Well it was about downvotes, but upvotes are just the same. :)

(on meta sites)

TL;DR about SO downtime earlier? Too lazy to read all above... :/

@JohnDvorak build super computer with 8,000,000,000,000 chips, each chip with advanced AI. After several billions of years you'll get the question.

@Ano yeah, look... it's been a long week. You asked for something, I said "no", what's your beef?

@Shog9 Are you declining the request, or refusing to provide the explanation? Or both?

wat

@Shog pro tip: explain to @Ano, even a little bit, otherwise he won't leave you alone... :)

running away for making Shog angry after a long week

@Shog9 It will take you less time to explain it, than it will to refuse and have me rebut your refusal, and go through that cycle.

Ah, blackmail. A time-honored way to get what you want.

Or, if that fails, piss off the people you're trying to convince to do something.

@AdamLear Where have I asked for money?

@Ano the Blackmailer Hedgehog

@Ano blackmail isn't only about money... I think... ;)

Not all blackmail is money. "Do X or I will keep doing Y" qualifies.

^

@ShadowWizard I was stating a fact. I wasn't attempting to manipulate or anything.

who said money

@Ano Or he could just kick you out of chat.

@Catija or even worse...

lol

(in case the issue is flags)

@AdamLear If he had said "declined - it's been a long week for me, try again later" I would have done just that. But he said "declined - No." which meant I had to ask him directly.

suspend or delete a/c

It really didn't.

@Ano why can't you just accept "no" as answer? (I know it's a lost cause, just trying my luck)

We don't always get what we want. I flagged to have something edit locked and instead it got deleted and I lost some rep :(

@ShadowWizard Because then I won't know what to do in related situations and may just end up doing some other wrong thing again, or avoiding something as the "wrong" thing when it's really the right.

@Catija lol!! Sorry about that, guess the edit war "helped" Shog reach that decision.

@Catija Internet Points

Reduce it from the 500 rep you got from me recently. ;)

@ShadowWizard It was an easy decision... and the OP's user name is now "Meta Stack Exchange Sucks". :/

@OptimusPrime which gives internet power

@OptimusPrime I still have 20K, so I'm fine.

@Catija still? Guess Shog and the others are fine with that then. Oh well...

@Catija so what? you and me both of us are chatting here. Demo Crazy

@Catija It was changed back to TechLord, and then back again to this.

@OptimusPrime I don't think I follow.

@Catija suspended! Good.

@Ano it was never TechLord, it was Apex something.

You said you have internet power. But that doesn't make any difference here

@OptimusPrime I said, not @Catija

@OptimusPrime I didn't ever say that it did?

And even here, we need 20 power points

Assoc boNuZ

@ShadowWizard Ah, right. Another user called TechLord changed their username to that, and Apex Capstone copied it.

@OptimusPrime Needs 200 somewhere

@Ano oh

that's NoT a bIg DeAl

But... what if you're not an expert in the class you're given to teach?

ah, good question. What makes you think teachers are experts in the classes they teach?

@ShadowWizard ok. Y'know what ...

I accept that im a jackass

Scum of the damned earth

For expecting anyone to do a damn bit of research, put in a moment's worth of thought

@TravisJ They wrote the book?

Before they post their damned opi9

Opinions

@Catija I wish. Wouldn't that be nice if every teacher was also the author of the subjects they taught.

If those are the criteria, I too am a jackass.

@TravisJ One of my best Astronomy classes was taught by a professor who used his own book.

@Catija One of the worst Math classes I took in University was from a professor who failed out of their PhD program.

But look: if you're participating in a conversation that has gone completely off the rails and it gets deleted... You KINDA HAVE TO HAVE SEEN THAT COMING

Ouch.

@TravisJ as.utexas.edu/astronomy/education/spring16/wheeler/…

and, ok, if you want to ask for leniency...that's fine

But when someone says"no"... Three times... Let it go. Ok?

@Catija Cool :) The teacher I had has summarily been fired and is hopefully wallowing in sorrow somewhere for all the anguish he put his students through.

That's all I have to say for now. Nothing clever. Long, exhausting week.

@TravisJ Oh, well, that's good :D Eventually.

@Shog9 Need to wind down? Don't let anyone talk you into hot yoga. It's awful.

That sounds like good advice

I liked warm yoga... But it was hard to breathe in the "hot" yoga sessions.

@TravisJ Indeed, the key to winding down is to not get bent out of shape.

@AdamLear I thought yoga was about being bent into shapes.

hah

That depends entirely on which shape you start from.

I think one of the poses is called "chair pose"... but I don't think I'd want to do that if I didn't actually have a chair under me.

I have been trying "standing pose" at work lately. Kinda enjoying it.

I need to get longer display cables so I can actually use my standing desk at the office. At home... my desk is the wrong height for me, so everything just hurts regardless.

I really need to ask for a standing desk... well... one of those Varidesk things.

I use an odd setup. I have a 19" small side table underneath a 30" tv table that my keyboard goes on. Same goes for the mouse setup. After testing I concluded that the keyboard should roughly be at your belly button when typing, and for me that was at the ~49" mark. With the Varidesk I found it too easy to get used to sitting back down so I had to remove that option.

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of answer: windows 10 no me permite ejecutar aplicaciones como administrador? by pepe moreno on es.stackoverflow.com

@Shog9 well.. I don't have the details so can't know if @Ano could really make such research. So you say he can find the reason for declining the flag all by himself?

On the same damned post

@Shog9 is it all about work? Or other things?

Just... Super demoralized right now.

:/

giving cake to @Shog

I want this thing to work.

What thing?

I want folks to understand what it is for.

without context, "thing" can by anything

And... I despair of my ability to communicate it.

Stack Overflow

@Shog9 you want Stack Overflow to work?

I'm tired of hearing folks frustrated with trying to participate. I'm tired of hearing folks trying to help and getting shit on.

:(

So what bothers you at the moment is people coming to SO asking stupid questions because they don't know what it is for, then running to you (SE staff, via contact form) crying over their ban? @Shog

I'm tired of hearing folks who've been getting shit on called assholes because they aren't nice enough

New user experience here is hard. It'd be great to have a better way to welcome people.

It's something that exists from the very beginning... and will be integral part of SO to the very end.... no?

@ShadowWizard No, it is the yin and yang of it all.

I'm just... Tired. So damn tired.

@Shog9 you sound like my wife. In her case it's 3 children making her tired so much... (she's with them most of the times, including nights with baby) :D

So SO equals 3 kids.

I want to see things getting better. And all I see are people who should know better talking shit about each other.

People want to take part at Stack Overflow but some don't understand the point of the site, so they do it wrong. Then others try to fix the wrong aspect. Both groups mean well, but the constant conflict has plagued the site for a long time.

@Shog9 oh.... this problem.

@ShadowWizard I've done this, several times. She has my sympathies

I think that since new users are the largest minority on the site, it is easy to blame them, but it is not their fault.

Experienced users still struggle with composing questions, and composing questions is the spark of this entire issue.

@Shog9 I think that it's difficult because there's so many different thoughts on how to respond to questions... "people who should know better" don't always know the same solution? But maybe I'm missing what's bothering you. I'm sorry. I agree that it's frustrating. If there's any way I can help, let me know.

I think if your comments are constantly getting deleted, then you should hit a comment recividism system.

@Shog9 thanks!

@Shog9 maybe take the weekend off, disconnect, and charge batteries? Probably that's exactly what you plan, just making sure. :)

I think it would help limit the toxic interactions users have. There is even a MSE post someone wrote about just that. Okay, it was me. I wrote it.

voted down ... just to stay in the spirit

aww, I am going to take that personally

SO is always attacking me

;)

Feel free to downvote though, it is a FR after all. I would be curious which users it would actually effect, but there is no way for me to see deleted comment counts over time, especially with regards to who they belong to.

@ShadowWizard yeah... I'm gonna spend the weekend in my indoor garden, knowing that what I do is my best efforts and some plants will die anyway. This is a good reality check.

That's one of the most fun parts of modding a site. You get to see exactly how many deleted comments someone has. :D

@Catija Is there a breakdown of if they were self deleted or other deleted?

@TravisJ No.

Oh well, total is probably a good indication anyway.

@Shog9 - With regards to your specific observation, there is a prolific SO user who I just cannot seem to have a conversation with without being accused of trying to trash the site by encouraging bad behavior. I am a firm believer in generating answers to posts where a good answer can improve the overall quality. However, they think that posting answers to posts of questionable content just trashes the site.

The difference in opinion between posting answers and not posting answers is something we will probably never reconcile, and it leads to a constant amount of conflict between us. I try to avoid this user or to just say neutral things to them as a result. You probably know who I am talking about. I honestly have no idea how to fix this situation, because I firmly believe that answers are what makes the site what it is and I try to defend that belief and promote it.

I know I am just trying to make the site better, and that other users are as well, but in the process the conflict between the two points of view - namely that the opposite is causing harm to the site - creates a lot of friction.

Maybe too honest for Friday.

@TravisJ I'm going to preface this with the obvious statement "I don't know SO"... but I'm curious... are these questions complete? Are they sufficiently detailed to answer? You say they're "questionable"... may I ask why?

There is this immense it depends as to the why, which is also problematic. For me, it really depends on if I can kind of mind read what is being asked versus what is actually shown in the question. I have a very low rate of questions closed that I answer, but sometimes questions which may end up being closed I think can remain open if it is clear what was actually happening, and sometimes the only way to do that is to provide an answer that kind of shores up the whole situation.

So what's usually the argument from the other person? That you shouldn't be inferring what the question is asking? Do you usually get accepts when you answer these questions?

Problematic in the sense that perhaps it is too open to interpretation, and as a result some people are a little too open about what gets answered. Answering a question which should be closed is not what I am talking about though. Answering a question which would be closed because others don't fully understand that it is legitimate is the grey area.

Is the questionable legitimacy due to subject expertise?

In a way, it may be hard to infer the legitimacy without subject expertise.

To be honest, due to the high rate of people attacking me for answering, I have all but stopped answering. Only recently have I started to answer in a small quantity again.

And only in a narrow band of posts where I can be certain no one will assail me for answering.

stackoverflow.com/…

That is the narrow band^

I can understand that. There are definitely questions I see on the sites I use that make no sense to me but make perfect sense to others who share those experiences... It's too bad that you've felt it necessary to curtail your activities due to these responses. Particularly considering that the questions don't tend to be closed. An answer is an answer... and it has the chance to benefit many people.

Do you attempt to interact with the OP at all in these situations (outside of answering)? Asking for clarification or editing the question to be more clear, particularly if they accept your answer?

When necessary, although usually I will not answer an incomplete question. I often only answer posts which will stand as posted.

Recently when I wasn't answering, I would just stick to explaining in the comments why the question was answerable and then just moving on since it didn't require having people get pissed off about actually seeing an answer.

1100 posts, still... that's not bad.

Though, I'm not sure if intags:mine is your tags or no tags...

It is the tags of the user that issues the search

So for me it is different than for you

Yeah, I have no tags :P That's why I wasn't sure if I was seeing the same results you were.

I have 40 tags that I answer in :P

That search yielded 663 results

I think I have 103 rep right now because I edited something.

This is the first result which looks legitimately interesting stackoverflow.com/q/48956293/1026459

To note, it has a close vote. =/

But also four upvotes... so... maybe they have socks ;)

I mean, this question is actually a prime example of what I am talking about. The user is far from new, the question definitely requires some subject expertise, there is a close vote, and answering it may or may not yield someone complaining about the quality of the question directly in comments.

I find it fine, sorting is something that a lot of people learning the language struggle with.

If all they do is complain, flag it and let a mod delete the comment. :P

The close vote is a dupe vote, though?

Yeah that is the vote. In some ways it is a duplicate, although the other posts don't exactly get into what is going on very well with the specific issue that the OP seems to examining. This is, as I said, a good example. It is fully grey area.

In some ways, when an expert answers a question, it does close it. If I answered that question, then there would be no more answers.

The way I try to look at dupes is maybe a bit different... if the questions are the same but the existing answers on the dupe aren't good... then write a better answer on the dupe (the older one) and go ahead and vote to close it as such... There's nothing wrong with a dupe closure... they're great signposts that help users find content. Different people ask the same question in a myriad of ways... chaining them together is beneficial.

That came off more arrogant than intended. I am just saying that often when there is an answer to a post in a canonical fashion, in my experience that tends to be the last answer posted.

That's the fun thing about SE! It doesn't have to be!

I agree, but I think fundamentally there was a difference in this question as opposed to the dupe. Answering all of the variations to that question could perhaps be a good idea for one of the existing posts, along with editing the existing post to make it more general, and then dupe chaining the entire set. However, that would be quite a lot of work.

That doesn't mean your later, better answer will ever get much visibility... but users who feel the canonical answer is insufficient will have more information. If they're cool with the canonical answer, great!... but not everyone is. I've found that the top voted answer on SO... isn't helpful to someone like me, a extreme novice.

@TravisJ Well... you did say that you're limited in how much you're doing on SO right now... right? ;)

The later answer would be the canonical one. The existing answers to at least that set of 3 posts are not canonical in nature, and answer the narrow specific question asked as opposed to also answering the more general aspect of what was going on.

@Shog9 morbid... but if that's the way for you to charge then so be it. Have fun, and know that even if sometimes I disagree with your ways... by now I'm sure you really do your best, otherwise you'd have just go away long ago. Cheers!

@TravisJ That's sort of the difference between teaching someone to fish and giving them a fish :)

lol yeah

I guess I would just rather see someone learn than see someone move on.

I support that. I'm a big fan of teaching people how to fish. That's one of the big things that annoys me about ELL... it's easy to answer questions but difficult to explain the broader concept that will help them in future situations.

Yeah, I can see how that would be an issue. For example, do you explain literally what it means and move on, or do you explain what that type of language use is: "there are always more fish in the sea", do you just say "it just means you always have options", or do you also touch on the use of idioms and the general context that this specific one is used for.

Also, somewhat amusingly, I have seen improperly explained idioms used in inappropriate ways by English Language Learners.

And also warning them that saying that to someone who's just broken up with a SO is probably not a good thing to do ;)

Yeah, or that posting on meta is also a bad idea after breaking up with SO

And now we've come full circle.

wait, SO as in "significant other" or "Stack Overflow"? =)

Are you asking the IPS mod or the Stack Overflow user?

I appreciate your recent actions, by the way :D

sure thing

Solid choice

@the4kman Yeah, but have they tried a table view? :P

HAPPY HOUR!!!

@Catija I'll have a double Macallan neat, and a water.

12 or 18?

I prefer to drink scotch that is old enough to purchase itself :P

I don't think I have any 25.

That stuff's expensive.

I only saw a 12 in the picture, which is good enough. Alcohol discrimination is sobriety.

:)

HAHA. Or you're like me and just don't like to drink.

I handle my liquor well, so that lends itself to enjoying drinking. However, it isn't exactly the healthiest thing to do. I went two years without drinking once to try to make up for the previous years of what we will call drinking.

Being tipsy is fun. :D For me, anyway... I tend to get giggly and silly. But most alcohol doesn't taste good to me... though I've been getting pointers on how to get used to it. Things have to be pretty sweet for me to not make a funny face... as such, I'm limited to sweet white wines, cordial-type liquors (particularly amaretto), and things like sweet cider and mead.

I do like grasshoppers, too... and other sweet mixed drinks... fruit margaritas, daiquiris, etc.

There is nothing wrong with a Godiva white chocolate and raspberry martini

Chocolate martinis hide the vodka taste really well

Oh, yeah... White Russians were good when I've had them. Cream does wonders to hide boozy flavor.

good morning

Morning!

So... is 9 web servers a lot?

That doesn't seem like a lot to me.

actually, no

that's kinda the point

Ah. Cool. Why don't they have more?

SE runs on surprisingly little hardware, and a metric crapton of optimisation

they don't need more

more or less between optimising the **** out of things, the CDNs (which are relatively new) and hardware advances - they've basically been running with a ton of headroom.

But if stuff breaks...

I guess there's less to break but you also have to have some way to pick up the slack if that happens?

the 9 servers are apparently running at 10% utilisation

and they've literally pulled a few servers off when things went bad... so, they have that slack

... meaning that they could theoretically run on only two?

probably 4

Yeah, but what about something more recent?

the 'joke' so to speak is - they're handling 10x the load, twice as fast.... with machines only 4x as powerful

@TravisJ that's from a tweet from today

that's the joke :P

Awww, that's so cute... I'm watching that video from 2011...

They had 40-something sites :D

lol

I might have been around then!