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Journeyman Geek

12:14 AM

aww

I started writing an answer with a dancing frog and all

and it got closed as dupe by... community? 0_0

user202362

1:08 AM

does anyone know anything about hardwood & treated timber

Evan Carroll

2:09 AM

-2

Q: Retag request: gis->spatial

These two tags are synonyms. Database Administrators has this alias too. There is no difference between spatial gis Spatial has a tag wiki of Spatial data types store geometric data, that is data related to an object's position in space. GIS has a tag wiki of A Geographic Informa...

I AM BACK.

How are all my people doing? On a scale of 10-10, how much did you miss me?

user202362

who are you?

Evan Carroll

2:25 AM

I AM EVAN CARROLL.

If you haven't heard, you haven't lived.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected: Why contradictions imply anything by fweffewwef on philosophy.SE

Evan Carroll

2:39 AM

There we go, I fixed the question so people can vote on both sides of it!!! Let your voice be heard! meta.stackoverflow.com/q/359855/124486

user202362

you must be from an older version of stackoverflow, I have heard people back then were less agile & more mild

user202362

user202362

this basically summed up the difference between older version and current version of users

Evan Carroll

I don't understand what you're hinting at. Are you saying I'm a Pandabear and you're a grizzly? Last I checked, and it was a long time ago, this network didn't have a gigantic user base of furries.

user202362

precisely ... panda can only survive when there is less competition

user202362

2:54 AM

on a unrelated note:

user202362

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Potentially bad keyword in answer, blacklisted user: Is skepticism more influenced by one’s milieu than other personality traits are? by user42902 on skeptics.SE

user202362

Evan Carroll

bears are dumb.

Especially grizzly bears.

If you want to be big and stupid and eat fish all the time, be a whale.

Knew they were dumb and gave them a stupid technology that was quick to be outdated. ^

user202362

3:12 AM

true, that's why most adaptive stackoverflow users mutate

user202362

e-mutation anyways

Journeyman Geek

3:37 AM

@EvanCarroll from outer space?

Evan Carroll

3:50 AM

From the glorious land of Milk and Honey and Productivity and doing things, to the matrix-submerged cesspool of MSO with tyrants galore and neck beards.

Journeyman Geek

ah. Condolences.

Evan Carroll

I feel the need to listen to podcasts that represent the cutting edge of Angular.

And they all suck =(

It's pretty sad.

Journeyman Geek

0_0

Listening about tech... ehh

Kinda gives you a super broad 'pop sci' view of things

but I'd much rather read. Until someone makes a singable/understandable as sung coding language?

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of answer: Six of a kind . by Chen Shuwen on math.SE

Evan Carroll

It's not about the code it's about the new features and direction.

Journeyman Geek

3:54 AM

ahh

Evan Carroll

Because the new kids don't like to write and are incapable of summarizing.

Journeyman Geek

eh

I've always felt good technical writing skills makes for a more well rounded techie sort

Evan Carroll

and if you want to see bad docs, I highly recommend the Angular docs.

Journeyman Geek

If nothing else, it helps you bridge the gap from copy-pasting instructions to understanding

Evan Carroll

I'm a huge fan of tech writers and tech docs.

I need to port perldocs to JS.

losing the clear social distinction between NAME/SYNOPSIS/DESCRIPTION/SEE ALSO/AUTHOR was the worst thing that ever happened. The Angular docs, on top of being always horribly out of date are this misguided attempt to teach foundation with cookbook which is just weird.

SmokeDetector

4:34 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer, pattern-matching email in answer: My muslim husband divorced me saying 3 times 'i divorce you' Can he take me back? by Rose Harry on islam.SE

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer, pattern-matching email in answer, blacklisted user: Signing Divorce agreement in presence of two witnesses without verbally saying it? Is this divorce valid? by Rose Harry on islam.SE

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer, pattern-matching email in answer, blacklisted user: Marriage divorce by Rose Harry on islam.SE

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Username similar to website in answer: Is freebitco.in legit site? by JL BTC PTC on bitcoin.SE

Nog Shine

What is the penalty if a user posts a rude or spam post on meta?

Journeyman Geek

DEATH!

TERMINAL LETHAL DEATH!

Catija

:/

Journeyman Geek

TERMINAL LETHAL FATALLY LETHAL TERMINALLY FATAL DEATH!

(Actually I think its about the same as any other site)

Catija

So... does that mean you're feeling better, @JourneymanGeek ? ;)

Journeyman Geek

4:42 AM

-100 if there's enough flags, nukes if someone notices and feels its needed

Nog Shine

I mean per site meta..

Journeyman Geek

@Catija I haven't needed claritin or cough meds in 2 days

@NogShine errr....

Catija

Nice!

Why would you do that on meta?

Journeyman Geek

@NogShine we suspend them through the main site ;p

Nog Shine

Rant..

Journeyman Geek

4:43 AM

@NogShine ah

Catija

Rants aren't really the same thing. They usually just get deleted.

Journeyman Geek

So, lets consider the nature of the rant

"I think this is unfair" or "Do you think the mods should have done foo/bar" or even "Mods should be deposed and new modsput in place"

would just get downvoted and handled by the community

Nog Shine

@Catija The user also commented badly about the faiths of the moderator which resulted in the deletion of answer as abusive.

Catija

@NogShine We're here to be whipping boys/girls but you can still go too far. We deserve the protection of the "be nice" policy, too.

Journeyman Geek

"Journeymangeek is a ********" would go "erm, <whichever mod's around>, could you take a look please?" If I see it or "Dude, someone was nasty, I handled it!" if its someone else.

@NogShine in essence I'd do exactly the same thing if a normal user or a mod was insulted

only difference is I'd ping the mod

Catija

4:46 AM

People can get pretty emotional about their content... I'm a bit more lenient about attacks on myself but not on others.

Journeyman Geek

@Catija if its about me, I'd let another mod handle it ;p

(if the community dosen't get out the torches and pitchforks)

Nog Shine

@JourneymanGeek Yes, it was deleted by other mod. The user is just fine on meta and main.

Journeyman Geek

@NogShine well, mod might have felt a warning was enough

in situations like this, we often need to decide on the ground what's best so to speak.

Catija

@JourneymanGeek Sure... wasn't saying I'd "handle" it... in a moddy way. Though, if I felt I could coax out a constructive discussion, I'd probably talk about it.

Journeyman Geek

@Catija if its about actions sure

I do this

if its well... personal attacks, and I feel I might go a little bitier than necessary...

Nog Shine

4:50 AM

If a user gets a penalty on main, why not on meta? "Be Nice" is for both sites. Isn't it?

Journeyman Geek

It is

but whether there's a suspension really depends on a lot of things

Sometimes we might feel a mod message is enough

Its very easy to armchair quarterback another mod but there's a balance to be struck

Journeyman Geek

5:22 AM

cv-plz meta.stackexchange.com/questions/303728/…

Travis J

@NogShine - Isn't implying that you are a sock puppet of Shog9 kind of, well, dishonest?

Nog Shine

@TravisJ Hahaha. I'm not a sock puppet. I'm Shog's friend. :P

Catija

Oh?

Travis J

I know that you are not a sock puppet. It is just that your profile strongly implies you are. It takes a decent amount of inspection to realize that you are not. Lifting the name from the sock puppet post from Shog a long time ago, and then linking to it in your profile, gives the impression you are.

Your call.

Catija

Shog is aware of it, if it matters at all... he hasn't done anything about it at this point...

Travis J

5:35 AM

Shog is totally not looking over your shoulder

Anyway, I said my part, that's all I had to say

Nog Shine

Wait.. Is it dangerous?

plays 007 music

lol

:)

"Dangerous"? Um... I mean... they do take it pretty seriously when someone attempts to impersonate them... I think that it's impossible to create an account with one of their usernames, despite there being no restrictions (generally) on name collisions. But... as I said... if you're not actively pretending to be him, I think you're ok... Not everyone knows the joke.

Nog Shine

5:45 AM

@TravisJ You half posted my message. I said I'm his friend too. ;P

@DonaldDuck - Nope, just a "friend", so stated. Not a sock puppet. — Travis J 10 mins ago

OH!. My bad..

Journeyman Geek

(eh. People should just find a handle or a theme for handles and stick to it ._.)

Travis J

I tried to retain your original statement

No problem

Andrew T.

I've been playing "cat & mouse" username with a normal human. Had been suspected as socks :/

Journeyman Geek

@Catija heh, at some point someone tried using an image of ash as an ava on chat...

I think everyone yelled at him ;p

Travis J

@AndrewT. You should go for 6" white male :D

Journeyman Geek

5:48 AM

@TravisJ cat and mouse... with a 6" white male... dude...

what happens in Vegas... ;p

Travis J

I love Vegas

:D

I could be there in like 5 hours, don't tempt me lol

Andrew T.

I love Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the band

now come to think of it.... I've been misreading 6 ' username >_<

Journeyman Geek

Glad to have ~~traumatised~~ spoiled it for you

Andrew T.

I always read it as what Travis... mentioned...

that's why I decided not to chase it, alas...

I admit my defeat @6'whitemale

Travis J

lol

one is made of the other

one is not

Journeyman Geek

5:53 AM

I can never remember which is foot and inches...

which makes it even worse.

less is longer (!?)

not what she said.

6'3" '=feet "=inches

And what do the numbers mean?

Andrew T.

@JourneymanGeek practicaltypography.com/foot-and-inch-marks.html

Travis J

5:56 AM

My favorite is that the width of your pinky finger is one centimeter

And then that there are 10 millimeters in 1 centimeter makes it easy to guesstimate millimeters :)

Andrew T.

metric unit ftw... (sorry imperial guys)

Travis J

We use both at work, just depends on where it came from

Feeds

And arguably sunspots, on rare occasions. But even if they count, it takes ideal conditions and you might hurt your eyes.

Travis J

You can see the red plains of Mars with the naked eye when it is in the sky on rare occasion. It just looks red... just like the plains on the Moon just look whiteish-blue.

I claim BS!

Andrew T.

@Feeds did you know that seeing ISS with naked eyes from earth is safe?

Journeyman Geek

6:03 AM

Your eyes... are naked! YOU MONSTER! WHACK THINK OF THE CHILDREN! WHACK YOU ARE THINKING OF CHILDREN ARN'T YOU WHACK

Andrew T.

how about... Naked Snake?

Journeyman Geek

writes angry letters to various political people

Nog Shine

Speaking of feeds, what should be done when the chat feeds which posts questions from per site meta and main site are very lazy?

Andrew T.

they're throttled too, so take it slow...

attempt to add all new questions feed from SO

Nog Shine

Late by 2,3 hours.. or sometimes 7 hours.

Travis J

6:07 AM

adds Jon Skeet to feeds

Journeyman Geek

Read the main site? ;p

Nog Shine

Hot meta discussion becomes dead cold when I see the question in chat.

Journeyman Geek

I just keep meta open

Andrew T.

@NogShine Now that's strange, perhaps you didn't set it properly? Usually they are at most 5 minutes late, but dunno for other sites.

Nog Shine

@AndrewT. The feed for posting main site is okay but the problem is with meta feeds. I faced this problem on M&TV, Hinduism.

in The Screening Room on The Stack Exchange Network Chat, Nov 23 at 2:01, by Nog Shine

Metareel is only one hour late.

in The Screening Room on The Stack Exchange Network Chat, Nov 23 at 2:02, by Nog Shine

But its brother Metabot on Hinduism is 7 hours late.

Journeyman Geek

6:11 AM

@NogShine I suspect these are based pff RSS feeds

and I donno. maybe there's something that generates them and its slow?

buuuuut I don't think the system assumes everyone needs to read everything immediately

Andrew T.

@NogShine apparently it's not only you

Journeyman Geek

hah

My guess about RSS feeds are right ;)

Nog Shine

Yeah, they are RSS feeds

Andrew T.

I don't know if using SE custom feed will fix it or not

Nog Shine

Let's try it.

How to set a name to that feed?

Derpy

8:49 AM

monday morning, new GreaseMonkey autoinstalls. Where is the "launch editor" button gone now?

Journeyman Geek

9:09 AM

→ 12 messages moved to Chimney

Andrew T.

@NogShine hmm... maybe try changing from this page? click 'edit', then change the 'filter name'

for the RSS feed link, it's on the bottom of the page as usual

Nog Shine

9:54 AM

@AndrewT. Thanks for your time Andrew. There's no improvement even when we change it. I left them. :D

Andrew T.

I see... welp, bug SE for their bug :p

!!/blame

SmokeDetector

@AndrewT. It's Andrew T.'s fault.

Andrew T.

yeah... yeah...

Nog Shine

I need some coffee

!!/coffee

SmokeDetector

@NogShine brews coffee for @NogShine

rene

10:20 AM

delv-pls 20K time meta.stackexchange.com/questions/303736/… /cc @JourneymanGeek @ShadowWizard @Bart

Journeyman Geek

@rene did my part ;p

rene

good, now we wait for those that are slacking a bit ...

Shadow Wizard

11:19 AM

@rene well I was the first to close.... ;)

Andrew T.

heh, slacker...

counting remaining rep to 20k...

John Dvorak

heh, slacker... sits at 20461

Derpy

11:50 AM

hats are returning, so did the howl.

After all, both are hats.

poor John by now is just a perch for the Howl.

John Dvorak

12:28 PM

heh, what? Looks under himself. Eek! A human!

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Email in answer: i have a blockchain wallet.aes backup can i get my password from that? by sagar amrutiya on bitcoin.SE

Derpy

1:40 PM

..... Goodbye Greasemonkey, welcome ViolentMonkey.

rene

1:56 PM

@Derpy it is a kind of pain in the ... that whole GM ...

Andrew T.

so... any reason why I should migrate to the violent one?

Derpy

after the "post Firefox 57 update" Greasemonkey decided to:
1) hide all my old script (yes, may be broken due to changes, but please show them to me and let me edit them)
2) hide the editor. Based on the foul-language filled comment on the review page for the add-in, it seems that no editor is provided now and you can only install a new script from an internet source (so I should publish on github a script I WROTE just for personal use???)
3) even if point 2 isn't true, the wiki fails to explain me how to recover my scripts or create a new one

Shadow Wizard

Looks like 57 is breaking tons of things? blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/08/10/…

Derpy

Scripts are broken because they weren't able to replicate everything under the new add-in model, or so they say. Still, Violent Monkey:
a) still provides me with a "your script" page with a clear "NEW SCRIPT" button on top.
b) manages to run my legacy script

Journeyman Geek

@ShadowWizard 57 basically drops the whole old extension model

Derpy

2:04 PM

so basically, as now the post update version of grease doesn't work for me and doesn't allow me to use any of my old script or rewrite them from scratch.

The new compatible ViolentMonkey does both

(yep, it is not a legacy version. It is the new version, compatible with FF57)

John Dvorak

My scripts work just fine with GM, but they only do basic DOM stuff

rene

@Derpy my old scripts are still here user\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[numbers]\gm_scripts

Use the file explorer ... ;)

Derpy

@rene I know. And that's how I was able to recover them and move them to ViolentMonkey.

rene

Ah, yes.

Derpy

but GreaseMonkey didn't list them anymore

rene

2:08 PM

No, that is true

Derpy

nor did it provide a "new script" button anywhere I looked

rene

Violent Monkey might offer an easy migration opton ...

Andrew T.

next time we'll have a standard for Monkeys... oh wait...

Derpy

just needed the Button to be there next time @ShadowWizard will require a reminder

Andrew T.

1 Monkey to combine all the Monkeys!

Derpy

2:11 PM

@AndrewT. create your own plugin and call it Sun Wukong.

Derpy

2:31 PM

.... and now, thanks to the Nerd, I discovered they crafted a "real world" version of Polybius as a ps4 game.

seems pretty close to whatever the original was supposed to be.

Based on the videos, it could be used as a torture.

Do not watch that if you have seizure problems.

Andrew T.

Well, when you're trap inside an arcade warehouse...

Derpy

the game is PSVR compatible. WHY would you play THAT with an headmounted visor....

John Dvorak

3:10 PM

being trapped ... and being a trap ... are two very different things

Derpy

Dec 16 '15 at 12:19, by Derpy

@ShadowWizard I already told ye. "Grammar Nazi" hat is an hoax. It is useless to keep trying... :P

John Dvorak

aw shucks, I want one

Derpy

99% you will get a turkey instead.

@6'whitemale What part of that makes it C++ specific? I see the same horrors on many, many posts

> Derpy's Tip of the Day: WINTER BASH IS COMING! Time to post some useless comments that you will delete in about two weeks in order to win the yearly expected "delete N comments" hat!

rene

3:46 PM

@animuson I thing that would give the person responsible for the new user engagement a heart attack. I suspect you don't want to put any barriers towards new users adding more information about themselves ;-). — Mad Scientist 48 secs ago

Derpy

4:01 PM

@rene doesn't that conflict with the "you can put anything on your profile" thing from some time ago?

rene

well, yeah. It is a bit of an issue I guess. You don't want to provide a content platform for spammers while you want legit users to have a cozy on-boarding experience

Does seem to conflict at the moment

Andrew T.

change min rep to 2 to be able to put telp no & url in profile

well, expect regex war though

or to be fair, add a new privilege to input full about me at 5 rep

Derpy

yeah, right, because you know... we really have to protect those poor innocent profiles.

In case that didn't seem evident enough.. yep, Sarcasm

@balpha burinate user, please

and this probably too

SmokeDetector

4:43 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer: Is scooter rental in Philippines as common among tourists as it is in Thailand? by Arth on travel.SE

user315433

Activity tab of user profiles is not indexed by search engines (robots.txt has Disallow: /users/*?tab=activity). Why? The spam is on the profile tab, not activity tab.

user315433

Tangentially related: Google search for number ranges works with profiles, for examples site:https://stackoverflow.com/users/ "100000.. profile views" returns the users with at least 100K profile views.

user315433

But Activity tab has more interesting stats than Profile tab. :/

user315433

@Derpy Not every tag can generate 9 downvotes and delete/reopen war within an hour.

user315433

I suppose some other active tags are like that; I just don't see those posts because I filter out all hyperactivity.

SmokeDetector

5:04 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected: How to write a follow up paper describing a different solution to a similar problem by Tyresse likesgrease on academia.SE

user315433

5:19 PM

The last line of robots.txt is Sitemap: https://stackoverflow.com/sitemap.xml but that's 404 for me...

user315433

Is this something only bots can access? Must be a huge file...

Shog9

8

Q: Stack Overflow Sitemap: WTF?

There have been many questions about the Stack Overflow sitemap, but this question is not like those. My goal is not to figure out how the sitemap works, I just want to look at it (don't worry, I'm not going to abuse it, like the issue here!). I looked at https://stackoverflow.com/robots.txt and ...

discussion support questions sitemap

user315433

Still a bit strange to white-list bots, but makes sense.

user315433

17

A: How does Stack Overflow protect its sitemap?

We have to protect the sitemap because it's enormous; we only publish the last 50k questions, but that's a huge XML file. It's not like it contains any secrets or anything -- it's just an XML file with a list of the last 50k questions to be updated on any of the trilogy sites. Before we did this...

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer, mostly dots in answer: Arduino USB Host Shield with joystick by Jorge Alberto Gómez on arduino.SE

Nog Shine

5:38 PM

Hello guys and girls, isn't good to have a penalty if someone posts spam or abusive on site metas'? They get -100 instantly on main and what about per site meta?

John Dvorak

The rep does propagate eventually. Or do you mean, what if someone posts spam on meta? That is an interesting observation...

Nog Shine

Yeah. spam or hate speech.

rene

@NogShine you can't post spam on per site meta as you need 5 rep to post on meta, or at least the regular spammers can't

Nog Shine

on per site meta.

rene

@NogShine well, hate speech on a per site meta is often handled with a suspension.

Nog Shine

5:44 PM

@rene Yes, normal spammers won't do that. What will be the penalty if a user with some rep posts an abusive speech or posts a spam link with rep they have earned?

rene

@NogShine they get suspended I guess.

Nog Shine

@rene That is only depending on mod's wish and there's no compulsory punishment for the penalty.

rene

I'm not sure how often users get suspended due to heated discussions on a per site meta but I can imagine it happened

Nog Shine

The users are continuing as usual on the main.

@rene Yeah. I just saw a case on Hinduism meta.

rene

I don't expect this to be 100's of users

I'm sure mods will annotate the account

Nog Shine

5:48 PM

Not heated discussions, he talked bad about religious beliefs of a moderator who is against his beliefs.

rene

@NogShine so? Custom mod flag and carry on with your life.

John Dvorak

uhh... suspended for their belief?

rene

Can we have a flag for that?

Nog Shine

No, they are not suspended..

rene

I flag this user because they belief

@NogShine if the message went unnoticed, by all means raise a custom flag and explain your concerns or contact the team.

I don't think adding extra features in to handle these case are worth the effort

Nog Shine

5:51 PM

The user's low quality question was closed and answer was deleted by a mod. Then they went to meta and posted a rude message in an answer. @JohnDvorak

John Dvorak

oh, gotcha

rene

if there is a pattern of this kind of behavior I'm sure the mods will find it an act on it.

John Dvorak

In other news, did Google discontinue the "personally recommended mixes" channel on Youtube, or does their bot just think I don't deserve it because I wasn't using it enough?

Nog Shine

It shows to me.

John Dvorak

It shows to me after refresh, but not even that is reliable to get it to show for me

rene

5:59 PM

Google thinks I'm an Elvis fan, so far for their credibility in getting things right.

John Dvorak

When I subscribed to a decent Let's player, Google decided to fill my recommended page with livestreams, content in all sorts of foreign alphabets and even with livestreams in all sorts of foreign alphabets

I wouldn't be surprised to find emoji-only titles in the recommendations

Nog Shine

@rene Okay. what about a feature for a penalty for hate speech or spam on meta? Isn't it a good one?

It's true that YouTube recommended mixes are not good.

John Dvorak

then there's that whole demonetization thing that's been going on recently

Nog Shine

Where?

John Dvorak

or maybe they're just looking for excuses to get their employee to look at every single video uploaded to the service?

@NogShine `youtube.com/watch?v=D1QSB7YePis

Tl;dr: Youtube has a bot that decides on a whim whether your video deserves ads. It thinks most videos don't. You can appeal for human review, but by then most people have already seen your video, without ads.

rene

6:20 PM

@NogShine meh, you would have to have lots of cases that show that the behavior can no longer be controlled by mods and needs an automatic system. It might be that this happens more on the opinion based SE sites (not sure if that is the correct way to describe it) and less on SO, SU and SF type of sites. You might want to ask around on the other sites first then before you propose such a feature

Nog Shine

opinion based SE sites lol

John Dvorak

like IPS and such

Say what you may, it is a SE site ;P

rene

@NogShine hey, I desperately try here to not offend anyone ;)

Nog Shine

@rene Yes, you do.

You are one of the fun creating users on MSE

rene

If all fails I simply state I'm Dutch and start world war III ...

John Dvorak

6:26 PM

In which order?

rene

In sequence

Most users use Google to log in to Stack Exchange, rather than using Stack Exchange OpenID. ... are there statistics somewhere that show the percentage of users for each idenyity provider?

Catija

6:43 PM

@JohnDvorak Well... sure. It is... :D

Jon Ericson

@rene I don't think that's public. We could probably dig it up if there's a good reason for it.

rene

@JonEricson that is right, I couldn't find it in SEDE and I asked because I had a back and forth here that I wanted to backup with numbers. But if that needs digging the Google is the majority has to do.

Which serves its goal anyway.

Jon Ericson

@rene I'd be shocked if Google weren't still the most common. I don't think we've done much to encourage SE OpenID.

rene

@JonEricson I would be surprised if it was any different, yes.

Adam Lear

7:33 PM

@JonEricson on SO, the signup hero had more of an impact than you might think, IIRC

SE OpenID is also the credential of choice of the modern spammer

rene

probably because it is easier to (ab)use

Catija

I guess SU has lots of users who use the SE OpenID, then :/

John Dvorak

puts the meaning into the "open" part of "openID"

user315433

8:06 PM

> an entrenched moderation team who do nothing besides ban dissenters or throw their weight behind controversial close votes and a group of high rep members who close questions frequently and arbitrarily.

user315433

Fits pretty much any site.

John Dvorak

doesn't fit PPCG, does it?

Catija

@6'whitemale That's... sort of what site user consensus is...

Shadow Wizard

We need the anonymous editor... the part which was edited here is still a mess. @AnonymousEditor I hereby summon you! :D

(rolling back isn't enough, it's indeed not really clear.)

Catija

yeah.

Shadow Wizard

8:24 PM

@AdamLear you mean the huge banner that hides 80% of the page? Yeah, it might be something people spot.

Adam Lear

heh

Shadow Wizard

Oh, it's only in homepage now. Nice!

Questions page showing only small banner in bottom. Kudos!

Tim's one is deleted, so Mr. Friend should edit his answer with what they did. :)

bluefeet

@ShadowWizard he posted this instead

97

Q: New sign up hero for question pages

We've updated the sign up hero that anonymous users see on all question pages. It is now a more subtle bar at the bottom of the window. There was a bunch of on point criticism of the prior version as being too big, too annoying and obscuring the most important content. (See here). New version...

discussion announcement

Baskakov_Dmitriy

9:22 PM

I want to make a Meta proposal; posting it here to get some verbal feerback for potential improvements before it can dies of problems it tries to solve. :3

Question title: "Disallow up- and downvoting on the "on hold" questions during the grace period; allow again when it gets "closed" after the grace period or reopened"

Tags: [tag:feature-request], [tag:down-votes], [tag:vote-to-close], [tag:grace-period], [tag:on-hold]

Qustion body: "We have the "on hold" grace period for closed questions, it lasts for 5 days. It is used to signal people that we allow them to fix the question and solve…

Catija

Hmmmmmm........ That's really complicated because how long it takes to close a question will really affect what score it has going into the "on hold" state. People getting votes in before it's closed end up being "louder" than the people who have decided that the post is now "ready to go"... if a post is edited and goes into the review queue, the reviewers can't vote it up to say, "yep, this looks good now"... they have to keep an eye on it getting reopened.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

@Catija Probably worth focusing better on that, but if you vote to reopen it, you should be able to also upvote it. Only if you are able to reopen.

I am thinking about reverting any downvotes after it gets reopened, but I feel like it is not a good idea, because a question can be reworked to be no longer close-worthy, but still very bad and worth a downvote.

The real problem that stays are those who downvote before it gets closed and don't vote to close it.

Catija

Invalidating votes is very tricky... as is preventing them. We tend to do it very infrequently. I think the only time we invalidate votes (other than voting fraud) is on migrations of posts with negative scores.

It only takes ... 150? To downvote but 3k to close vote on full sites. That's not a big leap... and some users may think a question is bad but not closeworthy.

John Dvorak

9:39 PM

125

Catija

Ah, thanks :D

Baskakov_Dmitriy

@Catija You could notify those who voted to close the question after it gets reopened.

Then they will be able to downvote again if they still find it worth downvoting.

But again, what really bothers me are people who downvote before the qustion gets closed, but don't VTC, either because they can't (not enough rep, or out of votes) or don't want to.

Catija

I know that some people DV to get the question off the main page. If it gets to -4, it's out of sight.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

Does it get away if it gets closed?

Catija

No. Closed questions with scores of -3 or higher stay on the main page.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

9:45 PM

You could, perhaps, really just remove any downvotes, but notify those who voted to close and/or downvoted, so they can review the question again.

And also hide the closed questions.

Catija

You'll need to really look at all of the questions around on MSE about notifying users when questions they close voted or down voted or ... whatever... are either edited/reopened/etc... there are a lot of them and they have good info explaining why SE doesn't do that.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

You could allow downvotes when it is in the reopen queue, if you vote not to reopen it.

Catija

The reopen queue triggers are pretty faulty... any edit to the question pretty much will put it there, whether it's deserved or not.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

We can forbid edits to trigger the reopen queue while it is "on hold", only when it gets "closed".

Catija

It works the other way around, actually... edits only trigger the reopen queue during the "on hold" period.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

9:57 PM

Is it really a good thing?

Catija

171

Q: What is a "closed", “on hold”, or "duplicate" question?

Questions can be put on hold, closed, or marked as duplicate. What does it mean for a question to be closed or “on hold”? What does it mean for a question to be "marked as duplicate"? Who can put a question on hold? What are the reasons for putting a question on hold? Is closure the end of the ...

support faq closed-questions on-hold terminology

Generally... maybe? They've poked at the rules before. I'm not even sure what they are right now completely but that FAQ explains it, I think...

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A: Nobody in my community has the power to re-open a question

We already have the mechanisms for this, and they work. If a user doesn't have enough reputation to make a direct edit to a post, they can suggest an edit, as you have done. Other users will review it. If it is approved, it will go into the reopen queue, where, if the question now has enough me...

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Q: How do you reopen a closed question?

To reopen a closed question, five (5) people with at least 3000 reputation must agree that the question is suitable for the site and cast votes to reopen the question. But: How does one actually vote to reopen? Is there a reputation level that you must have before you can see this function? ...

support faq closed-questions vote-to-reopen

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A: Lots of questions in the reopen queue

We just rolled out a change to how questions are automatically added to the reopen queue. Previously, if the author edited a closed post within 5 days of it being closed, that would trigger it to be added to the queue. This was a great way to get additional views for questions that might've been ...

Baskakov_Dmitriy

So, I imagine the algorythm this way:

1) A bad, close-worthy question is posted.
2) Some people VTC. Some vote on it. If they downvote after VTC or VTC after downvoting, the downvote is suspended in time. They still lose 1 rep point and their daily voting limit is still drained, but the downvote itself is suspended.
3) Once it gets 5 VTC and is closed ("held"), or a moderator puts it on hold, voting is suspended.
3.1) If enough amount of votes are not accumulated in time, the downvotes are applied normally.

Thanks for the links, have read them

But I still think if it is a good idea to trigger reopen queueing if it is edit; the edit might be far from final.

Catija

You don't lose rep for dving questions...

Baskakov_Dmitriy

Yep, forgot that!

Then there is no notification at all.

Catija

What problem are you trying to fix?

Baskakov_Dmitriy

10:13 PM

Downvotes still staying on questions that were fixed

Catija

^^That... is a very complex "solution" involving lots of work by someone... If a question is really improved, it will get new votes. Part of why upvotes are worth more than downvotes is because it will counterweight the penalty in exactly this case. It's also why we set the bare minimum rep at 1.

Sometimes, you just have to be OK with a few downvotes.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

10:43 PM

@Catija It is Ok when there are "a few" downvotes, especially when outweighted by 9000 upvotes. But when you got a real bunch of DVs that you really don't deserve anymore, not only can it be frustrating, it is also actively harmful because it shows the score as very low to anyone who looks at the question.

I think, just outright clearing all the downvotes and applying a downvote from the Community might be enough.

Catija

No. People downvote for lots of reasons. Not simply because the question is bad or off topic. Until you know why someone voted - up or down - it's irresponsible to simply revoke those votes.

I've seen questions bounce back and forth between open and closed status several times on one of the sites I mod... what then? If a question is re-closed... who was right? What to do with votes then?

Also, what about upvotes? Crappy, off topic questions also get upvoted...

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