Tavern on the Meta

Undo

2:00 PM

(also, it's misleadingly named; the element with itemprop=upvoteCount actually reports up/down total)

Magisch

google probably has special handling for SO results in their search code

Anne Daunted

If someone wrote a script to upvote all questions in danger of being deleted by Roomba, would that be okay? (you'd even only need the association bonus for that, so no involvement in the stacks necessary)

Undo

don't do that

user302202

> Small life update: I'm leaving Stack Overflow. It's been the most exciting and amazing 3.5 years in my career. I've had the honor to meet some extraordinary people there. And gosh, I've learnt soooo much from them! -- Paweł Ludwiczak at 6:58 AM - 2 Apr 2019

EKons

that's... still abuse

Get Answer Wizard

2:03 PM

@AnneDaunted Of course not, because some questions do need to be roomba'd

user302202

(Paweł is a designer who created a bunch of custom site designs...)

Anne Daunted

Then why are the answers about automated voting concerning themselves with downvoting only?

Shadow Wizard

@Tinkeringbell why not? One example is to be able to signal a wrong closure, e.g. closed question with 100 upvotes is likely to get better chance of being reopened than a closed question with -100

EKons

@Tinkeringbell @JourneymanGeek what if you don't agree with the closure? also, in rare circumstances, they might actually be useful

Undo

@AnneDaunted 'cause that's the current issue, and it's a giant pain in the butt to talk about hypotheticals and real stuff at the same time

Journeyman Geek

2:05 PM

@AnneDaunted mine dosen't really

Anne Daunted

@Undo How do we know it's hypothetical? Just because no one complains about upvotes? Also, that's what the OP asked - they didn't restrict it to downvotes.

Undo

remember, the network is over a decade old and we're just now having this problem. Building a Comprehensive Code of Automated Voting doesn't strike me as urgent enough to stray from the concrete.

user302202

It's okay to post an answer that addresses one side of the problem.

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek That's why I didn't write all, but there are even suggestions to change Roomba to counter downvotes.

Get Answer Wizard

I think the underlying problem is... Roomba and the not-so-transparent audit.

Journeyman Geek

2:07 PM

@GetAnswerWizard I guess what I'd wonder is how you'd scalably deal with the roomba deleting things.

Another queue?

Undo

wouldn't be much load on non-SO sites to hand off Roomba duties to mods

Journeyman Geek

I'm of the opinion we should just throw the book at people who do that, and let it over wth ;p

Undo

@JourneymanGeek Can you define 'that' here?

Journeyman Geek

@Undo well, automated voting fraud in this case.

Undo

@JourneymanGeek Being restricted to "voting without human eyeballs involved at any step"?

Journeyman Geek

2:09 PM

or that's how I see it

Undo

I'd agree with that.

(mostly)

Journeyman Geek

@Undo also voting based off criteria other than ... well subjective quality of the post itself.

and that dosen't include "Its downvoted and close to deletion"

Mithrandir

IMO, it's really a judgement call that mods have to make depending on the exact circumstances at hand. If it's abuse, put a stop to it. What's abuse is really in the end a judgement call.

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek Like pity upvotes, upvotes to counter downvotes etc.?

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted Lets say someone decided to upvote every single question that's downvoted.

That's going to be a problem.

Get Answer Wizard

2:10 PM

Well, it's impossible to evaluate what "good roomba" or "bad roomba" cases when voting is also subjective

Journeyman Geek

individual pity upvotes are unlikely to be a problem

@GetAnswerWizard roomba don't care ;p

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek What's a pity downvote?

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted me being distracted apparently

Get Answer Wizard

"Aww, you have so much upvotes... here, let me downvote you"

Undo

@JourneymanGeek Okay, now here's the interesting case (which I've actually seen). What if I build a tool, for myself, to surface questions based on whatever heuristic for me to vote on as a human?

Journeyman Geek

2:11 PM

@Undo that's basically a custom filter

Undo

Valid subjective opinions on each one, but biased sample

Journeyman Geek

you're still reading it and deciding.

But lets say the tool surfaced a bunch of kali linux questions.

and you downvoted them all...

it would be worth investigating them

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek Why? Targeted voting is directed at users, not tags

Undo

What kind of outcome might you get from that investigation?

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted I don't see there being a difference

Undo

2:13 PM

As in, what action might come out of it?

Journeyman Geek

@Undo it depends!

Anne Daunted

If I only know, say, Java and only downvote bad Java questions, am I a serial downvoter?

Journeyman Geek

@Undo presumably if there's a clear pattern of ... strangeness...

words would be had?

Undo

Sure, everything does. I'm just looking for what action I might take if I was investigating something like that

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted Its still an anamoly

however that's spelled

@Undo I think it comes into the realm of "Thank goodness I don't need to touch that"

Anne Daunted

2:14 PM

@JourneymanGeek So if I disagreed with that mod's Journeyman Geek's action and decided to have a look at your profile and go on a downvoting spree - you still don't see the difference?

Journeyman Geek

you'd need to see individual votes, see a bigger pattrn...

@AnneDaunted nope

Get Answer Wizard

@AnneDaunted targeted voting is... well, targeted. Whether it's a particular user, a particular tag, or even all newest questions (I have seen the last one)

Journeyman Geek

Lets say someone decided to ask a few dozen questions on some obscure bit of tech no one uses.

Anne Daunted

So every voting is targeted because I target questions and answers?

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted At that point of broadness...

lets just suspend everyone.

8

Undo

2:16 PM

hear hear

Journeyman Geek

practically I'm talking about bigger patterns.

Get Answer Wizard

Suspicious pattern.

Anne Daunted

I often vote on feature-requests - will you suspend me now for targeted voting? I mean that's clearly targeting a tag

Journeyman Geek

So - one of our more interesting users tended to ask questions about various obscure bits of tech no one really uses. I wouldn't/shouldn't downvote cause its that user or its some tech no one uses.

@AnneDaunted eh. I can't see what you vote for ;p

Undo

Now, if we do want to get hypothetical, here's a fun one to test the boundaries: Let's build a tool to surface questions from women/minorities/<traditionally-under-represented-group> to benevolent welcoming upvote-happy people.

That seems like a decent goal, but it'd technically be targeting under many interpretations

Journeyman Geek

2:18 PM

@Undo and somewhat offensive.

Get Answer Wizard

But well, if all of those Java questions are objectively bad and it got automatically downvoted, then mission f-ing accomplished?

Journeyman Geek

I'm a minority ;p

Magisch

I'm pretty sure ethnic indians are the majority on SO

Journeyman Geek

@Undo I'd consider that racist because it assumes those people are unable to get attention to their posts on their own, and unethical ...

user302202

Googling "April is * awareness month" brings up Autism, STD, Math, Alcohol, Tsunami, Sexual Assault, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Stress, Water, Distracted Driving, Oral Cancer... It's hard to be aware of so many things at once. And mostly bad things at that.

Get Answer Wizard

2:19 PM

Or answers, and I'm talking about you, VLQ answers that get automatically downvoted when edited!

Journeyman Geek

@Magisch citation needed

also pulls out the cylon card

Tinkeringbell

@ShadowWizard If something gets 100 upvoted after being closed, surely someone would also have powers to vote to reopen or post a meta?

Journeyman Geek

I mean pulls out the ceylonese card

John Dvorak

Water is the worst thing on Earth, and fully responsible for all death on it

Journeyman Geek

@Tinkeringbell If it did, and didn't come out on meta, I'd... be suspecious.

@JohnDvorak oxygen man oxygen.

You breath too much, then you die

John Dvorak

2:20 PM

Is it an oxygen awareness month though?

Undo

happens all the time on SO with duplicates that are worded better for search than their targets

Get Answer Wizard

Hah, I'm now aware that I need to breath oxygen

Undo

manual-breathing-and-tongue-position awareness month

Tinkeringbell

@Undo Then either you need to merge stuff, or edit the original.

Journeyman Geek

@Undo shouldn't the dupe be the master then?

John Dvorak

2:22 PM

You are now aware of The Game. And you've just lost.

Tinkeringbell

But dupes are exempt from Roomba deletion, and do they ever get a 'closed' status like regular on-hold stuff?

Undo

Maybe, but it's a crapload of work for questionable gain

Get Answer Wizard

If that's the case, then the next question is: why don't we merge all exact dupes...

Journeyman Geek

@GetAnswerWizard cause mergers are a pain when you get it wrong, and its a crapload of work for questionable gain....

Undo

merging is a terrifying thing fraught with peril and angry CMs

Journeyman Geek

2:24 PM

snort

Not really angry

but yes, its terrifying

Anne Daunted

It only makes sense if the duplicate has useful answers

Undo

as angry as CMs ever get. Which is like a low simmer of irritation, 'cause they're all basically saints.

user302202

@GetAnswerWizard Apparently, some people need to be aware of that in order to breathe...

user302202

> People generally require tracheostomy and lifetime mechanical ventilation on a ventilator in order to survive.

user302202

For some value of "survive".

Get Answer Wizard

2:27 PM

> acquired later in life.

err.... okay...

Shadow Wizard

@Tinkeringbell well that's extreme example but yeah....

M.A.R. The Chemical Wizard

@AskQuestionWizard oh jeez :/ The myriad of Googleable things if you ever felt you had it worse than other people . . .

Get Answer Wizard

But highly upvoted, closed questions are far from the danger of roomba... we have seen the other side of the case where users are complaining if downvoting a highly upvoted closed questions mean anything...

Tyler Carter

@GetAnswerWizard I'm guessing its probably a pretty small minutia as well

Tinkeringbell

2:45 PM

@ShadowWizard I still don't see any compelling arguments to allow voting on actually closed stuff. :P

I still have to read Undo's link though

Get Answer Wizard

@Tinkeringbell do you have any opinion on the importance of the score of closed questions?

Anne Daunted

@Tinkeringbell It seems they can fall into the removedeadquestions category (9). FWIW, when you search for "closed:yes", you will be shown duplicates, too, so you need "duplicate:no" to filter them out.

Tinkeringbell

3:00 PM

@GetAnswerWizard Doesn't matter to me. I think it matters more if a question has a chance of reopening or historical significance. For the first, there's edits and reopen votes, for the second, there's a lock. Why not delete anything closed that hasn't been edited for a long time, no reopen votes and no historical significance?

The lock also prevents voting. Why not prevent voting to begin with?

I probably need to read up on why Roomba works the way it works ;)

Get Answer Wizard

I guess we can start from here...

135

Q: Turbocharging the Roomba: solutions for premature deletion

A couple weeks ago, I asked for help: How can we stop premature deletion? And I got some fantastic responses. A big thanks to everyone who participated in that discussion - you're the reason I don't completely hate Meta Stack Overflow. The big takeaways from that discussion were: Show users t...

Tinkeringbell

Sure, once I'm home and on a PC ;)

user302202

3:49 PM

Speaking of voting: is the current Emojidome bout the final round of it all?

user302202

The round of 32 bracket indicates so...

user302202

So it's space vs hedgehog (?) in the final.

Tyler Carter

@AskQuestionWizard I was just looking at that.

It looks like it. I think it would be aptly fitting if Spaaaaacceeee won the entire thing.

user302202

Does multiple clicking of vote button count multiple times?

user302202

writing a script to click SPAAACE 10 times per second

Tyler Carter

3:54 PM

@AskQuestionWizard There's no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going or which ways the votes are flowing but the danger must be growing for the voters keep on voting and not a speck of light is showing.

2

user302202

Is this the correct finalists? 🌃 vs 🦔

I believe so

Hey

@Magisch Hi

🦄 vs 🐔

2

Kevin B

4:00 PM

🐔

Magisch

@TylerCarter How are you liking the tavern in 2019?

user302202

@GetAnswerWizard Should have posted separately so we can vote by starring.

user302202

< 1 minute left in the final!!!

Undo

space wins

2

Get Answer Wizard

Let's go to Space Exploration

user302202

4:06 PM

... will the comic remain with ? vs ? from now on? :(

user302202

FR: add replays, like ESPN Classic games.

user302202

Oh well, at least we have the transcript. The conclusion of penguin vs owl bout was "I think the bird has it"... :D

user302202

inb4 penguins are technically a kind of a mushroom.

rene

4:21 PM

> As of April 2, all April Fools bugs have been resolved.

Tyler Carter

@Magisch Its good. I like that there is still activity. It's been so long, I know we had a ton of ridiculous conversations back then

Mithrandir

@TylerCarter Ooh, do we get chocolate?

Tyler Carter

@Mithrandir Wrong, sir, wrong! Under Section Thirty-Seven B of the contract signed by you it states quite clearly that all offers shall become null and void if--and you can read it for yourself in this photostatic copy: "I, the undersigned, shall forfeit all rights, privileges, and licenses herein and herein contained, et cetera, et cetera . . . memo bis punitor delicatum!" It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal! You get nothing! You lose! Good day, sir!

Transcript for