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Sonic the Stay-Home Hedgehog

2:53 AM

!!/watch com\.gomin\.slideshowmaker

SmokeDetector

@SonictheStay-HomeHedgehog You don't have blacklist manager privileges, but I've created PR#4000 for you.

Sonic the Stay-Home Hedgehog

4:04 AM

@JNat Cross-site spammers: stackexchange.com/users/18863645/anna-salas stackexchange.com/users/16118622/mailinh108

@JourneymanGeek Spam account: meta.stackexchange.com/users/468749/sambillings

Rob

@JohnDvorak Could also be a squirrel; it's larger than expected because, well you know ...

Rob

4:27 AM

Uhhh, what's this site for:

https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/349487/282094

Catija

4:40 AM

@Rob Free image hosting, apparently.

Rob

Third time's a charm, I thought the kitty-face made a 10% improvement.

Tinkeringbell

6:29 AM

Dog was faster...

rene

6:40 AM

→ 34 messages moved to Chimney

And good morning then ;)

Tinkeringbell

Good morning :)

Shadow Keeps Social Distance

7:22 AM

@Tinkeringbell Smokey morning! ;)

Tinkeringbell

Yeah, mind your lungs!

Shadow Keeps Social Distance

7:46 AM

@Tinkeringbell no worry, I wear mask!

Huh, maybe I'll use it as a name. @Sonic you have anything related to masks for yourself?

Tinkeringbell

Shadowthemaskedwizard? :P

Sounds ominous.

Shadow Keeps Social Distance

Well maybe ShadowIsWearingMask which is more... encouraging others to do the same? ;)

(with spaces of course)

Though it's really similar to my current name.... but it fits, as Corona is still around, big time.

Now just need to take a good selfie with a mask and I'm good to go.... any tips? :D

Well worst case I'll steal some existing selfie...

Tinkeringbell

8:09 AM

@ShadowKeepsSocialDistance I really like the non-protective home made mask of this guy

M.A.R.

8:55 AM

@Tinkeringbell How does that even work.

The brain and the lungs are made of different things.

Tinkeringbell

@M.A.R. Are they, really?

I thought about 99 percent of your body is made up of atoms of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen...

M.A.R.

No everything is made up of quarks, duuuh.

Tinkeringbell

See, then don't say such things! :P

M.A.R.

The brain is made of quarks, and the lungs are made of quorks

Two warring nations

The avatar has been in artificial sleep for the past 100 years

Tinkeringbell

You just said everything was made up of quarks. I'm getting conflicting data.

M.A.R.

8:59 AM

Quantum models are like that.

Tinkeringbell

Quantum models sound like internet trolls.

M.A.R.

Why do you think scientific progress has halted since the 60's.

Tinkeringbell

drugs?

M.A.R.

First we were driving horses, and then we found out we can eliminate the erratic organic thingy from the system. And then we found out we can weigh tons and fly

And then we could submerge and mostly just prank other warships

The pranks got a bit out of hand

Literally

Then we found out the most effective city-wide barbecue

Tinkeringbell

Hahaha perhaps they did...

M.A.R.

9:04 AM

And finally grilled cheese and automated food services were invented

I'm hungry.

But after that?

Like if I wasn't chatting right now, I would have been having an eureka moment with an apple or bread fungi or something

Sorry, the moment is gone. No 10-year shortcuts for science.

Tinkeringbell

9:19 AM

Aww. Would you have liked to do something like invent penicillin?

PM 2Ring

10:38 AM

@M.A.R. I assume you're talking about the increase in homework questions due to people studying from home. Some of those aren't just normal homework, they're actual exams. We got a classic example on Physics the other day. The OP was soliciting for people to help him cheat on a live online quiz. :facepalm: physics.stackexchange.com/q/559506/123208

Tinkeringbell

Wow. At least they were honest about it.

PM 2Ring

True. But it boggles my mind that such people don't seem to realise that they're doing a bad thing.

djsmiley2kStaysInside

Oh they know

but the weight of failure outweighs it

For some failure means being stuck in a dead end job forever.

Or ousted from families, or whatever

It isn't right, but I can understand how you come to the logical conclusion of 'I need to cheat'

It's not even cheating in their minds at that point.

M.A.R.

@PM2Ring Haha no, I was talking about my homework

PM 2Ring

I could maybe forgive a high school kid. But the topics for that quiz are university level stuff. A university student ought to know better.

@M.A.R. Ah, rightio. :)

Tinkeringbell

10:43 AM

Everyone ought to know better all the time these days... no one does though.

M.A.R.

Philosophical musing of the day: Today's human's biggest sociological failure is separating an argument of pathos from selfishness.

Hmm, maybe sociological musing then

Everyone conflates having a right to be comfortable with having a right to suck.

PM 2Ring

@djsmiley2kStaysInside Or having to repeat that course, and being stuck in uni longer than they planned. I guess they may not be aware of the penalties if you get caught cheating.

Tinkeringbell

@M.A.R. Perhaps. My point was more that if I do X, Y will tell me 'you ought to know better'. If I do the opposite of X, there will be a Z to tell me 'you ought to know better'.

So, everyone ought to know better all the time, no one ever does.

M.A.R.

@djsmiley2kStaysInside You'd be surprised about the power of self-pity and what it justifies

djsmiley2kStaysInside

Oh it doesn't supprise me tbh, I almost emphaphise with them...

M.A.R.

10:47 AM

An introductory course on quantum mechanics isn't really life or job threatening

Journeyman Geek

It is all fun and games until someone rips a tear in the fabric of space-time

PM 2Ring

@M.A.R. During WWII & the post-war years there was a strong emphasis on people tolerating personal discomfort & restrictions for the greater good of the community & nation. In part, the counter-cultural revolution of the 60s was a reaction to that, in a context of thermonuclear cold war & conscription for the Vietnam war.

But it seems to me that we've gone too far in the opposite direction. People expect society to coddle them, but they don't feel obliged to make a contribution themself. Of course, I'm exaggerating. Nobody would write Stack Exchange answers if we were all self-absorbed brats. ;)

M.A.R.

@PM2Ring aye

@PM2Ring Obviously, folks that add something to the internet that doesn't follow Sturgeon's law so closely are a minority on the internet as they are a minority IRL.

PM 2Ring

:)

M.A.R.

11:03 AM

And it occurs to me that "cultural leaders" such as Hollywood was and is and the new Silicon Valley powers have the power to try to change that on every turn and instead abused it

Maybe "leaders" is not the right term but they do shape it and affect it importantly

PM 2Ring

They do shape it. Before the net, a lot of crud got distributed in books, newspapers, radio, movies, and TV. But at least there were some quality filters in place, even if those filters were often motivated by financial considerations. But these days, anyone can spread their crud instantly across the planet, ar virtually no cost. And no matter how stupid or counter-productive something is, there will always be people who agree with it & support it.

M.A.R.

5G CAUSES AUTISM SHEEPLE

Mithical

@M.A.R. what do fish have to do with anything

M.A.R.

11:29 AM

@Mithical They crap everywhere

PM 2Ring

Yesterday, my YouTube feed came up with this clip of Jethro Tull, doing a live performance of their epic piece, Thick As A Brick. It seems somehow appropriate to this conversation. ;) Some of its themes haven't aged well, but some of it is just as relevant today as it was 4 decades or so ago. IMHO.

Mithical

12:24 PM

9

Q: "Recently Active" linked questions updates incorrectly

When there are too many linked questions to fit in the sidebar, it shows a link to "see more linked questions...". Clicking on this link takes you to a front-page type showing only the linked questions. You can then use the tabs to sort by "active" to show the most recently active linked question...

Nearly seven years later, I just ran into this same bug.

Reported also in 2014, and again in 2015.

Spevacus

Weird...

Tinkeringbell

@Spevacus Not that weird... none have a status tag :)

Spevacus

The bug itself is weird. The multiple reports isn't, of course ;)

My favorites are the multi-year-old [status-planned] 's.

Tinkeringbell

Old posts in general are... weird

Spevacus

Darn old users and their old posts and their old layouts and their old mannerisms and their old tagging schemes. They gotta get with the times.

rene

12:39 PM

Hey, careful there! I might be offended ...

Tinkeringbell

@rene because you're an old user, or an old user?

I'm guessing both :P

Spevacus

LOL

rene

;)

Mithical

I'm bad at limericks.

Tinkeringbell

which is relevant because? :P

Mithical

12:47 PM

0

Q: Adding a bounty should not change the license of a post

On Meta an old bug I did find That apparently nobody had paid any mind I then took a step And gave up some rep For I had found a bug - the same kind Then, going to share The button popped up with flair And found a license CC That I plainly could see Should really not have been there. For the post...

bug bounties licensing

Tinkeringbell

bored? :P

Mithical

Slightly, waiting for my coach to send me information

Spevacus

That was a good find
I feel compelled to upvote
Your poem is great

:/

ArtOfCode

@Mithical fun fact: once won a poetry competition at school by writing a limerick that took the piss out of the headteacher

Mithical

bwahaha

ArtOfCode

1:06 PM

There once was a young boy at school
Who thought himself ever so cool
On Halloween night
He thought up a fright
And pushed Mr. Brown in the pool

something like that

Catija

1:49 PM

@Mithical What's the deal with this thing you've bountied? Can you tell me about it?

Mithical

@Catija ^That's a screenshot of scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/linked/18129?sort=newest, which I had left open while debating writing a meta.SFF post about it. In the meantime, when a new question is asked on the site, it shows up there (in the linked questions page) as the "1 question with new activity" bar, which when clicked shows the new question (that is not linked to the question I had been on).

Catija

Yeah. That... happens everywhere. We probably should just remove it from that page. The chance of there actually being relevant new links on that page is much lower than the number of new questions getting asked at any given time.

Mithical

That is one way of solving the problem, yeah

Catija

For example, if you're on the "Questions" page and sorted by "Newest", the new activity banner will show up as new questions come in. If you wait long enough so they get edited or answered, you'll see that the user infobox, which on the Questions page should always show "asked", can show "modified" or "answered".

Journeyman Geek

@Mithical hmm, maybe add a second section the said bountied question with updated screenshots, then we throw it a status review? :D

user400654

1:59 PM

🤐

Mithical

0

Q: Feedback for The Loop - June 2020: Defining the Stack Community

June’s “The Loop” blog post was just posted: Defining the Stack Community. In this post, I attempt to define the term “Community” as it is used on our Public Platform. My overall suggestion can be summarized as follows: The Community refers to all Public Platform users (on Stack Overflow, or an...

discussion blog community the-loop

Feedback for The Loop - June 2020: Defining the Stack Community

5

user400654

🚽

Mithical

hmm, we've got a lot of pins

John Dvorak

Mithical

thank you john

John Dvorak

2:05 PM

HTH :D

user400654

so...

what's the point of that blog post?

dividing people up into groups?

Feeds

The Loop, June 2020: Defining the Stack Community

Yaakov Ellis on June 17, 2020

If you have been active on the Stack Exchange network (especially the Meta sites) or have been a reader of this blog for any significant amount of time, you will see the term Community used quite often. But who is a member of the Community? Why is the Community important? The answer to this will probably depend on who you ask.

user400654

neat little buckets so that one can be more easily focused on over another?

Spevacus

The opposite. Saying that we're all a part of the garden, and without each group, the garden would not exist, or it would be horrible. Additionally, the audience members (visitors) should be extended an olive branch, and given as many opportunities to become contributors and gardeners as possible. Without that onboarding process, the garden will fade.

2

Mithical

@JourneymanGeek done

user400654

2:10 PM

Only one of the groups is noted as being "essential to Stack Overflow’s mission, future, and growth. "

Tinkeringbell

@user400654 I think it's forgetting the SO complaint that there's so many people in the garden, they're trampling the flower beds instead of staying on the paths ;)

John Dvorak

Time to start likening askers to locusts rather than humans

Tinkeringbell

Well, the parable does promise pesticides, right?

πάντα ῥεῖ

@Tinkeringbell So we (as contributors / curators) have to manage the balancing act to remind those people of the rules in a friendly but straight manner?

Tinkeringbell

@πάνταῥεῖ There's a site for that!

πάντα ῥεῖ

2:22 PM

That's one of the hard jobs, as long new vistors consider even downvotes or close votes as overly hostile.

Tinkeringbell

Though now that I've seen how well people react to that under COVID rules, I'm going to say the answer you'll get is a sarcastic 'good luck with that'

πάντα ῥεῖ

That also differs from cultural background.

Tinkeringbell

The nice thing about parables is that you can make them mean whatever you like them to mean. Which also makes them suck for communicating because your words are so easily twisted :P

πάντα ῥεῖ

@Tinkeringbell Fully agree.

Rubiksmoose

@Tinkeringbell yeesh no kidding.

πάντα ῥεῖ

2:26 PM

In the end we'll end up with "kudos". We gonna get new visitors, who aren't obeying the rules and paths, hugged out of the garden :-P

2

Tinkeringbell

@πάνταῥεῖ That violates social distancing!

And probably some personal boundaries too.

πάντα ῥεῖ

Ooof!

Mithical

Stack Overflow election begins July 6

πάντα ῥεῖ

2:44 PM

Tinkeringbell

"No people allowed after business hours" would be an interesting one to try here! :P

Rob

Running is permitted in the garden.

John Dvorak

Running should be mandatory on SO. Running your own "example code" before posting it there.

πάντα ῥεῖ

But you still need to watch your step (Beware of uneven surfaces)

Rob

The machinery keeps our pins in order:

Yaakov Ellis

3:39 PM

@Tinkeringbell why did you have to go and plant this seed of doubt?

@πάνταῥεῖ or newly sown fields

πάντα ῥεῖ

Of course

TBH I was pondering about making the barriers to ask questions for new contributors a bit higher. Such that we can be sure they've read and understood all the policies, and also that they have done some research before asking new questions. But I am lacking of ideas how that can be done practically.

user400654

I don't think that would have the intended effect

it's akin to adding a timed delay to posting a question, it would result in a brief moment of delay, and then everything is right back to normal because everyone has to spend that same amount of time bypassing that barrier

the issue isn't necessarily quantity, it's people asking questions that are... just not worthy of sticking around. they get upvoted/answered anyway because that's how people earn rep, and the cycle continues.

πάντα ῥεῖ

That's exactly where I got stuck to think about further ;-)

user400654

3:54 PM

how many questions happen every day related to not understanding how javascript's async/await works

how many times can "You need to add a return" be deemed useful?

the tools we use to decide what is and isn't useful aren't all that useful anymore for that purpose

if they ever really were

πάντα ῥεῖ

It's even enough to see how many "lost souls" come to MSE daily.

user400654

even the reputation system to me at this point seems... like a trap

i have 2300 answers

why does that translate to 90k rep?

Why can't it just be 2300

or 1 for every one that is deemed "useful"

attaching rep to what is "useful" or "not useful" results in overuse of the tools

dependence on them for feeling welcome

πάντα ῥεῖ

Regarding the rep gaming: We always faced the problem of "Help vampires and rep whores"

user400654

This for example, rep is the only reason this user cares about the author casting an upvote: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/398359/…

Tinkeringbell

@YaakovEllis I grew up that way :P

user400654

4:04 PM

I just think the gamification is getting in the way of curation far too much.

djsmiley2kStaysInside

@user400654 If they get deleted, doesn't said rep go away?

user400654

sure

how many get deleted?

πάντα ῥεῖ

Unfortunately all the tools to curate the sites effectively are strongly bound to rep (which isn't equal with experience)

user400654

if it has an upvoted answer, which most of them do because the answer is easy and "correct", it never gets deleted

tie the tools to something else, :p

question closure for example can be tied to answering,

Most things can be tied to answering

Tinkeringbell

So, what if you have great questions but no answers?

user400654

4:11 PM

how many great questions?

i mean

i've seen people with thousands of questions, should they be given the ability to close questions? would they use it?

Feeds

The only effect on the history books were a few confusing accounts of something called 'Greek fire.'

Yaakov Ellis

@Tinkeringbell in other words, you were properly nurtured and this allowed you to take root?

user400654

I think it would be interesting to look at statistics on who uses what curation methods, broken down based on what... "group" they're in, in terms of askers, answerers, new users, etc.

Tinkeringbell

@YaakovEllis Nah. I did find a nice crack in some concrete and settled for that.

user400654

What i think you'll find is a lot of people get into editing while it's a source of rep, and closers/flaggers are primarily people who answer

or were answerers in the past, if they're more passive now

M.A.R.

5:45 PM

@user400654 It could be 9 trillion. That's at best tangential

It's a trade-off, as most things are. You gamify things, and gamification isn't picky. Just as it would incentivize contribution, it would incentivize abuse. That's really true for anything that brings someone perceived or real 'respect'. Money, likes, number of citations, or a world record

user400654

hmm... the downvote tooltip has changed.

Tinkeringbell

Wait... no more downvoting for lack of effort?

5

John Dvorak

:-1:

user400654

no more "poorly researched" in it, and the tooltip changes when you cast a downvote to a message that has doesn't include "unclear"

same thing with upvotes, "clear" goes away, just leaving useful

Tinkeringbell

6:01 PM

Well, I guess 'useful' is broad and subjective enough to include all of the above anyways ;)

John Dvorak

That said, do you think it will reduce the amount of people who upvote answers just for being technically true?

user400654

IMO a more important change would be giving the post owner a different tooltip

Tinkeringbell

Or decrease the amount of people complaining that their post doesn't deserve a downvote?

user400654

lol

no wording change will fix that

John Dvorak

It will increase the amount of votes I cast, that's for sure :D

user289905

6:25 PM

@Tinkeringbell I’m wondering about this as well. Is anyone preparing a meta question about this right now? Otherwise I will.

user400654

I'm more or less just curious if the change is meant to affect what gets downvoted, or if it's just a run of the mill code cleanup change making all of the voting buttons consistant

i suspect the latter, though losing "unclear" once you've cast a vote (up or down) isn't consistant

well, it's consistant in one way but not another, :p

Tinkeringbell

@user289905 Go ahead, I'm not preparing one yet. Be careful though. If you write it just wrong, it's going to get a pile of angry hotheaded answers chiming in about how horrible this is, but probably no official answer about why things were changed or what the expectations behind the change are ;)

Mithical

On mobile; what does the tooltip say now?

Tinkeringbell

@user289905 Heads up, someone stole your question :P

πάντα ῥεῖ

I took the risk at least ;-)

Tinkeringbell

6:38 PM

@Mithical "Downvote this question if you find it unclear or not useful"

At least that what it says on PC, I have no clue what it says on mobile :P

@πάνταῥεῖ Your < post-type > fell away in the final post.

Perhaps $post-type works better?

Mithical

Thanks

πάντα ῥεῖ

@Mithical THX for fixing

user400654

> is not lack of ... not ...

user289905

@Tinkeringbell Yep, just upvoted it. I don’t really have the time right now anyway, so everything’s fine.

Spevacus

I'm not sure about the title... "What's the reasoning the vote button tooltips having changed"

"What is the reasoning behind the vote button tooltips changing?" I think might be better? I dunno.

user289905

6:50 PM

@Spevacus But they have changed; they aren’t currently changing (except when a vote has been cast where they change to the “click to undo” version, but that’s not the point of the question).

Spevacus

Ah...

Bah. I figured it was my brain lagging, just couldn't put the whole wording together.

M.A.R.

Crap

"research" is no longer evident a reason for downvoting?

Thanks for toppling all our efforts at one of the more difficult moderation dilemmas guys :(

14

Q: Close Votes Aren't Super Downvotes

Unfortunately, we've had a problem for quite a while now. It basically boils down to close voting questions with reasons that don't fit. Essentially, the Homework off-topic close reason, "unclear what you're asking", and "too broad" reasons are sometimes used where they make no sense whatsoever. ...

discussion close-reasons vote-to-close

This makes little sense now.

Discussion on lack of research being a close reason

May 3 '17 at 13:39, 54 minutes total – 69 messages, 5 users, 6 stars

Bookmarked May 3 '17 at 16:22 by M.A.R.

user400654

The question is perfectly clear, it's just... the tiniest bit of effort would solve it. google even has a quick answer for it

M.A.R.

Well screw it. Let's have folks close vote anything they don't like as lacking research. Not the hill I'm dying on.

John Dvorak

Yeah, let's :D

user400654

6:55 PM

tbf i think closevotes are a better fit anyway for that

for all involved

asker gets a more direct "reason", the question gets closed and can be reopened if it is ever fixed, and it puts in on the path of being deleted if it is never fixed

πάντα ῥεῖ

@SonictheStay-HomeHedgehog Sorry your edit was a bit too much deviating from my intention (especially the title)

M.A.R.

Honestly it was probably the only criteria where you could reasonably distinguish a downvote from other moderation votes.

Of course the voting pattern of most veteran users won't change much, but vote buttons look more like like and dislike buttons now

Which is a bad thing, disregarding metas.

Sonic the Stay-Home Hedgehog

stroopwafels

M.A.R.

Metae? Meta? Metee

in English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room on The Stack Exchange Network Chat, May 3 '17 at 13:57, by M.A.R.

Lack of research is a common trait among bad questions, but there's no guarantee an interesting question will demonstrate effort

I can picture the meta wars better since explicit homework is a more prevalent theme on my home site.

A few babies will be thrown out with the bathwater.

πάντα ῥεῖ

@SonictheStay-HomeHedgehog I also intentionally wanted to have a discussion, not support. Please be respectful with edits, it's not like that you can't make proposals in comments-

Sonic the Stay-Home Hedgehog

7:03 PM

The correct tag for this question is support, as it's asking a concrete question, not starting a discussion (e.g. as to which form is better, etc.) But I'll leave the tag as is for now.

user400654

i mean, to some extent every question asked lacks some form of research

πάντα ῥεῖ

@SonictheStay-HomeHedgehog Better now? I finally made it opinion based :-P

user400654

but... imo we should let people use their votes to decide when a post doesn't have enough.

Sonic the Stay-Home Hedgehog

@πάνταῥεῖ Yep, it's a better fit now.

user400654

closevotes, or up/down, either work

i'd prefer that be the job of closevotes

Tinkeringbell

7:08 PM

@πάνταῥεῖ I wouldn't do that last question if you want the first one answered, but your choice ;)

πάντα ῥεῖ

@user400654 Not necessarily. If the asker explicitely states in their Q what research has been done, and why the results didn't fit to fix the problem.

user400654

right

but... clearly some research is missing if they still have a problem to solve

πάντα ῥεῖ

@Tinkeringbell I made the title a bit more consistent. I new that's gonna be a burden, and you even predicted that :-P

user400654

If we assume this was intended to move away from lack of research being an ordained downvote reason, this is in one way a step toward making voting a smaller piece of the overall puzzle

Spevacus

I kind of want to throw my two cents in in an answer, but I also don't want to clutter the answers with "Yeah the design is cool but the tool tip information is important." when I'm pretty sure most people agree.

John Dvorak

7:14 PM

if we make downvoting less important (bad idea methinks), we need to make closevoting more important (good idea, admittedly)

Tinkeringbell

@JohnDvorak Yeah but the whole idea about close votes is that they don't replace downvotes :|

John Dvorak

They should

user400654

right, what i was theorizing on yesterday was a move toward voting becoming just "useful/not useful" and not being a score that is prominently displayed

John Dvorak

now more than ever

user400654

moving the... curation of posts primarily toward editing and closure/reopening, with less reliance on votes.

Tinkeringbell

7:16 PM

@JohnDvorak why?

John Dvorak

downvoting doesn't prevent answers

downvoting only prevents serial LQ askers from moderating

Tinkeringbell

Okay. But closevoting doesn't always either, so combining the two gives a stronger signal, especially to those that can't see close votes.

downvoting also does the question bans.

Which means less work closing stuff.

John Dvorak

that whole not-seeing-closevotes thing is a bad idea per se methinks

Tinkeringbell

Downvoting takes things off the front page. Which means another chance at preventing answers.

John Dvorak

true

Tinkeringbell

7:18 PM

@JohnDvorak Perhaps. I think I can agree on that one.

John Dvorak

I agree with "both"

Tinkeringbell

both?

Sorry. Almost bed time here you have to be clearer.

John Dvorak

both closevotes and downvotes combined would be my favorite option

Tinkeringbell

Yeah, that's mine too :)

Rob

There is Shog's answer on MSO regarding research:

96

A: Do we need a close reason for zero-effort questions?

You're conflating three different forms of "effort": Research effort: has the asker searched for a solution before asking? Definition effort: has the asker put enough thought into the problem to formulate a clear, specific question? Problem-solving effort: has the asker done anything to solve ...

πάντα ῥεῖ

7:22 PM

TBH: I am also (ab)using DVs to indicate that there's a closeworthy Q for others.

Rob

And other sites have their own criteria: physics.meta.stackexchange.com/a/5779/170832

Tinkeringbell

Well, most of it is true... but it's about close reasons not downvotes :P

user400654

Right, but what if voting didn't result in a visible score, it was just two icons. thumbs up, thumbs down, at the bottom of each post with preceeding text "I find this post useful" and "I didn't find this post useful". the only problem remaining at that point is the "-2" or "+10" rep people get from "useful/not useful" being used. so remove that, along with a boatload of rep and the "reputation" can simply be stats. X useful questions, Y useful answers, etc.

Tinkeringbell

on IPS, lack of research effort is often 'I want to tell X to Y' without any explanation of way 'just use your words' won't work. That gets a downvote and a closevote if it were up to me.

But the downvote can also stand for 'not useful'.

So keeping that in mind, the change doesn't matter much.

Anything I downvote is in one way or another 'not useful'.

@user400654 Meh...

Feeds

Saying thanks: testing a new Reactions feature

Lisa Park on June 17, 2020

We’ve heard from our users that the inability to say “thank you” is frustrating—especially for new users who don’t have enough reputation to upvote or comment. Even when users gain these privileges, they still want to say “thanks.”

Tinkeringbell

7:31 PM

You were right though XD

Rob

Thanks. :P

user400654

: /

Tinkeringbell

Why is my answer downvoted? It has 3 thank you's!?

user400654

why is praying one of the reactions

rene

Thanks, thanks thanks?

Tinkeringbell

7:33 PM

^ That would be an interesting thing to keep track of too. How many people complain about having a thanks but downvotes/no upvotes/accepts?

@user400654 It's the thing where you press your hands in front of you and then head-nod, I think. Not a prayer but a sign of gratitude?

user400654

it has begun

Tinkeringbell

thanks!

user400654

uh

so, there's this new popup associated with this feature

the prayer button was so small that i thought the popup was telling me to downvote to say thanks

thought it was a bug till i noticed the icon

Tinkeringbell

Well, I don't mind the icon not being bigger!

I guess that would really distract too much from proper voting.

And the thanks button doesn't have a thumbs-down equivalent.

user400654

of course not

that'd be unwelcoming... oh, wait

i'd still rather this feature not exist, but, it'd be better if it was instead a colored icon with some text accompanying it below the answer rather than being a tiny grey icon next to the tiny grey timeline icon

like, right above the comments

Tinkeringbell

7:43 PM

I don't know... making it too visible might distract too much...

user400654

if the goal is to prevent "Thanks!" comments, it needs to be visible

Tinkeringbell

Perhaps. I guess you get to see the popup though, which makes it visible?

user400654

it needs to grab the attention of someone who doesn't yet understand the UI, and be able to overcome the distractions of all the ads/banners that new users get

Tinkeringbell

:)

We'll see. I guess at times like these, I'm happy they test things on SO XD

Spevacus

Bring it to meta so I can "thanks!" all of Yaakov's haikus...

πάντα ῥεῖ

7:49 PM

SO is the site suffering worst from the common "hostility" ;-)

Tinkeringbell

@Spevacus You're supposed to still 'thanks' for the content, not the person who wrote it? :P

πάντα ῥεῖ

Don't you step on my lawn!

Tinkeringbell

There's no fence. I just learned that means I do get to step on the lawn, there was this really nice blog post about it.

πάντα ῥεῖ

Fences are bad. They ruin the wonderful perspective ;)

Tinkeringbell

There talks someone that doesn't play animal crossing.

Spevacus

7:53 PM

@Tinkeringbell I would be! Haikus are worth it... right? ... right...?

user400654

fences are just as necessary as walls

Spevacus

Haikus as content, that is...

Tinkeringbell

@Spevacus I.. don't really like them that much, to be honest XD

They always read so 'constructed' to me. I don't know, I prefer reading stuff that reads differently :D

Spevacus

Fair enough :)

John Dvorak

there is no way I,
in seventeen syllables,
could say all I need

user400654

7:57 PM

that announcement needs to be featured... it's been downvoted off the front page

Tinkeringbell

@user400654 I saw people talk about that already. Would surprise me if it weren't featured eventually.

Spevacus

As far as this whole thanks thing... I'm not sure... I know better (sometimes I still do, I'm sure the mods have cleared a good few of my comments for being conversational) but it does, honestly, feel good to type out "Thank you for this well-written answer, it goes beyond what I expected for a response" and know that the author of that answer can read that message. Simply pressing another button feels... Weird. It feels impersonal, just another metric below voting.

Tinkeringbell

@Spevacus bounties!

That's what bounties are for.

'Exceeds expectations"

Spevacus

True, but muh internet pointz!

I get what you're saying, though,.

Discussion on lack of research being a close reason

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