Tavern on the Meta

George Stocker

00:00

If that were actually true then we shouldn’t have community moderators anyway

HDE 226868

@JourneymanGeek Perhaps the mod in question nominates candidates and SE says yes or no to each one? And . . . yeah, some sort of legalese NDA, although IANALETIULSE (I Am Not A Lawyer Even Though I Use Law Stack Exchange).

George Stocker

This process reflects the fact that SE inc does not trust moderators to impartially weigh evidence — and it doesn’t have to be moderators on their own — but it needs to be more than just SE inc in the decision process.

11

theNamesCross

To me, it seems a panel (or several) moderators should act as jury. After all, they are chosen by their communities - thats as close to representative democracy and a panel of you peers as we can get. Id fear that random users may not be aware of the challenges moderators face, and do not share in the long term, seasoned perspective moderators have gained.

George Stocker

After all, community is the DNA of this company

I haven’t seen any feedback taken changing any of the process from the private moderator view to the public view. I’m not at all sure this whole “feedback” is anything more than perfunctory.

3

Substantively changing.

Journeyman Geek

01:14

@theNamesCross hm.looking at mod spaces... That would likely end up with 4 people voting 6 ways

LinkBerest

03:21

@terdon Another problem here is even if we trust some of our current CMs (Jon, Tim, Shog, Catija....that's it). We don't trust one of them at all. Further, trusting them to "do their best" means little when "the best they can do" is apologize as the building burns down

LinkBerest

03:31

@Catija I don't assume you or the CMs mentioned above are trying to do this. I presume nearly everyone else is and will not trust them - esp. based on this process which honestly just re-kindled the anger I was just letting go about this whole thing because it feels like a middle finger, you have no say, type of response to the community and their elected mods

Catija

@LinkBerest Just... so you know, the full list of current CMs is Shog, Jon, Robert, JNat, Cesar, Nicolas and myself.

@LinkBerest Maybe it's a matter of trust, as @GeorgeStocker says. He says many things that ring true and that I feel must be correct. I think it's more of fear. Fear that we need someone not in a moderator position and we won't be able to convince ... either because we can't share the information for privacy reasons or there's fear that the person is so respected that their actions will be ignored... or even that we expect something from users that they are unwilling to support. I don't know.

Ziv

I've got some experience on a CoC team in (entirely different context).
We had a lot of similar issues -- because the balance between "we need to be able to effectively resolve complaints" and "we need the community's trust in order to be able to operate at all" is really tricky, and really touchy on all sides.

You can't possibly open every complaint up to public examination/litigation. It'll be a firestorm every time even in the most benign of cases, and decrease trust, not increase it.

I don't know if this is helpful, but, some quick thoughts:

One thing that really helped us is a "trusted" OK on the final decision.
This is only for the cases that _really_ escalate -- @Catija, the ~%1 you actually get to the point of removing.
If there's a few "trusted" individuals who can look at the case, say "Yeah, this is a tough call but a necessary one,"
Then most community members will be willing to take their word for it (in a way that they won't from a CEO, publicist, etc., who can look a lot more like PR/damage-control than somebody applying due process).

(It has been an enormous help to me in discussions of our policy and conduct, to be able to say, "OK, but you are guaranteed that if I mess this up and make a lousy call, I can't actually pass it through without <trusted person> going over it.")

Another thing that really helps are examples.

Rob

03:47

Who are these trusted individuals to be?

Surely they can't be external to the company - no sane company would agree to that

And if they're internal to the company... the closest you're going to get are the CMs, which is where we are

Catija

Well, considering what both Sklivvz and George were saying, it sounds like mods or trusted non-mod users.

Rob

I'm not sure that's a realistic request

Ziv

Another thing that really helps are *examples*.

One of the thing that can feel really threatening about a CoC, is that you get a lot of things you are Not Allowed To Do,
and some of them feel obvious and others don't feel clearly-defined, and people tend to default to worst-case scenarios ("Somebody will go around harassing people for years because we won't have perfect process to remove them" / "People will get removed for tiny infractions").

But the reality is, issues can be infinitely convoluted, and however detailed your CoC is, you're always going to get curveballs. The disparity in …

@Rob re:Trusted users: That's the company's problem to solve/define, and yeah; it's a difficult one. But, for example, if you say "The community really respects CM1 and CM2, so they're now our "Incident Response Final Committee"," I think that'll work a lot better than saying "anybody in this particular preexisting role is equally appropriate for approving a mod removal."

Rob

And what happens when they move on?

And is it really feasible to hire someone for a role only to be vetoed by the community because they're not well known yet?

Ziv

The company will need to maintain this hypothetical "Final Committee", for sure.

Catija

04:02

@Ziv This has been a problem since the first version of the CoC, before I even worked here... the potential punishments seem super severe... including "expulsion"... and most of the time all that's going to happen is the content will be deleted.

Rob

@Ziv I thought you said the community did? Because if the company should maintain the committee... they already are... in the form of CMs

Ziv

CMs enjoy authority; they don't (automatically) enjoy community trust.
(Mods enjoy at least some level of community trust, because they're elected by the community)
(CMs enjoy company trust, though)

david

expulsion isn't that severe compared to having the "Director of Public Q&A" publicly accuse you of transphobia to a news organisation

8

Ziv

And that's really the big thing -- you need somebody trusted by both the company and the community.

Rob

@Ziv Okay, but then my question is again... is it really feasible to have the community vote whether or not a person is able to do the job they're hired for?

Ziv

04:05

("Who" matters less than that such individuals exist)

@Rob The job of Community Manager? Or the job of Final Committee?

IMO those shouldn't (necessarily) be the same job.

Rob

Either. What if the community decides they don't trust anyone?

Ziv

Well, then you've already lost and everything's already on fire.

3

(Which, to be fair, isn't far from where we're at?)

If the community doesn't trust anyone in the world, then there's literally no process or behavior that will convince them that any decision is legitimate.

david

I see two possible options: 1) They call in Keanu Reeves, 2) They go on Judge Judy

Ziv

@david I approve of these solutions

@Catija Yup; that's exactly it. You try to list all the possible options, and instead of being thorough, you wind up both (a) still incomplete (b) terrifying.

Incident response always has a lot of judgment calls to it. Giving some clear examples as anchors helps clarify things a lot more than enumerating all the possible options and combinations.

Catija

@Ziv Yeah. But it's difficult to enumerate the actual options with examples because it makes for a... very long document.

Ziv

04:19

@Catija Oh, yes. I'm definitely not saying you convert a whole CoC into examples!

Catija

Yeah. I know. We did try to include examples of what not to do and what to do instead, which is also helpful... though, it often leads to people saying "how is that bad???" :D

Ziv

But... a few?
Spread out across the spectrum of severity, intent, and clarity?

Catija

I think the CoC was intended to be a "living doc" that changed as we learned and grew... which is great... in theory. But if you go over a year without touching it, that concept gets lost.

It needs to change much more frequently than that to truly feel "living".

david

Moderator reinstatement process

Ex moderator to select one of the following:
1) Trial by the council: CM majority vote
2) Trial by the peers: Current moderator majority vote
3) Trial by the commoners: Users community vote
4) Trial by fire: 1 week test period where they have to top the charts for positive moderation actions.
5) Trial by chaos: Roll 2 6 sided dice. [6, 6] they get reinstated

5

solved

Makoto

@david It's super easy to find unfair 2 D6 dice

Or they can be totally fair die with 6 on all six sides

david

04:25

good point, we will need community elected representative dice

Ziv

"Alice misgenders OP in the comments, and gets a note about it."
"Liza misgenders people 10 different times over a 90-day period; after 2 notes, she is suspended for three months."
"Kelly repeatedly posts in Meta about misgendering not being a 'thing' and this is an example of PC culture run rampant. She is (??? complete here ???)."

david

"the weakest link goodbye"

Ziv

LOL

You are never going to cover everything, and you're sure not going to make everybody happy -- but a few "representative" examples would help establish what the scale is.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

04:41

A lesson I learned when editing FAQs is that you can't have exhaustive rules that try to cover each and every individual case: at some point, you just have to let things fall to individual judgment.

LinkBerest

05:01

@Catija As stated "the ones trusted" (to be fair I don't know about JNat - I have neither trust nor distrust and have not heard any comments IRL or read them). Disgust would be my other word, if I was to pick one besides anger. I don't fear that the current COC Faq would be used incorrectly - I assume it because I've already seen it happen.

I do not oppose the CoC itself but its application, design, and development surpasses the worst of the old school waterfall software projects I've ever worked on and I have zero trust in its enforcement because we've already seen the result of that. Then this process which seems to confirm the near total lack of transparency is by design, not to change, and basically deal with it or hit the bricks.

A process which seems to have been made with the assumption that we would still take SE at their word and ignores all the bad faith that is currently here. To me its just more fuel on the fire so yeah, disgust or anger. I'm good as far as using SE for work - I'll miss worldbuilding and a few people I still come on to see from Python though.

Magisch

I think the problem with the process isn't so much the fact that it's not really transparent, but the fact that people have so little faith in SE that anything else then a public trial style hearing with a neutral arbitrator would not have satisfied in the current climate

2

Piro

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog Wouldn't it be better to let things fall to general principle instead of individual judgement?

user194636

retcon

Noun: Wikidata

retcon (plural retcons)
A situation, in a soap opera or similar serial fiction, in which a new storyline explains or changes a previous event or attaches a new significance to it.
2003. Glen Cadigan, The Legion Companion, p. 152:
TLC: What do you say to the Legion fans who have become disenfranchised with the series due to its various retcons and reboots?
2005. Rhonda Wilcox, Why Buffy Matters: The Art of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, p. 9:
Fans talk of retcon—retroactive continuity—giving information that explains an earlier event, especially seeming...

Shadow

What's that avatar.... ?

oh

Catija

05:21

@LinkBerest JNat's the best. <3 I know that it's easy to be disgusted. There's much that's been done that's unforgivable... I don't think that how we handled this was appropriate at all but I also know that rolling it back would do much harm, too. There's more to the story than we're willing to say publicly out of respect... and I understand that may be hard to believe considering the whole talking to the press thing but... anyway, I need to get some sleep.

user194636

The point is Monica should be allowed to go through the Moderator Conduct Review Process.

user194636

Instead of starting with the Reinstatement Process

user194636

SE just seem to continually miss the obvious

5

Magisch

@Catija Out of respect to whom?

I couldn't imagine from monica's perspective that anything could be more damaging then the status quo

the cat is thoroughly out of the bag on this one

If y'all serious about re-establishing trust with the userbase there is probably no way around establishing something like an arbitration comission that is independant of the company and any of it's interests, and to agree to be bound by decisions of that comission.

4

Arthur Havlicek

05:48

normally being tied with the company interests should reinforce trust, not diminish it, considering what CMs have at stake vs what a mod or independent commission have at stake

I also wonder how independant you can be, if you are either a volonteer or paid by SE inc

user194636

Especially if the boss of your boss holds a strongly biased view

user194636

Without an independent tribunal the best one could do is an appeal chaired by someone from the C suite

user194636

With people uninvolved in the prior stages

Magisch

06:03

@ArthurHavlicek ideally it could work like the arbitration committee on wikipedia. Site wide elections for people to handle these disputes

the reason they need to be decoupled from company interests is that the trust in the company is so low right now that any verdict from them is not going to be believed, no matter what.

rene

→ 7 messages moved to Chimney

Magisch

06:26

→ 4 messages moved to Chimney

Tinkeringbell

07:08

Morning!

rene

Ola!

user58

07:52

→ 13 messages moved to Chimney

Bart

o/

user58

*sloshes salt water all over @Bart*

Bart

Wait, what, why? What did I do? Did sea levels rise while I was asleep?

user58

I just waved back.

Bart

.... badum-tish

Magisch

08:01

@user58 you're never again allowed to criticise the quality of our puns

user58

Of course I can. The bad ones are reserved for me to make.

user351483

Well, this is another day. SE seems to be jumping across rocks while the tide rises....

user58

@Tinkeringbell what did you DOOOOO

@Snow It's all Tink's fault. Don't ask.

Bart

I'm listening to epic music to drown out all the noises, on this site and around me. It helps :)

user58

dUUUn dun-dun dun dun dun dun dun-dun-dun / dun-dUN-DUN DUN DUN

(if anybody recognized that I'll be extremely impressed)

rene

08:04

epic music ... I guess Frans Bauer?

Bart

@rene if that is epic to you I won't judge (except internally).

rene

epic

user58

More like... Nick Phoenix and Thomas Bergerson?

terdon

@LinkBerest I'm not sure what you mean. I don't have an issue with any of the CMs. I don't know which one you don't trust at all.

Bart

@rene but more like Nightwish Live at Wembley.

user58

08:07

@terdon I assume the one they don't trust is Cesar. Which is silly.

rene

@Bart Ooohhh, Floor!

Bart

@rene yup :)

user58

Two Steps From Hell - Victory

►

Magisch

@terdon SE and it's management taint the credibility of anything they touch

It's not the individual CMs, but the organization

If you don't trust the CM's Bosses or their bosses' bosses, you can't really trust that the process gets executed fairly.

Tinkeringbell

@user58 Oh sure, blame a cute innocent parrot!

user58

08:13

A "cute innocent parrot". Suuuure. Cute innocent birds don't flood countries!

Tinkeringbell

They also don't peck out eyes... :P

terdon

@user58 Why? Cause he's new? Cause his account was used to post some of the things that came out on meta?

@Magisch CMs are not management. LinkBerest specifically said there's one CM they don't trust at all and I have no idea who that'd be or why.

user58

@terdon Presumably because he didn't come from within the community. That's a sentiment I've been seeing a lot (not that I agree with it).

Magisch

For me personally, the CMs are still employees and as much as I trust them I can't expect them to insubordinate to their bosses' requests. So nothing in the company can be trusted to act impartially right now

terdon

Meh. Cesar's been trying his best and is actually around to take the heat. I have no problem with him at all.

@Magisch That's a different issue. And why we do need some sort of non-SE oversight into the demodding process, yes.

Magisch

08:22

SE can't have any determinative power in the process. The decision needs to be with non-SE people

and SE senior management must bind themselves to accept the outcome regardless

Bart

@Magisch I don't see that happening. Ever.

@rene btw, did you see the Phantom thing? Nobody I show that to is impressed ...

rene

@Bart Maybe they are not into musical?

Bart

@rene even then ... the best I got was an "It's okay I guess".

rene

Hmm, that seems an undercooled reaction

Bart

I have had to remove people from my life over this. It's a shame but had to be done.

rene

08:28

lol

Bart

I could ask Tink, but she already threatens to hammer me into airplane seats ...

Tinkeringbell

@Bart If I guessed right what you're talking about, that one showed up in my spotify discover weekly and I was severely underwhelmed as well.

Bart

... I hate people

Tinkeringbell

It's just screamy, and not like what the song is supposed to be :(

terdon

@Magisch No, that won't work. There will be times when SE will have to have the final word. Even go against the community. We need to be realistic: SE is a private, for profit company. They will never complete cede control to us, and I can understand that. So at one extreme, there will always be the "SE don't like you, you're out". What we can ask for is some community oversight for the vast majority of cases that won't be so extreme.

Bart

08:33

@Tinkeringbell I guess I'll go enjoy it on my own then. :'(

aloisdg

I read somewhere that meta is the something like 0.15% of the userbase. What is the weight of those 0.15% in the total karma of stack exchange? My guess is that those 0.15% are the people answering and contributing the most to stack exchange. Can we mesure that?

terdon

@aloisdg Perhaps by looking at i) global network rep and ii) global network posts for each user?

rene

@aloisdg you can give that a go on SEDE: data.stackexchange.com

needs a cross-site query

Tinkeringbell

@Bart I guess you'll have to, sorry! :(

aloisdg

To get that we want to get the sum of all karma per stack exchange and sum the karma of each user involving at least once in the meta part of each stack exchange. Then create the percent for each

rene

08:37

You also need to define which meta and which userbase. I think the 0,015% was based on the SO users and the Meta.SO

aloisdg

Nobody did it before? I would love to have the value for each stack

I guess I will see to do it. If the results valid my hypothesis, maybe it can yield some weight for people arguing about the value of the userbase involved in meta.

rene

@aloisdg here are two select statements to get you going: data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/1130383

aloisdg

08:54

@rene thank you. I will dig that this evening.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@JNat Cross-site spammer: stackexchange.com/users/16945362/drhenrythanh

Raedwald

@terdon Yes, as a matter of practicality, SE are the higher court or the supreme court, which can always override the lower court of community decisions.

Mark

@aloisdg I don't know about reputation, but on Stack Overflow, it's about 12% of answers and 15% of content curation

aloisdg

09:24

@Mark this is a great link. Thank you.

rene

09:54

→ 5 messages moved to Trashcan

too early

Unihedron

10:29

They are a company but they are also running a system. For SE, their product have been the content for a long time, what drives them money is the ads that are shown to people who need the content being posted and shared. So the strategy seem to have been on giving power and agency to the users, to keep them creating content on the site. Now the product is the company and values are less important than creating features that can sell. Supporting the community seems to be forgotten - for understandable reasons - but it shouldn't be overlooked.

djsmiley2k - CoW

The problem is, the users forgot they were the product at one point.

Journeyman Geek

@Unihedron also historically when SE was small the company was part of the community

Unihedron

Well I obviously have no authority on how they should run their site or how the users should treat them, but it's easy to forget that the goals have shifted and being a mob about it isn't going to do a lot. What we need is not more confusion, but a direction and a way to move forwards.

Still being in Hong Kong and seeing my country being destroied, I live first-hand the sentiment that if you want to improve your home, you don't destroy your home.

terdon

10:46

@Unihedron Well, no. As far as we know Q&A isn't actually profitable and never has been. But you're not wrong with the rest. Nevertheless, as long as we operate on a system controlled by a private entity, it doesn't make sense to expect that entity to give up control. So let's ask for things that could actually happen like some community oversight. We will never have the final word, but we should at least have a say.

Journeyman Geek

@terdon none of the rest of it is freestanding though

Unihedron

You're right. However my view is a lot more laid back compared to yours, in that the entity wouldn't need complete control anyways. For example, you stated that "[if] SE don't like you, you're out". I completely agree that they need to have the level of control like that, however most of the cases even if SE doesn't like a moderator, unless they are significantly misrepresenting the role of a moderator or is harming their image, they should use the better judgement and keep working with them

terdon

Agreed.

Unihedron

This is, again, my own judgement and how someone wishes to use their own power for is their own judgement.

Mad Scientist

@terdon we don't know that. They project 80 million dollars revenue for the next 12 months, which includes far more than the Q&A. But that still seems high enough that the ads themselves could be a significant chunk of money

Unihedron

10:50

Each of us as our own entity has a lot of things we want to get done - That's why we divide up labour so we can all exercise our limited capabilities and delegate work to others who have proven to be competent. To act out the level of absolute power when you shouldn't is dangerous.

terdon

@MadScientist No, we don't know. As far as we know the Q&A side isn't a money maker. But that may be wrong, it's just the popular wisdom thrown around the network.

Magisch

@terdon Q&A is the only reason any of their other products have credibility. If I were SE I would see it in the best interest of my shareholders to hold and give autonomy to the Q/A community as much as possible

Journeyman Geek

@MadScientist historically that seems possible - though they were running a tighter ship then

Magisch

I don't buy the private company argument in that sense

Mad Scientist

@terdon They scaled back Careers at some point, so it might not have been as profitable as we thought. I suspect that SO simply has enough traffic for ads to add up to a significant chunk of money

Journeyman Geek

10:51

@Magisch well 'politics' wise I don't think Q&A has much power

Careers was pushed hard cause folks thought it was the big thing. But also the tail wagged the dog.

Magisch

reality wise everything else is just window dressing

profitable window dressing, perhaps, but neither jobs not teams would be anywhere without QA

Unihedron

amazon also wouldn't be where they are without starting as a book store, but QA has the potential to be the main product, it's upsetting that they (the Network) is not treating it as such

terdon

@Magisch You're preaching to the choir. But every indication over the past several years now is that public Q&A is not their main focus.

Raedwald

Selling (Teams) subscriptions to companies is hard if SO has a reputation for being "that unwelcoming toxic place"

Regardless of the truth of the reputation

Magisch

they're making a dangerous bet right now that inertia and outrage fatigue is enough to let this blow over without substantial damage

terdon

10:56

@Magisch The question is whether or not that's relevant. I mean, of course they wouldn't exist without the 11 years of successful Q&A. But we have 11 years of it and we have a great library of content. SE have explicitly stated they consider that goal achieved. So whether they still have a corporate interest in maintaining an open Q&A platform is not clear.

And nothing in the past few weeks makes me thing they really are invested in that side of things.

Unihedron

@Raedwald imagine if SO was like microsoft in that they crown MVPs and send people to give talks in conferences. Doubt the negativity would still spread so rapidly. SO appeals to the people who uses it, the people who don't use SO doesn't know what it is and the gap is what needs to be filled.

terdon

@Raedwald Well, then that means that they can get rid of SO and its "toxic community" and focus on Teams. They have had 11 years of great development. They now have a mature product.

Also, I don't know that the toxic reputation would affect Teams since none of the "bad people" would be there anyway. Teams is a closed product.

Magisch

@terdon That is a red herring. That Q/A library is highly dependant on voltuneer effort

this here thing could be flat unusable in 2-3 years if everyone stopped curating

maintaining a relevant collection of knowledge this big needs a lot of work

Raedwald

@terdon But if SO is meant to be the shop window for your Q&A product, and someone looks as SO to answer the question "how will it work in practice if we buy a Teams subscription", the reputation of SO would matter.

terdon

@Magisch I am not saying this is a good, reasonable or even rational position. But I don't have the data I would need to judge it anyway (we don't have numbers for SE's income). The point is that we may assume that Q&A is super important, but SE might now consider it to be just a problem and be trying to find ways of getting rid of it. We don't know.

user194636

11:02

I find the "SO exists and is popular, and will therefore always exist and be popular" argument unconvincing.

terdon

@Raedwald Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you'd just think "Hey, this would be great if it was only me and my team and not all these other jerks".

Magisch

@terdon Nothing easier then that. Spin off Q/A into a nonprofit and make it dependant on donations and I'll personally pay my share

and never touch anything else SE again

Unihedron

@194636 I share the sentiment; If you build a product that is so inherently excellent that you don't need work to lift it off, you are a god. SO was godly for a while. It really needs more mindful thinking now.

terdon

@Magisch Yeah, I saw that meta suggestion. I fear it vastly underestimates the amount of technical work and skill required to keep something like this floating.

If Wikipedia can barely make it two months without asking for money, why would a site with a fraction of its userbase and utility fare any better?

user194636

@Unihedron Don't know about thinking per se but their execution and communication needs work.

Cerbrus

11:05

@terdon This

Q&A isn't a money maker.

user194636

Coming soon: Wikipedia Teams

terdon

@Cerbrus If it were, SE would be rich and free of VCs. It isn't, hence it doesn't make all that much.

Raedwald

@194636 "Don't like facts? Write your own!"

Unihedron

@194636 I feel bad for finding this funny.

Magisch

@terdon Wikipedia spends a lot of money on non wiki stuff

user194636

11:07

@Raedwald Exactly so!

Magisch

if you look into their finances, simple upkeep on the wiki would be pretty cheap

Unihedron

Have fun guys. Time for me to go.

SPArchaeologist-様

> Binkusu no sake wo, todoke ni yuku yo
Umikaze kimakase namimakase
Shio no mukou de, yuuhi mo sawagu
Sora nya wa o kaku, tori no uta

terdon

@Magisch Simple upkeep on the wiki isn't even in the same league as keeping as complex a system as SE floating!

user194636

@Unihedron Seven Hail Marys and two Our Fathers

Magisch

11:08

SE's Q/A system isn't all that complex

and they haven't meaningfully improved anything of it in the past 5 years either besides minor tweaks

terdon

@Magisch Um. OK. You try defending the number one target for any script kiddie that wants to prove they're 1337 h4x0rs

Magisch

SE has been doing it with minimal investment in the past years, wouldn't you agree?

SPArchaeologist-様

@Unihedron At least you find it funny. To me, this looks oddly like the Rumbar pirates last song scene...

terdon

Not to mention all the site mechanics, DBs, servers, designs (such as they are), graphics, CMs, etc etc.

Magisch

Most of the new stuff went into teams, careers, ads, that kind of thing

terdon

11:11

@Magisch No. SE has been incredible at keeping the place running with minimal downtime and fast responses. This is not a simple task.

But hey, if you think you can spin up a clone, I'd certainly be interested! I just think most people are vastly underestimating the complexity involved.

Cerbrus

Guys, if building an SE clone was that easy, people would've done it already. Instead, there are sites like expertsexchange and Quora.

Granted, the name expertsexchange cracks me up, but that's hardly enough to replace SE

user194636

@Magisch Documentation 🙂

Magisch

market inertia is a pretty big thing

you need to mess up hard to be displaced by a not uniquely superior product

it took EE to put the whole site behind a paywall and ads to create social pressure to make something new

user194636

Clones are easy. Getting them to rank on search engines is not.

terdon

Seriously, go for it. I mean it quite sincerely. I don't think you'll manage it, but I'd love to be proven wrong. But until someone comes up with a workable clone of SE, this whole discussion is pointless.

Journeyman Geek

11:14

@Cerbrus technically SE was a hyphen site clone

Cerbrus

hyphen site?

Journeyman Geek

Experts exchange

Unihedron

@Cerbrus Quora: damn we got roasted

Cerbrus

Also, SE when SE jsut started was significantly less complicated

Unihedron

@SPArchaeologist-様 I don't know what that means.

Magisch

11:16

I'm attached to this community and the idea of encyclopedic curated q/a knowledge, not the company. I know I don't have the skills to make another one myself, but if another one comes along, nothing keeps me here

SPArchaeologist-様

@Unihedron Oh, sorry, I seemed to remember you mentioned watching One Piece once but probably I am mistaken. Let's just say it ends this way

terdon

I used to be attached to the company as well, actually. I had a personal relationship with some of the folks working there and I had respect for the folks whose posts I'd read even without knowing them. At this point, I have no loyalty left for SE at all. I still like and respect the CMs but that's about it.

Magisch

@terdon Thats about where I'm at

I really like and trust the CMs, because they're actually here and good people, but the company itself might as well be EA at this point

Unihedron

relateable minus the respecting the CMs part (sorry love you guys)

user194636

@terdon There are many already. Some open source, some commercial. The one that springs to mind is AnswerHub.

Journeyman Geek

11:22

@Magisch tbh the fact that there's so few of them and that there's so much inertia to hiring more and investing in the community is one of the signs I think the company lost its way

terdon

@194636 link?

user194636

@terdon Search engine of your choice.

terdon

Also, open source is not the opposite of commercial! You can be both!

user194636

Nitpicking is not helpful

Journeyman Geek

It's something I really wish folks would get. It's tiring constantly hearing 'We need $thing before we can invest in the community'

terdon

11:23

@194636 Yes, thank you. I asked you since my search engine didn't give me a very obvious hit.

user194636

> Some open source, some commercial.

user194636

Where did you read the word "opposites" in that

terdon

"some blue, some green": that format is usually used to give two, mutually exclusive options.

user194636

@terdon Is it clear to you now at least? I can state they're not mutually exclusive if that helps you at all.

user194636

Demos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDqoGuf3i_9-h-Jvu17KCcbcLxX7OX7N2
Feature list: https://devada.com/answerhub/features/

Unihedron

11:26

It's interesting that you say that, blue and green are typically pretty close to each other in most languages, especially to cultures who live on land, who don't see many non-land colors often

terdon

@194636 Wow. I don't know why you're getting so worked up. Yes, it's clear now thank you.

Unihedron

The chinese characters for blue and green were both 青

user194636

@terdon Tone is hard to decipher online. And you were going on about it.

terdon

@194636 If you say so. I thought you were :)

user194636

@terdon See the transcript. I responded to you.

user194636

11:27

Anyway see the links above

terdon

So, answerhub seems to be some competitor to Teams?

Not an open Q&A platform?

user194636

It can be both.

user194636

The point is the software exists.

user194636

It is probably not realistic to produce an SE clone from scratch.

terdon

OK. I can't really tell how similar it is to SE. It looks like it's specific to developers and works on some sort of subscription model. Do you know of any alternative to SE with the same core features? i) open Q&A, anyone can ask and answer for free; ii) wiki style where everyone can edit/suggest edits; iii) very broad collection of subject matter on different but linked sites?

user194636

11:31

Wait 7-10 days and I'll give you an update on that.

terdon

@194636 Ah, you're going to try it? Cool!

Unihedron

are you really looking for SE alternatives that are exactly SE? what's the point then?

user194636

@terdon No but I know a big company that is.

terdon

@Unihedron If they don't have those three features, they won't be alternatives for me.

user194636

I can say no more.

terdon

11:32

Fair enough.

Journeyman Geek

12:19

@terdon tbh III is something a lot of people don't care about

terdon

12:31

@JourneymanGeek I'm sure. That's just one of the things I happen to like. I'm active on a wide variety of sites :)

Shadow

I've been missing in the last week or so due to holidays, not the situation. So, what did I miss, in a nutshell? :/

I still see tons of "new" faces here, not sure if it's good or bad, lol :D

user351483

I'm old.

Shadow

I'm ancient.

Magisch

I'm getting there at 25

Bart

@Shadow "Angry!!! Shake fist!!" "We understand, so here is solution" "Bad solution, still angry!! First hurts from all the shaking!" ... rinse repeat.

Mgetz

12:37

17 hours ago, by Mgetz

/sigh am I the only one that basically wants to curl up in a corner and cry due to all the drama?

Shadow

@Bart still nobody found the stop condition? :(

Mgetz

Halting problem

Magisch

I have a weird mix of beeing in a generally bad mood due to this and fatigue exhaustion going on

Bart

@Shadow nope, none of that. It's a bit more calm, but just waiting to flare up again.

Magisch

@Bart I think you're mistaking calm for fatigue

Shadow

12:39

@Bart so, like that?

;)

Magisch

Even if this stops right now and nothing more comes of it, nothing has actually been solved. The next time anything happens the flames will rise again

Bart

@Magisch oh yeah, I'm acutely aware of that.

Magisch

A little more hurt, a little more caustic, a little more saddened then last time. So it goes and has been for over a year

rene

@Shadow Tsjakka!

Shadow

Well I'm a Phoenix now. Fire won't burn me anymore. :)

@rene jakka what?

Bart

12:41

@Magisch I would not be surprised if the next "step" would be key figures "moving on after X great year of working at"

user351483

@Shadow I'll just go to sleep in front of it, if you don't mind.

rene

@Shadow Ask Bart ...

Bart

@rene they're not going to get that reference :D

Shadow

@Snow won't you melt??

rene

@Bart IKR ....

user351483

12:42

@Shadow I'm a Labrador.

Shadow

@rene asking @Bart

@Snow you're Snow

Snow melts in fire. :P

Bart

@Shadow a weird dutch motivational coach who used that as his exclamation ...

Magisch

@Bart Nah. I don't think anything will happen besides more community distrust towards staff and more staff disgust with the community

Bart

@Shadow and in case you wish to know how weird ... well ... this weird

Shadow

What I'm most curious about is whether Monica really did something wrong or not. All the rest is minor, for me personally.

Magisch

12:44

We'll likely never know

SE isn't sharing any details, neither with her nor with us

Shadow

I was 100% sure she didn't until George said he saw evidence saying otherwise. So now I'm not sure.

That's one of the reasons I'm back, since it's not so black and black as I thought.

user351483

7 hours ago, by Catija

@LinkBerest JNat's the best. <3 I know that it's easy to be disgusted. There's much that's been done that's unforgivable... I don't think that how we handled this was appropriate at all but I also know that rolling it back would do much harm, too. There's more to the story than we're willing to say publicly out of respect... and I understand that may be hard to believe considering the whole talking to the press thing but... anyway, I need to get some sleep.

Mgetz

@Shadow I find it curious that he's the only mod to publicly come forth and say that. I'm not doubting him, I have no evidence either way. But it's curious.

Magisch

7 hours ago, by Magisch

@Catija Out of respect to whom?

It's hard to imagine a sequence of events that could be more disrespectful to monica. So who are they protecting here? The person that made the choice to fire monica?

3

user351483

If that was disclosed, the underlying issue obviously won't be respected will it?

Mgetz

12:47

tbf if what we've heard about the TL is true... the rest may not have been around to see it

djsmiley2k - CoW

@Magisch "because my boss glared at me"... is how I read it

Shadow

@Mgetz at this point, all I can think of is that she did something wrong without knowing it, as part of her routine.

djsmiley2k - CoW

@Bart I saw a certain person was studying interview questions according to their twitter. lol

terdon

@Shadow You know, to me it really doesn't make that big of a difference. Even if she did do something wrong, the way she was publicly named and shamed in the press is not defensible. SE have been more considerate in the past when a moderator was arrested fr a felony!

3

Bart

@djsmiley2k-CoW :D

Shadow

12:48

e.g. someone who wears a hat which offends someone else, and that someone else isn't telling "your hat is offensive please replace it" but rather goes to the police.

djsmiley2k - CoW

not even joking, I took screenshot while laughing

terdon

So even if Monica were completely to blame, I still would be expecting an apology and public retraction of their statements to the press from SE.

2

Bart

@terdon yup, big no no which demands a public apology and correction.

djsmiley2k - CoW

@Shadow you mean like going on twitter and complaining because "people aren't nice"

Mgetz

@Shadow I think it's subjective, but again I have no evidence. Just a lot of innuendo and accusations. I don't think it's cool that SE has publicly slandered/libeled her (depending on the situation). Regardless of what may have happened that in many ways made things a lot worse.

Magisch

12:50

@Bart Thats what gets me about this respect statement

Shadow

@djsmiley2k-CoW yep

Mgetz

my guess is that she wrote something that could be interpreted a lot of ways and was rather blunt. If you were looking for offense you'd find it, if you were looking at it as "She's just being in-eloquently blunt" you'd see that too.

2

djsmiley2k - CoW

hmmm, wrong 'her'

Mgetz

actually... @Magisch isn't this topic verboten?

Shadow

Anyway, at this stage, I did dismiss all the conspiracy theories.

Magisch

12:51

@Mgetz which topic?

djsmiley2k - CoW

time for REMOVING ALL THE THINGS!

Bart

Except "Aliens" @Shadow

Shadow

(removed)

Magisch

We're not talking anyone in specific, and the general topic is not forbidden

Mgetz

speculation on monica's removal?

djsmiley2k - CoW

12:52

Can I speculate about speculation

Bart

Only speculatively

Shadow

I speculate that Earth is round.

Mgetz

great now we'll have a SPECTRE attack against chat

that will lead to a MELTDOWN

djsmiley2k - CoW

So.... did a new faq or something get published?

Magisch

@Mgetz eh, honestly. At this point we have all the info we're ever going to have

Shadow

12:53

Magisch

so if people make conclusions based on that it's really nothing to do with us

djsmiley2k - CoW

Last I know, someone (cesar?) said Monica would get an update 'soon and that was it.

Mgetz

probably, I don't expect anything to change

Magisch

I'm not aware of any CM guidance towards room owners to forbid any particular topic or course of discourse in this room

Shadow

:D

Magisch

12:54

all of this is/was just what we think sensible

terdon

And SE think ansible!

Only a time machine could sort this...

Mgetz

@GeorgeStocker The process is inherently flawed because there is a fiscal incentive to be partial to a co-workers decision. The fact of the matter is that a co-payed arbitrator would be a better choice as they don't work for the company.

Transcript for