Tavern on the Meta

Journeyman Geek

08:00

@Magisch that's also a thing you can tell to management when there's loud meta critique

Cody Gray

Sure, okay, but that's not enough. It's not sustainable in the long-term, so that leaves your only option to be something that gets resolved in the short-term, like an IPO or an acquisition. But when your public image is literally on fire, that's not likely to be a profitable move, either. So they're going to at least need to weather this storm.

Magisch

@ert If you're cynical enough you could say that is a firesale-like tactic. Get revenue up by any means necessary, and then IPO or sell to a bidder, what happens after doesn't matter.

Journeyman Geek

"Its a small group of people, what about the 11 million developers who use stackoverflow!!!!!"

Cody Gray

@Magisch What are they doing to capture that community? Why do they believe that that community has not been captured yet? How do they think they will be able to capture and retain that community any better than they have managed to do with the current community?

Journeyman Geek

@Magisch only that I doubt they're actually saving much money for the goodwill they are losing

Magisch

08:01

@JourneymanGeek "What about the {insert number of people alive who code} who don't use our site. Surely that means it's unwelcoming"

Journeyman Geek

@Magisch yup

ert

@CodyGray Sustainable in the long term isn't what companies these days care about. At one place I worked at, we hired a CTO who boasted about successfully leading 7 companies in 10 years as a CTO. He specialized in making a quick profit and jumping ship, and the people who hired him knew that

Magisch

When you start from the assumption that SO is so awesome anyone who ever coded wants to use it, and the only reason people don't use it is accessibility and unwelcomingness

Chipster

@ert It will if someone builds a decent alternative.

Cody Gray

See, the thing is, just about anyone who ever coded probably has used SO.

That doesn't mean they've created accounts and become active, engaged participants. But they've used it as a source of answers.

ert

08:03

@Chipster There are plenty of alternatives. It'll take years before they start to compete with SO in search rankings

Magisch

@ert It's kind of a thing in startup culture in general

get in, grow by any means necessary, sell off. Doesn't matter what you actually do

as long as someone else holds the bag when the music stops

Chipster

@ert Other than quora (which isn't exactly an alternative) what other is there?

Cody Gray

Putting aside how I feel about that sort of nasty startup culture (oops), I can't see how any intelligent person would be expecting SO to have that trajectory, given the massive negative publicity that they've generated over the past several months. It's tarnished the brand and the appeal, which will reduce the price.

Magisch

Do you know that?

Mithical

@JAD Use Meta constructively and also use other sources. Meta is mainly useful for intra-community discussions right now and not much else.

Magisch

08:06

Has it tarnished its reputation in the sillicon valley startup type community of investors, VCs and the general tech bubble?

Chipster

I mean in once sence, bad press is press, as the saying goes, but Cody has a point.

Cody Gray

@Magisch I don't know anything, but I know that investors and VC use Google and read the tech press.

ert

@Chipster I don't know of any off the top of my head, but there are a bunch of q&a sites. A lot are more geared towards learning than a repository, however. There's also a bunch of useful information on github, if it's a question about a particular library or framework, for example

Cody Gray

They've been having trouble getting VC funding for a while now, let's be honest. This isn't helping.

Magisch

I wouldn't be so quick to assume tha they're incompetent. They got a M&A specialist from a bank as CEO and just hired a McKinsey analyst as CPO. It's probably really damn calculated.

Cody Gray

08:08

I don't even know what a "CPO" is.

I don't even know if I want to know.

Chipster

@ert That's part of the problem. Yes there are alternatives, but none of them are good enough to really replace SO. If there was, I'd imagine we'd be hearing at least something about it.

It's Over

6

Q: Time for a major shift in strategy and approach

This post is adressed to the people who still believe they have a future at stack exchange, and who still hold up some hope that there can be a way out of this mess. If you have no such hope left, I can certainly understand that and don't begrudge you. I myself am not sure, but I feel compelled t...

Right on @Mag, best thing you've written!

Chipster

CPO. Not that that's helpful :D

It's Over

@CodyGray The dorky robot from Star Wars?

Cody Gray

Yeah, I mean, I Googled it. I saw "Chief Privacy Officer", "Chief Process Officer"...and then I stopped, because "process" is yet something else that is ambiguous and needs to be defined.

Magisch

08:11

@Chipster chief product officer

It's Over

Chief Pineapple Officer

Pineapples are great. That'd be my dream job.

Cody Gray

Pineapples taste wonderful, but actually contain an enzyme that is degrading and digesting your tissues as you eat them.

It's Over

Pineapple toothpaste sucks though.

Shadow The Burning Wizard

eww

It's Over

@CodyGray That's scary but it's not true

Or rather, many, many things would be digesting us from within

Cody Gray

08:15

Bromelain is real, and it really exists in pineapples. And it really has proteolytic activity.

Journeyman Geek

@CodyGray Those enzymes are "fun"

Magisch

pineapples are just really acidic afaik

Journeyman Geek

They cause me much pain

Shadow The Burning Wizard

@It'sOver My fire burns them all

Magisch

thats why you should brush teeth after eating them

It's Over

08:15

@CodyGray sure, but I mean it degrades pretty fast. I could be wrong

Cody Gray

The enzyme degrades? What causes it to degrade?

Now, it's certainly true that it's not present in high enough quantities, especially in the edible parts of the plant, to work like flesh-eating bacteria do in movies. But it does work as a meat tenderizer, and it does irritate the tissues in the throat.

It's Over

I guess other enzymes in the stomach.

Cody Gray

For me personally, I can't eat fresh pineapple in large quantities. I will actually eat canned pineapple when I have a sore throat, though.

Oh yeah. Totally doesn't last in the stomach.

It's more about the mouth and throat when you're eating it.

It's Over

I guess

Journeyman Geek

@CodyGray a single piece of fresh pineapple causes my mouth to feel like its been pieced by a hundred tiny needles

It's Over

08:18

But what I eat are mostly fake pineapples

Journeyman Geek

and anything with pineapple juice tingles dangerously

Magisch

@JourneymanGeek I bet biting into a lemon would do the same thing

It's Over

They don't do much irritating

Journeyman Geek

@Magisch nipe

Magisch

even though pineapple is more acidic then even a lemon

Journeyman Geek

08:18

I eat acidic food all the time

It's Over

And I have a pretty irritable gastrointestinal

Cody Gray

Pineapples and papayas are special in this regard. It's not just the acidity.

It's Over

@Magisch It's about the proteases

Journeyman Geek

as opposed to the amteases?

It's Over

Food acidity is a mess. I'm not looking forward to studying it.

Cody Gray

08:20

I don't know what that is.

Are you studying nutrition, @It'sOver?

It's Over

You can make very very few generalizations

@CodyGray Pharmacy, but pharmacology will cover it briefly

Cody Gray

Oh, very cool.

It's Over

And there's food interactions etc. later

Cody Gray

Figuring out why grapefruit juice is counter-indicated with all these drugs

It's Over

Actually Tink asked that a while ago

Shadow The Burning Wizard

08:22

Forget about food. Will you be able to produce ~~viagra~~ helpful medicine? :-P

It's Over

Jan 6 at 21:54, by M.A.R.

@Tinkeringbell Well, drugs undergo four processes in the body: They get absorbed, they're distributed, they're then metabolized and finally excreted. The third part means different enzymes in different parts of the body, especially the liver (this being one of its major roles) modify the drug to different, "more manageable" things.

Cody Gray

Spoiler: grapefruit inhibits CYP3A4 activity

It's Over

Well, I present my lecture notes!

I figured out about grapefruit juice since my most important immunosuppressor drug also interacts with grapefruity things.

Tacrolimus

See now, that's a cool name. I study drugs because they have cool names.

Everything else is tangential

Shadow The Burning Wizard

Singers have cool names too.

Lady GaGa, for example.

It's Over

Nah.

Shadow The Burning Wizard

08:25

Yah.

It's Over

Nein

Cody Gray

Apropos of your lecture to Tinkeringbell (which seems solid and clear to me), I don't know of any interactions between grapefruit juice and alcohol dehydrogenase, either. The history is just that grapefruit's enzymatic suppression was first discovered because it was used to mask the taste of alcohol during a double-blind trial that was actually investigating alcohol's effects.

I wouldn't rate "Lady Gaga" up there as a "cool name", really. Sounds like something a 1-year old would have come up with.

It's Over

IKR.

Mithical

*Tinkeringbell ;)

Cody Gray

When your fingers know better...

Mithical

08:27

@CodyGray Apparently it's a reference to Radio Gaga by Queen, which was intended to sound babyish, so... yeah.

It's Over

So why are babies cool. Babies are cute, not cool.

And warm too.

Shadow The Burning Wizard

@CodyGray they come up with wonderful new words

Cody Gray

@Mithical Oh, huh. Hadn't heard that connection. Not that I know all that much about Lady Gaga. I did see the movie, though. Which wasn't really about her at all.

Shadow The Burning Wizard

Most like papapa, popo, poopoopoo, but still....

@It'sOver and soft

How many babies you held? ;)

It's Over

@ShadowTheBurningWizard It's Morse code

Shadow The Burning Wizard

08:30

lol

It's Over

So, @Cody, if you don't mind me asking, do you have a medicine background?

Cody Gray

@It'sOver I have a degree in microbiology.

No real interest in humans, but there is some overlap. :-)

It's Over

I know Mr. Krause and @ter sometimes come around and say cool biology stuff.

I guess I will add you to the secret list of people to aspire to be.

Cody Gray

Oh, so that role is already filled? Hm.

It's Over

Whoops, not a secret anymore.

Cody Gray

08:36

I can say other cool stuff. What about cool history stuff? Or cool programming stuff?

It's Over

I could do cool history

prr-programmararing shudders

Tinkeringbell

@Magisch Thank. You.

Cool history, please :)

Cody Gray

@It'sOver I also have the equivalent of a minor in organic chemistry, but from your profile (which I was just checking out to confirm that was a "no programming" hint you were dropping), sounds like you've already got the cool chemistry facts covered.

It's Over

@CodyGray I was always more fascinated by chemistry than biology. That's bound to change I guess since I would be studying more of biology, but organisms were generally always too complicated for me to understand their complexity

If that makes any sense

Cody Gray

Oh, absolutely. That's why I liked microbiology, because there was enough tangible complexity to keep me interested, but it wasn't so complex that I felt like it was hopeless to ever understand it all.

It's Over

08:42

The rates of "holy crap" per minute are higher when I'm reading a chemistry text, even if it's boring computational chem analyses with basis sets and programs I will never use my whole life

Cody Gray

I don't see how. Pseudomonas aeruginosa are amazingly cool and bad-ass.

The species wages targeted warfare on other species.

And then there's genetics. And immunology. The HCPM metrics are through the roof.

Meanwhile, snooze fest on thermodynamic equilibrium and reaction rates.

It's Over

We have some important microbiology and immunology courses but that's in a year's time. I'm a pretty fresh man actually

@CodyGray Hey, they can be pretty amazing!

Kinetic and thermodynamic control are one of the coolest parts of practical organochem lab

Maybe. I mean, I relate.

Cody Gray

NMR spectroscopy is cool.

Stereochemistry was a major OMFG for me as a young undergrad.

It's Over

NMR is love, NMR is life

Cody Gray

Somewhat like discovering function overloading in programming, which remains one of the coolest things in the world to me when I stop and think about it, despite how commonplace it has become to me now.

It's Over

08:48

@CodyGray I gained a lot of weird looks in the library when I was rotating my hands to find chiralities

Cody Gray

Heh. It's college; everyone is doing weird stuff.

It's Over

Anyway, I gotta take a nap. Ciao!

Shadow The Burning Wizard

taking away @It's's nap

Disappointed in SE

@CodyGray Most people studying chemistry or biochemistry seem rather confused by it at first, or even longer. The underlying theory does seem rather intimidating to many, even though you don't actually need to understand much of it to use NMR

rene

→ 6 messages moved to Chimney

Magisch

09:10

@Tinkeringbell It took every ounce of restraint I have left to write that

I wanted to write an angry rant against SE management to rival all others. I wanted to vent all of my anger and air it out.

Tinkeringbell

@Magisch You did great, really. Don't let them tell you otherwise :) Also, it shows how much your restraint has grown . That's seriously impressive.

If I had even the slightest hint such stuff would reach the right people, I'd have done so loooong ago...

Sadly, we now know it doesn't, so instead of breaking things down even further... We need to give both old and new methods SE uses to communicate with us a chance. You wrote that down perfectly :)

Mithical

@Magisch Write it. Send it me.

It's cathartic.

Magisch

lately I've been typing my rants into notepad and then deleting the file

Tinkeringbell

^ Highly recommended ;)

Yaakov Ellis

@Magisch thanks for your post

Magisch

09:20

@YaakovEllis your actions and so far unwavering patience with us has been a large part of why I wrote it.

Journeyman Geek

@Magisch I kinda agree with it

Yaakov Ellis

@Magisch thank you.

Journeyman Geek

But that's what we have been trying to tell people for months :/

Tinkeringbell

@JourneymanGeek We didn't find a great way to put it on MSE though....

I threw out at least 10 pages of notepad over exactly that...

Journeyman Geek

We did not

Yaakov Ellis

09:21

@Tinkeringbell just plain old notepad?

Journeyman Geek

We were also a little busy

Magisch

I'm not sure I did either. But I felt compelled to try

Journeyman Geek

@YaakovEllis I need to have a word with her about her choice of text editors :D

Tinkeringbell

@YaakovEllis ++ ;) I like having multiple tabs for different trains of thought.

Journeyman Geek

@Magisch trying is all we can expect of folks.

@Tinkeringbell A little better :D

Tinkeringbell

09:22

But pen and paper notepad often works nicely too :)

Yaakov Ellis

@Tinkeringbell that's more like it

Mithical

I use gedit. And then I format in LibreOffice.

Journeyman Geek

@Tinkeringbell My dad once used to use stone pestles to drive in nails

It worked perfectly well too

Tinkeringbell

My coworker has this ultimate dad joke thing of a gadget... called a 'remarkable', it's kinda like an e-reader with e-ink for taking notes, you can even convert your handwriting to text and import the stuff onto a PC...

I want that too but it's expensive.

Yaakov Ellis

@Magisch you should know that all words that you write have a much larger impact than just the people who reply. Many more will vote. And many more will read it (same way with user access on all Q&A sites). Don't judge the effect of your words only by the responses.

2

Journeyman Geek

09:23

@Tinkeringbell I heard terrible things from it in the ex-servefault crowd

Tinkeringbell

@JourneymanGeek Rly? My coworker is pretty happy with it, he says 'he's never using paper again'.

Journeyman Geek

@YaakovEllis for all the toxic folks, there's good people around too

Tinkeringbell

(we of course add the mandatory toilet humor to that)

Journeyman Geek

@Tinkeringbell apparently!

Gimby

There are good toxic folks too, they just need to wash themselves a little more often.

Yaakov Ellis

09:24

@JourneymanGeek I know. and others here do as well.

Journeyman Geek

@YaakovEllis and that's why its even worth... trying at this point

That maybe, just maybe, the dawn will break. Even if we're out of candles, and cursing the dark is silly....

Magisch

@YaakovEllis I know. I've copped the downvotes and harsh criticism of meta before. I'm all to familiar with its sting. It is my hope that some people will see this and join me in trying to make a first step. And maybe, just maybe, it'll be enough to cause a shift. A lot of that is wishful thinking, but I don't see another angle that can work

Journeyman Geek

(Cause I keep stealing that metaphor)

BlueSoul

09:52

if a post is toxic, it should be moderated. The topic of the post doesn't matter. Maybe you can feel sympathy for the poster, understand why they were angry but it will still have to go.
Criticism... is criticism. Can be toxic, but doesn't have to.
So, basically, here we are again asking to not yell at the tool that felt on your toe. There are two possible reading to your request.
a) be polite in what you say - fine, I already expected that
b) don't say anything.
I kinda not agree with b. Unless you actually mean that the current situation is so bad that the community words could actually p…

Tinkeringbell

The point with b is... consider what you're saying something about. Is the feedback you're giving actionable for the people you're giving it to?

If not, then it isn't really polite to give it anyways.

Mithical

...addendum to this: I'm not sure we're ever going to be able to get past the phenomenon described here, though, which is what really makes me concerned.

side note: the repcap has swallowed like 15k rep on MSE for me by now, which I find mildly amusing

BlueSoul

again. I have said before. The assumption that if [employee name here] is ordered to post something on Meta and when I post a reply / downvote the post I expect said employee to be the one who act is.... wrong.
At the very best, I expect that either someone who can decide will read the post or at the very least there will be some feedback chain that will report the comments to them. Now, if the feedback chain is directly feed in a document shredder, that won't change much.

(sorry, have to go for a while - if anyone is interested, we can resume this later)

Rob

@ShadowTheBurningWizard I don't know them either.

Tinkeringbell

@BlueSoul Nah, I know a waste of effort when I see it. If Shog's Twitter thread hasn't 'cured' that assumption by now, I don't think I can do much more then say that I find it disappointing that you'd use your 'feedback' to first push the person that has to deal with that through the shredder, like you'd use a piece of paper to push something yucky into the trashcan before throwing away the piece of paper too.

Rob

10:07

@ShadowTheBurningWizard 2 hours, but I voted to reopen.

Yaakov Ellis

@BlueSoul I don't know. Take my answer here. If I hadn't gone to answer it, no one would have. I cannot spend more time on this, and I have said all that I can say. I am not going to get into a debate with folks (the debate will never end, and whatever I say will have some counter-argument). The feedback will be passed on. However, I am left with a negative taste in my mouth over the whole thing.

Tinkeringbell

Yeah, that makes sense.

Shadow The Burning Wizard

10:24

@Rob it's open. Was afraid it'll be deleted, less concerned about closure.

@YaakovEllis thank you. :)

Journeyman Geek

@YaakovEllis thank you... but.... Its a spot they shouldn't be putting you in

which makes it doubly appreciated

V2Blast

@JourneymanGeek indeed

Journeyman Geek

But I think y'all know my views on the poor community team, and I'm clearly at odds with people higher up in the SO Corp foodchain

V2Blast

also, internet hugs to all of you. keep doing what you can to make the internet a better place. <3

terdon

@JourneymanGeek Is he being put in it? I always thought @YaakovEllis did this because he's awesome, not because it's his job. Isn't he a dev?

Which, of course, is even more reason for us to be appreciative of his efforts!

?

Journeyman Geek

10:39

But rather than the community team was and should be allowed to handle talking to us in most cases :D

and that they're scaling the wrong way

Shadow The Burning Wizard

@terdon all SE employees got a direct order not to talk about certain things, Shog clearly mention this in his Tweet.

BlueSoul

@Tinkeringbell Sorry, I am not sure I even understand the message here. It somehow feels accusative, but I can't make out if that is direct to me or to a generic "you". Will skip that, sorry.

Shadow The Burning Wizard

So Yaakov is doing his best to communicate through this barrier.

terdon

@ShadowTheBurningWizard Sure, I'm talking about the general fact that Yaakov has always been active on meta and has been doing his best to answer what he can. I very much doubt he is being told to do so by his bosses, I have always assumed that was his own choice.

He chooses to answer, he isn't told to. Which makes it even more important.

Journeyman Geek

@terdon erf. Maybe I wasn't clear

@terdon more precisely that he is doing so cause he clearly cares

Shadow The Burning Wizard

10:41

@terdon he's told to not answer, on certain things. Of course that answer of bug fixes are not related.

terdon

yep

Shadow The Burning Wizard

But letting us know that he cares, and others inside SE care, is not trivial, and something nobody else has done.

terdon

@ShadowTheBurningWizard I mean generally. Yaakov and Adam are the only non-CMs who still regularly participate as far as I know. And I believe they do so by choice, because they care, and not because they are told to. So they aren't being put into the situation by SE, that's all.

Shadow The Burning Wizard

@terdon sure

terdon

15 mins ago, by Journeyman Geek

@YaakovEllis thank you... but.... Its a spot they shouldn't be putting you in

@terdon I was assuming the "they" there was SE.

Journeyman Geek

10:43

@terdon well - in a sense, whoever wrote that question should answer

Shadow The Burning Wizard

!!/tea ter

SmokeDetector

@ShadowTheBurningWizard brews a cup of green tea for @ter

Shadow The Burning Wizard

@Tink green tea!! ^

Journeyman Geek

and as an SU mod, I'm pretty affronted by the suggestion

Which is probably someone elses idea.

terdon

It's... um. I'll get back to you when I find a non vulgar word for it.

Journeyman Geek

10:45

:D

(I'm not sure if affronted is an actual word)

Magisch

affronted by what?

terdon

Oh, it is. And a nice one too!

Journeyman Geek

The idea of rolling us into SO

If meta is the place I help keep clean, SU is my home

You don't turn it into SO's parking lot

I guess it would get rid of a troublesome mod, but that seems a lot of work

Mithical

I'm pretty sure the only person campaigning for your removal right now is Evan...

Rob

@ShadowTheBurningWizard You're welcome. No reason to delete, and the close reason was not well founded; all Announcements could be closed for that reason.

Journeyman Geek

10:47

@Mithical His tears flavour my coffee. And they are sweet :D

BlueSoul

to be clear, what I mean is that if someone ask something , for example updated on Monica, CoC, ads or anything and you or any other employee are told to post a "no comment" reply, I am perfectly aware you had to post it, no mater what you think. **My** vote is directed at the content you posted, not the one who had to post it.
As for the second part, I just mean that I downvote or comment only because I hope that in some way the feedback will be seen by someone higher in the chain that could actually decide on a change. And I wouldn't stop even if someone told me that the "feedback" is ins…

terdon

@JourneymanGeek It also shows a staggering level of ignorance on the part of the company. How can they not know that SO users already get way too many non-programming questions and have been trying to stop that for years. And now you ask them if they want more?

I mean seriously, what are these people thinking?

Journeyman Geek

\o/!

Somedays I wish I knew. Others, the concept terrifies me!

BlueSoul

And that said, I repeat this once again - if anyone jumps at you folks with free insults and such.... it is the time to act on them.

Journeyman Geek

Some days... both

Magisch

10:49

@terdon Maybe they want to expand the user (and jobs, and teams) base to everyone who does anything IT

Journeyman Geek

@Magisch I'm not a dev though

Magisch

that would explain if they wanted to roll SU, AU and other tech sites into SO. Perhaps a prelude to a huge culling of unprofitable network sites.

terdon

@BlueSoul When has Yaakov posted anything but his own words? He isn't one of the unfortunates SE uses as mouthpieces. He chooses to brave the lions and try to talk to us to the best of his abilities.

Journeyman Geek

Neither are a signficant number of people who use my site

And I don't mean core users.

terdon

It's the CMs that are abused by being made to spout the corporate drivel we are being fed.

BlueSoul

10:51

@terdon I was trying to be pretty generic there - he is just the one I was replying to, nothing more.

terdon

@BlueSoul And we're trying to tell you not to be generic :) These are real people, with real personalities and each one is different to the others.

Magisch

I hope TWP and IPS survive all of it

terdon

Yaakov is one of the very few employees who still tries even though it isn't his job.

Magisch

especially TWP, I love that site

JNat

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog gone

BlueSoul

10:52

@terdon I was talking about a generic problem, not a person specific one there. Suggestion for how SE operates, not for a single employee. All started from Shog/Magish suggestion, remember?

Mithrandir24601

@Mithical the last person he campaigned for removal of was someone called Shog9...

JNat

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog and gone

terdon

@BlueSoul yes, but you also had a discussion with Yaakov and mentioned posting non-posts which just isn't something he has been forced to do, AFAIK. Juan has, most of the CMs have, but the non-CM employees who still try to talk to us are speaking for themselves as far as I can tell.

Yaakov Ellis

@JourneymanGeek nobody is putting me in this position. no one is asking me to do this. It is my own initiative, but something that I have received support and recognition for internally. And if tomorrow I got fed up with it for whatever reason and stopped speaking publicly, it would be understood, and I would not be pressured to continue.

Journeyman Geek

@YaakovEllis At this point, I'll plead being completely inarticulate

terdon

11:01

@YaakovEllis I hope you know that many of us really, really appreciate it.

Yaakov Ellis

@terdon correct, it's not my job. My position on my specific team gives me the access and insight to be able to answer things, my userId and rep gives me some confidence as well. But still is something that I have to consciously decide to do and keep on doing.

Journeyman Geek

@Mithrandir24601 At the very least, I don't get paid to do this, and I'm sure I'll find something to do with all the free time I suddenly find myself with ;)

Mithical

@YaakovEllis You're basically viewed as a mini-CM at this point, outside of the company. Which is immensely appreciated by us :)

Yaakov Ellis

I know that whatever I write can be taken as an official position, I have to watch what I say, I have to avoid taking sides, being offended, descending into mini-squabbles, have to know when to walk away, and when to check with other people internally before writing something or responding on a particular issue.

@Mithical I definitely hear your appreciation. The positive feedback cycle here works both ways

terdon

(Sorry, @YaakovEllis, couldn't resist)

Mithical

11:04

@YaakovEllis And really, I want to meet up and buy you a coffee at some point (if you'd be interested in that).

Yaakov Ellis

@terdon (I was thinking the same thing)

terdon

:)

Yaakov Ellis

@Mithical where are you located?

Mithical

the Golan

terdon

@Mithical woah, really? Golan heights?

Mithical

11:05

Yep.

Yaakov Ellis

and Shadow is also far out in a different place. I would suggest an Israel meetup, but would be hard to pull off

terdon

@Mithical ouch. Not the calmest region in the world, that.

Yaakov Ellis

@Mithical I work near modiin, live farther south from there

Journeyman Geek

@terdon They've complained about rocket attacks a few times.

Mithical

I can buy a chofshi yomi artzi and head out to say, Yerushalayim, which is fairly central

Journeyman Geek

11:06

._.

terdon

@JourneymanGeek I know. I hadn't realized where they were though.

Journeyman Geek

@terdon No offence but I know everyone :D

Mithical

@terdon Calmer than you'd think. (The rockets are really very infrequent up here...)

Yaakov Ellis

I live just inside 40KM from Gaza (max range for one of the types of rockets shot from there), so whenever there is a war there, we get direct missile fire, kids sleep in the secure room, etc.

Journeyman Geek

._.

BlueSoul

11:11

@terdon ok, sorry about that I guess, but it was just an hypothetical case. I mean that IF he had to post something that he was told to and that was "downvoted into oblivion" I wanted him to know that we downvoted the content, not his persona.

Mithical

My cousins live in Ashdod. Their house has been directly hit twice. (They tend to clear out whenever it gets bad and head to their grandparents.)

terdon

@BlueSoul No worries. I just want to advertise the fact that Yaakov is one of the good guys, one of those clearly actually trying.

BlueSoul

@terdon There is a reason if I didn't wear hats but I played the little "find the animal" easter egg hunt on the WB site. I wanted that at least his effort wasn't wasted since no one else apparently did that.

I may chose to not take part in festive hat wearing - that doesn't mean that I despise your effort to give people something funny to do.

Journeyman Geek

there was a chicken this year? 0_0

BlueSoul

@JourneymanGeek it was kinda a rearshal of last year, but yep - he did change the animal chains and added new ones.

I guess I am the only one that saw the

Journeyman Geek

11:15

oh damn

I missed that

BlueSoul

All Your Base Are Belong To Us (Original)

►

@JourneymanGeek you do realize that technically you still have time since the site is up and running as usual?

Journeyman Geek

@BlueSoul maybe

BlueSoul

you can also still knit if you wanted.

Journeyman Geek

But I mean that I didn't know at all :D

BlueSoul

@JourneymanGeek no. Not Maybe. It still works, I just checked.

Journeyman Geek

11:17

lol

I'm busy?

BlueSoul

@JourneymanGeek oh, don't worry, just pointing out that if you want to look when you have some free time... you still can.

Tinkeringbell

@BlueSoul No worries. It's not accusatory, just a general statement of fact in reply to your 'we can pick this up'... I've tried to explain stuff several times to you now, and if you really feel you have to at this point, I don't think I can do anything to explain further or change your mind.

That said, I don't think I've seen much feedback from you that I'd label problematic, or "feedback", but it feels like you're arguing that other people should be able to do so, and that hurts whatever we're trying to achieve here.

@ShadowTheBurningWizard Ohh, that goes well with the lunch I just had :)

BlueSoul

11:38

then I am sorry but you are in total mistake. I don't know if I explained myself poorly or anything, but I didn't ever mean that others should be able to post rude feedback. I said that we should continue to provide polite feedback even if we disagree and even if we were to already knew it will be ignored.
I mean that stopping giving feedback because some is rude to me is a wrong decision. In a way, I feel I need to say when something feels wrong for my own sake of mind - if that gets listened to it is a bonus point but right now it is not required for my "peace of mind".

I also meant that rude feedback is bad because it is rude, not because it is feedback.

And for that, mods work and the "flag as rude/offensive" buttons should be used, like for any other rude content.

Claiming that is "feedback" should not save them.

But, please, let's all not just assume we can only provide rude feedback

Cindy Meister

@terdon Among other things, I suspect: 1) fewer sites to maintain = lower costs; 2) Newbies who can't tell (and aren't interested in) the difference can just ask without getting closed down. Among other considerations. Just easier for the "Powers", probably.

JAD

also, I guess easier branding

Cindy Meister

That, too, most likely. "Everyone" knows of "Stack Overflow"

But if they're going to do something like that I think there needs to be an adjustment in the tagging. So that end-user can be filtered from non.

JAD

so how long till we can ask about our favourite movies on SO?

terdon

@CindyMeister not if they don't code.

Cindy Meister

11:46

Don't bet on it...

terdon

And most of the user base of the other technical sites don't code. Think SU, AU, U&L, Ask Different, Elementary, Raspberry...

@CindyMeister I know it, I don't need to bet on it. If you're not a coder you won't know about SO, why would you?

If you're active on SE, you will know it, of course. But a random Mac user, for example, will be more likely to have heard of Ask Different than SO.

Magisch

Maybe part of inducing that x10 growth they're seeking is to expand from "everyone who codes uses SO" into "everyone who does any IT uses SO"

Cindy Meister

@terdon I think quite a few people on SU do code, as in simple macros. There are some VBA answers, there. It's tricky, with Office, sometimes, in which category a question belongs. And a lot of the REAL Dev questions I field on SO involve a lot of instruction on how the end-user interface works, because the object model follows it so closely.

terdon

@CindyMeister They don't, really. Your average SU user is just a normal Windows user. I spent quite a bit of time there back in the day. The VBA questions (and the general scripting ones) are a very small subset.

Cindy Meister

@Magisch Quite possible.

terdon

11:49

I mean, even their mods don't code!

One of them, at least ;)

Cindy Meister

@terdon <G>

Journeyman Geek

Woof

Cindy Meister

@terdon You mean, those who come with all the homework questions and such really beginner-level issues are "coders" :-)?

Journeyman Geek

Yup

terdon

@CindyMeister Of course. What else would they be?

Coders are made, not born. Just like bakers and candlestick makers.

Cindy Meister

11:52

Eh...

Journeyman Geek

It's also the environment I guess

Magisch

When I joined SO some years ago, I had no clue how to write software

4y3m ago

Cindy Meister

OK, first year apprentices, maybe. But the attitude sometimes <sigh>

Mithical

I still don't know how to write software :D

terdon

A "coder" is someone who is trying to write code. You don't need to be a professional developer with loads of experience to try to write something.

Journeyman Geek

11:54

@terdon at most I do minor fixes on someone else's code

Very minor

Cindy Meister

@terdon Debatable whether asking "give me the codez" is trying to write code...

terdon

sigh

Cindy Meister

Yeah, well, I've been seeing more than the usual amount of those, lately

terdon

Don't get me wrong, I know the feeling well. I am a front page user on four technical sites, three of which I used to moderate. I know the kind of crap we get better than most.

BlueSoul

@CindyMeister out of curiosity... are those monthly magazines "Learn how to hack and steal your neighbor wifi - free tool on the dvd" a thing just here where I live or everywhere??

Journeyman Geek

11:57

@CindyMeister but apparently saying that's not coding isn't inclusive

terdon

But, you know, we were all clueless newbies once. I hope I was never quite such an entitled clueless newbie, but a newbie I certainly was.

Magisch

I used to be plenty entitled and abrasive

Cindy Meister

@BlueSoul Haven't a clue. When I look at a magazine rack, everything is in German!

Magisch

It's easy to lose sight of how steep the learning curve is

Cindy Meister

@JourneymanGeek Point :-)

BlueSoul

11:59

@CindyMeister ...... I meant same type of content, not same title ye silly :P

all the "learn how to do the same stuff others spent years learning by just buying this 60 pages magazine"

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