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18:00
@user1306322 Well just install and checkout yourself. I am just too lazy now to do some screenshots for you. It's all quite intuitive, and if you dislike it, it's pretty easy to deactivate the userscript.
there's always room for abuse
@πάνταῥεῖ I don't want to leave any comments on accident
even if the reasons are all provided/vetted by mods, there's nothing stopping someone from choosing one that makes no sense.
@fbueckert I suppose that's where we diverge in our approach to this problem :p
@Raedwald but what if we could leave useful suggestions on how the content can be improved? like in comments but a bit different?
@user1306322 Of course theres an extra link under the question that will start a dialogue about choosing your options and confirm.
18:02
just... leave... a comment...
@user400654 for when you don't want to type a comment because you basically don't know exactly how to fix the content, but you can give a general suggestion?
7
Q: Why isn't providing feedback mandatory on downvotes, and why are ideas suggesting such negatively received?

Sonic the Reinstate Monica-hog This question was originally from this Meta Stack Overflow question. While there are many posts related to this issue which get closed as duplicates of Encouraging people to explain downvotes, that question doesn't do a great job of adequately explaining to new users why this is always tu...

if you don't know what's wrong with it, don't leave a comment
If you know how to fix it, don't leave a comment
fix it
377
Q: Why isn't providing feedback mandatory on downvotes, and why are ideas suggesting such shot down?

Pekka supports GoFundMonicaSometimes my post receives downvotes with no explanation on what I've done wrong. Even worse, sometimes I just get snarky comments! It seems like this is especially bad for new users, who are made to feel unwelcome by veteran users. Stack Overflow's rules can be difficult to grasp, especially fo...

@user1306322 The way I see it, we already put way too much effort into helping new users.
18:03
@Raedwald maybe you missed the 20 times >.< I specified I don't want to make it mandatory to add comments when downvoting, but again: I only want to add an option to leave feedback in the 3rd way: anonymous canned response which isn't a comment and isn't a vote, and is not a requirement for any other action
I want them to put in more effort on their own behalf, without needing us to waste our time repeating ourselves over and over.
@user1306322 It's in the list of suggestions.
Read it; it addresses all your suggestions.
@user400654 It is not the job of anyone here to fix anyone else's posts.
@user1306322 .... leave a comment
imagine this was 1990 and SE 0.1.4 without the comment system and we were discussing adding comments and people were saying "either downvote or close-vote" :p
@djsmiley2k-CoW what if you don't know what to type in that comment though
a lot of us likely think comments should go in the bin too.
then you shouldn't be using a canned response either...
18:05
@user1306322 Then downvote and move on.
you should just 'stfu' and move on.
I suppose I'm trying to propose to add more options to leave feedback to people who think there should be less feedback, or am I wrong?
there's plenty of feedback already.
dv = it needs work
@user1306322 You're proposing options to leave feedback that people have already tried.
up vote? = it's good
18:06
@djsmiley2k-CoW not necessarily
on meta it doesn't
45
Q: Let's talk about my (canned) comments for bad questions by New Contributors

Our Man in BananasWith all the back and forth (and the Do you mind if I don't's) between everyone regarding comments, and the Code of Conduct, and new users, I want to check with the community whether the canned comments I am leaving are now unacceptable for new contributors who clearly cannot even be bothered to ...

eh, downvotes don't always mean it needs work.
meta is dumb tho
18:07
if something isn't useful... there's not always something that can be done to make it useful
well, I'm talking about meta primarily though
meta litterally should be a forum
but se isnt meta
I think the last point on the meta @Raedwald provided is very relevant:
18:07
main sites could use a middle option for responses too
> We can't accommodate everyone. There will always be more question-askers out there than there are competent answerers.
@user1306322 That's true for main sites as well unfortunately
Note the several upvoted answers to that meta question, which criticise canned comments as worthless.
@fbueckert but we could try
@user1306322 Sure. After new users try harder.
We try enough.
18:08
users gotta git gud.
I'm not interested in helping someone who won't help themselves.
at which point commets arent required
if we have a helicopter's control panel to greet them, it's going to be tough seeing them eternal september their way through it
@user1306322 They also have the manual.
They just have to read it.
and you don't see it as a problem?
18:09
I just wish people would use close votes more frequently.
close vote instead of comment
we have an archaic system for votes with 0 nuance and we're expecting people to be nuanced about it
go make a meta post or something
18:10
sure, that's gonna go swell
instead of saying "Can you please provide a better example?" vote to close as off topic needs more info.
@user1306322 That users aren't reading the manual? Absolutely.
done deal
then maybe..... don't?
that'd eliminate thousands of daily comments
18:10
I made that meta post already just not on this site lol
Last I checked, acclimating yourself to your environment is still a required skill.
@fbueckert We're simply forbidden to tell them R*** unfortunately though ;)
it's going differently from what I'd expect here
you wanted to be welcomed with open arms? lol. boo hoo.
You've provided no reasons for your idea other than "I want it"
yes, is it too much to want to be welcomed?
18:11
@πάνταῥεῖ I get it. But...honestly, how far do we have to bend over backwards before we require new users to actually put in a modicum of effort on their own behalf?
hmmmm you're not unwelcome.
Is it too much to ask you to do prior research?
@user1306322 Is it too much to expect new people to try to learn about the new place they've found?
The thing you want is already in a user script
@djsmiley2k-CoW my reasons are this: sometimes you want to leave feedback but you don't know how to phrase it in a comment, so you pick a canned response
if you can't phase it, tehn you don't know what you're saying -> don't comment
18:12
I don't blame you for not reading that above multiple times
phrase*
I don't blame you for not understand that comments are noise and should be avoided where possible
we disagree here
Cool.
Can you stop trying to preach to a crowd where no one agrees with you?
but I agree on this with other people though
*ping* that must be the microwave
18:13
I wasn't expecting nobody to agree here with me though :D
I know I sound like a cranky old man who just wants the young whippersnappers to "get off mah lawn!"
yea you kinda do lol
@fbueckert At least at Stack Overflow they installed a "nanny me through asking a question" tool (wizard)
and I guess I should leave your lawn
@fbueckert I am a cranky old man, and my lawn is frozen, so don't you go walking on it!
18:14
But when I have signs out to stay off my lawn, the dozenth kid to ignore it kinda makes me justified in yelling about it.
@user1306322 you're welcome to stick around. I hope you like it here.
expect people to disagree with things.
that's the problem with not having fences or other ways to accommodate kids which could distract them from stepping on your lawn, which is what I am proposing
not the fences though
@fbueckert Ey, that's my ™ ;-D
i'll throw in my CS 20 cents. any kind of canned reply, in any environement, is gonna trigger a negative response from the reciever.
@djsmiley2k-CoW I hope here likes me lol
18:15
you're proposing adding extra signs saying "the pavement is that way ->>>>"
@CptEric not always
always.
if they can't read the "stay off the lawn" signs, how will more signs help?
@djsmiley2k-CoW yea whatever it is that kids seek these days, pavement, drugs...
18:16
@user1306322 There are fences. They're just jumped.
Because my grass brings all the kids to the yard.
I think my assumption is correct that when there are more than "lowest effort" or "maximum effort" available, people will choose those other options
they won't.
:/
People are lazy other than a few.
As soon as the user percieves the response as unpersonal/canned it triggers a negative response.
Otherwise, they'd search properly.
@user1306322 We disagree with that.
And have years of experience to back that up.
18:17
they'd edit questions
they'd read the help pages
they'd provide prior research
same as in with water bottles, people buy 0.3L, 0.5L, 0.75L, 1L, 1.25L 1.5L, 1.75L, 2L, etc bottles because the choice exists
they don't do any of these simple things.
No, people choose what suits them
You can test that assumption by leaving personalized or canned comments yourself.
See what that response is.
it's no more effort to buy 0.5l than 0.75;
same as with different makes of cars, people don't just drive mini coopers or city buses, they also pick sedans and trucks
18:18
because preference, not effort.
@user1306322 Too much choice will leave people in decision paralysis, where they'll either just choose a random option, the first one, or just not bother entirely.
Some people code in C, some in python, some in ASM
can I have those meta discussions where it is discussed how canned comments are bad?
I wanna see what the usage was
12 mins ago, by Raedwald
45
Q: Let's talk about my (canned) comments for bad questions by New Contributors

Our Man in BananasWith all the back and forth (and the Do you mind if I don't's) between everyone regarding comments, and the Code of Conduct, and new users, I want to check with the community whether the canned comments I am leaving are now unacceptable for new contributors who clearly cannot even be bothered to ...

try it, yourself.
litterally, you can DO the research
18:19
Beyond that, I think we're just going to disagree.
or you can be lazy, like the users who you dislike.
@djsmiley2k-CoW thanks I'd rather read a 2 year old discussion which ahs some settled opinions already instead
Come back after you try to make this work on your own, like we have.
because fact is, they aren't lazy, you likely aren't too.
Then we might have something worth discussing.
18:19
@djsmiley2k-CoW I don't dislike the users
nowhere did I say being lazy is anything bad
Oh I didn't say it was ba.
being lazy is great, if you come up with better ways to do things.
@fbueckert I'd rather learn from the mistakes of others, if you will allow me
More automation. quicker. faster. better.
i want to put emphasis that i wasn't speaking about meta. i was speaking about customer support, UX and IPS relations between user and provider.
@user1306322 Yeah, so doing research is important.
18:20
@djsmiley2k-CoW yes
It's not reasonable for us to have to do it all for you.
DV - quick, dv and then choose 'canned response' from list? not fast, requires mind thinking time. Nope not gonna bother
@fbueckert but if you have already done it, I'd appreciate if you shared the meta posts, that is all I ask for at this time
you could go searching
43 secs ago, by fbueckert
It's not reasonable for us to have to do it all for you.
18:21
or you could be lazy
@djsmiley2k-CoW you don't have to downvote to choose a canned response if you don't have to downvote
I'd still dv
because only reason I comment is either to point out something that needs changing, something useful, or something bad
Show some investment into your argument; show that you understand what came before.
We've just spent an hour telling you it's bad, and dropped some links.
how long are you going to spend arguing with us? XD
It's not unreasonable to expect you to put some time into doing it yourself.
18:23
I am not criticizing any of you for how you vote or interact with posts and I am not proposing any new features that require any existing actions or are a requirement to any existing actions here
@djsmiley2k-CoW I am not arguing, I am explaining myself
there seems to be a number of misunderstandings and I want to clarify
@fbueckert I am now going to read through them, thank you for dropping them
@CptEric I suppose I'm assuming interactions with a more reasonable and understanding posters (meta users) than an average support customer, maybe that is skewing my perception of things a bit, I'll check for that too
human interactions are human interactions. you can't expect someone to react positively to a canned reply, wether you are Facebook's reporting system, your favourite hipster socks e-commerce, or John Percival Doe on stack exchange. why? because humans are persons, have feelings, and like to be treated accordingly.
to summarize, what I want is to provide people with more options to leave useful feedback in addition to the votes and comments
I don't think everyone falls into that same boat.
a downvote can be interpreted as many things, a canned reply exceptions apply as lazyness and lack of care.
Yaakov Ellis on December 05, 2019

We know that giving our community mechanisms for sharing and receiving feedback is important. In her recent blog post, Meg Risdal described some of the ways that our Public Q&A product team is working to improve the way our system helps users share and receive feedback. I’m pleased to announce that starting today we are rolling out our new post notice system on Stack Overflow and across the entire Stack Exchange network. 

As a reminder, post notices are the informational banners that sometimes appear on closed, duplicate, and other questions. …

3
18:31
@Feeds yea, something like that
@user1306322 What I want is users to learn more about the system before criticizing it.
why not both?
was that post planned? lol.
Beautiful post timing lol
someone is watching
18:33
That Yaakov Ellis bot is awesome.
that is a good change indeed.
@user1306322 We do enough as is.
New users need to start putting in more effort themselves.
I think we can still do better, differently, not just more of the same
Know who else can do better? The people wanting the help.
22 mins ago, by fbueckert
@πάνταῥεῖ I get it. But...honestly, how far do we have to bend over backwards before we require new users to actually put in a modicum of effort on their own behalf?
we can work on both reducing our effort by "working smarter, not harder"
18:34
@user1306322 That's for the system.
I ain't gonna put in more effort than the asker.
and who designs the system?
That's rather unreasonable.
@user1306322 Not us.
uhh what?
Our suggestions haven't been considered for awhile.
maybe not here, but on other platforms they are
you're aware there are multiple "better SE" initiatives going on right now?
18:36
...then why are you arguing about them here?
I'm not in this for SE, I'm in this for whoever wants to improve
coz the historical experience is here, of course!
and the scale and reach
So, an hour of rehashing in chat what has been debated in meta posts, without the proposer having read those meta posts. This is why the SE model is so against comments and discussion. More often than not they do not improve things.
this is a treasure trove for learning past mistakes
@user1306322 Great. So what did you learn from everyone telling you your idea wasn't feasible?
@Raedwald we could have had a much shorter talk if my position was understood faster, maybe it's on me, maybe it's on others, anyway this was a useful learning experience for me
18:38
Wait, so you didn't know these reaction things were coming? I had assumed you did, sorry!
If you're trying to get volunteers from here to participate in curating content elsewhere, making sure the focus is on the repository of knowledge will be key.
@fbueckert because I can't see deleted posts to which there are links on SO, I don't have the full picture but I'm getting a sense these canned responses were sometimes misused or not precise enough to be fitting for a situation where the user could have left a more specific comment, which is on the poster of the canned comment, I suppose
@user1306322 You were given a few links you could read.
Did you take any feedback away from those?
Dear $user_name, your interest in improving the existing toolset has been noted.
Feel free to subscribe to our mailing list for updates.
@user1306322 As always usual for IT companies: PM's, CEO's, marketing evangelists, UX design specialists, etc. You rarely find end users or developers / designated system architects in this list.
18:40
popcorn over, Transport Fever time
I have learned that there are people for whom the idea of "there are only votes or comments, nothing else" is very deeply ingrained
@JourneymanGeek I get no credit, I think Thomas Owens posted the link originally :)
sigh
I give up.
I've learned lots of useful information though, so thank you for participating in my mad talk
that's just a variation of "you're wrong because you're old"
18:43
you don't have to be old to not want to change your certain views :p
that much is clear
sorry for my relentless optimism and desire to improve decade old mechanics lol
@user1306322 Well, let's call it engaged rather than "mad", m'key ;-)
one other thing I've learned is that SO is very unlikely to be improvable
@πάνταῥεῖ it was a meme on "thank you for coming to my ted talk" but it's "mad" instead
that's basically what i was saying. That argument... the old guard argument such that people don't want change because it's always been that way... is just silly. They're just as unwilling to change their stance as you are.
18:46
also, you meant to say enraged
@user400654 and it's okay!
we can test this on different sites with different mechanics
The only difference is they've been here, for years, actually experiencing the changes that have been made, the change in the community, all of it.
unfortunately the results may only be available in a couple years at least
yes, and now those who think we can build a different platform with different rules can go and do exactly that and see which works better
so far we only have one data point, more would be cool
there's experts-exchange
quora
forums of old
irc
Certainly more than 1 iteration of what SO is trying to solve.
how many of them had votes, comments and some kind of third reaction response option though?
(and, heh, a lot of us used most if not all of those before SO)
18:49
Last thing I'll contribute to this:
41
A: What should be done to change people's perception that Stack Overflow is hostile?

fbueckertI'm going to use a bit of a tongue-in-cheek analogy here. Let's say we're building a castle. A castle of cabinets. Stay with me here. So we've got a mostly finished castle, built entirely out of cabinets. These are well-made cabinets. Some might be a little dusty, or maybe starting to fal...

yea, I wanna try something new, bold and different :p
@fbueckert I have no view of StackOverflow as I don't use it often enough, I only use other smaller SE sites
Required reading, I say.
@user400654 I think one of the main issues here is that it's not so clear anymore what SO is trying to solve
It will help you understand the perspective of the, "old guard"
sure, but I'm noting here that I'm supposing you have had these experiences you're describing on SO, and I've not had them on SE sites
18:51
A new perspective is often a good thing, and welcome here, just don't start dismissing us just because we don't want to change. Investigate why that may be
Add it to your argument
of course
in my argument I mostly disregard the SO experience, as I'm not a frequent enough user of it to comment on it :)
I'm mostly talking about using other, much smaller SE sites
they are a world apart
@user1306322 ...Yeah, don't do that.
You're writing off an entire segment because it doesn't interest you.
but then... I'd have to become a frequent SO user and... I don't want that
it's too big for me, this is like comparing local municipal government to being the president of the Earth
You can at least learn.
@user1306322 Seems that this is what the new CIO also wants, and delegates this job to their board members, without having a vision how the existing core communities and veterans should be included in a productive way.
18:53
I sure will in either case, whether I want or not, that information is just too tightly coupled to avoid
the allegedly upcomign emoji reaction addition for example.. i don't like it. i think it's silly. i think it won't help solve any problems that currently exist.... but... it will give a button for people to reach for that isn't the upvote button. Maybe it'l result in less garbage getting upvoted. maybe it'll soften some of the hardness that SO seems to have. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@fbueckert Why not? There are many, many users who don't ever visit SO and there are equally many useful discussions to be had about the network at large. There's no reason to focus on SO.
@terdon-stopharmingMonica Solely? No. Never said that.
Just that there's where the vast majority of learning happened, and MSO reflects that.
I'd say ignoring SO is just as harmful to an argument/perspective about the network as ignoring the SE sites.
@user400654 don't think of it as only emojis, that is a too primitive example, think of it as mini-canned suggestions
18:56
@user400654 Also... Hopefully less +1 and thank you comments, and more thank yous in general :)
they aren't suggestions
they're reactions
all of them positive
I've certainly fallen into the trap of not thinking about SO when discussing things plenty.
"reaction" is just a familiar term
they're like saying "Thanks! this helped!"
but in emoji form.
comments at the rank of a "reaction" as most people who are familiar with the term would understand better
@user400654 yes, essentially
but also "citation needed" in emoji form
"got screenshots?" in emoji form
"authoritative sources?"
etc
18:57
27
Q: Teams: What is the '100' reaction supposed to mean?

GlorfindelSince a few days ago, our Team has a 'Reactions' feature. They seem to be similar to GitHub reactions, which are canned responses to a post. You can add them by clicking on a smiley. Currently there are four options: 'celebrate', 'help', 'thanks' and '100': They're some sort of public (up)vote...

what they mean is literally spelled out next to each one
so that's not ambiguous
I don't have a list on me but I'll link to you the site when it's done :p
@fbueckert I'd say that's misleading and a very large part of the problem. SO is where the learning about SO happened. And, sadly, SO is not representative of the network. It is orders of magnitude larger and has many specific characteristics that make it its own beast.
though... i still think 🙏 shouldn't be used for "thanks"
@user400654 yea that example is a bit useless haha
kinda silly
18:59
@user400654 this is "I'm praying to all gods, new and old, that this code will work"
exactly
it's overwhelmingly used for "pray" related reactions
I don't know what any of those icons is supposed to mean. Not a single one.
also it's "why are there empty squares? Are those emojis that my No-Emoji addon removed????"
@terdon-stopharmingMonica cough old fart cough :P
@terdon-stopharmingMonica No, it's where the learning of how to Q&A happened.
19:00
100? A hundred what? Thanks? Why not just upvote? Help? Huh, if you're asking you need help, so what's the point of that? And party? No clue.
btw shoutout to my boi No Emoji addon for Firefox :p
@Tinkeringbell pffft gerroff mah lawn
@Rubiksmoose It's definitely a part of the same ecosystem imo. Someone had mentioned on one of my posts that it's because of SO that other sites are thriving... but sometimes I feel like SO is completely coloring the kind of Qs we get on my secondary site
Some of it is programmer specific, but I'd challenge any statement that none of it is relevant to the network at large.
I'd say we should just use the reactions github uses.
19:01
@terdon-stopharmingMonica Make. Me.
@terdon-stopharmingMonica a hundred twice underlined
@fbueckert Yes, that's my point though. We (both the community and SE) have been working under the misapprehension that lessons learned from SO can be applied everywhere. And I don't think they can.
Some can, sure. But some cannot.
Most professional graphic designers I know are using the Adobe suite, that's not to say that they can't use anything else. But we get a LOT of Gimp or Affinity questions in graphic design.SE
red italic semibold one hundred twice underlined to be precise
19:02
@terdon-stopharmingMonica And there's been experiments about that.
and that's definitely not something I see around me, in the local GD industry
yea underlines don't work here
I'm not saying it's the definitive source; just that it has a lot of history about the pains of how it works, and it's helpful to understand that.
@fbueckert Sure. I'm just saying that just as we need to be careful not to forget SO, we also need to be careful to always remember that any lesson learned on SO cannot always be translated to smaller sites.
I would argue that Super User is a far better model: it's also big, but not ginormous and it's almost as old as SO.
@terdon-stopharmingMonica I would slightly disagree with that.
19:04
Still original trilogy, without the drama that SF went through all all of its quirks, it seems like a much better choice for a representative site.
@fbueckert hmm?
If we can make Gaming work in the original SO framework, I don't see it being a problem for most sites.
Oooh. It resolves to our icon.
Ah, I thought you meant gameification.
@fbueckert what did you post?
@terdon-stopharmingMonica The URL.
100 blue italic semi-bold one hundred once underlined (on hover) :p
Anyway, my point is just that we cannot treat SO as representative. Sure, there are lessons to be learned from it that are applicable everywhere but there are also many things that make it fundamentally different to any other site of the network. Most importantly its size.
@terdon-stopharmingMonica And yet, the majority of features created for it are rolled out the network at large.
So, obviously, it can be representative.
coz it's the moneymaker
@fbueckert Yes, I know. I don't think this is a good thing, that's precisely my point :)
19:08
yea other sites are getting sidelined because of how important SO is to the company
I don't think SO is sustainable at this daily throughput of content
@terdon-stopharmingMonica Slightly disagree. :P
and I don't use it and I don't think it's useful to learn how to sustain such a site when I don't plan to build or use sites which will have that much throughput
Although, now that I've said that. I can't actually think of any SO-only feature that made it to another site that I objected to. So maybe I'm just fixating on the company's fixation on SO. Most of the SO-only features I can think of that I wouldn't want to see (e.g. 3-vote closes) are not exported.
I want to focus on smaller sites like any other SE site basically
So maybe I slightly disagree with me too, upon reflection.
19:10
@terdon-stopharmingMonica There's several features that I wouldn't have wanted.
More of a personal shtick than an overall one, though.
New Contributor icon.
@fbueckert LOL
Ah, I never really cared about that one either way.
Quickest thing to hit the adblock filter.
19:11
I thought it might help, and I think it has a little. I don't have a strong opinion on it either way though.
very cool lol
yea there are some cool ones there
some unreadable ones too
Well, in other news, tomorrow's the day I rip my solar company a new one.
cc @rene
Yes!
19:14
It will likely be drama-free.
It'll probably be disappointing how routine it's going to be.
We celebrate Sinterklaas here today, I hope there will be a present for you tomorrow.
@rene Googled that.
Santa Pope?
@πάνταῥεῖ lol
@rene And you have the bad bad Swartje Piet come along. Shame!
19:17
Excuse my bad dutch plz!
@πάνταῥεῖ yeah, that ship has sailed. It is now [Some Task]Piet with a touch of roet.
@rene Yeah, I just looked at the pictures.
@rene Ouch!! I promise I'll be better next time.
19:30
@fbueckert What do you mean "If we can make Gaming work in the original SO framework"... like what did you need to adapt in that community to make it work?
Did you solve "Can you ID that game?" (I'm assuming you get a lot of those, we all seem to get some sort of variation on this ID stuff)
@curious Yep. Strict requirements for it.
Or out it goes.
@fbueckert I'm guessing you require a screenshot of some sort? Does it always go out or does it get answered before getting closed?
we do the same for font IDs
but they're easy to answer so typically, closing does nothing
@curious We need an artifact that has more than the asker's assertion that it's from a game.
It was originally just a picture, but we've evolved it so it wasn't just, "I think this is from a game. What do?"
@curious yea IDs are banned on some sites because they're a trash magnet :p
that's the solution
even at their best, that type of question helps on average only one user
it's cool to provide this free service out of goodness of your heart but not at the expense of the total review/moderation effort
@user1306322 Which sites have banned them?
19:36
it could be argued that these types of questions may attract new users who become regulars though, but I don't have solid numbers on that
anime had a time where IDs were allowed, then regulations tightened, then they were banned
@user1306322 Definitely. I noticed that on my end
that was like the only big problem on anime lol
19:47
Then again, they're often high-quality on Science Fiction & Fantasy or Literature.
are there any stat posts on retention percentages?

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