Tavern on the Meta

12:01 AM

And we will probably unfeature them at some point to save the CMs the stress, either way

@DavidA That sounds like a perfectly acceptable form of self-answer - a genuine question, and a real answer that they happened to figure out themselves. Relevant old blog post:

It’s OK to Ask and Answer Your Own Questions

Jeff Atwood on July 01, 2011

The FAQ has contained one key bit of advice from the very beginning:

It’s also perfectly fine to ask and answer your own question, as long as you pretend you’re on Jeopardy! — phrase it in the form of a question.

So …

if you have a question that you already know the answer to

if you’d like to document it in public so others (including yourself) can find it later

it is OK to ask, and answer, your own question on a relevant Stack Exchange site.

To be crystal clear, it is not merely OK to ask and answer your own question, it is explicitly encouraged. …

Rob

12:25 AM

I think that the number of Featured items (site, and main Meta), Blog links, etc. is either configurable or simply different on different sites. Whether a moderator, CM, or Dev is needed to alter the layout is unknown to me but the curious could ask on main Meta (if there's not a recent answer). Some sites have a moderator configurable text notice which also takes up some space in the right column (along with ADs, HNQs, etc.); so how much gets stuffed in there might be dynamic too. Example:

V2Blast

1:11 AM

44

Q: What criteria are used to select the links that appear in the community bulletin sidebar block?

On Drupal Answers, the number of meta posts shown on the Community Bulletin is, at moment I am writing this question, 2. Previously, there was just a single meta post linked from that block, and it was a featured post; the total number of links was the same, as there was a link to a blog post mor...

Rob

1:31 AM

@V2Blast That's several years old, the sites have been revamped since then; Joe was in charge of it ...

Cody Gray

@Rob I don't know what this screenshot is attempting to prove.

Stack Overflow and its Meta no longer have "Hot Meta Posts". Other SE sites still have this.

"Hot Meta Posts" are selected algorithmically.

Rob

1:56 AM

✔️

Cody Gray

I...don't know what that means?

Alex

@CodyGray emojis.wiki/heavy-check-mark

Cody Gray

@Alex That helps less than you might imagine... I saw that it was a check mark. I don't know what "check mark" means.

Alex

I didn't imagine it would help that much... so it must have been really unhelpful.

Cody Gray

Mmm. Now you've summarized how I feel about emojis.

Alex

2:17 AM

Sounds like this:

🤔

Or maybe this:

😬

If I keep it up, maybe even this:

🤬

Cody Gray

Hmm. Those actually didn't render on my computer.

Alex

Perhaps that's a good thing...

Cody Gray

Very likely.

I wish I could turn them off on every computer.

Alex

I wouldn't want to be responsible for death by emoji.

Cody Gray

You mean your own? Yeah, good call.

Alex

2:22 AM

Then I'd be a:

👻

Cody Gray

Because I decided to:

💘

(Does that even render? Google found it for me.)

Alex

I see a heart with an arrow piercing it.

Cody Gray

Perfect.

I stabbed you in the heart.

Or...fell in love with you?

I don't know. This is why emojis suck.

Alex

That's simultaneously why they're great. You get to feel like you want to kill me, but I get to tell myself that someone loves me.

(Full disclosure: I actually never use emojis.)

Cody Gray

Literally a case study in communication breakdown.

Journeyman Geek

2:28 AM

I've always felt emoji needed alt text tooltips

Cody Gray

Absolutely!

And captions.

Alex

Hmm, there are surprisingly not very many Journeyman Geek emojis readily available in Whatsapp.

Pretty much just this:

🐶

Cody Gray

Almost all versions of that have their tongue out

Journeyman Geek

@Alex that seems doge

I find the lack of dog emoji unacceptable

And on Android it's 2 shibas and a poodle. Maybe a wolf and fox if you squint

Rob

... and a special ding so you know ...

Journeyman Geek

2:36 AM

And 14 car emoji

Cat

Rob

The ten dog emoji

Alex

@JourneymanGeek At least you have at all. I couldn't find any Alex no matter how hard I looked.

Rob

3:06 AM

👨‍🦱 seems to be the closest to "Alex" (Emoji Movie):

On my system those show as two emojis in chat, but my browser shows it correctly as an overlay.

It's Over

-1

Q: Why SOW is discouraging, when it stands and exists on the basis of plagiarism?

Seeing the TAG edits from past 5 years, when the whole SOW is running on the basis of plagiarism, then why some people are discouraged to do it, and others are given points to do it? Everywhere I see is the plagiarized copies from other sources in 100% of the TAG edits here on SOW. Very recently...

support suggested-edits plagiarism

Whoa now that's some accusation

I was gonna comment but I've comment-banned myself.

Cody Gray

Heh.

I do like to think of myself as having "a playful nature".

...and it was deleted just as I was flagging it for migration.

V2Blast

SOW?

@Rob If things have changed, sounds like the answer needs to be updated or a new answer should be posted... Shog last updated the answer in June 2018 (not counting minor copyedits by Sonic since then).

Cody Gray

3:26 AM

@V2Blast Paints a bleak picture, doesn’t it? Sounds like plagiarism is rampant over on pigs.stackexchange.com.

V2Blast

lol

The question was deleted so I don't even know what it was asking about

Cody Gray

Oh, he called out a moderator named “Code Gray” (which, curiously, linked to my profile) for rejecting all of his plagiarized tag wiki suggestions. Said it was very discouraging, since there is so much existing plagiarized content. Makes him feel unwelcomed to have his plagiarized content be rejected by moderators, especially after it was already approved once.

Journeyman Geek

No idea who this Code Grey is

:D

Cody Gray

Sounds like a real jerk

It's Over

medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Code+Gray

Bleak indeed

Journeyman Geek

3:34 AM

> Severe air pollution

Ok. Who broke the wind?

Cody Gray

It's clear that the correct definition is "A combative person with no obvious weapon"

Unless glasses are a weapon

Journeyman Geek

Then it might be no obvious weapon with no combative person

Cody Gray

I'm very combative. For example, I combat plagiarism in tag wikis.

V2Blast

I play lots of D&D. There's combat in that. Does that count?

It's Over

@CodyGray That's just a fancy way of saying "ninja"

Journeyman Geek

3:41 AM

you could do a lot of damage with the right D20

It's Over

@V2Blast does it have tag wikis.

V2Blast

@It'sOver ...Not yet

Cody Gray

@V2Blast Hmm. Plays D&D. Moderates RPGs. Checks out.

It's Over

Anyway, I'm trying to figure what these mouse pad gels are made of.

V2Blast

Lol

@It'sOver mice, obviously

Journeyman Geek

3:41 AM

@It'sOver silicone?

It's Over

@JourneymanGeek just silicone?

Cody Gray

Yeah, it's just silicone gel

Probably even non-toxic. Let us know.

It's Over

Well it's just exposed and it's annoying as hell

And I wondering if I'm gonna die.

Journeyman Geek

We're all going to die

It's Over

Well yeah, I found out.

If the gel wasn't exposed I would have been immortal.

Journeyman Geek

3:44 AM

More seriously, I doubt they would allow anything toxic there.

It's Over

That's what I suspect

Cody Gray

@It'sOver Your theory is that the only reason we all die is because we were exposed to gel wrist rests?

It's Over

Hey it correlates! At least for very recent data.

It's just a leap of faith to causation

And if @Sha was here he would have proudly announced that I have three kidneys and that's enough reason

Cody Gray

You have three kidneys? Did you steal Shadow's?

It's Over

Considering how obsessed he is I sometimes wonder that

V2Blast

4:00 AM

!!/tea

SmokeDetector

@V2Blast brews a cup of chamomile tea for @V2Blast

Rob

@JourneymanGeek People occasionally use a similar sounding name, in @CodyGray's case there is a deleted SO user named CudeGray (who's account Cody could see, but we can not). Often these lookalike accounts will post spam or something rude. Back in an hour.

Cody Gray

@Rob That account belongs to a troll who was posting some extremely abusive things about all of the SO mods.

Err...belonged. Someone nuked the account. :-)

Journeyman Geek

Gee. I wonder whoever would do that :D

Cody Gray

@JourneymanGeek Wasn't me!

Rob

5:13 AM

@V2Blast Looking quickly, one thing I see that's not mentioned are the extras and disclaimers. For example: medicalsciences.stackexchange.com has a disclaimer that cuts down the space allocated, while photo.stackexchange.com takes up even more space yet shows more additional links - so it's not exactly consistent / predictable.

Cody Gray

Are those actually part of the Community Bulletin? I don't have accounts on either of those two sites, so maybe you see something different, but especially on Photography, that doesn't look like it's part of the CB.

Yeah, it doesn't look like it's part of the CB on Medical Sciences, either. It's just a similar color.

Judaism.SE has the same warning.

V2Blast

5:30 AM

Yeah, I didn't think those were related to the CB.

Feeds

Podcast: A chat with our CEO about the future of our company and community

Ben Popper on January 21, 2020

This week we chat with our CEO, Prashanth Chandrasekar, about the milestones our community achieved in 2019 and what we have planned for 2020.

Three months ago, we interviewed Prashanth during his first week on the job. Now, with a full quarter of work under his belt, our new CEO reflects on what we accomplished over the last decade and lays out his vision for where Stack Overflow, as a company and community, will be heading over the next year and beyond.

Paul explains why engineers prefer to give blunt feedback, even in a public setting, and why that approach makes sense for someone working on mission critical software systems. …

Cody Gray

@Feeds Huh, that should be interesting.

If only it wasn't a podcast, so I could actually read it.

3

Travis J

5:59 AM

@CodyGray Don't bother. It was horrendously disappointing.

Journeyman Geek

@CodyGray especially since it affects my site and I don't have any clue what this means

Cody Gray

@TravisJ You already listened to it?

Travis J

Yes. Now I wish I hadn't.

Cody Gray

@JourneymanGeek All your bases are belong to us!!

@TravisJ Well, that much I expected. But it doesn't exclude the possibility of it being enlightening.

Disappointment is par for the course these days with official announcements.

Travis J

It's like a bunch of children trying to figure out how pistons move in an engine.

Cody Gray

6:01 AM

It's because a little birdie Tweets about them, right?

Travis J

lol yeah

Cody Gray

And the driver thanks them frequently, thus making them feel welcomed.

Travis J

Mostly, the issue is that this product, "Stack Overflow" was dropped in these people's lap and they have absolutely no idea why it works, just that it does.

Cody Gray

Sigh. That's the whole thing about podcasts. The format is atrocious. It's just uninformed people ramblingg.

Travis J

Yes.

Cody Gray

6:03 AM

Even when you do have informed people, you can't tell, because they're stuck in a terrible format, with other people rambling.

The vast majority of people are terrible at impromptu speaking.

Travis J

I had a professor once tell us, if you start a sentence with "um" I am going to stop you right there and let someone else speak.

It was a public speaking class though, so it was fair. She enforced it too.

Cody Gray

Yup

Travis J

Anyway, the only hint from the podcast was a remark about "Sandbox", a product for pre-reviewing posts, but who knows if that is really a thing or not.

Cody Gray

I have plenty of experience teaching public speaking

Travis J

Ah, nice :)

Cody Gray

6:06 AM

That's something Shog has been talking about for a while, actually. Has the potential to be a good idea, if implemented correctly.

Well, not exactly. But...still...could be a good idea.

I'm trying to be optimistic, m'kay?

Travis J

I had some back n forth with Megan about that once

4

A: Can I privately share a draft question?

The technical difficulty here is avoiding a large amount of content posted as "draft" by users if it were to be supported. Placing it on another exchange, for example draft.stackexchange.com, would be one route to go, however, that would be obscure, and more than likely lead to no one using it ...

Who knows though, lately I have been having issues finding the enthusiasm I used to have here.

Cody Gray

Mmm, yeah.

Travis J

I mean, regardless of advancing corporate goals, I really just want to help people out and learn a little in the process.

Cody Gray

I've always been more about building up a library. Which does, of course, help people out, but not just the person who originally asked the question.

Travis J

The thing about the library angle, is that we are really building a pyramid with this design.

Cody Gray

6:15 AM

That's OK, it doesn't matter what shape the library is.

Travis J

fair enough

Cody Gray

The long tail phenomenon means it will naturally have a non-rhomboid shape.

Travis J

maybe some of us like rhomboids.

lol that surely isn't how rhombus is expanded

oh well

Cody Gray

It is when it comes to the muscle, curiously.

Travis J

See, that is the double edged part of spell check. If nothing red shows up, you figure the word you used was the appellate one.

Cody Gray

6:18 AM

heh

Travis J

I am making a wysiwyg editor, just an easy one, so I gotta get back to that for now

Cody Gray

That's already been done before, as I'm sure you know.

Enjoy reinventing the wheel?

Travis J

So, there is a balance to be struck between security and features. Not really a fan of the security in full featured ones, and not really liking the lack of features in insecure ones.

If someone had properly built a wheel I would use it.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

6:34 AM

@JourneymanGeek Spam account: meta.stackexchange.com/users/689707/evianecramuk

My prediction of SE's next announcement: Smaller SO Teams will become free

Andras Deak

7:24 AM

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog like they are now?

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@AndrasDeak Actually, more accurately, more users would be free than there are now. I forgot about the current number.

Cody Gray

It's currently 25, but that's a time-limited promotion, supposedly.

Disappointed in SE

@CodyGray that promotion is over

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@DisappointedinSE Then, my prediction is that said promotion will be reinstated

Possibly permanently

The current Teams site doesn't mention any free users.

Cody Gray

@DisappointedinSE Ah, okay. Haven't really kept up, since current events on SO have made me not interested in using SO Teams at my workplace.

Journeyman Geek

7:36 AM

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog they switched over to a free trial with no payment info needed for now

Andras Deak

@DisappointedinSE ah, I didn't know that

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

But my prediction is, they will become free as a non-trial later on

Disappointed in SE

@JourneymanGeek in other words, they made it $125 more expensive and are trying to sell that as an improvement ;-)

Journeyman Geek

@DisappointedinSE yup

Andras Deak

Sell to everyone for free, lock in their data, profit

Journeyman Geek

7:38 AM

@AndrasDeak its all about sunk costs :D

Andras Deak

In this company's case it's skunk cost

Cody Gray

7:55 AM

Andras Deak

Awww

Cody Gray

For real fun, give it a squeeze.

Andras Deak

I don't mind that skunks don't live here. I'd like raccoons and opossums though

Tinkeringbell

I'm not sure, but I think we have none of those...

Cody Gray

Yeah, they're New World animals only. Found only in North and South America.

Tinkeringbell

8:05 AM

Yay :D

Cody Gray

I'm not sure what kind of stinky animals inhabit your neck of the woods.

V2Blast

lol

PM 2Ring

Opossums are ugly critters. Aussie possums are much cuter. But they can be annoying when they decide to take up residence in your roofspace.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

Cody Gray

That's a squirrel, not a hedgehog.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

8:08 AM

(In case you're wondering, that's not just the camera's white balance - that is the actual color of the squirrel.)

Tinkeringbell

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

That's Shadow Wizard the hedgehog

Cody Gray

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog Oh, there are albino squirrels. We had them on our college campus.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

@CodyGray And the myth was that if you saw one, you'd pass your exams?

PM 2Ring

@CodyGray Don't SO Inc understand that by alienating the power users they're discouraging the very people who would otherwise be the best evangelists for SO Teams? (Rhetorical question, no need to answer unless you want to).

Cody Gray

8:10 AM

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog Something like that, yeah. I don't know. I always passed my exams the old-fashioned way.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

myth

Cody Gray

@PM2Ring Apparently not.

I have made that same point countless times.

(Literally, countless.)

Disappointed in SE

@PM2Ring that might be a number that simply isn't large enough to matter.

Andras Deak

@CodyGray probably just stink bugs. Nothing weaponized.

I mean bugs can only deal damage in melee

PM 2Ring

As for the skunk cost factor... A few years ago in the Python room one member who'd traveled a long distance to a big Python conference lamented that he forgot to pack his Stack Overflow t-shirt. Back then, it was common for SO members to enthusiastically promote SO.

Fast-forward a couple of years, past the Welcoming Wagon initiative. Someone mentioned in chat that they were at (or on the way to) a Python conference. When asked if they packed their SO t-shirt, they replied incredulously "Are you kidding? No way!" or words to that effect. This general change of attitude can't be good for the company. It's certainly not healthy for the power user base. :(

@DisappointedinSE Perhaps not. But SO Teams is supposed to be for software developers, and most devs use SO in one way or another. And even if they aren't actually registered members, they're aware of SO's reputation.

Disappointed in SE

8:24 AM

@PM2Ring The users active on meta that might care about all this stuff are probably a small fraction of a percent of SO visitors.

Tinkeringbell

@PM2Ring The thing is... if you buy a team, you can kinda do with it what you want :P It's like SO behind a paywall :P

If you have a large enough community/momentum... Moving to there might actually be the most devillish thing you could do ;)

PM 2Ring

@DisappointedinSE Yes, I realise that. However, power users & mods who aren't active on MSE have been affected by the changes even though they aren't following the fine details. I've always tried to be friendly & welcoming, but I felt offended when SO Inc implied that we were bad because some newbies have a hard time on SO.

After the Welcoming Wagon initiative started lots of regulars were less likely to give stern instructions to newbies regarding their poorly formulated questions, or straight-out homework dumps. So now the quality of new questions is pretty bad, many experts have lost most of their enthusiasm for answering or even curating, and the percentage of low quality & downright wrong answers is growing.

I used to spend a lot of time reading & answering Python questions. These days, I find it too depressing after reading a dozen or so questions...

djsmiley2k in darkness

8:40 AM

@PM2Ring This indicates you think management who might choose the product, listen to said users of products

my working experience shows me management very rarely asks users for any kind of input before choosing products.

PM 2Ring

@djsmiley2kindarkness Ok. But I expect that upper management would get some input from their senior devs. But I guess it depends on the company culture.

Journeyman Geek

@PM2Ring that roughly happened to Serverfault at some point years ago

SU would probably be more robust to that I suspect but our #2 user just set his name to a random string, and he's ... pretty awesome :/

Tinkeringbell

@JourneymanGeek :(

djsmiley2k in darkness

I've worked in 5 places within the IT team, some of which I've specialised in various areas. Other than my now immediate boss, no one has ever asked me about any software.

PM 2Ring

I suspect that the quantity vs quality thing has had a bad impact, especially on tech & science sites. I know it has caused a lot of tension on Mathematics: one senior mod quit last year because he was sick of the faction fights between those who want to welcome the homework dumpers vs those who want strict requirements on homework questions.

djsmiley2k in darkness

8:47 AM

Maybe it's just places I've worked that they don't care. But from my experience, the purchasing/choosing software is far enough removed from the users that they don't get a say.

Tinkeringbell

@djsmiley2kindarkness Not asked, but I've definitely pushed for some stuff at some times, you either get it or not but if you never ask you're sure you're not getting it.

djsmiley2k in darkness

Oh sure, I've pointed out stuff is better than other stuff

but I don't think that's ever gone to those who may the purchasing decisions...

BlueSoul

@PM2Ring to be fair, I think many are far past that and into the "actively discourage usage of SE Products" phase. As I said, I once suggested using Teams - I wouldn't do that now.

PM 2Ring

Physics has a very strict homework policy, but we still get a huge amount of homework dumpers. And the policy came in too late to stop the exodus of world class experts.

I think I mentioned in here a while ago that we used to have a Nobel laureate contributing on Physics. He didn't leave because of homework dumpers, but mostly because of a persistent troll (who now is banned across the network for life). But I guess that kind of connects to the quality issue...

Journeyman Geek

@PM2Ring and those are the situations where we need CMs :/

Mods are human exception handlers

Our CMs are often the people who handle the exceptions we can't

BlueSoul

8:53 AM

@djsmiley2kindarkness you underestimate a side of the picture. The ones that work as IT consultants... They too are users of the platform.

djsmiley2k in darkness

yah, true.

Journeyman Geek

@BlueSoul I guess we will see over the coming year if there's an effect

BlueSoul

When I said I once suggested adopting Teams, I meant for a customer

Tinkeringbell

@PM2Ring Having a policy doesn't mean anything to some people. Others are just unaware of the policy. One of the hardest things is setting expectations up front...

Then actually having people follow them.

djsmiley2k in darkness

Still, I think you massively over state the effect of the few users who care what's happening on the network

compared to those who have just 'heard of stackoverflow'

BlueSoul

8:55 AM

@djsmiley2kindarkness the ones who have just 'heard of" probably aren't the one who would actually suggest adopting Teams.

PM 2Ring

@JourneymanGeek Yep. I think Tink mentioned Transactional Analysis yesterday. When almost everyone's behaving like naughty children with a few trying to impose parental discipline, Shog had the knack of coming into the situation like an adult, and influencing others to act like adults too. I guess Jon & Robert did that to an extent as well, but I'm more familiar with Shog's work.

djsmiley2k in darkness

@BlueSoul ok

but if you weren't involved in meta

would you care?

I doubt it.

it's a product you can reccomend to a customer, it'll work with, or without meta.

It's like not using openstack, because you don't agree with how facebook is dealing with political fake spam

Tinkeringbell

@PM2Ring Nope, that was ColeValleyGirl ;) But I was involved in the converstaion :)

PM 2Ring

FWIW, I've only been reading MSE regularly, and participating in this chat, for a few months, since Monica's demodding. But I always lurked here & MSO from time to time, especially when important stuff came up in the Hot Meta / Featured on Meta boxes. I suspect that there are a lot of regular users with a similar policy. Just because we rarely post on the Metas doesn't mean we're oblivious to them.

BlueSoul

@djsmiley2kindarkness My point is that if I wasn't enough involved to at least be aware of the recent "unfortunate series of unlucky events" ("ops disclosed mails", ads with a side dish of 'you don't know code, this is not a fingerprint tracking script', the CoC thing, licensing and so on) then I probably wouldn't also care to suggest the platform to anybody.

PM 2Ring

9:04 AM

@Tinkeringbell Thanks. I studied TA for a little while, years ago, as part of a Communication course. It's a simple model, but quite useful despite that simplicity... or maybe because of it. ;)

terdon

@BlueSoul Why not? You've been passively reading answers here for years, maybe you've asked one or two questions, but you know the basics of how the site works. It seems nice, you mention it to your boss.

Tinkeringbell

@PM2Ring TBH, I had never heard of it before yesterday... which is actually quite bad for an IPS mod :P

BlueSoul

@terdon If you want to make me sell your product, I need to be the first one to be enthusiast about it. Unless there is some "marketing" scheme involved - like having to sell SharePoint because Microsoft partner

Tinkeringbell

I guess that's one thing we don't have to worry about: subject matter experts.

BlueSoul

But SE... isn't as lucky. They are not our partner.

So, they don't get any "But thou must!" sales

Journeyman Geek

9:12 AM

@djsmiley2kindarkness I wasn't always on meta

Even as a mod.

Magisch

@CodyGray is the smell actually as bad as people say

πάντα ῥεῖ

> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk#Anal_scent_glands

Magisch

that link is staying unclicked at work

djsmiley2k in darkness

@JourneymanGeek me neither, I'm 'very' new.

πάντα ῥεῖ

:D

PM 2Ring

9:47 AM

I've never smelled a skunk, but I imagine it can be pretty bad. Chemist Derek Lowe occasionally writes about stinky chemicals on his blog. Eg, from Things I Won’t Work With: Selenophenol: "Imagine 6 skunks wrapped in rubber innertubes and the whole thing is set ablaze. That might approach the metaphysical stench of this material".

BlueSoul

Magisch

bring a durian in there whil smoking

double rebel

Shadow The Burning Wizard

10:03 AM

@It'sOver too lazy to read... but yeah that can be used as an excuse to anything, my dear מר. You're hereby forgiven.

:D

@CodyGray nah, all he stole was my pee. (Better not ask for details. ;))

So, now I need more....

!!/coffee

SmokeDetector

@ShadowTheBurningWizard brews a cup of Mocha for @ShadowTheBurningWizard

Tinkeringbell

Good idea.

!!/coffee for me too, please :)

SmokeDetector

@Tinkeringbell brews a cup of Cappuccino for @for

ColeValleyGirl

No real coffee for me -- sob. One of my cats has pushed my coffee press off the kitchen counter and I have spent half an hour cleaning up teeny weeny shards of glass in a lake of coffee...

Journeyman Geek

Oo

ColeValleyGirl

10:11 AM

!!/coffee for me -- ersatz is better than nothing

SmokeDetector

@ColeValleyGirl brews a cup of Macchiato for @for

Mithical

> "We have some ideas on how to better integrate Stack Overflow and the larger network..."

*slight concern*

Magisch

@Mithical concern intensifies

Also, they're apparently reworking the election system. The earliest announced election is set for mid february

unlikely they'll run any before then

ColeValleyGirl

Is that from the podcast? I cannot bear listening to podcasts or watching videos (personal quirk). I wish there was a transcript -- although you can't always judge tone from a transcript.

Mithical

@Magisch Well that, uh, doesn't bode well for the health of the sites in the interim.

@ColeValleyGirl Yeah. I hate listening to podcasts - much prefer reading - but I decided to half-listen to this one.

ColeValleyGirl

10:13 AM

I think their resource shortage has some bearing on holding the elections.

Magisch

@Mithical ya think? We have what like 5-6 sites without any active mods and a couple more with one and a lot more with 2 only

@Mithical was listening to this one worth it or will I just get angry?

asking to judge whether I should or not

ColeValleyGirl

And I feel sorry for them if the shortage was imposed form above. I've been in that position and it's horrible -- expected to deliver what you used to be able to deliver with less thanhalf the reosurces.

Mithical

@Magisch I don't know, I'm not done with it yet

Got a source for that election thing BTW>

ColeValleyGirl

Not one I can quote here.

Mithical

@Magisch (referencing this)

Magisch

10:16 AM

@Mithical space.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1426/… see top part

Nomination for the first election of the year starts February 17, 2020 iirc.

ColeValleyGirl

@Magisch you beat me to it. Also, the automationmentioned was being done by shog9.

Mithical

Okay... the podcast is sixteen minutes of saying nothing.

Magisch

@ColeValleyGirl and i'm not even a mod!

can't even read the TL

BlueSoul

@Mithical your determination is stronger than mine, young one. I quit after the first 30 seconds of call center music.

Magisch

@Mithical disappointing, but expected

Mithical

10:21 AM

I mean I was listening to it on 1.5x speed and doing other stuff at the same time, but nothing aside from what I quoted above caught my ear. Anyone who can bear to listen more carefully might catch something I didn't.

ColeValleyGirl

Suppose I'd better go back to my Drupal migration... sigh.

Magisch

@ColeValleyGirl they really did step as hard and deep into a pile of dog *** as they could by getting rid of shog

Mithical

I thought Jon was working on the automation of the elections... although he's gone now as well.

Magisch

on a positive note, the fundraiser for shog is at 9.3k$ which probably helps quite a bit to make up for stack's dereliction of responsibility

Mithical

...wow, people are making some sizable donation there.

ColeValleyGirl

10:26 AM

@Magisch Which is why I'm betting it was a decision imposed by the number crunchers -- reduce the team to X cost... Jon help be resigning, but if X was a low enough number, they either had to get rid of more people or get rid of the more expensive people. A 'choice' of bad options.

Magisch

many people have benefited from shog's work for many years

Mithical

Like $500 from tchrist. That's not nothing.

ColeValleyGirl

Some pretty familiar names there including current and ex-members of the CM team.

Arpit Kumar

@Magisch, I m agree with you.

Shadow The Burning Wizard

Are we allowed to link/feature the gofundme for Shog in here?

Mithical

10:29 AM

It's pinned on the starwall.

Shadow The Burning Wizard

oh

lol. self slap

Arpit Kumar

lol

ColeValleyGirl

And now I really am going. For a while at least.

Tinkeringbell

@ShadowTheBurningWizard It's probably okay.

;)

Shadow The Burning Wizard

@Arpit hello, didn't see you here before!

Magisch

10:30 AM

@ShadowTheBurningWizard even if we wouldn't be, i'd be doing it anyways

Shadow The Burning Wizard

Armpit.... hmm...

@Magisch good :)

Gimby

@ShadowTheBurningWizard like this: youtube.com/watch?v=_GP5_NQ_LEs

Tinkeringbell

I noticed there's been a lot of discussion about this overnight but... There's a whole load of difference between a GoFundMe to say thanks vs. a GoFundMe used to sue. Just like there's a difference between a post saying 'Thanks X', or a post saying 'I'm rage-resigning as a mod'.

Magisch

both were necessary though

Tinkeringbell

Maybe.

Magisch

10:33 AM

I doubt monica would have been able to obtain any concession from SE staff if she hadn't sued

terdon

Much as I hate defending SE, they really didn't go after Monica's gofundme either. They removed it from profiles, but only very few profiles and only when they saw it. They never went looking.

Magisch

and I doubt she would have had the funds to sue otherwise

terdon

For instance, it's still there in mine.

Magisch

probably because the CMs literally didn't have time to go look

terdon

They had no desire to either.

Magisch

10:34 AM

probably not

terdon

It's trivial to find, a simple DB query.

Hell, even a simple google search would find most.

Magisch

ah but some people got creative

put parts of it in usernames, different seperators, some people even changed their avatar to a QR code of the link

Mithical

> some people

terdon

@Magisch Yeah. But it wasn't needed. OK, I am using a tiny.url thing, but they really didn't put much effort into finding the links at all.

Magisch

hey I wasnt gonna name names

@terdon yeah probably because it was a decision handed down by management / lawyers and everyone who wasn't smelling their own farts detested having to do it.

Shadow The Burning Wizard

10:37 AM

@Gimby nope, this! ;)

Gimby

ha ha :)

Magisch

@Gimby o/ parrot brother

Gimby

squawk

Shadow The Burning Wizard

looking

Magisch