« first day (3608 days earlier)      last day (1408 days later) » 

12:00 AM
@Daniil No mod or RO wants to touch it :D
 
*is suddenly very tempted to touch it*
 
@ArtOfCode shog probably created it :D
 
*is no longer tempted to touch it*
 
Rob
12:25 AM
@ArtOfCode & others: It was created by Tyler Carter, see here.
 
*temptation returns*
 
Do it... Give in to your temptations...
 
Rob
True. At least setting it to the busiest time makes sense; as balpha did (^) in the earliest days.
 
 
3 hours later…
3:06 AM
Can anyone with 10k+ rep on any site other than SO or Meta.SE try to reproduce this bug on those sites?
I can't reproduce it here, and I think it's likely SO-specific.
 
 
1 hour later…
4:21 AM
25 messages moved to Chimney
 
 
1 hour later…
5:41 AM
Apparently Stack Exchange will not restore your lost reputation in case someone serially unupvotes you
(This is relevant at this time because of all the automated script edits happening as a result of the CommonMark migration, and these edits are unlocking previously-cast votes.)
 
 
2 hours later…
7:51 AM
7 messages moved to Chimney
 
8:08 AM
do you think there should be a tag?
to underline the community's dislike of changes without prior discussion with community on meta
it seems to be a persistent topic so far
I don't know if it would send a useful signal or what
 
8:39 AM
@user1306322 for what purpose? So the users that fancy objecting to anything that is forced upon can find easy targets to write their rants?
 
9:07 AM
@rene of course not. I'm just pretty upset about them pushing dumb changes without consulting with the community where they would very quickly understand that there's gonna be tremendous backlash, and for good reasons. I just don't know how to quicker deliver this message to the company.
at this point though I'm set on developing a competing site, so whatever, honestly
 
@user1306322 Sometimes its necessary to deal with authority politely and firmly.
3 messages moved to Chimney
 
@user1306322 I don't think your mood or that of the rest of the community will change much if you add a tag. What might influence future decisions is using (lots of) words that convey arguments why certain changes might have unwanted side-effects. But that is about it. It turns out that it is pretty ineffective to get a coherent set of arguments if there are 25 answers and most of them add nothing but yet another complaint / anger / frustration. Meta has become a venting place. Whatever.
 
@user1306322 No. That's just too snarky. But I feel your pain. My mind is boggled that they keep doing unilateral stuff like changing the tooltips & adding the Thanks reaction. What happened to the promise to keep us in the loop?
It doesn't matter if it's a good change or a bad one, if it's a big change or a minor thing. Keep us in the f'ing loop!
 
9:24 AM
@PM2Ring You are being looped in.. but these changes are made essentially for people that aren't as active on any meta as any of us... basically the newest of the new users... I guess one of the hard things is deciding whether you want to let a group of not new users decide whatever the thing for new users will look like, or if you roll it out and gather data from the newbies it's for.
 
OTOH, in the early days, Jeff said "Listen to your users, but don't let them tell you what to do", and I think that attitude is perfectly valid. SE Inc needs to have a healthy balanced relationship with the community. The whole thing would collapse if the community dictated terms to the company.
 
@PM2Ring on the other hand - there's going too far on that end
and Jeff on occation realised the community was right
 
@Tinkeringbell We're being looped in after the change is already made. They could say "we want to make the site better for newbies. We'd like to try A, B, or C. Give us some feedback". But they didn't do that, and now there's backlash.
True, we were given some advance notice about Reactions 6 months ago, but it wasn't well-publicised. Thankfully, Mith saw it on Twitter & posted a MSE question, but not many people saw it.
 
@PM2Ring As for the reactions, I'm not sure how much more useful letting MSO choose between A, B, or C would be over just putting them out there and looking at data. As for e.g. the voting button text... maybe?
 
9:39 AM
@Tinkeringbell "whether you want to let a group of not new users decide whatever the thing for new users will look like, or if you roll it out and gather data from the newbies it's for." Sure. It's vital to get that data from the newbies. But it's also important to get input from the regulars who have to deal with those newbies.
Ultimately, the newbies learn how to behave through their interactions with the other users, new & old. Stuff that makes it harder for us to train the newbies in the practices & customs of the site isn't helpful.
 
That's true :)
 
@PM2Ring so frank opinon, a lot of these changes won't help newbies cause they're not going to really look at the tooltips and such
but some folks seem to think that you can solve a social problem with dial twiddling ._.
 
@Tinkeringbell Sorry, I didn't say that clearly. I wasn't (just) saying we should've had some input into the choice of Thanks emoji. They could have mentioned Reactions in contrast to some other schemes to make the site better for newbies, eg drop commenting or chat privileges to a lower threshold.
 
Aren't you old and wise enough to do so yourself? :P
 
10:04 AM
Change is done!
 
Bring the pitchforks!
 
Is a torch okay too?
 
10:30 AM
will work, sure.
 
10:51 AM
@PM2Ring this reminds me of relationship counseling and both parties frankly asking themselves if they're in this relationship for the good of both or just for their own benefit
in a relationship there needs to be a balance, and a dialog, for it to be healthy, and I'm seeing lack of it right now
I have trusted the old team to 1) not do things unilaterally so often (even if it happened still) and 2) not do things that are as bad as "clap" button and dumbing down the tooltip on votes. I just can't see these 2 specific things happening 5 years ago.
 
You mean, a prayer button
 
I saw it as a spaceship button like "launch this sh* outta here pls" lol
these are the 2 recent specific pieces of feedback I have for now coz I've been following the events rather loosely for the past 6 months, and I gotta say I'm mentally healthier for it
I've been working on improving our work's Q&A and ticket management system that's tightly integrated with the tools we use, and I'm gonna use that experience in the future to create an easy to start up Q&A platform for free, so that SE has something to think about
but not because I'm vengeful, I'm just that upset and tired from dealing with this nonsense, and as I said before, I like solving problems, permanently
 
to be fair it's not quite uncomfortable to keep your wrists at that angle for more than a few seconds.
 
it's a small price to pay for alchemy :p
 
... might be good physical exercise though
 
11:00 AM
on a different note, does anyone here use forums or blogs to discuss or read about movies, games, anime, literature and other forms of entertainment which could also find some use for Q&A format that SE has?
 
I'm curious why you want to know
 
I'm just thinking what could be the next step in "expanding the community" from just Q&A to ... something else?
and maybe it's worthwhile to approach this from the other direction
there's going to be a rift in moderation practices too (as if there isn't between different Q&A sites and metas already)
if it's not something SE the company would be interested in, maybe it's something that a part of SE community wants
 
@user1306322 ewww no
 
understandable lol
 
and that has never worked well (docs, blog overflow...)
 
11:11 AM
I suspect that's due to the programming-themed nature and the unmanageable influx of newbie developers' low quality contributions
I believe entertainment group of topics is different
 
uhhhh
More like "Stack gets distracted easily"
also running a blog or other stuff needs more resources
and we're short of it as is
 
what kind of blog do you mean?
 
@user1306322 there were once site blogs
 
I vaguely remember how they looked like, and I completely don't remember the content
 
11:17 AM
I was thinking more in terms of personal user blogs with curation where only the best hand-picked posts could be featured on Q&A and other main sites, and the rest just being there for casual blog readers who browse them on purpose
like main site users only see [featured] posts from meta, but can always visit meta directly and read everything
this would allow users who want to have broad non-Q&A format- limited posts and have discussion in form of threaded comments under the blog posts
having the same username for Q&A and blogs would help with discovery and not needing to have separate logins on different sites, and users who like certain topics could learn from blogs explaining how to do things like programming tutorials or templates which don't fit the Q&A format
(I feel like I'm describing something obvious and it's weird)
 
11:37 AM
@user1306322 There are already people working on that, after the dramas that happened last year, eg Codidact See their forum for more details: forum.codidact.org
 
ye you can find my account active on there
same avatar and username
even if it's still not done, it looks promising so far with the feature set we've discussed up until now
I really like the idea of having the option to be a member of multiple communities dedicated to the same topics, but having different feature sets becaue that's how each group likes it
I've tried to bring the ideas of more complicated voting and threaded comments here but it seems like the majority of users are against, there are enough users who would like to have these features
it would be good to have a place where such features are real so we can each have a place that suits our tastes and needs
 
which is fine if you have the bandwidth
and it is not a zero sum game
 
of course
 
 
2 hours later…
2:03 PM
Interesting question, that was...
 
Destroyed, has it been?
 
Yes. :D
(actually, the spam answer was destroyed the question is still there: martialarts.stackexchange.com/questions/9948/… .:) )
 
 
3 hours later…
5:37 PM
13
Q: Have Antifa members used an inverted red triangle as a symbol?

F1KrazyFacebook recently removed an advert for Donald Trump's re-election campaign that prominently featured an image of an inverted red triangle. Nazi Germany used an almost identical symbol to label communists and other political opponents, and the advert was thus deemed to contain a "hate symbol", in...

I just have the gut feeling that someone downvoted Trump's question and he was unhappy about it
 
I feel sorry for any Americans out there. They can't even have a single weekend.
And with that out of the way, I shall guiltlessly resume mine ;)
 
Yeah, conscience clear
 
Well not entirely clear, I don't think it ever is or will be... but manageable :P
 
You need a nice looking operational volume down button
 
That's called alcohol ;)
 
5:42 PM
don't drink and click ...
 
25
Q: Books about dragons and war from a cat-loving author

SecespitusI remember reading a series consisting of three books a few years ago, maybe around 2010. The series was pretty new when I was reading it. It was set in your typical medieval fantasy world where magic is a thing. In the beginning a boy finds a dragon egg and the dragon hatches. After some time ...

 
@rene "don't binge and browse" alliterates ;)
@M.A.R. Hmm. I'm already reading a book now. No need to add another :P
 
Rob
6:12 PM
@M.A.R. There seems to be at least one well researched answer there, but capturing a letter or shape and portraying as support (or lack thereof) for something isn't new; shapes and colors always evoke some kind of reaction - and that person is a popular target.
This is what I think of when I see that (It's a Wikipedia .SVG image, so not visible to everyone):
 
Iconoclasms, anyone?
 
Rob
6:35 PM
TIL: Aniconists
 
Heh. I was already happy to find that 'Beeldenstorm' had an English word too
 
Rob
They need to come up with symbols such as this, to allow deniability:
 
Ah yeah. The one with the dolphins is cool too :)
 
6:52 PM
Nah, the one with just dolphins ;)
(yeah, that one)
 
Rob
What the Aniconists will really hate, is that it's a complicated respin of this:
The Rorschach test is a psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person's personality characteristics and emotional functioning. It has been employed to detect underlying thought disorder, especially in cases where patients are reluctant to describe their thinking processes openly. The test is named after its creator, Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach. The Rorschach can be thought of as a psychometric examination of pareidolia, the...
 
@Rob Wow now that's an impossible Mario level
 
Rob
When you see it on the side of a truck or train from a hundred meters the top half isn't really visible, leaving only the bottom.
 
@Rob I saw a jug
If it's a couple they look like aliens from Star Trek
 
Rob
A vase?
 
7:07 PM
@Rob No those fancy ancient jugs useful for mostly just toasting
@Rob It's not really fair, the dolphins one. I dunno if there is a way to justify it scientifically, but the white really stands out.
The other two, I had to read the explanation to see where people are coming from
 
Rob
@M.A.R. Children can only see dolphins, I had too study it carefully to see both images.
 
@Rob What I'm saying is I doubt any statistically significant number of adults see dolphins.
Considers self adult
Proud
 
I like the dolphins and they're really not that hard to see!
 
They're not hard to see, but impossible IMO to see at first glance if you know about the facts of life
 
@M.A.R. probably off topic like the comment says, though the amount of people answering it does confuse me too in that case
 
Rob
7:21 PM
@M.A.R. Difficult to see a mirror image of Star Trek aliens too:
 
Star Trek aliens are generally so bad they're funny...
 
@Rob Well in chat the white blends in with the background, so I only saw your black until I read your messages again
 
Rob
Actually there is no white in the vase image, only black and transparent.
@M.A.R. This kind of "jug", a chalice?
 
Aye, a chalice
The name didn't come to mind when I was composing that message
Or the one after that
Or the one after that one
 
A community-owned bounty, that's a rare sight: workplace.stackexchange.com/q/157843/33983
 
Rob
7:31 PM
A jug is a type of container commonly used to hold liquids. It has an opening, sometimes narrow, from which to pour or drink, and has a handle, and often a pouring lip. Jugs throughout history have been made of metal,and ceramic, or glass, and plastic is now common. Several other types of containers are also called jugs, depending on locale, tradition, and personal preference. Some types of bottles can be called jugs, particularly if the container has a narrow mouth and has a handle. Closures such as stoppers or screw caps are common for these retail packages. == Etymology == The word jug...
 
@Glorfindel Boooring
I miss Normal. He would come along with this mind boggling fact about the most inane stuff
And I think he had an edge that we seriously need right now
If he hated or disagreed with something, as he often did, he disagreed sincerely, bluntly, and articulately
Right now we only got this:
2 days ago, by M.A.R.
THIS IDEA IS HORRIBLE
_______
I think the effectiveness of a banner with so much bold that makes you go blah blah in the middle suffers greatly
> Stack Exchange Inc., and its sites including Medical Sciences Stack Exchange, is not a medical practice or healthcare provider and does not provide medical advice. Stack Exchange Inc., and its sites including Medical Sciences Stack Exchange, does not endorse or recommend any healthcare providers that moderate or otherwise contribute to this Site. Consult your own doctor for medical advice. The information and opinions shared here do not reflect the views of Stack Exchange Inc. and are not provided nor endorsed by Stack Exchange Inc. The content on this site is solely provided by individua
Yawns halfway through
 
Rob
@Glorfindel They also asked a question once before: workplace.stackexchange.com/users/-1/community?tab=topactivity
 
@Rob "How can I with being told I ask too many questions" Haha
 
Rob
Ironically that question was closed at one point: workplace.stackexchange.com/review/close/99570 - something of which the Community is more frequently accused of.
 
So Skynet will rise from TWP?
I always assumed it'd be from Worldbuilding or Chess or something
Imagines terminators exchanging small talk besides a water cooler
 
Rob
7:46 PM
... or hiding on either side of a vase!
 
8:21 PM
+35 / -13. This is turning out to be a bit contentious.
 
I dunno what the downvotes signify to be honest
What useful signal they're supposed to send
That our time is "better off spent doing useful work here"?
As if this is NASA and we deal with complicated global questions
Half of the day you stare at blatantly OT crap and try to downvote or cast a close vote, so it's not like there's some useful space the fun contest is occupying
 
7 valid entries. 4,000 reputation available to win. Hmmmm.
 
Rob
9:24 PM
It's "No Fun City" - where even the [fun] can enter the Close Queue.
 
 
2 hours later…
11:23 PM
@Rob could be worse.
 
Rob
Dr. Wizard!
 

« first day (3608 days earlier)      last day (1408 days later) »