The Whiteboard

5:00 AM

Wow... apparently we're considered the grumpy-unhelpful community over at server fault.

8

Q: Can we turn down the campaign heat, please?

Watching some of the moderator nomination comment threads, I get the mental image of a bucket brigade. And all the buckets contain gasoline. I'm not terribly surprised or offended by those who are campaigning on a "salted earth" approach to moderation. The fact that they're choosing to take thos...

Progs: The SE benchmark for curmudgeony comments

Somebody add it to the help page!

user15026

That's not something I would have expected, but I guess everyone needs to find someone more grumpy than them?

Ampt

> It kinda sounds like you've correctly identified the problem, and then... Arrived at the status quo as the solution. Let's face it: as a community, your reputation for cruelty, snark, and general unhelpfulness is unmatched - even Programmers, which attracts far fewer questions per day and rejects nearly all of them, doesn't come close to generating the levels of straight-up vitriol that y'all do. [continued]

user55340

I'll certainly agree with "when something is off topic we can be terse with just a link to meta" though that's more of "this doesn't fit into comments easily"

Ampt

> And so, upon observing that the only folks willing to still come here are utterly lost and desperate, your solution is... youtube.com/watch?v=0VjPNKc0VsU – Shog9♦ 2 days ago

I mean I was ready to set someone straight but it's Shog so...

user55340

We've also got the "I'm not going to migrate this to Stack Overflow (because it would get rejected)" which some might consider unhelpful.

Ampt

5:10 AM

Admittedly he claimed they were far worse.. but we're still the benchmark?

I mean.. where is Math.SE on this scale

user55340

Hint: they're helpful. sometimes.

user15026

I wonder, reading it again, if he means more "they have higher internal standards insofar as what they will accept than most sites do, and they manage not to be total jerks about it"

user55340

Math.SE has the "we don't close or delete anything" going on.

user55340

@AshleyNunn a possible complimentary reading.

user55340

Side bit though, we've gotten a few "whats up with Programmers.SE" type things showing up on Meta.SE in the past few days which might suggest that we're not helpful.

Ampt

5:14 AM

I mean at our core we are here to help people

user20683

it's a complicated problem

Ampt

but it's easy to get carried away with helping the ephemeral "future viewers" at the cost of the current posters

I wonder if chat is counter-productive to the productivity of SE

user55340

It has its place and its problems.

user55340

Without it, it becomes much harder for communities to form. That's something that SF is going to have even more trouble with.

Ampt

their community formed so hard it fractured

user55340

5:20 AM

On nearly all the other SE sites, one can go to the chat room and ask about the site and work through questions or problems with the site itself. The active people on the site are in chat.

user20683

@MichaelT Not necessarily

user55340

on SF, it appears that the active people on the site and the people in chat were two separate communities.

user20683

some sites have an active user to chat map and some don't

user20683

There are a good number of people here that are never in chat

user55340

Depends on the size of the community. If it doesn't get that critical mass chat can be dead.

Ampt

5:22 AM

@WorldEngineer and personally I think that's a good thing.

There are people who aren't a part of the echo chamber

user55340

My point is more one of it is harder to form that core group that drives the site without chat.

user55340

I wonder if SF's chat became too much of an echo chamber that it contributed to the "only sysadmins" and "we're not going to help" that appears to be brought out in that post.

Ampt

I will say that they did realize that this fracture would mean no more fresh blood in the conversations

but they also didn't care much at the current point and quickly had 30+ members join so there's a large community

user15026

@MichaelT This is site dependent. For example, there are loads of users on Pets who are awesome and super helpful, but the chat is deader than a doornail most days

user55340

@AshleyNunn Its about keeping enough people in chat such that the delay between chat messages isn't more than a few hours at most during quiet times.

user55340

5:26 AM

When I've poked some of the other beta site chats and see "last message 3 days ago" one wonders if there's any reason to say anything at all there.

user55340

On the other hand, if you see "last message 5 hours ago" and look back to see a lively bit of conversation earlier... well, that might be something to check in again - you just missed a recent party as it where.

user15026

@MichaelT Sometimes I feel like chat causes issues because it then becomes easy for one isolated group to think they get to make all the decisions and then when it doesn't go well, or people raise concern, it gets sticky fast. (I've seen this SO often on Gaming, where the core chat crowd gets really confused when people disagree, because they are so used to being the in crowd, and consider the chatters to be the "main" site people, when really, this isn't nearly as true as it would seem.)

user55340

@AshleyNunn the echo chamber danger.

user15026

@MichaelT In a nutshell.

Ampt

I mean the whole point behind requiring 5 close votes for stuff is that in a truly random distribution, 5 truly random, independent people represents enough of a majority to close a question. The problem with chat is that it becomes hard to be independent

If you, @MichaelT post a question in chat and say that it's too broad, I'll give it a once over to make sure you're not off your rocker, but it's no where near the inspection I'd give something on the queue with only one close vote.

and while I recognize that that's not great, it's also because I trust your opinion on stuff like that

user15026

5:33 AM

It tends to undermine the point of the close vote system.

user55340

@AshleyNunn its a difficult issue. If the close queue was less than 20, I'd agree with you. If its above 20, the lack of prompt closes makes it harder to give the appropriate guidance to the person asking the question in a timely manner, or address issues in the question without answers to complicate it... or migrate it.

Ampt

even if I did give it the level of inspection I give stuff in the queue with one CV, I'm still going to be unconsciously biased by my opinion of Michael as well.

yet, the system works great for crap questions that shouldn't even have been posted, or stuff that should clearly be migrated. then it works as a great tool to help us solve problems quicker

user55340

We don't have enough people working the queue as it is... and having a question with 3 close votes expire because of inactivity... it makes it much harder to close it later.

user15026

@MichaelT Which makes sense, I suppose, but at the same time, closing the question is not the only way to give guidance, and really, if the closing is the only guidance you are giving, there are bigger problems. I am all for closing questions, but at the same time, you have to also trust your community to do the work it is set to do, with the guidelines they are given in regards to appropriate content and so on.

Ampt

So is this not a part of the community though?

user15026

5:37 AM

Having gone through a few things where people didn't feel heard and felt like site policy was being decided by a small number of people in chat and not the community as a whole, I'd hate for anyone to have to go through that.

user55340

@AshleyNunn I prefer close / address / fix / reopen. Without that close, you can get answers answering different version of the question - and that makes for a messy post.

Ampt

@AshleyNunn Oh that's already a thing here.

as I'm sure you're aware :)

user15026

@MichaelT While I understand that, I also think that if the same people are always closing things, it can tend to create a culture of "well these 5 people have all the opinions and all of the power" which can get sticky

user15026

Mind you this is just a random outsider cupcake girl's opinion

Ampt

random outside cupcake girl who just happens to be a mod :P

user55340

5:39 AM

@AshleyNunn yep. But on the other hand... unless its truly a problematic post... we don't have 10 people casting close votes.

Ampt

your opinion is as valuable, if not more, than mine

user15026

@Ampt While true, not a mod here and I don't really interact with your site in any real non-lurker sense, so I might be totally off my rocker in terms of perception

user20683

@Ampt She's less random than you might believe

user15026

So I don't want to be like "I know it all yo"

Ampt

@AshleyNunn I think this is a lot broader than progs, and applies to the majority (if not all) the SE sites

@WorldEngineer Her words, not mine.

user55340

5:40 AM

You have a mod's perspective from another site that is similar in age, size, rate of questions, and number of down voted questions as P.SE.

user55340

One thing that I will point out about chat here is that even the non-denizens are aware of us and the activity of chat and will sometimes suggest someone take their question to chat... which I think is good advice.

Ampt

Yeah. I like that we're here to help, even when the question is off topic

user55340

That there is an acknowledged respect for the medium of chat and what it can do... and that we're not totally off our rocker.

Ampt

although we have been called that before

user20683

@Ampt This is a thing that really needs to be better expressed

Ampt

5:44 AM

very recently I might add

user15026

That's good at least, and I've noticed that. I like that a lot - it's not something I see much of in my moderation stuff because, well, Bridge culture

user55340

@WorldEngineer community advert 2015?

user20683

we also need to move more stuff to meta

user15026

Meta is such an underused tool for a lot of sites - it should not just be a complaint box, but yet another fixing tool in your toolbox.

user20683

more discussion needs to happen on meta regarding question x and how to make it better

Ampt

5:45 AM

LOL Like you need to tell @MichaelT that... guy's nuts

user15026

(even when it sucks, like when Gaming was sorting out its opinions on ITG)

user55340

@AshleyNunn Robert noted that we are the only chat room he's seen on SE that hasn't needed a posted "this is how you behave here"

user15026

@MichaelT Which is awesome. And I so wish more sites were like that. Heck, mine moreso than some others. Because the insularity that can occur among chat regulars can be unintentionally hostile.

user15026

Because "well we do things this way and you put up or shut up" which is a terribad way to approach anything.

user55340

@WorldEngineer the challenge of meta vs chat there is the rate at which something can be done. It has sometimes taken weeks to reach some sort of consensus on meta. Compared with a few minutes or hour at most here.

user15026

5:47 AM

I get wanting people to fit into established norms, but being hostile while they are trying to determine what the heck they might be is a whole other kettle of fishies

Ampt

I will say that there's a definite learning curve to the chat here

I remember the first few times I was on here and it would go completely quiet after I asked a question

user15026

@MichaelT True, but also consider that not all of your site is going to hit chat. Heck for most sites, I would say the chatters make a very small (but very loud) percentage

Ampt

I thought everyone was ignoring me

user15026

so it is important to allow more views and stuff and ideas and all of that

user55340

There's transparency of meta... but chat can be just as transparent if you look.

Ampt

5:48 AM

It wasn't even hostile but I thought I had broken some unwritten rule or done something to offend the people in the room

user55340

@Ampt "Do you fart in ~~your cubicle~~ the chat room?"

Ampt

@MichaelT CV: Migrate to TWP.

user55340

@WorldEngineer I would be more than happy to do "fix the post" in meta. I'd also like to get a consensus within an hour or two so that the question can be reopened while it is still fresh in the OP's mind (and other people who have possible answers). The longer we wait between close, fix, and reopen the harder it is to get that reopen interest.

Ampt

You know what, someone get joel on the line. We can just make our own podcast

The Whiteboard: Solving SE one problem at a time.

user55340

And in some cases, unless the person realizes the problem with the question in the first place (often by closing it), fixing becomes more difficult (here's a change.. rollback... ok, here's a change... rollback... flag for mod to lock and forget about it for a week).

user55340

5:57 AM

@WorldEngineer if you poke me a bit... say... on Tuesday, I can see about writing a post about using meta to fix specific questions and try to suss out how much activity is there and if it would be feasible.

Ampt

@MichaelT Can we expect more pictures soon then?

user55340

@Ampt I'll work on it. Its a "need to sit down with aperture and figure out which ones I like"

user55340

(side bit - glance at the participation tab for sorting users on Meta and consider that the top three rows look a lot like chat... and after that, it drops off quite rapidly to people who posted a question there earlier this season)

Ampt

apparently chat is factored into that equation, thus I'm not sure I trust it.

user55340

22

A: How is meta participation calculated?

This is pretty much answered by the tooltip you get when you hover over the "participation" sort link: Users most active on this site in the last 60 days (combined number of posts, votes, comments and edits). -- that's all it is. Take the sum of those four values and sort the users based on...

user55340

6:02 AM

no chat in that function.

Ampt

ah, I was under the chat tag for my question about getting banned in chat

user55340

@WorldEngineer saw that you migrated that css ordering one. Did the OP take my advice and flag it for migration?

user20683

@MichaelT Can't speak to that

user55340

@WorldEngineer I know I didn't flag it. I also didn't close vote it... and there were no other close votes on it (it was on topic on P.SE). However, SE has mentioned that "if the OP flags it for a move and its a good move, move it" - thus, if the OP flagged it... well, it would (should) move. And it did. Thus, I believe the OP flagged it.

user55340

7:27 AM

bad.solutions (note - not a funny link there - thats a raw url. That does go somewhere... and its work safe)

MetaFight

4:34 PM

cute

user55340

6:39 PM

Here's one for @YannisRizos (to delete quickly?):

user55340

-1

Q: exercise in compilers(deterministic automata)

can somebody help me with this difficult problem or just give me a direction oh how to take the automata?it s for a project and it is really very demanding . Έστω n κανονικές γλώσσες L1, L2, …, Ln, οι συμβολοσειρές των οποίων αναγνωρίζονται από τα ΠΑ Μ1, Μ2, …, Mn, αντίστοιχα. Να περιγράψετε ένα...

compilers

gnat

8:25 PM

bland, bukeshedding questions like this reliably make it into hot list. "Is it normal for a programmer to blah blah..." This is sad because it makes network wide audience believe Programmers are like that, but not surprising, given that nobody votes them down

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