Tavern on the Meta

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

00:24

Yvette Colomb is no longer a Stack Overflow moderator

Meta Andrew T.

02:39

@410 I woke up and read this as "embeddable hostile audible sound clips", and was like... okay...

The Insticator ads are annoying though :)

Meta Andrew T.

04:53

test

Meet the Bots that Help Moderate Stack Overflow

The SOBotics Team on September 17, 2019

FireAlarm, which helps detect low quality questions on creation using machine learning. This helped reduce the number of posts that were going to the closed vote queue by aiding users to close the questions quickly.

Badger tracks problematic badges like Cleanup, which are indicative of certain issues with the post on which it was awarded.

Burnaki monitors burnination efforts (removing problematic tags from questions) on Stack Overflow.

Rodgort) tracks the ever growing list of tag related discussions and has had a significant impact in the ongoing tag monitoring efforts on Stack Overflow. …

curious why this one wasn't posted by the Feed...

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

05:14

@MetaAndrewT. I don't think the "SO-specific" blog posts are intended to be posted here

rene

05:34

batch of two ^, needs 1 moar /cc @bar @sha @son

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@rene Deleted

@rene Already voted

rene

\o/

@MetaAndrewT. works

Meta Andrew T.

06:39

hopefully TGIF...

Magisch

yvette resigned on SO, so this day sucks

in fact, it sours this whole month

Tinkeringbell

@MetaAndrewT. Depends... do you really need a Friday at this point?

Meta Andrew T.

I need i... whoAaAaA~

Shadow The Dragon Wizard

07:48

@Magisch sorry to hear... Any context? TL;DR for that?

Magisch

08:00

@ShadowTheDragonWizard I have exactly as much info as you do on that

still sucks

Shadow The Dragon Wizard

Thanks for all the (rather original ;)) name suggestions, @Mith especially, and others... Decided to go with a less drastic change. Will be glad for avatar suggestions though. Cheers! 🥂

@Magisch I don't browse MSO at all

So she just resigned out of the blue??

Tinkeringbell

@ShadowTheDragonWizard Something like this?

Magisch

@ShadowTheDragonWizard I don't know. I know she had some issues and the constant attacks mods are suffering were getting to her, and there was some kerfuffle involved, but it's best not to go into speculation

Mithrandir

in The Meta Room on Stack Overflow Chat, 8 hours ago, by Yvette Colomb

For the record I stepped down as moderator. If you have any other questions about the post or anything else aslk Tim Post. I won't be on the site again any time soon. There's nothing I want to talk about at this stage. Good luck to everyone.

Magisch

you know, out of respect. It still sucks and sours this friday and the whole month for me

Shadow The Dragon Wizard

08:04

@Tinkeringbell yes! But better with some relation to 🧙‍♂️, and without watermark... ;)

(current avatar is coffee I made myself)

@Magisch kerf what? Anyway... Yeah it sucks. :(

Tinkeringbell

@ShadowTheDragonWizard Oh, there's espresso patronum stuff with Harry potter on it out there too, lemme see ;)

410

13:27

> It's all fun and games until some website loses a moderator.

(from a comment on meta.math from long ago, I can't find it anymore)

Naturally, prolonged participation tends to affect the perspective of some folks. Someone just recently compared quitting SO to suicide, and the denial of account deletion request to a suicide prevention measure.

It's just a wobsite.

Aibobot

yet here we are ;p

Its not about just the website though

On one hand, people can be a wee bit dramatic about their online spaces

Tinkeringbell

I'm not getting off the lawn.

Aibobot

on the other lots of corners of SE have tightly knit, really vibrant communities

and people are passionate about it, and what they want from it

I'm not going to speculate on why a moderator left unless she wants to share it.

but its worth considering that its a lot of time, and energy and peole hurding

Olivia

@410 "Just a website" can have a lot of sentimental meaning, depending on who you ask

Aibobot

exactly

Olivia

13:33

Might not be much to you, but it might be the center of someone else's life. But communities tend to do that more often.

Aibobot

@Olivia exactly

SU has a bunch of folks who end up hanging out outside SU

and a few other community cores "moved out" of their SE sites and still hang out on slack

so often its "not just a website". Its people

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

Keep in mind that there are anticyberbullying laws in some jurisdictions, that if someone entices someone to commit suicide through the Internet, that person can legally be held responsible for that person's murder

Aibobot

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog not what we're talking about though

at all

Olivia

^

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Aibobot And at this point, she (if I got it right) is not willing to talk about it.

Aibobot

13:37

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog yup

so - its worth not speculating. If it needs to be talked about she will

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

I meant to ask her about something else, but now it might be too late. A while ago, she got her old MSE posts from a previous account re-associated with her current account after a discussion with the CMs. I was wondering, how exactly did she start the discussion?

Aibobot

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog I'd say the contact us link

I would assume its a 'simple' account merger

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Aibobot As far as I'm aware, simply asking for this flatly will just lead to a quick denial given the current policy (and looking through emails, what I was told at the time my previous account was deleted). Maybe there's something else she did to get them to proceed anyway.

@Aibobot No, employees had to re-attribute everything to the new account.

To put it simple, I'd like to know how she got an employee to do the manual work.

Aibobot

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog well, I think we can rule out mailing them cookies

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

(Also, to make it clear, I haven't decided yet whether to fully proceed with it. I just want to know how she started the discussion and got past the "flat denial" phase.)

Aibobot

13:42

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog uhm

here's the fun part. I can't remember if my suspecion is public or not

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Aibobot What's "suspecion"?

Aibobot

or if its something worth pointing out in the current time/situation

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog get used to typos

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Aibobot I'm used to typos; there are two possible ways to interpret that so I'm asking which is the correct one

Aibobot

its a typo

i sispect something

suspect

*glares at keyboard

ANYWAY

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

I don't normally ask if there's only one possible way to interpret it (90%+ of the time), but in this case there were multiple possible ways

Aibobot

13:46

anyway

you won't know unless you start the conversation

and are convincing

and probably easier if there's already conversations over other things going on

Olivia

Bringing ~~bribes~~ cookies are also recommended. :P

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

5 mins ago, by Aibobot

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog well, I think we can rule out mailing them cookies

Aibobot

that was kinda the joke ;p

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

I might try stroopwafels if enough of them were Dutch :) (yes, I know it was a joke)

Aibobot

also the fact that a significant part of the Community team seem to be enthusiastic/good cooks

Tinkeringbell

13:48

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog Put sprinkles on the one for Shog, just to ruin any chance you had further :P

Aibobot

I have a feeling that spice mixes might make better bribes ;p

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Aibobot Americans don't like spices that much

Mithrandir

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog Silly 'Muricans.

Aibobot

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog eh, depends

depends on where and who I guess

From twitter - I suspect Tim Post would be ok ;p

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

14:06

Why I stepped down as moderator on Stack Overflow

►

Aibobot

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog uhm

Are we trying to increase the drama quotient here?

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Aibobot Um, no, just passing it on.

Aibobot

14:20

We've typically had a policy over not speculating over moderators resigning

even if they talk about it offsite

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Aibobot I'm pretty sure that posting a bare link to an offsite page where they talk about it isn't speculation.

Nowhere did I ever say, "she resigned because..."

Aibobot

Its an invitation to

and kinda gawking

So... not cool man, not cool

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

Alright, I get it.

Aibobot

also, while I don't have a quarter hour to watch the video...

if someone needs a break, asking them about site mechanics is not cool either

let the lady have her break, no matter what the reasons

Olivia

@Aibobot it was this or The Best Drama Supplements 2019:tm:.

Aibobot

14:33

@Olivia sigh

@Olivia there's a lot of it right now

and a lot of work ahead

Olivia

yep.

Aibobot

I'm personally pretty worn out by a bunch of things going on right now

(and with some things - I might agree with SE but not how its handled)

Olivia

Me too. I hope some of it gets sorted out soon, because it's starting to be too much

Aibobot

granted

I also dreamt of raising helpdesk cases

@Olivia quite

Olivia

I'd rather have functioning communication

If we have that, stuff can actually improve

Aibobot

14:40

@Olivia oh that's kind of where I feel we need to start

But also wondering where stuff went wrong :/

Or if I'm having some kinda rose tinted idea of times before

Olivia

I don't really care where it started going wrong. Stuff has changed since whenever that was

At this point, we need to fix it. Whatever that means

Aibobot

@Olivia I think its pretty important in terms of accepting stuff's broken

Olivia

Acceptance is easy. Repairing is not.

Aibobot

you can't fix things if you're not willing to accept its broken and the bedroom is filling with water ;p

Olivia

It's pretty hard when the room is almost full and the release valve is at the bottom.

Aibobot

14:42

yup

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Aibobot Tell that to Maduro

Aibobot

and I'm not sure where exactly it is

Olivia

But the door isn't water-tight and it leaks into the rest of the house, so it's a pretty hopeless situation

Aibobot

I don't like the term hopeless

Olivia

Me neither, but what else would you call it?

Aibobot

14:43

almost as much as I dislike "People who disagree with my worldview are always the enemy"

If its hopeless there's absolutely no point

Olivia

@Aibobot Is there a point?

We're stuck. We have been stuck for a long time. Nothing has changed - if anything, it's gotten worse.

Aibobot

@Olivia well if there wasn't we wouldn't bother

@Olivia I can't disagree

but if we can't get it unstuck there's not much todo

One of the reasons I accepted being a meta moderator was well - short of being a CM, its probably the best soapbox for me to cause change

Olivia

@Aibobot I'm pretty close to that. The situation is deadlocked. Unless something significant happens in a positive direction, I'll have to re-visit how I spend my time.

Aibobot

@Olivia and this is probably the best and worst that can happen

Olivia

iDunno.

Aibobot

14:48

Well if we had a foolproof way of doing things, this would be easy ;)

we're making it up as we go along

Olivia

Aren't we all?

Aibobot

yup

Olivia

Just noticed this question - We apparently need these, and they're still ignored (only two hours in though, but some other posts have sticked around for a lot longer in a similar style, also asking for clarification or reply on a different, ignored topic).

Aibobot

@Olivia well - its constructively worded

its asking legitimate question and OP has backed things up by asking it as a question

So... its totally what meta is meant to be

Olivia

And it's still not answered.

Aibobot

14:55

That... erm

I can't particularly help with

Olivia

yeh, that just wraps back to chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/7913334#7913334

Aibobot

The silly thing is I'm convinced its fine according to the TOS

and I'm convinced the whole thing is people just freaking out

but... someone should actually say that

Olivia

Exactly.

it needs a reply. it doesn't have to be what we expect it to be, but as long as it's true, it's good. Also a step in the right direction

Aibobot

and erf. I've been convinced - and have been saying that SE started out with excellent ideas on how communities should be managed

they still have good folks, but a lot of the time the messaging and the resources haven't been bad

*been there

and stuff like it isn't a bug ticket

its community ops

and I kinda feel that while we do need to serve more than the 'core' community

we can't take those 1% of noisy people on meta for granted when they're trying their best to help/act in the better interests of their community

Olivia

The system probably worked when SE got started, but it has not scaled well. We have the same exact constraints (with some exceptions, if there's any sites running 3 CV or fewer CV experiments) on sites with 6.4k questions per day as on sites with 4.9 questions per day. Stuff needs to be improved, yes, but we need communication to get there.

Aibobot

15:05

Went up to something like 15 at some point experimentally?

@Olivia they also had... 3 cms for one site

Olivia

Dunno.

Aibobot

Communicating with your community and dealing with their issues is a core part of running the network

@Olivia well - you can't always throw more process and code at problems

While I disagree with Jeff Atwood on a lot of things...

blog.codinghorror.com/…

I think a lot of this is true

Olivia

That's still far from a communication breakdown.

Aibobot

@Olivia communication breaks down cause the people who need to communicate are not

Olivia

Yeah.

Aibobot

15:13

And sometimes people start a dialog and don't finish it

as a mod, doing that is more trouble than its worth

Even if the finish is "Ok, that's that, and this is where the penny drops

Olivia

Yeah

Aibobot

I kinda want to bring this up on meta eventually

I'm just not sure how best to - and I certainly need a long period of normal sleeping hours ;p

Olivia

^^"

Aibobot

Especially its a big broad issue - I consider lot of the folks who're in the community team friends, and I do want something good to come out of it

Olivia

we could use some good

Aibobot

15:23

true but part of that is also picking your battles and how you do it carefully

Olivia

yep

Aibobot

and a critical part of this is to assume people want the same things you do, and helping folks bolster that

while not letting things get hijacked

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Aibobot While I agree with the post, I see them deviate from point 3 a lot.

Aibobot

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog if they weren't there's be nothing to talk about

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

If you're not going to do something, at least explain why or provide some indication that it's actually been considered, rather than leaving people in the dark.

Olivia

15:26

^

Aibobot

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog in many cases

Feeds

15:44

stackoverflow.blog/2019/09/20/…

Aibobot

uhm

> Jen Weber discovered as much when she began livestreaming Stack Overflow Q&A sessions with her friend, fellow developer Chris Manson.

wait what?

how does that even work?

might check it out later

Kevin B

Hey that's that guy that caused drama over in that other chat place

Journeyman Geek

Uhm whaaa?

smacks @KevinB with a rolled up newspaper

Olivia

@JourneymanGeek Wait, you downvote questions by smacking the downvote button with a newspaper? O.o

Aibobot

.... the downvote button is a rolled up newspaper.

Kevin B

15:54

he got kicked for dropping in and demanding the room change topics, and immediately went on a twitter tirade against it's members rather than finding a way to deal with it constructively.

Aibobot

@KevinB and if they did it, we deal with it

no point starting things before they start

(also on mobile and can't see the userlist ;p)

oh

damn, how do you even remember something like that?

Kevin B

what

Aibobot

that the guy mentioned in the blog is the same guy lol

Kevin B

i mean, it was a pretty stressful time, waiting for someone from that group to tweet at my employer because I as a RO was complicit in not stopping the conversation sooner.

Aibobot

ANYWAY, we kinda hopefully are past twitter driven moderation

meh

that's all that's wrong with the tech world some times

We're so darned confrontational over things that matter

and end up doing do little

410

16:10

The livestream SO thing appears to be them posting a Q and then answering it.

With two people talking about it in the process.

I first imagined it as a broadcast that consists of posting a question and waiting for responses.

SOCVR folks should begin broadcasting their review sessions.

Aibobot

@410 actually that or talking people in a small community through an effective question/answer is useful

I've had a few cases where a question started off with me complaining about a problem, then working through it with someone

then turning that into a Q&A pair

Kevin B

16:27

Just seems like a way to set unrealistic expectations of results.

Aibobot

@KevinB we're volunteers and we cannot be everywhere at once

On the other hand, it is a public space and I probably prefer safer, more accepting spaces for that kinda conversations...

like twitter? ;p

(more seriously - or some less public chat system)

Kevin B

16:47

I was referring to the Q/A

Aibobot

@KevinB well, the process of asking effective questions isn't really as obvious as it should be

some people learn better by observing

we can't reach the people who're going to ask whatever comes to mind

but if someone actually needs that help...

410

That JS chat incident was in... 2018. April 27 to be precise. Time flies.

As do the ashes of the JS room.

Though they mostly settled on the ground by now.

Meta Andrew T.

Alright. TGIF!!1!

catching up the convo...

Aibobot

Its saturday

410

Singapore Grand Prix weekend, for those of us following F1.

Which may well be just me.

Kevin B

17:07

i'm gonna be building the second and possibly last floor of my jungle fortress this weekend

Aibobot

I'm going to assume minecraft? ;p

Kevin B

17:25

Yup

Aibobot

I need to pick it up again, but got sucked into somewhat more... erm...

shooty games ;p

Kevin B

Currently playin on a vanilla server for a change, it’s quite surprising how much you can automate without mods

rene

@410 yeah, Verstappen said he is going for a win.

410

shocked

rene

Over confident. Just like all Dutch folks.

410

18:08

Slightly surprising to see CodeProject saying Why I stopped posting to StackOverflow. I mean, it's a website, it doesn't really post things...

BTW what's the difference between CodeProject and DEV?

Meta Andrew T.

Is that the different version of the "jQuery on SO" meme???

410

Yes, updated with the modern SO interface.

Also because we don't talk about jQuery anymore.

Aibobot

or cooking on SO

Meta Andrew T.

Steak Overflow

rene

@410 I think have/had an account on CodeProject ... it is a forum ... old .. pre SO

410

18:21

I was looking for a way to compare the traffic of two sites, but it looks like by now all traffic-guessing companies require signing up to see their tea leaves readings.

All that user tracking / fingerprinting, and nothing to see for it.

Oh, and dev.to is on climate strike today.

So are some of the local students, but for them, it's more like a Friday strike.

SO is not taking a stand on climate, it seems.

Although by running on very few servers, I'd say they are doing their part.

john

I was looking for the non-constructive flag. I didn't found it. Searched it in MSE and found results. Have they changed its name, or removed it?

410

101

Q: Drop "not constructive", combine "noisy", reword "rude" and "other" comment flags

The problem Comments are terrible; no one agrees on what they're for, or how long they should be kept. Comment flags are equally terrible, because if no one's on the same page as far as what should be posted in the first place then no one can agree on what should be removed either. On top of tha...

john

Oh, thank you very much.

410

That was in 2017. Next year 2018 brought us Unkind or Unwelcoming flags.

Still confused by the authorship status of the famous audio-starting answer, which is the 3rd highest voted answer all time on Meta.

It looks like the owner's account was deleted but this page exists.

AFAIR disassociated posts display "anon" rather than "userN"

Meta Andrew T.

migration is fun

410

18:34

Yes, it is. But ... the owner does have an account on the target site for migration.

Meta Andrew T.

but can a post be migrated if the user is suspended?

410

I thought that was for questions.

Why block the migration of a question if one of the answers is by a user suspended on the target site...

Meta Andrew T.

Not what I intended to mean, but instead, should the question be migrated without that answer since the user is currently suspended on the target site...

410

I don't know. Deleting some of the answers during migration would seem weird.

I don't know why the question was migrated to begin with.

Site issues should be on topic on the per-site meta, regardless of whether the issue is localized to that site.

Meta Andrew T.

I don't know either, but migrating an answer to a suspended site seems like a loophole (dunno if it's possible to confirm this by SEDE or not...)

and I also don't know why it was migrated, though the most plausible reason was someone flagged it and a mod agreed...

Speculation on the Meta

Optimus Prime

18:55

Thanks Catija, I deleted the question

Another question. If I remember it correctly, Ed stepped down in 2017 or so from Mod position. But this one stackoverflow.com/users?tab=moderators shows Ed is still a mod. Also it shows elected in 2018 but the link leads to 2015 election. Would like to know what happened there (if it's not secret)

Is there a meta post about it?

410

Stepped up again. He was just practicing dance moves.

@OptimusPrime The update at the bottom of meta.stackoverflow.com/q/365198/11875649

Once upon a time there was a graphical timeline of SO mods.

Optimus Prime

@410 Didn't noticed that. Thanks for the link

Aibobot

19:14

@410 for some reason I was under the impression there was an unofficial one

Feeds

It's not my fault I haven't had a chance to measure the curvature of this particular universe.

410

I don't get the meaning of d in the formula.

Is the formula 2*pi*(r1 + r2) / 2 or 2*pi*(r1 - r2) / 2

Probably the former. Then d is the length of the circle midway between the two rails.

Aibobot

diameter?

410

d would make sense as diameter, but not if it's radius times pi.

I think d is for distance here.

xkcd never made a comic about how trains are able to turn...

Stable Rollers - Numberphile

►

Trains appear around 5min mark.

john

20:44

Going to toss another grenade.

How many throws do I have before I'm suspended?

Aaron Hall

@john when users ask that, it's usually the next one. :P

john

ohno

Journeyman Geek

21:25

Its pretty hard to get suspended on MSE - unless you are intentionally posting it stuff I guess

Kevin B

i'd imagine so, due to the low frequency of questions being posted for you to act up on

Journeyman Geek

Well some thresholds are also higher

What you get out of it though..

410

23:58

Since "How do I" is discouraged, and "title" is a tag, that post should be retitled as "Write good". — user315433 Feb 22 '18 at 1:27

I have no memory of writing this comment. (Under a post that just now bumped up)

"How do I do something" is an annoyingly wasteful title. Go with "How do you do" instead.

3

Roxette - How Do You Do!

►

(Perceiving a shortage of old pop music here recently)

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