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@JourneymanGeek well, when I get weeks like this one, it's not so small. It's easy to get rep when you control the buttons that make your content visible network-wide.

rene

Party!

Journeyman Geek

@Catija but you also have less opportunites to ask question, and your answers have more weight, so you're more cautious

Catija

🎁🎉🎊🎈🎂

Journeyman Geek

6:23 AM

Same as how mods suddenly stop gaining rep on main site - I think @DavidPostill is the exception

Catija

@JourneymanGeek yeah

Journeyman Geek

So it vaguely balances out

Catija

Honestly, fewer answers is more due to lack of time. Or being afraid someone will see that I don't actually know what I'm talking about. 🤣

Journeyman Geek

Never stops me :D

Catija

It is difficult to write answers where I just talk through what I think But I'm hoping we'll get to the point that I can do more of that. Honestly not sure how Shog got so much done.

Journeyman Geek

6:26 AM

By talking through what he thunk :D

Catija

I think he doesn't agonize over stuff the way I do.

Journeyman Geek

Well - or hides it well

Catija

Nah. We'd be talking about what to do and he'd just do it. Combination of having done it so many times before and being ok with not being perfectly correct.

Journeyman Geek

Ah

>_>

Dosen't mean its any less scary or agonizing...

Catija

I guess. He never mentioned being nerved up about day-to-day stuff. Bigger stuff, maybe. But not the usual things.

Journeyman Geek

6:31 AM

Well -if you're the leader, or seen as one, the people you lead won't be confident if you arn't.

(not too confident of course, but enough)

Catija

He was at least ok with being wrong. Lots of leader-types aren't. Trying to think whether it even makes sense to classify him as a leader. He wasn't - in the org. He's certainly knowledgeable and shares that freely. But... dunno. May depend on what you consider leadership.

Journeyman Geek

Hmm

Well - there's positional power - what you are, and leadership through the position

and what I term 'soft' power - leadership by the relationships and trust you've built over time

Shog's leadership wasn't about the position - being a CM was useful in exercising that, but it was very much in how he understood the system and talked to people

there's some people who could use positional power well, but 'pure' positional power is...

seductive. And sometimes leads people astray

Catija

Ah. Yeah. That's difficult with companies. You have to be careful about whether people actually trust the company or just the visible people.

Journeyman Geek

That's kinda the heart of the problem here isn't it? :D

Especially as the company gets bigger and more complex

You need the positional power to keep things running.

But you also need people exercising soft power to keep things together

Catija

We don't tend to collect the two in the same person.

Journeyman Geek

6:41 AM

They're... very different personality types

Catija

Jeff probably was the last one to have that. But it was a very different time.

Journeyman Geek

Jeff was very much soft power

And it was a smaller place

Catija

But he was a founder and the chief engineer, so he could just do stuff.

Journeyman Geek

He also kinda was a loose cannon, and was very much in the trenches all the time

I think the parts of the company that arn't public is going to be in worse shape if your CXXes were onthe public site as much as Jeff.

Catija

Sure. And Shog was, too. He had the ability to do PRs and actually change small stuff without a dev. But not to the same degree as Jeff.

Journeyman Geek

6:44 AM

But if those folks accept the value of the folks with those skills, and not feel threatened, things work

@Catija well - that was also cause he could code :D

And early company culture bred generalists

Its no accident Taryn is a darned good SRE from what I hear, and Abby's in HR amongst others.

Catija

Yeah. But that touches on what Shog was tweeting about earlier.

Journeyman Geek

ooh

Bus factor!

That's a kinda different aspect of leadership

Knowing the skills your folks have, and ensuring continuity

Catija

Yeah. We still haven't recovered that ability to just do five minute UI or regex or whatever changes.

Journeyman Geek

Hm

One 'nice' solution for that would be to have an actual dev in the team. A 'nicer' solution would be to have a dev-cm intern.

Catija

We can do things like the 3-vote close change, and that's an improvement... but all the requests to change the ask modal (for example) or block tags requires a dev.

Journeyman Geek

6:47 AM

(someone who has the appropriate skills, is 'new' and is willing to learn on both ends)

Alternatively, get the ways for non devs to do that

Catija

We've been somewhat allergic to hiring devs as CMs for a while. Though I guess maybe that's Ayo's background?

Journeyman Geek

Hm

NOOOT my place to ask but - Its would be considering working out how best to leverage that

Catija

I have asked about getting a dev position but it doesn't seem like it gets much traction.

Journeyman Geek

@Catija Well - or other skillsets cause of the 'risk' of them moving elsewhere

Well a dedicated dev's kinda difficult, on a smaller team especially and hm...

Organisational "walls"

Catija

Meh.

Journeyman Geek

6:50 AM

I don't think you'd be able to get someone with Jon or Shog's level of access with how I understand the org would be. The value would be in being able to communicate in the same 'language' as a dev and help with the earlier stages of SDLC

lol

I'm a management major. I kinda get how these things work in theory, and don't think any of it makes sense :D

Catija

Don't get me wrong. It's much easier to get stuff built than it was when I was hired. And I can't imagine how hard it was for the 3 years prior to my working here... we have process that's still got some kinks to smooth out, I guess.

Journeyman Geek

Yup, and that process is both why you can't get a mod-cm directly, and how things are easier

Scaling often means you can't 'just' do things ><

(unlike project management Jeff Style - "I like this idea. DONE!")

Catija

But it also shouldn't take three weeks to do something that takes five minutes

Journeyman Geek

Ah, here you need a manager - why's it taking 3 weeks? :D

And while something takes 5 minutes - if the change causes another break, it can be 'fun' and take more than 5 minues to fix

Catija

No clue. It's unclear to me whether the tickets aren't being seen or whether they're not being prioritized.

Journeyman Geek

6:54 AM

If its literally always 5 minutes, there can be a change process to speed it up

rene

@Catija the latter

Catija

They shouldn't break anything - mostly they don't even require building the site out. They're site settings.

Journeyman Geek

ah... THAT I don't know how to solve. That needs your two bosses to talk, and determine how ticket priorities work

@Catija in which case - uh, there could/should be a process for someone to do a PR and review on your end

but once again, It really depends on internal stuff and project management, stuff I know little about at the moment :D

rene

@Catija is site settings an SQL update statement that needs to be run on the production db?

Catija

No. We just type the new setting in and hit enter in the UI.

Journeyman Geek

6:58 AM

(At current job, we tend to consider 'small' changes like that to be a hotfix, and get management/client approval for that - but we kinda run something ultra ultra ultra critical)

@Catija If there's a UI and a new setting, what's the 3 weeks for? Getting permission to do it?

Catija

Like... for the close vote I go to a dev page for the setting, change 5 to 3 and hit submit. That's it.

Journeyman Geek

Theory of constraints

The theory of constraints (TOC) is a management paradigm that views any manageable system as being limited in achieving more of its goals by a very small number of constraints. There is always at least one constraint, and TOC uses a focusing process to identify the constraint and restructure the rest of the organization around it. TOC adopts the common idiom "a chain is no stronger than its weakest link". This means that processes, organizations, etc., are vulnerable because the weakest person or part can always damage or break them or at least adversely affect the outcome. == History == The theory...

Catija

@JourneymanGeek the ones we aren't allowed to change because they require regex or html or other things that aren't considered "safe".

Journeyman Geek

@Catija ah, that...

makes sense

Catija

Tag blocks are in a table somewhere, so those do require DB changes, probably.

No clue how we create tag warnings.

Journeyman Geek

7:02 AM

@Catija and probably no 'clean' recovery process if there's a mistake I suspect

Folks know how to, but it would be an epic pain

(So those change management processes are/or were probably there for a reason. Whether those reasons are clear, or anyone remembers why is another story :D )

rene

@Catija CM enters new setting and hits enter. An e-mail gets sent to Adam. Adam tries to squeeze in writing the needed sql statement between other prioritized tasks. Then sends the sql statement to Nick who reviews it and then forwards the sql to Taryn to be executed once the current pile of queries to be run is completed ....

Journeyman Geek

@rene There's probably a Rube Goldberg machine somewhere.

rene

Might be yes.

Journeyman Geek

@Catija What rene said is literally exactly how it works in my company. With even more complexity

Catija

Anyway. I don't mean to complain or paint people in a bad light. This was more about the loss of Shog and not having the access because he'd drop what he was doing for five minutes to just change a setting. It's great that we do have access to some settings now, so if he were still here there'd be less we needed from him... but. It's hard.

rene

7:06 AM

Not meant to blame anyone.

Catija

Nah. I started my message before you posted yours.

Journeyman Geek

@Catija Shog being able to do that was probably an 'exception' grandfathered in from being there for ages

rene

I have a backlog of over 100 items that are incredible easy to fix. Just give me time ...

Catija

Jon and Tim could, too.

Journeyman Geek

And while shog feels guilty, even if he had, I donno a year or two's warning, getting someone to get those permissions and trust is... difficult in a more formal org I suspect

(so.. losing all 3 without working out how to do better is :( )

Catija

7:08 AM

@rene yeah. Yaakov will be back on Sunday. So they'll have more people and they are (I think) hiring devs and stuff to fill out the team.

Journeyman Geek

I noticed :D

Catija

stackoverflow.com/company/work-here/2945767/…

That is a really senior position... so hopefully they find someone great.

Journeyman Geek

@Catija with those I'm looking more at gross numbers than specifics

But yeah :D

SO still has a great reputation in that sphere so hopefully they'll have their pick of candidates

Catija

Lots of new job posts going up.

Journeyman Geek

Yup - but there's a few spaces I tend to look at

SREs - and that most of the regular SREs are "Windows/Linux/Azure" - considering long term plans

Director of Reliability Engineering is interesting, considering y'all have Tom Limoncelli on staff last I remembered. He's literally legendary

Data Platform's interesting too, since that's one of the departments that kinda suffered in the interregium

Reach & Relevance seems still being built up - and I still don't grok what that is yet :D

Sales jobs show where y'all are active, but personally unless its 'new' its not interesting. They seem filled in tho

(I wasn't kidding about looking at that to see where things are going :D )

Catija

7:29 AM

I don't have a good idea of what Reach and relevance is yet, either. It seems to be about giving companies a way to have a presence on SO.

Journeyman Geek

Yup

Except that its something 'new'

stackoverflow.com/company/work-here/3112719/… is the best starting point to understand it from 'public' information

> You’ll be establishing and leading the ‘Awareness’ product team which will be responsible for all our digital advertising products and our personalization & targeting features. The ideal candidate has prior experience building products used by advertisers and is excited to grow and innovate on offering.

hm

> We’re generally very flexible on working hours, though we do ask everyone on the team to maintain an overlap with (at least) 10AM - 1PM US Eastern time

Anyway :D

So whatever Reach of Relevance is - it probably kinda is going to merge together the two 'legacy' revenue generating BUs

Oh and also

> Reach & Relevance, which focuses developer marketing, community development, and employer branding.

Two of these I vaguely grok. Community Development in this context is interesting but I know enough to know I have no idea what it means in this context :D

Journeyman Geek

8:18 AM

@ShadowTheVaccinatedWizard meta.stackexchange.com/questions/364191/… user's using the mobile view

Shadow The Vaccinated Wizard

@JourneymanGeek added a paragraph. Mobile theme is dead, people should not keep using it.

It's exactly like the apps... no further development, no bug fixing.

Journeyman Geek

Yeah, I was going to answer but I was trying to find where that was said.

meta.stackexchange.com/questions/154797/… seems the best option

it indicates limited functionality but not why

meta.stackexchange.com/questions/343178/… ah hah!

Shadow The Vaccinated Wizard

8:54 AM

@JourneymanGeek think not official, but in comments by developers here and there.

@JourneymanGeek oh. Yeah, lol

Journeyman Geek

Yeah found one that's 'reasonable' and put it in

Catija

1:34 PM

@JourneymanGeek creating a community around a company/product on SO. One that the company is involved in.

Journeyman Geek

@Catija still something I'll probably wrap my head around better when its more concrete :D

Feeds

2:07 PM

Level Up: Creative Coding with p5.js – part 8

Ryan Donovan on May 08, 2021

In our last session, we will learn how to create audio visualizations with the p5.sound.js library. We will start by learning how to upload and play a sound file in the p5.js web editor. We will first talk about what amplitude is and how we can program a p5.js sketch to react to the amplitude…

Journeyman Geek

3:25 PM

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