Tavern on the Meta

kush

00:29

Andras I just remembered you used to help me in the python chat, right?

Journeyman Geek

02:04

→ 17 messages moved to Chimney

Stormblessed

04:12

Anyone have a SEDE for how many posts contain an inputted regex?

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Stormblessed There's a Data Explorer room on this server

Stormblessed

Data Explorer (SEDE)

For discussions related to SEDE queries and anything related t...

1

Stormblessed

oh yeah I'd found that

@Sonic thanks!

people on Meta are nice

0

Q: Stack Exchange is messing up my links to Amazon

Stack Exchange is messing up my links to Amazon. Example: https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/hpc/3774321, which works (can't post as link as SE will transform it), is transformed into https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/3774321, which is 404.

How did the OP VTC before Ward did?

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Stormblessed They used a normal close vote instead of the "that solved my problem" button

Stormblessed

04:22

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog oh ok, how'd you check?

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Stormblessed Their name showed up

If they used the button, it'd just be the Community user

rene

05:09

→ 4 messages moved to Chimney

202324

06:28

Good morning at the Tavern.

rene

Well, sure.

!!/coffee

SmokeDetector

@rene brews a cup of Macchiato for @rene

Magisch

06:42

morning

!!/tea

SmokeDetector

@Magisch brews a cup of green tea for @Magisch

Andras Deak

07:48

@kush possible

Feeds

08:15

We've met! I remember you when you were thiiiis tall! [*holds a hand an inch above their head*]

Journeyman Geek

08:29

@Feeds that's perfect fine for some grandparents

user351483

!!/beer

SmokeDetector

@Snow No such command 'beer'.

Magisch

smokey only makes coffee and tea

and jquery

user351483

sigh probably too early anyway.

Magisch

heh

How's TWP holding up? Is the flag volume concerning for 2 people?

Rob

08:37

@Feeds I won't be wearing The Skipper's hat but would be proud for my child to say I'm over 100!; particularly if they're young.

user351483

@Magisch Nope. All is good and no dramas to speak of. gnat is approaching 10K helpful flags.

Magisch

@Snow sounds nice. I've resolved to make a habit of reviewing more most days

user351483

Good, that helps a great deal. Thank you. It's a bit sad to see that red spot on the review queue.

Magisch

and 200 more rep then I can VTD answers

user351483

Answering questions would probably help there! :P

Magisch

08:44

there aren't so many where I feel that a) my perspective is useful and unique and b) a similar perspective hasn't been given already

user351483

I know. And people tend to answer quickly. Which is good. It's not good to see questions being left unattended.

Magisch

Thankfully there are very few questions with not at least a decent answer

unless they're off topic in which case answering them wouldn't be right anyways

user351483

There are people who seek to help the OP regardless of whether a question is on topic or not. I'm not entirely against that. I know that some sites punish people for answering off-topic questions.

Magisch

I like it when people at least give pointers in comments on OT questions

Although that is technically a misuse of the comment. But sometimes you can pack it with useful comment material like why the question is OT in its current state and how to fix it. Idk I'm not too hot on people who punish users who answer OT questions. After all we're all doing this for free out of a desire to help

ComFreek

For a moment I thought the "Addic Static Code Analysis to StackOverflow" meant they added this to questions & answers :D But they are just doing this on their internal code base.

Journeyman Geek

08:58

@Snow The best help you can do is pointing someone in the right direction ;p

rene

@ComFreek not a bad idea .. This PHP code doesn't look like C# and is therefor rejected.

user351483

@JourneymanGeek There's been times when the manner of that pointing has led me to no longer participate in the site at hand.

Journeyman Geek

@Snow yup

But I think sometimes tact is important

Magisch

Tone matters a lot. No matter how often we tell us that it's all about the facts and nothing about the social context, it does come into play

Journeyman Geek

@Magisch it does

Andras Deak

09:50

@Magisch shoot, then I may have to reword my canned comment that starts with "you dumb"

Bart

"Thou art not the sharpest knife in the drawer" will do

Journeyman Geek

@AndrasDeak for all the complaints I get about how naively optimistic I sound - its worth considering that could also be a concious choice.

Likewise - consider, if you may, how an imperitive "or else" sounds compared to very slight, subtile social pressure "I feel that this might not be the best way..."

PM 2Ring

10:27

@JourneymanGeek Optimism may seem naive, but it sure feels better than constant gloomy pessimism. I'm sure you've seen this comic, so I won't one-box it.

Journeyman Geek

10:47

@PM2Ring yup

Magisch

The real trick is not getting what you want by using your powers, but to only use powers when asking nicely has failed

Like we rarely have to kick instead of letting getting a kick speak for itself like other rooms practice

M.A.R.

11:00

The real power is not tricking what you get by using your want, but to only ask uses when powering nicely has failed.

Magisch

@M.A.R. str.split(' ').shuffle().toString()

Journeyman Geek

11:33

@M.A.R. woof.

@Magisch I've never really had positional power or respect outside here.

So personally it's just how I have had to handle things my whole life

Even when I get it... Its from how people see me

Magisch

I'm the DPO at my job. I never had to threaten anyone with HR. Usually asking & explaining your reasoning works wonders where coercion would not really.

Anne Daunted

12:28

It must take a ton of courage to anonymize one's account and hide all other accounts and then again attack someone who uses her real name and doesn't have the option anyway, because even the press published it already. And wait until Yom Kippur started so she won't even be online to reply (as she announced beforehand).

user194636

Comments were a mistake.

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted ow. Where?

Flag it.

Erf

Bart

@AnneDaunted feel free to let us know here if we can help out somehow through extra flags.

Journeyman Geek

I know there's mods active at the moment/I can probably get some help

Magisch

If Anne means what I think she means you might not want to

it's ... erf

@JourneymanGeek can you poke someone to unfeature this: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/333763/…

Journeyman Geek

12:44

ah uhm

scratches head

Andras Deak

@Magisch ah, yes

Journeyman Geek

We usually left that to the CMs

one moment

Anne Daunted

Thanks, but it needn't be flagged.

Journeyman Geek

let me get caught up

Andras Deak

@AnneDaunted perhaps the user will go on hiatus for two days

Anne Daunted

12:45

@Magisch Why do you want it unfeatured?

user351483

@AnneDaunted You're referring to the user who loves horses?

Andras Deak

@Snow we have plenty of those

Journeyman Geek

oh

I am starting to see

sigh

Magisch

@AnneDaunted It's taken a beating and was posted like 5 weeks ago

Anne Daunted

@Snow It's just a user with a generic user<long number> name.

Andras Deak

12:49

at least it's a float

Anne Daunted

@Magisch It would be good if it could be replaced with the "Dear Stack Exchange" letter, but won't happen.

user351483

@AnneDaunted Yeah. I know who it is.

Andras Deak

at least that user must be very good at learning from mistakes, judging by the comment :P

Magisch

@AnneDaunted Yeah, no. The company surely won't feature a letter that is harshly criticising them for everyoen to see and read, no matter how much we all agree with it

Andras Deak

barely any people have signed it (them), so I don't know how much "we all agree with it"

Anne Daunted

12:52

@Magisch Then the Meta Zoo #9 post could stay, if only for its top answer

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted oh I know who it is

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek Sorry for remaining so vague, but it was intentional.

PM 2Ring

@Magisch I've linked to that podcast + transcript in comments a couple of times. I thought it had good, relevant stuff about the spirit of the law vs the letter of the law.

@AndrasDeak I think the lack of signatures on the main letter is because a lot of people think only mods are supposed to sign it... which implies they didn't actually look at the signatures.

user351483

"A letter from the moderators" just reinforces the fact that it's from the moderators.

Andras Deak

13:08

:/

Bart

@AnneDaunted maybe, if we have to be so vague about it, let's just not discuss users in that manner?

Anne Daunted

"The site is popular with developers seeking advice on the best way to fix broken code."

Mgetz

bleh

reuters.com/article/us-germany-shooting/…

PM 2Ring

@JourneymanGeek Your detective skills are clearly superior ti mine, but I'm a newb to MSE.

user351483

@AnneDaunted In my case, it's just me looking for code to do stuff.

Journeyman Geek

13:11

@PM2Ring naw, I just know a lot of folks

PM 2Ring

@JourneymanGeek So do I, on the parts of the network I usually inhabit. At least, I'm pretty good at knowing the author of a post before seeing their name, if they're a regular.

Journeyman Geek

@PM2Ring lemme put it this way

I know most of the meta regulars, and those on SU

I know a few mods, but there's too many to know them alll

M.A.R.

Hey, don't put it in my direction!

Journeyman Geek

SOME people, I wish I didn't know that well

M.A.R.

Here's a letter from a user: R

Journeyman Geek

13:15

glares at @M.A.R. like he has two first names

M.A.R.

R is the coolest letter in English.

Almost as cool as M.

Bart

A and R I can get behind ... but M ... meh.

user351483

Not as cool as my name.

M.A.R.

@Bart A's not cool

@Snow S is overrated

@JourneymanGeek You break my heart

Bart

@M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

PM 2Ring

13:17

@JourneymanGeek :) Yeah, I don't know the MSE crowd that well, apart from the crash course I've had over the last week. I occasionally check out MSO, but I find it too draining to spend a lot of time there.

Journeyman Geek

@PM2Ring Meta's probably... the hardest site to get to know

I have an advantage since I really only got active as a moderator

user194636

> mar (third-person singular simple present mars, present participle marring, simple past and past participle marred)

(transitive) To spoil; to ruin; to scathe; to damage.

M.A.R.

Tips cowboy hat Back in my day, meta meant murder folks

Say it in @Journey accent

@PaulWhite that definition is MARRing my reputation

Journeyman Geek

@M.A.R. amusingly, I missed the early days

user194636

🙂

M.A.R.

13:19

Point. No particular nuisance to pick up on the apostrophes.

user351483

I miss the days when everything I posted on Meta was met with dirision and downvotes.

Journeyman Geek

I think end 2014 is my sort of turning point

@Snow I never really had that

I didn't post much ;p

Bart

@Snow if you want we can bring those days back. Just ping us whenever you write something.

M.A.R.

@Snow -1 UNFOUNDED ASSUMPTIONS

Journeyman Geek

@Snow that's an interesting question I often ask myself

M.A.R.

13:21

I"M NOT ANGRY

Journeyman Geek

Why am I on meta?

M.A.R.

Why are you on meta

user351483

@JourneymanGeek That's so Meta.

Journeyman Geek

@Snow so... to an extent, our ability to effect change is limited

we can suggest stuff but the pipeline has always been opaque

Bart

Is it ... because you love us @JourneymanGeek?

Journeyman Geek

13:22

@Bart hmm, no? ;p

Bart

Well ... that's ... I'm going to grab a coffee and cry into the cup for a while ...

M.A.R.

@Bart Nespresso. What else.

PM 2Ring

@JourneymanGeek With all other channels of communication blocked, we tried sending smoke signals, so they sent the fire brigade.

M.A.R.

Fire fighters make good wall defenders

Unless they're kicking you out while doing it

Journeyman Geek

I've mostly been associated with one community

so its not exactly ...

Meta rep is mostly useless.

(Actually - its vaguely fun, and I kinda like helping people, but shhhh)

Magisch

13:26

you mean my 16000 internet points do not mean anything?

Journeyman Geek

Its a perfectly good rhetorical question

Magisch

D:

Journeyman Geek

nope

@Magisch I'm actually slightly relieved to have stopped repcapping

M.A.R.

@Magisch Only yours don't matter.

user351483

Today will be my 11th consecutive repcap. On answers I never wanted to have to write.

M.A.R.

13:28

@Snow That's so meta

Magisch

in a perfect world, I'd be at 7k or so

the rest is from trying to react to a large series of corporate mistakes

M.A.R.

@Magisch Nope, even those don't matter. Sorry.

Meanwhile, now that they don't matter, can you send me some.

Not like they mean anything.

Magisch

Journey may become a mod again, and that thing is against the rules

I've never been site suspended and I wont start now :p

Journeyman Geek

lol

M.A.R.

I've been chat suspended. Once. I think.

user351483

13:30

@Magisch I can make that happen. We're not supposed to, but I can make an exception.

Journeyman Geek

@Magisch The break does me good ;p

M.A.R.

Or maybe twice. It was 2015.

Magisch

Shog chat banned me for 2 weeks sometime in 2016

I had it coming

user351483

I got chat suspended once. I didn't even notice until I was made a moderator.

Bart

@Snow I think mods on Software Engineering did that ones for a test in the Programmers SE days ... that didn't go over well :D

Journeyman Geek

13:32

I don't think I have been suspended ever

M.A.R.

@JourneymanGeek You must be an exemplary person.

Magisch

Other then that I apparently dont even have account annotations

Journeyman Geek

@M.A.R. people fear a warm gift in their shoes.

M.A.R.

Or a personly exemplar.

@JourneymanGeek baked beans? So it was you

Journeyman Geek

Those... were... not... baked... beans....

M.A.R.

13:34

Yeah right, exemplary exemplar.

202324

13:57

nobody expected spanish inquisition

Gwideon

hello

Zoe the transgirl

o/

Gwideon

how is eveyone

Journeyman Geek

aight

Gwideon

that's good

so um there's been a genuine apology

Stormblessed

14:04

Gwideon

sorry

Stormblessed

@Gwideon ?

Bart

Perhaps that was the genuine apology? :p

Stormblessed

@Gwideon which one? There’re too many attempts at apology to keep track of...

Magisch

@Stormblessed = 1

Gwideon

14:08

for um the drama

Stormblessed

@Magisch well = true would also work, but I guess it’d need a timer for 13 years or something to be accurate

Magisch

@Stormblessed you declared it as an int

writing = true for an int is possible but syntactically misleading

rene

valid in javascript

Journeyman Geek

o0

Stormblessed

@Magisch oh wait

Why is it an int

It ruins it

It should be a Boolean

I didn’t make it

Magisch

14:24

@rene sure, I still wouldn't

if I want a boolean, I declare a boolean. Or I don't declare it at all, it's javascript, one of the most weakly typed languages

canon

15:13

Aww... apparently "More Than Words" lyrics aren't a quality comment on Dave's apology.

Feeds

15:31

Lessons from Design School for Software Engineers

Iheanyi Ekechukwu on October 09, 2019

“I think that this is successful because…”

“I don’t think is successful because…”

“The way you did X strengthens this work because…”

“I think that the direction of X is stronger because…”

“I don’t like the way this code is structured. Use a hash map instead of an array.”

“Have you considered storing it in a hash map instead of an array? I think that might have better performance.”

canon

16:30

How's that company-moderator collaboration going for the CoC?

rene

@canon stalled for 6 to 8 hours. Something about sleep. As a flower I don't know that concept

Machavity

@canon Well it's... uhm... rummages around in the kitchen drawer Hey, look! A potato masher!

user58

17:07

→ 2 messages moved to Trashcan

Mysticial

Wow, can't even crack a joke in here?

user58

If you don't have something productive to say, then don't say anything.

Mysticial

@user58 You mean like half the stuff in here?

user58

@Mysticial Previous unhandled misbehavior doesn't excuse future misbehavior. It calls attention to stuff that went unhandled, but it doesn't allow other stuff to go by. Your message happened to be the first thing I saw when I came online, and it struck me as unconstructive. I removed it. Please keep things constructive in the future.

2

rene

@Mysticial that was a tad too dark. And for casual on-lookers maybe misunderstood as being a joke.

Mysticial

17:21

@rene that's fair

rene

thanks for your understanding.

canon

17:55

I meant to put collaboration in quotes. Does that count as unconstructive?

user58

It'd be at the very least misleading.

M.A.R.

18:40

@Mysticial Meh, nothing too serious, the ice is a bit thin here at the moment

No one's fault

canon

@user58 It's been stated on SO/SE and directly to the press that the CoC isn't up for debate. There doesn't seem to be much time allocated for review, feedback, and iteration prior to the scheduled rollout. So, it seems like empty words. I'm just curious (hopeful) whether there's been any real collaboration.

user58

I do think they didn't build in enough time, but there has been collaboration. Staff has been listening and making changes based on our feedback.

canon

Good.

M.A.R.

@rene Hey, if you had to stare at a light source for a few hours you would've needed sleep too.

Wait.

Magisch

@user58 So they lied when they said it wasn't for discussion?

canon

18:42

Can I demand to be referred to as we?

M.A.R.

No, we.

canon

lol

user58

@Magisch The change wasn't up for discussion; the exact wording is still being finalized.

M.A.R.

Absolutely no sprinkles.

Andras Deak

@Magisch it could be like "discuss with community how to word it clearly, and then it's not up for debate"

Kevin B

18:44

eh

canon

I read that as, "no input regarding the substance of the code but we got to play with the copy"

Magisch

It would be interesting to have a survey somewhere, because if I interpreted the math from sources I got right they might be about to alienate ~40% of the userbase with that change

Kevin B

whether or not feedback is listened to is... irrelevant when you're only allowing feedback of one kind.

4

user58

@Magisch Unlikely.

M.A.R.

Well, TBH, after so many announcements, I wouldn't really be angry enough if they just pushed the Clash of Clans thing.

Magisch

18:45

less then half of all people in the US are comfortable at all with using chosen pronouns, drastically less even in the EU. Even assuming programming is an exceptionally liberal field, thats still about half

I have a fear that it'll work out like the twitter CoC where they ultimately can't enforce it at all

M.A.R.

Just a fear?

One single unit of fear?

Wait, do you metric, or do you London.

Because then I'd have Imperially metric ton(ne)s of fear.

John Dvorak

Pay respect to fear. Fear is countable, too!

canon

@M.A.R. It's a proprietary unit called a geigercronenberg.

Magisch

I like the change, because using pronouns is a small thing and matters quite a bit to people, and everyone should afford the basic respect of doing it, but I'm unconvinced they can push it to actually stick

user58

First off... "chosen" and "preferred" are words that should, in general, be avoided when referring to people's pronouns. Second, the change isn't really all that drastic and I don't think the letter of the law is going to be that controversial. Sure, there's going to be some pushback on the spirit of the change, but... whatever.

Magisch

18:48

And I'm so, so burned out of drama so I'm not looking forward to another round of hand wringing from vocal detractors

M.A.R.

@JohnDvorak Hey, I don't pay nothing.

Magisch

@user58 I use chosen instead of preferred because preferred implies its up for debate

user58

"correct" is a nice term.

M.A.R.

No it's not.

Magisch

is no prefix better? I have no clue about the sensitivities of language surrounding this

John Dvorak

18:49

@user58 but ambiguous

M.A.R.

It always appears when you dun goofed in exam.

Magisch

kinda harkens back to derpys answer

user58

@Magisch I'd generally leave off the prefix, yes. If you specifically want to call attention to pronouns other than "he" and "she", I've seen "unconventional", but I'm not sure about the intricacies of that.

Magisch

I want this groundhog day aggressivity cycle between users and staff to end

M.A.R.

My viewpoint is something between 58 and the German's. It would probably be an edition of CoC that, in itself, causes little drama. Part of that would have to do with the fact that it is impossible to enforce it (if it is as strongly worded as I've heard).

John Dvorak

18:50

@Magisch groundhog day?

Magisch

yeah

John Dvorak

why's that?

canon

@Magisch To be honest, I'd prefer the aggression to the cold indifference we get in the dry months.

Magisch

I want the coc to actually have teeth and be effective in setting a standard for behavior that is widely followed and enforced

user58

@Magisch I'm hopeful. I have a feeling it's going to get a bit worse and then finally calm down. I think the release of the updated CoC is going to spark the crest and then it'll be a calming trend.

M.A.R.

18:51

The drama would be mostly people that disagree with the spirit and are willing to yell at the top of their voice, or something meta, like why it was announced early/late, why we weren't consulted, whatever.

John Dvorak

@Magisch not if it alienates 40% of the user base!

M.A.R.

I don't anyone has any energy left for either.

@JohnDvorak 70?

Magisch

I'm entirely uninterested to protest a basic human dignity mandate that I agree with due to technicalities

M.A.R.

I mean, let's be honest here. Asia doesn't care. They have their own cultural dilemmas.

John Dvorak

Not if it alienates 40% of the user base or more!

Rubiksmoose

18:53

@user58 Honestly, so far, they seem to be taking our request to be part of the process very seriously. That alone gives me hope. But I haven't been a mod long enough to get really burned by them at any point before.

John Dvorak

Angering your own god isn't a technicality, and I'd really not want to anger my god

user58

@Rubiksmoose I wrote a thing back in July about some of the problems we've had in the past.

M.A.R.

@Rubiksmoose The only thing new about this theatrical release is its magnitude. It's been going on for a couple of years at least, and we keep getting back to the main point: We are the 0.015%.

Yeah, that. 58 sums it up nicely.

In about three million words.

John Dvorak

so, the real number of people affected won't be known until by seeing the fallout?

Magisch

so there is 2 ways I see it working out

1) this thing is released, a small outcry happens, everyone moves on and we never speak of it again

2) they actually set out to enforce it but can't due to not being able to afford to lose that much of their user base, and we never speak of it again

John Dvorak

18:56

neither option would be bad

Magisch

Either way, I don't see a positive path for lasting change here

M.A.R.

You have an interesting definition of "working out". It must be German.

Magisch

/s/working/playing

M.A.R.

Werklichen üte

Magisch

call me a frequent pessimist but I've seen this happen before in various forms

John Dvorak

18:57

3) all of the remaining mods learn what they are supposed to enforce, and resign in protest

M.A.R.

Pessimist

John Dvorak

4) all of the remaining mods learn what they are supposed to enforce, enforce it, and end up with 40% of the user base suspended

M.A.R.

@JohnDvorak Mmmmeh.

Magisch

effective rules can only work with the consent of the governed. We tried something much milder on a hobby community once, and people just ignored it

When we started enforcing it with penalties, people just left

M.A.R.

I think the ones that stick around are angered enough by the issue but want to help out with the community while murmuring some curses at SE.

Magisch

18:58

It sucks though because not doing it isn't possible either

M.A.R.

@JohnDvorak 5) We get sucked into a blackhole and go back (or forward) in time to yell at our kids.

Magisch

My suspicion is that respecting pronouns and using them when appropriate was always intended to be required by the CoC, and we've just never been able to enforce it due to see above

Top Secret

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