Tavern on the Meta

Journeyman Geek

3:00 AM

Erf

Catija

@Aza I can imagine that it'd be a bit daunting to start work... I remember when I got hired here I was... a bit in awe.

user206222

@Catija How d'you mean, I'm very curious!

Catija

I mean... it depends on where ... right... like, I have friends who work at Google and I was always in awe of them because they must be magical... and for me, working here I love the sites and am in awe of the people who keep it running... they don't seem human.

... so to get hired seemed impossible how I was supposed to fit in with those magical people.

It takes... really great coworkers who welcome you with open arms and show you that you're wanted and welcome and accepted ... to really feel empowered to keep working.

user206222

I really get that feeling, honestly.

Journeyman Geek

@Catija snort y'all are very human. That's what makes you great at the job 😁

Catija

3:04 AM

:/

@JourneymanGeek I knew I could count on you to keep me grounded. ;P

Journeyman Geek

@Catija The best CMs are. ;p

@Catija Someone has to do it ;p

Catija

:D

Morning !

user206222

I gotta say it's, really nice to just chat and decompress, y'know?

Meta Andrew T.

Morning

user206222

And, mornin'!

Journeyman Geek

3:07 AM

And don't forget, i've seen a lot of CM. Some great, some.... less so.

Never terrible ;p

Meta Andrew T.

great... updating an OS in the morning of a workday apparently is not a good idea...

Catija

@Aza :D It is! I'm glad to have the opportunity.

Meta Andrew T.

'dart' executable being blocked by Apple... :/

Journeyman Geek

@Aza it is.

Benjamin

woof

user206222

3:11 AM

Me, too, @Catija :)

user206222

And you, @JourneymanGeek :)

user206222

And Shog9, too, but if he is Gone I do not with to Summon him.

Journeyman Geek

One does not simply summon the Shog ;p

Shog9

no, you just say [things] and I watch

I mean... Hey!

Meta Andrew T.

oh sh..

Journeyman Geek

3:14 AM

;p

HE COMES!

user206222

Oh, hey! I definitely don't need to brb to go break a chalk circle with my foot...

StephanS

o/

Journeyman Geek

0_0

Travis J

So, uh, what does the path back to always-friday-in-iceland look like, and how do we pivot to that?

Journeyman Geek

What would a shog summon circle actually contain... Kraft Mac and Cheese, moonshine....

Shog9

3:18 AM

also sausages

Travis J

Homemade trip tip sausages? :D

user206222

@TravisJ This is the path back to calm, even if it doesn't like it.

Shog9

19

A: Etiquette for thanking an editor

Send him a thank-you basket filled with bratwurst, sauerkraut, and beer. Editors love those.

Journeyman Geek

@TravisJ Healing is the path to normalty

but sometimes it needs help

Travis J

Was kind of hoping for something more upbeat

user206222

3:20 AM

It'll get worse before it gets better. My gut says we're not past the worst of it yet, but I think we're probably close.

Journeyman Geek

And well, hopefully everyone learns what we did wrong along the way, and sorts it out

StephanS

what do you say in a shog summon circle? rhymes?

Journeyman Geek

@TravisJ That is upbeat.

Meta Andrew T.

summon the first 8 Shogs?

Shog9

don't be discouraged folks. Every time someone's said it couldn't get any worse, it's gotten worse. Don't listen to those nay-sayers - it can always get worse.

Travis J

3:21 AM

lol

user206222

New guidelines are out, things are in place, the Stack's set to repair itself. All that's left is... the follow-up action, but that's telegraphed clearly at this point.

user206222

People won't like that, but people don't like a lot of things.

Journeyman Geek

@Aza erf. I think there's a lot of broken glass and wreckage, a small cockroach infestation....

Shog9

I don't like maraschino cherries. Can we just get rid of those? Like, as a concept?

user206222

@Shog9 I'm for this, to be honest.

Shog9

3:22 AM

As are all right-thinking people

StephanS

there's a thing called "SegmentFault"

Shog9

wasn't that one of the proposed names for Stack Overflow?

Travis J

Conceptually I agree, but we should probably go through some sort of trial period where other cherries are consumed on top of sundays and cocktails... just to be sure it is a sound theory in practice.

StephanS

that's probably the best troll i've seen in awhile

Journeyman Geek

@Shog9 those luridly coloured ones?

Shog9

3:24 AM

hey... Jin toned down the colors after a while...

Journeyman Geek

@TravisJ ah, there's these italian ones...

really good

Shog9

I like sour cherries. We can use those.

Journeyman Geek

I think that's what I'm talking about

the baking place down the road has them

Travis J

The more tests the better.

user206222

@JourneymanGeek I mean, the underlying systematic problem remains, so it's always going to be bumpy. There are also open questions, which will come up later as a response to those systematic problems. The broken glass is easy, though. Cockroaches are... harder, but can be managed.

Journeyman Geek

3:25 AM

just avoid the red tofu

@Aza there's multiple underlying systemic problems

with different people seeing different things ><

user206222

@JourneymanGeek yeeeah, I just kinda lump them together as "this thing has some Problems," but they can be broken down for sure

Travis J

@JourneymanGeek or natto

hichris123

@JourneymanGeek Please make some sense out of this splotch of ink.

Journeyman Geek

@TravisJ red tofu... I'll tell you that story later

Travis J

makes note in calendar

Journeyman Geek

3:27 AM

@Aza So - for me, a pretty important problem is we have a community that's unhappy, fractured, and ...

erf. Its painful to say - kinda lacks a certain sense of something pulling them together

in a smaller community - Jeff was a great figurehead, and the CMs a bit later on

And fixing that would hopefully create folks with the... for lack of better word, moral authority, and connections to see and convince folks to help fix other problems

StephanS

Jeff actually understood having standards

Journeyman Geek

@StephanS Jeff was loud and visible. That's useful sometimes ;p

@Aza not saying the problems you talk about are "less" important

but they also need an underlying framework of folks to fix

then there's the whole issue of "broad appeal" vs quality

StephanS

To give Jeff alot of credit he knew that communities only survive with new users but also that there should be strict guidelines

user206222

I don't think they have to live separately, but some of the assumptions made in building the original platform... haven't aged well. I think if you want the 10,000-foot view, that's the problem Stack's coming into conflict with.

Journeyman Geek

@Aza oh they're linked

user206222

3:31 AM

Some deep assumptions about who capital-U Users are, coupled with some deep assumptions about what capital-V Voting means, coupled with...

user206222

A lot of work can (rightfully) go into fixing that, and no one effort to fix the problem should be discounted. They're all important.

Shog9

that's a good point, and one that... I really hope doesn't get lost under all of this

We built this thing for, essentially, two large blog audiences a decade ago

And it worked pretty damn well for that. So well that we were able to stretch it out to cover a lot more people than it was really suited for.

But... It hit its limits a long time ago now. Most folks who've been watching closely know that.

So... What's to be done?

Travis J

Close reasons.

Shog9

eh. Yeah, but... No.

Journeyman Geek

@Shog9 well - for a while, the solution seemed to let the communities run themselves for most part

Travis J

3:33 AM

The individual exchanges should really have their own sets, but the amount of contribution doesn't exist enough to build them at each point.

Journeyman Geek

But well - that kinda has its own issues

Shog9

Take a step away from SO/SE for a moment, and think about some other bit of software with a similar lifespan.

Journeyman Geek

And finding the folks who can take up the task, and keeping them engaged is hard

Shog9

There aren't really all that many

Journeyman Geek

@Shog9 well - I'd say facebook

Travis J

3:34 AM

I mean, really there is only one common theme all the exchanges share... the set of close reasons. I think getting the community together to make another iteration on close reasons would take a long time which gives a common goal, be really productive, and drive in a direction that reduces friction for the overall userbase.

Journeyman Geek

Google dosen't count. You'd be killing sites left right and center if you did

Shog9

@JourneymanGeek Ok... You have bad choices, but fine. We'll go with Facebook.

ew

Facebook was a pretty simple concept a decade or so ago

You got a page and you can put stuff on it

user206222

The demographic changes are always gonna be the hardest ones. Changes to voting, to posts, rethinking what it even means to "close" a post, the way users are baked in... are gonna be so, so much easier. Changes that make certain people want to stop participating, so the platform can appeal to a changing landscape, are always gonna be hard.

Travis J

long running community sites? gaming has all of this beat

Shog9

you can't even customize it that much. But you can garden connections to other people, and that makes up for a lot.

Travis J

3:35 AM

how about ICC? chess server that has been running a community since.. oh gosh, the mid 90s at least

user206222

even Freenode is fading

Shog9

"even"... ;-P

user1306322

how about running a couple new designs for a Q&A site conceived in 2020, as timed experiments?

user206222

well I'm not the first person to call freenode a dying/dead platform, people have been doing that since the late 90s ;)

Shog9

@JourneymanGeek Facebook today is nothing like that. In fact, Facebook isn't even close to the most compelling part of Facebook. All the other stuff Facebook has built on that connection graph (or.. bought and attached to it) is what makes it useful.

You can still "facebook", and lots of people do... But it's an increasingly shitty experience.

Travis J

3:37 AM

claps

Journeyman Geek

"Increasingly shitty experience" ... hmm...

Shog9

Meanwhile, FB is putting loads of energy into developing for the audience they have today, the folks who looked at what FB was good for and wanted more of that.

The folks who used it for community organizing and the like

The folks who used it to keep in touch

user1306322

ok who here would want to be a developer for facebook

Shog9

Who didn't particularly want or need this ever-expanding universe of spies selling them stuff in exactly the same space that Gramma was posting pics of the new nephew

(the spies are still there of course, but shhh)

Now, what's this mean for SO?

Travis J

No need to be quiet, everyone knows ;)

Shog9

3:40 AM

As Aza sez above, the key is figuring out which core mechanics are useful and which ones aren't... And which ones could be useful if they weren't so damn broken.

Journeyman Geek

@Shog9 well - some would say that SO is kinda putting loads of energy into "future" audiences, and somewhat neglecting the audience that got them there.

Shog9

And by "useful" I mean "to the audience who will actually use them"

Journeyman Geek

But... a community without fresh users is a fading community

StephanS

@user1306322 yeah

Shog9

There are a ton of ways to get this wrong (and... we may well do that too)

Travis J

3:41 AM

@JourneymanGeek - No shortage of new users... that's for sure

StephanS

I heard leads get 500k+

Shog9

But done right, it doesn't mean "randomly changing stuff & hoping for the best" - it means careful analysis of folks' needs.

user1306322

I don't think facebook has the same core values as the SE community, or that facebook wants a certain high level of quality for its content on par with what SE strives for, so it's a very odd comparison

Benjamin

woof

Shog9

Y'know. Good ol' requirements gathering, prototyping, testing, iterating. Systems analysis and design.

The stuff that puts kids to sleep at night

hichris123

3:42 AM

What are you supposed to do when a Developer Story has spam on it? Example: stackoverflow.com/users/story/8076628 (warning: NSFW)

user1306322

so what you're saying is you want to test a new Q&A site, got it

ShogExchange 2020 :p

Journeyman Geek

@user1306322 that's an interesting point for sure.

user206222

"Dearest Mommy," said my three-year-old, "I'd like some milk and an A/B test for sleep, tonight."

Journeyman Geek

We talk about the community

Shog9

@hichris123 ...that's a lotta pics...

Journeyman Geek

3:43 AM

@Aza .... so choice of snack?

Shog9

and into the eyes of the jackal I say...

StephanS

I think SegmentFault is open source if you trust the code

hichris123

@Shog9 Yep. Found by searching for unwanted comments on SO... not what I was expecting.

Travis J

@Shog9 I do love a good systems analysis debate.. so I have to ask, if you could say in a single sentence so I can get on to perhaps more productive angles: why not look at updating the close reason set?

@hichris123 looks nuked.

Shog9

@hichris123 small internal victory this year: got 'em to carve out a "looking at porn" exclusion in the internal CoC for folks whose job it is to look at stuff like this

...wait. Victory?

Journeyman Geek

3:46 AM

@Shog9 depends on the person and the erm... content?

Also, I wonder what sort of role involves looking at porn for work... for science of course.

Shog9

best part of this job is how I learn something new every day

like... anatomy

Travis J

@JourneymanGeek ever seen what a facebook mod has to look at?

Journeyman Geek

@TravisJ read horror stories

StephanS

new question on meta.SE and looking at the title have questions just become parody of older questions.....

Travis J

probably that sort of role... it seems mostly bad

Journeyman Geek

3:47 AM

Well - there's a few things there

its content moderation

Shog9

@TravisJ that should happen a little bit within a few weeks. Then more, in a few months. Then... Who knows?

Journeyman Geek

That 'manner' of employment - through an outsourcing company, and possibly through a bodyshop is invariably high stress

hichris123

Okay, kinda wondering now if anyone thought about the possibility of Dev Stories being spammy, there's plenty out there. stackoverflow.com/story/cuties4fun is another, if you can't tell from the username.

Travis J

@Shog9 Oh, so it isn't just a flat out no, 0%? Epic.

Journeyman Geek

The good thing about bodyshops is low standards.

the bad thing is... low standards

Travis J

3:48 AM

Looking forward to it.

Shog9

@hichris123 up-front? No. Since then? I've deleted thousands. If you come up with a good query, lemme know & I'll queue it up.

hichris123

Although the Markov chain is pretty advanced it seems: "My lips and hot lips... make me not the same"

Travis J

@hichris123 I did. Although, it also seems like kind of a waste to ruin or try to start a whole account just to take advantage of that.

Why not just make the dev story be at 200 rep?

hichris123

@Shog9 Hm, gotcha. Disappointing that you're stuck with the task of manually doing it.

Shog9

I'm not really

Travis J

3:50 AM

I mean, really, are 1 rep users coming here, only creating a dev story, and then using the jobs interface?

Shog9

But I do have this "delete lots of users" script I'm not using for anything else...

Travis J

If so, then nevermind.

hichris123

Yeah, the rep restriction would seem sensible. Although I suppose no one really finds these profiles unless they are looking for them.

Shog9

IIRC, SOBotics has a script to track other parts of user profiles, but there's no API for dev story

if you can identify good heuristics in the normal bio/name/location, that makes this all a LOT easier

StephanS

@Shog9 are community managers hired or volunteers?

Shog9

3:52 AM

hired

StephanS

cool is it remote?

Shog9

yes

Travis J

I hear it comes with a cool feature that allows you to walk around your place of dwelling yelling nonsensically from time to time.

Shog9

best perk

StephanS

that must be nice, New York is an expensive place to live

Travis J

3:53 AM

:)

Shog9

good lord, yeah - I could not afford to live in NYC

We've had a few CMs in NYC, but... I have no idea how

Journeyman Geek

@StephanS considering they need to deal with us ... they better get paid G

@Shog9 the first batch?

Shog9

remember CHAOS?

Journeyman Geek

sigh

StephanS

@JourneymanGeek yeah but so do mods and .....

Journeyman Geek

3:57 AM

I miss them a fair bit.

Shog9

and then I think... One after that?

Journeyman Geek

Yes I do

StephanS

I not trying to make this into the bin but meta.stackexchange.com/questions/335050/… the more I read this the more I'm confused

why the disclaimer

nvm I get it's point now

Travis J

so, on that note, see you all later ;)

Meta Andrew T.

At least it's Friday, and I have a deadline...

StephanS

4:11 AM

oh my, I was waiting for Soros to come into play. My friends, we're no longer dealing with trolling it's evolved into sincere trolling.

Journeyman Geek

lol

I can neither nor deny there's a conspiracy of terriers on SE.

StephanS

no terrier can get onto SE we have you protecting us

Meta Andrew T.

~~ninja'd~~ shuriken'd before I wanted to refer to "contact us"...

Mysticial

@Shog Small favor: Can you fix the link in my comment here: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/334900/official-faq-on-gender-pronouns-and-code-of-conduct-changes#comment1099449_334900

Looks like it tries to jump to page 2, but the answer that it's under has been upvoted onto the 1st page - thereby breaking the link.

Shog9

Oh yeah... Known bug.

1s

Mysticial

4:23 AM

thanks!

Journeyman Geek

@StephanS See, that's the beauty of it... ;p

Shog9

Fixed

/posts/comments/<id> for reference

Mysticial

thx

StephanS

didn't meta.SO have a chat area?

Journeyman Geek

....

I have no idea

StephanS

4:33 AM

nvm I found it

Journeyman Geek

Well?

Did it?

gets the lamp

DID IT?

user102937

images.unsplash.com/…

Journeyman Geek

I was thinking of one of those ones on the desk

yanno, like in the cop shows

user102937

Stormblessed

4:53 AM

@StephanS it does?

chat.meta.stackoverflow redirects to this domain

StephanS

@Stormblessed no I made a mistake I thought I found it

but it wasn't it

I really thought there was one

Journeyman Geek

@RobertHarvey Ah yes

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@Stormblessed That's because, pre-mso-mse-split, this chat server used to be called Meta Stack Overflow Chat

Stormblessed

0

Q: Posting a message "https://chat.stackoverflow.com" in chat shows a picture for Stack Overflow that links to the stackoverflow.com homepage

Look here: I posted this message in Chat: https://chat.stackoverflow.com/ It oneboxed like if I had posted https://stackoverflow.com/ This doesn't happen with a link to https://ja.stackoverflow.com: so this can have exceptions. Testing in the sandbox, https://aaaa.stackoverflow....

here's a terrible post about a real bug

StephanS

5:11 AM

was it deleted I'm so confused

Journeyman Geek

5:44 AM

@StephanS Hi so confused...

StephanS

5:56 AM

@JourneymanGeek why..... just why......

@JourneymanGeek yeah I have a question for you. you live in Singapore right?

Journeyman Geek

Yes

StephanS

is it illegal to eat on the bus

Journeyman Geek

Yes

StephanS

interesting

Journeyman Geek

likewise with trains and train stations

StephanS

6:00 AM

that's what I thought but I wanted to make sure about it

Andras Deak

@Stormblessed MSO dupe meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/352312/…

StephanS

sometimes it's hard to understand how the law is applied in places that you don't live so I wanted to make sure that it was the case law.stackexchange.com/a/43713/24698

thank you

Journeyman Geek

ah

StephanS

I did find a law about the trains

Journeyman Geek

So its a request that makes it look like a rule...

@StephanS well the rule started with the traind

StephanS

6:04 AM

It could be a rule I couldn't find

I'm used to searching US law lol

it was interesting to look up because I found laws about durian and places you can't have them (e.g. the bus)

Journeyman Geek

Oh yup

Magisch

morning

StephanS

have you eaten durian?

Journeyman Geek

We're so used to don't this or we will fine you signs, even a request looks like a threat I guess

Yes

it is... interesting

StephanS

is it like jackfruit

Magisch

6:09 AM

is that the fruit that smells terrible but tastes ok?

Journeyman Geek

uhm

Jackfruit is a lot firmer

durian is almost like custard

@Magisch It tastes glorious

rene

del-pls 20k+ discussion off-topic Whois irc server query hide‭ - nhr‭ 2019-10-10 17:32:29Z

StephanS

like a custard, wow, it's hard to find in the US

Journeyman Geek

It does not travel well

in malaysia, they actually wait for the fruit to drop so... the lifespan is short

the thais kinda time it so it ripens, but some say its not as good as tree ripened durians

StephanS

there's probably someone that grows it somewhere near me

I'll have to find some

Journeyman Geek

6:14 AM

also ... shucking it is a bit tricky

the pros wear thick gotten gloves and use very sharp knives

user206222

hydraulic press

Journeyman Geek

You don't want to squash it

also we've never tried eating the seeds >_>

StephanS

if it's anything like shucking a green coconut then I think I could do it

Journeyman Geek

(jackfruit seeds are edible - just let them dry and remove the plasticy skin...)

@StephanS ...nothing alike

StephanS

oh nvm

I heard about that

Journeyman Geek

6:17 AM

I would suspect its slightly closer to...

cracking open a lobster?

if a lobster was a vegital morning star that smelt foul?

StephanS

lol

Rob

@JourneymanGeek ...That's not how I'd describe it. It's more like a melon mixed with onion

Magisch

so you mean I can lob durian at people?

Journeyman Geek

@Rob its super soft texture

Rob

We had three people sharing one, we didn't finish it :D

Journeyman Geek

6:19 AM

@Magisch you would risk hurting yourself picking it up

user206222

@Magisch ...would you lob an onion at people? no wait, don't answer--

Magisch

I don't know. The most exotic fruit I regularly eat is mango

and I like mango really firm and not when its ripe

@Aza I was making a wordplay on Journey's "like a lobster"

it didn't land I guess

Journeyman Geek

@Magisch oh

Rob

Heh, exotic... we grow heaps of mangoes here

Journeyman Geek

the "perfect" mango for me is... small...

Rob

6:20 AM

Doesn't make them any cheaper, though, unfortunately

StephanS

I have a thing for jackfruit, 60lb usually lasts two weeks

Journeyman Geek

there's a specific variety you can roll in your hand, and just.... suck it dry.

Magisch

I have a large thing for broccoli. I put it in everything

Journeyman Geek

also we have more than one variety of banana

Magisch

whenever I'm eating a salad, an omlette, rice, anything where it could possibly fit, I put broccoli in it

Rob

6:22 AM

Well, at least it's a healthy 'addiction' :)

StephanS

this conversation makes me hungry

Magisch

there's an indian place in my town that makes the coconut milk broccoli curry of the gods

it's way too good to eat regularly, you'll dislike anything else

user310756

@DavidA there's a whole lot of content that is far from respectful.

StephanS

oh, not this again, we were having a nice conversation about food

user310756

@StephanS I hear ya

StephanS

6:28 AM

@Magisch I have that same issue with Thai food, I think it's rice noodle soup, it's perfect

Andras Deak

@StephanS "nice"? Broccoli...

StephanS

you don't like Broccoli

user310756

every chat room I'm entering lately is making me hungry

StephanS

head over to python chatroom and they'll fix you up a salad

;)

Yvette is that you? are you undercover here?

user310756

6:46 AM

@StephanS I put my name back, as I've been accused of hiding. And I'm tired of being insulted.

StephanS

@user3956566. I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that

user310756

@StephanS oh you didn't at all. There's been a lot of snide remarks and the last one was the straw that broke the camel's back and it wasn't yours

user310756

I gotta get out of chat. Later \o

user310756

like many weeks later.

StephanS

@user3956566. I'm going to get some rest, but I want to said I enjoy the videos you put out they're great. Anyways best of luck

user310756

6:56 AM

@StephanS thanks. I'll see you soon enough and I'll continue with videos :)

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