Tavern on the Meta

user202362

1:44 AM

If you time it right so it stays on top of Stack Overflow moderators, 15 minutes of flame are yours.

Jason C

1:56 AM

→ 3 messages moved to Chimney

user202362

?

user202362

gif are allowed in tavern

Jason C

Sure, when they're interesting. Two things: 1) This isn't your personal YouTube, and more importantly, 2) How many times have I asked you not to post large GIFs? That was 10 MB of them. Watch your GIF sizes, and stop posting every random animal gif you find, otherwise you're just being annoying.

user202362

Well, no one else has expressed concern other than you. If you are on some limited bandwidth, I will be more thoughtful in the future.

Jason C

2:11 AM

You should have been more thoughtful the first time I warned you, noting also that you will cut down on the GIFs and watch the sizes, whether you understand/agree with why or not, and you do not have the opportunity to discuss or debate it. Period.

user202362

I have been posting gifs for the past 18 months, heaps of them, no one had any problems

Jason C

Thank you for your compliance.

user202362

lol compliance over internet, you must feel great about yourself ~roll eyes~

hichris123

@JasonC I wonder if that kick feature for room owners really works. ;) Anyway, I think it should be fine...

user202362

like I care about tavern, good bye

Jason C

2:20 AM

@hichris123 heh

Journeyman Geek

2:31 AM

@hichris123 it does >_>

Jason C

ro's can be kicked?

user315433

!!/report stackoverflow.com/a/43795568

user315433

SOCVR is sleeping...

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted website in answer: How do I back up SMS without using (broken) touchscreen on Nexus 4? by jasdaller on android.SE

Journeyman Geek

2:55 AM

@JasonC heh, I think so, yeah

ROs are kinda funny

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer: How to encode apple ProRes on windows or linux? by monica66 on video.SE

Journeyman Geek

Until very recently, ROs had almost no powers to actually regulate chat

Not to mention, I quite literally became an RO for lurking tons

Jason C

3:11 AM

there's still not a lot of power, although weirdly it doesn't seem problematic. i don't think i've ever actually needed to use any of the powers except once a few weeks ago.

this room is pretty tame though

well, move is useful.

Journeyman Geek

Move is the main practical power

editing the topic... dosen't happen as often as IRC

Kick is newish

and tbh, needs to be used more than flagging ;p

is there an ability to delete?

(I THINK I completely missed the RO ability to kick)

Jason C

lol: meta.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/50524

no there is no way to delete messages, only move

Journeyman Geek

ah. I suppose you can move it into a private room tho?

Jason C

there's move, pin, cancel stars, kick+mute, and of course edit room details and access controls. i think that's about it.

Journeyman Geek

yeah, sounds about right

Jason C

3:21 AM

yeah that's why we move all of smokey's messages to that room, since we can't delete them it's the next best thing

Journeyman Geek

(tbh, the only really major thing I miss from the other server is unlimited time for edits)

Getting that here though... ;p

We'll see? XD

Jason C

haha, that seems evil.

it'd be fun to coordinate efforts to completely rewrite entire conversations way in the past though

@Shog9 you really need to work on being less defensive and emotional in your posts

annnd mr vascellaro is back on his nightly binge run making pointless edits and answers to old posts and completely wrecking the active tab. wtf is this? he made at least four of those "status update" posts.

user315433

3:39 AM

One way to avoid being defensive and emotional is to not post at all. Which is most of Community Team are doing recently. Ana hasn't posted since Feb 6, and that was a mod announcement. Grace Note posted nothing but templates since Mar 8. bluefeet has one post in April, none in May. Where's our entertainment?

Steven Vascellaro

That feeling when you bump 4 super old status-complete questions to the front page without thinking

Jason C

Please, start thinking.

Thomas Ward

figures

That report is invalid by the way - he managed to blacklist himself in testing lol.

Jason C

lol

→ 1 message moved to Chimney

@StevenVascellaro Also four is an understatement.

Journeyman Geek

4:02 AM

@Gerry we make our own?

@StevenVascellaro eh. While apparently no one on so ever uses the front page...

Jason C

Heh

Journeyman Geek

MSE has low enough traffic that stuff like this quickly floods the front page

Jason C

What was the top route i forget, wasn't it something weird?

Actually where is that whole post, that was a blog post wasn't it?

Journeyman Geek

Yup

Also worth remembering tags are a pain to get rid of.

Jason C

Oh I found it, it was the one that started from reddit

Journeyman Geek

4:07 AM

So... Mass retags are quite bad, etiquette wise

Jason C

Not to mention retagging a 4 year old question (esp. a status-completed one) with 68 views serves no purpose, even if the retag itself is philosophically justified. Neither do random other edits to questions like that.

Steven Vascellaro

4:26 AM

Yeah, in hindsight it was not my brightest idea

Journeyman Geek

5:16 AM

hmm. Crispy fried spammers...

Shadow Wizard

7:02 AM

WOW. 5 weeks to review a suggested edit. I totally forgot about that edit! LOL

I mean.... is the site so dead??

Journeyman Geek

._.

Shadow Wizard

such small eyes...

O_O

So... will France be like USA? I doubt it, people there are different. And the voting system.

Journeyman Geek

lol ._. is "whut" 0_0 is WHAAAAAAT?

Shadow Wizard

@Journeyman put four spaces in front, code format should help

Journeyman Geek

Looked totally off even if it had formatted correctly ;p

Shadow Wizard

7:10 AM

            / \
           {   }
           p   !
           ; : ;
           | : |
           | : |
           l ; l
           l ; l
           I ; I
           I ; I
           I ; I
           I ; I
           d | b
           H | H
           H | H
           H I H
   ,;,     H I H     ,;,
  ;H@H;    ;_H_;,   ;H@H;
  `\Y/d_,;|4H@HK|;,_b\Y/'
   '\;MMMMM$@@@$MMMMM;/'
     "~~~*;!8@8!;*~~~"
           ;888;
           ;888;
           ;888;
           ;888;
           d8@8b
           O8@8O
           T808T

Looks fine to me ^

Journeyman Geek

lol

too much work to do a ASCII Wauzer face

Shadow Wizard

cutting the table down with the ASCII sword

   |-|
   |~|
   |:|   WINE AND CHEESE
  .'.'.
 /   ::\
 |_____|     __          _
 |:.:;.|   <:__:>     .-'o\
 |_____|   \  ::/  .o' O. o\
 |   ::|    '..'  |--o.--o--|
 |   ;:|     ||   |._._o_._.|
 \_____/    .''.
           '----'     pjb

Now that's the Tavern I like.

Journeyman Geek

lol. So I let the car saleswoman know we're getting the car we took a look at yesterday - We'd mentioned we had a dog, and she's like... "bring the dog along"

Shadow Wizard

@JourneymanGeek oh, dog lover?

If she's single, it's a chance to... start something... ;)

Elephant

7:31 AM

> Each area you visit, get up to date local advice. - Do safety warnings for avoiding crime in South Africa apply to off-the-beaten-track rural areas, as well as the cities?

First time I read that, I was confused.

hint: I read "advice" as "advisor"

!!/coffee

SmokeDetector

@Elephant brews coffee for @Elephant

Journeyman Geek

@ShadowWizard lol middle aged aunty

also my dog is bloody adorable.

Also I don't think most people go "I'm taking a look at the arm rests, so my dog can look out the window"

Derpy

7:50 AM

@JourneymanGeek ...and now they do?

Journeyman Geek

@Derpy kicks are a suprisingly powerful tool used correctly

at the very least, used correctly, it takes a troublemaker out of circulation long enough for someone with actual power, soft or hard to get involved

Fawad

Why can't I add color text in my profile "about me"? I remembered colors can be used in profile. Am I doing anything wrong? Testing "$\color{red}{text}$"

Journeyman Geek

eww

Derpy

@JourneymanGeek so far, the most powerful deployed tool I saw being used is passive-aggressive behavior (Luckily, not on the tavern. Unluckily, by users that should be far above the average RO).

Fawad

wwe

Journeyman Geek

7:53 AM

@Derpy Well, that stops the annoying.

But sometimes you have the dedicated trouble maker

and you don't quite want to alert all the 10kers and mods...

Fawad

@JourneymanGeek is there a rule that kicks should be used only for few minutes?

Journeyman Geek

@Fawad kick suspension timings are automatic

Derpy

@JourneymanGeek oh, yeah, nothing better than aggressive behavior to stop the annoying (sarcasm intended)

Fawad

@JourneymanGeek will kick time increases if someone is kicked more often?

Hi @sha

Journeyman Geek

@Fawad yup. On the bright side, if it keeps happening, someone may swoop in with the proper suspensions.

Shadow Wizard

7:55 AM

@JourneymanGeek lol... for some reason imagined "car saleswoman" as a young woman... oh well.... ;)

Journeyman Geek

@Derpy well, most of the chat moderation I've done has been at most "Bad dog" level

rarely do I need the rolled up newspaper

Shadow Wizard

@JourneymanGeek kicks exist for long time, not "very recently". :)

Journeyman Geek

I donno If a polite "Hey, knock it off please" is passive agressive.

@ShadowWizard relatively

Shadow Wizard

Latest power is putting a room in suspension.

Journeyman Geek

Pretty sure room freezes were there first

Shadow Wizard

7:57 AM

hmm... so I just never saw them? Let me check...

(not talking about moderators, but RO's)

Journeyman Geek

I've never actually seen a room frozen on purpose.

Shadow Wizard

(think it's mod only power that was applied to RO's as well)

Journeyman Geek

I've heard of it, sure

ah

I haven't been a plain vanilla RO in years

Derpy

@JourneymanGeek did I ever implied that was talking about Jason&Telkitty? Not the case.

Shadow Wizard

:/

Journeyman Geek

7:58 AM

@Derpy hah.

Shadow Wizard

@JourneymanGeek So make yourself a sock!

Hi @Faw

Journeyman Geek

@ShadowWizard Actually, if I proposed making aibobot a ~~mod~~ RO ... it would happen

cause god I'm not crazy enough to stand for mod with my sock.

I'd probably win, just cause people thought it was so darned funny

Shadow Wizard

lol

Journeyman Geek

"Why have one dog for a mod, when you can have two! Even if one is a counterfeit"

Derpy

10:29 AM

bug No @Bart message on the starboard

4

Bart

Not my fault. I'm still as awesome as ever.

4

Derpy

fixed.

Bart

Thanks :D

Journeyman Geek

I got my outspoken badge here ;p

(I'm underachieving. I think I got it within a few weeks on chat.se)

Derpy

11:07 AM

and my secret plan to make the uncouth message drop out of the visible starboard worked.

Feeds

12:15 PM

It's like a half-solved cryptogram where the solution is a piece of FORTH code written by someone who doesn't know FORTH.

Derpy

Part one

Part two

Jason C

1:06 PM

→ 11 messages moved to Chimney

@ShadowWizard Way to screw that one up :P

Journeyman Geek

1:42 PM

@JasonC for the record. I got distracted halfway by needing to feed my dog ;p

Jason C

Lol

It's cool, I get it, it's important to up down vote posts sometimes, or just close open them, especially when walk feeding your cat dog.

Journeyman Geek

(delete accordingly)

@JasonC my parents are vaguely overreliant on me for a few things

Jason C

Also wow I forgot about youtube.com/watch?v=54Afdxd6sUQ

Nickelodeon used to have some really freaky cartoons.

Andy

sigh Now that's going to be in my head all morning. Thank you for that.

Jason C

Haha sorry

Journeyman Geek

1:46 PM

this morning, I sorted out the malaysian vehicle entry permit that was supposed to have started 2 years ago, and hasn't happened. But made sure their records were correct. Also called the car dealership and confirmed my dad's car order and prices - apparently the saleswoman wanted my dog to come along...

Jason C

@Andy If it makes you feel any better, it'll be punishing me all day as well.

Journeyman Geek

also bought air tickets ... with my dad giving me instructions over the phone.

I'm my dad's PA apparently.

Andy

@JasonC Maybe a little bit, yeah. I'm going to need to inflict that memory on some of my coworkers now too. We can all have that stuck in our heads.

Jason C

Lol

@JourneymanGeek I've noticed that as I get older, the tables gradually turn with who relies on who with my parents. (I really had trouble with this sentence, you get the drift.)

Journeyman Geek

lol

Yeah

Andy

1:49 PM

Ha. Got one already. She started singing along when I took out the headphones.

Jason C

Oh god

Journeyman Geek

I never watched that ;p

Jason C

I should drive around today with it blasting out the car windows, I bet I can score at least a few dozen.

Andy

:)

Journeyman Geek

On the other hand, I probably know the theme song for animaniacs, tiny toons and roadrunner by heart. And probably darkwing duck....

OH

Jason C

1:50 PM

Welp, Animaniacs just solved my Cat Dog problem.

Thanks, I think.

Journeyman Geek

Talespin - Full Theme Song (HQ)

Animaniacs!

Oh I can beat that

Though, Tiny Toons would do it too

Journeyman Geek

@Andy It is a LOT better when you're older

1:51 PM

You get allllll the dirty jokes

Jason C

drops mic

Andy

Exactly.

Journeyman Geek

I personally think tailspin is worse than ducktales

Jason C

Gummmiii bears, bouncing here and there and everyyyywhere

It is weird though, of all the theme songs of all the hundreds of things I've watched throughout my life, I'm not sure why Animaniacs is the only theme I remember the entire lyrics to.

It's not like I ever tried to memorize it.

Andy

1:53 PM

Because it's animaniacs.

I still remember most of this

Animaniacs - Yakko's World - HIGH QUALITY

►

Jason C

Yeah. I think they wrote the Animaniacs theme song using some kind of ... neuroscience. It just writes itself into your brain whether you want it to or not.

Journeyman Geek

yup

Its probably that rising cadence...

then it slows down to let it permiate your brains...

Animaniacs - Let the Anvils Ring

►

user315433

2:40 PM

Bioinformatics got 100% commitment. Could in principle launch this coming Tuesday, but often this process takes another week.

Jason C

3:06 PM

And then we've got weeks of copying content directly from biostars to look forward to and pretending that that's helping the internet.

M.A.R.

-3

Q: Today's xkcd as close reason for horrible code

Can we get this as a close reason? :)

Bart

3:22 PM

18

Q: Posting irrelevant "answers" to programming questions on Meta

Disclaimer: Please don't take this as a personal attack if you've done this before. I think the "Calvin and Hobbes" thing is sort-of-funny too. I just don't think it's an appropriate response to off-topic questions. There is a new (to me) tendency for people to post irrelevant "answers" ...

discussion answers meta off-topic noise-reduction

Journeyman Geek

@StevenVascellaro could we stop having closed posts bumped please?

There's literally no value to those tag edits at all

Journeyman Geek

3:43 PM

@JasonC ow so cynical

user315433

My SO rank for the year is 1999. \o/

M.A.R.

So round

Journeyman Geek

I'm #6 0_0

user315433

One possible conclusion is "very few people do anything at all" but that wouldn't be correct.

M.A.R.

I mean, those nines are really curvy

Journeyman Geek

3:46 PM

@Gerry actually, kinda

MSE has very little questions, not that many answers, very high voting

.... also he said SO

I'm an idjot

user315433

Wouldn't be correct because it's a thing with a tall sharp spike followed by a long narrow tail. So a lot of stuff is done by people who, individually, hardly do anything at all.

M.A.R.

You mean spikes of activity?

Or you mean Skeet-like people earning rep from old posts?

Journeyman Geek

lol

user315433

No, the distribution of users by rep/activity/posts/whatever.

Journeyman Geek

@M.A.R. passive rep gain is a thing

or sometimes HNQs

Steven Vascellaro

3:49 PM

@JourneymanGeek I apologize. I had forgotten tag edits bumped old questions. I will cease tag editing closed questions

I have a bit of OCD when it comes to tag edits.

Journeyman Geek

@StevenVascellaro personally, unless there's a great reason, editing old old old questions is... a little annoying

I mean, I've been trickling in tag edits on SU but that's with a full meta post, community and mod acceptance...

M.A.R.

@JourneymanGeek you are a mod, you tyrant!

Journeyman Geek

@M.A.R. I still need to be sneaky

Shadow Wizard

@JasonC hehe, well, it didn't look horrible out of context, it is an answer after all. But since @Adam didn't delete it, guess we might not need to do that either. Dunno. Oh well. :)

user315433

SU has a lot more activity.

Journeyman Geek

3:56 PM

yup

I do 3-5 edits an hour, when I remember

I was so doggone busy today I only did 6

Steven Vascellaro

@JourneymanGeek I had one other pending edit on an old question. Could you deny them so they don't bump to the front page?

meta.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/50542

Journeyman Geek

@StevenVascellaro eh. Might as well approve it.

However the idea is really to "educate" you on the finer points of the unwritten rules of many of the sites ;p

user315433

... I didn't expect that "... and number the output rows" is a thing that requires one to completely rearrange the SQL query.

Steven Vascellaro

It makes sense. I'd assume minor edits are less of a nuisence on sites like Super User

Though it's probably not welcome on Stack Overflow, since the edit queue is constantly full

Adam Lear

@ShadowWizard My stance is a solid "meh". The bump to front page already happened. The answer isn't wrong, it's just a bit redundant. and the OP can delete if he wants.

(cc @JasonC)

"Already happened" as in "deleting the answer won't undo it, so who cares at this point"

(stepping afk now, back in a few)

SmokeDetector

4:07 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of answer: Multiple VM's one VHD by Censeless on superuser.com

user315433

Distribution of answers by user, SO 2017. Compare to the same for questions

Jason C

@AdamLear My stance would be a solid "meh" if that user didn't have a pattern of ruining the front page every night and generally creating a ton of work for reviewers through crap edits, and making work for people looking for dupes to their poorly researched questions. To me it just looks like they're shotgunning crap to MSE for the rep, and that's fine, but they've been doing it for a long time now and it's starting to suck. I used to approve their edits, too, now I'm just getting sick of it.

It's not even their fault. It's like they accidentally found all the systemic, high level loopholes and flaws in the rep / edit / review / everything-else systems all at once.

M.A.R.

@Gerry not surprising, but might steal those queries whenever I needed it

user315433

Gordon Linoff posted over 3000 answers this year, everybody else is under 1500.

Steven Vascellaro

@AdamLear I considered deleting my answers, but I was worried that might bump the posts again.

Journeyman Geek

4:12 PM

@StevenVascellaro eh. You gotta remember, we're fellow users. Its advice.

There's no need to go back and "fix" things. We're trying to guide future behaviour, not whack you over past ones.

Steven Vascellaro

Thanks. I appreciate it

user315433

user315433

100K helpful flags network wide \o/ (per global flag summary)

M.A.R.

\o/

Jason C

@StevenVascellaro And also I'm really mean. So don't take it to heart. You're totally annoying me, at the same time, you have every right to do whatever you want, and avoiding annoying me isn't a priority. So whatever.

user315433

4:27 PM

Unless you want to avoid getting kicked, that is.

Jason C

You have to be really annoying for that to happen. Currently that honor belongs to exactly one person.

And you have to be annoying other people, too, I'm reasonable, lol.

M.A.R.

Annoying @Jason as first priority

Elephant

<- 100% helpful flags on Drupal.SE lol

Jason C

Nooo

M.A.R.

@Elephant well, I have one declined flag on what I'm still not convinced isn't spam

user315433

4:29 PM

I got a few, because I also flag NAAs and obsolete comments.

M.A.R.

I mean, non-registered VLQ answer with a Username similar to website in answer

user315433

FR: flag comments as "non-obsolete". Everything not flagged gets deleted.

M.A.R.

Come on, it'd be deleted as spam on a whim on SO

user315433

Because at SO we shoot first and ask later.

M.A.R.

For good reason O.o

user315433

4:37 PM

When a question is closed as "off-topic", all of the selected sub-reasons appear under it, as in stackoverflow.com/q/43809329. Has anyone seen a question with 5 different off-topic close reasons?

Journeyman Geek

not yet

user315433

On SO that would be "general hardware/software; network administration; tool recommendation; no MCVE; typo / no-repro". Yeah, unlikely.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer: Ubuntu Server on IBM x3200 m3 by fdfdfdfd on askubuntu.com

SmokeDetector

5:00 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in answer: Enabling Fragmentation Manager in SQL Sentry by John Q. Martin on dba.SE

user315433

@SmokeDetector WTF is that other answer there...

Journeyman Geek

o0

M.A.R.

5:18 PM

O.O

Steven Vascellaro

Aren't you on vacation....???? — Wes 1 hour ago

I mean, I guess that's one way to respond to a comment?

M.A.R.

UGH! I'm so jealous that i'm now going to FLAG your answer as not-constructive... Also, I live in CA... therefore, the only good thing to use a French wine for is rinsing the glass w/out screwing up ph levels! — Wes 1 hour ago

O.o

user315433

SelfieExchange

Steven Vascellaro

What would an answer like this be flagged as? Or should it just be downvoted? superuser.com/a/1206428/358766

M.A.R.

Now that's eight too chatty flags

Let's see what comes of this

@StevenVascellaro Is it answering the question?

If it's not, flag as NAA and comment

Steven Vascellaro

5:25 PM

@M.A.R. I mean, I guess it kind of answers the question?

M.A.R.

@StevenVascellaro Then remove the ranty parts and vote as you wish

Steven Vascellaro

@M.A.R. I'll just downvote and move on. I'm pretty sure 80% of the post is rant

Oh god he keeps editing it to add more rant

I wonder if downvotes show in the achievements tab if a user is already at 1 rep

M.A.R.

@StevenVascellaro No, they don't

And they don't care

Steven Vascellaro

I think this guy is going to hit the maximum character limit

M.A.R.

@StevenVascellaro Shrug just let it go, you can't make them learn :)

Steven Vascellaro

5:35 PM

At this point I'm invested. I just want to see how long he can keep this up

M.A.R.

And well, the character limit is pretty high to reach

Steven Vascellaro

He's also done the same post on another question superuser.com/a/1206431/358766

M.A.R.

Unless SU's limit is exceptionally low, I don't see how he can type this much:

14

A: What's all that "oxidation state" stuff you're talking about?

TL;DR; Oxidation States are useful tools used in nomenclature, redox chemistry etc. There are a few simplistic rules to determine the oxidation state of elements in an atom; but they're not applicable to all the cases. There are instances where the assignment of oxidation state isn't useful, or...

Steven Vascellaro

True. Plus the character limit includes formatting and urls

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in link text in answer: Where can I watch Koe no Katachi? by sandi baskara on anime.SE

Shadow Wizard

5:43 PM

@AdamLear yep, agreed.

Steven Vascellaro

5:54 PM

@ShadowWizard Bumper in question here. I also agree and thank the mod overlords for their merciful judgement. :P

Elephant

I read that lengthy SU answer. To be honest, the answer is quite informative. Too bad they don't present it in a better way.

Travis J

This room needs moar stars

2

Elephant

^ request granted

M.A.R.

@Elephant Well, another single-star on the star board

Travis J

^

M.A.R.

5:58 PM

I was reminded of that 15 standards XKCD

Now we have 15 different competing stars.

Travis J

I agree about that SU answer though, the best thing to do would be to edit it, instead of downvoting or flagging.

user315433

Travis J

Maybe the poster is just young. 13 is the lower limit here, and that would be 6th grade-ish, at which point most people haven't had in depth education for writing skills or composition.

user315433

(SE company chat).

Elephant

Or SE is a casual forum thingy...

Travis J

6:01 PM

lol

user315433

@TravisJ laughs bitterly (as someone who regularly grades college students' papers.)

Travis J

@Gerry - Yeah, that happens too.

Jason C

@M.A.R. There are some doozies

Interestingly, stackoverflow.com/questions/38219357/… is the longest post on SO, by far. It's all horizontal spaces.

Did not expect that.

Elephant

but the tabulation still fails :/

Travis J

That is what happens when you use spaces and tabs.

Jason C

6:10 PM

Lol

Steven Vascellaro

6:29 PM

Anyone know where I can find the rule stating that answers should stand on their own, rather than relying on external links?

Travis J

I don't think that is a rule per se

I guess it depends on what you mean by "relying"

Steven Vascellaro

0

A: How to unlink my Documents folder from my OneDrive account?

The link from Microsoft Support which can be found here posted by @vembutech23 fixed the issue. Before I did what the link said, I paused OneDrive syncing just in case. After I restarted explorer.exe everything went back to normal and my Documents folder got unlinked from OneDrive.

"This link fixed my issue"

Travis J

Anyway, let me get the post, 1 sec

450

Q: Your answer is in another castle: when is an answer not an answer?

I think we can all agree, this sucks: If you've been around a little while, you've probably encountered hundreds of answers like this in various forums, some of them even marked as "The Answer" by well-meaning1 forum admins looking to close a thread. We could try to enumerate the commonly-obse...

discussion link-only-answers not-an-answer

Steven Vascellaro

@TravisJ thanks

Travis J

That answer is answering the question. It may not be the best answer, and it should be including what process from the link they use, but it isn't eligible for removal. I would suggest downvoting if you feel it isn't useful and moving on.

Steven Vascellaro

6:35 PM

@TravisJ I made a new answer that included the info from the link. I'm commenting to let the author know how they can improve their answer's in the future

Travis J

So, uh, well that's fine. In the future though, just making an edit would probably be better. I know it is sort of supporting laziness to some degree, but it is of a higher level of integrity.

Steven Vascellaro

The answer was actually reusing a link posted in the comments. :P

Travis J

Yeah, I saw. Still, it would have made the answer better to just edit that in instead of posting another. In the end, it is more helpful to others. I realize that may not be much solace with regards to building reputation, but it does make information more composed to have it in one place.

Steven Vascellaro

@TravisJ Fair enough. I'll try and do that in the future

Travis J

The main point you make is valid though, that information needs to be in the post.

Steven Vascellaro

6:40 PM

Wasn't sure if that would have counted as too drastic an edit.

I've had a few similar edit suggestions be denied as "Addresses the author and should be left as a comment"

Travis J

Nah, it is fairly common to have another user edit in content from a link. It apparently gets a little borderline with code itself, but that aside, it is common. There was an effort on Stack Overflow where literally hundreds of posts had that happen with an organized group.

Steven Vascellaro

On an unrelated note, it took me 15 minutes to figure out why code blocks weren't working for my table.

Travis J

"Addresses the author..."? Well if you do make an edit, it should just seem like an integrated part of the answer, there shouldn't be any sort of meta notation with it.

That aside, sometimes valid edits do get declined in the review queue. Once you get enough reputation to do it without oversight it gets a little easier ;)

Shadow Wizard

@StevenVascellaro heh, hi to you too! :)

@TravisJ rare on MSE, but it happens anywhere, yeah.

MSE got good reviewers. ;)

Jason C

@StevenVascellaro Don't expect consistency in reactions to those kinds of things. These sites are massive communities of people and everybody does not have identical personal policies.

Steven Vascellaro

6:52 PM

If I want to re-propose a 5 year old feature request marked as status-denied, should I add a bounty to the old post or make a new one?

Travis J

Make a new one, and explain with a link why you are making a new post.

Jason C

^

Travis J

Most of the time, "it has been 5 years" is a valid reason

rene

@StevenVascellaro bounty, otherwise I'll close vote it as a dupe

Travis J

Expansion helps as well.

Steven Vascellaro

6:53 PM

Well there's 2 different answers. XD

rene

yw

Steven Vascellaro

Specifically, it's this post meta.stackexchange.com/questions/113985/…

Jason C

@StevenVascellaro Basically, if you choose to make a new request, you better make a really good argument as to why you believe it should be rediscussed. Otherwise, dupe it is.

rene

Just count the rep and see who is right ...

Steven Vascellaro

I spent half an hour trying to figure out why the code formatting button wasn't working on one of my posts

I mean, my reasoning is very similar to the old post

Jason C

6:55 PM

For that specific one I'd just leave a comment on balpha's answer if you have something you want to discuss about it, possibly adding a bounty, and not post a new FR.

Travis J

Woohoo, so I win for sure.

Would your request literally be the same thing? There are different ways to solve that, but if your proposed solution is the exact same, it would be a dupe.

rene

@TravisJ yes, it is a bit unfortunate having you around in these cases ;)

Travis J

lol

Jason C

If there's a good chance it's going to be declined for the same reason then there's no point making a new FR.

Travis J

Well in this case I did end up siding with you, so there's that

Shadow Wizard

6:57 PM

@TravisJ only if it was declined, otherwise it doesn't matter.

@rene not when it's declined, IMO better start a new one, as declining is kind of closing.

rene

I disagree

Travis J

Usually when someone says "I have a similar feature request" they don't intend it to mean the exact same solution though.

Shadow Wizard

grrrrr

Jason C

@ShadowWizard Except in this specific case where the same effect can be achieved simply by commenting on balpha's post, or where it's probably going to be declined again for the same reason.

rene

@ShadowWizard ice cream?

Jason C

6:58 PM

Remember: General blanket statements are dumb :P

Shadow Wizard