Tavern on the Meta

Undo

07:00

Well... That's happened several times. Shog told us to post on mSE.

angussidney

@JourneymanGeek IIRC someone asked Shog before we decided to go with a network-wide post instead of per-site posts

ArtOfCode

Aye. I suspect if we go to a CM, they'll just go with the outcome of the meta post, since that's basically the reason for it existing.

Journeyman Geek

@ArtOfCode still dosen't quite get around the feeling of folks deciding what to do for us.

Undo

Look, it's pretty clear we won't reach an agreement here - too much philosophical difference. Just one meta post with consensus to opt out, if a community really feels that it wants to handle its own spam.

Journeyman Geek

@Undo my issue isn't with smokey or even autoflagging - its with the threshold getting raised

Undo

07:02

You can opt out of that if you want. Same process.

Journeyman Geek

@Undo I think we can disagree on what the default should be.

(which is kind of the crux of my post anyway)

ArtOfCode

@Undo Might be important to try, though. That message has the "this is what we've decided so we're doing it" vibe. I think we all know that's not what you meant, but suspect this is the sort of issue that vibe comes from.

Journeyman Geek

@ArtOfCode and that's been raised before a few times too

Undo

Here are my constraints:

(1) I don't have the manpower to do 170 meta posts

(2) We want to do 5 flags in some capacity

angussidney

Here's our point of view on the default: we want to make sure that the majority of all users are clearly in favour of the new thresholds before we implement it. Asking on a site-by-site basis to opt in is a huge waste of time and effort when we can just ask them beforehand; if anyone has any objections we can easily comply.

Undo

07:08

(3) It doesn't feel right to restrain proven technology beyond reason

(meta.stackexchange.com/questions/307585/… is a pretty big driver there)

Journeyman Geek

@Undo 2 and 3 arn't constraints.

I'd grant 1. But its pretty much "we know this works, trust us to do 99% of it"

Undo

So it feels like a pretty good compromise to do one meta post - appearing on all sites, far more visibility for site members than individual meta posts ever would be - and allow sites to opt out.

Journeyman Geek

(but eh, you've heard that already)

@Undo or go "ok, we can do this - have a mod give us a ping if you're happy with it"

moves the work off from you, and its still opt in.

then it comes down to 1) awareness from mods that they can

2) mods letting you know you can flip that switch

Undo

Moderators are awesome representatives, unless it's practical to go directly to communities. This is a case where it is.

Journeyman Geek

and keeps people happier

see, that frustrates me.

user202362

07:12

on the internet, nobody knows there are 2 dogs chatting

3

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] URL in title, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, blacklisted website in body, blacklisted website in title, +3 more: beaudermaskincare.com/le-derme-luxe/ by Antoncantu on drupal.SE

Journeyman Geek

cause it feels like "we're basically going to pick the option that is less work for us, ignore a bunch of folk who put in time on their specific site, and do it anyway"

HTTP

@TelautonomousKitty always JasonC...

ArtOfCode

Thing is, we were planning to do all 153 meta posts. Then Shog told us to post on MSE instead. So... we did.

Undo

@JourneymanGeek I don't understand where the 'ignore' part is coming from. Help me understand why you feel ignored when this should go to all the sidebars eventually?

Journeyman Geek

07:15

@Undo well "Moderators are awesome representatives, unless it's practical to go directly to communities. This is a case where it is." says that to me.

HTTP

so.. should I ping my mods to let them know about that MSE post?

Undo

@JourneymanGeek You're a community member too. No reason you can't make that meta post.

Journeyman Geek

@HTTP apparently won't be necessary.

angussidney

You can; Shog was going to feature it at some point anyway

Journeyman Geek

@Undo and your mods are still the POC.

Undo

07:17

But yes, at some level you're right: I'm making the call that most sites will want this. It's not on in force yet; if the MSE post turns out badly we won't turn it on.

Journeyman Geek

How I'd see it working is - you let folk know "we can opt in to 5 flags" - mods discuss, post on meta, get back to you. I'd like to have the option of a mod veto, however unlikely it is and positive feedback from a site before its turned on

angussidney

I honestly don't see the difference between opt-in and instant opt-out. We're not taking that decision away from you, instead we're asking the overall community for their opinion on what the default should be (whether it would be reasonable to turn it on) until any communities/mods ask to turn it off. If you want it off, tell us now.

Journeyman Geek

@angussidney opt out does, to me.

but hey, all I do is moderate a site.

ArtOfCode

@JourneymanGeek re "positive feedback", that's where this problem comes in:

in Charcoal HQ on The Stack Exchange Network Chat, 35 mins ago, by ArtOfCode

@Rob Problem with opt-in is that lots of smaller sites won't be able to build significant community support on meta as opposed to apathy - so turning it on on those sites would lead to questions about whether we have permission from the community to do it. It's easier to make it default-on with an easy offer to turn it off.

HTTP

reminded me something: can ML be used on Smokey to analyze the average flagging time per-site, and adjust the number of autoflag? (I haven't read the post, and I'll read it now...)

Journeyman Geek

07:19

@ArtOfCode but that also dosen't mean the decision should be entirely up to a group of folk not directly involved in the site.

Undo

@HTTP We'd use tricks like that if we needed to. 100.00% accuracy gives us the luxury of not needing to.

angussidney

@HTTP we've tried ML, but it's always been vastly inaccurate comared to our existing methods

Journeyman Geek

tbh, I think part of the disconnect here is you guys are seeing this purely as an engineering problem

Ano

in Shadow's Den, 8 mins ago, by Ano

Help me choose my next username!

@Derpy ^^

ArtOfCode

@JourneymanGeek No, but it swings the balance in favour of making the community's part of the decision the opt-out part rather than the opt-in. In the face of "meh" community response, it's easier to say "it's not obvious you want this so we turned it off" than it is to say "it's not obvious you want this so we turned it on"

Journeyman Geek

07:21

@ArtOfCode well, most folks arn't going to notice say 30s vs 10s time to deletion

Undo

FWIW, there's no reason you can't post something on SU now asking for community consensus to opt out of five flags.

angussidney

@JourneymanGeek we're focusing on outliers, not the average time

ArtOfCode

@JourneymanGeek 50s vs 10s is the current average, FWIW. But that's not going to be the major benefit - what angus said.

Ano

@Undo Or a general discussion asking about it and asking for opinions in general

angussidney

Anyway, I'm going to stop chatting now, I feel like I'm piling on

Journeyman Geek

07:22

@angussidney its fine!

Undo

@Ano Mostly the same, aye.

Journeyman Geek

@ArtOfCode heh, based off what I manage to catch the tail end of on SU.

and this isn't about "no smokey" vs "yes smokey" or even 5 flags.

angussidney

By the way, I want to say it again - we may disagree with some of your opinions, but we don't hate you for it. Sorry if it comes across that way. All we want is a discussion :)

HTTP

Wait, what's the score threshold for a question to not be shown on the homepage, once again?

Journeyman Geek

@angussidney NONE taken at all.

Ano

07:25

@HTTP -4 main Q&A sites and -8 meta sites

Journeyman Geek

we've had a good chunk of the same points raised repeatedly before.

tbh, I think I PROBABLY should make the fact/reasons I oppose it clearer.

Undo

Anyway, gotta run. It's like midnight here... which is too late for dogs.

Rob

@Undo While I fully support 5-flagging, I completely see where JG is coming from. Forcing sites to write meta posts to opt-out is creating work for other communities. Is there any reason Charcoal cannot email the moderator mailing list, asking for vetos?

Journeyman Geek

there isn't really a mailing list of that sort

Rob

After all; moderators are elected to represent the community. If the community disagrees with the mod's veto; that's for them to discuss

HTTP

07:26

So the proposed change will hide the spam automatically from the homepage, whether it's a good change or not, hmm....

Ano

@Undo You in CA?

HTTP

(unrelated, stream of consciousness)

Rob

@JourneymanGeek Teachers lounge? Or surely, the SE team has such a list.

Journeyman Geek

@Rob not all mods are on TL

angussidney

@Rob not all mods read the TL

Lol, ninja'd

Rob

07:28

Well then, scratch that. Though my point still stands; moderators should be able to veto this without having a community decision

Ano

I'm sure mods pay attention to site metas.

Journeyman Geek

@Rob I'd agree, but I kinda said that earlier too ;p

also, the voting on my answer is... interesting

(at +5/-6 but mostly on 0 or -1 net)

angussidney

@JourneymanGeek I'd like to see who voted

Rob

@JourneymanGeek Oops, missed that. Then take what I wrote above as a vote of support ;)

angussidney

Also, @JourneymanGeek, would you be willing to remove the sentence in your post regarding flags being cast without the user's knowledge? It's simply wrong, and kinda paints a picture that our system is using people's accounts without their permission, which I think is unfair. That sentence was the main reason why I downvoted.

Journeyman Geek

07:33

@angussidney eh. Can we compromise?

Rob

I think it's a valid point.. as it has happened. Though perhaps, wording it as 'people have signed up, and forgotten it's still running'

angussidney

Sure

Journeyman Geek

I'll leave that in, but adjust thr wording a little?

ArtOfCode

I'm not comfortable with a mod-only veto. Recent discussions have made me feel that a number of mods would veto it where I feel the community would support it, and the community wouldn't necessarily know anything about it. Requiring a meta post to veto to make sure the community sees it allays that.

Rob

@ArtOfCode Isn't the point of this meta to make people aware, though? The same can be said for sites not knowing they can opt out

Journeyman Geek

07:35

@angussidney "There's been [a case of voting without knowing you did][1], I'm assured that its unlikely but its possible someone can opt in and forget. "

Rob

If it comes down to trusting mods of other sites; that's something for the community to handle over there

angussidney

Also, there have been a number of complaints by non-mods about how non-mods are being treated as insignificant peasants in the decision process

Journeyman Geek

does this sound better?

HTTP

FWIW, I opted-in, and the only time I noticed if Smokey use mine for auto-flagging is when I open the post and was confused why I already flagged it, so the sentence is true for me...

ArtOfCode

@Rob Yes? Not sure I see your point there. This meta post should make communities aware that they can opt-out if they want to.

angussidney

07:35

@JourneymanGeek sounds awesome, thanks :)

Rob

@ArtOfCode Yes, and that brings me to my point from before. You're creating work for other communities by making it opt-out by meta post only.

If mods veto it, then it's on the community to vote it back in, if they care enough

ArtOfCode

@Rob eeh. Creating a meta post is minimal work, really.

angussidney

Compared to the work we have to put in for the other way around

ArtOfCode

My point here is that the communities may not know about it to be able to start voting it back in

Journeyman Geek

@ArtOfCode oh I'd consider the meta post route essential for SU

HTTP

07:36

letting every site notice the MSE post first, though...

Rob

@angussidney There is no additional work. I'm proposing it to be on by default, mods can veto it. The community (if they care enough and disagree with the mod) can raise a meta post

It's the path of least resistance, really.

Saying you know there's mods that would veto it; and thus won't let them veto it, isn't really a good reason

ArtOfCode

@Rob Not quite what I'm saying.

John Dvorak

Perhaps have Charcoal spam every site's meta with "Do you mind us picking up trash on your property and how much may we pick up"?

Rob

@ArtOfCode How do you know the community would support it, if they also don't know about it?

^ Those are the assumptions which I feel are dangerous

ArtOfCode

I suspect there might be a few mods who veto it against the will of their community, so I'm unwilling to let them veto it without demonstrating community support.

Rob

07:40

That's really a community problem, then

Not charcoal's

Journeyman Geek

@ArtOfCode and that's literally something that community needs to deal with

angussidney

@Rob FYI the entire premise of our argument is that Shog will [feature] the Meta post so that it appears across the whole network. If it doesn't.... then we can agree that not enough has been done to let people know

rene

still feels like you're trying to prevent any push back

John Dvorak

@Rob I'd say it's the mod's problem. Other mods on the site might still want it.

HTTP

Even if it's featured, I don't think all mods have been on MSE. At least I know some mods that only have their own site as the only account (though that's not a strong proof they haven't visited MSE though).

Rob

07:41

@JohnDvorak And then comes the next stage in my proposal; at that point a meta post is raised

John Dvorak

huh...

angussidney

@HTTP it will appear on the sidebar across every site on the network. It's impossible to miss.

Rob

@angussidney Sure. But I still don't see why a meta post should override the decisions of moderators of their own community

ArtOfCode

Eh. I don't think it's unreasonable for us to ask for demonstrated support for a veto before doing it. It's non-trivial effort for us to disable a site for autoflagging, so letting it be done by a trivial effort of a mod looking and saying "no" feels imbalanced.

John Dvorak

let mods opt out their communities, then said communities if they should overrule that mod? That sounds like a great way to raise blood pressure either way it goes.

Journeyman Geek

07:42

@JohnDvorak most healthy sites have a fairly well organised way to deal with it.

HTTP

@angussidney Then I hope that they (e.g. someone on Buddhism.SE) read it, but haven't joined MSE.

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak Unless something's fundamentally against the TOS...

HTTP

or hid their MSE account for whatever reason

Journeyman Geek

that's hopefully a sign that the mod goes "Ok guys, lets just do this"

John Dvorak

Hmm... is undisclosed affiliation fundamentally against the TOS?

Journeyman Geek

07:44

@JohnDvorak well technically its against the rules.

angussidney

@Rob that's why we will let people opt-out whenever they want. If a mod or community is against the status quo, let us know and we will comply

John Dvorak

@JourneymanGeek because Bi wants free rein to do just that

Rob

@angussidney No, I get that. But my point being is this creates (however small) work for other communities. That's not a good thing to force onto people

Journeyman Geek

who is Bi?

ArtOfCode

@JourneymanGeek Bioinformatics

that particular situation has been resolved as far as we're concerned

Journeyman Geek

07:45

@ArtOfCode ah, OH

I remember that conversation

ArtOfCode

further discussion on that is BI site policy, not a Charcoal issue

Journeyman Geek

@ArtOfCode and that's precisely a situation where... well frankly, its their decision.

Rob

@ArtOfCode I mean, that's something that could be architectured to make as simple as a button click. It's still not a reason to offload the burden to others

angussidney

@Rob I still stand by my argument that a very small amount of work for one person is not unreasonable to expect, compared to the work required for us, when we have already determined that the status quo is 'turn it on'

Rob

Anyways, that's my 2c. I do hope 5-flags gets enabled on most sites

Journeyman Geek

07:46

@angussidney to split hairs... that's not what a status quo is

John Dvorak

@JourneymanGeek and yet I feel overriding a site-wide policy could be problematic for reasons other than spamfighting

ArtOfCode

@Rob that's also imbalanced. It's asking us to do significant work to re-architect the system, so that communities can avoid the small effort of making a meta post.

Journeyman Geek

also... once again "we have already determined" is...

angussidney

@JourneymanGeek yeah, that was wrong

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak I've kinda seen the arguement there, and that's something that's probably better handled in house.

and I'd rather have actual/human users educated over swatted in many cases

Rob

07:47

@ArtOfCode I get you, really. But that's still not a reason to offload work onto others. No one is asking Charcoal to do anything.

HTTP

itt: "Charcoal on the Meta"

angussidney

@JourneymanGeek Everything I say is assuming that the community response to this post is positive. If it's not, then we're not going to switch this on - at least without another large discussion with everyone who should be involved.

HTTP

(back to work)

John Dvorak

If we want a loose swarm of city states, better lower tourist expectations before they find out the hard way.

angussidney

51 mins ago, by Ano

Maybe it's just better to have this discussion in CHQ than to fork it across multiple rooms?

Journeyman Geek

07:49

@JohnDvorak so, as far as I'm concerned, I literally have only two groups of people to answer to as a SU mod

SU users and the community management team.

ArtOfCode

eh, venue doesn't really matter

angussidney

Anyway, gtg

Journeyman Geek

The latter's typically gone "oh, ok"

ArtOfCode

Tavern is slightly more discoverable from that meta post than CHQ

Journeyman Geek

and the BI mods are on the ground

they're looking at the situation and are the best people to deal with what they have.

So, if they choose to enforce rules differently - its something they probably have a reason for, and is best handled on their meta.

ArtOfCode

07:51

I'm off for a while

Travis J

I think creepier than the autospam flagging is the fact that there are 200 SE user accounts being used as a botnet. At least it is being used for good... for now.

John Dvorak

It's an opt-in botnet

Travis J

And?

HTTP

because... Marshall badge. hide again

ArtOfCode

that... might be the most amusing phrase of the month

John Dvorak

07:57

Another opt-in botnet example is boinc. Nobody raises an eyebrow against that.

... and we don't max out our bots' CPUs

Travis J

Apples, meet oranges.

HTTP

Hi oranges!

Travis J

Hi Appl-uagh! Window =/ Hi Apples!

John Dvorak

Yeah, I'm digressing

Travis J

I don't find your explanations really helping at all with the situation to be honest.

If anything, the glib dismissal makes it worse.

John Dvorak

07:59

does it?

Travis J

Yes, it shows a disregard for the seriousness that this issue should have.

ArtOfCode

It's a valid point, but it's one that's been discussed pretty thoroughly when we started flagging for the first time

Travis J

The fact that it is possible users don't even realize that the one-click auto-association button on entry allows this is rather strong gray area.

Anonymous

https://collapsed-stacks.github.io/startups/questions/

Anonymous

HI GOOGLEBOT INDEX ME

John Dvorak

08:01

It's not one-click

Travis J

How about you publicize the list of auto flagging accounts?

John Dvorak

and they get a pretty big disclaimer to click under

ArtOfCode

@TravisJ for reference, this is prominently shown to every user before they enable autoflagging:

Travis J

Have you ever seen the outlook on how much users here read when clicking through?

ArtOfCode

Accounts in use:
Undo, ArtOfCode, Ferrybig, Yvette, Andrew T., MAR, ProgramFOX, Andy, Magisch, Ashish Ahuja, angussidney, ByteCommander, Kyll, FrankerZ, rene, John Dvorak, DavidPostill, KazWolfe, tripleee, QPaysTaxes, NobodyNada, dorukayhan, teward, DJMcMayhem, avery, Cerbrus, Glorfindel, nathan-osman, Floern, DraconicPenguin, Mithrandir, kevin-brown, Mego, J F, Jamal, caffeineaddiction, Riker, AdriaanV, Makyen, paulroub, Marco Borchert, Supreme Leader SnokeDetector, quartata, battery.cord, Mr. Bultitude, muddyfish, Jeutnarg, Amittai Shapira, Sconibulus, BCdotWEB, Nathan Arthur, Cᴏʀʏ, Legio…

Travis J

08:03

Nice, full disclosure :D

Which exchange are those usernames relative to?

John Dvorak

Network profile, I would guess

ArtOfCode

@TravisJ that's not something we can realistically get stats for, but I'd expect it to be reasonably high since users are generally unfamiliar with what they're doing (which is a situation in which people tend to read more and do less)

Yeah, network

I quite literally have a raw database in front of me, so I can get pretty much anything you ask for :P

Travis J

Okay, fair enough. At least there is a list somewhere that can be used for auditing if oddities show up.

That pretty much sums up any sort of oversight though, from my point of view. With a public list if anything shows up, it is easy to audit.

John Dvorak

Metasmoke even lists specific flags that were used for each report

ArtOfCode

Oh, yeah. Absolutely more than happy to give y'all data on stuff if you want it - there's quite a lot already available on metasmoke, but we can always do more.

You can have a raw database dump if you want it, minus PII

John Dvorak

08:06

sede.ms?

HTTP

> 0 flags used today.

sad

ArtOfCode

@JohnDvorak metasmoke.erwaysoftware.com/data

John Dvorak

I'd like sede.ms

ArtOfCode

JS data explorer

John Dvorak

oh, awesome

ArtOfCode

08:07

We've looked into doing a full SQL data explorer, but the security issues on that are not fun

user315433

@JeremyBanks So it's no longer startups-2014, how to tell it from v2?

ArtOfCode

but if you know SQL and want to do exploring with that, just ping someone for a dump

Rob

@ArtOfCode You can create a read-only user and give it access to whatever views are necessary

Easiest way I found, when I did something similar

Anonymous

@FTP That's going to be onstartups, since the site name was really "Answers on Startups". (Or, per Area 51, startups-business, but that seems worse.)

Travis J

@JeremyBanks That's cool! Would it be possible to get it sorted by upvote? :P

Anonymous

08:08

Going to put that up tonight.

ArtOfCode

@Rob yeah, that gets most of it, there's just a few last bits that were holding it back (and, honestly, the sysadmin stuff). Can't remember what they were, though.

Anonymous

@TravisJ Good point, I'll do that.

HTTP

I smell a Data Dump Explorer app going up soon...

Travis J

@JeremyBanks Thanks, that is really awesome

John Dvorak

is store available client-side so that I could play with it in the browser console?

ArtOfCode

08:09

@JohnDvorak uh

that... is an excellent question

standby

John Dvorak

right now I'm mostly interested in what data is available.

ArtOfCode

Yes, yes it is. window.store.

John Dvorak

nice!

ArtOfCode

It'll give you literally anything you ask for, PII excluded. Asking for lots of rows will take a significant time to load, though.

and joins are a pain

it's useful for small things, but if you want complex data analysis SQL is probably better

John Dvorak

Oh, the schema is displayed directly when you select a table.

user315433

08:12

@JeremyBanks Speaking of score, on every page all answers have the same score as the question.

Magisch

@ArtOfCode If you need help designing sql queries, i can help

ArtOfCode

@JohnDvorak yup, figured that might be useful

Anonymous

@FTP Oops. Fixing, thanks.

ArtOfCode

@Magisch too right you can

We had some fun getting the TTD-per-flag-count query right

John Dvorak

@ArtOfCode certainly is :D

ArtOfCode

08:13

SELECT
	COUNT(DISTINCT q.id) AS 'PostCount',
	MAX(q.flag_count) AS 'FlagCount',
	AVG(TIMESTAMPDIFF(SECOND, q.created_at, q.deleted_at)) AS 'ATTD',
	ROUND(STDDEV(TIMESTAMPDIFF(SECOND, q.created_at, q.deleted_at)), 2) AS 'StdDev',
	ROUND(AVG(TIMESTAMPDIFF(SECOND, q.created_at, q.deleted_at)) + (2 * STDDEV(TIMESTAMPDIFF(SECOND, q.created_at, q.deleted_at))), 2) AS 'CommonMax'
FROM (
	SELECT
		t.id,
		t.created_at,
		t.deleted_at,
		t.reason_weight,
		sites.max_flags_per_post,
		COUNT(DISTINCT flag_logs.id) AS 'flag_count'

Magisch

Looks not that hard tbh

Looks intimidating because it's nested and 3 aggregation layers deep but very straightforward

ArtOfCode

Not hard once you've got it right, but was interesting to figure out what constraints we needed to get the right data

John Dvorak

It's interesting that store holds old keys that were removed from the add section

ArtOfCode

@JohnDvorak yeah, that's known as "Art doesn't clean up after himself"

Magisch

@ArtOfCode Thats always my favorite part about writing large queries

ArtOfCode

08:16

@Magisch discussion about that

I've been having a lot of interesting SQL issues recently

The query for autoflaggers on the new site dash was fun to optimize

ended up with a COUNT(DISTINCT IF()), which I don't think I've had cause to use before

Magisch

\o/ for optimization

and I'm sitting here reading the new european data protection law

ArtOfCode

Totally. That ATTD query was originally something like 60s, now it's around 60ms

John Dvorak

TIL we have 18 Smokeys

Private columns (such as users#encrypted_password) shouldn't be listed in the schema

wait, hold on... encrypted_password, not hashed_password?

ArtOfCode

@JohnDvorak eh, people knowing they're there ain't too much of an issue, they're public in the schema file anyway. There's no data in them from the data explorer.

@JohnDvorak Blame Devise... it's definitely hashed, bcrypt.

Undo doesn't know what your password is

Anyway, really out now

John Dvorak

@ArtOfCode true. Mark them as private, though, so that people don't expect to find them in the data?

ArtOfCode

08:24

could do, most of them should be reasonably obvious

Anonymous

xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError: reference to invalid character number: line 77631, column 681

Anonymous

Python's painful libraries are part of what make XML such a pain to deal with.

Journeyman Geek

@Magisch @Magisch man, do you also wear hair shirts and sleep in a bed of broken glass? ;p

Anonymous

I wanted a nice clean script without any dependencies, but I remember that the only way to deal with "invalid" XML entities in Python requires a non-standard XML data structure library. FFS.

Magisch

@JourneymanGeek I'm the new dpo in my company so I kind of have to

Journeyman Geek

08:33

ah

John Dvorak

XML is plaintext turned into plaintext with formatting marks turned into a soup of formatting marks with some plaintext hidden in the middle turned into a bloated data storage format with plaintext support present mostly as a historical accident

Journeyman Geek

so. is it plaintext?

Anonymous

IIRC it's something like the actual XML spec saying "you aren't allowed to use the Ӓ escape for certain specific characters", even though the meaning is clear, and this is the only parser that actually follows that rule.

Anonymous

whatever. Fortunately it was only in the posthistory table so I can ignore the error for now.

Anonymous

The next error is that there's a question in the OnStartups dump that points to an accepted answer that isn't in the dump. :P Maybe some missing clean-up around deletion.

Derpy

09:01

@JeremyBanks opinions, sorry. IMHO, I won't get in a sword fight "by chance". But it is very possible that Youtube serves me bitcoin-miner infected ads. If an antivirus heuristic engine can catch that and stop the exploit (or at least manage to raise some red flags to the user) I would gladly get it.

John Dvorak

how about an "all ads are bad" heuristic?

Anonymous

@Derpy As discussed, that's not a security issue.

Anonymous

And it's hardly even a problem.

Anonymous

It's no justification for an aggressive security posture.

John Dvorak

I'd be fine with invisible ads that mine bitcoins.

Travis J

09:04

If they are mining, then isn't it going to be kinda visible?

Anonymous

It'll make your site run terribly. But most sites that include them are already awful.

HTTP

@TravisJ like, the seekbar?

John Dvorak

I was under the impression one couldn't choose what ads they show

Travis J

@HTTP I meant more what Jeremy said, that it will degrade performance.

Derpy

@JohnDvorak No, thanks.Don't need that on my pc or my smartphone

Anonymous

09:08

Both of those are examples of persistent background malware. Days of continuously pegging your CPU is hardly the same thing as seconds while you pass through a sketchy web page.

Magisch

@JohnDvorak Hell no. I'm borderline fine with non animated, non flashy, non moving curated ads. Anything above that will incite adblock from me

John Dvorak

@Magisch agreed, but these are really hard to come by.

Anonymous

Fortunately, much of what we're expressing here is in-line with the new Acceptable Ads standard that Chrome will (very coarsely and slowly) begin enforcing, which should at least drive crap off of major sites that were so dumb.

Anonymous

https://blog.chromium.org/2018/02/how-chromes-ad-filtering-works.html

John Dvorak

Any chance Chrome will turn blind eye on Google's own ads?

Anonymous

09:13

@JohnDvorak Enforcement is delayed for like a month after the violating ads are detected, so presumably Google would comply with its own policies to avoid being subject to the blocks.

Anonymous

It's a fairly timid system by most standards, but coming from Google it should still have influence.

John Dvorak

while adblock didn't?

Anonymous

I assume Chrome has many times more reach than any ad-blocker, at least in western markets.

Ano

@JeremyBanks Google ran TV commercials for Google Chrome in India for a long time

Anonymous

@Ano Nice, looks like they're #1 there as well.

Travis J

09:16

AdBlock always scared me a little because it inspects your traffic, and I don't want anyone looking at my request headers

Anonymous

In theory that's done client side and I guess you can inspect the code to make sure it's not sending your data off? I dunno; I don't use them.

Travis J

Yeah, in theory, and you could probably unpack stuff or whatnot, but meh, not worth it for the small amount of return.

John Dvorak

@TravisJ ads look at way more stuff than just your traffic stats

not seeing ads is a pretty big amount of return

Travis J

@JohnDvorak Blocking iframes is easy enough.

Can block an iframe before it loads no problem.

John Dvorak

So, you're rolling your own adblocker?

Travis J

09:19

I have one at work that I use. To be honest, I don't really see many ads, if a place has too many ads, I just don't go there.

Anonymous

I pay/register to remove ads on the sites I visit most often. Ads are the cost for free content elsewhere. If they're too obnoxious and that cost is too high, I don't visit the site. Easy.

John Dvorak

That's a nice approach. How much does it cost you?

Anonymous

Not sure. Most news sites are annual subscriptions so I'm rarely reminded. YouTube Red is fantastic ROI.

Ano

Feedback please:

3

Q: Let reviewers know if a suggested edit will push the question into the reopen queue

Many times, someone will suggest an edit to a post that was closed within the last five days. The edit itself may be benign, and correct valid things such as grammar issues or a bad title. However, such edits may cause the post to be pushed into the Reopen Votes queue if there were no edits since...

Travis J

I've seen that before, somewhere.

John Dvorak

09:25

Red doesn't work in Czechia

Ano

@JohnDvorak I use Nano Defender with Nano Adblocker

John Dvorak

and I wouldn't want it anyways

Magisch

@JeremyBanks I have YT red too

Means you're about 10-15x more valueable to the content creator too

Derpy

@JeremyBanks Again, sorry but we have different expectations.

user202362

adblock works perfectly on youtube on certain brower with certain OS

user202362

09:27

so I ever bothered to get YT red

Anonymous

Background (and sometimes offline) mobile playback is another good benefit of it.

Anonymous

@Derpy Your opinions on security seem to be a defeatist paranoia detached without a coherent threat model.

Anonymous

Which is to say: I am right, and you are fearmongering.

HTTP

@TelautonomousKitty but on mobile app...

user202362

I am not into subscription based payments, because people tend to increase their subscriptions of various things. That means from financial control point, your expense will be always going up.

Ano

09:31

@JeremyBanks That feature was briefly available to me for free, though that could be because I was traveling internationally at the time

Travis J

@TelautonomousKitty Counter rising expense with rising income :P

Derpy

@JeremyBanks yep yep. You win, I lose. Sorry, but I think that closes off our discussion. Say goodbye.

user202362

@TravisJ just because you have a million dollars, it doesn't mean you need to spend it all

Travis J

lol I liked the first version better

If you don't spend it, and end up with much more, then wouldn't it have been silly not to have purchased something as simple as a YT red subscription?

Ano

Vote for my next username!

user202362

09:34

Other hobbies cost money too, autonomous car project, drones, also travel. And I would like a healthy emergency fund on top of repaying my mortgage, thanks a lot ...

Derpy

@Ano Can I vote for "Amy's boyfriend"?

Ano

@Derpy Does it contain the words "Sonic", "Ano", or "Anonymous"?

(That can be trivially resolved)

Derpy

@Ano wait, aren't synonym counted too? I think my suggestion should fit as a synonym for "Sonic"

Ano

@Derpy Haha no

1 min ago, by Ano

(That can be trivially resolved)

Derpy

@Ano ok, then change it to "Amy's anonymous boyfriend"

Ano

09:39

@Derpy Yep!

ArtOfCode

@Ano probably a good idea to not spam that

Ano

@ArtOfCode Not exactly spamming that. My first post was in a quote and thus not really noticeable, as it was directed at a specific user. It was too late to delete it, so I posted it again making it more clear that it was general to all users.

Also, the other room where I posted that: two other username polls were posted there before and accepted by the main RO.

One by @Shadow himself.

Shadow Wizard

@Ano hmm?

ArtOfCode

quotes are just as noticeable as messages, since they, uh, quote

Ano

@ArtOfCode I meant, people would overlook it not only for that, but also because it looks like it was directed for another user.

Shadow Wizard

09:50

@Ano well, this isn't a fun room, unlike Den, so asking people to take part in the poll once is enough... more than that is indeed frowned upon.

Quoting the Den's message was enough. :)

Ano

@ShadowWizard Yeah, if I hadn't pinged Derpy right after that I probably wouldn't have reposted that.

ArtOfCode

separate messages will generally be taken individually... even then most people read the lot whether it's addressed at them or not

Shadow Wizard

@Ano think @Derpy is the only one here who really needed that link, all other people who might vote are in Den anyway, probably. :)

Ano

@ArtOfCode I generally don't. That's why I prefer that people always reply to me even in conversations (a behavior which a few people find annoying)

@ShadowWizard I wanted more people to vote, not just the "fun" audience

Mithrandir

@ArtOfCode and then there are those who just lurk and you never know if they're actually there or not

Ano

09:53

Also, I pinged Derpy here because he wasn't pingable in Den.

ArtOfCode

@Ano compare: "most people" and "I"

not the same thing

Ano

@ArtOfCode Meaning?

Shadow Wizard

@Ano but those who are less into fun are less likely to take part anyway... :)

ArtOfCode

@Ano Meaning whether you do a thing or not does not affect whether the majority do it.

Shadow Wizard

@Ano he left the Den long ago, yeah.

Ano

09:56

@Derpy You didn't vote "Other"?

Derpy

@Ano to be fair, I didn't vote yet.

Ano

@Derpy Ah, right, you were just considering it. Carefully reread.

Petter Friberg

13:32

@Ano you are missing the option "What ever is ok for me as long as it is not Ano since I know Italian" :D

Journeyman Geek

lol

HTTP

あの、アノです…

Derpy

14:34

and for the bad moderation sample of the day, the following was disputed as Not An Answer.

0

A: Cannot add the specified assembly to the global assembly cache: log4net.dll.

At the risk of answering a question with a question, why use Log4Net? Why not use SharePoint's Unified Logging Service? It isn't that hard to use, though it does have a few kinks. And it would mean all your administration and logs are in the one place.