The Assembly

I would be starting groundwork for my thesis in cryptography , I would like to know what are current open problems in cryptography, few I know of are Fully Homomorphic Encryption Functional Encryption ( which is bigger framework for solving the below) 2.a Identity Based Encryption 2.b Attrib...

encryption

Do you think that'd work, or is it better to close those to discourage that kind of question?

Ivo Flipse

It would be better if he asked about which open problems there are on chat, then if one has a special interest to him, he can come up with an actual question about it

A description of why something is still an open problem and has been tried to solve it, but didn't work because of blabla would be a lot more useful

Meanwhile from the DIY department, what is wrong with my blender if it starts to smell like its smoking :\

Ninefingers

@IvoFlipse mmmm something bad?!

room topic changed to The Assembly: Open moderator discussion for the SE network. If you need to discuss details covered by the user privacy agreement, please use TL. [moderation] [moderator] [moderator-]*

^^ that should be obvious, but just in case :)

Ivo Flipse

@Ninefingers Somewhat ironic that everybody thinks I hate [nutrition] so bad, while I'm drinking protein shakes and read Wheat Belly

Ninefingers

@IvoFlipse I can't stand the taste of those things :(

Ivo Flipse

@Ninefingers Then you have the wrong recipe, the protein stuff is just one spoonfull.

Ninefingers

11:49 AM

@IvoFlipse Mmmm, it was somebody else who offered me one. Have to find someone who knows what they're making I think.

Ivo Flipse

Orange Juice, banana, spinach (really!), a bunch of nuts, protein powder and lots of blending :-)

Alenanno

Oh I'm one of the first users in here! :P

Ivo Flipse

Please note that anything you say is this room can and will be used against you in any Meta discussion

Alenanno

@IvoFlipse As usual, then... :P

Ninefingers

I love unicorns. Use that against me ;)

Ivo Flipse

11:56 AM

Has any of you noticed an uptick in traffic due to the design changes?

I guess Quantcast thinks we haven't really

Ninefingers

@IvoFlipse Not yet; hoping though :)

Ivo Flipse

I mean, the new design puts beta sites at least somewhat more in the spotlight, you'd hope that users from other sites would go and have a peek there as well

Though I still think the Hot Questions list is biased to certain sites...

Yannis Rizos

@IvoFlipse "which especially in Programmers case I believe is due to the users there being much more liberal in upvoting answers than the other sites." True.

Ivo Flipse

I don't really mind that they're voting so much, but I do mind seeing every question, even if its not worth it, be at the top of the Hot Question list. So there needs to be a normalizer that picks out questions that really stand out

Yannis Rizos

@IvoFlipse I do mind... The first P.SE question on the hot list right now is off topic and it doesn't even come close to being representative of the community.

1

Q: Python is slowly replacing C in universities. Doesn't this move degrade the quality of CS students?

Learning C is one of the most important aspects of any programmer. Its a beautiful combination of High level and a low level language. University's move to stop teaching C in introductory stages can degrade the quality of students.

python c

Ivo Flipse

12:04 PM

I meant rather that I didn't mind that you guys vote so much, I obviously do care if users consistently vote on the wrong thing, but I have no solution to fix it. Deleting them has proven to be a rather counter-productive measure :P

If only the people who answer and vote on these questions understood how they are negatively influencing the site's image on the rest of the network...

Alenanno

Sounds like a peeve question, isn't it?

I mean, I'm no expert in the field, but it looks like this type of case: it is a rant disguised as a question: “______ sucks, am I right?”

Ivo Flipse

I don't think there's any way to change the question to make in on-topic, but even if he were a CS prof honestly being interested in the pros and cons of C vs Python as the main language for CS education, I don't think its the right question

Yannis Rizos

@IvoFlipse It's understandable that they don't get how it hurts the site in the long run. What's not understandable is how they refuse to get it after we spend hours on Meta trying to explain. Or how they do get it, but somehow the specific question in question is the exception...

Ivo Flipse

I honestly have no way how to educate these users to get them to behave more as wanted, if only because they don't want to be persuaded

Yannis Rizos

12:20 PM

in Programmers, yesterday, by Yannis Rizos

@psr The first programming principle I learned was RTFM. It amazes me how many people just fail to read the absolutely simplistic guidelines... If that makes me an elitist bitch, I'll wear that badge with honour...

The user that sparked that conversation was going around chat rooms calling everyone elitist bitches because he was question banned on SO... Somehow he managed to miss SO chat rooms though...

Ninefingers

12:35 PM

@Alenanno in answer to your 20 or more comments flag, you don't have to delete the comments if you don't want to; you can remove selected comments, the whole lot or nothing. It depends on what you think is best - is there value in the comments? Can the users (or you) edit it (the discussion) into the question?

However, you'll probably want to mark the flag helpful; declining community flags I think declines any other flags on the post too (right?)

Yannis Rizos

I usually delete off topic comments, and post a comment along the lines of "comments are not suitable for extended discussion, please use chat instead"...

Alenanno

I usually do that, but maybe there was another way to handle this, so I asked... Thanks! :)

Alenanno

6:25 PM

@casperOne Good stuff!!!

Ivo Flipse

hi @Sathya, how did SaaS-class go?

Sathya

hey

trying to come up with solutions

finding subtle differences between yours & mine

Ivo Flipse

@Sathya I believe freiheit came up with solution 4, that was quite elegant

I dread my tournament solution

Sathya

tournament =  [
              [
              [ ["Armando", "P"], ["Dave", "S"] ],
              [ ["Richard", "R"], ["Michael", "S"] ],
              ],
              [
              [ ["Allen", "S"], ["Omer", "P"] ],
              [ ["David E.", "R"], ["Richard X.", "P"] ]
              ]
              ]

my solution XD

Ivo Flipse

Careful not to break the honor code ;P

Sathya

6:34 PM

@IvoFlipse ah, yet to reach that :\

Ivo Flipse

At some point I stopped with ex2 and went on with the other exercises first

Sathya

@IvoFlipse well, I'll stop for now

> Mon 5 Mar 2012 3:59:00 PM PST

Ivo Flipse

hehe, giving up are we? ;P

Sathya

so I still have a bit of a time

Ivo Flipse

Oh I thought it was that late already, hehe

Sathya

6:43 PM

@IvoFlipse naah, it's 15 past 12, I need to goto sleep. Office tomorrow :\

Ivo Flipse

Ah well, you know where to find me

Sathya

@IvoFlipse indeed. ciao for now!

Ninefingers

7:06 PM

@IvoFlipse Oh thanks for adding me to the trello board by the way :)

I can now see what you're planning.

Have you a meta guide to the colours?

Ivo Flipse

@Ninefingers What colors?

Super User Blog Editor Room

Where the editors drink coffee and try to get things done!

Ninefingers

@IvoFlipse On the trello board - you're using colours, I wonder if they had any meaning.

Ivo Flipse

No clue, I leave that stuff to Tom Wijsman

Ninefingers

@IvoFlipse Ok, I'll ask him when I have time.

Ivo Flipse

For now, don't worry :-)

nhinkle

7:31 PM

Welcome folks. Anyone awake?

Ivo Flipse

I are

We haven't persuaded a lot of mods to join us yet :P

nhinkle

I'm going to go write a meta post essentially calling on all of us to be more transparent and use this room. Also it would be nice to get the extra TL features like pinging all mods on a site enabled for this room.

Ivo Flipse

I'm all for it, it will just take some persuading to get others in here

Some of us are more used to hang out in public rooms, than others though

Sathya

what's the purpose of this room again :-s

yes, yes I was supposed to be asleep an hour ago >___>

nhinkle

@Sathya the point is for this to be the TL, and for the TL to only be for stuff that's truly confidential.

So as to increase overall transparency of the moderation process and our interactions with the SE team.

By making it public, it lets other users see more about how moderation works, and to see that yes, we do work hard to get their ideas and feedback through to the team. But by making it gallery, we don't get bogged down by random users coming in and turning it into just another general chatroom.

Sathya

7:39 PM

mhmm

nhinkle

We still have the TL for things that can't be discussed in the open (socks, account details, ~~secret parties~~, etc.) but we can conduct all the normal discussion in here.

2

Things like "su mods: would this be good for you?" can be a learning opportunity for all users to see what constitutes a good question. Discussion about site objectives and goals would be more open. And when we say "hey Rebecca, can you burninate this tag/check this meta post/update our FAQ/whatever" everyone can see that process working.

Sathya

sounds good

nhinkle

Anyhow, I need to go write a meta post.

nhinkle

7:54 PM

1

Q: A call for increased moderator transparency

It's the general policy of Stack Exchange to conduct moderator activities as transparently and openly as possible. Right now, a lot of the communication between moderators is conducted in a private chat room. This is done for good reason - the moderator agreement specifically prohibits us from di...

discussion chat moderation moderator-tools community

2

Ninefingers

@nhinkle Good stuff :)

Ivo Flipse

It was to be expected @Arjan would be one of the first to check out the room ;-)

phwd

So is everyone still down for the dinner party on Friday?

Ninefingers

@phwd Is the dress code blue? If so, count me in :)

phwd

The only thing that seems not possible in here is the ability to ping for migrations easily. Which means I need to go dig back for the user script again

whois cat mods

yup, no show.

Ninefingers

8:07 PM

@phwd @nhinkle's feature-request has requested that for here.

Ivo Flipse

@shog9 How hard would it be to set up a blog for the SO community? Other than the url being an issue?

phwd

@IvoFlipse I think he went for a break for the rest of the day

@IvoFlipse what day was the design change again?

Ivo Flipse

@phwd Too bad, because I think it would be a great way to 'backup' some of the contentious posts in a convenient way

@phwd Can't recall exactly, wednesday?

phwd

Oh, yeah I don't see any change in stats

Gilles

@phwd we could ask to have the bot here, that wouldn't be a big deal

Ivo Flipse

8:14 PM

@phwd Well quantcast is for the whole of SE, so if we don't see a marked change there, its unlikely to effect single sites significantly. Only MSO seems to have gotten a huge bump in traffic, I wonder if that was due to the redesign...

Stack Exchange

Ninefingers has removed Ninefingers from the list of this room's owners.

Sklivvz

8:55 PM

Oh noes! A public room! Where will I go to do my secret evil moderator stuffs, now?

user2334

Sic semper tyrannis!

user2334

Wait, why am I allowed to talk here?

Ninefingers

@MarkTrapp You're still blue!

user2334

►

Ninefingers

@MarkTrapp Sorry :(

Ivo Flipse

9:03 PM

@MarkTrapp You know you can't really leave

While you have a point that stuff often should go to Meta, some things first have to be thought up before they can be asked. Crowdsourcing possible solutions or approaches to something is a lot easier on chat than on Meta

Ninefingers

@MarkTrapp Although whilst we're here, 1) I am sad you're stepping down and 2) thanks for the help, advice and assistance along the way :)

2

user2334

@IvoFlipse So do it in a completely open chat. Can't crowdsource if you mute the people you're crowsourcing from

Ivo Flipse

@MarkTrapp Technically, we have 200+ mods to crowdsource from :P

But nothing's set in stone, so if you have any good suggestions, then we can change our approach

user2334

@IvoFlipse So if you're not at all interested in the peanut gallery's opinion, why this charade of openness? The only people who would be interested in this are going to be the people who are meticulously taking notes to see when mods slip up and they can have their gotcha moment on meta about how X pet issue has to be resolved because see see mods are handling it incorrectly

3

user2334

@Ninefingers de nada :P

user2334

9:09 PM

@IvoFlipse If you want to be open, go full bore. Berate people in TL for discussing public matters in private and refuse to engage with mods who do. Use meta and open chat rooms to discuss ideas.

Ivo Flipse

@MarkTrapp Which will only achieve that I can pat my chest for being morally above the rest, while getting shit done

user2334

@IvoFlipse What does this chat room achieve? Seems more like a CYA than a real change in mod transparency. TL still exists, and the people who don't trust mods in the first place can keep pointing to that. Just like the government declassified only the unimportant UFO documents: the real goods are still locked up in Area 51 and Fort Knox.

Sklivvz

@MarkTrapp Are you suggesting the Richard Stallman approach? /hides

Ninefingers

@MarkTrapp Unfortunately people are always going to have that argument - we will always need to keep some stuff behind closed doors because we agreed to protect user's privacy in line with the mod agreement.

That said, we can have some stuff more in-public.

user2334

@Sklivvz Well I don't think there's a problem with mod transparency, and it feels like mods have been thrown under the bus as an easy scapegoat for the whole deletion bitchmeme. But if it really is a problem, this isn't a solution.

Ninefingers

9:14 PM

and I'd not be adverse to allowing non-mods in - but we do need a way to deal with trolls etc.

user2334

@Ninefingers Mods have those tools: kick, suspend, time outs, etc.

Ninefingers

@MarkTrapp True. and we'd always be around to monitor it, given there's a few of us :)

Ivo Flipse

@MarkTrapp I don't expect this to solve the deletion war

but hopefully it'll show other users we don't just hang out to scheme against them and to find what question we can delete next

user2334

@IvoFlipse Nah, all the scheming's done in TL.

user2334

tents fingers

Sklivvz

9:17 PM

Sheesh I stand to lose about 50% of my SO rep or so...

Ivo Flipse

@MarkTrapp Well then at least they can see we also have a nice side, just like people hate the government, but still hold up their hand for social service

Ninefingers

We're never going to "win" vs those who ultimately believe we are out to get them and that's just how it is, unfortunately. But as @Ivo says, for some users, this'll help us seem less distant. Or so the theory was; happy to hear different view on it.

user2334

I think the sentiment's great: I just don't think the gallery chat room's the way to go. If the current status quo of discussing public issues on meta is still too distant, then create a public chat room to talk about issues.

user2334

Although as an aside, even my most ardent detractors on Programmers appreciated the level of engagement I provided on Meta Programmers.SE. And I think nearly every mod does the same on their respective metas

Ninefingers

@MarkTrapp The more you say this the more I find myself agreeing with you. Hmmm. We'll see what people think. I ultimately don't mind what happens; I'd just like to do something.

Ivo Flipse

9:27 PM

@MarkTrapp Probably not of the same size, but on SU we do have a room where they can ask us questions. Whether they always get answered is a different matter

Ninefingers

@MarkTrapp I follow crypto meta avidly :) and crypto chat.

Ivo Flipse

room mode changed to Public: anyone may enter and talk

Sklivvz

Hey!!! :-)

Ivo Flipse

@MarkTrapp We'll see, I'll happily suspend anyone who thinks he can troll this room

And yes, you may quote me on that one

user2334

I think joran's answer on the question is a great, actionable problem: he just wanted to know why a mod stepped in after the community reopened a question. A simple comment could've went a long way. Copious commenting is the bee's knees if you can spare the time: lets people know you actually understand what happened.

Ivo Flipse

9:32 PM

@MarkTrapp I can only second your comment there, leaving a comment is always a good thing. Though it obviously depends on the context

Ninefingers

10:16 PM

room topic changed to The Assembly: Open room for discussion amongst and with moderators for SE wide issues. Sensitive details should remain inside TL. [moderation] [moderator] [moderator-]*

Super User Blog Editor Room

Transcript for