@gnat My response to that would break the COC, and the be nice rule but...

Having taken a deep breath, I'd say, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.

This is hardly funny. Folks I know are affected and there's just too much hostilty and rawness over this

Not the time, place or tone

....... why do I see the room flags?

You have 10k? /shrug

Congrads on the 10K?

That is a thing???

Yup

Yeah. You can see flags when you have 10k in chat

Welcome to the club

......

Anywhere on the server

never noticed that.

Flags here are rare

challenge accepted

There's literally under a dozen active rooms

network-wide flags on chat.SE sound like a pain

Oh

they're a whole load of drama

And one of the reasons behind the Language! meme on root access.

@AndrasDeak I'm sure you can win but prefer you nor anyone else does give that a try ...

aww

@SPArchaeologist-様 If you have 10k+ on the whole chat server (so for c.mse only on mse) you can see and action chat flags

like an impromptu review queue

oh right, this is chat.MSE, sorry

Is that the blue number that sometimes pops up, like a mention?

@MechMK1 yup

@AndrasDeak the fun is when you get russian flags

on a russian chatroom

and you don't read russian

at least I learned Russian for 4 years ;)

I really dislike those, because it's always flags that are either in spanish or russian

I mean, I love doing review tasks. I love Triage on SO and LQP basically everywhere

but I wish the things I am supposed to review would be in a language I speak

@MechMK1 hey, foreign language in LQP is a free ride

@AndrasDeak Yes, that may be true, but chat reviews are the only site where I am confronted with foreign languages that are on-topic there. It's as if I clicked triage on SO and suddenly got questions from the japanese SO subsite

well that's why you can wave away the flag

But it feels like a problem that shouldn't even exist. The russian chat is known to be russian only, and spreading flags to people who may or may not speak russian, but are guaranteed to speak english, sounds a bit weird to me

@MechMK1 yup

any kind of machinery to ensure that only Russian-language flags from the Russian room are not shown to others would be prone to false positives and false negatives

there are plenty of people who speak Russian, plenty of them might not be in that room

seems easier to offload the burden to the possible reviewers

(that being said, I don't chat on SE much :D)

@MechMK1 also people would flag profanity far after the fact

and it would get validated

and folks on my chatroom would be fuming.

(and that's totally why we go LANGUAGE! and have a mod clean up on root access)

but which one?

What I meant with that statement was "Show russian flags to users of russian chatrooms, or users who have high rep on russian sites"

If I have 2k rep on russian SO, then the system "knows" that a flag from russian SO chat can be given to me

@MechMK1 and well that's one of the reasons chat moderation is broken ;p

@MechMK1 but plenty of Russian users might not have enough rep on Russian SO

Oh wow, apparently the person who wrote this blog post, which I heavily criticized in the DMZ, is the same person who wrote this "answer".

(or more precisely - the system of flags for moderation of chat hasn't scaled that well with the broader more diverse community it serves, at least linguistically)

@MechMK1 many folks are having a bad week

@JourneymanGeek I understand it completely

@MechMK1 and at this point. At this... well stage of how things go

I don't think assigning blame to an individual is helpful

No, absolutely not

but who are we going to blame without a scapegoat?

There will probably be a time and place for it

Oh, I know!

@AndrasDeak I am blaming the fact that many many different problematics are coming together

@AndrasDeak YOU CANNAE PROVE NOTHING!

Some see it as an issue of respect, others care about the licensing, others about freedom of speech

I dinnae ken how ye did it, but ye did it

@JourneymanGeek I canine prove everything

barking noises

"The Stack Crisis" - as I happen to call it from now on - is the result of many many factors coming together and trying to seek a simple solution, or even just a simple explanation for it, is not possible or productive.

you'll have a hard time pinning down the date of the crisis though

@AndrasDeak Such things are complicated, and it's hard to find "day 0", if there is such a thing on its own

I'm talking about "year 0"

One major factor, that I have identified, is that high-contribution users have a vastly different goal than SE, Inc., and that has been happening forever

@AndrasDeak I think one major thing that happened was the relicensing issue, that was barely addressed by SE, Inc. as far as I am aware, but I might be wrong

@Journey Uncle Sam blame chooses you.

@MechMK1 go back a year or two

@MechMK1 hell no

...it all started when the Fire Nation attacked

this runs deeper

I am aware, but I have started being active again since summer this year

@AndrasDeak Roku is a dork. There I said it.

@MechMK1 Speculation about individual staff members is not on in this room. Please refrain

@MechMK1 It's not your fault but evidently that's terrible timing

→ 1 message moved to Trashcan

@Magisch Yes, makes sense

@M.A.R. As I mentioned before, it's many things coming together

Many people feel hurt, and emotional responses are not known for being the most rational or constructive.

@MechMK1 which is precisely why I'm taking the stand I do now

@JourneymanGeek Listening to each other?

@MechMK1 yes

@JourneymanGeek Sorry, can't see you over the whole crowd standing up

and honestly - it makes it a lot harder for people to write you off if you're being reasonable

Could you get on a ladder

@JourneymanGeek That's completely understanding. I'm not here to incite a grassroots revolution. It's counterproductive and only furthers an "us vs. them" mentality.

I personally would like SE, Inc. to acknowledge that their goals as a profit-oriented company are different than those of the community, and would like to see a plan on how a consensus with the community can be reached.

@MechMK1 normally when people sign up to multilingual sites, and gain moderation privileged, they are asked if they can help in other languages, and can mark checkboxes with those languages, we can post a feature request for that for chat flags

A "We are listening to you, and these are our plans for the future"-kind-of-post

@MechMK1 ah here's a thing

I don't think being profit oriented is at odds with the community

@user1306322 IIRC already suggested

And sitting perfectly happily still somewhere

Do not disturb the peace

@user1306322 Yes, I would gladly moderate english and german

@JourneymanGeek meaning it doesn't have to be, but in this case it probably is

@AndrasDeak Those are my thoughts exactly

I'd like to disturb that peace with an upvote if I may, can anyone find that feature request? :p

@MechMK1 . . . I would definitely not want to moderate ELU O.O

@AndrasDeak that's to say - that they're trying to make money is not an excuse for this...

@user1306322 what about niche languages that only a few people speak? Is it exclusion to not include them in the checkbox?

@M.A.R. "ELU"?

@JourneymanGeek oh, agreed

@MechMK1 English Language and Usage

@JourneymanGeek Well sure

But aren't you already exhausted about discussing this?

@AndrasDeak all SE sites are English first iirc and we only have a few dedicated language sites, so I don't think it would be too bad to only have that list of 10 or so languages

@M.A.R. No, but I personally see "I speak English" as "I can moderate flags from many different chatrooms"

@MechMK1 Oh you mean chat

Still too much of a headache

@user1306322 are foreign-language chatrooms restricted to the languages for which there's a dedicated SO site? Plus language-related sites?

@M.A.R. Yes, since people get many chat flags for posts made in spanish or russian

@MechMK1 there's an informal system for that. Usually involving knowing someone speaks a language or ignoring it

Because it wouldn't be anonymous then

@M.A.R. and yet, here I am

so if you sign up for Russian Language for example, you automatically get checkboxes for Russian, and are asked about English and other languages for when you eventually gain 10k rep for chat, for example

I speak Martian, for future reference

@JourneymanGeek Where, where are you?

O' where art thou, brother.

I personally saw many good arguments on how SE, Inc.'s strive to become profitable hurt the community. I would have to get digging for references, but I'm sure you've seen them too.

@AndrasDeak I mean not restricted, but I think English is accepted in every site and chat, and the main language of the language site is also on equal terms with English there

But I mean generally. How much more is there to be said on something that's so kept hidden by almost everyone.

@user1306322 I don't see how that applies to my point. My point is that I thought on chat.SE people can have foreign-language rooms in general

yes they can

OK, so you can't just give them checkboxes for the few languages that have dedicated SE sites, yes?

Nope

in theory everything here should be in english though

"Here" as in chat.MSE?

I've been talking about chat.SE

But I once had a conversation in badly transliterated tamil with a former CM

@AndrasDeak oh chat in general

Chat.SE even more so

@M.A.R. Reported!

@JourneymanGeek oof

We don't get much drama here.

@MechMK1 (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

@JourneymanGeek I thought chat.SE supported foreign-language chat. At least when this comes up on chat.SO the go-to response is "go to chat.SE" meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/323810/…

@AndrasDeak oh it works

@M.A.R. Donau­dampfschifffahrts­elektrizitäten­hauptbetriebswerk­bauunterbeamten­gesellschaft

Oh yeah, him.

@JourneymanGeek so you're saying it's only tolerated on chat.SE

@AndrasDeak well no

We don't notice it all, sure

in my experience, in chats attached to sites not dedicated to a certain language, English is considered the main language and sometimes mods may pop in and ask to stop speaking in non-English so all English-speaking users may understand the conversation

but if you're not lucky enough to find a native language mod....

and someone flags something

in chats attached to language sites it's fine to have discussions in both English and the language of the site, but again any extra languages will receive similar requests to go back to one of the 2 languages supported in the room

The results can be unpredictable

I see, I guess it's similar to chat.SO, it's just that there's a higher chance of a mod speaking your language due to sheer volume and diversity

Well honestly - if someone really wanted to

I think it would be possible to work out a compromise that could work

@AndrasDeak He's saying that in principle, if a mod is really pissed off at troublemakers, they could get away with dismissing annoying complaints with "If you wanted to be 100 % safe, you should have conversed in English".

What exactly is the reason of enforcing an "English-only" policy?

but you would absolutely need a point of contact and some idea of how to deal with things

@MechMK1 moderation mainly

@MechMK1 being able to understand if something needs deletion/suspension

You cannot moderate what you don't understand

@MechMK1 Non-English is not all that moderation-able-ity-ness

google translate is not very good with phonetic slang

@MechMK1 most users are English speakers so majority of users needs to be able to understand what's going on

So what about using encryption?

@MechMK1 probably worse than a foreign language

@MechMK1 If someone is trolling, they have it coming.

@MechMK1 Well people might kick you for flooding a room

I mean that seriously

and at that point you might as well just use another chat system

What if I made my own room to talk with someone?

I mean it seriously too. We don't need to narrow it down to every possible scenario

@MechMK1 afaik you can do whatever you want (within code of conduct and legal system) in a chat room which is not the main chat room to which you are redirected to when you click "chat" on a site

One of the key things in SE chat is, with a few exceptions, everything should be public

That's why mods exists and scripts don't moderate.

It's also why "f*ck" is not autobanned

if you're trying to bend the rules - well, the outcome can be unpredictable

@user1306322 but mods have to be able to tell if you're within code of conduct and legal system

@JourneymanGeek Without trying to sound pedantic, where can I see that?

@MechMK1 I mean literally

Using a foreign language is natural, and a bit of a gamble. Using encryption or other obfuscation shows clear intent on trying to hide things. I'd think it's definitelly hammerable.

it depends on who sees and acts on it

@user1306322 People do it shrug

all moderation in chat is done by humans with discretion

@AndrasDeak I'm not so sure about that, if we're talking about encrypted messages

rule lawyering doesnt work here

wasn't there a number of rooms with very cryptic chat posts somewhere in the area of code golf sites?

Hence the unpredictable

I'm not trying to be a rule lawyer, but I can't see any mention of "Everything must be public" in the Chat FAQ

I know reddit has some subs with mysterious unknown number posts and MD5 hashes

room owners have a decent amount of autonomy in setting room rules

@MechMK1 actually you're totally doing it

Default public is one of the big strengths and annoyances of SE chat

I could make a chatroom in which the only permissible discussion is about the virtues of critrus fruit

If you don't want people reading it, go somewhere else.

private chat rooms are for moderation purposes only

And mods don't have to entertain rule lawyering. They can just suspend you.

strictly

@AndrasDeak We will ask you nicely

THEN we will suspend you

@AndrasDeak Genau

Well hypothetically anyway

@JourneymanGeek rule lawyering comes after asking nicely, usually

if asked, any employee would answer that the purpose of chat is to help improve the main site content first and foremost, so if you're gonna create a chat room for citruses only even on a cooking site, idk if that is wide enough range of topics :p

@AndrasDeak well yes.

I'm just trying to understand what the rules are that I have to adhere to. I would not want to be suspended or banned from chat because I violated a rule that I didn't know existed. Hence my question. I considered "rule lawyering" as "But the specific wording of this rule doesn't specifically exclude this one thing"

Which is why sometimes some additional encouragement is needed

@MechMK1 be transparent and act in good faith. That's mostly it. Oh, and be nice.

@user1306322 The requirements from staff for chat rooms usually center around what they can't be

@MechMK1 If Jeff intended SE chat to be private, he'd do that.

Private chat rooms would probably be too much of a risk for Stack Exchange

Because those rooms would still need to be moderated

Yup

There are private chat rooms here

they're just used for coordinating moderation activities only

It's all common sense, because that's the only commonly used implicit tool for determining intentions

@MechMK1 Not just risk. Chat itself is already this weird side server that sees very little dev support. Why on earth would they host private chatrooms?

@MechMK1 if you do something like create your own chat room somewhere where you're not bothering anyone, immediate worst case is probably a mod coming over and asking you to stop, then maybe a suspension, then a longer suspension. But if you start DDOSing a chat room with infinite bot posts of MD5 hashes, I would expect you to receive a very fast long term suspension for doing weeeird stuff, so don't experiment with that maybe

chat is only there to help support the main sites

@AndrasDeak there was a time it was a pretty key part of the SE experience

was even on the top bar

@JourneymanGeek whoah

too bad that now even public Q&A is hidden :'D

Oh boy, there we go again :p

@user1306322 I was more asking about using PGP to talk to a user to crack some dark jokes

The jaded Clintman geek talk

@Magisch idk, I've only read a few comments about what staff thinks of chat, much more of my info comes from mods and high tier users

Because the problem with dark humor is that it can be considered hurtful, even if it's not intended to be.

@MechMK1 that might not be a problem if done in a non-main chat room, I'd ask around though

→ 1 message moved to Trashcan

There's nothing right with batman making a joke

@MechMK1 rule of thumb: if you think it could reasonably offend someone, don't post it. Simple as that.

@rene we're extra careful these days?

@AndrasDeak It's hard to tell what other people may deem offensive

either that or post it transparently and calculate your risk of getting a 30-minute suspend if someone flags it and others agree

@rene A silent guardian, a watchful protector

The simple truth of the matter is rules are easy going as long as everyone has a shared understanding of civility

@MechMK1 so how would you decide what to encode?

think of it as the watercooler at work

@user1306322 Aye, for good reason

I mean the joke has been read by all who needed to read it, so it's fine

a variety of topics may be discussed, but everyone shares the understanding they're still at work

@AndrasDeak I can tell you very much what I am 99% sure somebody will consider offensive :^D

@user1306322 It is, he didn't want later potential trouble for you

Be grateful, and water @rene

@user1306322 yes, just watch your phrasing please.

@AndrasDeak Though what is the problem then with me encrypting my joke for the person whom I want to send it to. I know they will not be offended, and neither will anyone else be.

"This is an encoded message."

DECODE THAT.

@MechMK1 Then what is the problem with you doing it elsewhere; somewhere that doesn't have a permanent transcript?

@MechMK1 FYI we're back to rule lawyering. Fortunately I don't have to convince you of anything.

Yeah. You have to convince me.

@MechMK1 no u

@MechMK1 if you can't say it here. You shouldn't say it in any way

Its no different from me writing a dirty joke in proper tamil script

→ 1 message moved to Trashcan

@JourneymanGeek You're full of surprises

I understand the idea of no dark jokes, but it still bothers me personally. Well, nothing to be done

Actually, I dunno, I think it was a bit vague there

@M.A.R. I can write! I know!

that newline was in a weird place

like I said, this isn't a drinking house, this is more like the water cooler at work

@MechMK1 and that's the price you pay for sharing a space

its part of the social contract

What if the water is warm.

TWP is now down to 0 active mods

@M.A.R. you make noodles

@JourneymanGeek But spicy memes!

@MechMK1 Well, anecdotally, some chats have been pretty lenient about language at times, to the degree of a Deadpool movie, but all the ones I know have run into trouble at one time or another and had to pay the piper even for older, irrelevant messages.

@MechMK1 you find or make an appropriate place for it

I don't like it

Do NOT pay the piper. You encourage more pipering.

but its the price I pay for being able to use the chatrooms

@JourneymanGeek it was meant to be a joke. I understand the reason behind it

@MechMK1 What kind of a justification would that be for someone having a bad day or taking offense to it or simply thinking it was in poor taste?

GOLLY

But, in our defense, RPG is a whole different thing

The workplace is now down to one inactive moderator

@M.A.R. I think you misunderstood. My message "But spicy memes!" was meant to be a joke. I understand the reasons behind it. Unless you took offense from "But spicy memes!", in which case I apologize

Seems like they wont get around a soonish election

@MechMK1 Oh, sorry, I misunderstood

Redundant message of the day

I dunno which message up there is more redundant ^

Maybe it's this one

Somebody halp

Warning. This sign has sharp edges.

Looks at the main page Man, I can't keep up.