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12:02 AM
@Shog9 in that path lies madness and temporary eternal damnation
@Shog9 I need the haveivotedthispost: on the search
a number for each VoteType.
Well, it was Boltcolt's a Unicorn, but I say I was close enough.
 
3 hours later…
2:56 AM
alright, I'll just state it here because it burdened my mind since the CEO announcement: I'm just worried of some feminist movement. It might not affect me directly in my country/culture, but hearing the recent news about this in the Western culture... the situation looks pretty bad.
Like, a certain ad, a certain actress, and some Western and Japanese video games
3:24 AM
@GetAnswerWizard the gender of the next CEO matters less than them getting and working with the community
I 100% agree with that. I just heard some... questionable news about female CEO on some companies. To be fair, there are also questionable news about male CEO, perhaps a lot more...
Or, confirmation bias gets me
(afk for 6-8 minutes)
3:59 AM
I think, if we try really hard, we can probably avoid hiring Elizabeth Holmes
@GetAnswerWizard so.. this is thing thing that certain folks I won't mention cause drama miss...
@Shog9 I think if prosecutors try really hard, they can make that a non-issue
eh, they probably won't have to try that hard
Its more about the fit of the person - and we have lots of great people of any gender
For every Carly Fiorina, there's a Indra Nooyi - folks who get an organisation and do a kick ass job at it
googles "try hard with a vengeance"
so many Trump memes
WTF google
4:03 AM
And when we talk about empathy its very hard to have empathy with folks you don't actually bother to understand
Yeah, out of 100 good deeds, people tend to blame for 1 bad deed.
And every single person has their own way of doing things
Some of which actually works ;)
so.. lets see what they turn up before speculating over who the next CEO is ;)
(also, honestly, the other executive role they need to fill concerns/interests me more ;) )
@Shog9 If you think about it - other than the getting caught lying... she was actually pretty good as a startup CEO
"fake it 'till you make it" only works as a strategy if you do, in fact, make it
Yup
Easier in a sense with software and services than trying to change an industry though
4:29 AM
@Shog9 Madoff managed to just make the fake it part so large that making it never really became an issue
Well, until the small "economic collapse" thing happened
My main concern is that the next CEO be aware that SO is simultaneous much more than a Q/A site and simply a Q/A site. Someone who steps in without an idea of how to handle that duality will perhaps cause a lot of turmoil.
@TravisJ hence me thinking the person replacing Jaydles being critical
cause that's the person who's going to basically be the person who needs to have the best idea of that side of things
The person taking on Jaydles' position. Can't really replace someone like that imo.
@TravisJ replace - no, not really
the seat, not the person.
I personally think that Josh, Jon, or Tim should end up in that position; should one of them be interested. But now, with the CEO position in flux, it is also questionable whether or not the company will wait to make that decision.
@TravisJ I don't disagree - but whoever's there, I think the current CM team's probably going to be a solid backbone for them.
4:42 AM
totally
(also, literally the only place on the internet where users speculate over executive appointments on a service they are on ;p)
inorite
Sometimes it's hard to believe anyone would criticize this place, and then I am instantly reminded of twitter and reddit.
@TravisJ We should constantly critisise this place ;p
Just that we need to do so constructively and in good faith
The latter two is the part that's sometimes lacking, and the occational lack of mindfulness that there's another human being on the other side...
Speaking of which Hi @MeganRisdal ;p
Yeah, that's accurate. I should have said "unfairly criticize"
On an unrelated note, I am working on something fun, but can't release yet, but I want to show it off, but I can't. </vent>
@TravisJ That was me, three weeks ago.
5:13 AM
lol
I need to find something fun to do XD
> I fear that the downvoting feature panders to the worst aspects of human nature
Jesus Christ
But hey, anything to get out of the boring meta state where people want to use CSS or Listview
@JourneymanGeek Go read meta.ELU rants. It's educational too
Your range of vocabulary in explaining disgust widens greatly
 
2 hours later…
7:09 AM
21 messages moved to Chimney
→ 21 wizards moved to Den
@ShadowWizard There aren't that many of you yet! :P
Morning!
(mindfully) Morning too!
a mindful morning?
7:23 AM
@Tinkeringbell resistance is futile, cthulu dreams.
A mornful minding
a confused morning then ._.
@M.A.R.TheChemicalWizard As long as he keeps dreaming, he's not my problem :)
@Tinkeringbell If he sees nightmares and fills the ocean with ink then it will be everyone's problem
@M.A.R.TheChemicalWizard Hmmm. So that just means no sea food. Freshwater supplies and fish might survive, so fishsticks are still an option.
@Tinkeringbell casts Duplication
7:31 AM
I can live without shrimp and lobster :P
now there are! :D
@Tinkeringbell Think of anime
@ShadowWizard cheater.
@M.A.R.TheChemicalWizard I can live without cartoons as well :)
Also dark color will absorb much more heat, which contributes to global warming
@Tinkeringbell wizard using spells is legit! :D
7:32 AM
Think of Bangladesh
Since this got recommended on my Google Feeds, might as well as share it: dev.to - Joel is stepping down from Stack Overflow
So tempted to ask a question on MSE about why too many employees with years of tenure are just now leaving jobs at Stack Exchange
@SonictheWizardWerehog It's most probably going to be speculation
8:09 AM
8
Q: What *is* a GlobalTag MegaBlender™?

Journeyman GeekI came across the globaltag-megablender tag while handling a lost user. Now, the tag seems to be about a specific thing. It just doesn't seem clear what that is. It's oddly consistent over how its used, but I have no idea what feature it is. It lacks a tag wiki to boot. It is mentioned in The ...

According to that, that tag is referring to , which is... actually SE Filtered Questions ()?
(also, I feel the excerpt of is incomplete or misleading)
(not sure what is the differences between and too...)
Yeah total mess
@GetAnswerWizard well filtering is the general term, for any kind of filtering, and tag filter is one of those. IMO filer tag should be merged with tag-filters.
8:40 AM
@ArtOfCode Noticed github.com/Charcoal-SE/metasmoke/commit/…. Would be nice if you also implemented the same thing for issues, per tripleee's comment on my issue.
9:21 AM
@GetAnswerWizard It also on the SO blog
No sh!t Sherlock . . . 's dog
Which makes me wonder, was Sherlock really dumb in the earlier TV shows?
@GetAnswerWizard well considering the tag I asked about got merged - and not by a mod... ;p
@M.A.R.TheChemicalWizard don't you mean the books?
I've never seen him not portrayed as the pain in the arse who's also right
@JourneymanGeek I think that idiom originates from the older TV shows. I could be wrong
@M.A.R.TheChemicalWizard ahh
 
2 hours later…
11:04 AM
36
Q: Is the official direction of Stack Overflow now to help educate the next generation of developers?

MakotoIn glancing at the latest blog post, a line jutted out at me as part of the new CEO search: One thing I’m very concerned about, as we try to educate the next generation of developers, and, importantly, get more diversity and inclusiveness in that new generation, is what obstacles we’re puttin...

This really is HNQ 2.0 isnt it
>_>
<_<
No where near HNQ 1.0 for me ;)
Try to not let the past influence your views on this too much. It's good to ask for clarification on a blog post if needed.
Tavern is on the Meta, so we'll get Hot Network Meta Questions instead...
(answering the wrong question >_>)
11:23 AM
It feels like we as a community have started viewing everything in the worst possible light
SE had communication mishaps and les then clear expression by staff before and not nearly as many people decided that it heralded a true agenda and they're just awful or something. Why is our relationship with staff becoming so much more adversarial?
Actually...
-41
Q: Voting away snarkiness

Matt ThomasEveryone knows how perceived snarkiness has been a thing for a while. Joel's recent blog post mentioned it again: an even bigger problem is rudeness, snark, or condescension that newcomers often see. So why can't there be a voting button for attitude that directly affects SO rep, in additio...

11:49 AM
@Magisch I can only guess. But a.) every once in a while established users are yet again confronted with a new user flaunting these mishaps in their face, trying to discredit an awesome community, b.) people keep grudges, or at least haven't forgotten about stuff and thus previous annoyances peek through when dealing with the latest one and c.) I think the frequency/amount of times communities have to deal with either these mishaps themselves or the fallout from them has been a lot, lately.
11:59 AM
There are also sociological theories that in this day and age, people are increasingly more likely to be vocal about stuff in a way that puts them as the disadvantaged party in any kind of situation, so e.g. people being a 'victim' of SO/SE...

And that goes both ways. Both sides want to be a victim, a long time member that did a lot of the site, and is now reduced to dealing with new people not understanding 'that's just the way things go' and are offended by 'the way things go' (downvotes, closure).
So everyone digs in their heels, and anything you do or say is going to be twisted one way or the other (or even both ways) by both ends of the spectrum to illustrate how they are the aggrieved party here, and the other is not. If people start reading yet another blog post through lenses coloured that way, you get situations like this.
so the community dynamic is just irredeemably screwed?
@Magisch Nah, it just needs more reasonable people :P
I'm not sure how to fix that sociological thing. I have an interest in sociology resulting from the archaeology degree, but I never learned to study it proper and much less to think of solutions there :)
Perhaps just realizing there is such a dynamic might help though, I dunno
12:14 PM
@Magisch because people in general are aweful and entitled ;p
More seriously - we had a painful adolescence as a network. We suddenly ended up big and important. And everyone has an idea of what we should be without realizing how we got there
This animosity is coming from people I respect and that used to work together fine though
Well true but at that point it's important to both consider why they feel like that, and why we feel the way we do about it.
And work through it
Assuming folks want to.
(granted that's hard. I can try though)
1:11 PM
@Magisch If you're exposed to two extremes long enough, you're likely to eventually lean towards one or the other :( And if you compare SE to a workplace, it's easier to grumble with your co-workers about upper management than defend upper management to a mob of otherwise grumbling co-workers...
1:52 PM
16 messages moved to Chimney
user302202
@SonictheWizardWerehog Reasons are probably different for developers and executives.
Speculating about it isn't really helpful, though.
2:16 PM
Everyone has their ideal version of SE, even for the smallest thing.
I guess I'm stating an obvious thing...
2:38 PM
@AskQuestionWizard there's a lot of speculation though
I mean, you're literally making it sound like folks got forced out. Which is mildly tinfoil hatty
Sorry, closed as POB!
@GetAnswerWizard there is
And mine does actually diverge a bit from what, say Joel sees ;p
or well, says
3:18 PM
My ideal version would be what it was before the notable blog post last year
So
@KevinB which on turn is a rehash of a summer of love
It's a hard problem folks have been trying to solve a while
yes, but this time around... it got too close to a particular outside group.
@KevinB Besides attitudes, not that much has actually changed. To fix the whole attitude thing back to normal levels is going to be tough though :(
I agree, i like a lot of the feature changes that have come from it
The more obvious comment flagging/deleting, AAQ wizard, etc,
3:23 PM
@KevinB 'us vs them' kinda is not productive
It's not
but here it is, out in the open
in an official blog post that noone has refuted
@KevinB an official blog post that everyone keeps using to push their own agendas. Honestly, I think SE has explained what they meant with that blogpost, and people just keep slapping each other with it and their own (mis)interpretations of it.
Uhm. And? There's nothing stopping someone from talking about it on meta or good forbid- tweet
Ok... One too many spelling mistreaks. I think ,I'll go to bed. Got weekend morning shifts...
Sleep well!
I just feel we could have gotten to this point and improved the perception without giving everyone a bat to swing
3:30 PM
Probably. But that's one of those mishaps that happen sometimes. This one just is a bit ... stubborn ... It won't blow over, people don't forget about it and half a year later laugh about what happened. And I agree that that sucks.
I mean, they could take the blog post offline. Then what? At least three quarters of the internet already knows it was there... so you get the inevitable argument of 'see, they don't actually want to improve perception' vs. 'Hah! Finally, they took it down. So we're not going to put effort into improving perception'.
It will only sour perceptions more, the first group will claim they were right all along, the second will climb on their soapboxes whenever there is a new feature that is done because it makes SO/SE more welcoming.
Should we rename HAM.SE to... Amateur.SE? ._.
3:49 PM
I doubt most people see eye to eye with JSp, but oh well.
I'm starting to like the idea of changing the way downvotes are presented on individual question/answer pages, while offering the option for the downvoter to choose a reason
like a set of these at the bottom of the question, where you can only click one, and it gets counted as a downvote but creates a tally over the button to display how many votes have been on each reason
presentation is a big one IMHO. Right now the post score conveys two separate pieces of information, badly:
1. how the post ranks
2. how many people have voted
#1 isn't normalized, so a really good / terrible score in one area may be a terrible score elsewhere; there's no upper or lower bound
I like the idea of being able to anonymously give a reason for a downvote, and then choose to be notified when the post is edited
#2 is confounded by two-way voting - +5 could be a post that five people have all voted on and liked, or a post that 300 people hated and 305 people liked
Ideally I want a way to follow up on my downvotes rather then just stick them & forget
3:54 PM
But both are important! As we all know at this point, a solid "5" on Amazon is meaningless if only one person reviewed the product...
I think the main problem with votes (both up and down) is that they convey so much information that what they're actually saying is... unknowable. Did someone upvote this because they
1. think it's funny.
2. think it's "useful".
3. think it's well-written.
4. think it's correct.
or something else... are all of these "worth" the same result?
I would think it would be (much) better UX too if the flow went something like this
5. Thanks for trying!
1. Downvote "this post advocates bad practice #"
2. Is fixed
3. I get notified so I can undownvote
on a strictly voluntary basis, of course
6. Tim Post found his key
3:56 PM
Sure. There's an infinite collection of reasons. And that's the issue.
I don't think any of that is all that important, because I don't trust anyone to vote according to the instructions anyway. One vote has meaning, but trying to suss out the specifics of that meaning is pointless; we could call votes "technical accuracy score NEVER USE FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE" and folks would still downvote questions that piss them off.
we still have comments, and would presumably have an other
OTOH, seeing -10 on a post tells me it's not just one jackass
right, thats why it should be voluntary
let the users who care to type in an anonymous reason
or, y'know, a non-anonymous reason
or just let folks pick emoji that match their feelings
as long as we don't tie it back to individual votes, we're cool
keep in mind, most down-votes are explained already. Today. Have been for a long time.
3:58 PM
or let them choose out of many reasons like
45
Q: About the violence inherent in Stack Exchange: freedom of speech

badpPlease print, tick what applies, sign, put on a wooden table, photograph and send by mail or fax. Attach an ID My ❏ question  ❏ answer  ❏ post  ❏ tag  ❏ comment  ❏ chat  ❏ revision  ❏ message  ❏ formatting  ❏ spoiler box  ❏ gfycat  ❏ imgv  ❏ youtube  ❏ video  ❏ thumbnail  ❏ image  ❏ picture  ❏ ...

there's a point here that downvotes often feel arbitrary
especially if you don't have a year + of tenure of being on here
sure, because the alternative is that downvotes feel warranted
y'know how many reports I have from folks who are DEAD SURE they know who is downvoting them and have, naturally, tracked them down for retribution?
folks really want those votes to be "Jack just hates me" and not "I suck at writing and coding"
if it hasn't changed from the last time I ran my serial downvoting query, A couple hundred a week?
@Shog9 No... sometimes it means it's 10 people who still are all using votes "wrong". Now, some of that may be that our expectations of what votes mean is ... just never going to work... but we give people one piece of anonymous feedback and it doesn't come with an instruction manual that reflects how it's actually used.
How early are users presented with information about what downvotes are?
4:01 PM
depends on if they read the tour
they aren't
most people who "read the tour" scroll to the bottom for the badge
I know at 125 they get the privilege and thus a link to the privilege page explaining their new ability
oh wait, we don't really explain downvotes there either
personally i always went to those pages as i earned new tools, it was part of the gamification process
we mention them, but no real explanation
so, probably never
4:02 PM
but 125 is too late
I feel sometimes like we're collectively ashamed of downvotes
We need a better way to indicate that something is wrong with a post.
to who
I mean, most social platforms did away with the concept a while ago. Its necessary here, but in a social context negative feedback presented as a publicly visible "you suck" kind of thing has implications
even if we dont intend to present it that way
readers? browsers? authors?
each has unique needs, and so "better" is different for each
comments actually work pretty well for authors - insofar as they demonstrate why an awful lot of folks don't really want to know what's wrong with their post
votes work pretty well for browsers
we could use some improvements for readers
4:04 PM
I think a lot of people have stopped offering negative criticism in comments because of the reactions they get
I sure as hell did
The problem with my idea above is that even once the post is fixed, it's likely most of those downvotes for a given reason will remain
they want to give a pointer what's wrong and not be drawn into a 10+ minute discussion about the merits of their criticism
@SonictheWizardWerehog status-declined
hence my suggestion to allow anonymous reasoning
4:05 PM
Yeah, that would go over like a lead balloon
for example, if someone voted "lacks reproducible example" or whatever, and one was added, they still have that (1) above "lacks reproducible example"
Unless it is heavily constrained
you reckon?
I see what people flag
touche
4:06 PM
we could make a set of canned responses work
we cannot make anonymous free-form text work
as long as its sufficiently descriptive, sure
can even use that as an indicator for readers on that post
Hence... idownvotedbecau.se is a good idea with questionable execution
"X people say this is technically inaccurate" instead of -10
would it show a +5 in that case if it was -10 and +5?
or -5
@Magisch yes, that could work
4:09 PM
Can I choose multiple reasons? I guess not, like close reason...
Small... Observation: adding canned reasons / reactions would probably increase downvoting overall
thats not a bad thing
by definition though it's making it more negative, :p
it would also invariably reduce consternation and anger at downvotes. It feels less personal when it's targeted criticism instead of a general "this sux"
I think that would be good, but it is something to keep in mind
4:11 PM
sure, people would still get angry at downvotes, but probably less so
Big question is whether it would also increase upvoting
question upvoting has always seemed weird to me
That would probably be something for UX researchers to find out
a change of that magnitude would need testing beforehand anyways
answer upvoting is obvious, the answer is correct, or useful, or fun, etc, but when it comes to questions, how can someone stating their problem be.. useful to me? it's the answer i'm looking for.
Only reason that makes sense to me is "I have/had this problem too!"
4:35 PM
Since today was balpha's last day at SE I made this to reference the unicorn thing
3
2
Glad you like it :)
I also needed an excuse to use those two characters somehow
Looks suitable for a personification of SO & SE ;)
That's what they are
4:55 PM
Wait, what?
I missed it :/
Today we bid farewell to the magnificent @balpha . In his honor, we look back at this awesome collection of user-generated knitting from his latest #Winterbash triumph - the Sweater Builder. balpha, your creativity and fun will be missed. 🐔 Alles Gute! https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/319846/winter-bash-2018-knitting
Oh balpha made the knitting thing
That knitting thing was what inspired the two characters
@Eleeza It's still his last day. He still has a diamond.
I know
Wait when you leave you lose the mod status?
5:03 PM
Only Jeff retained his.
Jaydles lost his diamond too.
5:13 PM
Yeah, there's no reason for me to keep the diamond -- it's not like I'm an actual moderator anywhere.
5:24 PM
@balpha Maybe you should become appointed moderator here on Meta...
Maybe, if he runs for mod next election...
election? What's that? :P
@balpha Will there be a network-wide announcement about you leaving (as there was for Jaydles) or is there none planned?
meta.SE mods are appointed
due to the ... delicate nature of moderation there
@MEEthesetupwizard Not that I know of -- Jay and I aren't really comparable in that regard. And everyone who has a clue who this "balpha" guy is probably already knows 😁
user302202
5:39 PM
Is Bonfire (chat system) officially dead with balpha's departure?
user302202
> I also work on this very chat.
user302202
(chat user profile)
Ironically, there have been more commits to the Chat codebase this week than in any month since last September.
Only one of them from balpha...
@Shog9 what has been done?
So in a certain sense, Chat dev is more alive right now than it has been in a while... Although I can't yet reveal the reasons for that, expect an announcement in a couple weeks.
5:44 PM
\o/
Hot Network Chats?
I hope this chat survives, it's my favorite chat system so far
beats slack
that's kind of an unfair comparison
I know slack is more then just chat, but I would have been more happy with chat.SE integration for teams then slack integration
I mean more... It's apples to oranges. Like comparing a nice cordless power drill to a handgun. Yes, they can both be used to put a hole in your foot, but only one of them is meant for that purpose.
"Slack is a terrible tool for hanging shelves!" well, why do people keep trying to use it for that?
Slack is, at its core, a tool for sharing gossip and hiding information. It's like C++ in that regard. Trying to use it for anything else is just asking for trouble.
5:50 PM
point
Aside: anyone remember when searching email was... like, slow and difficult?
Folks were building indexing add-ons for Outlook; when Thunderbird came with one built-in, it was a Big Deal
Then Google released GMail and not only could you store a ridiculous volume of email, you could find it again!
Now it's almost unthinkable that you might not be able to find a message in your decades of email archives...
...so what do we do? We try to move communication to a system that struggles to let you find a message someone sent you last week
That by default throws away archives unless you pay to keep them
Progress!
I just really dont like slack. I also dont lick it
Can I get help on a general question related to chatrooms on SE sites here?
yeah, definitely don't lick it. Good way to get herpes.
Is there any way to find messages posted by a specific user in a particular chatroom (Maybe the last message posted by user X in chatroom Y)?
6:03 PM
@tatan just ask :D
ish
@Magisch I have asked above ;-)
Depends how active the user was in other chatrooms since
and if you know part of the message
You can search by "X when said by Y" for instance
but no wildcards iirc
Imagine user X is a regular user of a chatroom but has not posted any message today. Is there anyway to directly go to X's last posted message?
you can view the last 50(?) messages a user has posted on their profile
How did you do it?
6:07 PM
click on the user name
"user profile"
then?
change the tab to recent on the top right
ahh
thanks ;-)
;-)
6:23 PM
@Shog9 I don't know if that says something more about this room or my subconscious that my eyes snapped immediately to this message before reading anything else.
user302202
Gmail is great for search, but I sort of have to use .edu for business... which unfortunately is not Google Apps for Education. :(
user302202
Also, the thing where your email archive goes poof when you move between institutions.
user302202
Never mind that my .edu correspondence also includes research stuff that does not become irrelevant with a change of job.
user302202
So I'm forwarding everything to Gmail.
user302202
6:45 PM
@MEEthesetupwizard For a while, he gave it up eventually.
7:05 PM
@ArtOfCode Can you please explain the reasons for declining it?
user302202
> I've enjoyed the honor of serving as a volunteer moderator. I'd love others to nominate themselves but I'll put in my name to ensure coverage! tridion.stackexchange.com/election/1#post-19929
user302202
A current pro tem is running in a pro tem election... what if he does not win?
@AskQuestionWizard Heh. He won't since I'm gonna withdraw his nomination. We need to add a mod and that won't help. :-)
@AskQuestionWizard The email current pro-tem moderators receive is confusing. It assumes that the site's first election is upon graduation, so it tells existing mods that they need to re-nominate and be re-elected to retain privileges.
I saw in another election that the nominating mod was aware of that, and was standing for "re-confirmation" (i.e. they intended to take part in the election, and resign if another candidate won).
8:08 PM
> No, I won't write here the simple explanation for Romans 5:13 mainly because once realizing it will make people feel foolish.
I wish I could write this in an exam
8:25 PM
50
Q: How do I go from 300 unfinished/half written blog posts, to published posts?

thedancingqueenGoal: To publish a blogpost 2 times/month (from once in 4 months) Currently: 300 blog posts in drafts/unfinished. I even have three 20k word unfinished novellas gathering dust. (Over 5 years of casual writing) Writers please help me: What process can I follow (or mind change can I do), to go f...

Nice productivity tips
 
2 hours later…
10:44 PM
@Shog9 ooooh
speculates on chat future
@Shog9 slack initially was leftover RPG chat code if memory serves
SE chat was literally someone looking at irc and trying to do better
@JourneymanGeek yep
well, concept at least
Well ya. Unless there is a secret irc backend
11:05 PM
@Magisch @tatan The user's recent messages tab will also accept a page parameter, which allows you to list older messages by that user. There are at least 2 userscripts which add pagination buttons: Stack Exchange Chat User History Pagination and Chat Pagination.

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