The Water Cooler

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4:02 AM

Hey Aqua, and welcome to The Workplace! Could you make a couple of clarifications? Did you maintain the project prior to starting your current job, or was it handed to you to manage by your employer? Did you decide to do this under your personal account, or was that something your employer asked you to do? Have you asked if you can transfer a clone to the company account now just in case you get hit by a bus, if so, what did your employer say? As-is, it's rather difficult to answer because the question isn't clear, but an edit can help and it will be automatically reviewed. Thanks! — jmac ♦ 22 secs ago

^^ Closed the above question, but if you disagree, please feel free to reopen, edit, comment, etc.

jmort253

4:21 AM

While we're at it, it would be awesome if some folks could take a look at this post and give it a second look.... I'm not sure it will work here, but I thought I'd see what people in here with reopen votes and edit privileges think:

Q: Is lowering employee's self-esteem a practised management technique?

I'm wondering if consciously making employees doubt their abilities or value, is a technique that some managers actively practise. I can imagine that this might be a good technique in certain contexts. Clearly for a high achieving company like Google, the company simply wants the best talent po...

jmort253

4:44 AM

Here's some helpful information from jmac that's worth highlighting:

Hey @lorenzo, great comment! Just so you know, you can add magic links using things like [about] and [edit] to create links quickly and easily (you can also use [help] and variations like [help/on-topic] or [help/dont-ask]). Thanks again for helping out with comments! — jmac ♦ 19 hours ago

The magic links are what make it easier to write helpful comments.

1 hour later…

jmac

5:56 AM

This question has been edited by the author and deserves a look for reopening:

Q: Does my employer own the maintainership and github stars of my open source project?

I created and have been maintaining an open source project on github.com as part of my work for my employer. The project was created during the employment. My employer allows me to open source it on Github.com. There forms a community - I created a mailing list and the numbers of people are grow...

employer-relations

jmac

6:22 AM

Hey suhas! I'm a bit confused by what your problem is specifically. That the other employees are 'not happy' isn't something that we can solve (I don't think anyone can magically make them happy). What we can work to help you with is dealing with the consequences of them being unhappy. What has their unhappiness done to impact your experience in the office? Are people being rude to you? Not talking to you? Refusing to do work to help you out? If you edit your question with the specific issue you need to solve, you'll get better answers. Thanks in advance! — jmac ♦ 17 secs ago

Please take a look at the above question. Feel free to reopen if you think I botched it, or edit/comment/etc. if you can see a way to save it.

6 hours later…

gnat

12:41 PM

@jmort253 I would recommend against reopening. it feels slippery all the way and ends with "Is there any evidence..." making it just... bad

"Is there any evidence" kind questions are a slippery road. Since asker doesn't know, there's always a chance that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence, so that question may have 20... 30... 50 nice authoritative "equally valid" answers. As an answerer, my own experience with gimme evidence questions at Workplace was rather negative. Yeah I've got some of 'em repz, but it left a pretty bitter taste in my mouth, I tend to avoid answering these since — gnat yesterday

1 hour later…

gnat

1:49 PM

@jmac @jmort253 did you happen to work in Stack Overflow LQ review queue recently (that is, as regular, non-mod users at scaled up site)? If yes, I would like to exchange impressions. I've been there last few days after more than a year break, and things look very different now

jmac

@gnat Work in? I mean, I checked it before I got elected, if that's what you mean, but since election I can't do much with it

gnat

@jmac I mean, go over 20-30-40 posts that are there (using Skip if you just want to quickly get an impression of what kind stuff gets in there)

jmac

@gnat There are that many in it!?

I only see 3 in there

gnat

@jmac yes!!! the reason why i dropped it a year ago was that there were to little to bother. Now, it looks like there are 10 -20 - 30 items there average

jmac

@gnat Weird, I have absolutely no idea why. There are only 3 in there that I can see.

gnat

1:55 PM

@jmac oops, shows only 1 to me now. Guess it's oscillation, about two hours ago there was plenty - today, and yesterday

jmac

@gnat As I posted up above somewhere, now NAA flags get tossed in the queue. That still shouldn't be 10-20-30 of them though.

take a screenshot next time if possible?

gnat

@jmac sure

34 now, I'll take a screen shot

jmac

That must be a bug. Or caching. Could you make a bug report on meta please?

gnat

@jmac not a bug. I recall reading at MSO that items are bumped in there in chunks, not continually

every few minutes a bunch of items gets in

jmac

I have 28 close votes, 4 reopen, 2 first posts, 2 low quality

Oh, you mean on SO?

That's a different story.

Yeah, there's a script that runs every X minutes I believe.

Sorry, thought you meant here

(I really haven't been to SO much recently, a bit busy with trying to attend to the stuff here)

gnat

2:08 PM

@jmac I see. Okay, when you have time later, take a look in there, I really want to learn if I am the only one who feels what I feel...

Q: Stack Overflow is not yet a vast wasteland: a history of moderator tooling

Warning: this is long, rambling and extremely boring. I'm writing it because I tend to get a lot of questions regarding the rationale for changes to the moderator tooling on SO, and I'm hoping to have something to point to next time. If you already know all there is to know about this - or just d...

discussion stackoverflow review flags moderator-tools

^^^ I think I understand now why Shog made such a lengthy post. Quite a tectonic change going on there

jmac

@gnat I'm not going to have time for a couple days. I read through the post before though. I don't understand the problem? They migrate stuff to the queue via a script that doesn't run all the time (and why would it?) so stuff gets dumped in in batches.

gnat

@jmac no problem, it's not urgent. The issue is what seems to be changed in the way how VLQ/NAA flags are being handled, it feels different from what I've read in the past at MSO

jmac

@gnat The explanation is in the 10k tools discussion on meta.so -- 10k tools are useless because while 10k users can see them, they can't do much. So now those flags get tossed in the LQ review queue instead to have the community over 2k rep handle them

I believe that's how it works at any rate.

(I am a bit fuzzy on details, I linked the post to Shog earlier)

I really have to get going for tonight -- I apologize for running off and not answering anything, but I've got to go on a business trip and I'm in the process of packing

gnat

@jmac yes that's how it works. But the implications... I didn't realise what the change means until I gave LQ queue a shot

gnat

2:55 PM

Q: Is there evidence to suggest Drucker's profit-centres and cost-centres ultimately generate distrust between departments?

I work at a financial services company that has seen lots of growth. Once product managers and technologists sat together to build products. Now separated into divisions and technology has lots of outsourcing. I'm ponding the root causes of this. One I've seen used to justify changes is Peter Dru...

management communication politics offices

^^^ sounds like a question for Skeptics.SE

6 hours later…

Stack Exchange

9:21 PM

Q: What question is appropriate for getting guidance from advanced programmers?

I asked a question on what is the best way to go into programming field, especially where I can work from home, and my question was put on hold What are general traits that recruiters look for in programmer? Any advice?