The Whiteboard

« first day (506 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (4461 days later) »

Yannis Rizos

8:55 AM

Goodmorning all!

4 hours later…

Yannis Rizos

1:17 PM

@PersonalNexus You're doing a great job with the edits, every one I saw (and of course approved) significantly improved the post. Thanks for all the hard work...

1 hour later…

PersonalNexus

2:27 PM

@YannisRizos Don't mention it. I usually keep a browser window open showing the newest questions. When I have time and see one with with grammar or formatting issues. I just fix it. Plus, I really want that Strunk & White badge :)

BTW: Question #16,000

Q: Is Usage Tracking esoteric or state of the art?

There are several products for tracking the usage of your application. I know at least 10 offers. They tell you which features were used more often than others. Thus you can identify features that may not make into new versions. While with Google Analytics or similiar stuff this a standard tool ...

2 hours later…

Yannis Rizos

4:24 PM

@PersonalNexus I got 9 more edits for Copy Editor, I'm trying so hard to resist doing silly edits just to get it sooner. You have 81 revisions all ready, so unless most of them are to your own posts, you'll get Shrunk & White very soon. Then, it's on to Reviewer... That was the sweetest badge for me because I was the first ever to get it (on Programmers)...

PersonalNexus

5:06 PM

@YannisRizos I am currently 9 edits away from Strunk & White. At my current rate of editing that's just a couple of days. The badge I really want to have though is Marshal. Nobody has it (yet) and after the recent change it requires "only" 500 helpful flags, which I think I can pull off. Maybe in time to be the first one to get it

Yannis Rizos

5:17 PM

@PersonalNexus If you really want Marshal, try really hard to not reach 3K rep :P It get's impossible after that - If you flag a question as off topic, your flag is converted to a close vote... So you can mostly flag answers, and fortunately there aren't many of those that deserve flagging...

PersonalNexus

Thanks for the 3K warning. I think you had mentioned it earlier, so I actually have plans in place to keep that from happening.

I had even thought of compiling a little tutorial "How to be a good flagger and earn a Marshal badge in the process", but a lot of the ideas for this are no longer relevant now that an occasional bad flags no longer results in a massive flag-weight loss.

Dan McGrath

5:49 PM

@Yannis, it isn't impossible, just harder. You can still flag things for moderators attention. For example, answers that should be comments, answers/questions that are offensive or spam, etc.

Yannis Rizos

6:20 PM

@DanMcGrath Yeap, there are always stuff to flag, but fortunately not that many. Spam answers (just a link) is what I flag most after 3K, and the occasional "very low quality" on some incomprehensible answers. But I Marshal being extremely hard to get may only mean that we don't get a lot of crap content, so it's a good thing...

3 hours later…

Jae

9:21 PM

@YannisRizos: Speaking of flagging just a link, should such answers be flagged i.e. if the only thing in the answer was a link to a external source? If so, what should it be flagged as?

user2334

9:52 PM

@Jae If it's only a link, you can flag it as not an answer: however, if the vast majority of the answers are just links (like, the question is the really not constructive "What's your favorite blog about programming?") and the question is closed/should be closed, there's really no point to flagging the answers unless it's part of an answer consolidation

user2334

When there are 35 answers that are mostly links on a closed question and only one answer is flagged as not an answer, it really doesn't do anything to save the question and raises questions as to why one answer was deleted but the other 34 weren't

Yannis Rizos

Just remember why I don't bother with Stack Overflow...

@Jae What Mark wrote... Be extra careful when flagging answers...

Jae

10:13 PM

@MarkTrapp @YannisRizos: I'm guessing then a lot of my recent flags have been unnecessary? Sorry about that. Won't happen again.

user2334

@Jae If you think a question could/should be saved, try focusing on the whole question before moving onto others; consolidate all the link-only answers into one, try to come up with at least a blurb explaining why those links are useful, flag that consolidated answer for community wiki, then flag all the now-duplicated link-only answers for deletion

Yannis Rizos

@Jae I have no idea, I don't see flags, only 10K users and mods do...

Jae

10:28 PM

@MarkTrapp: What if an answer is a 1-2 word, non-link, answer; it, technically, answers the question, but is not very explanatory. Can I just flag those?

Yannis Rizos

@Jae Example?

user2334

@Jae If the question is otherwise good and a couple people just decided to phone it in, yeah, flag those. But if most of the rest of the answers aren't much better, there isn't much point unless the question's getting some serious love

Jae

@YannisRizos: Say there are several, well written answers to a question, and someone comes out with a 1-2 word answer. But that answer is getting 3+ upvotes. Do I flag it?

Yannis Rizos

@Jae Not really. Downvote it, instead, if you feel it's not a useful answer

Jae

@YannisRizos: Ok. Thanks for the help. You too @MarkTrapp!

Yannis Rizos

10:36 PM

@Jae Flag only when there's nothing else you could do, and you need a moderator to step up.

@Jae And since we're down a mod right now, perhaps it's not the best time to flag...

@Jae Anyways, when you think something is wrong the steps are 1) improve, 2) ask OP to improve 3) down vote 4) flag...

Jae

@YannisRizos, @MarkTrapp: Sorry if I'm annoying you but I found a pretty good example. Consider this question:

Yannis Rizos

@Jae 5) Start cursing at the screen, and wishing you could punch people over standard TCP/IP...

Jae

Q: How to improve my algorithm skills using exercise?

I'm trying to find some places with algorithmic exercise? Do you know any? I found some: Project Euler Python Challenges Google Code Jam I'm especially looking for website providing automatic verification (like Google Code Jam) and featuring difficult algorithmic question (with hints). I fo...

learning self-improvement algorithms

Shouldn't all of the following answers be combined in to the first (longest) list?

Yannis Rizos

@Jae Well the two answers are a bit "just a link"... but @MarkTrapp should answer that, really...

Jae

@YannisRizos: What do you think though?

Yannis Rizos

10:43 PM

@Jae I think the question should be closed as not constructive, it just asks for a list of things...

user2334

@Jae We actually already saved one version of that question to make sure it was a canonical answer to the problem:

user2334

100

Q: Where can I find programming puzzles and challenges?

I'm trying to find places where I can hone my craft outside the context of school or work. Are there places online, or books available, where I can access lists of programming puzzles or challenges?

resources puzzles contests

user2334

I closed it as a duplicate

user2334

That's actually a pretty good example of what we're talking about when we mean "save" a question: before we consolidated the answers, there were 15+ answers that contained nothing but a link

Yannis Rizos

So, in that case it would have been helpful to flag the question and not bother with the answers...

Jae

10:46 PM

@MarkTrapp @YannisRizos: Makes sense. Thanks!

Yannis Rizos

@Jae Now you can move the recommendations from the question that was just closed to the canonical one, if they aren't already there...

user2334

@Jae This question should've been flagged instead of a single answer: all the answers are pretty similar in quality, but the problem is that the question is from the Antedisciplining period, when asking silly, pop-philosophy questions was allowed and encouraged. The question itself is not constructive

user2334

So deleting one answer doesn't do much to save it

Yannis Rizos

@MarkTrapp One answer stands out... It has a pretty picture in it...