Tavern on the Meta

Journeyman Geek

5:40 AM

@JNat one for the backlog stackexchange.com/users/22321546/miya-welson

→ 28 messages moved to Chimney

Feeds

stackoverflow.blog/2022/01/28/…

Journeyman Geek

@Feeds Using synthetic data to power oneboxing while protecting user privacy

tripleee

6:30 AM

^ returning spammer

tripleee

6:42 AM

flag-pls vandalism (SD report) boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/34602/…

Luuklag

8:51 AM

Should we keep this post around? meta.stackexchange.com/questions/375658/… It is basically an appeal in disguise about their suspension on Mathematics.SE

Tinkeringbell

I think you can vote to delete as you see fit, I also think it's not bad enough to need a mod stepping in to delete it faster ;)

Luuklag

9:09 AM

You can step in here if you miss stepping @tink: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/375671/branding-agency-in-pune

Tinkeringbell

@Luuklag :) Deleted by the time I got to it, but I destroyed the profile :)

tripleee

9:52 AM

@tripleee still up

flag-pls spam returning spammer (SD report) raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/a/135872

Journeyman Geek

10:07 AM

@Luuklag I popped a link to a math.se mod, but yeah, I think that's a problem that should most part be handlable by the community

tripleee

(all gone now, thanks)

einpoklum

1:08 PM

So, what are the chances of our desperate pleas for reverting the question list design of being heard by SE inc. ?

Luuklag

@einpoklum I'd say between 0 and 0,01%

einpoklum

@Luuklag: The makes me "feel unwelcome". So, shall I go fill in that survey now?

Journeyman Geek

1:22 PM

@einpoklum I feel that the stream of increasingly upset comments don't help

Voting, sure, but its worth thinking of - bringing up specific points that suck + realising there's voices in the company trying to 'fix' things too

einpoklum

@JourneymanGeek: 1. Without that stream, SE inc would not perceive continuing resistance. 2. Personally, I only post when they update. 3. "points that suck" - I did bring those up, but not minute aspects of the implementation, but rather - the motivation and the decision making process. And those cannot be addressed by tweaking the design.

Journeyman Geek

@einpoklum on the contrary

people get annoyed and dig in

I've been through 3-4 rounds of this from the front seats,

einpoklum

Well, that's because of their basic attitude towards the user-base. The two modes seem to be "ignorance-of" and "annoyance-by". Naturally I am oversimplifying, but past experience seems to suggest I not over-simplifying by a lot.

Journeyman Geek

@einpoklum fundamentally - a full rollback isn't going to happen, and tbh, part of the problem is they didn't do much for years. And well - in a sense this is a learning experience for some of these folks I guess

that said there's "Oh, these specific things are wrong"

vs

einpoklum

@JourneymanGeek: Why should a full rollback not happen?

Journeyman Geek

1:30 PM

"You need to undo all the work over the last few years"

@einpoklum Simply - its not. Even if they brought back *critical*/well loved features - its not going to be the same

einpoklum

@JourneymanGeek: That's intentional mis-representation. We said they need to not apply their new design to the question list. That's not at all the same thing.

Journeyman Geek

the problem here isn't 'change' - its that SE doesn't have a great way to gauge user acceptance without things exploding

@einpoklum fundamentally everything is getting rebuilt eventually

einpoklum

If "Simply - its not" is the case, then they are dug in to begin with, and we should not worry about possibly them digging in.

Journeyman Geek

@einpoklum so you can go "I'm going to keep slamming into the wall"

or figure out what can get changed, and get those things changed. Then the next thing

einpoklum

"SE doesn't have a great way to gauge user acceptance without things exploding" <- That is not the main problem. Because even when they have managed to gain user acceptance - explosion or no - they are not willing to apply that criterion.

Journeyman Geek

1:33 PM

@einpoklum that's literally the problem

I'm a MSE mod. I'm plugged into a lot of side channel comms.

I ... didn't know this was happening

and someone could have gone "it looks terrible"

Before it got shipped out to the entire network

Luuklag

@einpoklum If you think that will resolve the problem, by all means.

einpoklum

Oh, even someone in your position was unaware of the upcoming design change?

Journeyman Geek

Nope!

And in a sense, that's part of the issue

Tinkeringbell

There's quite a few issues. One is that these posts are posted, featured... and the actual 'we hates it's only come rolling in once things are rolled out networkwide. Before that, these posts are usually scoring well.

Journeyman Geek

@Tinkeringbell well communication in general

einpoklum

1:36 PM

@JourneymanGeek: Well, I'd generalize even a bit further and say that the meta-issue is that SE inc. doesn't consider themselves as sort of public servants, even while being legally and power-wise completely in control.

Journeyman Geek

@Tinkeringbell well, I don't like it either

@einpoklum Well, no, they're a company

Tinkeringbell

The other is that we've seen so far: screenshots, youtube movies of the upcoming changes, rolling it out to a single (almost unused and not representative of the front-page) page first...

Apparently all of these don't work to make users realise the change these changes will have on their workflows, and so we end up grumbling after the changes roll out.

Luuklag

The other thing is that in order to do these kind of re-design efficiently you don't want too many moments where people can reflect on your work, as it only causes delays.

Journeyman Geek

@Tinkeringbell I think a preview of the question page would have been less.. dramatic

einpoklum

@Tinkeringbell I wonder if that isn't because of self-upvoting, i.e. SE inc. staff viewing these announcements and upvoting them in good faith, but creating a bias.

Journeyman Geek

1:37 PM

@einpoklum Nowhere enough SE staff on the public platform side to make a difference voting wise

Tinkeringbell

The last thing is that some of the announcements don't carry a date of when the roll-out will happen, but even when they do, not all users are aware it's going to happen ...

Journeyman Geek

@Tinkeringbell I think this might be useful feedback in general to cat :D

einpoklum

@JourneymanGeek Well, think about a monarchy. If you're a tyrannical monarch who squeezes the people, then you'll get peasant uprisings, and militia/bandit groups, etc.

Tinkeringbell

Shrug, it's not something you can change unless you want to add top bar banners or popups saying 'Remember, in two weeks we'll be rolling out [this](link-to-post). Take a look and see if you can leave feedback already'

Journeyman Geek

@einpoklum only - they're human beings trying to do a job too

einpoklum

1:39 PM

But if you think of your calling as serving the interests of the people, then your kingdom will prosper.

Journeyman Geek

This might be someone's Sistine chapel

Tinkeringbell

And then you'll get users complaining about banners and pop-ups, so ... damned if you do, damned if you don't :P

Journeyman Geek

+ I don't think dev folks have the same sort of outreach a CM would, and even they wouldn't have the same a moderator does

and the folks with close links to the community got shuffled out, so lots of folks are starting from nothing

einpoklum

@JourneymanGeek: Now that's where you lose me. Human beings do not grossly tread on other human beings, repeatedly, while ignoring their pleas. ... that is, they do, but then they don't get to say "have sympathy for me, I'm just trying to do my job".

And they will be doing their job better if they wouldn't act this way.

Journeyman Geek

@einpoklum Its a website,

I mean we spend too much time here

But its literally a bunch of people doing their jobs

and doing what they feel is the best thing they can, even if they occationally ... don't quite meet 'our' standards

einpoklum

1:41 PM

@JourneymanGeek: Well, so is a monarchic government.

Journeyman Geek

@einpoklum you assume there's a monolitihic center of power

einpoklum

@JourneymanGeek Completely disagree that they are "doing what they feel is the best thing they can".

But ... can you elaborate regarding different centers of power within SE inc. ?

Tinkeringbell

It goes two ways. There's e.g. a lot of talk about 'use your own damn systems and you will understand us and would've never made this monstrosity'. Which... just isn't (consistently) feasible. I use SE in my spare time because it's something fun to do besides work. And all I know now, took me 4 years or so of doing that, to gather.

If SE *is* your job, it makes sense you'd be doing something else in your spare time, and you can't be using the platform as much as some power users do.

Journeyman Geek

Software development probably looks a little like this

Tinkeringbell

On the other hand, I can't be telling people how to do their job. I don't have the knowledge. I can share what I know is useful for power users, but I can't even share what is useful for casual visitors because I no longer am one.

Journeyman Geek

1:44 PM

You have developers, front end and back end, PMs, etc etc

lots of whiteboarding and designing

einpoklum

@Tinkeringbell: 1. SE inc. should have SO experience as a criterion for hiring at least some of their developers/designers. 2. I'm using SO as part of my job, and for my job. Naturally my bosses would like it if I didn't answer and only asked questions with the information I need, but still.

Journeyman Geek

and then it all falls apart when users see it

@einpoklum It would be nice, but in my experience, even for community roles, that's not a key differnciator

einpoklum

@JourneymanGeek: Can any of these make decisions about the site and force the hand of the other groups?

Journeyman Geek

@einpoklum all of them?

Tinkeringbell

@einpoklum "Some SO experience" is hard to qualify though. I can make a few edits, perhaps cast a few flags... and I still wouldn't have the knowledge I have today, part of which includes what information and buttons are useful to me as a moderator.

The profile redesigns for example didn't just break power user workflows, they also broke moderator workflows.

Journeyman Geek

1:46 PM

@einpoklum I have a decade over of experience and I'd be a terrible PM and an even worse dev

einpoklum

@JourneymanGeek: Suppose "the developers", as a "power center", decide they want something. Can they force it?

Journeyman Geek

@einpoklum Well - I don't have first hand knowledge, but as I understand, not really these days

einpoklum

@JourneymanGeek: But if you were a QA person on planned SE site changes, you could tell the designers "Oh, don't do that, it's a bad idea and people will hate it".

Journeyman Geek

Its not like it's just Jeff deciding what needs doing

@einpoklum I'm not sure SE has QA people

einpoklum

@JourneymanGeek I should be shocked by that statement, but somehow I'm not. Anyway... you don't have an SO account, right?

Journeyman Geek

1:48 PM

Uh

I do? I got like ONE answer

I'm in no shape or form a dev

I'm a monitoring engineer at the moment

einpoklum

Ok, but my point is I was talking about experience in StackOverflow, which is more relevant for hiring developers.

So you're not an example for how this is a problematic criteria

although obviously "experience" is vague and would need to be made concrete.

Journeyman Geek

@einpoklum Oh, I was talking community roles

einpoklum

Although - really, let's start with a bit of QA'ing.

@JourneymanGeek I was talking about experience as a lay user.

Journeyman Geek

But SO did use to hire out of the community a lot. Its a harder sell at the moment I suspect

@einpoklum Well - if you're talking stack exchange ...

I got that in spades

einpoklum

@JourneymanGeek Fair enough, it does sound like a bed of nails to go work for them. However, if you were offered either some autonomy or being able to appeal to the community on technical issues, then it would be something one might consider.

Journeyman Geek

1:52 PM

@einpoklum I think that eventually - that'll be a thing that needs to happen (again)

einpoklum

Question is whether "eventually" will be before or after things collapse or explode beyond repair.

Journeyman Geek

lol

Things are constantly collapsing and exploding

Mithical

@einpoklum That's already happened, to a degree.

einpoklum

(although - I shouldn't be too dramatic, it's just a somewhat crappy design change, not that big of a deal)

@Mithical: You mean with the exodus of the moderators?

Journeyman Geek

@einpoklum Well, yes

and previous major site changes

einpoklum

1:55 PM

@JourneymanGeek: Which major changes would you consider a collapse or an explosion-of-everything?

Mithical

@einpoklum Yes. That whole period of a year or so from mid '19 to mid '20 involved a lot of people leaving, and the "community" never recovered.

Journeyman Geek

@einpoklum Meta is littered with them

@Mithical and SE basically tearing down the CM team to an unsustainable levels + losing a lot of devs who had great understanding of the community

einpoklum

@Mithical: I meant, to the extent of the company going bankrupt; or closing most of the network sites; or getting involved in multiple lawsuits over large amounts of money; etc.

Journeyman Geek

Which isn't going to get rebuilt overnight

@einpoklum SE's owned by another company now?

So unlikely

network site closures are unlikely

I can't imagine a winning suit over large amounts of money

einpoklum

Well, then, while the network is active there is still, theoretically, hope for change.

It's not like they need to change a whole lot, actually.

I mean, ok, maybe internally they need to,

but it's not like SE inc. sites are now bad and unusable.

Journeyman Geek

1:59 PM

@einpoklum change needs to be at a lower level - a lot of it is literally folks learning to communicate and work with the community

Or internal, but I don't have as good connections for the really good gossip that I can't share anyway as I used to :D

einpoklum

@JourneymanGeek: Obviously agree with you there. But if somehow the outlook of the BOD changed, then the lower-level change would also happen.

Journeyman Geek

So I don't know the status of the company internally

Luuklag

Also they just lack the capacity to thuroughly test their software I think. If there was done more of testing on the current design of the homepage a lot of frustration could've been saved.

Journeyman Geek

@einpoklum tbh? I don't really think anyone above Teresa/the CPO matters

einpoklum

What's the CPO?

Journeyman Geek

2:01 PM

and the folks who can internally mentor exist

@einpoklum chief product officer

Mithical

@Luuklag plugs feature request

@JourneymanGeek (no h)

Journeyman Geek

@Mithical Spelling and I...

Mithical

I'm aware :D I didn't mention apostrophes!

einpoklum

@Luuklag I disagree. Maybe they lack the capacity for large scale A/B testing (which, in fact, I kind of doubt; I mean, think of things like duck mode, and with/without hats modes etc. and that's not nearly the extent of their abilities) - but they certainly don't lack the capacity for getting qualitative and quantitative feedback from a large number of users on planned feature changes, before rolling them out.

Journeyman Geek

@einpoklum Hats is probably just thrown ontop

duck mode as well

Luuklag

2:06 PM

@Mithical Already upvoted ;). But in general it would also help if they just uploaded this to MSE only, before going network wide.

Journeyman Geek

and well, both failing or being 'ugly'/hated wouldn't have a signficant Quality of Life problem

@Luuklag Agreed

Luuklag

@JourneymanGeek There doesn't go to much dev work into that. It is all pre-existing. The only thing they need to do is come up with new triggers and designs. And some bug fixing here and there. But that also shows they didn't do a bunch of testing internally.

Mithical

@einpoklum How do I enable duck mode?

einpoklum

@Mithical: Try up-up-down-down-left-right-A-B on your controller :-P

Journeyman Geek

@Mithical that old AFD joke

where there was a duck

Mithical

2:09 PM

@einpoklum unfortunately I don't think that even shows the blog-wiki-venn-diagram-thing anymore

Journeyman Geek

@Mithical they got rid of it years ago

einpoklum

@JourneymanGeek: Arguably a more useful change than the question list redesign...

Mithical

@JourneymanGeek looks like 2021

Journeyman Geek

@einpoklum eh

einpoklum

No, scratch that, I'm just being facetious, I realize what they want to achieve, and it's pretty neat - but not for the main question list

Journeyman Geek

2:12 PM

@einpoklum Ah so

"Don't touch it" vs "Can it be improved and how" vs what we had initially

einpoklum

"Roll your particular change back" doesn't mean "don't touch it".

Journeyman Geek

Well, roll it back... then what?

einpoklum

1. Use their new design for new kinds of pages where it is more relevant.
2. Address suggestions/complaints about the question list page per se (if there are ones that come up repeatedly, of which I'm not at all sure)
3. Discuss, e.g. MSE , what aspects of the new design should apply to the main question list page.

Journeyman Geek

@einpoklum 1. yes

2. There's 3 pages of answers, many of which are duplicates - it makes sense to reply to them as aggregate

which is why having so many comments are unhelpful

3. Yes, that would be nice!

Mithical

My problem is that everything is smaller and the same size, which means all the information is presented as equally important, which... isn't the case.

Journeyman Geek

2:20 PM

@Mithical the right justification is a big bugbear for me ._.

and that too - but i wouldn't be surprised if they wanted to de-emphasise score

Tinkeringbell

2:37 PM

@JourneymanGeek Which would be weird because the whole selling point is that score makes it easy to see what is useful information/a useful question and what not.

Journeyman Geek

@Tinkeringbell well yeah \o/

Feeds

stackoverflow.blog/2022/01/28/…

einpoklum

@JourneymanGeek It makes sense to reply to them in an aggregated fashion - but not to ignore the most significant and upvoted answers and willfully ignore them, replying only to other answers/comments.

Journeyman Geek

@einpoklum the best answer is shown, not told - with changes to the site, and showing you're learning from previous attempts

frankly as a mod, I don't think I'm able to read all the comments and answers - and these folks are reading (and retagging) many answers, + needing to discuss and rebuild

I don't feel its reasonable to expect an answer to every answer

einpoklum

2:57 PM

@JourneymanGeek: Come on, don't straw-man this. We're talking about the highest-voted and most-active answers. In fact, more highly voted and active than the answers they did answer.

Journeyman Geek

@einpoklum I'm not. But I'd rather have them read then act over reply to the most popular or all of em ._.

And I see activity - at least in terms of psudo-tagging from the devs on the most highly voted posts

Mgetz

3:58 PM

What's the SO policy on questions that clearly violate the EULA of a game?

Journeyman Geek

I'd probably ask/check on the site meta

Mgetz

I sent an email with the link to the question to the publisher via their hacks and exploits email as that's what the dev is trying to do.

but... it's clearly not legal

Kevin B

4:43 PM

it isn't SO's policy to enforce

Wolgwang

-500 :-/

Kevin B

that was a quick jump, been at 480ish for the past 12-14 hours

Wolgwang

4:58 PM

I think this must have been discussed before...Why does it says 'x votes' on the homepage while the number indicates x upvotes ?

Kevin B

it indicates x score

known bug, i guess

Wolgwang

64

Q: Use "score" instead of "votes" in the list of questions

When viewing questions in the normal, "Interesting Questions" tab, (or any other view for that matter), the question's score is displayed to its left, and is labeled "votes". But is it the correct word to use? Wouldn't "Score" be more appropriate (because a score of "1" doesn't necessarily mea...

Wolgwang

5:21 PM

> User testing was run with ~170 recently active users against 5 different versions of the post summary design (two of those being existing designs). The chosen design performed better than the existing designs in some metrics (including readability) and never worse on the remaining metrics (including familiarity, data absorption).

How do they select users for testing?

Kevin B

in this case, they used teams members... at least that's what i read from somewhere that I'm too lazy to dig up

depending on what's being tested, and who the audience is, they choose who how and if to test it

bobble

9:11 PM

ey, anyone got tips on how to take screenshots of tooltips? I need some for a bug report

DavidPostill

@bobble Which tooltip where?

bobble

Flag history, post score

DavidPostill

What OS?

bobble

Windows computer

caird coinheringaahing

@bobble If you have a Print-Screen button, then you can just hover over the tool-tip, press Print-Screen then paste the screenshot and edit (crop etc.) in an image editor

bobble

9:21 PM

... what do you do if the print screen button does nothing

DavidPostill

Use Snipping Tool to capture screenshots?

bobble

As soon as I click to take a snip, the tooltip goes away

There some feature I don't know about that lets me snip without losing the hovertext I care about?

einpoklum

Calling on tavern denizens to help me reopen this question - requesting @TeresaDietrich comment on recent events.

caird coinheringaahing

@einpoklum Most of the CVers are tavern denizens