Tavern on the Meta

12:41 AM

@gnat not too surprised really

you're going to be already engaged if you're winterbashing

and a good chunk of users probably don't have accounts

Winterbash is a rounding error compared to views. The biggest impact is always the rather esoteric activities with hats. Like review or pinging a CM.

Journeyman Geek

cough

I might actually do that in a day or two ;p

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog someone wore their shirt back to front

(I actually oddly suspect 1, They disagreed with the question and 2. you got the DV cause your answer was what Peter preffered)...

which is... dumb

@SensibleAlexander december is traditionally a quieter time

user202362

1:04 AM

December is the quietest month on the internet, this has been known since when internet becomes popular. Although I suspect this is only the case for English speaking part of the web.

user202362

Arabic/Chinese speaking websites probably have other patterns based on the timing of their major holidays

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@rene I think it's time for a Chimney move

Jon Ericson

@TelautonomousKitty Ramadan shows a huge increase on our Islam site. It seems people have a lot of questions about how to observe it and/or are re-invigorated in their faith.

Sensible Alexander

1:20 AM

a lot of questions... doesn't mean high quality one...

user315433

Top three countries in terms of visits to Islam: UK, USA, India.

user315433

Everyone else is behind by some margin.

user315433

user315433

The aforementioned Ramadan effect.

user202362

1:47 AM

let's predict how much bitcoin is going to be worth in March (daily weighted average)

user202362

2:08 AM

@gnat timing coincide with something else

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

2:39 AM

@Shog9 Also, one only semi-related question: if someone were to rejoin a site many years after they got banned, are they welcome again? For example, if I was a high school student learning how to code for the first time, and I post a few low-quality questions and get banned on SO, and seven years later, am in a programming class in college and need help, will I have to deal with that baggage from the past?

Is that intended, is what I'm saying?

Catija

There's only so much the system can check for... so there's not really any way to know that they were someone who was banned if sufficient things have changed.

Shog9

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog ok, now I gotta ask: did you read that help center article I linked to?

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Shog9 Possible mental reaction from such a person when reading it: "1. Alright, so just because I did a few bad things many years ago, I now have to go dig up those old posts and make them better, ones that aren't even useful to me either, and some of which are deleted? Can't you just forget about those posts? Okay, so you did mention something about a 6-month wait. (continued...)

(...continued) I took care to make sure that my question is good and on-topic. But what if I don't get any upvotes from it? Plus, it doesn't state that it will go away after that, just that it may, so even if it's well-received I may still have to wait six more months. All of this just because I did something bad many years ago?"

(Not sure how I typed "1." but ignore it)

@Shog9 del-pls meta.stackexchange.com/questions/306597/…

user202362

3:02 AM

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog you make it sound like this site cares about everyone of 24631 banned people since the beginning of time

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@TelautonomousKitty I was just asking what the rule is.

user202362

the truth is that as long as people learn and blend it, everything is fine

user202362

use common sense, it's that simple

user202362

also a lot of people started with a tainted account (asking dumb questions, excessive fighting etc), then they restart on another name after learn how the site works, and bang! you are a loved & reputable new user!

user202362

3:35 AM

It's not just stackoverflow, or any internet sites. It actually applies to many social groups. New person join a group, a group usually already have their culture. The said new person may or may not fit in. A lot of the times they don't. So a new person can choose to stay in or leave the group. If they choose to stay, then they have to change to fit in (unless in the rare case said user can provide enough incentive for the group to bend his/her way).

user202362

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog But given most of the groups like to increase their membership and/or influence, they will likely to forgive any new member for their past mistakes as long as they change to fit in group culture. Unless of course we are talking about the 'prestige' group, in which the case, they have or pretend to have higher standard for new members.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@TelautonomousKitty There was a question I saw on MSE once, about a user who created an account and got banned. Much later, they created another account using a different email and made some good posts. Then, after changing his email address to the old one, his ban was reinstated.

Catija

... remember what I said a few hours back about the system?

user202362

evading ban is an offense, you are likely to get ban lifted if talking to a CM beforehand

user202362

the only time you wouldn't get your ban lifted is if you ever DDoS the site

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

3:43 AM

Wikipedia actually has a policy governing this: "clean start". If you, say, as a 10-year-old vandalize Wikipedia for fun, and get your account blocked, and a few years later create a new account and start making constructive edits, they'll be willing to let you continue. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jim_Carter for an in-practice example of this (section "my editing history").

@TelautonomousKitty But the page explicitly states that "SE will not lift bans upon request". While the intent of the paragraph is to stop users from contacting SE immediately after the ban to contest it, that policy also prevents users from contacting SE about what you just mentioned.

Catija

SE is actually pretty forgiving... if you prove that you've changed.

user202362

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog that's like to exclaim 'I have successfully gamed the system'

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Catija The letter of policy and the automated system go against that.

Catija

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog You don't have to take me at my word... meta.stackexchange.com/questions/293213/…

Shog9

the problem here is, you're not banned.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

3:51 AM

@Shog9 Not everything has to be about myself.

Shog9

this is though

and you're not banned

you've never been banned

you've never even been close to getting banned

you see folks posting on meta, and think to yourself, "there are a lot of these people - it must be super easy to stumble into a ban"

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Shog9 What's wrong with being inquisitive? What's wrong with putting myself in the shoes of a banned user?

Shog9

but you've never tried it

you're like the guy who sits and watches Norm Abrams doing woodworking on TV and thinks it's really easy to build a bookcase because Norm makes it look easy

but... if you put your hand to it, you'd find it is harder than it looks

except for you, it's not building a bookcase - it's asking really, really terrible questions. Again, and again, and again and again...

ignoring all warnings, never reading any guidance, never asking for help...

that sounds easy. But have you tried it?

I've spent years now trying to help folks who've encountered the ban

by and large, they are on a whole different level

you have one question that hit -3

out of 7

imagine a version of you that could've gone 3/7, or 4/7, or 7/7

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

4 mins ago, by Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Shog9 Not everything has to be about myself.

Shog9

this is about you though

folks who are q-banned don't want better guidance. They don't ask for a second chance in maybe a couple of months. They want to ask another question. Right. Now.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

3:56 AM

If I just ask a few questions about something, even though it's unrelated to me, how is it all of a sudden about myself?

Shog9

You're asking for stuff that no one wants. So this is about you.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Shog9 I'm not asking for anything. I'm just asking about things.

Shog9

The critical question here isn't about what we can do for people who are hitting the ban. It's about what we can do for you. About what you want, and why you want it.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

1 hour ago, by Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Shog9 Also, one only semi-related question: if someone were to rejoin a site many years after they got banned, are they welcome again? For example, if I was a high school student learning how to code for the first time, and I post a few low-quality questions and get banned on SO, and seven years later, am in a programming class in college and need help, will I have to deal with that baggage from the past?

Shog9

Until we can sort that out, there's nothing else to do.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

3:58 AM

(Read the first few words)

They are only related insofar as they have to do with post bans. Other than that, that's a completely unrelated question from my MSE post.

@Shog9 How? Can you please explain?

Shog9

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog I suspect that you're trying to reverse-engineer bits of the system that aren't made public, but asking questions about the bits that are already documented.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Shog9 What?

It's not my fault that my mind just operates in a different way from your minds. It's not my fault that I like to ask questions.

Shog9

You know that bans don't expire. You know that you get one chance every 6 months to ask a new question, and the ban lifts only if that - or other activity on your account - alters the input data. This is all documented. But you're asking hypothetical questions about it, rather than applying what you know to those questions. Why?

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Shog9 It's not my fault that my mind comes up with ideas and gets very curious about things. It's also not my fault that it tries to address edge cases before they come up.

Shog9

I have in my head 6 years of stories of people, real not at all hypothetical people, who were banned. I know how it worked out for them. I'm not interested in making up more people to run simulations on; there are enough people.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

4:03 AM

@Shog9 Finally, it's not my fault that my common sense doesn't work as well as neurotypicals'. I'm A-spec, remember?

Shog9

I know people who put in literally years of work to get their ban lifted. I know many more people who didn't lift a finger. People who insulted me, ignored me... People who saw their work come to fruition and people who left in disgust. People who corresponded often enough that I came to know a good bit of their life story. People who are now dead.

I could sit here all night and talk about them. But you want me to tell you what would happen to someone you made up?

I cannot. There is not enough detail; how many questions did they ask? Were they even slightly about programming? Is English their first language, and have they mastered a basic working ability to communicate using it?

Are they a student? Do they work for a company that compels them to use Stack Overflow?

user202362

I can't figure out whether I have more time Q banned on meta ...

user202362

sometimes I am Q banned on meta without knowing it

Shog9

Did they delete their old account, or leave it fallow?

Did they recreate an account using the same credentials, or pick new ones?

I wrote tooling to answer these questions when I was handling support, because they matter.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Shog9 To be fair, the scenario I described earlier doesn't really reflect the average person's thinking; it's more relatable to people like me, whose minds are like mine

Shog9

4:07 AM

If you want to know how the system works, how it feels to hit a ban, then create a new account and try to get banned by asking programming questions.

If you want to know how people work... Go talk to people.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Shog9 I was not talking about off-topic questions on Meta, or bans on Meta. I was referring to regular Q&A sites.

Shog9

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog users who are banned on Stack Overflow, by and large, get there by asking programming questions.

Obviously, you can get banned pretty fast by asking questions about human sexuality on Stack Overflow... But that's not how it usually goes down.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Shog9 You should have said "low-quality programming questions".

Shog9

No one thinks they ask low-quality programming questions

they think other people do, and perhaps they think that they used to, but...

This is the fundamental challenge. How do you persuade someone to improve when they believe they are already doing just fine?

user202362

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog people generally learn to improve their question asking skills, if they don't, programming is probably not for them

Journeyman Geek

4:13 AM

@Shog9 don't forget those who think they're entitled to ask questions, or need to.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Shog9 I can see where your "this is about you" comment is coming from. A lot of my previous statements are assuming that others act just like me, and losing sight of the fact that I operate differently from most people.

Shog9

uh-huh

user202362

nobody is different, we are all fish in this fish tank called earth

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@TelautonomousKitty Sure, we all fall within a certain range. But I'm an outlier.

We all fall within inches of each other, not exactly in the same spot. But I fall a few feet away.

user202362

but you are neither a billionaire nor a murderer, all in all, you are pretty normal, like everyone else here right now

user315433

4:20 AM

<-- definitely normal

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@if.... Well, you're a normal human

Journeyman Geek

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog see, you're making it sound like being autistic makes you a unique snowflake.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

I'm just a hedgehog. The fastest thing in the world, mind you. Yet I get ridiculed because I'm a hedgehog.

(analogy)

Everyone overlooks my fast speed. My victories against Dr. Eggman, which literally saved the world. But they still don't understand me.

Journeyman Geek

erm.

Sega is dead. Long Live Mario.

Catija

Pretty sure that no one is saving the world here... It's just SE.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

4:23 AM

1 min ago, by Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

(analogy)

Journeyman Geek

(also, it completely does not help when you're talking in bad, in character analogies about serious things)

Catija

^^^^

user315433

> If by my life or death I can raise content quality...

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@JourneymanGeek When it's difficult to talk about yourself...

Journeyman Geek

choose life

death is a bit permanent. And quite a bummer when it comes to your ability to closevote.

user315433

4:25 AM

A script can still do that post-mortem.

Journeyman Geek

feature-request voting by ouija board

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@JourneymanGeek Gold badges can save you

Journeyman Geek

naw.

Catija

Not from death.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

Sonic came back from the dead from the power of the seven Chaos Emeralds.

Catija

4:26 AM

Dude... step away from the analogies.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Catija Sorry.

Anyway, I had a different question @Shog9:

Alright, just to be clear here: if this were phrased as a feature request, you would status-declined this? — Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog 2 hours ago

Journeyman Geek

erm. wouldn't the comment do?

(obligatory- ping-reminder)

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Shog9 Let me ask you directly: are you OK with pinging you about things you haven't gotten back to yet? People tell me you don't like it, but I don't know if that's really the case. I want to hear from you.

user315433

Depeche Mode - Enjoy The Silence (Official Music Video)

►

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@if.... Can you please explain to me how that's relevant?

Catija

4:37 AM

I'm going to share something with you... there are several very knowledgeable people in this room... there are people who can do a lot on MSE. There's only one Shog, one bluefeet, one Adam... At the very least don't you think it makes sense to give the non-staff people the chance to answer your questions before you ping one of the staff members? I understand you want help learning about SE... but the Staff aren't the only people capable of that.

Even if Shog doesn't mind your pings and can happily ignore them... on a Saturday ... night... at 9:30 pm... doesn't mean he should have to do so. He's not the only one who can help you. Ask your questions on MSE... if one of the staff answer them there, everyone benefits from the sharing of knowledge being easily [in some values of easy] available rather than locked up in a chat room that few people use.

The next person with your question will have a resource where an answer exists... within the structure of how this site is supposed to work.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

(give me a second as I respond to those)

Catija

You need to accept that, while you may find everything urgent, most people triage what they're asking to focus on what they think actually needs help... This is something you need to learn to do... triage ... if you don't, you'll find yourself struggling to get everything done because everything is equally important... and if you can't tell what's actually the most important, you are destined to drop the undroppable ball because you don't know which balls can be dropped without penalty.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Catija Do you guys have access to the code? Have a lot of you been around longer than I have in total? Can you guys give 100% definitive answers to my questions? Or will some of them be unsubstantiated speculation?

@Catija If my not-so-good common sense goes against the other users' much-better common sense, I'll get downvoted. I'll lose rep just because of how my mind works. I shouldn't have to be set back a few steps from the ability to edit (right now) just because of that. The community should be inclusive.

Catija

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog Most of your questions don't require access to code. Being around less time doesn't mean less knowledge. Why do you think you deserve 100% definitive answers rather than the answers that the community judges to be correct? The staff doesn't always make the rules and they aren't the only arbiters of the rules or how things should work. Speculation isn't always wrong and it isn't always "unfounded".

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog So use the people in here to query whether the question is a good one or not before you ask it... you don't have to immediately lean on the staff out of fear... There are other options.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

Who else would know if overriding suggested edits results in a ban, or lifts it?

(just an example from an earlier question)

Catija

4:48 AM

That just sounds like you're trying to learn the non-public info about how the system works. Even the mods don't know that stuff...

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

How else would I be able to tell that the true rationale to not allowing users to see a list of their deleted posts is not in the answer itself, but in a comment?

@Catija What's non-public about it? Shog gave me the answer to that.

Catija

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog But why do you think that question would be downvoted on MSE?

Now no one will know the answer because you asked in here and it's in years worth of history...

Jon Ericson

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog Does it matter? From direct experience answering questions from people who have been banned, that's never going to make the difference. Taking time to fix old questions (if possible) and being more cautious asking new questions is the best bet. (For what it's worth, the bans are a lot less draconian than they used to be.)

Journeyman Geek

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog ehh. Rep is an imaginary number

and I'd rather ask on MSE cause I get a broader audience. And it seems to work for me,

And cough I cheat - all my questions mostly follow the same format "situation" "possible solution" "desired result"

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog I'm kinda confused to why you somehow must have 100% definitive answers to your questions.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

5:09 AM

@JourneymanGeek Sometimes I'm editing FAQs and would rather not edit in misinformation. After all, that's why I was here

Journeyman Geek

If you don't know, erm, should you be the one editing a canonical source?

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@JourneymanGeek If only employees know, should they not be the one editing a canonical source?

Journeyman Geek

In theory, they are the ones creating them

Catija

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog Remember that whole thing about triage? There's only so much staff and they have to decide what's important for them to spend their time on. When you ping them without even asking if someone else knows the answer, you're forcing them, at least briefly, to focus on you. That seems sort of selfish.

Journeyman Geek

in practice, ya, we need updates but most folks actually manage to pull together this information from various sources, rather than constantly badgering staff.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

5:15 AM

@JourneymanGeek Yes, I was definitely able to do that. But I ran into the limit, and now I'm just trying to finish the job.

Journeyman Geek

It isn't your job. Sometimes its handy to step back and get some perspective.

ya, I know some folks on the spectrum get too focused on some tasks.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@JourneymanGeek Do they really feel badgered by that? Or are you guys just telling me not to because you would feel badgered if I did that to you? What if he doesn't feel badgered by it? I see no sign from him that tells me he feels that way.

Journeyman Geek

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog As a mod, I've worked with autistic folks, and CMs - and with cms covering over a hundred sites with various levels of handholding needed \, we've been adviced to use normal channels. Also looking at response times, they're busy

and there's a lot less than there have been historically, with the recent reorganisation.

user202362

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog @shog always avoids confrontation, so if he does not answer, it's a no. Also if he does evil against you, it's almost always behind your back ...

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@TelautonomousKitty Simply telling me he does not like pings that much is not confrontation. Not telling me and having me ping him in ways he doesn't like is confrontation.

Journeyman Geek

5:28 AM

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog Yanno, you're basically either wanting to be swatted on the nose with rolled up newspaper or being told its fine to roll in whatever. There's a middle ground.

and we're really trying here.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

I'm not saying these things because I'm trying to affirm my "right" to ping employees. I just want to know from him if he likes it or not. If he tells me he doesn't like it, I'll stop...

Journeyman Geek

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog "hey, this is why you shouldn't be doing this"

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@JourneymanGeek "If he tells me he doesn't like it, I'll stop..."

Journeyman Geek

"But but, no one told me specifically I shouldn't sit in a bathtub with a plugged in toaster "

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@JourneymanGeek The manual did.

Catija

5:33 AM

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog Only because too many people did it...

Sensible Alexander

Search result for ping shog

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

Sep 13 '17 at 18:54, by Jon Ericson

@Mithrandir You can ping us when we aren't actively in the room. (Just don't always ping Shog every time and don't expect a quick response if we aren't there.)

Catija

Do you know how often Mithrandir pings CMs? He's a mod... almost never.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Catija Mods have a direct email line to SE.

Catija

Um... so do you... It's called the "contact" form.

And you know what... it still takes us weeks to get responses sometimes.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

5:38 AM

If you want to be able to cite the message as a source in an FAQ, what do you do?

Catija

Why would we email them about that? We'd just ask a question on Meta... and do... often.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Catija And then those questions get closed as duplicates of the FAQs once the info is edited.

Catija

Why is that a problem? Dupes don't count against you.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

And then people downvote it because they don't bother to notice the real purpose of the question, or think it lacks research effort.

("because the answer was in the FAQ the whole time", when it wasn't until I asked the question)

Sensible Alexander

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog do you have any evidence for this?

Journeyman Geek

5:41 AM

Yup. We use the contact form. We quite literally only directly contact CMs in matters of life and death.

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog which is fine.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@SensibleAlexander Yes, but I don't remember in which exact FAQ.

Sensible Alexander

that the meta post is downvoted after its content is updated on FAQ?

how often?

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@SensibleAlexander If it happens once, it can happen again.

Catija

If you specifically quote the FAQ and say "The FAQ says _____ but it doesn't explain ____" Then people will realize that... you need to actually learn how to ask the question.

Sensible Alexander

And when the FAQ is updated, you can just put "The FAQ has been updated according to this suggestion".

Catija

5:46 AM

Yep.

And add "Huzzah!"

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Catija Nice idea, I'll try that soon.

Catija

I already said once... if you aren't sure how to ask a question so that it will be well-received... ask someone in here... we may not be able to answer the question but we damned well know how to ask them.

Journeyman Geek

^

Catija

Plus, if you actually ask good questions, you'll be able to stop worrying about your reputation dropping.

Journeyman Geek

or actually work out how the site works by posting good answers on your own. Works for me!

and being able to post good answers means posting good questions.

Catija

5:52 AM

Aww, look how cute I was when I first came to MSE: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/256388/… (10K)

Journeyman Geek

21

Q: Have an option to watch a question without posting

I'd like to be able to keep track of a post that interests me, while not actually posting (since I have the same question, and nothing useful to actually add.) Since I can get email notification of my questions and answers, would it be possible to add a 'watch this topic' option somewhere?

My first meta question

Catija

See, that's lots better than mine :P

Jon Ericson

My earliest meta questions were asked before meta.

Journeyman Geek

@JonEricson uservoice?

I think that might be before my time. Certainly before I worked out how these things worked.

Sensible Alexander

And my first MSE post is a duplicate which I realized to an already reported SE Android app bug! (the link has gone to the void though)

Catija

5:58 AM

@SensibleAlexander You can just search deleted:1 and sort by date.

Jon Ericson

@JourneymanGeek Oh, yeah. There too. I was thinking of:

5

Q: Can I answer a question multiple times?

If I have two separate answers to a question, should I put both in the same post or should I post first one and then the other? For instance: Q: Can I eat honey and locusts? A: Both are edible and nontoxic. But you should probably eat a more balanced diet. Versus: Q: How do you...

discussion

Journeyman Geek

0_0

Did SO get used like that?

Catija

> marked as duplicate by Jon Ericson♦, Bart, Toon Krijthe, ben is uǝq backwards, Rory May 10 '13 at 20:50

HAHAHA

Journeyman Geek

@Catija its even funnier considering he was a normal user then.

Catija

I should hope so... else the diamond meant a lot less at the time.

Journeyman Geek

6:00 AM

naw. I think early MSO did actually give trilogy mods mod powers too.

before my time of course

Jon Ericson

I think the record for diamonds closing a post is 4. But there might have been a 5.

Sensible Alexander

@Catija I'm afraid that's only available for 10k... because I got 211384 results for deleted:1 (no, I haven't posted that many!)

Journeyman Geek

@JonEricson I think we tend to look for those on SU every mod election ;p

Catija

@JonEricson Probably more likely on SO than anywhere else...

Journeyman Geek

@Catija if nothing else, a lot more mods at a time

Catija

6:02 AM

@SensibleAlexander Oh. Sorry. Earn more rep :P

Well, there are... what... 20 of them?

25

Journeyman Geek

yup

Jon Ericson

@JourneymanGeek My first UserVoice request predated my first meta on SO question. UV was terrible for meta conversations and SO almost, kinda worked. No meta, so how do you ask about how the community should work?

Journeyman Geek

true

Catija

Ah... hmmm... I see Jeff was always brief.

Journeyman Geek

@Catija heh. Its efficient.

Catija

6:09 AM

Sure. But it leaves you with more questions than you started with... "what reasons?"... for example.

Journeyman Geek

(also I think Jeff saves the verbocity for blogs)

user202362

would Jeff be interesting in starting a smallish chicken farm ...

Journeyman Geek

probably not. Maybe after discourse.

@Catija which is where very careful working... may or may not help.

Catija

huh?

Journeyman Geek

;p

Catija

6:18 AM

wording?

Journeyman Geek

(If you need to know why, you include it, and hope someone pays attention)

Sensible Alexander

6:31 AM

@SmokeDetector meh

user315433

7:06 AM

Can't sleep. Nyquil abuse comes back to bite. FJAFJKLDSKF7JKFDJ. I know, I'll start planning the next iteration of Stack Exchange quality improvement project.

user202362

have you considered adopt a few baby chickens?

Sensible Alexander

Multi-Chicken Marketing

user202362

chicken is not a brand

user202362

it's like marketing air

user202362

rene

7:39 AM

→ 27 messages moved to Chimney

user202362

8:21 AM

Sensible Alexander

@TelautonomousKitty you building mini-4WD or drone?

user202362

autonomous (toy) car

user202362

probably will move on to drone at some point, but not in the near future (next few months)

Journeyman Geek

8:58 AM

cv-plz meta.stackexchange.com/questions/306602/…

user202362

9:24 AM

I'm using Google Talk to type this

rene

12:56 PM

@ShadowtheHedgehogWizard can you cast a (delete) vote on MSO here?

Shadow the Hedgehog Wizard

@rene huh. No. Bug?

rene

@ShadowtheHedgehogWizard nope, just an android view without code markup

Shadow the Hedgehog Wizard

@rene ??

Looks like we can now delete only answers with score of -8 or lower.

I'd call this a major bug.

Or a major decrease in mod powers for 20k users.

Sensible Alexander

@ShadowtheHedgehogWizard -8.. what?

I guess it's SO only??

Shadow the Hedgehog Wizard

No delete option for answers with -7 or more. Didn't try direct AJAX yet.

rene

1:02 PM

@ShadowtheHedgehogWizard oh, I thought I needed 3 down voters

John Dvorak

Sand lovers on the loose again?

Sensible Alexander

or... meta only?

Shadow the Hedgehog Wizard

@SensibleAlexander dunno, on MSE it's fine.

No 20k on other sites.

@rene normally 20k rep user can cast delete vote when answer has -1 or lower.

On MSO at least, that's no longer the case.

rene

@ShadowtheHedgehogWizard yeah

anyway, a mod got it

@ShadowtheHedgehogWizard you write a bug?

Sensible Alexander

can anyone post an answer on this anime meta post as a test? /cc @ShadowtheHedgehogWizard

Shadow the Hedgehog Wizard

1:09 PM

@rene no time :(

I even neglect @Pro and @Rouge in Den. o_O

ouch, downvote

:D

Well? @SensibleAlexander ?

You can vote to delete?

Sensible Alexander

on meta.anime only needs -1, just as expected

Shadow the Hedgehog Wizard

hmm.... so maybe it's on purpose, to have less conflicts on MSO

Less power to mortals = less conflicts.

Rouge the Bat

@ShadowtheHedgehogWizard Better make time! :D

Sensible Alexander

yeah, I guess so, considering MSO is the biggest meta (IMHO, compared to MSE), it's to prevent shutting-down controversial answer

Shadow the Hedgehog Wizard

Next: need 1M rep to close questions.

@rene well it's MSO only, and I'm not really active there, so the honor is all yours... :D

rene

1:13 PM

@ShadowtheHedgehogWizard Ok, writing it now

Sensible Alexander

34

Q: Answer deletion on Meta Stack Overflow

According to the privilege page, a trusted user should be able to vote to delete answers with a score of -1 or lower. The prior link is to Meta Stack Overflow privileges, but that just redirects to the Stack Overflow privileges page. The scores below are correct at the time of writing, but may c...

support meta vote-to-delete

^ /cc @ShadowtheHedgehogWizard @rene

rene

@SensibleAlexander thanks that is a dupe

iDebug

Do I lose rep from positive-scored answers when the question is deleted within a few days?

It seems strange.

Sensible Alexander

yes, I believe it's documented somewhere that it needs certain days (60 days?) before the rep is perserve

rene

Do you consider this so much of a corner case that it isn't documented? There is a request to update the help but that might have gone unnoticed, at least by me. — rene 32 secs ago

now we wait ...

Sensible Alexander

1:28 PM

@iDebug or, maybe not on certain period of time, but on amount of votes

iDebug

@SensibleAlexander Not the right question you're answering.

Sensible Alexander

yeah, just realized that's from removed user, not deleted question, sorry.

iDebug

I mean, I post answers with positive score on questions. The question gets deleted later and I lost the rep from my answer.

Sensible Alexander

Yes, it's documented on the FAQ: see the "Additionally" section on "Deleting and undeleting posts may reverse reputation effects as well,[...]"

iDebug

Not quite clear.

The strange part is, I sometimes lose but sometimes not. Even though all those questions are deleted within a few days (surely not 60 days)

Sensible Alexander

1:38 PM

I can't comment on that though, hopefully someone else knows better

Shadow the Hedgehog Wizard

2:23 PM

@SensibleAlexander huh, nice

Journeyman Geek

@iDebug less than 3 votes and/or there's a time element.

@iDebug 60 days could be roombaed, or cause site rules changed

Shadow the Hedgehog Wizard

@iDebug yes. The reputation is preserved only if the post had score of 3 or more when deleted, and was "Visible on the site for at least 60 days".

Otherwise, rep is lost.

Reputation and Historical Archives

Josh Heyer on March 06, 2012

If you’ve been around Meta Stack Overflow the past few days, you’ve seen a fair bit of conversation sparked by the recent changes to how reputation is calculated:

To be clear: reputation values are not changing, every action in the system is still worth the same amount. Here’s what will be different:

Your reputation will be correct at all times

Deletions will have a much more immediate effect on reputation, not waiting on a recalc (but reputation sync takes up to 5 minutes on a delete/undelete action; as to not block the user’s response thread, it’s offloaded to a background queue) …

Kamil Slowikowski

4:54 PM

When can we expect comments on rejected edits?

Rouge the Bat

5:24 PM

In 6-8 weeks?

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

6:13 PM

20 hours ago, by Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

Is there anything to catch this type of abuse: create a new account on one site, earn the association bonus, put up and award a bounty(ies), immediately delete the account after awarding, then loop over and do this again?

ArtOfCode

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog that's... not abuse

weird, yes

not abusive - you earned the rep, you can award bounties with it

Catija

@ArtOfCode You earned the rep once... I think the idea there is that you're getting the association bonus several times over.

ArtOfCode

@Catija I don't see why that's an issue... you're starting again each time and earning it again

Catija

@ArtOfCode If you're intentionally deleting your account just so that you can give away bounties on a site, that ... doesn't seem appropriate.

ArtOfCode

6:28 PM

@Catija I dunno. As far as I'm concerned, you're earning the rep, and bounties are a legitimate use of it.

Regardless, though, whether it's abuse or not there are no automated processes that catch it.

A wild Jon appears!

Sensible Alexander

It's actually about: getting the assoc. bonus on another site, give bounty on that site, delete the account, recreate the account, get the bonus again, give bounty, rinse & repeat

I dunno if it works on the same account if you only have 1 account (after deleting, is the account considered gone totally?)

Catija

You only get the association bonus if you have two accounts.

Sensible Alexander

Well, you also get the assoc bonus when you reach 200 on the first site... (jump from 200 to 300)

Catija

only if you have at least two sites.

7

A: Association bonus given after a long time

The user only ever had a Stack Overflow account until yesterday - nothing to associate to. Once the user created a Meta account and associated it with the Stack Overflow account - association bonus came into effect. In other words - if you are only ever active on one site, you will never get an...

Sensible Alexander

I stand corrected. Apparently the timing is almost coincidence in my case. I created a new account on Anime.SE when my SO rep was 198.

Catija

6:41 PM

I ... um... literally wrote the FAQ on the Association Bonus.

:D

Sensible Alexander

that explains :D

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

7:34 PM

@Catija Your answer was much better and more comprehensive than the previous one (now deleted) but you made one mistake: you copied over the thresholds from Meta, which said you only need 5 reputation to comment and 100 reputation to downvote. I had to fix it, as did @iDebug.

meta.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/54897

Catija

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog Could you say that in a way that doesn't read like "You f-ed up, do better next time"?

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

If I were to write an answer like that, given my limitations at the time, I would have had to edit the existing one drastically, which would have resulted in the edit not being submitted and an instant ban.

Also, one question: can't we eliminate a lot of confusion by saying this instead of "the association bonus does not count towards answering protected questions", because it seems people are still getting confused by it: "if you have the association bonus, your threshold to answer protected questions increases to 110"?

This would completely eliminate this phrase from sounding like a bug: "I earned 10 reputation, but then gave my bonus away in bounties, why can't I answer protected questions?"

Shog9

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog that's entirely too broad a question to answer usefully

Some rules of thumb:

1. I selectively ignore pings if I don't feel like answering, I'm busy, or I've gotten too many pings since I last checked my phone to bother sorting out my inbox. Therefore, response time and detail can often be inversely proportional to volume.

2. Pinging me about something you've already pinged me about reduces the time I'm willing to spend on it.

3. Most of the time, I'm viewing pings on my phone. If I glance at my phone, I see at most the first few words and their author - if there's at best a subtle difference between two questions, I'll probably treat them as identical - see #2 above.

4. If I think you're just bored and pinging me frivolously, I'll kick you out of the room without warning.

2

5. If it's the weekend / evening and I'm drunk, all bets are off: see #4 above.

6. If it's an emergency, I'll drop whatever else I'm doing to handle it as long as I can clearly identify that it's an emergency.

7. If you've pinged me about questions that need to be deleted more than a couple of times in the last month, I'll never believe anything you're pinging me about is an emergency - I have my own feed of everything posted to meta.

8. If I give you an answer and instead of trying to understand it you ping me about the same question again, I'm going to conclude that you value my time less than your own and treat future messages accordingly; see #4 above.

9. These are rules of thumb and I don't hold myself to any of them. Whether or not you get a response to any ping about any topic on any subject in any venue at any time is predicated primarily on a snap judgement as to whether you might be useful to me in the future, made in the moment I happen to glance at my phone. Therefore, don't complain about inconsistency - that's par for the course. See also #5 above.

6

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

8:00 PM

@Shog9 Done? I didn't want to send a message in the middle.

@Shog9 At no point did you tell me at the time that you weren't OK with that specific type of ping. Journeyman Geek said he isn't OK with dupehammer pings the first time I gave him one, so I stopped after that. Other users complained that I kept giving such requests (Chaos Emerald requests) to Shadow and rene, but they responded that they were actually OK with such pings. Now that you told me, I won't do it again.

As a rule of thumb for me, honesty matters over politeness. So I appreciate you giving me these guidelines yourself, so I know how exactly you feel about it.

(The only reason I'd do that type of ping - deletion requests of off-topic MSE posts - was because you once said you delete those questions on sight.)

@Shog9 By the way, what do you think of my proposal above to incorporate "110 reputation" more broadly in the guidance?

rene

8:20 PM

→ 10 messages moved to Chimney

→ 15 messages moved to Chimney

Grmbl, I need to remind myself to do that in one go ...

sd f

Optimus Prime

filed another security bug to google. hope they will accept it

user315433

9:11 PM

2

Q: Consider the community for review towards the graduation process

We, the Hinduism StackExchange community receiving 10+ QPD (Questions Per Day) for more than about two months. According to the Graduation, site closure, and a clearer outlook on the health of SE sites, "When a site starts to consistently receive 10 questions/day, we’ll consider it for graduation...

feature-request community

user315433

One of two betas with 10+ QPD currently; Hinduism 12.3, jaSO 12.1

user315433

9:37 PM

Working on the accessibility of the numerous PDFs on the dept website... Turns out I can actually fix most issues as long as office staff resist the urge to merge (cells in tables).

user315433

A typical issue that's easy to fix: "This PDF has no title". How did Elton John get away with such an obvious accessibility issue?

user315433

Elton John - This Song Has No Title (Yellow Brick Road 5 of 21)

►

SmokeDetector

10:33 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad NS for domain in body: Super Bowl 2018 by superbowlsnfl on puzzling.SE

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer: A Bridge Problem by superbowlsnfl on puzzling.SE

Journeyman Geek

11:14 PM

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog politeness is important. Politeness means civilisation.

Honesty also means being honest to oneself and not just listening to what suits what you want.

@if.... ugh. That's so ableist.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

11:29 PM

4 hours ago, by Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

Also, one question: can't we eliminate a lot of confusion by saying this instead of "the association bonus does not count towards answering protected questions", because it seems people are still getting confused by it: "if you have the association bonus, your threshold to answer protected questions increases to 110"?

4 hours ago, by Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

This would completely eliminate this phrase from sounding like a bug: "I earned 10 reputation, but then gave my bonus away in bounties, why can't I answer protected questions?"

user315433

An issue that's not so easy to fix: a prof making a "table" in a syllabus by repeatedly mashing space key, and sending in a PDF file.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

cv-pls too broad: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/306624/…

user315433

Also, three accessibility check tools (in MS Word, in Adobe Acrobat, and one more) are apt to give entirely different reports.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

This new user seems to get it:

1

A: Is sock puppetry really that hard to handle?

It's really not that hard to gain rep. I'm relatively new to SE, and I've found all I really need is three decent questions or answers to give me the ability to comment. Sock puppets are not the only reason you need 50 to rep to comment. Also, the association bonus means that once you've estab...

The mere addition of a question mark doesn't mean that the question is no longer too broad. — Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog 5 secs ago

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