« first day (1265 days earlier)      last day (3742 days later) » 
00:00 - 23:0023:00 - 00:00

12:13 AM
What's the current status on the data dumps?
 
@Undo They're full of data.
 
Well yes, but they also kind of no longer exist.
Or no one is hosting them, at least.
 
We're talking to archive.org about it.
 
Yay!
I noticed they have one from 2011
@Pops What needs talked about? They want the data, don't they?
Or is it just the size of the data?
Probably some legal thingy I don't understand :P
 
12:29 AM
I don't really know much more than that. I doubt they want to collect data indiscriminately, though. Otherwise they'd probably have way more stuff in the wayback machine.
 
Ahhh, true
So why can't SE run the data dumps? Torrents don't take up much bandwidth after the first few hours, after the data gets spread out, right?
(again, I have next to 0 knowledge in the area :P)
 
I don't know that. Will ask tomorrow.
 
Hey @Pops, as community managers, do you guys notice huge spikes in traffic on various sites and actively monitor them?
 
I don't, personally. Can't speak for the whole team on that one, though.
 
Specifically referring to things like this. Due to the hot question issue, we got a whole massive amount of new traffic, and were struggling to self-moderate and couldn't.
@Pops if possible, if you could talk to the community team about monitoring sites for huge surges in traffic like that and planting a community manager in the chat room(s) of the affected site(s) to help out with moderation it would at least do a little bit to allay some of the concerns about getting tons of new visitors.
 
12:43 AM
Okay, yeah. I didn't know that was a problem. Will definitely bring it up. Thanks for the poke!
 
No problem, figured as long as you were here. I was thinking of making a meta post about it, but I didn't want it to sound like I was calling out the CMs.
For The Workplace there are probably 4-5 people who do a bulk of the everyday moderation, but when there is that much traffic, it really just swamps us. I find myself having trouble prioritizing what to manage first because of the volume. New traffic means new users asking questions/giving answers that need to be welcomed (first), and then told where to look at to understand our corner of SE
And at the same time there are dozens of answers and voting patterns and comments and flags and reviews that come through at the same time and cause trouble with other hot questions, and it's just endless catchup.
This time I was lucky enough to find @Nick in here who was able to protect the offending question to prevent the worst of the worst, but the burden 4 days later is still pretty insane and could really use some outside support.
I am pretty good at managing my level of contribution to prevent burnout, but 40-year floods like that one are when community moderation is needed the most, and I feel the least able to actually effectively moderate because of the volume.
 
 
1 hour later…
2:04 AM
@Pops Is it still going to be every ~3 months for a data dump?
 
@hichris123 Probably not until the clearbits thing gets cleared up
 
I assume so too, but just wondered if it's still going to be every 3 months or >3 or <3.
 
@hichris123 I haven't heard anything about changes.
 
2:35 AM
> Your apache2 configuration is broken, so we're not restarting it for you.
How helpful.
 
3:00 AM
Bud Light, during the NFC championship game, is running ads for their Superbowl ad. That's...that's pretty meta.
6
 
3:54 AM
Let us not spoil any results of said games
 
 
1 hour later…
5:38 AM
magento.stackexchange.com/questions/13444/… - deleted after 1172.841 +/- 5s
 
6:37 AM
Net-wide nuke required here: stackoverflow.com/users/3135854/user3135854
 
6:56 AM
So something in last week's UX newsletter (yeah, I had an email backlog) points me to darkpatterns.org, and what do they use as an example of misdirecting users...
 
 
1 hour later…
8:22 AM
morning
 
Nothing like making your v1.0.0 release, then having to swiftly release v1.0.1 within about three days :-(
 
Hi, I was here a few days ago because all stackexchange pages including chat were redirected to KingHost, a Spanish or Brazilian hoster. I tracked it down to the DNS we're using (company setting), which is the CCC's DNS Server. It seems to be poisoned and did not recover so far. The DNS my phone's using seems to be poisoned now as well, which is a totally different one (mobile ISP). Does anyone know what I could do to solve the problem? Seems to be broader than I initially thought.
 
8:48 AM
@OregonGhost sounds like a virus to me
 
@ShadowWizard A virus... where? On the CCC's (and possibly other) DNS servers?
 
Yep, or hacker... doesn't sound normal to me
 
Yep, if it was normal there was certainly an easy way to fix it ;)
 
9:05 AM
For further diagnosis, can someone please confirm that 198.252.206.16 would be the correct IP for stackexchange.com, while 189.38.88.131 (which is what the CCC DNS returns) is the KingHost page and does not have anything to do with stackexchange?
 
Yes, confirmed here.
 
Thank you.
 
morning
 
9:24 AM
11:24 is morning? :)
 
@OregonGhost You can try to use Google's DNS service developers.google.com/speed/public-dns
10:24 for me it is and I call that morning, but I'm happy to call it something else, just let me know
 
@rene pre-noon maybe? ;)
 
@ShadowWizard hmm, I was hoping on something more esoteric ....
 
9:43 AM
@rene Thanks. I tried several other DNS Servers the CCC recommends, which all yielded the correct IP. And there's someone from CCC in the company, so I'll try to get the DNS entry fixed, that's a good thing for everyone :)
 
OK, this shows how we depend on good/stable dns servers... @OregonGhost
Drop a message here if it gets resolved an a root cause, if any...
 
Yep, the point is that the CCC (at least in Germany) is regarded as a reliable information source, so it's kind of ironic :)
 
 
1 hour later…
11:07 AM
@hichris123 @Undo I will be working on a data dump some today/tomorrow (just did one, but it needs another run for updated ReadMe, we're including PostLinks now)
 
CMW
Is this the go-to place for requesting help migrating a question?
 
@CMW maybe better to use a mod flag
 
CMW
@Flyk ah, right. Keep forgetting that one. thanks!
 
If you are unsure if it should be migrated and/or to which site we can have a look first
 
CMW
@rene Nah, I'm pretty sure, I was just looking for someone to take care of it :)
thanks for the tip
 
11:12 AM
No problem
 
11:48 AM
333 helpful flags. Yay.
 
@JanDvorak and 666 declined?
 
nah. Just 5 (1 comment flag)
 
Then you have a better score then me. I have 6 declined.
One for being humorless
 
12:08 PM
@rene that's truly sad :)
 
Indeed, I'm still in therapy for that :-)
 
 
1 hour later…
1:26 PM
Roboreviewers.... stackoverflow.com/review/suggested-edits/3851253. Would you like backticks with that?
 
@Duncan I've seen worse
2minor IMO
 
I would have rejected as vandalism. I don't want random super important words surrounding in code back ticks.
 
@Duncan I don't think the intention is to deface the post
 
@JanDvorak I agree, but the rejection reasons are not very wide-ranging. To say "too minor" suggests "this is a good thing, but you didn't do enough of it".
I suppose a custom reason would be best.
 
@Duncan I use "too minor" when I mean "stylistic change"
 
1:30 PM
Anyway.... I would have been happy with any rejection reason, really. Just sad to see stuff like that getting through.
 
Nah, fair enough
 
@JanDvorak I'm not sure. There isn't much wrong with the question, and tags in titles are really irritating.
I would possibly mark as helpful, but improve slightly (there are some teeny grammar issues).
 
but it's an unneccesary bump...
 
Why? There was a tag in the title. And it started with "To to", which is wrong.
 
1:38 PM
Personally, I don't tend to worry about that. It was only a day old, anyway. And on SO, things move so fast that bumps have limited value anyway.
 
\me ignores bumps now
 
@JanDvorak Don't, of course, make the dangerous mistake of assuming I know what I'm talking about :-)
 
ah, sweet :-)
 
Does "into en session" mean anything to anyone? Looks like a typo/poor English, but my PHP isn't super strong.
(title of previously discussed question)
 
s/en/a/
 
1:43 PM
@Duncan that earlier user keeps rambling on...
 
WTAF
 
I tend to rollback...
He should answer his own question
 
Myeah, but given that the author has not done anything about it, I would assume he's fine with it?
 
there is a 9 minute gap between his comment and edit...
 
1:48 PM
Still an edit like that shouldn't get through review..
 
We're not all like @Bart
 
For shame @rene. FOR SHAME!
 
2:02 PM
Thank God, @rene. THANK GOD!
 
/me takes out smiting stick
 
Let me reiterate the words of the judge, @Bart. "You might like to call it a smiting stick, but nobody wants to see your penis in court."
@3ventic I rolled back that edit and left a comment. That was a big change on an accepted answer.
 
I'll flag that to indicate I'm humorless
 
2:22 PM
@3ventic Although it occurs to me that the editor is the OP, so perhaps that wasn't so bad.
 
@Bart I've prepared 3 test answers one two and three in the sandbox with regard to your question. Can I have your initial thoughts on it? (you have to hit edit on the answer to see the content)
 
So you're saying you encode the binary files into a text form and "attach" them to posts like that @rene?
 
2:38 PM
Yeah. that is it. There is currently no other way, specific with those big unity3d projects you handed me as an example. I believe this could work as a last resort. The OP would have to answer his own question multiple times and they will get flagged as extensively long immediately but apart from that everything should be fine :-)
 
But at that point you might as well simply start hosting files with a specific max-size
Let me bounty that sucker anyway. Like this it's pretty useless
 
It is not an easy feature but a bounty seems fair.
I'll leave a comment on the question to explain my suggestion.
 
Not that I have a solution, but I would be very against users putting projects into posts like that.
And I suspect it would be viewed dimly by the establishment too.
 
@Duncan I'm also not in favor of that but the point Bart raises in his question does exist.
I would rather have some kind of meta-script that setups an IDE environment similar to that of the OP.
And the script has to be clear text...
 
True @Duncan. In general, when someone supplies a link to a download I'm thinking "yeah, not going to download that". And perhaps the answer simply is "yeah, if your question requires it, tough luck". But it's a class of development environments and techniques that is problematic, while the questions themselves are fair.
 
2:51 PM
I hoped a standard unity project woud be small enough to stay under 30000 bytes. Then you could advice to have the OP repro in that 'standard' project and attaching it as demo-ed.
 
They get big quite fast @rene, unfortunately.
 
Yeah, that doesn't help. I scanned some docs and faq's on reducing those sizes but the 54K I have now is basically it.
 
Anyhow ... 200 rep bounty up for grabs
18
Q: How to support questions about development environments that rely on more than code alone?

BartGiven that most of my work currently revolves around Unity, I have recently become a bit more active in the unity3d tag. Most of the questions use some form of C#/UnityScript/Boo and are simple enough to answer. Problems arise when it's not necessarily a script that exhibits a problem. A lot ca...

I'm tempted to write my own answer stating that those users are simply out of luck and such questions are off-topic. Maybe that will spark something. :)
 
I could provide my solution as an answer if we agree that the bonus will be mine to compensate for the downvotes...
 
Hahaha, that's not how I hand out bounties I'm afraid
 
3:04 PM
I'm kinda surprised that question has "only" 18 upvotes.
 
I've deleted the posts from the sandbox
That is due to the exact wording of Bart
 
How so @rene?
 
If the title would be: 'Allow file uloads with question' it would skyrocket
 
That would have been a duplicate though
And it's not necessarily what I'm going for, though it's the obvious solution. But with so many problems that I would dismiss it as well.
 
A meta-script would not be a bad idea.
I'm not in to python qt4 to judge
But it looks like a better explanation...
 
3:15 PM
Where's Lazlo when we need him? ;)
 
My idea
 
@ShadowWizard I could probably just about hit his building with a note wrapped around a rock.
 
@Duncan but then he'll flag you
you don't want that to happen
 
Not if I hit him with the rock :-P
 
Please do, He is needed, whatever it takes.
 
3:17 PM
lol
 
It's already reopened... :P
 
Yeah...
Lazlo can close it again. He'll probably explain why we made a mistake to reopen it.
 
Weird, I can't find Lazlo user anywhere!
Any chance he deleted his account??
 
sz maybe?
 
Laszlo
 
3:21 PM
wasn't he the sockpuppet of that guy?
 
 
:relief:
Those foreign languages!
Not that Hebrew is better
צ is actually "tz"
@JanDvorak eh? what guy? Neal?
Anyway he was active two days ago, all is good :D
 
No, that was qwertynl
 
So many socks!
 
@hichris123 I got only one sock
 
3:24 PM
Me too, but it's knee high.
 
@ShadowWizard I thought that wasn't allowed?
 
More than one account @rene? That's no problem.
 
@rene allowed as long as you don't cross vote
or of course vote yourself
 
is cross-flagging OK?
 
I'll leave it at one account. I'm already to much of a split personality
 
3:29 PM
hmm...
no
if you pile 6 spam flags from 6 socks you can virtually nuke all posts
 
I mean, if I raise six accounts to 200 and bash the Baba guy unilaterally, it's not OK?
 
@JanDvorak that might get problematic indeed
 
@JanDvorak nope, I won't get into this, too slippery
 
It's only 15 rep to flag, right?
 
OK, and can I at least boost my flag count by using socks?
 
3:31 PM
@Undo right
@JanDvorak how so?
 
As in, once one account is out of flags, I log into another and flag other posts from there?
 
If I did that with comments flags the mods would kill me.
 
Just rely on the community @JanDvorak.
 
I just flagged that...
 
3:35 PM
^ this has been alive for 4 hours. One flag before I posted it here, mine.
 
flagged
 
You can only rely on community if that community is active enough for these kind of posts
 
@rene so...
 
@JanDvorak grey zone. On one hand it's useful on the other hand you're going around a designed limit
 
I feel sad for you if you are going to create a community on your own with all socks...
All chatting...
 
3:38 PM
I would ask permission from a CM first
 
@ShadowWizard the designed limit should be lifted, I believe
 
@JanDvorak there are those who want to be able to ask 1000 question per day too
 
@ShadowWizard I assume is perfectly fine on the other hand?
 
@JanDvorak here in chat? yes, to a limit
one who will barge in and start bombing with requests will eventually be ignored
reminds me of our dear Laszlo who expected Anna to give him special treatment whenever he want to delete a comment
:D
 
@ShadowWizard Depends... if a site gets 10 spam posts / hr, what's the best reaction? Reserve one flag per site as "other - clean up needed"?
 
3:41 PM
@JanDvorak yes this sounds reasonable
 
Maybe deemed helpfull spam flags should not be counted to the flag limit?
 
^ prolly not a bad idea (at first glance)
although mods have a hard enough time keeping up with flags on SO
 
Yeah but SO is not the issue here
It is more on low traffic sites/communities
I can't imagine somebody already proposed that earlier...search
This comes close on spamflagging
19
Q: Stronger spam flags for trusted users

Mad ScientistTrusted users (20k+ reputation) can delete downvoted answers and closed questions immediately, only three votes are required. Spam flags take six votes, but can be cast by anyone able to flag (15+ reputation). For spam answers, this means theoretically trusted users could remove them with three ...

1
A: Increase the number of daily spam flags with reputation

Marc GravellI did have a uservoice on this (#231984); not sure where it went... but yes; personally I'm broadly in favour of a few more flags for people with a reasonable rep.

 
4:00 PM
@rene we get extra flag for each 2K rep as far as I remember, that was the change
 
That is not enough to fulfill Jan his needs
 
1 new flag for every 10 (valid - declined) also.
 
ha!
 
who delete a post when it is not written that it is the owner or a moderator. It is all the voters involved, but their names remain unknown for mortals?
 
4:04 PM
For <10k yes
 
no, <10k would not see a post deleted.
 
@LaszloPapp low quality review
 
I do see the post deleted, but I only see that "deleted", not by the owner, and not a moderator, I would assume because I see those cases.
 
@LaszloPapp might be deleted through "recommend deletion"
 
@ShadowWizard, ok, thanks, so deleted by mortals. :)
 
4:06 PM
yup, 6 mortals
6
Q: What can cause an answer to get deleted without information about who actually deleted it?

Shadow WizardUsually when answer gets deleted directly (i.e. not as side effect of its parent question deleted) it says "deleted by [name here] [time stamp]". Plus, it always leave a revision. However, I just stumbled over this answer on Stack Overflow: Weird, don't you think? Looking in the question ...

 
thanks.
perhaps, @Bart meant the same, in case, I apologize for the misunderstanding.
 
All good Laszlo, no need to apologize :)
By the way I was sure it's Lazlo, that "s" got me confused before
 
hmm, I did not know the recommended deletion can also cause this.
Although I heard it the other day it counts half vote, which I was surprised about.
 
@LaszloPapp Only if all 6 do it, one "No action needed" abort the whole thing
 
Right.
both you and Anna got an upvote from me. :)
(for the posts)
 
4:13 PM
Thanks! Chat effect rulz :P
(got 2 more upvotes)
 
for you it obviously does :-)
 
@rene not always, couldn't garner 100 comment upvotes :(
 
I might consider getting some socks for that goal :-)
 
@rene but that would be abuse ;)
 
too bad...
 
4:22 PM
For your fun @Shadow:
You should write a book "The null that hates me". ;) — Shadow Wizard Jan 15 at 15:11
 
@hichris123 thanks!
68 to go :D
 
Yep! :P
67 to go now.
 
@hichris123 thank me :-)
 
@JanDvorak Heh. I do want to see that as a book. :P
 
4:28 PM
@hichris123 I'll buy it for 100 unicorn dollars
 
4:52 PM
Here you go @JanDvorak
0
Q: Helpfull spam flags should not be counted to the daily flag limit

reneDuring spam attacks we, as a community, are happily flagging posts as spam. On most sites spam posts are not long-lived. However on sites with low traffic it can take a while before spam posts reach their 6 required flags, more often than not by community members that call out for help in chatroo...

 
@rene it's a dupe :-(
 
NOOOOOO!
link?
 
how do you prevent abuse from a guy with five socks?
 
Hmmm, throttle?
 
switching accounts counts as a throttle; the problem remains, however
 
5:06 PM
Hmmm that got the discussion going
note to self: using the word unlimited in questions sets off moderators
If I accept that answer I'll counter the downvotes
 
Can the flag allowance at least be network-wide? — Jan Dvorak 32 secs ago
I like this part.
 
Yes
@JanDvorak with your permision can I edit that in?
 
go ahead
 
Probably a Chrome hater...
 
5:20 PM
Heh. Probably love Firefox. :P
 
I only make love to IE
I've updated the question to include network-wide spam flag limit
can someone have a read to see if I adressed all concerns?
 
It looks good @rene.
 
Tnx
+6/-3 is the balance now...
 
5:37 PM
@rene Could just be me, but that seems to be... gone. :P
 
Yes it has, sorry
deleted by community
 
@hichris123 meh. Just a rant.
 
@rene Hinty hinty, I cast the second to last flag on it. :P
 
I was the closer
 
@JanDvorak I know, dumb rant at best.
 
5:39 PM
fatalatity!!!
 
Ah, so this system actually works?
 
What do you mean @rene?
 
@rene you mean, this chat room? Yeah :-)
 
Mat
There's anotherone on the front page that's ripe for a kill
 
I keep having to create an account on apple.se and delete it since I'm an Android-er. :P
 
5:45 PM
@JanDvorak flagged
 
@Mat already flagged
 
@JanDvorak Now gone.
 
sorry for not having posted here
 
6:02 PM
new user who didn't get [on hold]: stackoverflow.com/questions/21240841/…
It is in the reopen queue as well because he edited in a link to his new question stackoverflow.com/review/reopen/3853322
 
When I see duplicates like this, I downvote both sides
 
6:18 PM
The new question should still be closed as it's a simple typographical error.
 
Questions on Stack Overflow should start out closed. Then we can reopen them if they don't suck.
9
Seems like we could save a lot of time.
 
but also a lot of questions
 
0
Q: Posts used for review audits in the Low Quality Posts queue should not always be good posts

ProgramFOXOne of the purposes of review audits is to stop robo-reviewers. For the Low Quality Posts queue, I never had an audit where "Recommend Deletion" or "Recommend Close" was the right action. For the audits, "Looks Good" was always the right action. Robo-reviewers will, most likely, just click on the...

 
6:52 PM
@jmac The answer to this seems to be (as it is with so many things) yes and no. We do have tools that will show spikes, but nothing that pings us in real time. Best course of action is to just mention it in the Teachers' Lounge. There's always someone there, usually including a few CMs. Beyond that, we can take it on a case-by-case basis.
 
@Undo The primary reason seems to be that the dumps are a backup of our content, so they should be located somewhere other than the primary datacenter. It'd be silly if the same hypothetical meteor that hit our primary servers took out the backups at the same time. Also, while I don't understand torrents at all, either, I'm told that there are latency reasons.
 
@Pops If a meteor hit the servers, wouldn't you be more worried about the people rather than the data? :P
 
People are temporary by design. Data are forever. Er, I mean, yes?
6
 
7:34 PM
@Pops Ah, makes sense
In related news: I have started on an access_token getting gizmo!
(and yes, I swear that I'm not logging your tokens or anything comparatively evil :P Code is here)
 
@hichris123 I suppose I should give you a more real answer. The servers live on their own. There usually aren't any people nearby. Well, not Stack Exchange people, anyways. There would be random passersby outside the building, most likely. But we would care about them in a "something terrible happened to strangers" kind of way, not a "members of our team need help" kind of way.
 
7:58 PM
@Undo That first step works. I'm screwed now I guess?
 
8:13 PM
@Pops Ah, okay. I like the other answer better though. :P
Wow:
 
in Mashup on The Stack Exchange Network Chat, 4 mins ago, by Zero Stack
Holy sweet Jesus. I just had a client: 1) tell me that chrome is a virus. And 2) decided to download everything on the internet. 1.6k garbage cleaned up later....
 
My aunt is convinced that Windows Updates is a virus, and completely disabled it on her machine. I have been unable to convince her otherwise.
 
8:28 PM
@hichris123 What... I didn't ask for that!
 
@Pops Heh, you like Windows 8 better? Or do you just hate Windows? :P
 
Oh, right, you're new. My username here was "Popular Demand" for years. Changed it to "Pops" when I got hired.
I have minimal experience with Win8. I'm perpetually in the "I can't find stuff I'm used to because the Start menu is gone" part of the learning curve. And I don't get Metro at all.
If I had to use it on a daily basis, I'm sure I'd get over it, but I don't, so....
 
I'm still in Win8 recovery therapy after playing with a Surface at Staples.
 
@Pops I still think your old username was better :p
 
Pops is shorter, and feels more like a name. And "Popular Demand" is a fine name, but "Popular Demand ♦" can look reeeeeeeealllllllly arrogant.
 
8:39 PM
Protip: Don't create a field in your SQL Server table that starts with "TOP". It makes typing SELECT TOP columnName really frustrating (if you have autocomplete turned on, of course).
 
@Pops Heh, thanks for the explanation. :P
 
Every time I type then word "top" and hit the spacebar, it changes "top" to that column name.
 
@Pops I thought your goal was to have things that say 'closed by Popular Demand ♦'
 
8:58 PM
@Pops What, it's just a very sought-after diamond
 
@TimStone That's "Demand," not "Diamond." Get some sleep, man.
 
'closed by Popular Diamond ♦' would look really weird..
 
@3ventic "weird" is a very strange way to spell "awesome"
 
That's the weird way to do it ;)
 
ha!
 
9:07 PM
I'm weird like that.
 
Oh, @Pops did you ever get your Charcoal email?
 
Yes.
 
I'm looking at my CM tools that says 0 flags handled total for you. :P
 
Your tools are accurate.
 
Are you a computer?
 
9:21 PM
I'd say I'm above average at mental math.
 
Mat
Did you calculate the average yourself though?
3
 
@Pops Obviously a computer.
 
10:17 PM
So many flags. -.-
 
@animuson Please, just give us the flag queue!
 
Someone write me a query that will find all posts that have a <kbd> element inside a link that goes to jsFiddle. I would love to go on an editing spree.
 
10:48 PM
SELECT Id FROM Posts WHERE Body LIKE '[<kbd>%</kbd>](http://jsfiddle.net/%)' - This is my pathetic attempt at a query with my limited SQL knowledge. Someone make it work, please.
 
Oh, Body is the rendered post.
So you need to search for the HTML, not the Markdown
 
Lame.
 
@animuson fail. do better.
4
 
I've never used SQL for advanced queries before. I only ever write basic select, insert, and update statements. :P
 
This sounds like an excuse. I do not accept.
 
10:56 PM
I hate string manipulation in TSQL. Reminds me too much of VB. The flashbacks, man...
 
Please, not the pointy stick! hides
 
@Shog9 UPDATE [dbo].Sites SET TinyName = SUBSTRING(Url, CHARINDEX('//', Url) + 2, (CASE WHEN SUBSTRING(Url, CHARINDEX('//', Url) + 2, 5) = 'meta.' THEN CHARINDEX('.', Url, CHARINDEX('.', Url) + 1) ELSE CHARINDEX('.', Url) END) - (CHARINDEX('//', Url) + 2)) FROM Sites
Gross.
 
00:00 - 23:0023:00 - 00:00

« first day (1265 days earlier)      last day (3742 days later) »