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Christian
Christian
12:47 AM
Given the latest questions about deleting answers, do you think your standards for moderation changed in the last year to be more strict than before?
 
 
6 hours later…
Sklivvz
Sklivvz
6:49 AM
I think we stopped sending the users to the welcome page when deleting. Also, the new hot questions sidebar sends many new network users who answer without references.
I do not think the standards changed to be stricter. I've argued for closing less, for example.
 
Sklivvz
Sklivvz
7:03 AM
@articuno I can assure you that the deletions are far from arbitrary. In the last 30d exactly 100 posts were deleted by mods. Only a very few were contested. Out of the contested ones, most are deleted well within our criteria. Only very few are borderline.
No matter how we set the guidelines, there will be always cases of errors or borderline decisions. Also there will be always users deciding to walk that line on purpose just because they like arguing, or defying perceived authority, or because they do not care...
Honestly, it's easy to bash the mods, but their job is to make courageous decisions.
 
user35386
7:28 AM
what deletions have been in error?
 
Sklivvz
Sklivvz
7:41 AM
Objectively in error, I wouldn't know off hand. I was referring to contested decisions, which clearly some will see as errors.
There are also many times when we don't delete content that we should. This in turn leads to other protests of being unfair.
In the end the bottom line (for me at least) is "would I be able to defend this convincingly on meta?"
Which is already telling of where the balance truly is, IMO...
 
ChrisW
ChrisW
@Sklivvz You successfully convince yourself, anyway. IMO it's not worth trying to argue. Re your making "courageous" decisions perhaps some users are asking you to be less courageous, and to make only safer (less borderline) deletions. Perhaps though the moderators are more objective than users whose answers are,in your opinion, borderline. Although some users are sad because/when their answers are deleted but you're not trying to please users (the community) at any cost; you're trying ...
... maintain the quality of the site seen by visitors.
 
Sklivvz
Sklivvz
8:08 AM
Respectfully, I strongly disagree that moderators should be less courageous. They are there to handle the tough cases. The easy cases should be handled by the pseudomods (10k users) and the community at large. Mods should be supported by the community.
Also respectfully, you have no idea of what happens behind the scenes. Many times meta is only a public face. We can't divulge details of personal cases, but I can assure you there are very many cases if users in obvious bad faith, coming to meta to complain about the evil mods and their deletions, only to be caught using sockpuppets to blow their horn.
Regarding "safe" decisions: typically courage is needed to delete an answer which is clearly in the safe zone, but whose author you strongly suspect you will upset.
Many users are very nice people, but some are bullies. I've been called names outside of SE, eg on Facebook, blogs or email by users.
I know it's pretty common too.
 
ChrisW
ChrisW
8:23 AM
Sticks and stones, eh? I (honestly) hope that nobody ever really "bashes" moderators. Sorry you sometimes end up feeling bashed.
 
Sklivvz
Sklivvz
I don't know how you would define being called an "asshole" publicly.
 
ChrisW
ChrisW
8:40 AM
Perhaps "asshole" is someone trying to make me feel ashamed of my behaviour. Pre-school teachers are taught a variant of "hate the sin, love the sinner": i.e. they're told it's OK to criticize bad behaviour (though, it's better instead to praise good behaviour, even if that means waiting a while until there is good behaviour to praise), but not OK to criticize the child. So, behaviour, "don't bash mods because (consequence)"; not, criticize the person, "you're a bad boy and we don't like you".
^ Where (consequence) includes, "the moderator feels hurt".
 
Sklivvz
Sklivvz
Disagreeing in good faith about actions is not bashing. Calling people names is abusive. I am talking about real abuse, not feeling bad because someone has a complaint
 
ChrisW
ChrisW
I thought you were talking about your feeling bad (hurt) because of some people being abusive (calling names).
 
Sklivvz
Sklivvz
The moderator feels "hurt" because he's trying to help a community and gets called names. If people from this community insulted you for no reason, wouldn't you consider saying "fuck it, I've got better stuff to do with my life?"
Moderators are not paid employees (well I am a paid employee, but not as mod)
So, yeah, we need to encourage moderators to do what the community needs.
 
ChrisW
ChrisW
8:57 AM
@Sklivvz I would consider that, yes. I suppose I'd assume that they do have a (personal) reason (for insulting), even if I don't know what that reason is and/or disagree with their reasoning. I might also assume that you can't fight fire with fire (so feeling hurt or getting angry doesn't help); that this specific conversation and relationship (not necessarily my whole future career as a moderator) has gone off the rails, and cannot fruitfully be continued; and, that the "public" (you did ...
... say "in public") don't agree with the abuse, nor with the reason for the abuse (so I'm not sure it makes much difference whether somebody called me an asshole in public or in private: in either case that's their personal opinion only, and not (I hope) the "public opinion).
 
Sklivvz
Sklivvz
Well as a mod you don't really have a choice on whether to continue a relationship, as long as a user is on the site, someone needs to handle them.
 
ChrisW
ChrisW
Because "silence implies consent", therefore you might fear that if someone calls you an asshole and no-one else speaks up to contradict, that implies others agree. However I think we're supposed to be intelligent adults here, and that if anyone is abusive everyone else can see that for what it is, without needing to comment: that the quality of their argument is self-evident.
 
Stack Exchange
Stack Exchange
0
Q: Update the example of the 2 Minute Tour

ChristianAt the moment the tour refers to an example of the thread "Does hot water freeze faster than cold water?" The problem is that the thread wouldn't be allowed by today's standards. The question contains no notable claim for which it provides citations. I would also prefer if the tour would speak...

bug
 
Christian
Christian
The idea that pseudomods (10k users) handle anything on skeptics ignores the realities of the website. There are only 11 of them and it needs three to cast a vote. Even most closing of questions is done by real mods because it takes time to get the 5 votes for closing from regular users with enough points. That said moderating decisions are very hard to evaluate without being able to see the deleted posts and from what I do see, I see no evidence that too much stuff gets deleted.
 
ChrisW
ChrisW
9:20 AM
@Sklivvz Perhaps I should take this opportunity to thank you and other mods for handling abusive users; for deleting, from the site, text that's flagged as abusive; and for the large majority of the 'close this question' and 'close this answer' decisions which you make, that I agree with.
I don't know what else we can do, to "encourage moderators to do what the community needs".
 
Sklivvz
Sklivvz
One simple thing is invaluable: assume good faith :)
 
Sklivvz
Sklivvz
9:46 AM
But. Thanks, of course.
 
 
1 hour later…
Christian
Christian
11:06 AM
@Sklivvz I don't think your edit on the programmer productivity via typing matches the claim. The body of my question doesn't say anything about preconditions. If it's a preconditions than there would be no great programmers who can't type. Jeff's claim isn't that strong. He claims that improving typing abilities improves programming abilities and makes it therefore more likely that you become a great programmer.
Don't edit the question to make it a strawman to make the answer valid. It's much more straightforward to delete the answer that doesn't answer the question.
 
ChrisW
ChrisW
11:44 AM
@Christian It was @Oddthinking 's edit.
 
Christian
Christian
12:13 PM
Oh sorry @Sklivvz
 
Oddthinking
Oddthinking
12:23 PM
@Christian My edit was not in response to the poor existing answer; I wasn't too worried about invalidating that. It was in response to a flag complaining about the question.
I skimmed the Atwood article, and I don't think his argument was "bad programmer + improved typing skills = better programmer", it was "a great programmer requires great typing skills". I tried to preserve the original question as much as possible.
 
Christian
Christian
1:21 PM
Perhaps the person that flagged was worried about that. The person touches an emotional topic and as a result people complain about the question. That doesn't mean that it's right to go in and change it. Especially for a highly upvoted answer with a bounty. I don't think my question violates any principles of this website.
Secondly an article that argues A, B and C can be challenged to ask whether B is true. If you simply go and change the question to be about C you change it in a way doesn't go in the right direction.
 
Oddthinking
Oddthinking
1:43 PM
(For those following along, we are discussing this: skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/9751/…)
 
user35386
Christian, its been clarified several times here in chat that the notability standard does not require a link.
 
Oddthinking
Oddthinking
@Christian: I think your approach of finding a secondary claimant to focus on the part you are interested - and get the focus of Atwood - was an excellent one.
 
user35386
(This is a separate topic to what you guys were discussing... This is re: Christians meta question)
 
Oddthinking
Oddthinking
I don't think I am violating any confidences in quoting the flag text:

> "you spend less time between thinking that thought and expressing it in code" is the actual claim. Atwood does NOT claim that it makes for a "better" programmer. Therefore, there is no evidence of a notable claim about "better programming", whereas the claim "spend less time between thinking..." isn't disputed by anyone as being basically an obvious descriptive fact.
I'm am not a huge fan of the question in general. I think having the ability to type at a moderate rate is like regularly showering and brushing your teeth. Does it make you a better programmer? Depends on your definition of "better". Should it be taught in a uni degree? Depends what you think the role of a uni degree is.
 
Christian
Christian
If you have an issue with the part of the question about university, I have no problem with removing it.
 
Oddthinking
Oddthinking
1:51 PM
I think my concern is more about "better". I think people are interpreting it as meaning it somehow improving your brain processes. I think the original claimants merely meant you get more productive at data entry.
 
Christian
Christian
The word better means to me "more likely to achieve a positive outcome or being more productive". Google pays different programmers different amounts of money because they think that some programmers are better than others. There are also various ways academics who study programming analyse productivity.
 
Oddthinking
Oddthinking
@Christian If that is the definition, are you skeptical that typing 80 wpm rather than 20 wpm is going to make you more productive at the small amount of software development that is data entry/word processing?
 
Christian
Christian
I care about outcome metrics for programming as a whole I don't care about metrics for a subset.
 
Sklivvz
Sklivvz
2:16 PM
Clearly really slow typers will struggle, in the way that slow readers struggle to study. Typing is a basic programming skill and below a certain level it becomes a problem. I think that by becoming faster and fast
er, there are diminishing returns, simply because programmers don't write that much code.
I would be very surprised if it made you worse!
 
Oddthinking
Oddthinking
This is where the trouble is. Note the following is speculation, not a referenced answer: I don't believe that if you take to equally good developers, and train one to type 50% faster than the other, and then take them to a whiteboard and ask them to design a database schema, either will be any better. I don't think anyone is claiming that.
If you lead them to a computer and say "type in the sql to create that schema", the faster typer will be slightly faster (not 50% faster). So, yes they will be overall slightly more productive. I think this is all that is being claimed. This doesn't seem at all controversial to me. (Which is why I am asking what you are skeptical about.)
 
Christian
Christian
If you are a big company doing agile development you could run a study. Get every programmer to take a test about his typing speed and then run the data and see whether faster typists manage to complete more story points than slower typists.
This would give you an answer to whether the programmer who are faster typists are better programmers. Of course you could also measure other metrics such as bugs.
 
Sklivvz
Sklivvz
2:32 PM
There's a confounding factor: the more you coded, the higher the chance you are fast at typing, because of exercise.
Actually one could say that speed correlates with hours of experience which correlates with how "good" you are.
 
Christian
Christian
Yes, ideally we would have an intervention study which uses optimized typing training.

But even if speed is simply a good proxy for how good someone happens to be, that's valuable information for people who do hiring decisions.
I would also add that simply looking at the amount of time that a programmer spends typing might not gives you the amount of additional productivity. There are task switching costs. If I have to look at the keyboard to type, I have to stop the task of looking at the screen. UX research generally indicates that slight delay in UI responsiveness have strong effects.
 
ChrisW
ChrisW
3:23 PM
Some programmers spend time writing text, too: IRC, emails, descriptions of the functional specification, test methodology, even project status.
 
 
1 hour later…
Oddthinking
Oddthinking
4:44 PM
@Christian "even if speed is simply a good proxy" - that's where unis having typing courses would be confounding. It wouldn't make you a better programmer, merely appear better.
I want to step back a bit, because my concern is still there. Everyone seems to agree that it is reasonable to assume that a typing course would make some minor aspects of development a little bit more productive, but that it won't have any effect on your braininess or insight into the role of development. So where is the controversy? Where is the skepticism?
 
Christian
Christian
I don't speak at all about aspects of development that are labeled braininess, insight or data entry. I reject that paradigm. I instead favor a more empiric approach where you don't think about whether or not braininess get's improved but where you focus on changes in productivity.
An employer doesn't care about whether the people he hires have high braininess but about whether they are productive.
Programming isn't an end in itself.
 
Oddthinking
Oddthinking
5:14 PM
@Christian Fine, I appreciate that my dividing it up is a theoretical model that may be wrong, but that still leaves the essence of my question. Is anyone disagreeing?
 
user35386
What is obvious to us is not necessarily true in practice
 
user35386
The skepticism is wanting empirical evidence... An experiment. Being aware that we may have missed something during our musings.
 
Christian
Christian
If you look at the answer that exists at the moment (and which doesn't belong there), it's author disagrees. He does argue that typing speed isn't important.
A lot of programmers don't invest the effort into learning to type fast because they are too lazy. Then they rationalize that decision by making up excuse that programming is about things like braininess and not about low status skills such as typing. (if you object to the emotional language, you wanted a demonstration of controversy)
 
user35386
WHat?
 
user35386
"A lot of programmers don't invest the effort into learning to type fast because they are too lazy" - that needs a reference
 
user35386
5:27 PM
I could say just as plausible is that programmers don't invest the effort because they think they're practicing enough just by programming a lot, and that speed will come over time as needed.
 
user35386
But i don't have a reference for that, so i'm not going to claim it is true.
 
Christian
Christian
There we have our controversy ;)
 
user35386
That's not the controversy in the question. the question is not about motivations
 
user35386
The question is simply: does faster typing make a programmer more productive
 
user35386
Or do programmers who learn to type faster tend to be more productive (a slightly different question, because it might select for people who are motivated to put a concerted effort towards learning something)
 
user35386
5:30 PM
Either interpretation is on-topic and clear enough
 
user35386
But I don't like that you assert that programmers are too lazy
 
user35386
that was my point in asking for a reference for that
 
Christian
Christian
If as Oddthinking argues every programmer knows that typing speed is valuable but some programmers still don't engage in the necessary practice that is a sign that it's about being lazy.
If those programmers who invest effort into building typing skills just have different beliefs about the usefulness about learning typing skills then we have a controversy about facts.
 
user35386
It's a sign that is consistent with laziness
 
user35386
It's also consistent with other hypotheses that you haven't ruled out.
 
user35386
5:35 PM
And yes, that's a controversy about facts, but facts that aren't part of the question. Facts that have only entered because you asserted laziness.
 
user35386
The question is fine without proposing laziness as a motivation.
 
Christian
Christian
I said that because Oddthinking still argues he can't see a controversy about facts.
 
user35386
I think you're on much firmer ground by just pointing to the literal claim in the question.
 
user35386
I don't know that it is true on it's face. I also would like to see evidence as to its truth.
 
user35386
So, it is controversial enough.
 
Christian
Christian
5:37 PM
If it's controversial enough, then I'm happy :)
 
user35386
Also, there is no requirement that claims be controversial. The closest thing is a part of the help center that says questions have to be about "real problems". I've seen it happen that when a mod thinks that a question has too obvious an answer, they don't think that it is a "real problem", and instead of putting the effort into just giving the answer that they think is "obvious" and seeing if everyone agrees, they close the question. I'm against that.
 
user35386
So, in any case, I think your question is great :)
 
Oddthinking
Oddthinking
Meh!
I actually used this an example once, when I tried to get out of doing a training course. I can't remember what the training course was on, but I pointed out that I had sufficient skill in it - yes, more training would make me better but it wasn't my weakest area that could better use the training.
I made an analogy to typing speed. I could practice my typing and do more touch-typing courses, and it would improve my ability as a programmer, BUT I was adequate enough as it was already, and my time would be better spent on areas I needed real improvement.
 
Christian
Christian
How do you know how much your ability at programming would improve by increases your typing speed?
 
Oddthinking
Oddthinking
So the fact that my typing speed is in the 50-wpm range rather than the 80-wpm range is not laziness, but a decision to develop other areas.
 
user35386
5:51 PM
you believed that the biggest return for investment would come from elsewhere
 
user35386
I guess you were making an assumption about what the ROI would have been for your typing improvement
 
Oddthinking
Oddthinking
Your question doesn't ask "Would you be better learning typing speed or <some other skill>?" it asks "would you get better if you typed faster?" I think that is obviously true and largely irrelevant.
 
user35386
Relevance isn't a test for inclusion on this site. People can ask irrelevant questions.
 
Oddthinking
Oddthinking
Sure. I was making an assumption that the ROI was low. When I was a hunt-and-peck typist, the ROI would be much larger, and yes, I did do typing training back then.
 
Christian
Christian
Would you be happy if we add words like "significantly"?
 
user35386
5:53 PM
If you think it's obviously true, why not just write an answer to get the question out of the way?
 
user35386
No no...
 
user35386
don't add "significantly"
 
user35386
It gets conflated with statistical significance
 
Oddthinking
Oddthinking
Sure, but we expect there to be some doubt in the OP's mind about the truth of the question. Asking if water is made of 2 hydrogens and an oxygen is pointless.
 
user35386
I doubt it
 
user35386
5:54 PM
And Christian has asserted that he doubts it
 
Oddthinking
Oddthinking
I can't answer the question, because I severely doubt that anyone has got the funding to pay for the huge experiment that would be required.
(Christian hadn't clearly asserted that, which was why I was probing, looking for the controversy.)
 
user35386
We assume good faith that question askers are skeptics and just looking for the evidence behind the claims they ask about.
 
user35386
At least I do.
 
user35386
And if there is no study, we should be fine leaving a question open and unanswered, as a sort of admission that this is a claim that if people accept, they're doing without evidence, or at least without evidence that rises to the standard that this site would accept in an answer.
 
Oddthinking
Oddthinking
@Articuno Sure. I haven't suggested closing this question. It's been around for a couple of years. I made an edit due to a flag, and I think Christian has improved it in response.
 
Christian
Christian
5:58 PM
As it stands "leaving the question unanswered" still takes a tiny bit of moderator action.
 
user35386
Cool, I don't think there is actually any disagreement, right? It's a fine question. We all agree that there is what seems to be an obvious answer, and we all agree that there is likely no evidence yet to support our intuitions about what that obvious answer is.
 
Oddthinking
Oddthinking
I am expressing a personal opinion that the question is a bit blah, because the answer seems obvious if you limit it to direct effects of improved typing speed, and unnotable if you misinterpret it to to mean something synnergistic or neurological happens. You guys doubt it, which trumps my claims of obviousness.
 
Christian
Christian
You don't need much funding. You rather need access. Google could write a quick tool to assess typing speed and let people who take interviews at Google do the test. Then a few years later they can run the data and see whether those people perform better. They could even give 50% of the people who score poorly but that they hire because they are otherwise good typing lessons to have an intervention.
 
user35386
@Christian How hard the study would be is irrelevant to whether the question is good or not... but maybe you're just chatting now?
 
user35386
@Christian One of the quote doesn't make an interventional claim. The middle one: "better typists make better programmers"
 
user35386
6:03 PM
That one leaves open a non-causal relationship
 
Christian
Christian
I'm happy for any additional knowledge about the issue.
 
user35386
but the other two are clearly causal, and so is your phrasing in the question so I took it to be about the causal relationship. so yeah, in that case, an interventional study would be needed
 
Christian
Christian
There are many tech companies that do care about the productivity of their employees and who have the size to run studies like that. Having the question open might make someone with the means to answer the question notice it.
 
user35386
Although, that's a bit of selection bias. The people employed at big companies might not be representative enough. Maybe their typing speed is already on the plateau, where speed improvements don't yield enough improvement to come out of the noise in the productivity measure, for example.
 
Christian
Christian
For the above reasons I do want the question under the "unanswered" question as long as it doesn't have a real answer (and the current answer isn't).
Perfect knowledge is hard to get, but a study of programmers at big companies would be a lot better than nothing.
 
user35386
6:08 PM
Yeah, they could at least limit their conclusion to something like "for programmers who have made it to company X, increasing typing speed has effect Y".
 
user35386
So, would be appropriately cautious as to generalization
 
Sklivvz
Sklivvz
6:49 PM
Lol, the current answer cites someone speaking at qcon as source. By that standard i could self cite, since I spoke at qcon 3 times...
 

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