« first day (3354 days earlier)      last day (1860 days later) » 

dim
dim
1:04 PM
Why are there so many off-topic programming questions ending up on SE meta? I don't see that on other sites, but meta seems to attract them.
the answer to that question is not welcoming
> On Thursday, October 10, the update to the Code of Conduct will be announced publicly
Well, it's Thursday, October 10 now.
@dim it's been like that forever, reason is still mostly unknown. People just land on MSE somehow, thinking it's the site where they wanted to post. Or in some cases, question banned users try their luck on Meta.
Sometimes more than once
even when someone comments...
telling them its the wrong page
I suspect people click a Featured question in the right side bar on the site where they actually wanted to ask their question, reach MSE, read the post, then going on to ask, never noticing they're in the wrong place.
The new design where all sites now look the same made it much worse.
dim
dim
@Shadow That may be some of the reasons, indeed. In any case, it's annoying, it often clutters the front page.
1:13 PM
I do wonder when we'll get the coc update for the public
it might be late in the day for them which is friday night for us
@dim true, high rep users on MSE can close and delete those. I used to do that when I was active.
Mods also used to do that, when they existed.
dim
dim
@Magish It's early in the US. They're having a coffe, and then they'll play short straw to know who will post that.
Now one is fired, one stepped down, one in a long vacation (?) and one was never active as mod. (For what I could have seen... never saw a single OT question he closed.)
Unless they have a way of manually lifting it or if it per-se doesn't apply to employees, sara might be post banned
MSE still has a vestigial post ban system. Evan is post banned, for instance
@Magisch answers only, I assume?
1:15 PM
Sara has a diamond on MSE, ever since her apology
I wanted to ask about that, but erf...
@JohnDvorak I thought she always had it
@JohnDvorak still, some restrictions bypass even diamond.
@JourneymanGeek Nope.
(I think a mod with less than 10 rep can't answer protected questions, for example.)
1:16 PM
not surprising, diamonds are handed out on an as-needed basis these days
meaning employees usually only get them when they need them
@Shadow I think mods don't have any restrictions
and I don't know what the staff/employee flag allows
@Shadow That would be silly, the mod can just unprotect the question, post their answer and then re-protect it
though
mods can get review banned...
(oops)
Maybe someday when the smoke clears, egos less bruised and our little town rebuilt... ;p
I'll ask.
Might make a nice meta question
@JohnDvorak eventually
1:18 PM
@Magisch true.
Even now, if you frame it as "completely unrelated to recent events"
Everyone will know
Better to wait.
I know they will
Cause honestly - it seems.. cruel
You mean, the question would be? I ... guess.
1:19 PM
yup
@JourneymanGeek they can unban themselves, though
@Magisch ah!
BUT I WAS TOO EMBARASSED TO
lol
and I was all.. "oh maaaan"
;)
@JourneymanGeek yeah now is definitely not the time
maybe in 6-8 weeks
1:21 PM
Yup
Huh! I was correct.
> moderators can't use a small number of privileges, such as answering protected questions, voting in moderator elections, and not being prompted to comment when downvoting, which only check for the required reputation
112
A: Who are the diamond moderators, and what is their role?

Brad MaceWhat special privileges do diamond moderators have? Diamond moderators are human exception handlers. The main function of diamond moderators is to follow up on flagged posts but they also have some special abilities necessary to handle rare exceptional conditions: They have access to all the ...

ah
AFAIK there's like ... one 1 rep mod before
but she's a bit of a mystery
Many SE employees have less than 10 net rep on most sites.
So they can't answer protected questions.
Given that mods need 300 rep to run on nearly all sites, and that the only 1 rep mods are employees, doesn't seem that important
@Shadow though, they pretty much need to get 200 on any one site
and if you're dealing with front end SE, that's easy
1:23 PM
@JourneymanGeek nope
Association bonus doesn't count.
@Shadow ah
that kinda sucks XD
One must earn 10 rep on the site itself.
I doubt anyone's smart enough in 174 different subject domains XD
lol
Staff bit might override that though, can't really know.
1:24 PM
you could probably finagle a couple hundred rep on every site through consistent editing
The above applies to ordinary mods.
but the effort, jee whiz
@Magisch true
well 10, so 5 edits
e.g. staff bit allow the user to add mod tags without even having a diamond.
or a single upvote per site
... someday if I'm bored enough...
1:25 PM
all of this is clearly backend minutiae
Well other than the religion sites
if an employee needs to do something they can't they find a way to do it anyways
@Magisch or find someone to help
It's all a big shining mess, but that's a mess that doesn't smell bad. ;)
Speaking of diamonds, that ◊ open diamond glyph used on the dearstackexchange letters gave me an idea. When diamond mods post to sites where they aren't actually mods, the open diamond glyph could be appended to their name. That would be useful info for readers who don't know them, especially on MSE.
1:37 PM
at least on MSE, that'd be neat
Would be too confusing, IMO. People would think they're mods too.
The diamond is one click away, in their profile.
@Shadow Sometimes it's not easy to spot, if they're active on many sites, but only mod on 1. At least, it's not immediately obvious on a phone, in either mobile or desktop mode.
And they are mods, who know mod stuff. They just don't have mod powers on that particular site.
The only place where such thing exists is Area 51:
@PM2Ring I'd actually want to start with a differenciation between mods and staff
its a bit messy when I wanted to post "unofficially" while modded
@Shadow Ah, right. A grey diamond. The open diamond might be easier for some colour-blind people.
@JourneymanGeek That would be good too. And it probably has higher priority. Often, I identify staff by their low rep, but that only works for some of them.
1:54 PM
29
Q: User cards are no longer showing reputation or badges across the network

ankiiI cannot see reputation of any questioner or answerer on their user cards, but editors' rep & badges are still shown. It appears to be a network-wide issue.

On my phone, the rep's visible on the mobile site view. — PM 2Ring 28 secs ago
@PM2Ring that's probably a bug
They always update the mobile view later.
(after a bug is reported, they never do any tests on it for some odd reason.)
There's another bug where usernames and avatars are still visible. That just opens the door to all sorts of abuse. Everyone should be shown with a blank avatar and "person" as the username.
@AndrasDeak nah
or even better, everything should be posted by Community
2:06 PM
6
Q: Hide the rep and badge count on a user's info box on answers

weijiPreviously, I asked about a feature request for adding a batting average, as a tool for giving more info on the person supplying the answer. From the answers given, it seems like I've been putting too much importance on the rep score - it shouldn't be taken seriously, it's just a number, judge a...

See Shog's answer.
@AndrasDeak And why do we even have unique usernames? That makes no sense
@M.A.R. well you need that to express yourself in the multitude of your person. User profiles are necessary and important. But tying that to questions and answers is a huge mistake
Hey, Kung Fu Panda's law? I wasn't being serious.
But I think anything from now on would enforce my point that we absolutely, positively needed to discuss this.
Like, even a "hey, we're gonna do this, deal with it" post would have been better than the sheer panic and confusion
Not to mention it's honestly so rash a fix it looks like an Iranian censor trying to hide something, and the empty space is so jarring you just automatically stare at that position wondering what's not there.
Yep, cheap TV censorship. New contributor is there, I guess wildcards are there, everything is there except the numbers.
I think someone's paying big bucks to SO Inc. for a social experiment. They are amping it up day by day until it all falls apart, and then publish the results.
@AndrasDeak Oh man, I didn't realize we were on ferries
I'm semi-contemplating opening another thread to hopefully discuss the ups and downs a bit, this one is obviously going to be very emotional.
2:14 PM
hello
hello
how are you
Bit angry. You?
Hi, bit angry.
Oh jinx.
Hello!
2:15 PM
I didn't know it was possible for me and @Sha to jinx each other, but SE takes you to new levels.
Hello
Hellooooo! Can you hear me
I'm okay. why are you angry
@AndrasDeak then get prosecuted in just about everywhere for illegal human research
@Gwideon Rep is gone
wait really
But actually I'm angry because they didn't tell us in advance.
2:16 PM
Yeah, on the process of leaving out of the door.
They just make major changes without any notice.
If I was still a mod. And wanted to ragequit
@Shadow it's a bug
it's still there on things like rpg stackexchange
2:16 PM
@JourneymanGeek Yanno. Rage quit and become a mod again
@Bart how you know?
setting it as [status:bydesign] would be hilarious
Fix for usercards incoming
however I do that
I actually thought you were testing that
You should test that actually
It'd be interesting to see how reactions change
2:17 PM
@Shadow the one with blue feet said so
It's important to remember parentheses in code
@Shog9 so... why not say something on the MSE bug report?
sigh
dev is typing answer now
don't wanna steal their thunder
@Shog9 What about New Contributor etc.?
@Shadow cause sometimes you need COFFEE BEFORE CODE.
2:18 PM
just wanna steal your thunder
A reverse thunder, to be fair.
Are we all really going to do the permanently pissed off knee-jerk mode for good now? Calm down people. Not everything is evil, motivated by hostile intentions or what not.
shog in the tavern - today is a good day!
Haha if it's Deadpool 2 it would give that song a whole new meaning. And it would be strangely apt.
2:19 PM
Or it's a very bad day.
hey!
@Magisch Hey, he's always there AFAIK
Now it's a double good day
@Shog9 or... you enjoy seeing us behave like panicked ants.. ;)
...I do enjoy that
user194636
2:19 PM
Ooo thunderstruck!
@Bart Just @Shadow D:
@Bart I know, right? There probably needs to be an update to why this might or might not be a great idea.
But we only get "SE PLEASE DON'T DO DIS"
@M.A.R. or someone posting demanding it back
like the AFD theme
How does that help with anything?
2:20 PM
@Bart never said it's evil. Just another reason to get mad.
I actually think they could do with testing this
and see how it plays out
it might have positive effects
Evil is what they did to Monica, but better not get back to it... (yet)
@Shadow stop being so damn mad. Less mad, more wizard.
I think it can have really great effects somewhere, and terrible effects elsewhere
@Bart Wizard is gone
2:21 PM
3
A: User cards are no longer showing reputation or badges across the network

Dean WardNo need for user scripts, this was an unintentional slip-up. We were fixing some Google crawler errors for deleted user cards on questions/answers and a set of brackets got missed in the code path that renders schema.org attributes. That meant that this: RenderSchema ? @"<span class=""d-none"" i...

user194636
ok who concatenated rep with null
Lol
OMG
@PaulWhite cat /user/rep > /dev/null
Back to being angry at something else. Let's be angry at TMNT movies.
I might just post a generic "How dare you!" post to us as a canonical duplicate for anything from now on.
2:23 PM
@Bart MadowWizard?
@Bart right.
So, I'm really contemplating writing that post now.
@Shog9 this almost demands a meme
user194636
is there a relevant xkcd
Always
Or was this an intentional unintentional slip-up? Because honestly I now appreciate announcements more.
2:24 PM
@Shog9 sounds like someone who should have a show on MSNBC ...
I mean, we always go by "focus on the content", right?
@M.A.R. not since Welcome Wagon started.
This would be pretty awesome for newer folks that write well, you know.
They don't get more downvotes, but my Meta Gut Feeling 9000 says they get fewer upvotes than if they had some rep.
user194636
This is an awesome fix: meta.stackexchange.com/a/334892
On the other hand, giving any for-now-disengaged person some sort of 'impersonating' (that's a bit strong but you know what I mean) a higher rep user can cause lots of trouble.
2:29 PM
JeSuisJonSkeet
What's this business about a fix for usercards? I'm scrolling back from Shog9's starred comment but I'm fumbling for context.
rep and badges went away
@AndrasDeak true
Status by design. It was othering and elitist...
that's what everyone said, yes
2:30 PM
@canon small mistake made rep disappear from the cards. Even though most of the html was still there, some threw a hissy fit about evil SO/SE making sweeping changes without consulting us.
user194636
how excitable is meta
awh cmon that is just punching at shadows
ouch
hey that's my leg
@Bart calling it a "hissy fit" in light of current climate is a bit of a stretch
All I need is my adorable fuzzy face ;)
2:30 PM
I'm actually sad I had hoped they'd actually be testing this, I was excited to see the results :(
and announcing an a/b test partly defeats the purpose
@Magisch results...
@Magisch bump this:
4
Q: Hide the rep and badge count on a user's info box on answers

weijiPreviously, I asked about a feature request for adding a batting average, as a tool for giving more info on the person supplying the answer. From the answers given, it seems like I've been putting too much importance on the rep score - it shouldn't be taken seriously, it's just a number, judge a...

Well, guess that's settled, the reaction to this even if it were a test . . .
:/
I do think they could test some "radical" changes and see what happens
2:33 PM
Hanlon's razor is an aphorism expressed in various ways, including: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."An eponymous law, probably named after a Robert J. Hanlon, it is a philosophical razor which suggests a way of eliminating unlikely explanations for human behavior. == Origin == Inspired by Occam's razor, the aphorism became known in this form and under this name by the Jargon File, a glossary of computer programmer slang. Later that same year, the Jargon File editors noted lack of knowledge about the term's derivation and the existence of a sim...
need it be said... that Hanlon's razor always applies
we might find a system that markedly improves user experience for almost free
@Magisch Not now, or at least not on meta.SE.
@Mgetz it doesn't tell you anything these days. Every bad decision has presumably been backed by good intentions.
2:34 PM
@AndrasDeak that doesn't mean that Hanlon's razor doesn't apply
@Magisch chaos and anger.
@Mgetz Yeah, sure, and I keep saying that. It's just a weak signal.
not being malicious doesn't cut it
@Shadow cmon now since when are we getting ticked off at tests
that's really not necessary
@AndrasDeak Yeah I'm concerned we're getting into a point in society that even well intentioned actions become extremely problematic unless the actions are perfect for all of history. Thus we judge by a set of standards that doesn't really make sense historically. That doesn't excuse any less than perfect actions it just means we need to be more understanding and forgiving of time, place, and context.
@Magisch have you seen the comments on Shog's MSO response...?
2:38 PM
@Magisch when the "test" changes something fundamental? Always.
user194636
well that's one way for Dean Ward to add a heap of meta rep
2:57 PM
@PaulWhite Almost
user194636
That will do nicely
@JourneymanGeek hi. Can't tell if you're around; I'm online but not sitting in the room. Feel free to ping again.
@MonicaCellio I am
I don't remember what I pinged you about :/
Probably saying hi XD
@JourneymanGeek oh, oops. :-)
@AndrasDeak about the elitism?
2:59 PM
11 hours ago, by Journeyman Geek
Hi @MonicaCellio
Stack Exchange: Othering Heights; a peek into the elitist subculture of Q&A.
Title of your next Medium blog post?
The next register article title...
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted website in answer, link at end of answer, potentially bad asn for hostname in answer, potentially bad keyword in answer (155): How to remove "phone style" Gnome swipe to unlock by ligeyod555 on askubuntu.com
@canon yes
3:04 PM
@Bart My next Medium post will probably be an import of the "what SO Inc. says versus what they do" post from my blog. Needs a graphic, because Medium works better with graphics. I have ideas, but they're provocative so I've held off.
I mean the "by-design"
@MonicaCellio I'm just (pleasantly) surprised your account is still active amidst all of this.
user194636
Just use the open parens xkcd for unresolved tension
@MonicaCellio ... sigh
this has been a monumental mess
3:26 PM
The open letter was whipped up in a couple of days
I'm sure a lot of mods would come back if this was sorted out
@JourneymanGeek I am too.
And I really want to get back to work. There's lots of things to fix ;)
@MonicaCellio FWIW, I personally feel like the TL is probably going to come out less toxic as a result of that (call me optimistic or naive if you wish) I think this whole ordeal (though certainly toxic at times in chat) has actually resulted in a lot of shared understanding, learning and respect even among people that have disagreed. Of course, if you get reinstated only you will be able to judge for yourself if it has changed enough.
I wouldn't be surprised if they were stalling because they feared that sorting out Monica's case would make them seem like opposing LGBTQ+ users, which is a stronger wind looking at their PR strategies.
@AndrasDeak and yet, that's not really true
3:31 PM
@SPArchaeologist-様 I'm still angry about the last two seasons of GoT. #neverforget
and stuff feels more hostile now than it was before.
3
@JourneymanGeek I believe it's very much untrue, but I've been disagreeing with the company since the welcome wagon rolled out
@AndrasDeak you can have ALL the initiatives you want
you need people on it
@AndrasDeak Precisely this. They've come out and gone on record in the press that they fired her over multiple sustained coc violations against LGBT people. Even if it's not true thats what they told the press
allegedly ;)
3:32 PM
Do you reckon what the usual suspects who've been hounding SE for years would do with an U-Turn?
"even if its not true" I personally don't believe it's true.
I'm sure truth will reign supreme (HAHAHA)
I think in the end this was a multifaceted misunderstanding fueled by some assumptions of bad faith and shockingly bad decision making
3
why they doubled down to the press is beyond me
I fear someone in their high horsedness stopped to think for a moment to consider that their universal sense of right and omniscience might be a bit less effective than expected
@Magisch because someone was mad.
If the person you're publicly dragging through the mud is The Enemy Of Progress then it's fine. But they forgot to double-check.
3:35 PM
Still no speculation about individual staff members
please
@AndrasDeak and yet. Sometimes folks make mistakes.
@JourneymanGeek Yes, and folks can apologize. Except they often won't, and companies will even rarely will.
The problem is that I suspect a person made a statement, and now the company is responsible.
companies have an extra reason not to apologize
legal liability
Well, objectively it's one of two things: desire to do harm or a failure to realize that's what it would do.
@canon and the second is what I always try to think about.
3:37 PM
@Rubiksmoose it needs to be possible to have respectful, diverse conversations without personal attacks. I hope we get there.
@JourneymanGeek Frankly, that's an embarrassing notion for anyone empowered to speak with the press on a company's behalf.
it takes a lot of wisdom to judge the rightness of your actions when you're angry, and not only people with a lot of wisdom are allowed to make decisions
@AndrasDeak Yep. Cooler heads prevail. That's why taking immediate action is so ill-advised.
@canon most of the time !
Unless its something you can turn back
Too often "diversity" means "promote one view over others", when what it should mean is that we have a bunch of people with different cultures, religions, backgrounds, and identities, and of course you're going to agree with some things and disagree with others.
5
3:39 PM
@canon Indeed. Which ties in with the fact that we were all shocked to see a press comment before any official response.
@MonicaCellio Me too. I really do. I respect a lot of people around here, even if we disagree on certain points and it's important that everyone gets treated as a human with respect.
@AndrasDeak I can't do it personally. Which is why one hard and fast rule I have is not to make life decisions or business decisions when angry
it never works out
yup
or rash decisions, at all
you inevitably miss something or fail to consider something or under or overestimate something and end up eating crow, one way or the other
Being wrong is fine if you weighed the options and ramifications, and miscalculated. Making a wrong choice due to a lack of thinking is what leads to regret.
3:40 PM
@Magisch and we learn, sometimes.
I don't trust anyone who claims to be infallible
I wonder if SE is annoyed that Q&A is causing this much drama when they appear to care so little about it (the Q&A product). Teams! Am I right?
I prefer to learn from other people's mistakes
For every one of those I learn from, thats one fewer I have to make
@canon who is going to use teams?
the core users are the teams SMEs
@JourneymanGeek Who used docs?
3:41 PM
Subject Matter Expert
@AndrasDeak Subject matter experts
@JourneymanGeek the company is close
Who is selling Teams to the companies buying it?
That one person from their staff who is really into SO and praises its many qualities to management
@MonicaCellio (dammit can't edit any more) ... And in the course of respectful discussions we might all learn some things and be better for it.
You guys have seen me make a mistake and dig in. no one got hurt.
But that was not my best moment.
3:42 PM
Well
well I was suspended from chat once... :P
@MonicaCellio yup
I was too. Shog banned me for two weeks from chat.SO
@AndrasDeak I was a mod.
I had it coming
3:42 PM
So.. well
I should have done better.
@JourneymanGeek it would've been hard to suspend me otherwise
@Magisch aww
It was fun but what was I teaching folks ;)
@AndrasDeak March 2016 in SOCVR I think
that's when you grew your spines
@Magisch its not about having ti coming
3:44 PM
I still had the smiley then
He used to be a cucumber ... things changed @AndrasDeak
The way we do things is not about punishment
its about learning
No I mean in that circumstance, I was angry, wasn't listening to reason and in a bad place
Everyone has a chance for grace
@Magisch ah, with the headphones
3:44 PM
making decisions in that state is guaranteed to lead to mistakes
@Magisch and? You got better
you're here and a RO
yeah sure
That's how we do things
I will just point out this post of mine from a year ago....
Oct 22 '18 at 9:17, by Derpy
@ShadowWizard Long ago, in a far far away land, there was a private UO shard. It was a small server, with little resources, but the people that created it were friends. And so that little server grew and prosper for a while, slowly getting bigger and famous as more and more people started to play there.
It was posted on Caps Lock day, which, coincidentally is coming up again very soon.
I ended my rant with this.
Oct 22 '18 at 10:11, by Derpy
> Try to not do the same, SE
they just won't listen to you :P
3:49 PM
I think that now, about one year later, it would be nice to give you a new gift. A picture.
@SPArchaeologist-様 oh no, please let Meta be calm that day. The last thing this site needs is more caps-lock right now.
If someone recognizes the TV show...
Merlin
Witcher in a hat
I mean the guy in Witcher
ShadowWitcher?
3:52 PM
@Bart You turned English while I wasn't watching? You recognized a BBC show? :P
@SPArchaeologist-様 are you kidding me? We grew up on BBC and German TV. We didn't have many channels back in my day. So BBC is still a regular staple until this day.

« first day (3354 days earlier)      last day (1860 days later) »