

Apparently I can invalidate a flag on my own chat message... :/

@rene Thanks. The flag is still there, though... it's just now in that mirror room.

can't flag ZARDOZ!

ban the flaggers then ...

you'll upset Stack Apps

@Catija anyway, that specific app/script was removed but it did what was still visible in the explanation in the onebox: it down voted posts when you loaded them in your browser (assuming you installed the script).

@rene Yeah, I see the MSE question about it. meta.stackexchange.com/questions/280278/…

Ah, yeah, it got attention there as well, and a bit of drama IIRC

I see my answer there confused some people.

you are not as nice as I thought

surprise

Hmmm. yeah, that does seem like an interesting discussion.

Seems like something that could be addressed pretty easily by querying post age at vote time. Though, I could imagine someone on SFF who hates some property deciding to downvote all questions about that property out of spite... or, on M&TV, someone who doesn't like ID questions automatically downvoting any question with that tag.

I'm guessing that neither of those two things would be caught by the serial downvoting scripts as I'm guessing they're tuned towards users rather than tags.

What is a Jake Pauler?

someone with a hater

Apparently they're actually "Jake Paulers"... so their hatred seems to include not knowing their actual name.

Wow... um... the vitriol on the "Jake Paulers" UD page is...

so, some Disney / Youtube thing.

New wave Beliebers.

@Catija vitriol?

@ShadowWizard I didn't really want to link to it considering a photo of Zardoz earlier got flagged... urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jake%20pauler

Those hashtags are... really bad.

oh

@Catija that's bad, even for UD... no way to flag it?

It's beyond their usual bad language.

Not that I can see.

@Catija you mean that half naked man that acts as 404 page somewhere? lol

@ShadowWizard Shog linked to it... chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/6467902#6467902

Think links to those are fine, just not onebox

@Catija lol and his message got flagged?

@ShadowWizard No. I posted the image in here and it got flagged.

Rene moved it to your mirror room.

Can be funny is such thing happens, flag is approved by high rep users, and Shog (or other CM) is chat banned. Though pretty sure they can unban themselves. :D

(and ban everyone involved ;))

On the regular chat.se mods can't get chat banned... I'd assume the same is true here.

@Catija really? Even by other mods? lol

@sh1 people need to sleep ;p

You can't kick or ban a blue.

huh

Blue Shield

@Catija oh, ouch.

@Catija nice name, but it's just the sandbox. :)

Amusing to me because "Blue Cross Blue Shield" is a major insurance provider in the US.

lol

The text is mirrored and it has your name on it... so :P

Half my name.. no Wizard there...

Bah. Everyone calls you "Shadow" though?

Also, it's not just mirrored, it also cause everything after it to be mirrored. ;)

@Catija except Mr. Friend who calls me Mr. Wizard. :D

Most people here have single word name though.

Sha wiz Dow ard is the proper spelling

Nah that's just my fun time name.

@Shog9 Yeah... about as much as you're actually Nog Shine.

As opposed to...

@Catija funny enough, two people have taken that name now

lol Kenny is on a roll....

Anyone watched the movie? ^

(one since revoked)

@Shog9 I'm aware of one of them... I think I linked you to it.

@Catija nope Something not all mods know, amusingly

There are ways

@JourneymanGeek There are a lot of things a lot of mods don't know. I'm really looking forward to having an onboarding set of posts on the new Mod Channel ;)

@Shog9 You mean like changing their parent site?

Well, there's that, but it only works on chat.se

Well, I'm only a mod on Chat.SE so that's the only place it matters :P

@Shog9 diamondectomies dosen't count ;p

Heh

Oh this reminds me, @alexolut you're out of the suspension by now, right?

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