Tavern on the Meta

user202362

00:12

Eucalyptus was introduced from Australia to the rest of the world following the Cook expedition in 1770. Collected by Sir Joseph Banks, botanist on the expedition, it was subsequently introduced to many parts of the world, notably California, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Ethiopia, Morocco, Portugal, South Africa, Uganda, Israel, Galicia and Chile.

user202362

such a brilliant idea! bringing bushfire to so many other countries

user202362

Eucalyptus oil is highly flammable (ignited trees have been known to explode); bushfires can travel easily through the oil-rich air of the tree crowns.

JamesENL

00:58

@ShadowWizard I don't use WhatsApp

SNAFU

01:58

We’re restarting Elasticsearch to mitigate some crazy - search may be offline for a few minutes as we roll through the cluster.

Tweeted by Nick_Craver on November 22, 2016 at 1:57 AM

user202362

insanity is elastic, good call!

user202362

compressed insanity, would that be concentrated craziness?

user202362

03:28

user202362

indeed ...

SNAFU

The main Elasticsearch cluster seems to have stabilized, but we’re low on confidence. We’ll keep an eye on it through the night.

Tweeted by Nick_Craver on November 22, 2016 at 3:24 AM in reply to Nick_Craver

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of answer: What is the difference between green, white and black tea? by suth on cooking.stackexchange.com

SmokeDetector

04:12

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted website in answer: How to extract images from video file? by Venkman on unix.stackexchange.com

SmokeDetector

04:28

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of body, pattern-matching website in body: Ghanaian My Megasize courting is becoming greater by user69687 on drupal.stackexchange.com

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of body, pattern-matching website in body: Jack Hammer Xl prompts up protein amalgamation by httjapgli on drupal.stackexchange.com

SmokeDetector

04:46

[ SmokeDetector ] URL in title, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, link following arrow in body, pattern-matching website in body, pattern-matching website in title: Paravex Male Enhancement scam Report%menhealthoffers.org/paravex-male-enhancement/ by minairmount on graphicdesign.stackexchange.com

SmokeDetector

05:23

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] URL in title, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, link at end of body, pattern-matching website in body, pattern-matching website in title, repeated URL at end of long post: supplementstest.org/ascend-garcinia/ by tinabogi on drupal.stackexchange.com

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in body, link at end of body, pattern-matching website in body, repeated URL at end of long post: Junk food should be eliminated from the diet in the first six months by folzofrma on security.stackexchange.com

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] URL in title, link at end of body, pattern-matching website in body, pattern-matching website in title, repeated URL at end of long post: elevategffacts.com/abella-mayfair-moisture/ by user60584 on workplace.stackexchange.com

SmokeDetector

05:53

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] URL in title, bad keyword in body, link at end of body, pattern-matching website in body, pattern-matching website in title, repeated URL at end of long post: t-rexmuscleadvice.com/my-megasize/ by glynnis007 on drupal.stackexchange.com

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of body: Assimilation of the on a void stomach by molliiecole on drupal.stackexchange.com

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bwDraco

06:54

0

Q: Trying to unstar a chat message starred more than ten minutes ago from the transcript fails silently

In a chat transcript, if I open the dropdown menu for a message I starred more than ten minutes ago (the grace period for unstarring a message) and try to unstar it, the operation fails with no error message of any kind, e.g. "It is too late to undo this operation". Can we get an error message w...

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in body, link at end of body, pattern-matching website in body: The develop components used by lliam nelly on drupal.stackexchange.com

SmokeDetector

07:08

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, blacklisted username, pattern-matching website in body, repeated URL at end of long post: White Tea is an emphasized ingredient in anti-aging by osephxvjuriya on graphicdesign.stackexchange.com

Shadow Wizard

@JamesENL that's weird.... next you'll tell me you don't have Facebook.... :O ;)

JamesENL

07:24

Hahaha, I don't think Whatsapp is as popular in Australia as abroad

Shadow Wizard

@JamesENL huh! You're right.... statista.com/statistics/291540/mobile-internet-user-whatsapp

So weird, I was sure it's popular world wide. In Israel I think it's somewhere around 80%.

@James so how you communicate with friends? SMS?

JamesENL

Facebook messenger, SMS

I use Telegram a lot for Ingress

Shadow Wizard

hmm... wonder what's so "bad" in WhatsApp? It's more light-weight than Facebook messenger if you want only to send messages, as far as I can tell.

Magisch

Not sure

Shadow Wizard

Oh hey @Magi! You plan to run again in next elections?

Magisch

07:34

also not sure

Shadow Wizard

hehe

You happy, @Magi? ;)

Magisch

Not really but for reasons unrelated to stack

Shadow Wizard

hmm... let me guess... work. #1 in making people unhappy. D:

Magisch

@ShadowWizard I have to somehow make a thing in access work that I have no idea how to

It's basicly a resolving recursive tree function that needs database input for every brach.

And my current implementation is taking forever to load and I have no clue how to make it faster

Shadow Wizard

@Magisch something similar happened to me last week. I worked all week on a new feature of a website, in Thursday I completed it, and it worked perfectly locally. Quick, elegant. I deployed to production, and turned out the amount of data there cause it to take 20-60 seconds to load.

Magisch

07:39

The problem is

I have lists of parts needed for a machine

Shadow Wizard

So I just spent two more days to change the logic, and now it's working fine in prod as well. :)

Magisch

So machine 1 that we manufacture needs like 10 different parts in varying amounts

but lists of parts can also contain other lists of parts

and so forth

so machine B can contain 2x Machine A and 1x Machine C for instance

Shadow Wizard

@Magisch doesn't sound like something for Access... why not real database?

Magisch

It is on a real SQL server

Access is just the front end

Shadow Wizard

oh

Magisch

07:41

And the prices for the parts are dependant on how many you order at once

Shadow Wizard

Well, there is always a way to improve efficiency

Magisch

So if someone goes into a partlist and presses "order" it has to resolve all the individual parts from sublists, and then aggregate and determine the prices

Problem is you have some part lists that have like 2500 parts in them total

Shadow Wizard

@Magisch worst case, cache it all. That's what SE are doing, in a way. ;)

Magisch

and a msaccess odbc call select query runs me about 150ms

so to resolve the entire list for bigger part lists takes upwards of a minute, atm.

Shadow Wizard

@Magisch the problem is in the back end (database) or front end?

If database, you can also use Stored Procedures

Or build index tables

Magisch

07:43

It's that querying the backend database through the ODBC driver and VPN tunnel has 150ms latency

The backend database itself resolves my select queries in under 1ms

Shadow Wizard

@Magisch so caching and pre-selecting are probably the ways to go

Magisch

I'm honestly considering at this point to rather grab a whole cache copy of the 150mb parts table before execution and dropping it after

Shadow Wizard

e.g. pre-select everything under specific category when user goes there

@Bart @rene final close vote and delete votes required here :)

@Magisch well, why not? These days 150MB memory are no big deal.

Magisch

@ShadowWizard 150mb single transfer takes about 10s atm

Shadow Wizard

@Magisch so do it in the background, different thread, and hope the user will not be too quick. :)

Magisch

08:01

@ShadowWizard pretty sure ms access 2003 doesn't support multithreading

and also pretty sure even if it did the multithreading would be a world of hurt trying to run it on win98 machines

Shadow Wizard

@Magisch oh... so load it before starting, and show a splash screen.

Magisch

I'm planning to just do a msgbox with a progress bar

Shadow Wizard

@Magisch that would do too, yeah.

See? You can solve this. :)

Magisch

150mb extra ram usage will be painful on win98 pcs

Shadow Wizard

@Magisch well, you can't have it all.... though I'm amazed there are still people actually using such OS

Magisch

08:06

I may have to write the database to a .csv file and dynamically read from it

@ShadowWizard No choice, some of our machines have non-upgradeable pcs in them that we have to use

and these machines cost upwards of 1M eur to buy so it's understandable they use them as long as they don't fall apart.

Shadow Wizard

@Magisch sure, but why putting front end applications on the machine in such case? Put on an actual computer...

Magisch

@ShadowWizard cause they interact with machine data and special IC interfaces and sensors

Shadow Wizard

Anyway.... stackoverflow.com/jobs/129443/… - anyone has any idea what "The Unicorn abilities" means?!

Magisch

@ShadowWizard Probably the "The ideal candidate is also ..." section but named poorly

Shadow Wizard

@Magisch hmm... most can be read remotely, e.g. PLC

@Magisch heh, lol. I made a test for jobs search with "unicorn", never thought I'd get actual results. :D

Magisch

08:12

Heh

Shadow Wizard

Magisch

@ShadowWizard Try to put that past the other devs

(Spoiler alert: I can't decide that)

I'm 1 step above unpaid intern

Shadow Wizard

@Magisch for how much time longer? (i.e. when will you get a raise? :))

Magisch

@ShadowWizard When I get my next Job

So at the earliest summer 2018

Shadow Wizard

oh, bummer

Magisch

08:14

Until then I'm stuck making like 2,50 eur an hour

Shadow Wizard

Well, as long as it's enough to give you food and place to live in... guess it's not all bad. :)

Magisch

just about

Everytime I have to buy something new because the old broke, my savings get smaller (I'm lucky I still have some)

Shadow Wizard

@Magisch true, but keep in mind you still can buy new things... many people can't do even that.

And many people who earn x100 more than you live in misery because they spend x1000 more and going into debts.

Magisch

@ShadowWizard With any luck I'll be done before they're depleted

With my current habits I could save over 50% of my income if I made minimum wage

Rice seasoning and frosted greens make up most of my diet atm because I can get 50kg of rice for under 10 bucks

@ShadowWizard Lifestyle inflation is real

I don't think I'll be subjected to it much, though. I wouldn't want a house or big apartment anyways because that means I have to expend more energy cleaning a space I don't use.

user202362

@Magisch out of so many choices you had, why did you choose one with such a low salary & locked in for two year? :p

user202362

08:26

didn't you have, like 3 offers?

Magisch

@Telkitty No money to go to uni outright

user202362

Oo

Magisch

I tried the dual uni/work thing

user202362

that's hard

Magisch

@Telkitty But failed together with over 90% of my class on the first analysis exam

So now I'm banned from studying CS in Uni anyways

So the only other option to get something resembling a CS degree is an apprenticeship

user202362

08:31

Uni students/apprentices are supposed to be not rich anyways. I remember when I was in uni, sometimes I had less than $100 in bank account and a student loan. Lovely times ...

Magisch

@Telkitty Yeah. My parents make too much for me to be eligible for assistance, and getting them to pay for it would require me to sue them, which, again, no money.

And rent in uni cities is ridiculously high

I did a big blunder by failing out of that dual thing though. As is looking right now, I'm effectively lifetime-banned from studying anything that requires that math course in germany.

user202362

when I was in uni, my parents did help to pay some of my living expenses

user202362

@Magisch your parents are not helping out financially at all?

Magisch

My mom died when I was 11

user202362

Oo, sry 2 hear that

Magisch

08:35

my father married someone else and she has convinced him to cut off most ties

I speak to him from time to time, but I get positively nothing from them. Legally I would be entitled to some assistance from them but she's made it very clear if I want that I will have to go full on lawsuit on them.

user202362

that sucks

Magisch

Sometimes life gives you the **** on a stick

user202362

well, you are young and there are plenty of opportunities for you in the future

Shadow Wizard

@Magisch true.... sorry to hear those things, didn't know. And it helps me to understand your.... special point of view (i.e. practical) about things.

Magisch

On the other hand

A doc confirmed last weekend that I do not in fact have narcolepsy or anything related to it and the bursts of sudden fatigue I had were probably just temporary

So I got that going for me, which is nice

OddDev

08:43

^^ @Magisch Come to Germany. Better CS education anyway and everything is free :)

Magisch

I live in germany

About 60km from frankfurt

OddDev

O.o

Shadow Wizard

o.O

OddDev

Then lawsuit the hell out of your parents

Wtf you can even go to police and the prosecutor will do the rest.

Magisch

Yeah

If you're under 18

I'm 22

They'd technically still have to pay until I'm done with the apprenticeship

OddDev

08:45

See

They even get child benefit for you

Magisch

But the Jugendamt told me to basicly go to court since they're claiming they're paying it but don't

OddDev

This is Germany not fucking Vietnam. If they don't pay you the court will find out. It'll cost them a ton of extra money.

Magisch

I'm just a tiny bit annoyed because it's not like they need the money anyways my father makes well 6 figures so what they don't give me just to spite me equates to peanuts for them

still, suing your own family...

OddDev

Make a clear statement either they give you child benefit and the other money or you are going to sue them.

Also in special cases the child benefit money can be directly place in your bank account.

Just go the "Jugendamt"

*to

Magisch

@OddDev That'd be great

I should probably do that

have to take off a day due to their inane office hours probably but It'll be worth it

Shadow Wizard

08:49

Child benefit money in age of 22?

Magisch

In germany it's until 25 or until you finish uni/apprenticeship

OddDev

Yes it's about 200 € per month.

Shadow Wizard

whoa... so far from what we have here. About $50 per month, until the "child" is 18.

And there's no law forcing the parents to actually give that to the child...

It's just a small bonus for people who have children.

Derpy

@ShadowWizard You are lucky - I have lost the archive with the custom SharePoint themed cards I made some time ago

Feeds

Stack Overflow - Counting Developers with Providence

Kevin Troy on November 22, 2016

Our data platform, Providence, has evolved over the last two years. We look at how and why it has changed, and the effects on our counts of developers.

Shadow Wizard

09:11

@Derpy too bad!

Derpy

09:26

@ShadowWizard hehe. You could try and start a chat room for development themed fake Magic cards.

Bart

@Magisch you can't claim you're still 17 in spirit? I mean, I'm still claiming to be 29.

Shadow Wizard

@Derpy yes, I can...

user202362

@Bart here, I will donate you my cat ...

user202362

Bart

Silly cat, you're drunk

Derpy

09:33

Newbies...

user202362

Derpy

@Telkitty not steampunk enough

user202362

going for the cuteness score ...

Bart

10/10

user202362

:D

user202362

09:44

user202362

Derpy

In order:

a) a picture of @bjb568 and @infinite

b) one of @bjb568 brothers with @DroidDev

user202362

last but not least ...

user202362

09:57

:p

Derpy

c) another one with Jan D'Vorak

Bart

10:07

@Telkitty thanks, now my colleagues want to know why I'm laughing

Derpy

btw, shouldn't we start annoying the staff with friendly ~~pellets~~ Winter Bash reminders?

December is drawing near

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of body, pattern-matching website in body: When acquire into whenever of buying creatine guide? by kiricmie on gaming.stackexchange.com

Derpy

10:40

Wait a second....

Evil plot is rising.

@Telkitty @ShadowWizard - we should start posting some random comments on meta just to build up some numbers.

We already know they will give an hat for self-comment deletion:P

smci

I'm still new to meta. How long should I wait for responses/consensus on Should we rename tag 'greatest-n-per-group' to 'top-n-per-group', to be consistent with 'top-n'?

Ditto: R language-specific tags: r-timedate, r-factor, r-model-formula etc.?

Derpy

@smci Define the purpose of the wait. You mean "before I can repost my request" or "before I can safely assume they are ignoring me"?

If it is the first, the answer is "forever"

smci

Before going ahead and taking the administrative actions on tags suggested in those posts.

Please give them a very quick eyeball and tell me your reaction. Doesn't matter if you're not an R person.

smci

11:26

...sigh...

Shadow Wizard

@Derpy heh, already got thousands of useless comments I can clean up any time. ;)

@smci in my opinion, if the retagging makes sense, and you don't get a plain "no" from other users/moderators.... go for it. Don't go and edit 1000 questions in one day, do it in batches, e.g. 50 per day, and update the meta post with the progress.

Bart

11:44

Or if there are relevant chat rooms, see if you're allowed to poke people in there regarding your Meta question.

smci

Thanks, but I already asked the R chatroom. I'm looking in particular for guidance on tag questions spanning multiple languages?

user202362

12:27

@Derpy there is a good chance that mine will get deleted by someone else

user202362

There seemed to be an invisible force following behind me, randomly deleting my comments. I blame it on paranormal activities on the internet

Shadow Wizard

@Telkitty maybe a bot. Sent from the future.

Commentnator

user202362

makes more sense, thanks for enlightening my life

Shadow Wizard

@Telkitty sure, any time!

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Pattern-matching website in body: Google redirects wrong url by Rajesh S on serverfault.com

Derpy

13:10

^ more likely IMHO

Shadow Wizard

13:35

in Shadow's Den, 5 mins ago, by Shadow Wizard

With excellent answer from @Bart

@Bart see? I can also be nice. Sometimes. ;-)

Bart

13:50

It's a rare sight

user202362

maybe most paranormal activities are caused by future technologies?

user202362

Alien> you look like a toy, lemme test my other fancy toys on you, little fellow ...

Shadow Wizard

14:06

@Telkitty future, or alien? There's a difference... :)

@Bart enjoy it while it's lasting then.... :D

!!/hats

When will the count down begin? @hichris123 @Pro

Derpy

I blame @JonEricson for not having an official public Winter Bash date yet ^

Shadow Wizard

Last year it started in November 20.

Nov 20 '15 at 3:23, by SmokeDetector

@NormalHuman HATS ARE AWESOME. Winter Bash will begin in 23 days, 20 hours, 36 minutes and 59 seconds. :D

/cc @zaq

Nov 20 '15 at 3:57, by Doorknob

it's a guess :P

Derpy

> From December 14th through January 3rd, you'll be able to earn hats all over the sites! Ask, answer, vote, edit, and chat, and you'll uncover hats hidden in all kinds of places.

last years dates - span three weeks

Shadow Wizard

14:21

@Derpy where is it from?

Derpy

probably they will have it start on December 19 and finish on January, 8

@ShadowWizard see edit above, old 2015 site

Shadow Wizard

hmm...

twitter.com/hashtag/winterbash2016

Winter Bash

@WinterBash2016, Detroit, MI

This year from December 26th-January 3rd! Fun for all ages!!

5 tweets, 0 followers, following 2 users

Too bad SE didn't take it first! ;)

I blame @Aaron

!!/blame

SmokeDetector

@ShadowWizard It's Telkitty's fault.

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of answer: Chrome not listed in default programs by Lance Allen on superuser.com

Bart

14:38

I see. Australians hindering winterbash because it's not winter in their freakish upside-down world.

SNAFU

15:49

We are doing a rolling upgrade to Elasticsearch to 1.7.5 in a moment to mitigate some CPU issues. Hopefully, you don't notice.

Tweeted by Nick_Craver on November 22, 2016 at 3:42 PM

Derpy

16:11

oh, so Sebon Sakura is an actual traditional tune? I always just knew Sebonzakura

... nope, but someone remade it to a traditional fan dance.

Nice.

user315433

16:37

-4

A: Recover cleared passwords from your Google account

Am wearing trousers with colourful sleeve top,am average in height and dark in completion,displayed in a brown silipers

user315433

Again, no pic. Hence the downvotes.

user315433

Tim Post once mentioned that he confirmed ownership of a SE account by matching a tattoo. Unfortunately WebApps site can't do that.

user315433

Hello and welcome! Please take the tour and visit the helpcenter. Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, it is preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference. In fact we're enforcing this policy: please edit so that the answer stands on its own should the link break in the future. If it is not edited within 48 hours it will be converted to Community Wiki. — Ghanima ♦ 4 hours ago

user315433

That's an interesting policy, converting link only answers to CW. Why?

Shog9

@zaq no credit for laziness others had to fix

7

Q: Cleaning up link-only answers

A week or so ago Dmitry Grigoryev brought up the problem of informationless answers and how we deal with them. This was largely inspired by a popular Stack Exchange Meta post from several years ago. The reason an "informationless answer" might even potentially be regarded as an answer by anyone...

discussion feature-request

user315433

16:46

Hmm. I thought there should be a better solution, like someone posting an actual answer using the content of said link.

Sterling Archer

stackoverflow.com/users/774078/sterling-archer?tab=reputation

Bart

Someone loves you

Sterling Archer

So... the user commented on many of these.. can a mod make sure he's handled please? The user is pretty obvious if you check lol

@Bart right? 42 downvotes ina night, new personal record!

user315433

A custom mod flag on one of the comments would do the job, I think.

Bart

:D just flag one of the affected posts and ask a mod to look into it?

Sterling Archer

16:49

kk, thanks!

Shog9

@SterlingArcher I handled it.

Sterling Archer

ty Shog, you pinged me just as I flagged. Sorry about that. I'm not worried about the rep, just wanted to get that bad egg off the streets

@Shog9 just out of curiousity, why was the flag declined?

Shog9

@SterlingArcher for future reference, flag your own post, not the comment - comment flags evaporate easily.

Sterling Archer

Oh

@zaq ^

Shog9

There's no way to dismiss a comment flag with a message, so the usual "we'll look into this and take action as necessary" message can't be sent as part of the flag handling - you've no way of knowing whether someone's looking into it, if the comment was just deleted by someone, or what.

Sterling Archer

16:55

That's the last time I listen to chatroom advice :P

Shog9

suuuuure

Sterling Archer

Ok ok ok, we both know I'll still listen to r/shittyaskscience but that's the only one!

> Why do people come back from baby changing stations with the same baby?

God this subreddit is gold

Bart

@SterlingArcher Just ignore @zaq :D

Sterling Archer

> Does the five-second rule apply to soup? please hurry.

/sensiblechuckle

Bart

> Do women have feet?

I don't know why, but that amuses me greatly

Sterling Archer

17:04

I don't think I get that one

Bart

There isn't really anything to get other than the obvious stupidity of the question

Sterling Archer

sounds like my kind of question

> Do spiders in europe have 2.4384 meters instead of 8 feet?

Bart

> Who is Vladislav, and why is he hurting people?

That took me too long to get :D

SmokeDetector

17:39

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Messaging number in body: looking for someone to help for canada invitation letter by roland on travel.stackexchange.com

Magisch

Evening people

Bart, Archer, Josh

S.L. Barth

17:55

Evening @Magisch

Magisch

Evening Barth

S.L. Barth

Well, the election is nearly over.... excitement rises!

user315433

30001 voters so far. Not kidding

user315433

My prediction was 30837.

S.L. Barth

You counted the "Constituent" badges?

Andy

17:57

@S.L.Barth Signs to need to go to lunch: I read this as "excrement rises!"

user315433

Yes. There were 96149 before the election began.

S.L. Barth

@Andy LOL.

Magisch

@zaq When will we know the results?

I want to know if the people I voted for made it

user315433

At 20 UTC, which is in two hours.

Magisch

So the tallying happens automatically?

or will a CM post the results within minutes?

S.L. Barth

17:59

The result is usually posted on MSO. They probably already have a template for that post.

user315433

A CM (probably Shog) will post the results within minutes, but someone (possibly me) will run openSTV immediately.

user315433

Undo has a bot to do that. It's hard to compete with a bot in speed.

Magisch

Interesting stuff

Andy

@Magisch Undo has a bot set up to tally unofficial results too. Those get posted to the election chatroom, usually a few minutes after voting closes. The official announcement comes a little later on MSO

S.L. Barth

But where do these bots get the results from? Are these available via the API or something?

Anonymous

18:01

@S.L.Barth A link to the election ballot file is available on the election page once it's closed.

2

S.L. Barth

@JeremyBanks Thanks! Interesting.

user315433

Example: stackoverflow.com/election/7

S.L. Barth

Hm, easy enough to parse.

user315433

Parsing is the easy part, implementing the algorithm isn't.

S.L. Barth

That's where the fun begins.

user315433

18:07

STV implementation: github.com/Conservatory/openstv

user315433

^ dev chat, about this sad outdated page stackoverflow.com/company/logos

S.L. Barth

@zaq He forgot the background music and the marquee.

Not to mention a banner saying "Best displayed in Internet Explorer 4".

user315433

Geoff Dalgas demonstrates his Google Home: twitter.com/SuperDalgas/status/801078693783158784

Anonymous

@S.L.Barth If you're ever trying to implement it yourself, one thing to note: allegedly the canonical STV BLT format consolidates identical votes onto a single line, with a weight at the beginning indicating the number of such votes. Stack Overflow's ballot file doesn't do this, and has a single line per vote, all with a weight of 1. So you'd probably want to support both of these (as OpenSTV does), in case we change in the future.

S.L. Barth

18:13

@JeremyBanks Thanks.

Aaron Hall

Tell me if my explanation is right, and or how can this be made more precise or fixed, if in error?

> Each voter has one vote, which will be applied in order of preference. We iteratively eliminate the candidates with the least support, applying votes in order of preference, until we reach our 3 winning candidates.

Jon Ericson

@AaronHall The algorithm reallocates votes when a candidate passes the threshold. (I wrote a relatively simple explanation of STV, if it helps.)

user315433

@AaronHall This would be correct for election with 1 winner, where partial reallocation of votes away from winners doesn't happen.

Anonymous

The details of how reallocated votes are weighted seem a little weird.

Jon Ericson

And a slightly more complicated version in answer to:

214

Q: How are moderator election votes counted, in plain English?

The election pages' sidebars state that Stack Exchange elections use the Meek STV vote-counting method: After m days, the final voting results will be freely downloadable from this page forever, and we will calculate the n winners using OpenSTV with the Meek STV method. How does that work? ...

support election

Aaron Hall

18:18

Ok, so there's "partial reallocation" then?

user315433

Already-elected candidates only get to keep as much as they need to be elected.

Aaron Hall

that makes sense

user315433

In practice of SE elections, even the shoo-in candidates usually keep 50% or more of the votes. So I still try not to vote for those.

user315433

9 hours ago, by Feeds

Stack Overflow - Counting Developers with Providence

Kevin Troy on November 22, 2016

Our data platform, Providence, has evolved over the last two years. We look at how and why it has changed, and the effects on our counts of developers.

user315433

Um, where is the post?

user315433

18:23

I see, postponed to Nov. 30. github.com/StackExchange/stack-blog/commit/…

user315433

> Our notion of “capable of working as a professional developer” has been improved in the last year — becoming less conservative naturally -- blog post draft

user315433

Yeah, browsing Stack Overflow has that effect...

user315433

Can a user find out if they count as “capable of working as a professional developer”?

Aaron Hall

18:56

You mean, without asking me to personally interview them and perform some due diligence? That's a very good question.

;)

user315433

I mean, the Providence data is available for download as a JSON file. I recall it having "developer type", though now I don't see it in my profile (possibly because no posts on SO).

user315433

Presumably it could also have a field "Professional" with, say, a number between 0 and 1.

user315433

My file is weird. It has InterestingTags data for 11 sites: SO, ru.SO (where I don't even have an account), Webapps, Physics, Code Review, Parenting (?), TeX, Android, Meta, and Math.

user315433

And then this: "SeenAcrossSites": ["stackoverflow.com", "serverfault.com"], (??)

Aaron Hall

How do you get your file again?

user315433

19:04

stackoverflow.com/users/prediction-data

user315433

It's possible to get there via the maze of profile pages, but one is more likely to be lost on the way.

Aaron Hall

thanks

SmokeDetector

19:29

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in body, email in body: Do the hospital have to help it's transplant recipients? by user18003 on patents.stackexchange.com

Aaron Hall

I wonder what hueristics you'd use to determine qualifications. I've run into lots of developers over the past couple of weeks, almost all of them don't even have accounts, or rarely log into them.

20 minutes left to cast your votes - FYI

user315433

19:52

Who'll be the last to vote?

Bart

Ooh, 8 minutes left ... what to do ... what to do ... @AaronHall is a nincompoop. There! Just in time before he gets a diamond. That means I'm safe, right?

user315433

Can't tell, there are still multiple voters every 5 minutes, which means badges get issued in batches.

Shog9

Jeremy "fixed" the ballots anyway

user315433

Yeah, how else could #9 in primary be one of top 3 in final round?

Shog9

so even if you determine the last voter, determining who they voted for probably won't happen

oh, maybe I shouldn't have quoted "fixed"

user315433

19:55

Great.

Shog9

maybe "corrected" would've been more appropriate

Bart

Oh sure, "corrected". You didn't like the actual results, did you?

Shog9

Bart

:D

M.A.R.

Well actually I can imagine Shog's face like that

Bart

19:57

Just more sideways and disembodied.

S.L. Barth

Shog is a Shoggoth. You don't want to imagine his face. That way madness lies.

M.A.R.

I prefer the term ''floating''

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