The Water Cooler

I used to get "upset" (though that is too strong a term) when I got downvoted without comment. If my answer isn't good enough then I'd like to know why. Not only does it improve the answer for the OP but it improves my knowledge too. Where the down-vote has been explained I've found it useful & ...

Ian Holstead

12:37 AM

yeah that one!

Mike Van Trufflebutt

@MonicaCellio If that's the case, why not put it on hold as well?

Ian Holstead

@MikeVanTrufflebutt I normally upvote someone's comment explaining the matter

Mike Van Trufflebutt

OK

Matt Giltaji

@MikeVanTrufflebutt only questions can go on hold, answers can't

Monica Cellio

@MikeVanTrufflebutt "require comment on DV" has been requested bunches of times on MSE; I linked to the one many of them are closed as dupes of. I've read this in the past but not just now so don't remember exactly what's in there.

Ian Holstead

12:38 AM

I do like to make the site better and help out struggling users, but I don't need the lash back

2

Mike Van Trufflebutt

@IanHolstead gotcha

Monica Cellio

One problem is that if you require comments people will just type gibberish to satisfy the interface. Another is the anonymity/retaliation concern.

Ian Holstead

@MonicaCellio exactly

Monica Cellio

Personally I try to leave helpful comments any time I think I can help people. Those comments don't necessarily accompany votes.

2

Ian Holstead

@MonicaCellio +1, except its normally xor for me

*exclusive or: one or the other

Monica Cellio

12:40 AM

But sometimes I'd just be saying the same thing I've said to a particular user ten times this week already, and (a) it hasn't worked so far and (b) he'll feel I'm nagging, so in that case I might just vote and move on. I should be able to do that.

Downvoting is an important function, one that doesn't happen enough sometimes, and I don't want to artificially constrain it more than it's already constrained.

I want people to use votes -- in both directions -- responsibly, and I hope most of us do that most of the time.

Mike Van Trufflebutt

I remember about a year ago I asked a question about identified a specific product. The company downvoted me down to under 600 Rep on S/O.

But teh community rallied and upvoted it more than it got downvoted.

Monica Cellio

But since votes are anonymous we can't regulate that, and sometimes good posts get downvoted or bad ones upvoted for reasons that are not at all clear.

Matt Giltaji

@MikeVanTrufflebutt sounds like it worked itself out :D

Ian Holstead

The other thing I think is important is not to take downvotes personally

2

Mike Van Trufflebutt

@MattGiltaji Yes, indeed!

Matt Giltaji

12:43 AM

@IanHolstead good point, I have downvoted questions that were in bad shape, then changed it to an upvote after some edits fixed it

its about the content, not the user

Ian Holstead

Also they pointed out in one of the questions (it might be the one Monica posted) that one upvote on an answer = 5 downvotes in terms of rep

@MattGiltaji exactly. Also, even if your content is good, people might disagree or just feel like throwing around votes. It happens.

jmac

@Mike, to give the really really really short version, downvotes are an easy way to identify crap we don't want. The more hoops you make people jump through to do that, the more time it takes to identify crap, and less crap ends up getting identified which is bad for site quality.

4

Mike Van Trufflebutt

@jmac I get it, we dont' like crap. Sounds good. One person's crap is another's fertilizer? or something.

Matt Giltaji

@MikeVanTrufflebutt that's why the votes are looked at in the aggregate. A single downvote against multiple upvotes doesn't do much, and vice versa

Mike Van Trufflebutt

That's right.

Thanks for pointing it out!

:-)

jmac

12:47 AM

@MikeVanTrufflebutt That's why voting is easy, and we encourage people to vote early and often -- it shouldn't be what one person thinks, but what the community thinks as decided by multiple votes.

Mike Van Trufflebutt

@jmac I'm like this gamified Q/A site. Its my new WoW and Eve combined.

*liking

jmac

@MikeVanTrufflebutt Hopefully you aren't just sticking around for the gamification, but because you want to help create an awesome resource of high quality Q&A. If the gamification helps you achieve that, we are of course ecstatic, but it's usually better if you believe in the goal behind the gamification too.

Mike Van Trufflebutt

@jmac I hope my posts are of a high enough quality that your statement is rhetorical.

And, I've been on S/O for a while.

jmac

At the end of the day, almost all design decisions are made because they help us end up with better (higher quality, more useful) questions and answers for future visitors. The people who participate in the site actively are not that many compared to the people who come to our site from search engines.

Mike Van Trufflebutt

@jmac I can testify to that. Both my ops and dev organizations have your site up on 1/2 of their screens all day long.

jmac

12:53 AM

When I got hired I asked most of my friends if they knew of the site. Half knew it, half didn't, and of the half that did, only a handful actually had an account.

"Why would I make an account? I only use you guys because you always show up high on google."

3

Mike Van Trufflebutt

@jmac I've applied for a couple of development positions that specifically asked for a S/O rep score.

That and Ohlo for open-source developers

Matt Giltaji

I was in a tech meetup. Someone asked for resources that they could use to learn how to be a better developer... universal response was to go to SO.

jmac

When I joined SE @Mike, some folks assumed I was a developer because I had 3k rep on SO. Couldn't be further from the truth! I think that rep is a great thing to have, but I don't think the presence of a score means you're a good developer, or that the lack of it means you're bad. More of a signaling thing.

Mike Van Trufflebutt

I went to a Denny's and S/O was listed under "Tasty Bits" on the menu.

Mike Van Trufflebutt

1:36 AM

Yeah! Free rep for editing!

enderland

2:59 AM

I'm curious what people would think if they knew of Workplace and I applied for a job related to development. "Oh yeah I'm one of the top rep users on Workplace!"

I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing :P

-2

A: Dealing with frustrated outbursts from colleague in hall

Following Telastyn's answer, we have to buy croissants for the whole team each time we break the build. This obviously has the double effect of making us more careful and more relaxed. Until you can prove otherwise, assume your colleague has Tourette's syndrome and encourage him to seak treatmen...

hmmmm

why do 3 people think this is worth upvoting? lol

36

Q: Automatically generate comment with link to a "what does downvoting mean?" post when a user with <50 rep has a question downvoted

Problem People post a bad question, for any of the following reasons: Not researched Off topic Poorly written/formatted No sign of any attempt to solve problem Classic help vampire question etc This gets downvoted and often without comments. It's exhausting and tiring work to constantly co...

discussion feature-request comments voting down-votes

you might enjoy that

Mike Van Trufflebutt

@enderland What do you not like about the -2 post?

enderland

@MikeVanTrufflebutt I guess I find it a bit presumptuous and absolutely ridiculous someone would immediately suggest confronting a coworker and basically say "you should seek treatment for tourettes" as a first course of response

I'm pretty sure that in most reasonable workplaces doing this basically will get you in significant trouble with all but the most unreasonable managers

and probably result in a career limiting move quality of action

Mike Van Trufflebutt

Wow, I read that response. What a dick! LOL

Not you, the response.

I thought you were talking about the original question.

enderland

3:14 AM

no, that answer

Mike Van Trufflebutt

Yeah, that answer was a troll.

enderland

technically it IS an answer, though

Mike Van Trufflebutt

banninate him, oh moddie one.

I think I shall change my name again tomorr.

Sallie McWritesalot

enderland

hahaha

Mike Van Trufflebutt

someone figured out who I am and messaged me in LInked in about one of my answers.

time to get on the down-low for a while.

"Trollie Mac Schutyomout

enderland

3:16 AM

really?

in a good way?

Mike Van Trufflebutt

Yeah, it was like "hey dude, thanks for the help. But, did you know you're kind of exposed?"

@enderland What's a good S/O site for someone new to development to go to?

Already has a degree, just not in CompSci

Economics..

Chose the easy path.. LOL

enderland

@MikeVanTrufflebutt S/O isn't really good for a brand new beginner

I'd think tutorials or some exposure is better

Mike Van Trufflebutt

Tell me about it.

I was going to say JavaRanch, but OO programming isn't a beginner thang.

Isn't there some coder.com site or some such nonsense for newbs?

enderland

I think there are tons of htem out there

Mike Van Trufflebutt

I"ll find one.

The person is female, and we could always use good female coders.

girldevelopit.com/about

There we go.

Mike Van Trufflebutt

3:38 AM

girlswhocode.com

Seems pretty legit

@enderland workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/32648/…

My response was better. Nerny nerny nerny!

ciao!

gnat

6:23 AM

> Meta effect is actively detrimental to welcoming new users to Meta. Because of that, and because the purpose of Meta is to freely discuss issues related to Stack Overflow, I propose that we institute a system-imposed voting freeze...

"proactively protecting questions is generally a bad idea" -- look who's talking — gnat 9 hours ago

Double standard

A double standard is the application of different sets of principles for similar situations, or by two different people in the same situation. A double standard may take the form of an instance in which certain concepts (often, for example, a word, phrase, social norm, or rule) are perceived as acceptable to be applied by one group of people, but are considered unacceptable—taboo—when applied by another group. The concept of a double standard has long been applied (as early as 1872) to the fact that different moral structures are often applied to men and women in society. A double standard can...

Bmo

12:44 PM

Is there a record of deleted comments anywhere?

Not for me personally, but I think a comment I really liked got deleted as part of a larger thread deletion.

Thought I bookmarked it too! Wtf!

Matt Giltaji

1:27 PM

I think only mods can see deleted comments... Comments are temporary post it notes, and such

enderland

-1

Q: UI / UX Design Services Online Business (Narrowing my Niche)

I hope I'm writing this type of question in the right StackExchange place, but if I'm wrong, I will delete it immediately. Sorry for that. But if I get in the right place, well then I got this question. I'm looking of starting my Online Service Business for working for clients / people, who nee...

software-industry websites

do you guys think there is a core question there?

@MattGiltaji this

Bmo

@enderland I think it's more of a freelancing question, but I'm not sure.

@MattGiltaji I actually found it because someone highlighted it in chat.

Matt Giltaji

I'm not sure if we can give advice on should I do x or y in a business plan. But if we can edit it to more of a how/what should my thought process be type of question, that would be useful

Or we could migrate to freelancing, if it would fit there

David Segonds

1:45 PM

@enderland I am wondering if this should go to startups.stackexchange.com

enderland

2:38 PM

@DavidSegonds hmmm. there are no moderators for that site to even ask, lol

Mike Van Trufflebutt

@DavidSegonds Great suggestion!

AirThomas

4:24 PM

Hi, jobfolk. I'm reading a meta.SE discussion that mentions some canonical list questions maintained on Workplace.SE. Can anyone give me some pointers to those?

I've come across two linked in the body of this question on your meta site, but I'm specifically interested in finding examples of well-maintained lists of external resources.

Matt Giltaji

@AirThomas I'm not sure that we would maintain a list of external resources

the Q&A format doesn't really lend itself to that

AirThomas

@MattGiltaji I agree. I'm trying to convince a user of that point on another site, and want to see first if there are any examples of a site doing it successfully.

Matt Giltaji

this is the closest thing I can think of that is a list of resources, but they are queries on the data explorer, not really links to external resources

12

Q: Beta Sites Data is Now Accessible Through the Data Explorer

NEWS FLASH: After 6-8 weeks of waiting, you can now write queries for beta sites using the data explorer The data explorer uses TSQL which seems to be similar to regular SQL with a few variations. You can browse existing queries and yoink stuff from them as well. For instance, taking this q...

discussion statistics data-explorer

AirThomas

4:50 PM

Thanks @Matt - appreciate the help.

Monica Cellio

5:05 PM

@enderland oh look -- this was deleted from the review queue. Anybody who thinks review queues don't produce results, think again.

enderland

5:36 PM

it just says "Deleted" with no attribution... that's weird

Monica Cellio

6:02 PM

@enderland that's because some "recommend deletion" votes from the queue factored in. It would be weird to see "deleted by X, Y, and Z" if Y and Z don't have enough rep to delete -- but those "recommend" actions from the queue can still result in deletion. So in that case they don't list names.

enderland

@MonicaCellio I'd think it'd show "community" then

Monica Cellio

@enderland oh, good point.

gnat

8:51 PM

19

A: What can cause an answer to get deleted without information about who actually deleted it?

The Low Quality review queue is to "blame": http://stackoverflow.com/review/low-quality-posts/2322114. As of April 5th, 2014, all future deletions by low-rep users from review will create a special post history entry that includes a link to the review task that resulted in the deletion: Unlik...

^^^ should be in revisions history of the post deleted that way

workplace.stackexchange.com/posts/32615/revisions - I can't see it, being neither author nor 10K, but the URL should probably be like that

enderland

Ah, weird

Jim G.

10:54 PM

workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/16687/…

Matt Giltaji

10k only link :(

Jim G.

^^^ Was this question closed before it was deleted?

Strange.

tnek316

11:09 PM

Is there a middle ground between heavy programmer and ux? as far as job title

Matt Giltaji

@tnek316 in the web arena, there is the "full stack" developer which covers doing both

well, frontend, backend, server, database to be precise

tnek316

hmmm. Interesting

Matt Giltaji

are you looking for open positions which interest you?

tnek316

But would any company really have someone like that, other than a early start-up?

I'll give you some back ground..

I am still in college and have been programming a variety of things as well as interned at a company where I helped contribute to an end product. But as I have done all this programming I have grown very fond of the UX side of the end product.

I find myself admiring the flow of applications and how they work so well or critical of ones that do not work well. I have no experience with design or any artsy type things so a full-out ux designer. I enjoy being involved in that aspect but at the same time I like to code and solve problems on the coding side. So I was wondering if there was some kind of in-between which I can work towards

Matt Giltaji

so, something like a job where you are building a UX designed by a full-out designer?

tnek316

11:22 PM

I suppose

Matt Giltaji

let me back up a bit

and my experience is in the web arena, other industries will have differences

tnek316

please go ahead

Matt Giltaji

in a larger company, the process for getting a website (or piece of new functionality) from idea to online usually involves a lot of different areas

you have someone like a Business Analyst or Requirements Analyst figuring out what it needs to do

you have UX designers making mock ups (usually wireframes) of where the buttons will go, where images should go, where the text should go, that sort of thing

if its part of an existing website or company, the marketing department or UX designers usually have some sort of existing color scheme that will be applied

then you have architects designing how the web site will flow within whatever technologies are being used

where the various tiers are, business logic vs presentation vs storage, and such

an infrastructure or operations team team to set up the servers

backend developers doing the storage portion, DBAs and DB developers if this is a database

front-end programmers designing the presentation, styling, and UI

middle tier programmers doing the business logic

more programmers doing the connective pieces between layers

then it gets built, goes to a testing team, and eventually out the door

in a smaller shop, those roles are still present, its just that fewer people are doing them

so you might have one programmer do the database, and another to do the rest

or single programmer doing everything

but even though the UI programmer is just programming the UI, they are still coding, debugging, and troubleshooting to solve problems that appear in the frontend

similarly the database programmers are coding and debugging issues that appear in the database piece

so pretty much anywhere you go as a programmer, you will be solving problems no matter what

tnek316

thank you so much for all the information

So I suppose the front end developers would be what I am trying to describe

Matt Giltaji

11:38 PM

cool

the other thing to keep in mind is that when you join a company as a junior dev, there should be more experienced developers around who you can learn from

tnek316

mhm

again thank you a ton

Matt Giltaji

no worries, good luck in your studies and career :D

Transcript for