Could anyone help me find link to a post about algorithms used at SO/SE to help surface low impact requests/feedback from users and prevent them from perpetually being at the bottom of the priority pile. It could have been a tweet or a meta post by shog9 or jon clements. My browser was running incognito so I can't view yesterday's browsing history.

I may be butchering exactly what the post was about.... it was along those lines.

i have looked through both shog and jon's recent tweets but couldn't find the post i'm after. It may have been an old post that i followed a link to.

@Dhaust I don't think there's such a thing

That issue tracking on meta isn't great is a bit of an ongoing issue

@JourneymanGeek it could have been discussing that there -should- be such a thing

Hm

It was in reference to the recent posts by SO/SE staff about using data to discover that meta users really do matter.

again, sorry if i'm butchering that summary

This post... stackoverflow.blog/2020/02/17/…

@JonEricson I would have used something a bit more ominous, though 80's toothpaste commercials may have given gingivitis that tone as well. Anyway, I live in Japan, health is never an excuse to miss an appointment -- far better to show your dedication to work by infecting everyone (gingivitis is contagious, right?)

Oh

No.

😄

@Dhaust that I think I can dig up

i'm digging through shog's tweets again. it may have been @jlericson no clements.

@Dhaust twitter.com/shog9/status/1230668527738048512

Pinned on the right as well, I think that's what you're referring to.

@jmac i think that's the post i started on. i followed some links and that's where my memory gets fuzzy.

@JourneymanGeek @jmac i found it. meta.stackexchange.com/questions/343890/…

thanks for your rubber duck debugging help.

It's been a while. I forgot how awesome Shog was at explaining problems.

I know. I read that and it really hit home. For SO/SE, and my experiences at my own workplace.

Shog recently taught me about Pournelle's Law, and it seemed quite apt: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

> In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.

I get sad because things like that are true.

Very eloquently put though.

I hope to be as well-read as Shog someday.

It's just practice. If you write as much on meta as he has, you too will be passively introduced to all sorts of new content/ideas you had never heard of, and will get a knack for writing well in the process as an added bonus.

Very true. But he always seemed to remain a student, happy to acknowledge his weaknesses and praise others who we could all be inspired by.

Admirable traits.

This sounds like an impromptu eulogy. Thankfully Shog is still with us.

haha.

cheers for your help finding that comment. later.

Enjoy.

@Dhaust lol sorry. On helpdesk....

and the call went out, through all the land: "jmac is in The Tavern again!"

(h/t @Catija)

:D

I always love showing up here & reading eulogies for myself. What luck - Tom & Huck only got to attend their own funeral once!

But... Gotta be honest: it's places like this that kept me honest: folks like Pops & @jmac being quick to remind me that there's a lot I don't know ;)

So I think the lesson is: never be too reluctant to take someone down a peg, nor to be taken down in kind.

In other news: just signed my paperwork confirming that I'm eligible to work in the US and like money put into specific accounts. So I'm officially no longer unemployed!

Ayyyy!

@Shog9 WHOOOOOO!

Indeed. Whoooooo

It was the bell jar image that sealed the deal!

@Shog9 This is good.

I can howl another eulogy if you like.

An... Awooolugy?

How do you know my accent??

@Shog9 :'-)

Soon you'll get caninized

Heh.

@Shog9 wait. Why wouldn't you be eligible to work in the us? 😄

And Someone made a great hire

Standard part of documentation for starting a new job. Give them either a passport or a photo id and proof of citizenship.

(Passport counts as both photo id and proof of citizenship).

Ah..uhm...

Don't ever recall ever having to do that 0_0

But this is Singapore and it's probably all automated through MOM

nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/employee-rights-book/…

MOM knows all! She loves you!

Ministry of Manpower 😄

@Catija You need to show proof? Here we just tick a box stating we're eligible to work here

I suppose here we need to provide our tax details... so they'll find out pretty quickly whether or not we're eligible

Yup.

I'm a little curious to how stuff like CPF (our mandatory retirement fund), leave for reservist (military is supposed to pay you and its 'mandatory' for local employers) and taxes work for remote employees in singapore

"Proof" is unusual for me too. I send my resume, they call me for an interview, I bring copies of my diplomas, often they hire. After hiring I fill out some forms. I've only been asked for ID once.

Here's the info about the form (I-9) and why it exists (for anyone who's interested): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_I-9

@JourneymanGeek Our super (equivalent to your CPF) depends entirely on resident status

@Catija Hmmm, nope. I've had a couple of jobs involving driving other people's vehicles and not been asked for a driver's license. I don't deny that there's a bunch of stuff other people have to do, but except for one occasion I've never been asked (and those people were lacking, I explained that to them when I quit).

Huh?

@Shog9 "remind" seems to be the wrong word here. How about we say that we've interjected our thoughts into your stream of consciousness enough times that we diverted the flow slightly?

@Shog9 I was employed several days before I did the first and I'm still not sure I did the second properly. But not being unemployed is certainly good news. :-)

@JonEricson funny story - I had to get my I-9 signed by a notary, which is what customs and immigration recommends for that circumstance. I'm... Pretty sure I just filled it in for SO. 🤷‍♂️

Guess ICE is checking paperwork a bit more enthusiastically these days...

@ert ah see

there's a employee and employer component

and I don't think if you don't have an office here, the latter is enforcable

@Shog9 I had to get mine notarized... the prior job I had, one of their HR people is a notary and she did it for me.

@JourneymanGeek I suppose it depends how the company is structured, and where it pays taxes

@ert yup

If they had a singapore office/registration it would be simpler - I worked for a UK company that just had another company handle payroll etc

As citizens, we can't even access our super even if we leave forever

Actually, it seems even permanent residents can't

Likewise I think

Catija, your explanation of what you had to do differs from 4-5 other people explaining that they didn't have to do that. Do you work at Area 51?

@Rob please look at the end of the device... WHOOSH

@Rob Not quite sure what you mean. I'm citing US rules... so...

@Catija Here's the rules for everywhere else, really no different: books.google.ca/… and linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/83632/…

I'm... not quite sure why you're making an issue of this? Geek was confused about why Shog listed work eligibility, I explained it. The policy everywhere else is immaterial, Shog's working for an American company in the US.

Yup

And is American

I didn't realize you were confused about what shog said, when you wrote:

@Rob Why else would I ask? Shog is an american, working in the US, for a presumably american company

He's been working for a US company for years, so it's rhetorical.

Ah. Yeah... Just US internal Gov't wackiness coupled with the twist of remote work: normally you just show up with 1-2 forms of ID on your first day and everything is copacetic, but since the Gov't won't allow employers to accept photos of your ID as proof, for a remote company you gotta get someone local to vouch for you.

"THIS MAN! I WOULD SPLIT SKULLS IN HIS HONOR!"

Oh, the other kinda vouching

Nevermind that the company is still liable if they get it wrong, and there's really nothing stopping you from just signing anyone's name on that form... Gov't, man.

pretty much

(Ah, the joys of a government with pervasive survellience and great record keeping. A lot less paperwork(

Oh, they verify all this stuff anyway, so it ain't like you can make up your IDs. It's more like... Theater. A great reminder of how much stuff works only because most of us are reluctant to lie when there's paperwork involved.

e.g., the nominal reason is that they wanna prevent you from stealing someone's ID. But... Nothing involved actually prevents that, at all.

At one company where I worked it was like a magnet for that, people would just make up a number and write it on the form; caught a week or two later.

I went to a big school and have been in the biz for decades, so if I don't know someone there (at a company) we still know the same people; professors, employers, co-workers are listed as references in common for a few of us.

:\

... get off my lawn

:/

My favourite Cake Recipie was fond when I googled a typo someone made .... :D

on geocities

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog no. That's not a proper target. It's a feature request asking to have more than one active bounty at once, and it's completed. If it wasn't it could be proper dupe target.

@ShadowWizardisEarForYou I believe it's a proper target, because 1. the second answer to that question addresses the duplicate pretty much directly, and 2. it provides historical context (the original post talks about how it was originally limited to just one, then the top answer states that it was increased to three as a test). Per the Meta duplicate policy, questions can be closed as duplicates of merely related questions if the answer addresses it.

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog sorry, I disagree. You can still ask others to add it, I'm not going to fight over it or anything, just won't do it myself.

Also, the answer you mention is not official so not relevant. (It's just an opinion of ordinary user.)

I believe I've been told multiple times here that just because an answer is not official doesn't mean that the answer is invalid or shouldn't be cited.

@Shog well done for not being unemployed anymore! What kind of job you got? Can you share any details? :)

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog sure, I mean not relevant in this specific case since the feature request is already completed.

In any case, the question needs more focus since it asks two unrelated questions, but if there's another question that addresses it, I prefer to close as duplicate in order to point the user to answers.

To rehash: new question asks to be able to start 10 bounties at once. Old question asks to be able to start more than one bounty at once. Normally, a dupe. But the old one was marked as completed, and the limit was set to 3, with no reason given by the team. So it will no longer be changed to 10. New request should be submitted.

[cont] and if there would be a reasoning added to the limit amount, it could serve as dupe as well, since it's a reason to reject a request to make the limit higher.

Yeah, I guess if the second one were the only question being asked, I'd answer with quotes and context instead of closing it as a dupe. But the fact remains that it asks two questions, one of which is a dupe and the question is otherwise needing more focus.

Since it is closed as a dupe, the best thing to do to direct the author to all of the appropriate context would be to add it as a duplicate.

morning

ola

hola

*glances up* *blinks* *looks back down again*

wondering what @Mith see down there

A keyboard.

the unending darkness of the abyss

it stares back

@Magisch Only sometimes. And it darts away if I get too close.

@Mithical on a table?

@Mithical that's not abyss, that's just a very black dog.

*cat

meh

Can also be a cow.

:D

if I ever get a black cat I'll call it abyss

lol

Fits

The cat is on your lap? @Mith

...no, I said it darts away if I get too close. There are two black feral cats that live on my street. The neighbors feed them.

I'd like a cat, but that's not going to happen.

you don't want a feral cat

tho, our kittens had a feral mother.

@Magisch you stare into the abyss, and abyss meows at you?

@ShadowWizardisEarForYou Yes.

@Mithical parents forbid?

@Mithical I see the cake crumbs.

:P

@ShadowWizardisEarForYou Very strong allergies in the family.

@ShadowWizardisEarForYou those are tea bags

@Mithical So what is this?

:D

a raisin

Looks too.... crumby.... going to check in @Mith's house

Nah, the crumbs are next to the raisin.

!!/tea Mith

@ShadowWizardisEarForYou brews a cup of lemon tea for @Mith

Here, some more tea. But no cake. Unless...

!!/cake Mith

@ShadowWizardisEarForYou No such command 'cake'.

:(

!!/brownie

@Mithical Brown!

lol

Brown IE

...have you never heard of brownies

eating a brownie.... nah, never heard of this. :D

Reminds me of my (younger) daughter: she often wants a second dessert and when we tell her "But you just had one!" she says "No, I didn't. See? There is no dessert".

@Yaakov "Activate and deactivate Not a Robot badge batches" - I bet you have a cool robot icon next to that button. Right? ;)

@ShadowWizardisEarForYou if you saw it, you would probably be disappointed

The employee tools are probably even less dressed up than the mod tools, and that's saying something ;)

heh

community has the not a robot badge

meaning community is a metaphysical concept standin for an user rather then an actual robot

If its anything like the redact tool was and some of the deep deep deep seecrit tools...

how deep is this hole...

Probably unfathomably ugly

also, Not a Robot Badges are for bigger events/Cons so... probably batched

batched badges so you can badger the batch

@YaakovEllis just the plain blue button then? :(

@ShadowWizardisEarForYou it's classified

(Can it be one of those big red ones with a plastic cover and 2 keys ... and makes a kaboom sound?)

@Magisch wait, you don't think that Community is real?

the user?

:D

there's probably not a robot with a nametag "community" on it somewhere at stack HQ

If it can bite you, it's real. :D

@Magisch Assuming she's a robot :D

/me bites @ShadowWizardisEarForYou. There for I am.

does ash actually bite

@Magisch Well...

He has very few teeth left :D

@Magisch I think ash has bitten ONE person

and he kinda deserved it :D

Mark Henderson has resigned as a Stack Overflow Site Reliability Engineer.

@JourneymanGeek you're real, but not floating.

@JourneymanGeek you? ;)

@TRiG lol.... what a book... :D

awh

@Mithical yeah.

@ShadowWizardisEarForYou naw. Our neighborhood cleaning supervisor

@JourneymanGeek he tried to clean ash?! ;)

Kept telling him my dad was back from overseas when he wasn't... One too many times

??

Cleaning supervisor told your dog that your dad was back...

huh?

:)

@It's how much further did you reach in GoT books?

He is.. a pretty smart dog.

Classic moderator dog: can't be trolled/fooled. ;)

Or he can, but then the response hurts. :D

Long time no....

ETA for v6? @g3rv4 ;)

stopped at v5 for ever

And how's v5 doing?

@g3rv4 what? Only one? Why?

@ShadowWizardisEarForYou it's... let's say... enough

Originally I wanted two, wife convinced me to have three.

she's amazing, but... a lot of work

ha, I wanted one. Wife wanted two

Three is somewhat too much, financially, but... we manage.

v5 was born and we came to an agreement without even having to discuss the matter

@g3rv4 so you're at offset of -1 with me. Nice. This makes me g3rv3?

:P

dang, I don't know how you manage... I think I'd go nuts with 3

Oh wait... I'm 1 more... nah, I'm not your son.

:D

that's... too much to process and I'm still working on that Americano, so I'll trust you. LMK if I should send financial aid...

My second cousins have eight.

eight what? cups of Americano? that's a bit too much

@Mithical well at some point the children just handle each other, the bigger ones treat the smaller.

So in a sense, 8 is easier than 3. ;)

in terms of energy, yes. money not so much

@JAD money too.... they just don't buy stuff this isn't really required.

With three, you buy each anything he/she wants.

When they're eight, even the kids realize they can't have it all. I think. :)

It means lower life style, that's why I never even considered such thing, as I prefer to give all my children the same life style I had/have - average, but can get most of what they want.

@g3rv4 to be honest, no idea.... ;)

indreams.me/scene/dctFjYuBDxS

@BlueSoul It's a little freaky too be honest :)

@BlueSoul what is it exactly? I see only a picture, "scene" sounds like it should be sort of video clip.

Or does a "scene" mean a picture in Dreams?

Its Baby Yoda in Dreams.

Anyway, nice graphic skills. Are you IanEastin?

@ShadowWizardisEarForYou It is a tad complex to explain if you don't play the game. A "Scene" is akin to a level in a game. Think of it as an area that you can edit. You can link scenes together to form a Dream.

Wait, my bad.

That one is a "Scene" only.

See the smaller picture - it is a circle.

Compare to this - in this case it is a rectangle

indreams.me/dream/mfvVVexVKBo

this is called "game" in the description default label, but if you notice it is called "Dream" in the detail area on the right.

That is just because technically Dreams are the "games" - you can't "play" a scene by itself, it has to be placed in a Dream.

So, basically, the first link is the scene, the second one a demo dream that contains just that scene.

Probably done just to showcase the Baby Yoda model

Still don't get it. All I see is a still picture.

give me a minute.

Take 5

Okay, indeed I also only see an image ;)

Tik tok

Basically, there are two aspect to the game

Dream Surfing and Dream Shaping

Dream Surfing means that you can browse "games" that other created. There are many ways to do this... search for keywords, tags, recent additions etc

or you can go randomly.

@Blue TL;DR is that to see the scene/dream one must have the game first and click the link you posted from within the game somehow?

@ShadowWizardisEarForYou it is much simpler than that. The site I linked is an online catalogue

whatever you see there, you can find in the game.

It is not required to go there, you can just use that to explore content outside the game

@BlueSoul but the content is not what I expect it to be based on the description, e.g. "scene" sounds like more than just a still picture. That's my point.

@ShadowWizardisEarForYou It is movie terminology.

to be more precise:

> Scene - Like a scene in a movie, a level in a game, a chapter of a story, a room in a house… scenes are the constituent parts of dreams. Also refers to the workspace in which you create in Edit Mode.

Obviously, the browser only shows you the scene COVER

A picture that is either autogenerated if you don't take one yourself or a screenshot you took.

Example:

this is the page for Kuro, a very good game that was "recently" made

indreams.me/dream/mSbunoAqyuG

the picture you see is the Cover the author made - as you can see in this case they put some additional text to make it more similar to an actual game title screen

In this case the creator also saved some screenshots of the actual Dream.

now... to see this in Dreams.

here, this is taken from the in game Dream Surfing feature. Sadly, you don't see the surfing menu here since the user already found the specific Dream. But you see the intro screen. As soon as the player clicks the Joystick button, they can play that Dream

notice also that this specific game is "2d" (still using 3d elements) but you can create 3d games too.

pretty crazy, it looks like you would be able to recreate Limbo in Dreams.

Surely someone already made Doom

Well thanks, @It's indeed more clear now. @Blue :)

@Gimby some of the stuff that was made is indeed quite... amazing.

look for example at this one....

I've even seen a racing game with ramps and such. What the heck.

Is this game going to kill the indie scene?

@Gimby there are plenty, with even some F-Zero clones or Mario Kart lookalike

I mean... this is still Dreams

@Gimby also watch this.

As for your original statement, it I worked in the recruitment department of any game company I would keep a close look on Dreams. You could go and try to hire some promising creator.

→ 9 messages moved to Chimney

@Rob No well, I used to follow up on elections and stuff

Two thousand years ago.

@Gimby if anything, exposes more people to being able to go 'i can do this too'

I hope so.

> Our users have shared that they don’t feel heard by Stack Overflow.

Not to be cynical, but... it'd be more accurate to say *users revolted when Stack Overflow announced that they would be ignoring the feedback channels used to communicate with the company".

some level of spin is apparently inevitable

Both statements are accurate, no?

yes

we're essentially critiquing the rethorical flourish

not that it's particularly bad

It doesn't even register, next to gems like this. That's not spin, it's barely a wobble.

a wild question: do you prefer looking up documentation digitally (SO, msdn, etc) or do you prefer to look something up in your paper books first?

google

I like paper books for learning something in depth or from scratch, but digital sources to look up something specific.

And SO mostly gives the best results.

text based google only

I've been talking to a lot of colleagues now that I'm gonna start interviewing new hires at our company and I while have my own views on books, most people who read them tend to prefer them very much to online-first approach, but when I asked them when they last looked something up in one of their books, that gave them pause coz they almost never actually do :p

I think it's because when they first learned a programming language or the newest framework stuff, the books were a lot of help, but later on it's not really the best tool for the job when you're trying to fix a specific issue, so maybe they remembered it like "oh yea I always hit the books" when in reality it's just a "good times" memory about the beginning, and not their actual working approach after they've already learned most of it from books

Age is also relevant probably: do you remember the world before the internet? Did you live in a time when the only choice was paper books?

(the generic "you")

yea everyone is slightly older than me, and I was already kind of a rebel regarding old school approaches :p

if I was hiring for myself, I'd follow a different approach, but I gotta hire for the rest of the company, so I gotta keep their views in mind >.>

@terdon Heh. I'm working on a thing involving 5th graders learning how print had an impact on the world. I don't know if they can even imagine the world without print, nevermind without TV and the internet and texting and...

@curious About as well as we can imagine the world without TV and telephone, I guess.

I think anyone born after 2010 can imagine the world without TV

But yeah, nothing had quite as big an impact as the internet, I don't think. Possibly the printing press but not even that was quite as revolutionary in how it increased people's access to information.

@terdon I actually struggle :)

@user1306322 meh, s/TV/streaming/ same difference really.

In this context.

@terdon I do, but if I'm reading something long I much prefer paper. Like, paper books are far superior to ebooks.

oh well I think of streamed content or youtube is the next thing after TV where the programming is predetermined and you can't pause and rewind

Studies have shown that you retain information better from physical books over digital.

@Mithical I wonder who the participants were

and the rest of the methodology :p

The thing is in practice, you don't just switch a paper for a screen...usually the screen comes with notifications and other distractions

if that's how you roll, that is

@Mithical As one bookworm to another, I doubt you're typical of your age group in that. I know I was considered strange for actually wanting to read books for fun.

@user1306322 sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0883035512001127

there are a couple distraction haters in our company that absolutely will not have any notifications enabled on the coding machine, and only have them on their personal devices (phone/tablet/laptop/watch)

@Mithical it was so much easier for me to carry the Song of Ice and Fire books digitally...fewer creases in the pages etc.

I have a backpack so paper books don't hold up well

Of course, I still think that paper books are far superior to ebooks but I don't think I've read more than 3 since I started reading e-books :/ It's just so much easier to get them, and I don't keep my girlfriend awake if I read next to her at night.

@Mithical there's also a thing where school PCs are crap and have like 1280x1024px resolution and so reading PDFs on them is kind of a pain in the eyes, which I think might be an important factor many such studies completely omit

like does a single screen fit the same amount of text as one or two pages of the printed text?

is the text clear and not pixellated/blurry/annoying to read?

usually work PCs will have 1920x1080 screens which are much better than school PCs for reading texts

@user1306322 That seems like a pretty obvious thing. I doubt any serious study would omit that.

Why do people always think scientists don't know how to do basic science?

also this was conducted in 2012 so I'd like to see a fresher study, kids are different these days

That isn't even 10 years ago!

@terdon When you read some particular papers...

@BryanKrause Well yes. Some scientists certainly don't know how to do basic science, that is true. Just... not all?

what are you talking about? That's freaking entire 10 years ago!

@user1306322 8 years ago. And that isn't a long time.

But I think our age difference is showing here :)

8 years certainly isn't long enough for "kids to be different" in any case. It isn't even a different generation.

it's not about our age, it's about the age of the participants of the study

@terdon Yes indeed :) It's a bit of a catch-22, on the one hand I think there is way too much lay skepticism of certain areas of science that are pretty solid (ahem, vaccines, climate change, to name a couple dangerous ones), and yet that sort of skepticism is exactly the type of critical thinking we want to encourage in other aspects of the world, so...

people who were tenth graders in 2012 didn't grow up so much around screens as those who would be tenth graders today

screens weren't as high definition in 2012 as they are in 2020

@BryanKrause yeah...

PDFs didn't look as good as they might look now on these screens

@user1306322 No, in this case they were (as you said) 1280 x 1024

Now for those of you who want to make a statement...this is where it's at! gizmodo.com/…

> The computer displays were 15 ‘‘LCD monitors operating at 60 Hz, at a resolution of 1280 1024 pixels.

@user1306322 I'm close enough to tenth grade. I retain information better from paper.