How do we handle nuisance users/downvoters/hatchet-job commenters like jmorc? Flagging is not the answer since it is his combination of lack of basic reading, nasty comment and downvote that is the problem. My answer is in the first sentence. workplace.stackexchange.com/a/52903/16071
That's @jmorc, just so he/she gets notified. They can defend his own remarks, if they're able to. Otherwise, it would be reasonable to withdraw the false comment and the downvote.
@smci You're right that jmorc's comment seems out of place but I'd caution against using the kind of confrontational language that you're using. There's very little need for that kind of aggressive response on this site as you're only going to needlessly escalate the situation. Even your answer seems unnecessarily harsh.
Because Workplace.SE has far more than its share of nuisance users who go around writing narky comments without contributing, and once you get downvoted once others are more likely to do it blindly. Which will clearly damage the site. Anyone see that as being a problem?
Counter: You don't see your abuse of the OP and the misguided commenter as a problem?
And I'm sure every site has annoying users but I'm no sure Workplace has more than its fair share of them or that the existing site mechanics are insufficient for dealing with them.
@Lilienthal: How would you ask a nuisance user posting a clearly false statement accompanying a malicious downvote to explain themselves? And anyway why should this discussion be about me and not him - I contributed a useful answer (which IMO is at least as good as Bill Leeper's) - he contributed less than nothing.
But you'd be better off waiting for a mod or putting it up on meta if you want to discuss that.
Why would he need to contribute an answer to have the right to comment or vote? It's a clear site mechanic that people are able to judge other's posts. As for how to respond, I'd say something like "I believe my first sentence clearly answers the OP's question and the rest of my post expands on that. Can you clarify why you believe I failed to answer the question?"
Workplace.SE and Academia.SE do have more than their share both of false commenters and narky comments inciting other people to downvote. That is a problem. And the existing site mechanics are insufficient for dealing with them. That's why I'm bringing it up here. A flag will go unseen and not reverse the downvote.
@Lilienthal: in this case it's not a question of 'belief': sentences one and two are "No, it would be a ridiculous request (were you not paying attention?). You should have taken written/typed notes." In anyone'e reality that constitutes an answer. Now if he dislikes that answer, that's his prerogative. But pretending I did not answer at all, is pure trolling. It's not even like he politely said "I don't understand how this answers the question". Why would you throw a lifeline to a troll?
Don't confuse brevity with impoliteness. Don't assume malicious intent where the user could have made a simple mistake. That's why you respond respectfully and ask the user to explain. Maybe he commented and voted on the wrong answer, maybe he misunderstood you.
If he really is malicious, then you flag his comment for moderator attention and they'll deal with it.
If it's a pattern, they'll also deal with it.
You can get downvotes for any number of reasons and just a single one is hardly ever a problem. As long as your answers are good they should receive plenty of upvotes to offset the occasional misguided downvote.
@smci to be fair, your first sentence in bold comes across as a, "you are an idiot OP, why weren't you taking notes in your interview?" and the rest of that paragraph isn't any better
And your answer really doesn't answer the question: you are answering a different question, "should I take notes during an interview?" rather than "after an interview where I didn't take notes, can I ask about the technical questions?"
@smci Also, keep in mind that starting off a chat question in the form, "this other user is a complete and utter idiot and can't read" doesn't really communicate good faith interest in understanding why that comment might be there - it's immediately a defensive attitude which makes it quite difficult to response to, since it's framing the argument as a straw man
A couple of years ago, I did a lot of little help jobs for handicapped people (driving, grocery shopping, cooking, etc.). None of these where with official contracts or for a company and I was paid in cash or goods.
This work experience in not related to the types of jobs I'm looking for now, bu...
Did you read the part of the question where it says "new workers have quit because of the tensions". This makes them (at the very best) extremely bad at managing people, and the suggestion that you promote any of the to a management position is laughable. — DJClayworth27 mins ago
I wanted to address that yesterday, but didn't find time to do so.
@smci You are making some very outstanding claims there, some of which I don't agree with.
You claim that once an answer receives one down vote, others will pile on without even reading the answer. Sure that might have happened a few times, but nowhere nearly as often as to be concerned about the health of this site.
Your claim also implies that the users here have no regard for this site, and will vote irresponsibly most of the time. You are entitled to make such claims, but unless you can back it up, it just sounds like a rant and an overreaction to a single downvote. It also shows what little respect you have for other members here.
I don't know what history you have with this user, but assuming you have some genuine reason to believe he is "targeting" you, retaliation doesn't really help improve matters. You seem to be also assuming that the moderators here are incapable of handling the situation, since you bypassed the whole flagging mechanism, and brought the matter to chat for a public trial.
Your edit makes no sense. If they are the kind of people who interact with their fellow workers so badly (intentionally or unintentionally) that those workers resign, then they are absolutely and without question not fit to be managers. Also an insubordinate worker never makes a good manager.That's even more true if they are knowledge workers. — DJClayworth7 mins ago
@smci I kind of agree with Jmorc. While you sort of have a one line answer you have a huge addendum that does not answer the question but answers something you think they should have asked (and maybe you are right). Improve your answer by explaining why it is not acceptable to ask afterward then I think it would be a great answer.
And maybe soften your first line. It seems you are insulting the OP for asking the question. That is something that tends to turn people off
@AaronHall Yeah I really dislike comments where they are attacking the post instead of trying to improve. Ask questions or suggest changes do not attack the post or the poster...
I'm assuming Clayworth thinks the situation unrecoverable and the "troublesome faction" to be too toxic to salvage whereas Aaron probably rightly assumes that simple management of his staff should help turn things around.
Should I delete this line? "Maybe they're just the line-cooks at McDonalds, and the new hires aren't being allowed to put ketchup on burgers or fill cups with soda - but I doubt it."
At the end of the day, as Aaron says, we don't actually have enough information to judge OP's best course of action.
At its core this question boils down to "how do I manage my staff" and while you can give general guidelines it's down to the manager to judge his best course of action.
I think all of the answers are trying to answer the question in too much detail. In stead of telling the op how to solve his specific problem I would address the process of how the OP can determine what the problems are that need dealt with and how to form a plan to address them at a high level
And there's people who think you can manage knowledge workers by cracking whips. Cracking whips only works when you can easily replace those who don't like the whip cracking.
The basic premise of the book, as I recall, is that you don't need the best person for the job, and you should only get people who are "good enough" to mechanically perform a job, putting the difference in salaries towards profitability.
I think a lot of small businesses try to operate under that premise.
In my experience, basic job skills are only a small part of what makes a "high performer". Social skills and workplace integration along with commitment player a large part and that is something that I would want to pay the premium for if I were a manager.
Well I'm not saying it's right or wrong. The economist in me likes that, as presumably it frees up an individual for their highest and best use in the economy. The management theorist in me doesn't like it as sometimes "good enough" is nowhere near "good enough."
But that's for office jobs of course, in call centers or the service industry "just good enough" is usually enough and those industries have an innately high turnover.
Well the real trick is actually knowing "good enough" and if you hire someone, it's hard to evaluate that, and you probably are better off erring by hiring a "slightly better than good enough" person than a "oops" person :p
@Lilienthal It doesnt have to I worked for a company that valued their call center people. they had a comparatively low turnover of both employees and customers. Management shifted, they adopted the traditional call center workers are cattle attitude, they lost all of their major clients inside of 14 months.
But plenty of them accept huge turnover as a cost of doing business (on the cheap) since there are plenty of people willing to replace those that leave.
Actually I voted that question too broad. Its not a good question
@Lilienthal No Enderland is an old school gamer its flag has its own dc and he rolls a 20 sided die to determine how it is handled. on crits he has a chart if he rolls 00 someone gets suspended. The flagger if its a 1 and the OP if its a 20
"and explain to him - forcefully" How do you explain forcefully? "If you do it as a group they are more likely to stand up to you." "Stand up to" is a verb construction, the object of which is usually a bully. And the firings, in your points 2 and 4 - he says he can't replace them and can't fill orders without them, so I don't see how this works. — Aaron Hall1 min ago
Anything I should tweak?
To me, it implies "go bankrupt if you can't run your business your way."
Don't think I should add that though...
"Go bankrupt if you can't run your otherwise profitable business your way."
@AaronHall I agree. That answer is - maybe not intentionally - recommending an inappropriate, bullying approach.
I expect many will read "forcefully" as meaning one or more of shouting, banging on the table, getting up in someone's face, using foul language, making accusations, getting angry...
Yeah, I'm not familiar with DJClayworth's m. o. here but I have vague positive associations and the rep suggests they're a bit smarter than that. It's just the kind of thing you can't leave unsaid, when your audience is every manager.
I think it would be interesting to consider which privileges make sense to be permanently unlocked, and which might reasonably want for some "maintenance cost" in terms of site activity
For example, earn a gold badge in Python back in 2008 and then go into suspended animation for 5+ years... now you can hammer Python 3 questions, despite never having used Python 3 and not having read 5+ years' worth of potential dupe targets
You're still thinking of things in terms of the current system. I wouldn't plan a system on that low of a level without immersing myself in internal data for a few months. And I don't have access to that.
I'd soft-cap it, make it show as much smaller numbers, and massage it to lower the barrier between "newly registered" and "reasonably competent" and reduce emphasis on the difference between very high-rep users
So I think rep serves three purposes: incentive, privileges, credibility. Of those, credibility is the least important and the least reliable. And that's actually realistic—how many times have you read different professionals having wildly different opinions about big names in their field?
Martin Fowler, for example - I've seen him called a hack on SO.
I think you are underestimating the ability of rep to capture a lot of positive behaviors in one bucket: posting great questions? Rep. Posting great answers? Rep. Accepting answers? Rep. Suggesting edits? Rep. Granted you don't want dozens of things there but citizenship could fold in the top 3 most important without breaking a sweat. Because rep certainly does... — Jeff Atwood ♦Jan 26 '13 at 19:19
@AaronHall I try to keep it short something like :I think this approach is dangerous because points 2 through 4 are liable to make the op's company unable to fulfill its orders.
Do not argue and avoid attacks on the OP by not using the word you or your answer.
and dont get involved in comment wars if you can avoid it. A single comment after of just explaining my downvote does just fine.
@AaronHall Rep is points you scored by asking questions and answering them. We have several high rep users that have more negative answers than I have questions and answers
the problem is there are a few users that post quick wins that sound good but are not good in reality but everyone likes to hear well your boss is just a jerk
@AaronHall I can read deleted messages. If the history of a message is purged, only the current revision shows up. Exception: If the message is deleted, the most recent revision pre-deletion shows up.
So the only way to remove something so that even moderators cannot read it is to first edit it out of the message, then delete it, then get someone to purge the history. (I don't think ROs can purge history, but not sure.)
also @Chad our tomatoes this year tipped over yesterday... we have two plants on our porch, and the one good sized green full tomato fell down off our porch :(
I have two tomato plants this year because my chickens are failures who didn't eat all their scraps last year
Since we're in a superdrought and I'm not tending to them, they're just weeds. But I put cages around them anyway because my 2 y.o. thinks it's hilarious.
Tell the company the items you want them to acquire is a stack of dollar bills in the amount you are owed.
I would no longer deal with the person you are dealing with. It's time to go over that person's head to someone else with more authority. Two months is too long to wait to get paid. Figure ...
This is the kind of answer I was talking about earlier. It feels good but it is horrible advice
If you treat your customers like that no one is going to say hey I want to work with that company. Even if this guy loses out on that cash(im guessing he is going to have trouble squeezing blood out of that broke turnip) the people working there will go to other jobs with other companies. If you treat them poorly your company not only doesnt get referred it probably gets talked poorly about if someone should consider them
The 3 you interviewed today just happened to be the best 3 candidates from the whole pool? Or were you just looking for red flags before inviting them in?