The Whiteboard

12:24 AM

Can I assume there has been prior discussion of a feature that allows editors to mark their edit as insignificant, thus not triggering a hotness boost? Would be nice if that feature could both exist, and be used/abused for tag cleanups.

Thomas Owens

@psr I think so.

I think I was going to ask about it on MSO and found a duplicate.

Let me check.

5

Q: Mark edit as "minor" to prevent bumping

Possible Duplicate: Could we have the ability to mark a change as minor in questions or answers? Minor spelling corrections should not bump a question IMHO. Therefore, a checkbox (far away from the CW one please) "minor edit" should be available to signify "this edit did not change any...

I think there was also a question about tag edits never bumping a question. I couldn't find it, though.

psr

Thanks for looking it up. I find the arguments against it quite annoyingly silly. Hotness is not a security feature. Oh well.

Thomas Owens

I think that editing tags should not bump the post. If you actually go into the full edit screen, that should. Makes checking very easy, I would assume.

Jae

12:40 AM

@MarkTrapp: How can I help the [software] clean-up? Should I vote to close on @YannisRizos list? Should I retag the questions? Anything else?

user2334

@ThomasOwens Case study of why that doesn't happen

user2334

@Jae The only thing left to do is evaluate Yannis's list: he's identified them as being off-topic/not constructive. We moderators will likely go through and start closing ones we agree with, and after a month, the ones that are closed will be deleted. If you think a question on the list should be closed, definitely add your vote to let us know the community doesn't want it

Thomas Owens

@MarkTrapp I forgot about that, yeah. Although making it a 10k or 20k option would make it OK, perhaps? The only thing I know is that it does make tag cleanups a pain in the ass.

user2334

@Jae If you think a question should stay, make it the best question it can be to show it belongs. Revise the question, consolidate piecemeal answers, flag duplicate answers: there's nothing to lose at this point because they're about to be deadpooled

user20683

@MarkTrapp I assume there will a mod election soonish?

user2334

12:44 AM

@ThomasOwens tags are the symptom of a larger problem with questions; 95% of the time, a question with a bad tag needs substantial improvement, and the bad tag was a sign the question didn't have much thought put into it. Retagging without evaluating the question itself doesn't really make things all that better

Thomas Owens

That is a valid point. The only exception to those are a few questions that are good and the person picks a bad tag without actually reading the "please don't use it" note. I noticed a lot of that with careers.

user2334

@WorldEngineer We've asked, but haven't been told anything. It's been a year since the last one and we lost a mod who handled ~25% of the flags, so it's fairly likely

Thomas Owens

Didn't a mod just come back after kind of dropping off the grid for a while?

user20683

Justin K or whatshisname?

user2334

He came back, but to put it into perspective, ChrisF, Anna, and I each handle between 150-200 flags a month. Josh handles about 20-30 :P

psr

12:48 AM

@Mark Trapp -I'm just not seeing the 95% bad questions thing on that list.

Thomas Owens

So cleanup policy: If I find a question that's salvageable and I salvage it, do I just remove it from the list?

Or do I move it to some other list for further comment?

psr

Or if I see a question that doesn't need salvaging and re-tag it?

Thomas Owens

That, too. I don't see any guidance for how to deal with an individually-handled question. I might have missed it, though.

user2334

@psr Anything that's on that list is going to be evaluated by a moderator: if you think there's nothing wrong with any of those questions and none of them need any improvement, that's up to you if you think we're going to agree

psr

So why the process?

And, I think some of them should go. Just way under 95%

So far

Thomas Owens

12:51 AM

Yeah. A lot look good to me.

user2334

Experience says that every question can be improved: there are no perfect questions. That's why we have community editing. We're trying to get you guys to take ownership of that process: people complain that questions don't get reopened, yet nobody does anything to improve low quality questions

user2334

Now's the chance to make those questions good or make a case why they're good.

user20683

This why I keep editing my stuff periodically

user20683

I've earned around 12 votes on a 3 month old answer this week

Thomas Owens

Although I'm not seeing this in the software tag, something that might need to be thought about is how to deal with questions that are a good idea, but salvaging them to make them viable would make some/many/most answers nonsensical.

psr

12:55 AM

Well, I can make a case, I have some of them in an unfinished reply on meta in my browser, but some of them are, IMHO of course, clearly on-topic, reasonably clearly stated (I suppose it's possible I might do better, but they are fine), and just not notably inspiring. Or didn't inspire notable answers. But it isn't clear why we are deleting them.

4. **Create software without programming** - Not a question a programmer would ask, but if someone with no clue about programming googled for something like this, I would personally be pretty happy if the link they followed went to this question.

5. **How do you name/brand software?** - Dubiously on topic, but Rachel had a good answer. Sadly, no programmer will probably ever find that answer if it is moved to a more appropriate site (or, of course, deleted).

7. Which skills would you expect and appreciate in a Junior Software Engineer? Highly up-voted, reasonable question. The answers almost entirely had nothing to do with programing but why close?

user2334

> The answers almost entirely had nothing to do with programing

user2334

You really don't understand why it would have to be closed if that's the case?

psr

Hit enter before I finished formatting, but those are some examples of the ones I thought were better.

Well, sometimes the question is about programming and could have had good answers, but actually didn't get any.

Thomas Owens

I haven't looked at that question, but I agree. Just because the answers are bad doesn't mean the question is bad.

user2334

Think of it this way; someone's flagged a few dozen questions for moderator attention. We have an obligation to resolve those flags. Now, we're going to evaluate based on the questions as written whether they meet our quality standards just like we do with any other question. Now's the time to say, "whoa, hold on a minute: this question is kind of mediocre, but we can make it better." We moderators can't be the only ones making heroic edits to mediocre questions.

psr

1:00 AM

I'll even admit usually when the answers are bad the question is not a glorious ball of wonder. But it's often at least O.K.

user2334

@ThomasOwens If a questions' been sitting around for months and has not attracted good answers, yes, it absolutely means the question's bad. The internet is worse off by having Q&A pairs that suck.

user2334

If the question is so valuable, it can be reasked and refocused to attract high quality answers

psr

Sometimes the question is phrased O.K. but just isn't inspiring. I don't see how it can be edited. Some should be edited by people (ideally other than moderators, you do a lot of work, @MarkTrapp). I'll edit those I think I can.

Hmm, I guess the stats on questions getting answers after sitting a long time probably are pretty bad?

user2334

@psr The point of every question is to attract good answers: if they aren't doing that, there's something wrong with the question. Newer questions might just need a bit of time to find their expertise, but when we're talking about questions in cleanups that have been sitting around for weeks and sometimes several months, at a certain point, we're just fooling ourselves

user2334

@psr Right, exactly

Steven Jeuris

1:06 AM

Have you guys read this? This is genius! :) arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2012/01/…

psr

In particular, the Junior Software engineer question seemed above average. But IMHO only one answer had anything to do with programming, and I think it had something like 2 votes, counting mine. (And mine was half out of annoyance at the other answers).

user2334

In some cases, there might be OK questions that got a bunch of answers that individually suck (like, they're piecemeal answers or not complete answers); in those cases, we could flip an OK question with a ton of crappy answers into a canonical question with one, really great comprehensive answer that combines the best parts of all the piecemeal answers.

Thomas Owens

@MarkTrapp I see your point, yeah. Although that does bring up the problem I mentioned earlier: If the question is about something good, how do you edit it without invalidating the answers? It doesn't seem right to close it and reask as a new question, giving the rep to a different user.

psr

Does anything in the FAQ mention that your question is likely to be deleted, even if highly up-voted, if the moderators (with some community involvement) don't think it had any good answers? I don't think it's very well disclosed, but I might have missed it.

Thomas Owens

I suppose edit it and flag it for a moderator to delete any invalid answers?

user2334

1:08 AM

@psr if a question got good answers in addition to crappy answers, flag the crappy answers for deletion. Particularly ones that are one-liners, cartoons, nothing more than links, etc. A lot can be done to a question's property value by sprucing up the answers

psr

Do you have anything on meta (or maybe overflow meta) about how to clean up? I wasn't aware of some of these options.

user2334

@psr Good Subjective, Bad Subjective and Real Questions Have Answers both talk about how the type of answers a question attracts informs its quality and appropriateness on the network. They're then codified in the What kind of questions should I not ask here? part of the FAQ

user2334

@psr It's in piecemeal across different cleanup discussions. That's why I'm trying to set up this structured tag cleanup system

user2334

@ThomasOwens I think if a question's answers suck along with the question, and there's no way to improve the question without invalidating all those answers, it should be reasked. If the question sucks, but the answers are stellar, rewriting the question to match the answers is definitely a good way to go. Otherwise, some combination, like combining answers and taking a hatchet to the question, is probably good

psr

We are talking about Real Questions Have Gotten Good Answers, and that post is more about Real Questions Can Be Answered

Thomas Owens

1:15 AM

That makes sense. Although I'm not a fan of the last option of majorly changing the question. I mean, someone asked it and their name is next to it (until community wiki, and unless someone views the history). I'm not comfortable making such exhaustive edits to a question under those conditions. It's one thing to take their comments and roll them into the question, or fix their English, and reorganize paragraphs to make it awesome. It's another to totally change what they asked.

user2334

@psr Answers are not non sequiturs: people write them to answer the question as they read it. If a question is attracting nothing but one liners, opinions, and other junk, there's obviously something wrong with the way the question's written that has people completely failing to provide a good answer. That's the point of those blog posts: questions must be written in a way to attract and invite good answers. Bad answers are a smell that the question failed to do that

psr

Anyway, what's wrong with "Why is it that software is still easily pirated today?" Other than the tag, and that it's an easy question. Just trying to get some specific examples.

user2334

@ThomasOwens That's the bargain made by contributing to Stack Exchange, though: everyone's contributions are CC licensed to allow liberal editing and make posts the best possible post they can be. If someone's uncomfortable with the way one of their post's been edited, we have the option to remove their name from it so as to not attribute things they don't agree with to them

user2334

@psr What problem is it solving?

Thomas Owens

That requires them to be active on the site, though.

user2334

1:20 AM

@ThomasOwens Everyone agrees to the terms when they contribute: CC is a perpetual license

Steven Jeuris

@MarkTrapp Why not just do this by default when editing a question drastically, when practically nothing remains of the original?

Thomas Owens

I'm not questioning that it's allowed. It's that I, personally, aren't comfortable doing it. Someone active on the site sees edits that have been made and can continue to revise or rollback if it's way out of line. Someone who isn't active can't, and it just doesn't seem right to continue to have their name attached as the original creator so clearly.

user2334

@StevenJeuris Content is licensed via CC-BY-SA, which requires attributing all contributors' contributions unless they decide to give up that right to attribution. Unless they say "I don't want my name on this" we have to assume they do, and we're bound by the terms of the license to honor that

user20683

@ThomasOwens I'm a very different person than I was in high school, but there are people whom I knew in high school who have this particular impression of me. I disliked high school a lot so I've no desire to spend the effort to correct a mistaken impression that doesn't really amount to anything

user20683

as an example by analogy (weakish)

Thomas Owens

1:24 AM

I'm not really seeing the analogy. Especially on a site like Programmers, where many of the people are professionals and many use their real names (either as their account name or included in their profile).

psr

I think the junior programmer question got bad answers because everyone knows at least a little about it. And it is phrased to provoke discussion more than answers. But it already has 7 edits! And it's fundamentally a reasonable question, and it does solve a problem. So, flag the answers? For what? Not being specific to software development? (Most aren't IMHO).

Thomas Owens

Actually, I read that question. Over the past few months, I've had the opportunity to work with interns/co-ops (mainly upperclassmen, in their last year or two of school) from a few universities. Those answers are pretty much spot on. It's not a lack of technical abilities, but the non-technical and general skills that are lacking in many individuals.

psr

@MarkTrapp - The piracy question could be solving the problem of how to protect your software from piracy. I think it was asked out of curiosity, but the question and answers would probably be essentially the same.

user2334

@ThomasOwens When you contribute to a project that uses a collaborative license, whether it's Stack Exchange or Wikipedia or an open-source project, you have to trust that the people you're collaborating with are going to do the right thing with your contributions. There are protections, like the right to remove your name after the fact, for abuse, but if someone's not comfortable with trusting others with their contributions, they really shouldn't be contributing to a liberally-licensed project

user2334

@psr Can the question be revised to make the connection to the problem it solves clearer?

Thomas Owens

1:28 AM

The difference is, on Wikipedia, your name isn't clearly attached to the post/edit/article (with the exception of on the comment page where you sign a post). My wikipedia user name is my name, and you can see the edits that I've made. But unless you explicitly look, you can't see what I've done to make Wikipedia a better place. That's not true on SE.

psr

@ThomasOwens - re - junior programmer question. Kind of an argument for being reluctant to delete, when opinions vary so much among reasonable people. I thought the answers to "what makes a good boy scout" would be pretty much the same. It's all true enough, but dubiously informative. And dubiously about programming. But I think your point is valid.

user2334

@ThomasOwens Notwithstanding any rights we have to modify people's content, if we're going into massively changing people's posts to save the question or answer for posterity, we could just flip the CW switch, since the community is taking ownership of the post anyway.

Thomas Owens

That would work for me.

user2334

Definitely flag the post for moderator attention then: you guys definitely can't CW questions, and I'm pretty sure you can't CW an answer that wasn't originally yours

user2334

Well, not manually at any rate

psr

1:33 AM

@MarkTrapp - The piracy question could be revised to "how can software piracy be prevented" and the answers re-cast accordingly. But I personally don't see that much point. It's clear, even to a non-programmer, how one implies the other.

We just need a group of 16 people ready to force everything into CW by spamming answers. That would make the moderator's lives easier, right?

Thomas Owens

Or edits. 10 edits to CW?

psr

Er, joking, by the way.

user2334

@psr You might not see the point, or it might be clear to you, but someone's already raised the flag that the question doesn't belong, and by not revising the question, you're running the risk that we're not going to see it the same way you do. Personally, I'd just humor me and edit the question :P

psr

@Thomas Posted that before I saw your comment. So, wasn't implying your comment meant you didn't realize mine was joking. Sometimes chat is a pain.

user2334

I think it's 10 edits or 5 different people, whichever comes first

Thomas Owens

1:36 AM

So in a retag/cleanup, it might be trivial to force a CW without a diamond mod. Not that I'd suggest doing it for every question, it might be something to consider for some questions.

Meh. I'll catch up tomorrow morning. I'm really interested in the new structured cleanup, though.

Yannis Rizos

@ThomasOwens Yes it might be trivial, especially for older posts. But then there's always the option to flag for moderation attention and ask for CW status to be removed

If done unintentionally that is...

user2334

@YannisRizos The goal is to use CW to avoid any issues about putting words into author's mouths when someone does a heroic edit on a post

Yannis Rizos

Yeap, I'm trying to follow the discussion but a couple of offensive flags showed up on chat posts with pictures with light nudity and I was a bit... distracted...

btw everyone thanks for getting involved I spammed chat quite a few times and this is the first time I got a response. My "kill list" was only meant for evaluation...

@MarkTrapp That sounds good.

psr

1:59 AM

So, for the name/brand software question, it's probably not on topic, but in reality programmers often do end up naming software. And my favorite answer basically says not to. Anyone have an opinion about whether changing the question wording to add something along the lines of "given that programmers often end up naming software" would help? It actually hasn't been closed as off topic.

Also, I would argue that suggesting to ask users in on-topic, since that could be part of a programming job sort of specific to programming, but that "use an anagram for inspiration" is off topic, because it has nothing to do with programming. So I could flag all but one answer. Seems rather opinionated of me though.

Yannis Rizos

2:18 AM

@psr do you have a handy link to that?

Yannis Rizos

3:02 PM

0

Q: Choosing the right branching strategy for releases

Starting with a new dev team on a new project and we have to define our Branching strategy for our source repository (e.g. Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010). We've run into a sticky discussion over whether or not to... A. Have one Release branch from which we do production builds and then ...

version-control tfs release-management branching

Jae

7:02 PM

Will the following question be closed for any reason:

"What are the perks of using a CMS vs making a site from scratch?"

or

"CMS vs Website from scratch"

user20683

9:06 PM

@Jae webmasters.stackexchange.com

user20683

I think that's the right site for your question

Jae

9:19 PM

@WorldEngineer: Thanks!

user20683

Is it feasible to do an emulation or at least an ISS of the Apollo Guidance Computer as a semester project?

user2334

10:12 PM

@Jae It's been asked a number of times here in various different iterations. Probably needs a cleanup at some point: personally, I think "What are the benefits/drawbacks of using a web framework over developing something in-house?" is closer to what's on-topic/constructive here

user2334

4

Q: Website development from scratch v/s web framework

Do people develop websites from scratch when there are no particular requirements or they just pick up an existing web framework like Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, etc. The requirements are almost similar in most cases; if personal, it will be a blog or image gallery; if corporate, it will be infor...

web-development frameworks web-framework cms

Jae

10:31 PM

@MarkTrapp: So if I asked "What are the benefits/drawbacks of using a web framework over developing something in-house?" here, would I get "shut-down"?

user2334

@Jae It'd likely be closed as an exact duplicate

Jae

@MarkTrapp: That's what I thought... but that's why I came here first :-)

Transcript for