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SmokeDetector

20:03

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Toxic answer detected, blacklisted user (150): Application of the four color theorem by banana on cs.SE

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SmokeDetector

20:31

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] No whitespace in title (63): HotmailHotmailHotmail by Edward on webapps.SE

Shadow Wizard

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog so that's new and IMO bad feature.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@ShadowWizard It's existed for a long time.

Something Bad Happened

Hmmmmmm, this seems like a mis-use of Community Wiki.

(Which matches most of its use.)

Shadow Wizard

@Tinkeringbell yup

ArtOfCode

Mod-initiated wiki conversions used to let you choose whether it was just the question or question+answers, but now it's always both:

Shog9

20:45

@ArtOfCode uh, I'm not sure that tool ever let you choose

Something Bad Happened

> If a question is valuable enough that you believe it belongs on the site, chances are you don’t need it to be community wiki! [...] Instead, strive for quality. If you’re unsure a certain question class belongs on the site, don’t tolerate the worst examples — demand that these questions be awesome. [...] questions rarely, if ever, need community wiki.

Shadow Wizard

Wait... When a faq-proposed becomes a faq... Answers turn into CW... I always thought the moderator do it manually for each answer. But... Maybe I just assumed wrong.

Shog9

if you want to convert a single post (as a moderator) then you just edit it and check the box

ArtOfCode

@Shog9 didn't it? I seem to have some memory of it letting you, but maybe that's from something else

Shog9

The unwiki tool perhaps?

ArtOfCode

20:46

possibly... let's see if I can find a wiki question to test that on

Shog9

Shadow Wizard

Ununwiki

Shog9

That's actually relatively new - CJY got sick of having to unwiki tons of answers on CodeGolf

ArtOfCode

Aye, that's the one

Shadow Wizard

@Shog9 text is outdated, edits no longer cause auto wiki

ArtOfCode

20:48

welcome to most of mod tools :P

Shog9

still prevents it, it just never has anything to prevent

Somewhat

"Mod tools need to be more welcoming (to mods)"

Shog9

It's like a guard standing in front of a gate that's never attacked

oh lord, they so do

Shadow Wizard

Need a way to prevent auto protect on questions too.

Shog9

although this particular tool is hardly the worst offender

@ShadowWizard see, that'd be kinda nice if unprotect did that, eh?

Shadow Wizard

20:49

@Shog9 never say never...

Something Bad Happened

My favourite case of Community Wiki is that nobody gets to collect reputation from this question except for me, which is fitting because my answer is so much better than the rest.

Shadow Wizard

@Shog9 by mod, yeah. For mortals it is too much power.

Shog9

pfft. What is this thing you speak of?

ArtOfCode

what, mortals? :P

Shog9

what's the abuse case? "Spammy McGee carefully accumulates 15K rep so that he can force tempting targets to be unprotectable and thus spam them endlessly from his many sockpuppets"

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

20:52

@SomethingBadHappened I wonder why Andrew Barber opted to remove wiki from it?

πάντα ῥεῖ

@ArtOfCode The mere ones probably :3

ArtOfCode

@Shog9 As long as they're still manually protectable even if they aren't auto-protectable, I see no problem with this

Something Bad Happened

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog I flagged and asked him to, because my answer had been auto-wikied due to my (useful and warranted) volume of edits, when the rest of the question was still non-CW. When the question was later auto-wikied, only my answer was immune.

Shog9

@ArtOfCode make a feature-request!

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@SomethingBadHappened Ah, right, and I remember that there's a bug that causes auto-wiki events to no longer show in the post history (so all I see is the wiki removal event).

ArtOfCode

20:54

where do feature requests go any more

Shog9

~~up your nose~~ This one would be best on MSE

Shadow Wizard

@Shog9 not abuse case, just feels wrong. But I didn't pay much attention to it.

@ArtOfCode twitter? Duh.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

Twitter works better than chat pings, for sure.

ArtOfCode

@ShadowWizard and here was me resisting the urge to be snide :P

Shadow Wizard

Or just email Shog, he loves it. ;-)

Shog9

20:56

yes, that's a great way to get attention

checks gmail unread count

Shadow Wizard

Angry attention is better than no attention... :D

Shog9

2,678

Tinkeringbell

Did I hear someone say getting attention?

Shog9

> But different folk have different views:
I know a person small--
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!
She sends 'em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes--
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!

Kipling clearly knew of this room

Shadow Wizard

😕

Tinkeringbell

20:59

@ShadowWizard It's a toddler!

ArtOfCode

0

Q: Make unprotect make questions ineligible for further auto-protection

When Community Wiki status is removed from a question, it makes that question ineligible to be automatically converted back to wiki status again. (Ignore the fact that auto-CW doesn't exist any more for a moment...) This functionality should be extended to protection as well. Auto-protection doe...

Andras Deak

Make unprotect make? My parser broke :D

(but I understood it after four reads)

So...I've been inactive here for a while. Any update on the "Sorry we were so unfair to the community" front?

social network policy, blog post, things like that?

Mithrandir

Nothing has been released to the general public yet as far as I'm aware.

Andras Deak

let me get that "Fry shocked" gif :P

thanks

Shog9

21:16

There's a blog post in the works, but it's on Tim's plate & he's been having a few full weeks

Andras Deak

oh yeah, there were the things

Shog9

I think... Probably the best we can do at this point is just say, "hey, we didn't really think this through; here's what we're doing to make that less likely in the future"

that last bit is pretty critical. Otherwise, it's just lip service. That last bit is also... Non-trivial.

Andras Deak

That's almost as much as a lot of us have been expecting (hoping for? demanding?)

rene

demanding ... or else ...

Shog9

Alternately...

Cool Hand Luke - Failure to Communicate

►

Andras Deak

21:18

personally, I think owning up to mistakes (rather than just explaining how mistakes are inevitable) makes up 80% of damage control

Shog9

Well... Kinda need both

Mistakes are inevitable. Denying that - even by omission - is dishonest, and weakens anything else you say.

Andras Deak

I'm not sure I've even seen "mistakes are inevitable", but I don't remember all the posts in the subject and I am biased in the gloomy direction

Shog9

OTOH, making the same mistake repeatedly is... careless.

Andras Deak

@Shog9 yeah, no doubt about that. But explaining that alone is not an apology

Shog9

So ideally you say, "we can't prevent all mistakes and wouldn't disrespect you by claiming otherwise - but here's what we're doing to make this mistake less likely"

Tinkeringbell

21:20

@AndrasDeak That shouldn't need explaining....

If you need to explain that, you've met someone that's not likely to ever accept an apology

Andras Deak

I should probably reread Tim's answers which kind of set the tone in my head. I'm not sure what is it exactly he said (and more importantly, what he didn't)

@Tinkeringbell sometimes you need to state the obvious only to make sure that everyone involved is on the same page

Shog9

always a good idea to re-read what was said... Later... After your initial impressions have had time to fade

I have the unusual advantage of being almost completely gone for most of this, so my impressions are mostly what I've managed to pick up by reading and talking to folks afterwards.

Andras Deak

the best way to end a vacation is stepping into a "this is fine" :P

Shog9

@AndrasDeak heck... Sometimes you need to state the obvious just to let others know that you're on the same page.

Andras Deak

yup

Shog9

21:23

@AndrasDeak right? That's why I'm taking so much vacation this year. Can't beat the rush!

Something Bad Happened

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

cv-pls one-more-close-vote-needed meta.stackexchange.com/questions/318027/…

Tinkeringbell

@SomethingBadHappened Well, that's certainly not it.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

Looks like Tim Post got his Twitter account back.

Andras Deak

@SomethingBadHappened Hehe, writing.SE. "Show, don't tell". Oops.

Tinkeringbell

21:25

How in the world is that subtle...

Let's just go back to discussing vacations. @Shog9 any plans for your next one?

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@animuson Nope, wrong. It prevents all forms of auto-wikification. For example, this answer was made CW due to too many OP edits, then was removed manually by a mod. After that, the question was made CW, which caused all answers except that one to also become CW. — Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog 42 secs ago

Andras Deak

@Tinkeringbell it will probably coincide with something like removing the close vote system entirely

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@SomethingBadHappened Thanks for linking to that answer; it was helpful evidence.

Tinkeringbell

@AndrasDeak Nah, with someone purging all comments everywhere :)

Andras Deak

Right! After all I decided to be offended by punctuation marks. Most of them have to go now...

rene

21:31

those dots

Shog9

@Tinkeringbell yep. Leaving in 1.5 weeks to go visit family.

I'm counting on y'all to make sure things are crazy when I return. Hopefully this time it's something fun, like hat ideas.

Tinkeringbell

I can't really imagine having to take a vacation to visit family... Mine all live at most 30 minutes driving from here. (and half of them I wouldn't even put in the effort for even with it only being 30 minutes)

Mithrandir

waiting for the return of the pizza hat

Tinkeringbell

@Shog9 I thought that was last year? But I have ideas for a hat this year too :P

Andras Deak

@Shog9 it's never "us" :P

Shog9

21:35

@Tinkeringbell yeah... Mine are mostly >=1K miles away

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Tinkeringbell You happen to know anyone celebrating Diwali (and thus taking vacation)?

Tinkeringbell

@Shog9 Which makes it how long of a travel? Or at least how many km's? :P

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Shog9 Interesting, I flew 1,200 miles home to celebrate Diwali.

@Tinkeringbell 1,609+ km.

Shog9

Ah, see... I'm driving.

Tinkeringbell

That would be... from here to Russia?

Nope. Here to Russia is around 5500

I thought earth was smaller than that...

@Shog9 That's at least two days then... Have fun and drive safe! :)

Shog9

21:37

according to google, earth's circumference is 24.9K miles

Mithrandir

it's ~6,000 from here to where my cousins all live

Tinkeringbell

Quite big.

I need to go somewhere someday.

@Mithrandir Miles or km?

Mithrandir

miles

Tinkeringbell

So they're halfway across the globe then? :P

Mithrandir

ah, Google corrected me and told me it's 5,632 miles

@Tinkeringbell US -> Middle East

Andras Deak

21:40

miles are weird but Earth's radius is around 6300 kms

Tinkeringbell

@AndrasDeak Ah... there did that weird low number in my head come from. Thank you :)

Andras Deak

(and the Equator is around 40k kms long)

Tinkeringbell

Yay, geography lesson :D

Andras Deak

geometry ;)

Tinkeringbell

No, pretty sure this is taught in geography class, not maths :P

Something Bad Happened

21:50

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog I had it backwards

May 6 '13 at 13:46, by Anonymous

Hmm. Community wiki status was removed from this question, but that didn't cause it to be removed from the answers. So now it's a non-CW question with all-CW answers. Expected behaviour or not?

> Flag: Is it possible that Community Wiki status could be removed from this answer? It's not the kind of clutter that auto-wikification helps protect from. CW status was already removed from the question, but to my surprise that didn't also affect all of the answers.

Or... I'm not sure

maybe I didn't have it backwards, but there were multiple rounds of wikification on the question or something

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@SomethingBadHappened Bugs in the post history prevent the full story from being clear.

Shog9

try archive.org

Realistically, CW-removal has always been per-post, with the (relatively-recent) option of doing a question + answers in batch.

for a brief time, removal wasn't even an option

Shog9

22:21

Oh... One other thing about CW triggers, before I forget this forever...

We never actually stored the reason for why a post was made CW in response to one of the automated triggers.

Jarrod had a fairly complex bit of logic that tried to guess based on the various triggers and the state of the post

But... That was inferred at the time it was needed, and wasn't - to my knowledge at least - actually persisted in the database. It definitely wasn't stored at the time the post was made CW.

This resulted in a fair number of bugs, since at any given time multiple triggers might have applied and the one that was picked might not be the one that actually triggered the conversion.

So all that logic was stripped out back in 2015 after we stopped firing those triggers.

Thus, the "bug" where you can't see why a post was made CW anymore for old auto-CW'd posts.

The bug is actually... We never knew. Now we just don't even try to guess.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Shog9 Yep, makes sense. Note that for some time after the automatic triggers were removed, some later manual conversions were showing as "automatic for [some random reason]" in the revision history.

Shog9

Sure. Like I said, it was a best-effort attempt to guess, but nothing close to perfect.

Particularly since the thresholds changed over time, so...

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

...and then the former CW thresholds were being adjusted for their other functionality, e.g. showing the "too many answers" warning.

Shog9

on some sites, sure

In theory, it would've been possible to take that into account

But that'd have meant maintaining a bunch of horribly complex code for something that no longer existed

or backfilling potentially inaccurate data

And realistically... The advice I gave mods was, "unwiki on request unless you can see a very good reason for the post to actually be treated as a wiki"

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

Meh, history doesn't matter very much. I'd prefer fixing responsive-design bugs over history bugs any day.

@Shog9 Out of curiosity, do you happen to live near a closing Sears?

Shog9

22:31

no idea. I haven't seen a Sears in years

I think there's one in a local mall maybe...?

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

The two Austin stores are closing down. I got some cool discounts from one of them

Shog9

last time I went to Sears I think I was looking for a chair. They said they could maybe order one.

I decided to not waste the trip by looking at tools, but that was a waste too.

They had... a lot of clothing and, uh, some appliances

it was all kinda sad.

I remember walking into a Circuit City back when those were going out of business, thinking I'd get some good deals.

They were selling packs of CDRs for 50% off! ...which put them at about 10% more than Best Buy.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

The one I went to was a standalone Sears, not attached to a mall. The upper floor had been closed off a few years ago. This store didn't have the electronics section, only clothes, tools, and appliances. I didn't find the clothes I wanted, but I did get myself a new $40 watch for just $18.

I'll probably head to the other one once I fly back to Austin next week; since that one is attached to a mall, it's likely that the entire sales floor is still open, unlike this one where the upper floor was closed off.

Makyen

!!/location

SmokeDetector

23:01

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] No whitespace in title (63): HotmailHotmailHotmail ✏️ by Edward on webapps.SE

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