I trapped it in an empty Pringles can and flung it into the street. Not what I expected to have to deal with when I needed the bathroom at 5AM.
(It was on the door handle. I didn't notice until I closed the door behind me, felt something tickle my thumb, and turned around to face the largest praying mantis I've ever seen.)
Meta is a strange, slightly odd, fickle beast
It's kind of the internet equivalent of the agora - it's a chaotic place where ideas are brought out, argued over and occasionally there's a barfight or two.
Critically as the protype meta, we have folks voting meta-style (to agree or disagree), on...
@JourneymanGeek I have to disagree with you on the MSO question. having a thick skin online isn't optional, even if just because frustration breeds hostility and attempts to address that hostility by any other means then curing the frustration only breeds more hostility
someone has to break that self reinforcing cycle, and that someone will have to have a very thick skin
trying to get frustrated people at large to be nice by appealing to their self interest and the goodness in their hearts may be possible with a small community, but it doesn't scale. The flow of water thing is a perfect analogy. SO is operating on a scale where only systemic change has appreciable impact.
We had this last summer. We had 6 weeks of no less then 25° during any time of day. The house I live in was so heated up that I couldn't get room temp below 32° even at night while opening all windows
@JourneymanGeek This isn't a question of right or wong. In many ways, big communities act like forces of nature. It's not right that poor people's houses get flooded, but pleading with the water to recede has no impact.
"This is unfair and shouldn't be happening" is true in most circumstances you outlined, but is not a solution and wanting it to not be so won't make it into one
What's happening right now is a self reinforcing feedback cycle that SE started. SE will have to end it if it is to ever end, and that won't be fun or pleasant for the employees involved.
Even if you convince everyone in that meta topic to work actively on breaking it, it's a drop on a hot stone compared to the amount of frustrated people. And the frustration that caused the hostility is then still there, only barely being held back.
I'm of the opinion that in order to get any grip on the negativity and hostility on meta right now SE would have to reverse course on most of its current policies and initiatives, and that has no snowball's chance in hell of happening considering the adverse impact on their image it would have
@ShadowTheCurlyBracedWizard Israelites would probably know way more than Americans and Europeans anyway since they're living in the Middle East as well
harkening back to my comment on thick skin, in that vein, meta will continue being hostile and negative. Every employee posting there will get chewed out hard, and that has no current perspective of changing. So to avoid a total breakdown of communication some thick skin is necessary
@JourneymanGeek I think Magisch is coming from the perspective that employees should try to respond more often to criticism, per Jon's comment that employees mostly don't visit meta because of 'relentless negativity'
I personally hope they reconsider that position since people seem more level-headed in discussing the issues now than they were last year
At least, it sounds like they're leaving most of the talking to folks who can approach this more rationally
SE's current priorities have no plans to deal with the cause for a currently hostile core community. If those priorities stay, they'll have to get used to long term dealing with a hostile and oppositional core community
@JourneymanGeek what I'm saying is, the tone is still kinda really very cynical but it's not much the type that would discourage conversation anymore but the type that invites pep talk
Many brands have hostile and oppositional core communities, and dealing with them is possible, albeit very unpleasant and often burnout heavy on the CMs of those
@Marshmallow In the end, if it rots away entirely it turns into nutrients for the tree to grow and carry better apples. But that requires it to rot away entirely.
Not just lay there, stinking unpleasantly but never entirely rotting away.
Also... this is waaaaay too philosophical for monday 10 am.
People suck, a big online international group of people sucks even more ;) that's basically it :P
this here is sort of the ivory tower of SE. and you are in the highest level of the ivory tower of SE with insider access and generally just having your inquiries answered
most users have a massively different perspective
they feel like nobody is listening, and nobody cares. that might be false, but they still feel it
No, I'm basically just soapboxing rn. I think the current situation is unfixable but thankfully the decline of SE will take several more years and it'll still be good until then
@ShadowTheCurlyBracedWizard I'm not that up to date about the works of the amazing hedgehog, but I thought that was about users communicating with SE, not the other way round like I just said.
@Tinkeringbell point is, people want to know what they say actually reach SE staff and that staff read it. They don't expect instant response just "Yes, I saw it" notice.
On MSE, it's rarely true, or least that's the feeling we get.
We didn't totally quit (like serverfault's chat) or lose a set of fairly core users (like Security.SE did)
We kinda just use both. Most stuff happens on RA (where we kinda have a no swearing rule) and we have a bunch of rooms on matrix for stuff we don't want to talk in public chat, and looser language rules
@ShadowTheCurlyBracedWizard Well, that's kind of a thing.
In the smaller early days, we'd see CMs or even Jeff pop into our chat a lot
@Magisch Well, maybe the boss can give the aircondition-allergists leave to work from home? So the airconditioning can be turned on for all other people?
@rene If I may, I'll respond to your comment here - so that I don't leave long thread of comments on the main site.
> The system isn't lifting or reinstating a quality ban. It checks when you post a question if you meet the quality ban criteria. If you do, the question is rejected. Users in a q-ban can always ask a question every 6 months after their last question (deleted and non-deleted).
From the wording in the FAQ it seems as if the outcome only depends on the most recent question and the FAQ explicitly mentions reinstating the ban: "ask one new one 6 months after your last question. If that question is positively received, you may be able to continue asking questions; if not, then the ban will be reinstated."
But maybe that is just a bit imprecise formulation in the FAQ.
@Martin yeah, I'm not sure how many words are needed but users shouldn't cherry pick from that particular FAQ. So don't focus on the 6 months and all will be fine
Now I am a bit worried that I might have misinformed a user with my answer on a per-site-meta - I'll check whether I should reformulate it a bit, or turn my answer into a comment.
@rene It seems that this specific part has the same wording on SO: "If you're unable to improve your existing questions, you'll get the chance to ask one new one six months after your last question. If that question is positively received, you may be able to continue asking questions; if not, then the ban will be reinstated, and you'll have to wait another six months to ask your next question"
@Martin The Q-ban is a status. When you pass a certain threshold, then it's enabled (i.e. you're Q-banned). When you're Q-banned, you can ask 1 question per 6 months, but your status is still under Q-banned (it's not lifted nor reinstated). Tangentially, upvotes improve the situation, no matter if it's on the latest question or older questions.
(I should have favorited the SE staff's comment stating the above mechanism... now I can't find it)
@Magisch I ran your numbers through arbobondgenoten.nl/arbothem/fysisch/klimaat/calculator-wbgt.htm ... It says that for 32 degrees, with a 64 % humidity, some sun coming in through the windows and no/little aircon/airflow, they advise working 15 minutes and taking a break for 45!
Meta is a strange, slightly odd, fickle beast
It's kind of the internet equivalent of the agora - it's a chaotic place where ideas are brought out, argued over and occasionally there's a barfight or two.
Critically as the protype meta, we have folks voting meta-style (to agree or disagree), on...
