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@JourneymanGeek Well, sometimes I've seen that it even takes up to 1 hour to close lost soul questions (not to mention that those survive more than a day until being deleted).

Journeyman Geek

@πάνταῥεῖ well - if folks don't see them, sure

But yeah, I don't think anyone will have an issue with lost souls

πάντα ῥεῖ

I'd see to fall this one under the _controversial_ category:

https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/340408/is-there-a-serious-qa-site-decentralized-service-where-im-actually-allowed-to

The only thing I am being quite sure is that this isn't a valid FR, and VTC as _not seeking for input and discussion_ .

Sébastien Renauld

@πάνταῥεῖ It's honestly a baseless question; as stated in the comments, there's literally no proof, no background info, just a baseless rant by somebody for unknown reasons.

And yeah, I wasn't aware you could comment on your own question at 1 rep

πάντα ῥεῖ

@SébastienRenauld Happy to help :)

Journeyman Geek

That amusingly enough, was supposed to help new users get and respond to clarification requests :D

Sébastien Renauld

11:41 AM

The guy is also clearly flamebaiting at this point. Didn't reply to the constructive message about no proof, but got on his high horse immediately when the post was called a rant

Journeyman Geek

Sure. Lots of that around :D

Right, it 3 downvotes :D

πάντα ῥεῖ

Whenever I would get a single ¢ reading the word toxic in a MSE question, I believe I'd be a rich man now.

Journeyman Geek

Dosen't mean some things arn't

But I'd rather people are more specific over their issues than toxic

πάντα ῥεῖ

The pity for this particular one is, that we even can't tell about the OP's question history. But that was mentioned in comments.

Sébastien Renauld

May be deliberate

Journeyman Geek

11:48 AM

That seems to happen a lot too :D

πάντα ῥεῖ

^^ Sure

> There are clearly intelligent people using this service (StackSites), which is why I still even bother trying to ask questions here at all.

I am just holding back a bad comment referring to the intelligence of the OP ;-)

Journeyman Geek

Good idea :D

πάντα ῥεῖ

:D

BTW that was much more amusement and brain food, than a profane cv-pls request ;-)

@Journey I'd be OK if you delete that single handedly.

Journeyman Geek

Eh, Sometimes its worth leaving an object example ;)

Its mostly harmless. Worth leaving a little for folks to do

πάντα ῥεῖ

@JourneymanGeek In german it's called "Pranger" (pillory). Somewhat cruel thing. I've been suspended at SO for apparently being cruel :-P

Journeyman Geek

12:10 PM

@πάνταῥεῖ Maybe, but when you stick your own head in the stocks, with a silly mask....

πάντα ῥεῖ

@JourneymanGeek There's some thruth in that. Just let 'em hang on a bit ;-)

The p'lice will come after anyways :D

Shadow The Princess Wizard

12:56 PM

@πάνταῥεῖ eww lice in a p....

πάντα ῥεῖ

Ini Kamoze ~ Call The Police (Official Reggae Video)

►

Mast

Historically, curators/moderators are rewarded by unsubstantiated claims of downvoting/closing/deleting questions because of mob-behaviour, lack of understanding, awards of internet points, elitism, racism, misogyny and other, sundry, malice. Just about any reason except appropriately handling bad questions. It's never explained, however, how such a large ratio of undesirables managed to all appear in one place and amongst a set of, mostly, professional engineers who, outside of SO, seem to interact harmoniously with clients/customers/employers from all demographics all around the world:( — Martin James 58 mins ago

John Dvorak

Me... interact harmoniously. Nah.

Mast

@πάνταῥεῖ Was wondering what got you banned for a year on SO, yet not on the rest of SE.

πάντα ῥεῖ

Guess why I didn't upvote this :P

Rob

1:07 PM

poolice

πάντα ῥεῖ

@Mast I was banned at SO by @TimPost single handedly for being cruel against the OP, while discussing publicly (i.e. the OP can see these comments) how the OP's question even attributes any good to the repository, and why not chase these kind of OP away.

@Rob Yeah, I love the utterance ;D

Rob

On SO there's a Bot-room watching the comments with AI; it's possible to get a half dozen people descend on a comment thread that's going downhill and pick up a bunch of unfriendly or R/A flags - thus calling a mod to make a decision. If you get a few dozen flags there's trouble.

πάντα ῥεῖ

I well know all of that. But Tim made it unambigiously clear, that this was a single handed descision just for this particular comment.

Rob

From what I can see ^^ instead of saying "it's no good, go away" there's an expectation to offer a suggestion on how it could be improved, or to flag it - but not be unkind and/or unwelcoming. --- I too wish the CoC was different, but it isn't; and that's our limit.

πάντα ῥεῖ

In my opinion it's bearable for OP's to see criticism discussed in comments, even if the criticism involves the (long term) usefulness of their contributions to the site.
I can't see any cruelty with that.

Rob

1:25 PM

Well, there's that blog (where the person didn't feel accepted, and was crying) - a few of those and the foot came down. IRL I may or may not bring people's shortcomings to their attention and not offer a satisfying explanation - but that's life, not here.

πάντα ῥεῖ

There were in fact many blog-posts and people complaining. But given the facts and the clear quality requirements for the SE sites these aren't constructive in any way.
Nor it is constructive to suspend active quality curators from a site / community.

@rob

Journeyman Geek

1:43 PM

@πάνταῥεῖ and yet, sometimes we need to do that.

And no matter how much we want it to be "just about the content" and stuff was black and white - it often isn't

Rob

1:55 PM

@πάνταῥεῖ Sometimes it's Sealioning, they've carefully set their footing and when you come along you're not ready:

Seriously FAST Key Log Rolling!

►

πάντα ῥεῖ

2018 Summer of love was the root of all evil!

> stackoverflow.blog/2018/04/26/…

PM 2Ring

2:13 PM

@πάνταῥεῖ I don't quite understand what you're trying to say there. Did you mean "contributes" instead of "attributes"?

πάντα ῥεῖ

@PM2Ring Sorry! Yes, I meant contributions.

PM 2Ring

@Mast Good old Martin. ;) I admire his tenacity, and I'm glad that a 1 year suspension from SO didn't drive him away permanently.

@πάνταῥεῖ Thanks.

Rob

I understand either word as fitting in to the sentence, attribute meaning "equated to" while "contribute" meaning either "simply adding more to the pile" or "making the pile better".

Regarding the Blog link, that's why the 3rd party anonymous survey asked about gender/race etc. So they could determine if a group was getting left behind; but people protested the nosey question, thinking ill intent.

Journeyman Geek

@Rob and it was a little clumsy

Mast

A little

πάντα ῥεῖ

2:25 PM

Teenie weeny

Rob

The Blog mentions: "But it’s built on mechanics and norms that push people away if they don’t know the ins-and-outs. Too often, someone comes here to ask a question, only to be told that they did it wrong.". They've (the owners) accepted responsibility for their part of causing the problem. -- They want everyone to feel validated, included, important. --- They so-called "no bad question" concept.

Journeyman Geek

@Rob I guess that's one of those things.

Mast

Too often people do it wrong. We could fix that by educating, but no, let's not do the obvious thing.

Journeyman Geek

I'd prefer the circle of insiders widened.

And of course - not making people feel like they don't matter.

πάντα ῥεῖ

@JourneymanGeek That was mainly happening since Joel handed over ...

Journeyman Geek

2:28 PM

@πάνταῥεῖ eh,even before I'd say

Rob

On a few sites the number of comments allowed before "move to chat" scolding comes up has been increased. On some of those sites several people spend an hour or more helping the person to improve their question or answer. Then after the experts have finished helping all the comments get deleted, leaving a wonderful question or answer that helps as many people as possible.

πάντα ῥεῖ

@JourneymanGeek Mmm, at leasz it became more obvious at that point.

Rob

On other sites it's "No soup for you!".

Journeyman Geek

@πάνταῥεῖ happened midway during Joel's CEOship

Got better after the retrenchment. Now we're as bad as or as worse as it was before as far as small sites go

Mast

@Rob Are you saying chat should be used less often on questions?

Rob

2:31 PM

No.

PM 2Ring

2:46 PM

@Rob Scolding? I wish the "move to chat" thing came up quicker. And maybe even if high rep users or tag badge holders could invoke it manually when it's obvious that a discussion is going to be necessary to help the OP improve the question.

Another option is to allow high rep users to invite <20 rep newbies to an existing chatroom. But that feature was requested years ago...

Rob

@PM2Ring As the OP I wouldn't mind a move to chat button, where someone else can deal with the person's concerns at length, they can offer a lengthy course in the subject, replacing what they should/could/would have learned in school - as-is we have to hope it's close enough to flag, and that it won't be declined.

PM 2Ring

^ Tricky. Given the ambiguous meaning of "baiser" I'm inclined to call that a false positive.

Rob

For a newcomer it's often the case that they didn't take the tour, read the help, search for similar questions, etc. Lots of things. Some sites people are chatty and enjoy the bantering (and are retired, seek conversation here online). Elsewhere we have people whom drop in from time to time, they need to be able to finish helping in less than five minutes.

PM 2Ring

3:06 PM

@Rob I generally don't mind spending time if I think the OP is genuine about learning, and if their English skills are adequate. It can be very frustrating trying to teach technical stuff when there's a big language barrier. But of course, you've got to be in the right mood to do that stuff, and I understand some answerers have zero desire to do it - they just want nice clear well-asked questions to answer. And that's perfectly fine too.

Rob

3:30 PM

A few times I've ran into people with a question: "I need to X, and I'm doing it this way, is that OK". For an answer they want people to agree with them, to say: "Yes, that's the best way.". If you don't there's a lengthy debate, even when you provide proof with links supporting your answer, if you don't praise their idea you are wrong. Leading one to wonder: "If you already knew why ask, just to be validated? Based on all the evidence against doing something that way it really doesn't

seem like a good idea, probably even dangerous".

I used to answer questions that mostly only helped the person asking, usually running into people whom are truly grateful for the time you spent finding the best solution for them. It's the 1-2% of the people whom take their toll on things, and have lead to The Decline.

PM 2Ring

@Rob I try to avoid questions like that, unless I can give clear evidence that the OP is wrong.

@Rob I figure that on SO, even if a question is highly localised, my logic & techniques may still be helpful for other readers.

Conversely, I'm not happy about code-only answers with no explanation, especially if the code isn't self-explanatory.

Rob

Sometimes it's difficult to tell (see Sealioning link above), and you want to help those truly in need - for which they are most appreciative. It's the half dozen out of ~10 million that feel like it's 20%, because they keep popping up while the one's helped don't come back right away.

PM 2Ring

I'm certain that lots of people create a "disposable" account each time they want to ask a question. They don't care about rep, they just want an answer to their homework problem.

Rob

For code only if it's a one-liner then maybe it's self explanatory. For a few subroutines long answer self-documenting (or adding comments) is needed. It's certainly faster to just give the answer without explanation, but then there's less learning (give a fish vs. teach to fish) and harder for others to know if the answer can be bent to fit their question.

^ True.

Or work at home problem. :)

That's why "rep 1" questions go unanswered.

PM 2Ring

3:49 PM

Merely writing free code for strangers isn't very satisfying to me, but I do enjoy teaching stuff to people who want to learn. But I guess some people don't feel that way, and they're happy to write code just for the rep.

Mast

3:59 PM

@Rob Sometimes they can be handled on Code Review, but phrased like that they often lead to poor questions anyway.

There are so many problematic recommendations from SO to CR I wouldn't recommend pointing people there (the scope is complicated for a newcomer), but some SE sites can do things SO simply can't and shouldn't.

Rob

It wasn't a coding question, but instead doing an industrial (or outdoor) activity in their kitchen.

Mast

lol

Rob

They have to live there.

This isn't the same question, but this is what they wanted to do in their kitchen (instead of a Sugar Shack):