@Oli with all the election going on, may I ask this : how difficult is being a moderator ? I mean , does it equate to a full-time job ? What's the most common misconception about being a mod ?
I tried installing Skype on 16.04 . Costs me a lot of nerves and a dependency hell . After that I deleted it and just decided to use skype on my phone . . .
@Zacharee1 i needed 32 bit libraries , which i couldn't find in 16.04, had to pull them out of 14.04 repositories, but even then i had unmet dependency and yada yada yada . . .
Now that I look at it, maybe Google wasn't that bad for removing support for 32 bit chrome version. Less funking around with libraries
@Serg I think that's slightly different for each of us. I'm lazy. I'd much rather be answering things (on the site and Meta) than dealing with the flags that are otherwise in the review queue. But our flags are certainly something that takes time to deal with.
Dealing with Meta can be hard. Some times there are tough questions. Sometimes we're just powerless to do anything (like the automated quality bans) and sometimes the drama of confronting people doing bad stuff is exhausting.
It's not a full time job but it certainly can feel like one. If you let it take over, it could be one.
@Oli now that i think about it , it sounds a lot like my job in the University. Some students think we should be able to do anything and everything, like we're magicians or something, while in reality regular lab technicians don't even have access to admin-level account :/
Most annoying is when there's a big , huge sign on the door "CLASS IN SESSION" , and some people just walk in and bluntly ask, "Hey, can i print something real quick ? " NO ! not quick, not slow, not real. Class in session !
This sounds a lot like AskUbuntu . "Can I just ask something about CentOS/Mint/Windows real quick ? " facepalm Common sense and logic are not so common these days apparently
As for common misconceptions, being a mod doesn't earn you respect with everybody. People who want to be a pain in your arse will recurrently be there, being a pain in your arse. You can very often find yourself in the position where you have to balance what's really best for the community. Banning them isn't always an option.
@Serg Scope discussions can get a little fraught sometimes (to the point where I think all the mods have had a spell of temporary insanity and considered allowing Mint at one point or another) but they're not too bad. Doing nothing, not changing the rules, is ultimately not that hard.
@Oli Welp, the saying goes "You're not a golden dollar, so can't be liked by everyone". What would be an example of tough balancing that you refer to ? I sort of have an idea, but i am trying to learn form practical examples here
I have the following setup:
Computer A has a Wifi-USB adapter (and is a robot, so it doesn't need real internet access). It's running Ubuntu 14.04.
Computer B is my Laptop running Ubuntu 14.04 also.
What I have done is setup a local Wifi hotspot on Computer B using this guide. It has an etherne...
@Serg Another real and recurrent misconception is that moderation/review/cleanups/etc can fix our main problem: unanswered questions. "If we could only get the review queues empty, we would suddenly be the best site on SE." They play a part, but helping people answer stuff is important.
@Serg Occasionally but only in the depths of arguing with really argumentative people.
If moderation turns into a full time job for anyone, I would hope somebody notices and tells the person to take it easy. It's supposed to be a volunteer tasks. You spend as much or as little time on it as you want.
@TheBrownOne do you have a recommendation for a template for a homepage sort of thing for my network? (let me just put some more "for"s here: for for for for)
I have a fortran program which I compiled myself and I ran the executable hundreds of times (without recompiling or anything), but now when I run it, it crashes instantly with segmentation fault. There are three other instances of the program running right now. top outputs the following:
top - 1...
@Rinzwind There is no system in place to keep track of that (not that I know of), but the other mods and people who are active in the community will notice of course.
I have taken quite a long break where I didn't do much at all, but since the site was running fine, it wasn't a problem.
Some sites have situations where they don't have enough moderators, and they're really busy. This is why mods promise to step down gracefully (i.e. not to just disappear one day)
@BharadwajRaju The .eps fileformat uses such a thumbnail which makes previews very fast. I would like to know if there is any presentation format which supports thumbnails.
I am working on an install of mailman 3.0.3 on Ubuntu Server 16.04 which ships with Python 3.5.1 and 2.7.11. Per Barry Warsaw that version of mailman requires Python 3.4.n. https://gitlab.com/mailman/mailman/issues/184
My choices seems to be:
downgrade 3.5.1
install 3.4.4 in parallel
use ...
@BharadwajRaju I sent a message to the OOO-thumbnailer developer to ask if he knows more about the topic. OOO-thumbnailer is not a server which would create those thumbnails automatically. It is more to be run for a single document.
@Oli What I consider 'dangerous' would be anything that would open a file permission too broadly, but would only introduce a locally-exploitable security issue.
what the world considers 'dangerous' would be system-ending vs. my security mindset ;)
If you see something mildly dangerous and you don't want to flag it (maybe it's just the answer the user was looking for), edit the answer and add a note about why and how it's dangerous.
@ThomasW. I think that depends on the situation but the context here is it's also not an answer to the question. Suggesting that somebody chmod -R +777 /var/www to change the Apache user, for example, is something I'd consider flagging to try to stop a desperate layman OP from trying it out.
I don't think it matters. If you can explain that it's dangerous and not an answer, the mods aren't going to sit down and argue with you and let it exist. They'll just delete it and be happy you helped.
@BharadwajRaju I think we can exclude `ooo-thumbnailer from the solution, see the body. Last update 2009, bugs reported 2012 etc. Also my test code fails in Ubuntu 16.04.
How do I define an Ubuntu Linux16.04 systemd service for fastcgi-mono-server4 or xsp4?
I have already defined an Ubuntu Linux16.04 systemd service for apache2 by copying obex.service to apache2.service and changing the ExecStart line in apache2.service.
When I do the same thing for xsp4.servic...
@Oli Did you see my reply to your mod message? I also just spotted an user with strange behaviour:
askubuntu.com/users/387157/pierre-vriens (about 600 rep) is doing edits all day, actually his entire reputation is from approved edits, he never asked or answered a single question. But what is really strange is that after having reviewed a handful of his edits today, I must say that he mostly edits answers that should get flagged as NAA instead.
Usually they are answers that should have been comments where the OP realized that they should have written a comment and added an excuse to the answer post.
Could you please talk to him and tell him that those answers should be flagged instead of edited?
The problem is that he never posted anywhere, so I could not even leave him a comment myself.
@BharadwajRaju No. Only moderators can write private messages. And only moderators can superping i.e. ping users although they have not been in the chat.
I rejected one of his suggested edits and explained that he should flag such answers, but who on earth reads edit rejection comments?
@Serg Whenever they have the experience and certifications to be able to do most any Linux task (network staging, networking, configuration-from-scratch, etc.) without having to Google for it in many cases
the problem is that there's no real 'guideline' for it :P
so people call themselves sysadmins when they really arent
the professional-grade certs like LPIC-1 are nice gateways
@Serg When they can install Arch from scratch, on a blank (zeroed, no partitions) disk with no internet in the Live CD and no Beginner's Guide to help them
I am working on an install of mailman 3.0.3 on Ubuntu Server 16.04 which ships with Python 3.5.1 and 2.7.11. Per Barry Warsaw that version of mailman requires Python 3.4.n. https://gitlab.com/mailman/mailman/issues/184
My choices seems to be:
downgrade 3.5.1
install 3.4.4 in parallel
use ...
How do I define an Ubuntu Linux16.04 systemd service for fastcgi-mono-server4 or xsp4?
I have already defined an Ubuntu Linux16.04 systemd service for apache2 by copying obex.service to apache2.service and changing the ExecStart line in apache2.service.
When I do the same thing for xsp4.servic...
