Tavern on the Meta

Shog9

12:12 AM

@Rob That brings it down to about 556K

I suspect the comment check is there because... Well, a surprising number of these are answered in comments

That's not a great reason, but it is what it is

Rob

1:06 AM

@Shog9 That's a good ? reduction, but alas the answer in the comments. If it could be cut in half, leaving true garbage, then it would be safe to delete them (especially with the provision that someone could read the deleted question and undelete it). --- That begs another question: Is the answer in the comment enough of an answer, or is it NAA? --- Maybe it needs another variable, such as no views in a year; that along with no answer in three years and abandoned by the OP should yield

something to delete.

I'd suggest making a new queue for abandoned questions but I understand SO has enough queues that get full from time to time. Maybe bronze, silver, and gold badges for TrashFinder would be an encouragement.

Instead of deleting the 800K questions they could have a separate triage for old questions.

I guess the easiest solution for you would be to ask on Meta, see what the community has to offer.

Shog9

@Rob here's the problem: you kinda gotta know the topic pretty well to have any idea as to whether the comments answer anything. And then, whether the question itself is a duplicate, or so woefully out of date it doesn't even matter anymore.

My gut feeling is that nearly all of these - including the ones with upvoted comments - could probably be deleted without any loss. That it'd probably be a net improvement overall.

But... I should probably try to gather a bit more data on that first.

Journeyman Geek

@Shog9 or something so hard and interesting it takes a while to answer

Shog9

...at some point, does it even matter?

I got two avenues in my head as to how to approach this

1. Scrape the logs for like a month, tabulating views for all questions during that time. See how many of 'em landed on these abandoned questions. Try to guess how many of those viewers were delighted or pissed off at denvercoder9

2. See how many formerly-abandoned questions were answered during the past year.

Both are... Kind of a pain to determine. #1 is a crap-shoot because of that last guess. #2 is a crap-shoot because I don't actually know what the view-count was on anything a year ago; I could use an old data-dump, but then it's even more of a pain to figure up.

800K questions is well under half of the extant questions asked over the past year. What's the chance that even the good, old, questions won't get re-asked?

Journeyman Geek

1:58 AM

@Shog9 if we're meant to be a long term knowledge base, that's a good thing imo, even if it's one tenth of one percent of those questions

Rob

#1 Two ways to guess are 'hang time': hang time, how long do they stay on the page (along with scrolling and mouse movement detection) before they click back or another link (with unreasonably long times filtered out for getting a coffee or running off to do something and up/down votes on what they found. --- #2 If they are answered their can be removed from this pile and enter the "one answer and no votes" pile. --- 3rd point: If you delete a "good old question" it can be gone, and if

it's re-asked then so be it; not the way it's supposed to be, but what to do.

user302202

And that was this week's round of if we had money. Join us again next week!

user302202

One of earlier rounds was What should the system be deleting automatically that it already isn't?

Rob

HDD drive space is cheap, those questions could sit on HDD instead of SSD and come up last in 'sorted by' votes or answers - only if there was a high scoring match with the search terms would it come up on the first page of results (of course that wouldn't apply when suggesting dupes while someone is filling in the title of their question).

user302202

Deletion is not about saving drive space (which it doesn't anyway, since it only changes the post status to "deleted")

Journeyman Geek

2:09 AM

Deleted posts are not deleted, merely hidden

You can see your own deleted post after all...

user302202

Isn't it suspicious how DenverCoder9 matches location, [former] occupation, and a number?

Shog9

@Mrs.Robinson did some of that, but not nearly enough

Catija

Presumably reduces the number of things to search through, since regular searches ignore deleted posts.

Shog9

All the best pseudonyms end in 9

Also mine, but clearly I was just copying the folks with good pseudonyms

user302202

I haven't noticed any roomba deletion changes since that post.

Shog9

2:15 AM

Locked migration stubs

Also I just manually deleted a ton of the questions matching the criteria I outlined in the question

That was... wow. A long time ago now

Rob

The Toshiba MG07ACA14TE 14 TB SATA 3.5" Enterprise HDD is only U$500.

Shog9

Was supposed to be a test run :-/

Rob

A successful test ;)

Shog9

Oh well. I've tossed this onto our backlog. Which means I get to play my own favorite game "try to not get assigned the stuff I put on the backlog"

user302202

Locked migration stubs are explicitly not in the scope of that MetaSO post to begin with.

Shog9

2:18 AM

So far, I'm losing.

Catija

Most of the stuff you put on the backlog still requires you to do at least part of the work.

Rob

As long as you don't have long fingers you won't reach the bottom of the job jar.

Journeyman Geek

Fr. Clone shog... Again?

user302202

Being a mod on Android means shoveling posts like this all the time.

user302202

But it looks like Bookends will avoid this fate, the other candidate seems to be the crowd favorite right now.

user302202

2:28 AM

Fresh blood advantage, too.

user302202

I don't know what Izzy means by saying "you have my vote" to both candidates, in an election for 1 slot...

Shog9

vote loudly vote often

Catija

Well, technically it's true. You can put them both in your selections...

user302202

> Today's social networks are broken. Ads are everywhere. Hate and harassment are too common. Fake news spreads unchecked.
> There's a better way: a network of independent microblogs. Short posts like tweets but on your own web site that you control.

user302202

Hmmm. micro.blog

Shog9

2:41 AM

just needs support for OpenID and I'll finally have a replacement for LiveJournal

user302202

Looks like Twitter except you pay $5/month

user302202

Same price as SOfT.

Rob

@Shog9 A way to pawn off the work: How about vote on old questions with no answers (containing the "Prize Star" 🌟) and answer with two upvotes enters you into a contest to win one of two dozen T-Shirts, Coffee Mug, or Loot Crate. The top two dozen in each category in March will win one of the prizes based on number of voted questions with an answer receiving two (or five, if you prefer) upvotes.

Shog9

It occurs to me that I could just delete the comments and wait

user302202

Step 1: truncate table Comments. Step 2: wait for Roomba. Step 4: profit.

Rob

2:44 AM

Everyone knows the comments are not intended to be permanent and are subject to deletion ...

Shog9

@Rob if I ever get the time to do it, I wouldn't waste a custom review campaign on abandoned questions - I'd go back to that big ol' pile of closed "recommendation" questions.

Rob

Roomba it is ...

Shog9

Y'know. The ones that have oodles of signal as to their one-time usefulness and can in some cases be rescued.

Much more enjoyable to review.

Rob

By my above suggestion I had hoped that people would pick reasonable questions and provide great answers, thus sorting the wheat from the chaff and rescuing by adoption (improving their answer over the years).

Shog9

If you're gonna answer old questions, you're probably better off filtering the unanswered list and then sorting by vote

starting with the 0- and 1-scored questions is... A dubious strategy at best

A lot of 'em have almost no views. The author has been gone for years.

user302202

2:50 AM

The better strategy is to search Google for things that interest you, and answer those unanswered questions that come up.

Shog9

Rather large # of answers come in from Google

probably one of the more popular ways of getting started

Rob

I've tried that, I always check that the OP is still active; earned a few Necromancers on a few sites; more often than not I just get one or two votes.

I'm discouraged from doing hours of research and an hour of writing and editing only to get a couple of votes, I certainly learn a lot but I'm not planning on building a spacecraft and visiting a black hole, so the usefulness of what I learn has some practical limits at times.

Back in a minute

user302202

"check that the OP is still active" is so non-SE...

user302202

I'd rather assume that xkcd.com/292 happened to the OP right as they posted. If I still want to answer... maybe I will.

user302202

FR for xkcd: re-make that comic, replacing "goto" with "posting an image of code on SO"

Rob

3:03 AM

If the question is years old and has no answers checking that it still has an owner is SE - otherwise the old question languishes forever, to no one's benefit.

user302202

3:18 AM

So a question is such that it's of use only to the owner and nobody else?

user302202

Then why bother answering?

Journeyman Geek

3:31 AM

@Rob I answer them anyway if it's a problem I faced and might be useful to someone else

Rob

Yes, but I pointed out the upsides and downsides two comments ago: chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/7544815#7544815

user302202

That didn't explain why the OP being active or not makes such a difference.

user302202

If writing an answer isn't worth your time, it isn't worth your time.

user302202

It's not like you owe a favor to the OP.

Bookends

4:29 AM

...missed the Happy Hour, thus, Sad Morning...

Journeyman Geek

4:51 AM

@SonictheIntrovertedHedgehog not sure that is something for smokey.

Rob

5:16 AM

@Mrs.Robinson That's a good question for Philosophy.SE or Psychology & Neuroscience(psychology.stackexchange.com/). The "difference", as I see it, is that the OP asked the question and if no one else is interested, and I don't plan on visiting a black hole (for example), then the answer I spend hours researching only becomes interesting to me (and perhaps a few more in the future) by inference of your question I could simply keep the answer to myself.

Over the years I've done enough charity work that, arguably, I don't know anyone a favor - but then you'd have no answer to your question, nor two suggestions of where to seek an expert answer about why people ask/answer, do things.

If everyone did nothing there would be little progress, if everyone hoarded there would be no trade (you'd need a farm to grow your food and own a forest to harvest the timber to build your own home and a factory for your automobile and each appliance - you'd need to be fairly rich to own all that just to make one or two of each thing you need.

Thus we have trade. Knowledge is another commodity, sometimes not valued enough.

It's because of free help that the compiler that wrote the code for your computer, phone, and this server exists - completing the circle; permitting you to ask your question, or seek elsewhere for a better answer.

afk

Journeyman Geek

5:42 AM

@Rob selfishly, makes it easier to find the next there is the same problem

user302202

Are we still doing "thank X, Y, Z for your A, B, C" things on the internet?

user302202

If things didn't get invented/created by one, they would be by another.

user302202

And if not, they would not exist and that would be okay, too.

Bookends

I'll invent a random name generator for Area 51 proposal name

Sonic the Introverted Hedgehog

@JourneymanGeek They accept any post that can be red-flagged, which includes trolls. Notice that three other users marked this as a true positive.

Bookends

5:52 AM

inb4 they got suspended instead and couldn't request for account deletion...

Journeyman Geek

@Bookends apparently too late

@SonictheIntrovertedHedgehog smokey isn't a replacement for flags here though

Sonic the Introverted Hedgehog

@Bookends You can still request account deletion when you're suspended. You can't access the link via the user settings, but you can still access it via the contact form or via navigating to it manually.

@JourneymanGeek I do flag posts whenever I report them

Notice that there's one R/A flag by me.

As well as a pending flag on this that you can dismiss now that the user is suspended

Journeyman Geek

6:23 AM

Yeah. Got around to handling flags

Was on the road this morning

Journeyman Geek

7:49 AM

@Bookends lovely spammer... The second Link literally says those apps are malware

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

8:24 AM

@JourneymanGeek I was wondering if I should actually write a meta meta to ask if we should start cleaning up this place a bit.

Then again, this is a thought that occurred T minus two minutes before sleep, so it might not be the best one (I'm hesitant now)

Some discussion along the lines of "should we clean up this place or is it not worth the effort? If we should, what should we clean, and with what frequency? 1. closing old SO-only questions 2. cleaning up messy tags 3. duping more of older questions"

Fleshing out a reasonable set of guidelines so we won't flood the newest page with edits or overwhelm the queues etc.

Maybe too much asking from one post

Journeyman Geek

I'd suggest splitting it up and over time

And yes, that's useful

One of the tricky things is this is a meta that's not a meta

Bookends

Current Meta skill: 84. Required: 120.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Bookends Oh you did NOT just say that

Casting a spell on Book

@JourneymanGeek One for "should we?" and possibly another for "how should we?", or some other combination?

Journeyman Geek

Hmmmm

For SO questions there's already probably a post

I guess the big issue is it's a quiet site and we don't have a good way to organise these things

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@JourneymanGeek Quiet but with enough people around is my impression

Bookends

8:39 AM

opened up 'Meta Tavern on the Meta' chat room

Journeyman Geek

Enough people can be a problem

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Of course I'm not thinking something all that organized or concentrated

More of a bureaucratization of the dispersed effort on tags that's currently happening

Journeyman Geek

Ah ya

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@JourneymanGeek Isn't it/wouldn't it be before the advent of domestic animals in voluntary positions of moderation?

I guess that makes all the difference

Journeyman Geek

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ actually probably old enough MSO had mods

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

8:41 AM

I remember calling here a wasteland on 2016 or so

@JourneymanGeek It did, yeah

Journeyman Geek

And the split was planned with lots of posts moved

People call it a lot of things. Not always good.

rene

I remember that I dropped to under 3K due to my posts that got moved, losing my ability to close vote questions

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@JourneymanGeek It's undeniably difficult to get to a stage where you can find things with the right search strings

@rene The horror

rene

yes, I think I "complained" here in this room about it.

I probably did rage quit over it

Journeyman Geek

9:10 AM

@rene and that's something we need to worry about that we won't on a per site meta

Bookends

Combine all meta and use the highest rep.

.... that's the worst idea I've proposed...

Combine all meta, each question must have a [site] tag, and use their site's own respective rep/privilege, except a general [site:stackexchange] for general discussion and use the highest rep

(what a complex meta!)

Journeyman Geek

Yup

And sites sometimes have unique problems

And you're creating another set of rules to manage

Travis J

9:45 AM

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ If you are doing to do that, then send them back to mSO.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@TravisJ Well of course, it would be a huge waste of time hunting them just to close them

Closing is meaningless without further action

Journeyman Geek

@TravisJ that gets complicated - we can't move posts older than iirc 3 months

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@JourneymanGeek Which is why compiling a list of question IDs or tags with agreed upon treatments is probably useful

Like, "here's the crappy tags we need to get rid of. Don't do more than X edits in the span of Y minutes".

Journeyman Geek

Ah.

I guesssss

Or a more general post on rules of curation

But the problem is rarely one editor. It's 4 or 5

user302202

4:06 PM

Whatever.

user302202

Besides, all posts begin with "This is not a sponsored advert or a paid post! " so clearly spam flags would be unwarranted.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

4:19 PM

@Mrs.Robinson Roy has a genuine concern for your future and wants to change your life too.

user302202

-2

A: How many points per heart?

can you gain friendship from kissing your spouse? cause i kiss him every day 5 times. i need to know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Asuna

xd

user437611

5:29 PM

@ShadowWizard @rene You around? I just set up a HNQ feeds room and I need to prevent it from freezing. Could you tell me how to set up the bot rene wrote?

user437611

Feb 4 at 16:36, by Shadow Wizard

@Blue there is an active bot in the Den (Shadow's Den chat room) which post automatically every few hours in case there is no activity. It's open source, written in node.js, @rene wrote it and probably can help you adapt it to your needs, e.g. taking only the part which auto post messages.

user302202

5:49 PM

It's dangerous to have only 1 user (bot) who ever posts in the room. If it ever stops, the room gets deleted instead of frozen.

user302202

Maybe keep it open for messages by others? They can discuss those HNQ questions. :)

John Dvorak

6:00 PM

> It's dangerous to go alone. Take this.

Shog9

...where "this" is "other people"?

John Dvorak

A second instance of the bot should suffice

user302202

6:21 PM

Been doing some Stack Overflow this week answering questions when I have some time. I'm confounded by the community norms about when to answer a question and when to add a comment. It seems like most questions are actually answered in the comments. What's going on there?

Tweeted by iam_jrjohnson on February 9, 2019 at 6:07 PM

user437611

@Mrs.Robinson Yeah, maybe I'll keep it as a public room. Should setup the bot anyway though.

user302202

6:50 PM

Surprise of the day: Retrocomputing has a 50K user. What is the smallest site with a 100K user?

user302202

> If it can't be solved in Assembly, solder it.

Shog9

7:09 PM

@Mrs.Robinson This comes up a lot. It fascinates me

If you load up a question page on the mobile theme, you get the question, an ad, and a form for writing an answer

But the full theme? You get a question

...then "add a comment"

...then an ad

...then "know someone who can answer? Share a link..."

followed by a link to the question, a mailto: link, and links for posting on Twitter and Facebook

Followed at long last by the answer form

This is true even if you can't leave a comment

If you click "add a comment" - which you very well might, particularly on a mobile device where you have to scroll past an ad to even see the rest - you get a pop-up encouraging you to register / log in

Not, "add an answer instead"

"Sign up"

If you're on a full-sized device and the main theme, it's a little better - ads are in the sidebar / above the question, the answer form is probably visible

still, the first four obvious ways to interact with the question - the "calls to action" as UX / Marketing people like to call it - are not "answer this question"

Of course, this is a trade-off: an awful lot of folks will want to "interact" with the question but won't want to (or be able to) answer it. The goal is to kinda scrape off the folks who want to write "I too have this question" or "I have a completely different question that shares one keyword" or "LOVE GURU HELP 800"

And, it probably does. But, it also scrapes off some of the folks who... Want to answer.

So we get complaints all the time from folks who are upset that they can't answer a question because they don't have comment privileges.

Even though there's a huge honkin' ANSWER THE QUESTION form on the page, visible to everyone... They see "add a comment", click it, and are told they can't - and they give up.

And this carries forward. By the time someone can comment, they've certainly learned where the answer form lives and probably used it - but they still see "add a comment" first. It's the path of least resistance. So, they comment.

And folks like Jon Johnson here, diligently poking around to try & figure out how to use the system properly... They see all those answers-in-comments and now they have to decide: what hidden rule underlies this odd decision to sometimes answer and sometimes comment?

...how many of 'em come away with some bizarre idea?

...how many of the folks who make up answerers on SO now, after 10 years of this, have internalized some rule that never actually existed outside of their own minds, and still struggle to apply it?

(now let's see if I can get away with replying to someone on Twitter without spending half an hour trying to cram my thoughts into 600 characters)

lol

user302202

7:32 PM

It's possible JJ was also told "this should be a comment" when answering. Can't tell, I haven't managed to find the corresponding SO user.

user302202

BTW "this should be a comment" is written under a lot of stuff that definitely should not be in a comment.

Rob

If an answer is particularly short it gets automagically converted into a comment on some sites.

user302202

Automatic conversion requires a short answer with a link to another post on the same site.

Shog9

yep. Active everywhere though

except maybe meta? Hmm...

nope, meta too - but not for users with the dev flag set

guess how many times that's wasted my time testing

Lesson: always have a couple sockpuppets handy

@Mrs.Robinson Google is surprisingly good at that: stackoverflow.com/users/796999/jrjohnson?tab=responses

well

not surprisingly

Rob

HAHA: Thanks for clearing that up. "... have internalized some rule that never actually existed outside of their own minds, and still struggle to apply it?" - I've always thought that they were drunk stacking or off their medication, or simply read a few words and reply. Of course the CoC makes it different to say "wise up". - Now I understand it's something that they taught themselves, lacking a great teacher. I've seen that in the workplace from some co-workers, never thought to apply it

here. Just thought it was a hiding behind the keyboard thing.

The answer conversion might account for some of the comments that are anchoring those old answers; but I'll bet that whether it was converted isn't information that is saved.

Mithrandir

7:51 PM

@Mrs.Robinson it's annoying, the only use case that I've seen is a persistent troll

rene

@Blue you want to run/host it yourself?

Rob

Sometimes a short answer is the answer. Winter Bash 2018 even had a hat for that: "SO Goes Flapper".

Bookends

A short answer with a link to another answer on the same site? Probably "duplicate link-only" answer

John Dvorak

Not necessarily though

Rob

If you can find a hard and fast rule it will certainly make Shog's task easier.

It's the exceptions that are holding up a plan of attack.

Bookends

8:07 PM

@JohnDvorak Example?

rene

@Blue the bot needs access to the room in that case. Be prepared to handle a request access to that room from stackexchange.com/users/10125554/generic-bot?tab=accounts which is the courtesy of Floern

Bookends

Otherwise, spare those users who can't yet flag (or just block the answer), but 16-49 rep users should be prompted with "do you want to flag this question as a duplicate?" when posting it. Above 50 rep, disable automatic conversion because they can already comment everywhere

user437611

@rene Could you give the link to the chat profile of the bot whom I need to give access?

user437611

Nevermind, found it: chat.stackexchange.com/users/382851/generic-bot

user437611

I've given it write access now!

user437611

8:10 PM

@rene No, not necessarily. It's fine if you or someone else can do it.

rene

@Blue awesome!

user437611

So what do we have to do now?

user437611

@rene If you're willing to teach me how to run it, I'll be happy to learn. :)

rene

@Blue we wait for @Floern to change the config of genericbot to join the HNQ room as well

user437611

Ah, sure.

rene

8:15 PM

As an exercise I'll remix KennyBot and then see what will happen.

user437611

I've given KennyBot write access and made you and Floern ROs.

user437611

@rene Yeah, would be nice to check it out. I am aware that KennyBot has some excess features which we won't be needing there.

rene

@Blue I remixed it here: glitch.com/edit/#!/knowledgeable-balance?path=README.md:1:0

Evan Carroll

What's the status on the Developer Survey 2019?

user437611

@rene Oh, nice. Unfortunately, I have no idea about Javascript. :P

user437611

8:26 PM

Do I need to install it as a userscript or something?

user302202

glitch is a node.js thing, projects run on the glitch servers.

user437611

I see. I know nothing about that either...

rene

@EvanCarroll a few more days before it closes: stackoverflow.blog/2019/02/07/…

If that is the status you're looking for. No results yet. Takes 6 to 8 weeks ...

Bookends

that got starred very quickly...

Evan Carroll

Cool cool, be nice to know the exact date when it gets published. But, I suppose I'm a real weirdo in how much I look forward to those results. =(

Bookends

8:30 PM

I believe new blog/meta post will be published alongside with the result later...

Evan Carroll

This year in tech: Java still sucks, Perl and C++ stalls out, Ruby falls by 50%, all RDBM(s) except PostgreSQL tank.

rene

@EvanCarroll I guess you can keep an eye on meta because in 6 weeks times people will post to ask when the results will be published.

Bookends

and probably email, and also tech news sites...

rene

@Blue that was a good test. After SE changed the login it turns out my bot can no longer login. I'm debugging now ...

user437611

@Mrs.Robinson Interesting. So it's like a server side script that I don't need to run from my side (i.e. on my web browser). It can keep running from the Glitch server indefinitely?

rene

8:35 PM

@Blue not if it doesn't get a request every now and then

user437611

@rene Oh, I see. But how do you send it a request every now and then? You need another bot for that?

rene

You can set up a feed from a chat room

SE checks every 15 minutes or so which is just enough to keep the instance going

I have a server that pings an instance now and then

user437611

@rene Like, a RSS feed? What exactly does the feed do and how do you set it up? (Sorry for too many questions, I'm a complete noob in this. :P)

user437611

@rene Your personal server? What if it goes down? :P

rene

@Blue then everyone complains :)

user437611

8:41 PM

Lol :D

rene

@Blue see lackadaisical-appeal.glitch.me what a feed from a chatroom bascally does is every 15 minutes to get the content of an http endpoint: lackadaisical-appeal.glitch.me/hnq/+ell+english and then it processes the content to see if there is anything newer in that list since it checked last time. if yes, post a message to the chatroom, if not, go to sleep for another 15 minutes, rinse and repeat

user437611

@rene Nice! Got that much. But how does that (chatroom fetching the content of an http endpoint) send a request to your KennyBot script on the Glitch server?

user437611

8:59 PM

> Server-side scripts are completely processed by the servers instead of clients. When clients request a page containing server-side scripts, the applicable server processes the scripts and returns an HTML page to the client.

user437611

I guess in this case it nudges the bot to post a message rather than returning an HTML page (?). I should really read up more about this.

rene

@Blue a browser requesting a page is a reqeust, an GET request

and the chat feed mimics a browser (or an HTTP GET request really)

user302202

@Blue Look at app.get function in server.js in the root directory of the bot.

user302202

That's where GET requests are processed.

user437611

@rene Aha, I was imagining something like that! That somewhat clears it. :)

user302202

9:03 PM

Apparently, a Glitch project can ping itself to keep itself awake... anidiots.guide/other-guides/hosting-on-glitch

user302202

And uptimerobot.com offers free 5-minute interval pings.

user437611

So what's the HTTP's address (corresponding to rene's Glitch script) where the chat feed needs to send the GET request to?

user437611

user437611

In other words, what address do I need to plug in there to keep sending KennyBot GET requests every 15 minutes? (I hope I'm making sense...)

user302202

knowledgeable-balance.glitch.me should work

user437611

9:12 PM

@Mrs.Robinson It asks for userid and password... :P

Bookends

I guess I just realized that RSS feed doesn't push, but instead browser pulling it periodically?

rene

@Bookends yes

user302202

9:35 PM

RSS feed is just a server returning an XML file of certain format in response to GET.

user302202

A mostly lost art, unfortunately...

user302202

3

A: Exclude the main chat room from automatic freezing/deletion

This is now implemented. Main chat rooms do not freeze automatically due to inactivity. I checked various chat rooms like Project Management, main chat room for Project Management and "Bar Sport", main chat room of Italian Language. Both the rooms are not frozen in spite of inactivity. In PM Sta...

user302202

This answer is wrong, isn't it

user302202

AFAIK the only unfrozen chat room does not freeze. There is no special logic for "main".

user302202

A typical thing I see is the main chatroom being inactive and not freezing due to being the only one --- until a passer-by creates a "hello world" chatroom and that results in the main room freezing.

user437611

9:42 PM

@Mrs.Robinson You mean the last standing chat room doesn't freeze?

user302202

Yes, that's what I mean

user437611

Sounds about right. I don't see any "main chat room" for CS50.

user302202

@Blue I see it, being frozen: chat.stackexchange.com/…

user437611

Yeah, I meant I don't see it in its unfrozen state. :P

user302202

Yeah, and it almost looks like someone intentionally created another room to make the main freeze.

user437611

9:45 PM

¯\ _(ツ)_/¯

user437611

What happens if I manually delete the last standing room? Let's check. :P

user302202

Goes to find an inactive main chatroom for demonstration

user437611

Hah, now CS50 has no chat room!

Bookends

RIP CS50.SE...

user437611

I was expecting resurrection...

Mithrandir

9:50 PM

you expect too much...

user437611

Well, ghost rooms are cool too!

Bookends

creating 'CS51' chat room for CS50.SE...

Hmm... this is a good question: are users of X.SE allowed to vote on community ads of X.SE on Y.SE even though they don't participate on Y.SE?

user437611

@Bookends If the system doesn't prevent it, they're allowed by default, no?

Bookends

Well, yeah, association bonus is a reward and a curse at the same time

Mithrandir

Allowed? Yes. Encouraged? Probably not; it should be up to the users of that site what they want showing up on their sidebar.

Bookends

10:00 PM

(stemmed by this meta post)

user437611

10:13 PM

@Bookends I've been guilty of thinking of doing that.

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