Rand's Reception - 2015-09-04

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12:00 AM

@randal'thor I did consider trying. But picture: you have a site's top user with a lengthy suspension, the mods trying to contain the disaster, and the users not knowing what to think. What's going to shut people up about the issue faster: saying "either of them could be right" (which sparks debates), or "believe in the people chosen for the job"?

My philosophy essentially says I should be prepared to say things that perhaps aren't the entire picture, if there's a greater purpose to it.

If not, honesty is a far better policy.

Anyway. It being 01:01 AM, I'm heading for some sleep. I'll be back, though I don't know when. Good discussion.

OK, see you later! (sorry, was AFK for a bit)

I'm back!

@randal'thor Honestly, I might quit if we don't get you back.

@ArtOfCode Is your aim to make people shut up, or to say the right thing in the hope that justice will be done? In your situation, I wouldn't commit to one side or the other unless I was sure it was the right side.

@ArtOfCode I see you're in the same time zone as me :-)

@warspyking Thanks for your support - I appreciate that :-D

9:40PM here :P

rand, do you have anyway to contact the "higher" members of the community?

e.g. The CMs

There's team@SE, which is an email address for the whole CM team. Many if not all of the CMs also have personal email addresses in their profiles.

12:16 AM

Well then you could do that!

Btw

0

A: Group User feature

I'm not clear what problem you are trying to solve. Attribution is not required when a user posts content here and elsewhere. So if you wrote a puzzle that you want to reuse, no matter where the puzzle was first published, feel free to just do so: it's your content. Meanwhile, the self-promotion...

Was that a CM..?

Jon Ericson

He's a CM, yes. I'm too tired to take that in properly now; I'll read it tomorrow.

He advertised our site in another post, which surprised me a bit!

He's basically saying you don't need attribution when it's your own post, and you can link as long as you don't overdo it, sort-of.

Idk but some information in that answer could help your case

"If your post is meaningfully improved by a link to your site, go ahead and use it. Just be sure to disclose your affiliation."

@warspyking I plan to! But I need to make my case carefully; I probably won't get a second chance with them, so I have to ensure I don't forget anything.

Your meta proposal seems to have bombed in downvotes :-/

I truly don't care

It was more of a "let's find a solution so this doesn't happen again" in disguise of a feature-request to anyway

The feature was a way to get attention lol

And you got CM-attention! :-o

12:23 AM

That was the other 1/2 of the reason

Anyway I need to follow Art's example and go to bed

I suggest you go to Jon with your 'case'

It's been nice chatting :-) I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully

Hopefully?

Unless work puts too many demands on me...

or a CM gives me a meta suspension...

12:25 AM

:O

They wouldn't...

Hopefully not. I did get a chat suspension for no reason at all, but that was probably Doorknob

Well

Once we get the a CM involved

With any luck we can resolve the matter in a peaceful way

I'll come back to this tomorrow, but for now, goodnight! :-)

Puzzling cannot go on without you ;)

G'night rand

user206222

@randal'thor I just checked, since a chat suspend seemed a bit weird. Nobody I asked is really sure how it happened, so I'm removing the chat suspend.

user206222

12:34 AM

Chat's weird, and sometimes stuff like that happens.

user206222

Please chat responsibly, though. I'm not going to stop you, but venting everything in public is just going to put people on the defensive and make everyone more unhappy. We'd all honestly prefer if things were kept as much in private as possible until it's resolved.

user206222

Thanks in advance

Hi @Emrakul

user206222

'ello, @warspyking!

Don't suppose as a mod you could tell me anything

user206222

12:42 AM

Depends on what you'd like to know? Buuuuuut, probably not.

Art seemed to think there could've been reasons behind rand's suspension that he didn't get told about when he got suspended.

Oh, and out of complete curiosity, we were debating earlier, who was the other puzzling mod that was involved that Doorknob mentioned, you or Kevin?

user206222

It's probably not a good idea for me to discuss the suspension further in public, honestly.

It doesn't HAVE to be in public.

We don't exactly have to talk on this chat

I just find it really weird how our top contributor got a year long suspension over a misunderstanding/

@Emrakul "We'd all honestly prefer if things were kept as much in private as possible until it's resolved." Not to go against tradition or anything, but I've always thought keeping things open and public helps everybody get their opinion out, which results in much faster resolving.

user206222

The honest truth is: that's not really the case. Suspensions are put in place regardless of what the community thinks about them, and the only thing talking about it in public can cause is more divisiveness and drama - particularly when not all information is publicly available.

I suppose so

I'd still like to know if there's anything about rand's suspension that rand doesn't know himself

(Which is a yes/no question, I don't want the actual details)

And if you were the 2nd mod or not because my mind has been trying to guess that for a while.

user206222

12:58 AM

The first isn't really a question I can answer, and is better discussed in private.

user206222

And yeah, I was.

But it's only a yes/no answer

I don't need to know WHAT he doesn't know (assuming there is anything)

I just want to know if rand actually knows all the details about his own suspension

It only makes sense that he should, right? He needs to know what happened in order to learn from it.

user206222

Even though I know it doesn't seem like it, it's actually a rather ambiguous question to frame as a yes/no answer.

user206222

I'm reluctant to answer it mostly because a yes/no answer could be construed in a number of ways that I don't really mean.

"Is there any reasons behind his suspension that he hasn't been told about?"

I can't get any more specific than that

user206222

1:00 AM

I'm sorry, I'm just not comfortable answering that publicly.

Well can you answer that privately?

user206222

I can't guarantee to you what we would talk about with rand in private.

user206222

(Kind of bad wording, but hopefully the meaning is clear.)

It wasn't

Reword please

user206222

'pologies.

1:03 AM

Oh and a specific comment makes me think Jon Ericson was the CM that Doorknob was talking about. Was he?

user206222

Once again, I'm honestly not comfortable answering further questions about what happened and who was involved publicly.

1:16 AM

Read-only times are not my favorite points of my life

Anyhow

@Emrakul You're not comfortable, or you're not allowed as a mod?

Hello hichris

Hi. Just lurking... carry on. :)

lol @Emrakul sorta disappeared on me

(Hopefully that ping will get him to come back :D)

user206222

Yep, chat thing.

Boom, welcome back Emrakul

user206222

The message I was trying to say was...

user206222

1:24 AM

Aw, shoot, it was erased. Oh well.

user206222

The short answer is, I'm not comfortable with it because I don't think it's a good idea.

Is it that you're not comfortable discussion in public, or you're not allowed to disclose such information as a mod in general?

user206222

It's a pretty strong guideline: don't talk about suspensions in public, and it's there for a good reason.

Ah

So what if we weren't talking in public?

Your wording really was terrible

"I can't guarantee to you what we would talk about with rand in private."

How does ANYBODY understand that???

user206222

Yeah, that was pretty bad >_>

user206222

1:26 AM

The spirit of it is, keep things as private as possible.

user206222

It would be weirder, for instance, if we were to exchange emails and start talking about it that way.

So if we were talking in private right now, what would that change?

@warspyking The idea is a) to prevent any more drama from occurring, and b) just as a matter of courtesy to the suspended user. (sorry for interjecting)

user206222

in this case, "public" means "anyone not involved with what happened."

Ah

Now, please continue to define "involved"

Many people can be considered to be "involved"

Hi Mike

user206222

1:28 AM

(It should be noted that these aren't really legalistic definitions; they're far more discretionary.)

user206222

Generally speaking, 'involved' means as narrow as possible.

Well, I don't know about you, but I honestly would like to get rand back as soon as possible

user206222

Which would be the moderators and CMs involved, and the user.

And you guys have the ability to shorten suspensions, right?

user206222

That is an ability we have, yes.

1:29 AM

Followup question, at what point do you use it?

user206222

Wherever we see fit/when we think it makes sense to.

Examples of that?

user206222

I don't have any good ones off the top of my head.

user206222

It's usually a pretty hard thing to argue, because there's a reason a given suspension length was chosen in the first place.

A suspension is given basically to discipline, so I would imagine it ends once the user (in this case rand) understands what he did wrong and can avoid it in the future, right?

user206222

1:32 AM

Somewhat. Yes and no. Depending, and varies.

Okay in this specific case?

user206222

I'm going to come up front and say that if you're looking for a way to argue rand's unsuspension/suspension reduction, that's not something you can do.

Not exactly

user206222

That has to be done by rand, and it has to be done privately.

I'm not doing anything on rand's behalf

user206222

1:32 AM

Alright, just wanted to clarify, sorry.

I know that I cannot do that

It'd be pretty odd if I could

user206222

Mkay, just wanted to be sure.

user206222

Just seemed like where it was heading :P

I would love to HELP rand, and I'm thinking he'd benefit from this information too

So in this specific case, would it end once he understands what he did wrong and can avoid it in the future?

user206222

That's not something I can say here, for a couple reasons. First, it concerns details of rand's suspension, and second, it's not a decision or statement I can make unilaterally.

1:35 AM

Oh

...It's incredibly difficult to get information out of moderators

user206222

Specific details on someone's suspension? Yeah.

rand himself has been pretty open about his suspension

user206222

I understand it's frustrating, but that's pretty much how it has to be.

Honestly, he would not mind.

user206222

I understand, and that's rand's prerogative. I'm trying to be private about it because I think it should be discussed in private.

1:36 AM

From what I've been told by him, is that he was basically suspended due to a misunderstanding about attribution VS spam.

For more detail just read through this chat room

user206222

[shrug] No comment.

Rand is one of our top contributors, and I seriously doubt that he would purposely do anything wrong.

Wouldn't you agree?

user206222

Loaded question. I answer yes, and then why not unsuspend? I answer no, and then the issue becomes a personal attack on rand.

No no no

You answer yes, and I would imagine you should talk to rand privately about it more

You answer no, and you're just stating your opinion

Don't take any of this the wrong way :P

Besides, there are other mods involved in this too

So answering yes to that isn't reason enough to unsuspend

user206222

Truthfully, it's just not a question I feel comfortable answering.

1:41 AM

meanwhile hichris still lurks, watching our every move

user206222

It's not something that can be answered in a binary way.

user206222

Let's see if I can bring him out of hiding... hi, @hichris123!

lololol

Hi. :)

Emrakul, I just really hate seeing our #1 contributor, and to be honest one of my favorite puzzlers, get suspended over something that seems so small from my perspective.

user206222

1:43 AM

Truthfully, suspending rand doesn't make me happy, either.

2

Then why can't you guys (in private of course) sort this out?

I feel like a bit of communication could solve all of this.

user206222

[shrug] We might yet be able to.

That's how humans have solved problems for quite a long time

A simple, and civil, conversation between the 2 of you might be able to get his suspension shortened, or even ended.

Oh and speaking of length, on the 3rd strike, do you HAVE to suspend for a year? Or is there good reason he had a YEAR long suspension. That came as quite the surprise to me O_O

It seemed a bit severe

Taking out the #1 contributor on a beta site, for a whole year.

user206222

@warspyking A suspension necessarily opens a channel of communication for exactly that purpose; whether it does is always up to the suspended user.

Ah, and about the length thing?

user206222

1:49 AM

Suspending for a year isn't mandatory, but it's highly recommended. The standard progression is 7-30-365, and it's historically been pretty effective.

user206222

At the time, we didn't see enough reason to deviate from the standard progression.

Well, as CodeNewbie had put it earlier in chat, "It's like, you spend 1 month in prison for assault, then 6 months for the second assault charge. Then you get a life sentence for jaywalking."

user206222

Alright.

user206222

I really can't comment on that.

I feel the same way, and rand does too

I know you can't

It's too public

I'm just putting it out there

:)

user206222

1:52 AM

I have heard it, and I acknowledge the sentiment :]

hichris123 still secretly hides in the corner, surprising warspyking about how long he's managed to watch our chats

user206222

Anyway, I need to go eat dinner. Thanks for the talk!

Alright, thank you actually

I learned a lot from this chat

user206222

Glad I could help!

About rand's suspension and suspensions/mods in general

I'm sure it'll come in handy

I hope you learned some stuff from me too :P

See-you

user206222

1:53 AM

Seeya!

So, hichris

This room is slowly gonna die out now

lol

I'm doing other stuff too. :)

Yeah, well you're here and I'm leaving

I figured it'd be polite to say goodbye

See-ya :D

Bye then. :P

2 hours later…

3:58 AM

2

Q: How not to be a spammer (redux)

A number of community members have recently been launching puzzle sites of their own. This is something I'm actually personally proud of - that Puzzling might be an inspiration for original content puzzling sites around the 'net. Not only that, but a number of community members have existing site...

discussion faq plagiarism spam

3 hours later…

7:06 AM

@randal'thor @warspyking: Let me request you guys to keep Doorknob's age out of this entire discussion. IIRC, in tSL, ool (maybe) said how a 14 year-old was allowed to take a decision on a suspension. While I understand that age is a common yardstick to measure maturity, it definitely is not the only one. That he has been elected a moderator despite his age shows that he is indeed capable of rational thinking beyond his years.

As for allegations of personal vendetta, that could arguably be the case (we're all humans after all), but that isn't something that should correlate with his age. (I personally know people thrice his age who are more vengeful and petty.) In any case, it would be wise to treat Doorknob as you would any other mod, without his age being a factor at any point.

4 hours later…

10:40 AM

@Doorknob I believe my exact words were age WASN'T a factor, as me and Doorknob are the same age.

Okay my mind I've lost it, I meant @CodeNewbie LOL

Hi rand, you there atm?

More or less, yes

Just been reading through the transcript above

And I see hichris is still lurking. hichris remember you CAN talk lol

Yeah, rand, I tried to get as much out of Emrakula I could.

@warspyking Not sure if that's a good idea, since I've clashed with him before. He was the one who closed one of my riddles just because it contained the word 'predator'. It might be better to approach someone who doesn't know me from Adam.

(I'm replying to old things in order :-P )

Umm

When you "reply"

Tell me what you're replying to

Click on the little arrow next to @warspyking and you'll see which message it links to

10:47 AM

I'm on mobile!

@Emrakul Thanks for that! :) Out of interest, was Doorknob one of the people you asked?

Emrakul was the other mod that Doorknob mentioned, btw

I don't want to accuse anybody, but he has publicly admitted before to giving me a manual chat suspension by fiddling my parent account. At the time I accepted it as 'one of those things mods can do'; it's only now I realised that it amounts to giving a suspension without a reason.

And I have a strong feeling Jon Ericson was the CM

@warspyking OK, my message to you was in reply to you suggesting I contact Jon Ericson to appeal. My message to Emrakul was in reply to what he said about chat suspension.

10:51 AM

Gotchya

hichris hides in the shadows to watch how confusing this is for me

I've heard that every moderator action is logged somewhere the CMs (and other mods?) can see it, so if Doorknob or whoever did chat-suspend me, that must be on record somewhere.

@Emrakul I'll mainly stick to Mos Eisley as usual. If you want I can promise to keep out of the Sphinx's Lair, but unless you tell me to do so, I'll be available to defend myself from attacks.

I'm loading laptop, I'll be able to see the @references soon enough

Here we go :)

@Emrakul Question: is there anything about the suspension that you can't tell me (or wouldn't be comfortable telling me) privately?

I've only favorited 2 chats

@Emrakul If I reply to the suspension PM, is there any chance the suspension might be removed or the 'sentence' reduced? (Not asking for promises, just whether there's a possibility of you guys reconsidering.)

11:05 AM

I don't favorite often

rand

What does favouriting mean?

Oh, starring?

I believe something Emrakul told me

Was that there is still a chance of you getting it shortened

If you were able to come to a sensible conclusion from a chat

And yes, starring

Well

a message, not a chat

Me: "Then why can't you guys (in private of course) sort this out?
I feel like a bit of communication could solve all of this."

Him: "[shrug] We might yet be able to."

I thought the same about that, but ... what does 'solve' mean?

Would me accepting the suspension count as 'solving all of this'?

"A suspension necessarily opens a channel of communication for exactly that purpose; whether it does is always up to the suspended user."

Hi @CodeNewbie

hey @warspyking

11:09 AM

Hi @CodeNewbie!

Basically, rand, when I used the term 'solve' I meant resolve all of this in a common and civil manner

And if rand accepts his suspension and admits wrongdoing, from their POV, the issue is solved for good.

hey @randal'thor

My favorite thing Emrakul said was probably this: "Truthfully, suspending rand doesn't make me happy, either."

Yep, that's definitely worth a star

It might have been a matter of Doorknob talking Emrakul into agreeing to the suspension

Hey, @CodeNewbie I quoted you while talking to Emrakul, it's up there somewhere, he said he couldn't respond to it lol.

Yes it could've. But then there's that CM

Who I still think was Jon Ericson

11:12 AM

I think someone else said the same

Got any evidence?

Yeah, I read. The one about "life sentence for jaywalking".

The reason

I think it was Jon Ericson

Was because he specifically told me in a comment that he knew stuff about your suspension

@CodeNewbie I agree. I thought focusing on his age was a stupid thing for ool to do. Although as I've said before, I do think some of his behaviour is more "vengeful and petty" than I'd expect from a moderator. I'd be extremely surprised if he reconsidered the suspension, which is a lot of the reason I haven't replied to the suspension PM from him.

@warspyking Interesting. Link pls?

"@warspyking: I would submit that the suspension you are referring to is considerably more complicated than that."

4

A: Group User feature

I'm not clear what problem you are trying to solve. Attribution is not required when a user posts content here and elsewhere. So if you wrote a puzzle that you want to reuse, no matter where the puzzle was first published, feel free to just do so: it's your content. Meanwhile, the self-promotion...

In the comments

of his answer

rand, may I ask how you're going to try and get unsuspended?

Hm. Well, I've disclosed everything they've told me about the suspension. You know all the posts I've made that could be called 'promotional content', and I've been suspended 'for promotional content'.

11:18 AM

There are numerous ways you could go about it

Emrakul made a post about how not to spam

"Only include the link if it's absolutely necessary to"

You THOUGHT it was (misunderstanding)

"Don't create an excessive number of self-promoting posts"

There was only one

"Declare up front what your affiliation is with the linked site"

You did that didn't you?

"Avoid posting links out to your own services if we have reason to believe you're being disingenuous about your desire to help the community with such a post"

They have no good reason to believe that, you're our #1 contributor

"Attribute your sources if you need to. If the source is you, this isn't mandatory, but due to plagiarism issues in the past, you should state you're the author anyway. If the source is from your own website, then...
If it's necessary for attribution's sake, feel free to link back to your own website - but you must state your affiliation, and...
Make sure it's very high quality, and really worth our time.
Don't do it excessively. We ultimately do want your community projects to succeed, and I'm personally proud that the site could be a source of inspiration for other potential puzzling site…

Like, the only thing that happened was you misunderstood the attribution while attributing yourself.

Other than that you did nothing wrong.

My first option is to reply to the suspension PM, but I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be with that. Emrakul would probably listen though - I wish there was a way to PM just him.

Then there's writing to CMs, but I need to find one who'll listen. Twice in the past I've emailed CMs, but never got a response. Admittedly one of them was about my chat suspension, and they've had less than a week to respond, and it has now been resolved, but still.

You could request @Emrakul to create a private room. I think he can do that.

^

@Emrakul Do you have that power?

I don't think you should have a hard time getting unsuspended

Now that there's an official policy

And you thought you followed it

Just admit you made a mistake and move past the misunderstanding, since you won't do it again in the future.

@warspyking He did it before to sort out issues between me and Len

Yes, but can he set it up so it's privately away from Doorknob?

I would think Doorknob could also see it since he is a mod

11:30 AM

Yes, but that would be OK

I don't mind having a discussion where Doorknob can also take part. What worries me is the idea of trying to appeal the suspension and Doorknob can reply unilaterally

Oh

rand

I sincerely hope you get back soon :)

Damn, my internet connection is playing up

Aw

CodeNewbie stays silent, watching the room slowly die

11:55 AM

I'll read carefully the answer you got from JE and the meta post from Emrakul. I'm pretty sure I stayed within the boundaries of what was allowed, but if not (and Puzzling is such a strange edge case in SE that it's easy to see new rules have to be made for it), well, we'll see. At least it seems there IS a clear policy now, which is good - now I have something to refer to.

As pacoverflow said: suspending someone for a year for breaking an unclear rule - wtf?

Ikr

I think I'd better leave and come back when I have better internet :-/

See you later @warspyking!

Yeah

Bye

1 hour later…

1:20 PM

@Emrakul: One simple question. What are the odds of a suspension being revoked? While I am not personally going to pick a side in this matter, I just want to know if all the discussion surrounding the... unsuspension, if you will.. is going to bear any fruit.

To be doubly clear, the question isn't if rand will get unsuspended, but rather if unsuspension even happens at all.

3 hours later…

user206222

4:05 PM

Wow, waking up to twelve notifications. Let's see...

user206222

Regarding chat suspension - I asked the other mods (who didn't know how it happened, either) and a couple people who might have a technical explanation (who also didn't know).

user206222

As far as the suspension goes, I can't guarantee anything will happen, but strictly from a neutral perspective, trying to resolve it at a lower level first rather than escalating it immediately (i.e. by bringing it to the public) is more likely to receive a positive response.

user206222

4:20 PM

For obvious reasons, I'm not going to give a step-by-step guide, an analysis of odds, etc.

user206222

I think that takes care of everything I can answer here...

user206222

Oh. Yes, we can create private chat rooms, but this isn't a case where we should.

6:33 PM

@Emrakul: Let me rephrase. I'm not asking what are the chances that rand gets unsuspended. Just asking if it's possible at all through conversation.

When you use the word 'resolve', is his unsuspension a possible outcome or is it simply about getting him to accept his suspension and lay this matter to rest?

4 hours later…

10:31 PM

@randal'thor Honestly, being sure I'm right in some situations doesn't fuss me. In that one, the aim was simply to get people to shut up about it - not through malice, you understand, but through a need to shut the discussions and debates down before thy got out of hand. I can always explain if I got it wrong, and many people would take the hint that discussion needs to stop anyway.

@CodeNewbie Unsuspensions do happen, but their conditions differ vastly so not only can we not say if it's likely for this case, we can't accurately predict any case.

@rand The best suggestion I have is a truthful, well worded, polite email to a CM or to team@, explaining your views and position, and putting forward a good case for yourself. After that, all you can do is say you tried - get others to participate on PSE with the content you might have posted, and find another SE site to have fun with. You any good at matters relating to open source? Come join mine.

Also: I'm happy to provide assistance to compose such an email, if you want some. My email is in my profile, drop me a line.

Hi again Art

hichris123 has made his new home here; his favorite past time: watching us

@warspyking Hey there

@warspyking I do this. Just never leave a room, and it'll seem like you're reading everything.

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Transcript for

Sep '154

Rand's Reception

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