Tavern on the Meta

7:00 PM

@Sklivvz if it's that answer you've been discussing on Twitter... I'd prefer public - it's a public answer. If it's something else, ping me on chat.SE

Sklivvz

I have no words anymore to describe how hurtful it feels to ask a question you need to help with at work, being non-answered by someone that can't be bothered to try and then be ignored by mods for 10 years. If this kind of experiences are normal at SO, then I'm 100% done with it

As simple as that

And it's appalling no CM gives a flying squirrel about my feelings.

Shog9

sigh

Sklivvz

You want to know why SO is considered toxic? I can go on...

Shog9

I care about your feelings, @Sklivvz. That doesn't mean I'm going to override numerous moderators and delete an answer for the hell of it. We have too much done in secret; this is something that should be discussed in public and addressed in full view.

5

Sklivvz

I don't want to, because I've been insulted over and over and over

Shog9

7:03 PM

You feel that the answer is dismissive, derisive of your needs, am I correct?

Sklivvz

Not only that

But the SO mod team has been equally dismissive of my feelings and my complaint

Shog9

Ok. Which concern would you like me to address first?

Sklivvz

I want to to nuke the answer

And I want you to acknowledge that ignoring complaints of being offended for years is not OK

But mostly I want you to understand that it's not me

Shog9

I don't think that's a fair characterization, but I acknowledge that it may feel as such to you

Sklivvz

That this kind of stuff is not OK

John Dvorak

7:06 PM

Would you like to share the context with us?

Shog9

"this kind of stuff" being the declined flags, the dismissive tone in the answer, or the assertion that what you ask is not feasible?

Sklivvz

But mostly because this stuff is going to hurt others

Shog9

Well, if that's the primary concern then we can fix it.

Sklivvz

Not OK->That there are snarky non-answers, and that moderators defend them, and that you don't even get the problem.

Shog9

The author is asserting that the solution you seek is impossible. They may not do so unkindly, but they are free to be wrong.

Sklivvz

7:09 PM

No, the author is stating that he wouldn't bother

Princess Olivia

@JohnDvorak stackoverflow.com/a/888868/6296561 twitter.com/sklivvz/status/1177168251673092102 + thread on the last one

John Dvorak

Thanks

Sklivvz

It's "impossible" should be a comment at best

"I wouldn't bother" is deletion-worthy and insulting

John Dvorak

It's a frame challenge. Frame challenges are valid answers to XY problems.

Sklivvz

There is no XY problem there

I have a dataset to validate. Simple non-xy problem

Author does not know the answer, so snarks, because not knowing the answer makes them feel bad I guess

Cleary they are not there to learn

Or to share any knowledge

John Dvorak

7:12 PM

If you have a specific dataset of valid and invalid cases, we can't match against it if you don't provide the dataset

Sklivvz

Sure at the time I had aroudn 2 million names and 2 millions surname to clean up

John Dvorak

If you do provide a set of valid and invalid cases, we can start talking about regexes that fit the sets.

Sklivvz

Should I have posted them?

It's PII by the way

Also, clearly part of the challenge is understanding which form names can have in different languages

John Dvorak

Representative set of examples of things you want to filter out, not all of them.

Sklivvz

I put them together in my answer and it took me very little time based off wikipedia and public sources

John Dvorak

7:14 PM

@Sklivvz and the answer says exactly - anything you can think of is a valid name in some language - including the empty string.

Kevin B

It's far too late now, but if you didn't want such an opinion, a better way to ask this would be to leave out what you're trying to validate

Sklivvz

That's factually wrong John

There are rules to what is considered a valid name or surname in different languages

The fact that you or I don't know them is irrelevant

John Dvorak

OK, "list of letters, spaces and apostrophes" seems like a reasonable guess - but I wouldn't bet my life on even that.

Kevin B

What prevents someone from... breaking said rules?

Sklivvz

Literally the law

John Dvorak

7:15 PM

You can always invent a new language

Kevin B

Lol

Sklivvz

Sure, but you can't adopt a name (say) with a square bracket in it

Kevin B

So that should have been your question.

Sklivvz

What?

Kevin B

If you don't want opinions on what is and isn't a valid name, specify what you want to filter out instead of asking to verify what isn't and isn't a valid name.

Sklivvz

7:16 PM

I want to filter out stuff that can't possibly be a name or surname

Kevin B

And that's open to interpretation.

:shrug:

Shog9

@Sklivvz ok, how's this?

John Dvorak

I have chosen to raise my children in nespressanto, and my daughter's first name is a[bbe], because abbe is ambiguous and [abb]e is a swearword in nespressanto.

Shog9

May still be wrong, but no longer asserts the author's opinion over your needs

Tinkeringbell

@Shog9 I still don't understand how to sanitize input now

Shog9

7:18 PM

:|

Princess Olivia

@JohnDvorak be is a swearword? O.o

Sklivvz

@Shog9 it's kinder, thank you , but still.. not an answer

Princess Olivia

@Sklivvz No, it's not an answer to you. It's not something you consider a valid solution.

Shog9

@Sklivvz it's not a solution, but I believe it is an answer

Sklivvz

It's literally asking me to improve the question: as such it should be a comment

Meta Andrew T.

7:19 PM

Searching for "weird legal name" was interesting!

Sklivvz

There is one with an "8" in it

John Dvorak

No, not be. Be is just a syllable. But [ab]e is a swearword. I do suppose that IPA would write that as ab.e, but that collides with yet another notation in nespressanto.

Princess Olivia

@MetaAndrewT. Have you met my very good friend, whose name cannot be written? :P

Meta Andrew T.

There is @

4

Sklivvz

The point here is that of course there's going to by random stuff, but guys: a lot of people need to clean up data. It's a super common need.

We are not talking about a regex that literally needs to catch every single name and reject every single non-name, that's a given

John Dvorak

7:23 PM

Wrong. You need to prevent arbitrary data from deleting your database. You don't need to stop anyone from being named Bobby";--.

In fact, ;-- is also a valid trigraph in nespressanto.

Sklivvz

No I have a huge marketing list which is full of crap and I need to keep the stuff that looks legit

Princess Olivia

Yeah, but a working regex to validate names has to be incredibly complex thanks to languages. There's not one language where [a-zA-Z'] covers all your needs.

M.A.R.

Excuse my ignorance, but isn't this the domain of the technical validity of the answer you're now discussing? It wouldn't have any bearing on its NAA status.

Sklivvz

My answer covers all unicode word characters and their ligatures. It's not incredibly complex

SIgh

Meta Andrew T.

So, back to the question, what kind of name do you accept? I acknowledge this is talking about extreme case, but these weird legal names, apparently using website domain is valid.

John Dvorak

7:24 PM

If you're willing to throw out legitimate need because they don't look well on advertising ... that's a separate need from knowing if they can put it in your database in the first place.

Sklivvz

this is why i did not want to discuss this in public

M.A.R.

Funnily enough, my rule of thumb for that is because I don't understand what you're saying.

John Dvorak

@M.A.R. That, too

@Sklivvz It's not incredibly complex, but it's wrong. @ would have undue difficulty using your website.

Sklivvz

@MetaAndrewT. I'm happy to discuss that in the comments on the question, not as an answer to it

M.A.R.

If you want to prove something is NAA, in all the cases that I've encountered, using basic language features and comprehension skills should be enough.

John Dvorak

7:25 PM

"You can't because" is a valid answer to "how do I".

Sklivvz

@JohnDvorak I guess @ has other fish to fry though

M.A.R.

If it's "but the answer is wrong because I fit the symbols in mine" that doesn't make the answer NAA.

Sklivvz

@JohnDvorak the answer was "I would not bother" which means "you could but it would be a waste of time" which is not

M.A.R.

BTW, does the answer cover ّ ?

Rubiksmoose

@MetaAndrewT. That URL tho...

John Dvorak

7:27 PM

@Sklivvz eh, looks like a minor difference to me

Sklivvz

"it's not possible" is also simply wrong

Shog9

I'm gonna recommend that folks who have strong opinions on this matter after the discussion is resolved post an answer here:

10

Q: Is "there's no answer" an answer?

As simple as that: Are questions objectively having no valid answers, valid by themselves? I'm not considering workarounds that are popular on the main SO site. In other scientific disciplines "no answer" is common and well may be the only answer. Still, it may require a proof that there's no an...

Sklivvz

An empty string is not a valid name

M.A.R.

And إ ژ ُ ? Because they're possible in names here . . .

Sklivvz

White space is not a valid name

Shog9

7:27 PM

We could certainly use more guidance on this to refer to in the future.

John Dvorak

wrong doesn't make it a non-answer, otherwise mods would have to be able to ascertain correctness of any answer

M.A.R.

@Sklivvz Fine, I can't tell either way. But that doesn't make it NAA

Sklivvz

@JohnDvorak mods have been doing that all along which is why they did not nuke it or fix it. They agreed with it.

Princess Olivia

@M.A.R. Copying broke it for me, but you can try to break it here: regex101.com/r/6slPxj/1

Shog9

I would personally find it problematic if an answer disputing the premise was considered "not an answer" for that reason alone. I do think it is important to do so kindly, to be as helpful as possible in doing so; we've not always been good about that.

Sklivvz

7:28 PM

It was NOT disputing the premise

it was saying "I would not bother" not "it's impossible"

Which is why it was also offensive

Princess Olivia

@Sklivvz How is that offensive?

Sklivvz

I find it problematic this was not fixed

Shog9

And that's why I rewrote it. You weren't asking for opinions or personal experiences; that phrase was out of place.

John Dvorak

@Sklivvz skeptics is a ... different kind of worms, if that's what you're referring to

Sklivvz

Sure Shog, but... 10 years man

M.A.R.

7:29 PM

. . .

Shog9

Well, I'm not the only one with editing privs on SO... Just sayin'...

M.A.R.

@JohnDvorak Honestly, I think the average person is way more likely to find "Skeptics" harsher, esp. on political matters.

Sklivvz

Sure because I wanted to get in an edit war after my flags were denied right?

Shog9

Was talking about this with a few people just yesterday. We overlook editing on SO too often, to our collective detriment.

Meta Andrew T.

I don't even know there's that question on SO...

John Dvorak

7:30 PM

@M.A.R. I do find Skeptics' approach a bit too harsh, but that's neither here nor there

Shog9

Editing is hard. And it's just as easy to come off as cruel in an edit as in an answer... But it's a useful skill and a skill that I, for one, would like to do more to encourage.

As SO continues to age, editing stuff like this will be all the more important.

Sklivvz

Anyways: the other point is @Shog9 and everyone. I sincerely found that and the mods behavior really offensive. You have to empathize a bit here.

Shog9

So, open to suggestions on how we can encourage more of it.

Sklivvz

It's not about ME, but you are losing users every day because of this

You can't have this

John Dvorak

@Sklivvz Reference?

Princess Olivia

7:32 PM

@Shog9 well, how about starting with a meta post saying editing stuff is actually fine? The edit you did and described directly contradicts an edit review reason ("conflicts with author's intent")

Sklivvz

It's sincerely, said without anger, toxic

Shog9

@PrincessOlivia I've written several... Here's one:

35

A: Is it OK to edit the question to change the author's intention?

The amount of blind dogma being repeated in this thread is depressing... NO it's not appropriate to change a question such that it no longer reflects what the asker needed help with - but in order to edit effectively without doing that, you must first understand the intent of the author! How? Co...

Talks about questions, but generally-applicable I think

Princess Olivia

@Sklivvz Because of this? No. I doubt we're losing users daily over a post you disagree with and have flagged multiple times.

Shog9

Here's a shorter answer with a stronger assertion:

M.A.R.

Well, some people are like that. Some people post only code in the answers with no obvious explanation. Some people are outright rude.

Shog9

7:33 PM

21

A: User edited 'barely an answer' with perfectly complete answer

I should probably just approve the edit, in order for the post to appear on the site, as it's clearly an improvement. Yep. Don't second-guess yourself. If you're certain the edit makes the answer better, approve it. Consider that the alternative is you rejecting the edit, leaving a crappy a...

Sklivvz

@Shog9 funnily I edit stuff all the times on Skeptics, just to tone it down... therefore: thanks for toning that down, that's certainly much better. But please make sure that this stuff gets addressed in general

John Dvorak

That. I don't think we're losing users because of frame-challenge answers.

M.A.R.

To me it boils down to sending the right message with how the UI should feel like.

Shog9

@Sklivvz I'm tryin' man. And on that note... I got a report I need to get back to writing.

John Dvorak

@Sklivvz Suggestions how to improve folk's language skills are certainly welcome

M.A.R.

7:34 PM

It's not language skills

Sklivvz

Mine weren't man. I flagged this with context for years

M.A.R.

I doubt that answerer would have put it any other way.

Princess Olivia

@Shog9 thanks - added those to my favorites so I don't lose them ^^"

John Dvorak

Assuming good faith goes a long way toward smooth communication

Sklivvz

the answerer was snarky as hell, but @Shog9 has magic fingers

M.A.R.

7:35 PM

It's also probably debatable whether blunter answers are always worse.

John Dvorak

^

Meta Andrew T.

Out of so many readers, only a handful (up)votes, and only a handful of a handful edits...

Sklivvz

If they hurt my feelings I'm going to kick back

Just saying. fuck that attitude

M.A.R.

I also think that teacher of mine was an arsehole. But hell, I both remember HIM, and his TIPS.

John Dvorak

@Sklivvz many, many askers are hurt by getting their questions closed.

M.A.R.

7:36 PM

Can't tell the same for the nice guy.

Sklivvz

Yes and in many cases they are right!

John Dvorak

In the vast majority of cases, they aren't

Sklivvz

I can't name SO without having some developer telling me "i've tried to ask a question the best I could, they closed it, I don't ask anymore"

I hear it literally weekly

M.A.R.

And I had some very oddly nice teachers. A lot of them, you know, the type that seems detached-from-reality nice o.o

John Dvorak

Plenty of people just copy/paste their homework assignments to SO, or just post a screenshot of error message and expect us to tell them which line of their code is wrong.

Sklivvz

7:38 PM

Straw man

Meta Andrew T.

@M.A.R. TBF, I often try to edit and use neutral POV and words on the sites I care since being influenced by Wikipedia's policy

Sklivvz

These are all professionals

Even people with 5-10 years experience

they are terrified of posting here

John Dvorak

Do you have specific examples of questions you feel were unfairly closed?

Sklivvz

THat's how shitty the reputation is

Princess Olivia

@Sklivvz so?

Sklivvz

7:39 PM

So? wow

M.A.R.

@MetaAndrewT. exactamundo.

Princess Olivia

People with decades of experience can still be awful at writing questions

John Dvorak

^

Princess Olivia

Equivalently, a person with two days in coding can write a fantastic question

Sklivvz

Sure, but perhaps NOT folks

M.A.R.

7:39 PM

If people felt like they're writing something like a wiki, there'd be less of those answers

Sklivvz

Stop assuming every closed question is bad and then use that to prove every closed question is bad

John Dvorak

I don't, but the vast majority of closed questions is bad.

Princess Olivia

At what point did we assume that?

Sklivvz

1) we should not be a hurt farm for people that don't know how to ask the best question

John Dvorak

1 min ago, by John Dvorak

Do you have specific examples of questions you feel were unfairly closed?

Sklivvz

7:40 PM

2) we are a hurt farm even for people that can do that

@JohnDvorak go look

M.A.R.

@Sklivvz Well, TBH, everyone here is experienced where they're active, but when we try to post something on a new site, we have no idea what to do (other than the general grammar and formatting tips).

It's the same for most new users, I think.

Meta Andrew T.

Ergh, I have so many programming questions that can't be asked on SO, and I know it. That's why I never ask it. Probably asking on a chat will be better (if not lazy).

Sklivvz

Sure, but we are HURTING THEM

M.A.R.

They have no idea what to frame their questions, and that's mostly not their fault.

Kevin B

I don't understand how people can ask programming questions

M.A.R.

7:42 PM

They don't know if it's like Reddit, if they should be funny, or if it should seem like they're doing a fundraiser for lung cancer

Kevin B

like, there's so much information out there already

Sklivvz

Sometimes I think we should open a new SO

John Dvorak

@Sklivvz absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, and evidence of presence of unfairly closed question would be best provided by your colleagues

Princess Olivia

@Sklivvz You need to stop making differences between "us" and "them". Moderating users aren't doing any more or less damage than active askers potentially could

Sklivvz

Not interested in your diversions John

Meta Andrew T.

7:43 PM

@Sklivvz so be it, please, oh please open it and prove it to SO that they can.

Sklivvz

It would be great

I mean, they would make mistakes

M.A.R.

I think both Sklivvz and John and Olivia are right but they're facing different views of the vase.

Sklivvz

they would create their own rules about what works

Princess Olivia

So do it. There's a bunch of open-source clones of SE if you wanna have a go

Sklivvz

No I mean Stack Overflow should

Princess Olivia

7:44 PM

They won't

M.A.R.

A lot of questions are crap. Are we clear on that.

John Dvorak

Let me clarify... you believe that too many questions are closed, and not enough answers are deleted?

Sklivvz

A lot of people want different rules, what's the harm?

Meta Andrew T.

Apparently the last welcoming developer-related Q&A site died

M.A.R.

There's quite many that can be saved but are not helped. Now can we agree on this one?

Kevin B

7:44 PM

A lot of wasted time on something that might not work?

Princess Olivia

@Sklivvz All of those people, without knowing it, also like to have a site that they can search

John Dvorak

@Sklivvz tragedy of the commons. Yahoo Answers is the commons.

Kevin B

a repeat of so docs?

Sklivvz

@JohnDvorak I believe that there is not enough focus on the emotional side of being part of SO

Princess Olivia

Having spent a lot of time recently ending up in forums, it's awful

Sklivvz

7:45 PM

I did not say they should not have rules

Princess Olivia

Answers aren't separated from comments, there's a million dupes and solutions everywhere. Finding potential solution sources is a bit like a needle in a haystack

M.A.R.

@Sklivvz A red herring I think. Addressing that is hiding the symptoms, using a pain killer.

Princess Olivia

@Sklivvz Neither did I

But you are aware of what "different rules" for most people implies, right?

M.A.R.

But whatever, it seems to make the only reasonable part of the direction the company is willing to go.

Princess Olivia

No closing, no downvotes, no dupes, no flags, no moderation in general for anything beyond blantant spam

Meta Andrew T.

7:46 PM

I mean, let's just open "a personal help desk programming site for free". Everyone's happy.

M.A.R.

I don't think he implied that

John Dvorak

@Sklivvz what do you propose then? In general, I mean

Kevin B

SO is already that

Meta Andrew T.

@KevinB We still resist, but yeah, I got your point...

Princess Olivia

@M.A.R. Having spent a lot of time looking at opinions, that's a recurring opinion. "Moderation is bad", "downvoters suck", etc.

M.A.R.

7:46 PM

This went south fast. Or fast south. I guess lengthy quick chats are bound to go that way. Gonna go confuse myself with conformations. Ciao

John Dvorak

@MetaAndrewT. Open SO for beginners, and only beginners will come = the answers will inevitably suck

Kevin B

Give it a few more years, we'll lose too broad and half the off topic reasons

Sklivvz

@M.A.R. not at all: SO is a professional site. I expect to be able to come here either ask a question and get an answer or be helped in clarifying my question and then get an answer, or be pointed at an already existing answer. None of which should make me feel like I'm treated like a moron

Princess Olivia

@JohnDvorak The answers won't necessarily suck, but it turns into a convoluted mess where previous questions are nearly useless in the future

John Dvorak

@Sklivvz that was none of the answerer's intention,

Princess Olivia

7:47 PM

Answers focused on a single case usually end up being too narrow to effectively help future cases

M.A.R.

@PrincessOlivia He's been modding here before I was present, so I assume he's considered that viewpoint and trying to moderate it and find a reasonable connect to the reality outside SO.

But this whole discussion has been rehashing old meta posts.

John Dvorak

@PrincessOlivia that's to be expected and embraced. Non-reusability isn't what I'm worried about.

Sklivvz

@JohnDvorak we don't know that, but even then -- that was the effect. And ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, that's what counts, because guess what? Someone who's been treated (in their own eyes) with snark, will feel validated in treating others likewise

John Dvorak

Assume good faith

Princess Olivia

@JohnDvorak True.

Meta Andrew T.

7:49 PM

@M.A.R. Yeah, it's 3am and I was about to sleep... oh well... drop dead on da bed

John Dvorak

@Sklivvz I must recommend against your universal retribution approach if that's what you're saying. It hurts the wrong people.

Sklivvz

I did not suggest any retribution

We should not hurt anyone

Princess Olivia

@Sklivvz Have you considered what you might make OP of that answer feel the way you behaved?

John Dvorak

What do you mean by "treating others likewise" then?

Sklivvz

@PrincessOlivia can't parse your sentence

Princess Olivia

7:52 PM

OP may have felt you were the toxic one, meaning you hurt them. (And please don't start a "I wasn't, they were" discussion - I really don't care. This is a hypothetical)

John Dvorak

@Sklivvz Accusing others of bad intentions is hurtful if your accusation turns out wrong

Sklivvz

@JohnDvorak I'm saying that if people are treated badly (in their own eyes) when they are on the site, then they will either leave or think it's OK to behave like they feel they have been treated

John Dvorak

@Sklivvz PO's point is that the answerer may have felt treated badly from your behavior

Princess Olivia

^

Sklivvz

@PrincessOlivia How so? I did not talk to them (or better I posted a comment and when they refused to fix I removed it). I actually avoided editing the answer so I would not have contacts with the OP.

Princess Olivia

7:54 PM

@Sklivvz And how did you phrase that comment?

You also publicly posted on Twitter at least once. Maybe someone follows you know is followed by someone who <long chain of magical Twitter algorithm stuff> ends up in the attention of OP

Sklivvz

Something along the lines of "this is not an answer" and certainly not "yo dawg, go eat my socks"

@PrincessOlivia after 10 years of being ignored

ten. years.

Kevin B

meh

What do you want done about it?

Sklivvz

More than happy to offer the OP a beer if they are offended though. But they did not say anything nor appointed either of you as their defendant

Princess Olivia

@Sklivvz So if I came back 10 years from now and yelled at you on Twitter for not agreeing with me and not changing your mind, that's fine?

Kevin B

what would solve the problem?

Sklivvz

7:56 PM

@PrincessOlivia I did not yell at them at all

John Dvorak

@Sklivvz Do you propose we halt this discussion until they can defend themself personally in here?

Sklivvz

@KevinB shog fixed the answer to something non offensive

Kevin B

Deleting an answer that has proven to be "useful" by the metrics we apparently use to quantify usefulness, isn't an option. so what next?

Sklivvz

@JohnDvorak it's 100% irrelevant

Kevin B

right

Princess Olivia

7:57 PM

@Sklivvz you literally posted a screenshot in which you showed you flagged their post as rude or abusive

Kevin B

so the problem is fixed

move on

Princess Olivia

that 's an extremely strong signal

Sklivvz

I have moved on 1h ago, why are you bringing this up mate

Can you please stop the accusation s and falsehoods @PrincessOlivia? I did no such thing. I posted the screenshot to show mods ignored my flags

And I am free to say I find something offensive all I like, that's not screaming at someone

Kevin B

And they're free to decide it wan't. ?

Sklivvz

They are not

My feelings are my own, how can they decide I was not offended?

Princess Olivia

7:59 PM

@Sklivvz I haven't accused you of anything. I mentioned hypotheticals, because it pisses me off when people say they've been treated unfairly and in a rude way, but fail to see that their own actions can be just as hurtful as what they felt they received

Kevin B

They can't tell you how you feel

they decide how to action the post

you don't

Sklivvz

@PrincessOlivia I know I tried my bestest to keep this about the answer and never about the person

@KevinB of course they can, i told them for 10 years

they just did not care

John Dvorak

Did they say you weren't offended, or that their answer wasn't offensive in the objective sense?

Meta Andrew T.

This is basically rehasing the same ol' "Welcoming" blog post again. I don't think this issue will resolve well on here.

Princess Olivia

@Sklivvz People are offended by downvotes. What makes you think OP can't be offended by what you've said about their post?

Meta Andrew T.

8:01 PM

Use "contact us" to escalate.

Kevin B

i mean... there's nothing to fix, what's contact us gonna do

Sklivvz

@JohnDvorak they declined multiple times to address my flags and ultimately sent me a "be nice" modmessage without reason

John Dvorak

@Sklivvz No action doesn't mean they don't understand your viewpoint

Sklivvz

@PrincessOlivia people can be offended by the rain, however it's not my fault if it rains. If I talk about a post, I'm not talking about a person

John Dvorak

@Sklivvz Did the other person do otherwise?

Princess Olivia

8:03 PM

@Sklivvz Yet, you're offended by an answer that replied in a general way to your question. It's not your fauly if it rains, but it is your fault if you talk about a post. You could chose not to. you could chose to make it a rant. You could chose to go balistic. If you have a choice, you affect an outcome.

Meta Andrew T.

Well, I'm out (to bed).

John Dvorak

If they only talked about their post, they're on the same footing as you

Sklivvz

That's why initially I flagged it as NAA

Princess Olivia

Right, but what you initially did doesn't really matter

John Dvorak

Which was rightfully declined.

Princess Olivia

8:05 PM

It's what you did every time you had a choice.

Sklivvz

disagree

Kevin B

You're free to disagree

Princess Olivia

^

Kevin B

but doing so doesn't change that multiple other people didn't

Sklivvz

Guys you are maddening

3 against one I can't even type fast enough

John Dvorak

8:05 PM

No. You are maddened by us.

Sklivvz

Anything more puerile to add?

Princess Olivia

@Sklivvz you also wrote "posted by a person that does not understand the problem" in one of your flags. I'd say that's targeting the person, and it can be understood a multitude of different ways, including ones in which OP feels insulted.

John Dvorak

Asking us to slow down is a valid request, although I can't promise I'll succeed at that

Tinkeringbell

@JohnDvorak Three against one is kinda maddening though. Either slow this down a notch so you're not all saying the same thing, or perhaps just knock this off for now ;)

Sklivvz

so what I'm addressing my perception, but I'm not telling this to the other side...

I was trying to make the mods understand

and tell you what

John Dvorak

8:08 PM

@Tinkeringbell Understood

Sklivvz

it would have been easy, over and over, to just talk to me like Shog did

just ask me

or ask the other person even

there are a million ways to defuse this

declining flags and ignoring the problem for 10 years is probably not the best way

John Dvorak

Unfortunately it's not viable to spring up personal conversation on every declined flag.

Princess Olivia

There's also a million ways to ignite it, and a million ways to end it

Sklivvz

@JohnDvorak which is why I (after 10 years) I escalated it in a way I know it would get attention

And guess what, it got a bit of that, so perhaps I was not totally off mark

John Dvorak

Brought up to chat. I have no objection to that.

Sklivvz

8:10 PM

I routinely post my opinions on Twitter, and Shog knows that. We've been friends for years

John Dvorak

I don't follow twitter at all. Sorry about that.

Sklivvz

That's fine, I thought you were going to bring it up

In any case: thanks for the chat

I hope we will find a better way to deal with the "I don't understand this specialistic question so it must be an XY problem" problem in the future

Kevin B

sigh

John Dvorak

Everyone thinks their question is a special case and not an XY problem.

those that think about their situation at all, that is (which you do)

Sklivvz

Well it was farily specialistic in the sense that it was about unicode, globalization and what is considered a valid name worldwide.

If you look at the answers it's depressing how many people answer with [a-zA-Z] or similar

And it's also fairly clear that the specific answer was based on ignoring the fact that there are actually laws around names and surnames, let alone that most of the heavy lifting is done by unicode and regex classes anyways.

John Dvorak

8:22 PM

True. And "the variation is too high to be covered by any reasonable regex" is a valid (correct or not) answer.

Sklivvz

Agreed. But it wasn't originally that

John Dvorak

The words were different but the intent was the same (otherwise Shog9's edit would have been invalid)

Sklivvz

it was a flat out "i would not bother" without any qualification :-)

John Dvorak

I read it as "you shouldn't bother" rather than "I don't care to answer"

Sklivvz

I guess we imply different intents. Shog9 may or may not have chosen to use the most favorable intent in order to make everyone happy (and that's why he's good at his job)

John Dvorak

8:25 PM

Choosing the most favorable intent to make everyone happy is the generally recommended approach

Sklivvz

As he said "You weren't asking for opinions or personal experiences; that phrase was out of place."

But basically that was everything there was. All the rest was added creatively.

John Dvorak

Are you saying that Shog's edit changed the answer's intent?

Sklivvz

I think he put in words what he read into it, but he added a lot of stuff that was not originally expressed

He gave his best interpretation and wrote in 300 words what the OP (according to Shog) intended to write

Whether those were the original intentions, only the OP knows

John Dvorak

8:40 PM

Assume good faith

Sklivvz

Even assuming good faith, it was a poor answer

IOW in need of improvement at the very least

John Dvorak

Such as the one provided by Shog9?

M.A.R.

I hope the sighing is over.

Because dang, I found an interesting fact nugget.

Steroids are so stable that samples of unchanged steroids have been recovered aging around 1.5 billion years.

Let's pretend that's important. Let me pretend that's important

c.f. DNA, with a half life of 521 years.

410

8:58 PM

Leaving regexuses aside, I find it curious that Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! has total area 110.50 sq.km of which 112.31 sq.km is land.

An antimatter lake covering ~2 sq.km?

Kevin B

meh

John Dvorak

That place name is epic!

There's also this wine brand: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Est!_Est!!_Est!!!_di_Montefiascone

Lojban uses apostrophes, periods and commas as letters...

410

My digital wall clock shows correct local time, followed by 9-26 TUE.

But I know it can't be right... This must be a Thursday.

In either event, I'm going to drink like it's Thursday.

M.A.R.

Don't jinx it, it'll soon be Friday

. . . parents are sometimes assholes :/ Why would you name your kid "Robocop" or "TALULA DOES THE HULA FROM HAWAII"? Why would be so stupid or ignorant to ruin your child's life forever just because you can?

Can't believe I'm saying this, but (to a religious fundamentalist), naming your kid Pope Francis or Bin Laden or Stalin would make more sense than those.

That's why we can't be nice things I guess.

Dutchmen are wise.

Kevin B

9:19 PM

i mean... better than being the 15th matt

M.A.R.

Better in the sense of ruining most of the prestigious future job offerings, and psychologically scar the kid for being mocked absolutely wherever they go.

That said

You'd have to wait until I catch up with the US election buzz and by then it'd probably be over.

But there's no shortage of Trump or Biden jokes.

Maybe the latter. You just wait for a while.

Also, check this out: chemtube3d.com/stcyclohexane-ring-flip

Fun 3D thing to play with.

Also relevant to my avatar.

Optimus Prime

10:05 PM

Anybody use outlook and send attachments from it? thehackernews.com/2019/09/email-attachment-malware.html?m=1

410

10:38 PM

I do.

Including OWA when I'm doing work things at home, which I shouldn't.

Not being able to email a Python script could be annoying, but at this day and age I would be sharing a Google Colab file instead.

In retrospect, the fire alarm at 4am is probably responsible for some of the things I did and said today.

But no matter. Pumpkin spice latte time.

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