Tavern on the Meta

9:00 PM

@MadScientist How did that user (that answered) delete an account? They were never a moderator: quant.stackexchange.com/election. Maybe they were pro-tem?

Mad Scientist

@user1271772 they almost certainly were a moderator

user1271772

Pro-tem I guess, because they don't show up on the past elections results page.

yes pro-tem confirmed. I checked the Meta post where they announced the Pro-tems in 2011.

Ok, so they had pro-tems appointed in 2011, and that incident of the deleted account happened in 2011. This seems okay because the site was young and the mods might not have known what they were doing.

Mad Scientist

Actually, nobody tells new mods about how to use the various tools. So it's not surprising that sometimes the mods don't actually know when to delete users or stuff like that

user1271772

Yes I've noticed that.

Recently got an email from a mod on AI stack exchange: "Thanks for doing it (and for the interface tips--I'm one of those "never read the manual" types, so I was a little surprised they made me a mod;)" By "interface tips" they meant that I showed them how to navigate to the "moderator tools" page.

Mad Scientist

the moderator tools are just misnamed, they have nothing to do with moderators

they were crap 10 years ago, and they never improved

user1271772

9:09 PM

@MadScientist They're still useful

Mad Scientist

They're still not a page I'd actually use as a mod

user1271772

@MadScientist I use it a lot as a non-mod.

Mad Scientist

20

Q: Add just-in-time documentation to the moderator tools

Currently, the diamond moderator tools have short explanation about what those tools do exactly. But they don't have much information about when and why we should use those tools. What I think should be present in all of the major tools is a link to a post that explains when I should use that to...

That feature request is old enough to be in primary school by now

Spevacus

Can anyone tell me whether the "Edit Question" button is visible for them in the post notice on this post?

I'm unsure why but it's not visible for me on that one. Might have something to do with the fact that I was the last user to edit it.

If you're <2k it should be something along the lines of "Improve Question"

Mad Scientist

I can edit that post

Spevacus

9:18 PM

Right but is that large "Edit Question" button visible in the post notice?

Mad Scientist

yes

Spevacus

Super strange, it's not visible for me (screenshot).

Again, might just be because I was the last to edit it.

Hm... maybe not. I see the button on this one despite being the last to edit it.

Weird.

user400654

i don't see an improve question button, but i also don't have the rep to see close voter or cast close votes on mse

threw away too much rep downvoting garbage

user1271772

@Catija Maybe a better question would be when Data Science would get a design, since they're at 26 questions/day and have been around for more than 6 years!

Mad Scientist

@user1271772 Are you sure about those stats? That should have easily got them a design by now

user1271772

9:26 PM

stackexchange.com/sites#questionsperday

Mad Scientist

that's weird

user1271772

Law is also at 13 q/day and 5+ years old, and certainly will stay relevant forever: People always have questions about law right?

Catija

Site designs have nothing to do with QPD.

user400654

$$

Mad Scientist

@Catija that's a somewhat recent change. If these stats where already met 5 years ago, that should have triggered the full graduation that was the usual process back then

Catija

9:29 PM

When we were working on site designs, that work was based on graduation date... and we're not working on them currently and, as far as I'm aware, we have no plans to.

Rob

@MadScientist Punishment for reaching 2 or 10K.

Mad Scientist

@Catija does that mean no new designs at all?

Catija

101

Q: Design-Independent Graduation is on for early September!

This is a follow-up to an earlier discussion Feedback Requested: Design-Independent Graduation. Like the title says, design-independent graduation will go into effect and become our new regular practice the second week of September! All sites which have been waiting in the backlog to graduate wil...

discussion election beta-sites graduating-sites

@MadScientist We don't have the staffing for it.

We only have one designer for public platform and she's booked solid.

user1271772

@Catija What about Jin Yang?

Catija

Hasn't worked here in... at least four years.

Probably more than that.

Mad Scientist

9:32 PM

At some point SE will have to be honest about the state of the network to the community. But that's not something I'd put on the CMs, and the answers from higher up so far have been rather evasive.

2

user1271772

Wow! Now VP of design at CapitalOne! linkedin.com/in/jin-yang

Mad Scientist

I make a bit of a point by challenging that aspect on most blog/meta announcement that only focus on technical sites, but that isn't actually leading anywhere useful

user1271772

One thing I don't quite understand is why it takes so long to make a design. Couldn't it be done in a day or two? I guess there's then feedback from the SE employees to change this or to change that, but all in all it doesn't seem it needs more time than, for example, being a CM. Being a CM seems like a busy job, whereas being a designer.. I just don't see why it takes so long to make a design.

Mad Scientist

My honest impression is that SE management considers the non-technical network to be mostly useless for the actual business, but understands that killing it would be more expensive than keeping it just on life support.

Catija

The company is definitely focused on sites that relate to tech.... but for now, that's not much different than SO. There's no plans to get rid of the other sites, though... and I, at least, am fully aware that some of our highest-volume sites are non-tech sites.

Mad Scientist

9:35 PM

@user1271772 that sounds a bit like "I could program an SO clone on the weekend". Design isn't trivial

ArtOfCode

I don't think the company plans to kill the sites; that'd be a dumb move from any angle... but neither do I think that the company at large, outside of a handful of specific people, actually cares about the wider network.

2

user1271772

@MadScientist I totally disagree.. coding an SO clone involves coding, and design does not

user400654

eh, i don't think it's a matter of caring.. they're a business. if it doesn't make money, it's not worth doing.

Mad Scientist

@user1271772 it involved CSS, which can easily be much worse than coding ;-)

user1271772

@ArtOfCode They did kill TheoreticalPhysics.SE after 450 days in Public Beta! I do know that this was a long time ago though.

user400654

9:37 PM

how much you care abotu it doesn't change whether or not it's worth something

ArtOfCode

@user1271772 killing an inactive beta is not the same as killing the entire network.

user1271772

@MadScientist I'm talking about the logo for the HNQ, and the banner at the top.

Catija

Considering how much time I can spend just fighting with design programs, ... eh. It's not as easy as it seems. There's a lot of research that goes into finding the right logo and banner and other elements. I helped Lisa with the Code Golf design and it was a good amount of work to make sure we got it right.

Rob

Only Art and I live, sleep, and breathe tech 24/7.

Mad Scientist

@ArtOfCode But they don't admit that. It's always hidden behind corporate speak.

ArtOfCode

9:38 PM

I do the design for Codidact sites... which is literally one logo (well, and an icon, but that comes out of the logo). It takes like half a day to do one logo. I can totally see why a full site design would take weeks.

@MadScientist Well, to be fair, admitting they don't care would also be a dumb move.

user1271772

@Catija I suppose that a preliminary design could be done without the research, and it would be better than having 100+ sites all have the same logo (just a blue square with white letters) in the HNQ sidebar. The banner and such can be improved over time.

Mad Scientist

@ArtOfCode It likely would be. But something in-between might be reassuring

Sonic the Masked Werehog

I wonder why they decided to skip out on custom error page images for newer designed sites

Catija

@user1271772 That's... not how we do designs, though. We don't half-ass them until you can make it better. I asked if we could do designs in a modular way and it was made clear that it's just not the right choice for how we do design.

Mad Scientist

I think at least SE could be honest and just shut down A51 for good.

user1271772

9:41 PM

@ArtOfCode What I'm saying is that Data Science is at 26 q/day, and has been around for 6+ years, so they could have a logo (half a day for you) so that they can be recognized easier in the HNQ sidebar :)

Mad Scientist

It's obvious that there won't be any real effort to start new sites, especially after firing Robert. So right now it only serves to waste the time of anyone stumbling upon it

ArtOfCode

@user1271772 SE doesn't do logos without full designs. Which may well be a bad policy that would be good to change, but they're not going to do that without the capacity, which they don't have.

Catija

@MadScientist We've started three this year.

user1271772

@Catija Two I think. Operations Research was more than 400 days ago.

Rob

Much like the DIY Community-ADs the half dozen graphics could be designed, voted, and submitted from the site's child meta.

Sonic the Masked Werehog

9:43 PM

The new requirements for Area 51 proposals means that there are extremely few sites that actually make it through the process in the first place, enough for it to be manageable.

Mad Scientist

@Catija I still don't believe it makes sense to start new sites when SE doesn't seem to be committed at all to the network itself

user1271772

@MadScientist They showed a decent amount of commitment to Drones.SE and Matter.SE

Mad Scientist

I'm not convinced, firing Robert does send a pretty clear message of SE's priorities in that regard to me

One part I didn't realize at first was just how big a danger Teams was to the community aspect of SE sites. If Teams is truly successful, SE doesn't need the network anymore. SO might still be useful for marketing, but that's it. It would lead to a fundamentally different company than the one that started this a decade ago

If we're very, very lucky we'll become a marketing expense, if we're unlucky we'll just become a liability and a resource drain

Mithical

@MadScientist Just wait until SE figures out they can sell Teams to non-technical groups as well if they're attached to different sites.

user400654

i mean

Catija

9:57 PM

I've been trying to get Teams on non-SO sites for... ever. I think it'd be a great option for universities, since we have so many sites for different university subjects.

user400654

they don't have to be attached elsewhere to be usable for non-technical teams.

Catija

I mean... if you have a math department, it's going to be a lot more useful to be attached to math.se than SO.

Mithical

*cough* CS50 *cough*

Mad Scientist

attaching Teams to a specific site does seem more like a design flaw to me

Catija

From what I understand, there's nothing hard coded for SO, so - while it would take some work - it's not impossible to add them to other sites.

Mad Scientist

10:00 PM

I still think they should behave more like separate sites, not an attachment to a specific site. The integration to the site could still happen, but optional

Sonic the Masked Werehog

On Piazza (the largest Q&A engine for university courses), there's an option for course instructors to "endorse" an answer written by a student. I hope that gets implemented for a university Teams engine.

That said, I would definitely like to see it used for that case. Piazza is extremely inferior to the SE engine (e.g. students can only post one answer, if someone else has already written an answer they have no recourse other than to edit that answer; comments can only be posted generally on the question rather than on a specific question or answer, etc.)

Catija

When I was at UT they just had Blackboard and it was terrible.

Sonic the Masked Werehog

They moved to the much better Canvas

I've used Canvas from a teacher end, and it's also very usable from that end and easy to get acquainted with

My school district used Blackboard. They purchased a 15-year contract in 1999 and by the end of that, it was hilariously outdated

Rob

😺🔦 - 👣🔥

M.A.R.

@SonictheMaskedWerehog I had no idea this thing existed. It seems more like SO Teams than a public Q&A, right?

Sonic the Masked Werehog

10:08 PM

@M.A.R. Piazza?

M.A.R.

Hmm

Sonic the Masked Werehog

Yeah, they store their data in the U.S., so it can't be used in Iran sadly

user1271772

@MadScientist It's not so clear to me. Other CMs picked up the work.

Sonic the Masked Werehog

Canvas is actually open-source, but they make money by providing hosted instances to schools (which costs less than hiring a full-time developer)

Mithical

@user1271772 Pffft.

Mad Scientist

10:13 PM

@user1271772 Robert was A51, and the CM team is badly understaffed now

user1271772

@MadScientist There's very little work to be done for A51

Mad Scientist

@user1271772 at some point there was a plan for A52

Mithical

You can't get rid of the two most experienced members of the team, who've been there for around ten years and helped design most of the systems in use today and expect the rest of the team to pick up the slack, especially when that team was drastically understaffed even beforehand.

115

A: Thank you, Robert Cartaino

I don't think people quite grasp how dire this is, and just what we've now lost. Robert wasn't just a Community Manager. While other CMs would post on various metas, help in chat, answer mod tickets... Robert (generally) didn't do those things. Robert had a different role, as far as I can tell. ...

user1271772

@Mithical It's worked out reasonably well I think. I'm quite happy with Matter.SE.

Drones.SE has waned in activity, but there's reasons for that.

Mithical

Trying to build new communities has given me an extra appreciation for what Robert did.

user1271772

10:18 PM

Nothing can be an exact replacement for Robert, but I've not been disappointed with what @Catija and @JNat have done for the newest Beta sites compared to Robert. Likewise animuson and Tim Post have kept the feel of A51 roughly the same as before.

There's others too, that have helped out at A51, I just don't remember all their names. animuson and Tim Post have done the most there I think, and Catija and JNat have done the most for the new Private Betas.

Rob

@Catija MIT has one of the Blackboard Kings: youtu.be/eAhfZUZiwSE?t=50 youtube.com/watch?v=cs09k47cHGA

Sonic the Masked Werehog

11:43 PM

@JNat Cross-site spammer: stackexchange.com/users/18919302/iso-kuwait

...and the backlog for handling cross-site spammer nukes is approaching one month

@JourneymanGeek @Tinkeringbell Couple of spam accounts: meta.stackexchange.com/users/737922/wifiultra meta.stackexchange.com/users/738644/hired

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