Tavern on the Meta

Undo

14:00

(also, it's misleadingly named; the element with itemprop=upvoteCount actually reports up/down total)

Magisch

google probably has special handling for SO results in their search code

Anne Daunted

If someone wrote a script to upvote all questions in danger of being deleted by Roomba, would that be okay? (you'd even only need the association bonus for that, so no involvement in the stacks necessary)

Undo

don't do that

user302202

> Small life update: I'm leaving Stack Overflow. It's been the most exciting and amazing 3.5 years in my career. I've had the honor to meet some extraordinary people there. And gosh, I've learnt soooo much from them! -- Paweł Ludwiczak at 6:58 AM - 2 Apr 2019

EKons

that's... still abuse

Get Answer Wizard

14:03

@AnneDaunted Of course not, because some questions do need to be roomba'd

user302202

(Paweł is a designer who created a bunch of custom site designs...)

Anne Daunted

Then why are the answers about automated voting concerning themselves with downvoting only?

Shadow Wizard

@Tinkeringbell why not? One example is to be able to signal a wrong closure, e.g. closed question with 100 upvotes is likely to get better chance of being reopened than a closed question with -100

EKons

@Tinkeringbell @JourneymanGeek what if you don't agree with the closure? also, in rare circumstances, they might actually be useful

Undo

@AnneDaunted 'cause that's the current issue, and it's a giant pain in the butt to talk about hypotheticals and real stuff at the same time

Journeyman Geek

14:05

@AnneDaunted mine dosen't really

Anne Daunted

@Undo How do we know it's hypothetical? Just because no one complains about upvotes? Also, that's what the OP asked - they didn't restrict it to downvotes.

Undo

remember, the network is over a decade old and we're just now having this problem. Building a Comprehensive Code of Automated Voting doesn't strike me as urgent enough to stray from the concrete.

user302202

It's okay to post an answer that addresses one side of the problem.

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek That's why I didn't write all, but there are even suggestions to change Roomba to counter downvotes.

Get Answer Wizard

I think the underlying problem is... Roomba and the not-so-transparent audit.

Journeyman Geek

14:07

@GetAnswerWizard I guess what I'd wonder is how you'd scalably deal with the roomba deleting things.

Another queue?

Undo

wouldn't be much load on non-SO sites to hand off Roomba duties to mods

Journeyman Geek

I'm of the opinion we should just throw the book at people who do that, and let it over wth ;p

Undo

@JourneymanGeek Can you define 'that' here?

Journeyman Geek

@Undo well, automated voting fraud in this case.

Undo

@JourneymanGeek Being restricted to "voting without human eyeballs involved at any step"?

Journeyman Geek

14:09

or that's how I see it

Undo

I'd agree with that.

(mostly)

Journeyman Geek

@Undo also voting based off criteria other than ... well subjective quality of the post itself.

and that dosen't include "Its downvoted and close to deletion"

Mithrandir

IMO, it's really a judgement call that mods have to make depending on the exact circumstances at hand. If it's abuse, put a stop to it. What's abuse is really in the end a judgement call.

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek Like pity upvotes, upvotes to counter downvotes etc.?

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted Lets say someone decided to upvote every single question that's downvoted.

That's going to be a problem.

Get Answer Wizard

14:10

Well, it's impossible to evaluate what "good roomba" or "bad roomba" cases when voting is also subjective

Journeyman Geek

individual pity upvotes are unlikely to be a problem

@GetAnswerWizard roomba don't care ;p

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek What's a pity downvote?

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted me being distracted apparently

Get Answer Wizard

"Aww, you have so much upvotes... here, let me downvote you"

Undo

@JourneymanGeek Okay, now here's the interesting case (which I've actually seen). What if I build a tool, for myself, to surface questions based on whatever heuristic for me to vote on as a human?

Journeyman Geek

14:11

@Undo that's basically a custom filter

Undo

Valid subjective opinions on each one, but biased sample

Journeyman Geek

you're still reading it and deciding.

But lets say the tool surfaced a bunch of kali linux questions.

and you downvoted them all...

it would be worth investigating them

Anne Daunted

@JourneymanGeek Why? Targeted voting is directed at users, not tags

Undo

What kind of outcome might you get from that investigation?

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted I don't see there being a difference

Undo

14:13

As in, what action might come out of it?

Journeyman Geek

@Undo it depends!

Anne Daunted

If I only know, say, Java and only downvote bad Java questions, am I a serial downvoter?

Journeyman Geek

@Undo presumably if there's a clear pattern of ... strangeness...

words would be had?

Undo

Sure, everything does. I'm just looking for what action I might take if I was investigating something like that

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted Its still an anamoly

however that's spelled

@Undo I think it comes into the realm of "Thank goodness I don't need to touch that"

Anne Daunted

14:14

@JourneymanGeek So if I disagreed with that mod's Journeyman Geek's action and decided to have a look at your profile and go on a downvoting spree - you still don't see the difference?

Journeyman Geek

you'd need to see individual votes, see a bigger pattrn...

@AnneDaunted nope

Get Answer Wizard

@AnneDaunted targeted voting is... well, targeted. Whether it's a particular user, a particular tag, or even all newest questions (I have seen the last one)

Journeyman Geek

Lets say someone decided to ask a few dozen questions on some obscure bit of tech no one uses.

Anne Daunted

So every voting is targeted because I target questions and answers?

Journeyman Geek

@AnneDaunted At that point of broadness...

lets just suspend everyone.

8

Undo

14:16

hear hear

Journeyman Geek

practically I'm talking about bigger patterns.

Get Answer Wizard

Suspicious pattern.

Anne Daunted

I often vote on feature-requests - will you suspend me now for targeted voting? I mean that's clearly targeting a tag

Journeyman Geek

So - one of our more interesting users tended to ask questions about various obscure bits of tech no one really uses. I wouldn't/shouldn't downvote cause its that user or its some tech no one uses.

@AnneDaunted eh. I can't see what you vote for ;p

Undo

Now, if we do want to get hypothetical, here's a fun one to test the boundaries: Let's build a tool to surface questions from women/minorities/<traditionally-under-represented-group> to benevolent welcoming upvote-happy people.

That seems like a decent goal, but it'd technically be targeting under many interpretations

Journeyman Geek

14:18

@Undo and somewhat offensive.

Get Answer Wizard

But well, if all of those Java questions are objectively bad and it got automatically downvoted, then mission f-ing accomplished?

Journeyman Geek

I'm a minority ;p

Magisch

I'm pretty sure ethnic indians are the majority on SO

Journeyman Geek

@Undo I'd consider that racist because it assumes those people are unable to get attention to their posts on their own, and unethical ...

user302202

Googling "April is * awareness month" brings up Autism, STD, Math, Alcohol, Tsunami, Sexual Assault, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Stress, Water, Distracted Driving, Oral Cancer... It's hard to be aware of so many things at once. And mostly bad things at that.

Get Answer Wizard

14:19

Or answers, and I'm talking about you, VLQ answers that get automatically downvoted when edited!

Journeyman Geek

@Magisch citation needed

also pulls out the cylon card

Tinkeringbell

@ShadowWizard If something gets 100 upvoted after being closed, surely someone would also have powers to vote to reopen or post a meta?

Journeyman Geek

I mean pulls out the ceylonese card

John Dvorak

Water is the worst thing on Earth, and fully responsible for all death on it

Journeyman Geek

@Tinkeringbell If it did, and didn't come out on meta, I'd... be suspecious.

@JohnDvorak oxygen man oxygen.

You breath too much, then you die

John Dvorak

14:20

Is it an oxygen awareness month though?

Undo

happens all the time on SO with duplicates that are worded better for search than their targets

Get Answer Wizard

Hah, I'm now aware that I need to breath oxygen

Undo

manual-breathing-and-tongue-position awareness month

Tinkeringbell

@Undo Then either you need to merge stuff, or edit the original.

Journeyman Geek

@Undo shouldn't the dupe be the master then?

John Dvorak

14:22

You are now aware of The Game. And you've just lost.

Tinkeringbell

But dupes are exempt from Roomba deletion, and do they ever get a 'closed' status like regular on-hold stuff?

Undo

Maybe, but it's a crapload of work for questionable gain

Get Answer Wizard

If that's the case, then the next question is: why don't we merge all exact dupes...

Journeyman Geek

@GetAnswerWizard cause mergers are a pain when you get it wrong, and its a crapload of work for questionable gain....

Undo

merging is a terrifying thing fraught with peril and angry CMs

Journeyman Geek

14:24

snort

Not really angry

but yes, its terrifying

Anne Daunted

It only makes sense if the duplicate has useful answers

Undo

as angry as CMs ever get. Which is like a low simmer of irritation, 'cause they're all basically saints.

user302202

@GetAnswerWizard Apparently, some people need to be aware of that in order to breathe...

user302202

> People generally require tracheostomy and lifetime mechanical ventilation on a ventilator in order to survive.

user302202

For some value of "survive".

Get Answer Wizard

14:27

> acquired later in life.

err.... okay...

Shadow Wizard

@Tinkeringbell well that's extreme example but yeah....

M.A.R. The Chemical Wizard

@AskQuestionWizard oh jeez :/ The myriad of Googleable things if you ever felt you had it worse than other people . . .

Get Answer Wizard

But highly upvoted, closed questions are far from the danger of roomba... we have seen the other side of the case where users are complaining if downvoting a highly upvoted closed questions mean anything...

Tyler Carter

@GetAnswerWizard I'm guessing its probably a pretty small minutia as well

Tinkeringbell

14:45

@ShadowWizard I still don't see any compelling arguments to allow voting on actually closed stuff. :P

I still have to read Undo's link though

Get Answer Wizard

@Tinkeringbell do you have any opinion on the importance of the score of closed questions?

Anne Daunted

@Tinkeringbell It seems they can fall into the removedeadquestions category (9). FWIW, when you search for "closed:yes", you will be shown duplicates, too, so you need "duplicate:no" to filter them out.

Tinkeringbell

15:00

@GetAnswerWizard Doesn't matter to me. I think it matters more if a question has a chance of reopening or historical significance. For the first, there's edits and reopen votes, for the second, there's a lock. Why not delete anything closed that hasn't been edited for a long time, no reopen votes and no historical significance?

The lock also prevents voting. Why not prevent voting to begin with?

I probably need to read up on why Roomba works the way it works ;)

Get Answer Wizard

I guess we can start from here...

135

Q: Turbocharging the Roomba: solutions for premature deletion

A couple weeks ago, I asked for help: How can we stop premature deletion? And I got some fantastic responses. A big thanks to everyone who participated in that discussion - you're the reason I don't completely hate Meta Stack Overflow. The big takeaways from that discussion were: Show users t...

Tinkeringbell

Sure, once I'm home and on a PC ;)

user302202

15:49

Speaking of voting: is the current Emojidome bout the final round of it all?

user302202

The round of 32 bracket indicates so...

user302202

So it's space vs hedgehog (?) in the final.

Tyler Carter

@AskQuestionWizard I was just looking at that.

It looks like it. I think it would be aptly fitting if Spaaaaacceeee won the entire thing.

user302202

Does multiple clicking of vote button count multiple times?

user302202

writing a script to click SPAAACE 10 times per second

Tyler Carter

15:54

@AskQuestionWizard There's no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going or which ways the votes are flowing but the danger must be growing for the voters keep on voting and not a speck of light is showing.

2

user302202

Is this the correct finalists? 🌃 vs 🦔

Tyler Carter

I believe so

Magisch

Hey

Tyler Carter

@Magisch Hi

Get Answer Wizard

🦄 vs 🐔

2

Kevin B

16:00

🐔

Magisch

@TylerCarter How are you liking the tavern in 2019?

user302202

@GetAnswerWizard Should have posted separately so we can vote by starring.

user302202

< 1 minute left in the final!!!

Undo

space wins

2

Get Answer Wizard

Let's go to Space Exploration

user302202

16:06

... will the comic remain with ? vs ? from now on? :(

user302202

FR: add replays, like ESPN Classic games.

user302202

Oh well, at least we have the transcript. The conclusion of penguin vs owl bout was "I think the bird has it"... :D

user302202

inb4 penguins are technically a kind of a mushroom.

rene

16:21

> As of April 2, all April Fools bugs have been resolved.

Tyler Carter

@Magisch Its good. I like that there is still activity. It's been so long, I know we had a ton of ridiculous conversations back then

Mithrandir

@TylerCarter Ooh, do we get chocolate?

Tyler Carter

@Mithrandir Wrong, sir, wrong! Under Section Thirty-Seven B of the contract signed by you it states quite clearly that all offers shall become null and void if--and you can read it for yourself in this photostatic copy: "I, the undersigned, shall forfeit all rights, privileges, and licenses herein and herein contained, et cetera, et cetera . . . memo bis punitor delicatum!" It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal! You get nothing! You lose! Good day, sir!

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

16:37

@TylerCarter So, what made you recall us? (Also, hope you don't mind us asking so many questions :)

Mithrandir

@TylerCarter :(

Tyler Carter

@SonictheWizardWerehog Got out of college and started a programming job, which involved me coming back into StackOverflow, etc. I figure since now I'm at a desk constantly I might as well be a part of a programming community.

M.A.R. The Chemical Wizard

@Tyler for pre . . . CEO

Tyler Carter

I was originally involved in StackOverflow when I was 16-18, now I'm 25 and am back to programming

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

Ah, yes, you left this site just before the MSO-MSE split.

M.A.R. The Chemical Wizard

16:42

@SonictheWizardWerehog More like a meiosis

Mithrandir

Eh, nah, mitosis

M.A.R. The Chemical Wizard

Didn't meta.SE get most of the fluff?

Tyler Carter

Wasn't it all fluff?

user302202

&#129340&#129340&#129340&#129340&#129340&#129340&#129340&#129340

user302202

... great title text

Magisch

16:47

@TylerCarter you still retained your RO tag

Tyler Carter

@Magisch RO?

Magisch

room owner

name in italics

Tyler Carter

Ah, yes. I was a bit surprised that I was still an owner of the most popular room on Chat Meta

user302202

In practice, no ROs were ever removed here

user302202

"balpha has removed jcolebrand" was a joke, quickly reversed

user302202

16:49

Serious Human was a sock added temporarily for the sake of screenshots.

Tyler Carter

Its just crazy to me that 7 years later its all still going.

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

Also, jcolebrand was later reinstated after being removed.

Tyler Carter

With almost the same voracity.

Magisch

The network grew up a bit though

Tyler Carter

Yeah, I've heard.

Tinkeringbell

16:51

Define 'grew up' :P

Magisch

MSE and MSO split, SE now houses some 174 sites, SO grew in popularity, all that

It's now no longer really a startup

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

@Magisch 174

Though more if you include per-site metas

Magisch

pardon inaccurate guesses :p

Tinkeringbell

@Magisch Oh that kind of grown up. Grown bigger ;)

Mithrandir

"getting older is mandatory, growing up is optional"

Magisch

16:52

there's now also a parrot

;)

Mithrandir

A discriminatory parrot, though

tsk tsk tsk

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

Discriminatory with regards to questions, that is

Magisch

and green parrots

Tinkeringbell

Someone said green...

:(

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

Tinkeringbell

16:55

Ugly. :P

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

Neither red nor green...but my color :)

Tinkeringbell

Didn't the whole green thing start with someone trying to find me a mate? 😛 swipes to decilne the blue one

rene

lol

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

@Tinkeringbell How about both red and green?

Tinkeringbell

@SonictheWizardWerehog Nah.

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

16:57

If not neither

Tinkeringbell

Oh nope, seems to have started with this gif

user302202

Today is/was the last Google+ day...

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

6

Q: Why is my question off-topic? [dupIicate]

⠀⠀⠀￰⠀⠀⠀I have an old puzzle I half-remember. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀It was a great puzzle, and I remember the solution. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I could not for the life of me remember how the solution worked. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I must have been forgetting part of the question... ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Well, here's my attempt at posting the riddle. ...

story situation

Is it even allowed to bypass the prohibition against including "[on hold]", "[closed]", or "[duplicate]" in the title?

user302202

Web Applications site has 543 questions about it... which is a lot more, relative to site size, than SO has.

Kevin B

evidence seems to indicate that it is

user302202

17:10

In the same sense as it's allowed to have emoji in titles.

user302202

If it bugs people, someone will remove it.

Mithrandir

@SonictheWizardWerehog It's Puzzling. It's fine. I've posted a question there that the body was entirely blank :)

Get Answer Wizard

17:21

@AskQuestionWizard (Update: goo.gl is dead) Google ‘Spring Cleaning’ kills off Inbox, Google+, more in the next few weeks

less questions to concern then~

Shog9

uh... goo.gl being dead sounds super bad actually

> Links that have already been created will continue to function, but statistics won’t be visible anymore and users won’t be able to create new links either.

ok, that's ... not reassuring, but I feel a lot better now about blocking those links

wait, didn't they use those for maps by default?

user302202

They still do. But it's goo.gl/maps/....

user302202

Photos switched to photos.app.goo.gl format at some point.

Shog9

mobile maps app does maps.app.goo.gl now, which is exactly the same length as maps.google.com...

slow clap

Get Answer Wizard

AFAIR, it's just that goo.gl shortener is not available for users now

JNat

17:27

Portal 2: GLaDOS - Slow Clap Processor

►

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

Google also uses g.co for some internal links

Get Answer Wizard

That said... I bypassed the goo.gl block on this question using ZWS :/

Shog9

there's a limit to how far I'm willing to go to prevent folks from shooting themselves in the foot, and that limit is demarcated by a bunch of unicode

Tinkeringbell

18:32

hey @Undo I've read that thing you linked on Google search results... next question: Why do we want people to be able to find closed questions in search results? :P

user302202

Because some of them are useful?

user302202

How do I change permissions for a folder and all of its subfolders and files in one step in Linux? has close to 3.5M views

Tinkeringbell

So, they have historical significance or something for a site.

You can drop a lock on that, preventing votes.

I'm trying to reason out that once a post is no longer on-hold but closed, just not being able to vote (and thus trigger roomba or whatever) isn't going to be bad :P

It would solve a few pet peeves of users getting reputation for asking questions (or answering them) that aren't fit for the site (though I agree that doesn't entirely match up with any scope changes, but at that point you probably only want to keep the ones with historical significance)

It would prevent people using votes as moderation tools (like having something deleted by roomba)

user302202

Not in the case that's under discussion on Meta

Tinkeringbell

If roomba no longer looked at votes/score because that's no longer an indication of an 'active' post... (Why are votes indicative of activity to begin with?) it can delete more stuff...

user302202

18:41

The discussion is about downvoting score:0 answers:0 questions that are not closed, triggering the 30-day roomba.

Tinkeringbell

Why did I miss that :/

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

@Tinkeringbell Closed posts with zero score and no positively-scored answers are deleted by RemoveAbandonedClosed which is daily

Tinkeringbell

Still though. Roomba apparently looks at score to determine if a question is active or abandoned...

That seems weird.

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

My guess is that when forming the Roomba criteria, Jeff Atwood just ran some basic queries to determine when a question is likely abandoned, and the criteria he came up with made sense given the data at the time.

Tinkeringbell

@SonictheWizardWerehog Closed posts with negative scores, negative scoring answers and no activity for years can still linger though, if the answer is accepted... at least that's what I understand from roomba

Kevin B

18:46

eh, it looks at score to determine if it is useful

not whether or not it's abandoned

Tinkeringbell

I can understand not wanting to delete an unanswered, well-received question. But that's about where things stop for me...

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

@Tinkeringbell Yep, and the SOCVR project actively encourages deleting them, especially if the answer is self-accepted; though they discourage downvoting and instead encourage delvoting

Tinkeringbell

@KevinB Eh, I guess... ever seen how much 'useful' stuff is upvoted on IPS?

Kevin B

useful but abandoned questions or questions with useful answers are left alone

no, i won't visit ips

Tinkeringbell

@KevinB Well, voting on IPS does not represent usefullness a lot, I can tell you that much ;)

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

18:47

Also, for controversial questions (e.g. +50/-51): the author can stand to lose quite a bit of rep from Roomba deletion, since it doesn't qualify for rep retention (as it has a score of less than 3)

Kevin B

doesn't it retain the rep anyway due to the age?

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

@KevinB Nope, it has to have +3 to retain the rep (in addition to being at least 60 days old, with time spent previously deleted subtracted)

Kevin B

meh

so what if some rep is lost

Tinkeringbell

Also, I'm not even sure how to measure useful. I can ask a perfectly useful programming question on another site than SO. It might be closed as off-topic, but for the sake of pedantry let's say I self-answer, it only gets closed and I accept the answer.

Now people will find a very useful programming question on gardening, that roomba never deletes because 'it's useful'.

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

I'd also like to raise another issue with the Roomba: I think RemoveDeadQuestions should be curtailed on meta sites, due to the propensity of downvotes being used for disagreement. Sometimes those result in valid discussions in comments, and prevent re-requests from being closed as duplicates.

Kevin B

18:51

That scenario would require someone actually upvoting the answer or question

user302202

15

A: Turn off the roomba for child meta sites

There are a seemingly-endless number of bad ideas; we don't really need to archive them. Of course... If someone writes up a really good explanation for why an idea is bad, that can be worth keeping around. So if you see a meta question you don't want lost, write a good answer to it.

Kevin B

accepting it isn't enough to stop the roomba

user302202

It is

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

Also, valid bug reports can get downvoted. I've had a few minor bug reports (some with IE11) that the community has downvoted (because they're minor and/or related to IE11) despite them being valid bug reports, and you know the usual 6-8 week cycle of fixing those bugs; those downvotes cause such valid bug reports to be automatically deleted.

Kevin B

it shouldn't be

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

18:53

If my valid bug report ends up receiving opinionated downvotes and ends up automatically deleted, what can I do to make sure that the bug is reported, so that it might eventually be fixed?

Kevin B

Why do you assume your bug report is important enough that it should remain around?

if people deem it to be "not useful" why should it not be deleted?

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

@KevinB Because it's a valid bug that anyone can reproduce. The SE team has specifically stated that they prefer people report trivial issues because they're "super easy and trivial to fix".

Kevin B

wait.

it's "valid" in your opinion

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

If meta isn't the right place for such a report, where should I report it?

Kevin B

you think it's a bug

and that it's a problem or should be fixed

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

18:57

In fact, I once flagged one of my questions for undeletion, and the mod handling the flag also upvoted the post to prevent it from being deleted.

Kevin B

doesn't really change the facts

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

Question is, how do I report those bugs?

Kevin B

If bug reports are posted as questions/answers, they'll be voted on and should follow the same process as any other question/answer

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

How can I get the SE team to possibly fix them anyway?

Kevin B

if they want bug reports to not go through that process, they should create a separate process.

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

18:58

(if not post on meta)

@KevinB Tim Post says they're working on one.

Kevin B

and until then, we have questions and answers that are subject to roomba

:shrug:

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

11

A: Why does Meta Stack Exchange have reputation?

The idea of negative reputation is certainly not intended to be a barrier to any earnest attempt to participate, even if that attempt is to propose an idea that's very likely to be unpopular. I wouldn't call it an oversight either, because we're aware of the problems users encounter when learning...

@KevinB It's worth also noting that RemoveAbandonedQuestions is disabled on meta sites entirely.

Tyler Carter

@SonictheWizardWerehog I see what they're saying. Reputation of MSE sounds awful. Let's get rid of all the reputation. Just transfer everyone's rep to me and we'll be good.

Kevin B

@SonictheWizardWerehog that isn't really up to you

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

@KevinB Hence the word, "possibly"

Kevin B

19:03

just follow whatever process is in place. A post being downvoted doesn't magically make it disappear from the list of posts that have that tag

when a new, possibly better system is in place, use it

I'm sure they're aware that posts can be downvoted for weird reasons on meta

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

I guess my only option to keep the post up is to run a script to self-delete the question right before the Roomba script runs, then undelete it right after.

Mithrandir

→ 4 messages moved to Chimney

user302202

@SonictheWizardWerehog Self-answer is easier.

Kevin B

What post in particular are you worried about?

the only negatively scored bug reports you have have accepted answers

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

@KevinB None at the moment.

Kevin B

19:10

so it's not a problem then

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

@AskQuestionWizard What to put in the self-answer?

Also, the reputation hit is doubled.

(unless I mark the answer CW)

user302202

CW answer: This appears to be a bug, and it should be fixed.

user302202

Let the haters hate.

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

@AskQuestionWizard That's likely to be deleted by delvoters or a mod, in which case the effort is futile.

Or get picked up as a low-quality post and deleted from review (sure, I can reverse the deletion, but it'll get autoflagged for a mod to review)

Kevin B

there are currently 4 bug reports with negative scores

that aren't answered

only 1 is in danger of deletion

and it's a bug report that will likely never be acted upon

I'm actually kinda surprised the mobile app hasn't been entirely discontinued already

John Dvorak

19:26

The what?

Get Answer Wizard

I wonder about bug report though. I thought they have something out there, like a real bug reporting and management system. Thus, even if the post is deleted on meta, it's still there on their side.

Otherwise, I'll be really surprised and will say that the current system is really broken

user302202

The current system is really broken and I am not surprised.

Get Answer Wizard

The current system is surprising and I am not broke.

John Dvorak

I may not be broke, but I sure am broken.

ocæon

19:45

hiyas before i offer my first ever edit suggestion i felt like checking here for a quick bit of guidance.. stackoverflow.com/questions/55447680/… ~ would just moving their comment into their question be a terrible idea?

rene

@ocæon that question is very broad, the comment is not helping in that regard. It needs a lot more editing to make it a useful question for many visitors to come

ocæon

eep ~ rene, i think they intend to do more than just locate documentation, their comment would have inspired better comments if it was part of their question

user302202

I'd suggest editing the answer though... upper case letters at the beginning of sentences, alot -> a lot, and so on.

user302202

Because if you don't, someone else will use your post to earn 125 rep via suggested edits, and do evil stuff.

rene

@ocæon if that is what they intended then you read way more in that comment then I do.

Kevin B

19:52

I don't see what value that comment would bring to the question

they were looking for something that doesn't really exist

rene

Then again, I expect the specs to reveal where and how audio is encoded in the bytes that make-up an MP4 file.

So a link to a question that links to the specs should at least put them on the right track to corrupt their file.

ocæon

lol, the specs are no help to me in that regard, i gave up on the very same long ago,

yeah.. alright, i'll shove an edit their way to spur them on at least

thanks all

rene

I added to other links in the comments

I'm a nice flower

3

ocæon

20:10

even more thanks!

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

20:26

@GetAnswerWizard No way to tell if it was actually logged. (At least not yet, per Tim Post.)

@rene Catija once said that SE will only consider animals for the role of MSE mod. Do you think they'll maybe consider plants too?

@KevinB There are few because they get deleted

rene

@SonictheWizardWerehog they'll grow over it

M.A.R. The Chemical Wizard

20:43

Could it be that googleapis.com is blocked where you are? — rene 9 mins ago

Yep, definitely probably the reason

rene

Why?

user302202

21:31

Floern is the second SO user (not counting Community) to reach 100K helpful flags.

Kevin B

meh

by hand?

if it's just automated... that's not really impressive

user302202

Comment flags are easy to automate, posts less so.

user302202

So getting 200 helpful per day is not easy.

ocæon

but they have no 'not a bot' badge so there's no way to be sure! hehe

Kevin B

I mean, good on them for making a bot capable of doing that, but, meh, it's just a matter of time once you get it going.

it's not like they actually went out and found 100k posts/comments themselves that were worth flagging over a period of time

ever since that started being automated i found that metric to become less meaningful

user302202

21:42

Not like the artisanal flags of yore, sure.

user302202

What is "yore" anyway.

ocæon

21:59

@AskQuestionWizard sorry, but your question would be better suited to english.stackexchange.com and may be closed as off topic

in other words i could only find etymonline.com/word/yore which says it's "of years" via 'old english'

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

Before you ask about Catija's homepage bump: that was a rollback on a deleted answer, which the author had self-vandalized.

Kevin B

assumed as much

similar to why it was bumped by an edit from "david" while there was no post by david remaining on the quesiton

:shrug:

Get Answer Wizard

22:38

I have seen "modified" due to deleted posts too much on regular basis... and also direct link to deleted posts because I was too late...

Kevin B

would be fine if i could see them, but alas, i don't have the rep yet

user302202

23:41

@g3rv4 used to have a diamond on SO but does not have it anymore. But still an employee, apparently. Don't scare us like this...

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

@AskQuestionWizard Probably a procedural removal since their position doesn't require moderator privileges

user302202

I do mess with Texas. That’s why I’m no longer a mod on our sites! I can go back to using them, I never thought the diamond could be that heavy. https://twitter.com/nick_craver/status/1113172282057330696

Tweeted by g3rv4 on April 2, 2019 at 8:25 PM

user302202

Kept the diamond on Meta Stack Exchange (which makes sense) and Open Source (which doesn't really)

g3rv4

I asked for it :)

having the diamond made me not participate at all in some places (like... I want to vote for close, not close a question)

and since I moved from Jobs to Enterprise, I no longer need the diamond employee bits in SO

unfortunately, as soon as I join a new site, I'm automatically made mod

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

@g3rv4 Out of curiosity, when you edit a post on a site where you have <2k rep, does your staff bit allow you to bindingly edit the post?

g3rv4

23:51

nope, it doesn't

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

@g3rv4 Does it allow you to edit tags?

g3rv4

yes, I can edit tags but not the body / title / etc (that goes through review)

I'm still mod in a couple sites but I don't intend to participate there (and if I was, I'd probably ask folks to remove the diamond there)

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

@g3rv4 Keep it on MSE. It's very confusing when a user without a moderator diamond isn't recognized as a staff member.

@g3rv4 Okay, makes sense! Looks like they reinstated the old "retag" privilege as a part of staff rights (there was an issue a while back where non-mod staff members had to suggest edits to add mod-only tags, but that was supposedly fixed; I was wondering exactly how).

g3rv4

hmm... I may be wrong then... I didn't retag anything on SOes, I'm talking about how I recall things worked for me 1.5 years ago

so if you have reasons to believe I'm wrong, I'm most probably wrong

@SonictheWizardWerehog yup yup, that's the idea (it's helpful for translating help center articles)

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

@g3rv4 Between the time of this suggested edit proposal and this binding edit, both by non-mod employees at the time, and both modifying status tags, something changed.

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