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6:38 AM
Posted by Abby T. Miller on November 8th, 2011

Three months ago, CHAOS was born unto this world. There were just three of us to begin with, and nobody had any clue what our team was supposed to be accomplishing. Well, that’s not completely true: from Joel’s blog post, we knew that our eventual goal was to grow the Stack Exchange communities past some sort of imaginary tipping point at which they would begin to magically thrive on their own.

Easy, right?

So imagine for a moment that you’ve been hired as part of a team with this goal. You walk into work on your first day, fill out all your paperwork, get your computer set up  …

 
 
5 hours later…
11:25 AM
@Beofett please forgive me for trying to give my bounties to users with less than 4k rep :-)
 
 
2 hours later…
1:03 PM
@TorbenGundtofteBruun Nothing to forgive :) The only thing I want rep for is to unlock the privileges. Now that I've done that, I don't need any more ;)
 
 
1 hour later…
2:17 PM
@TorbenGundtofteBruun The appreciation is always nice. :)
@Beofett Hee hee hee. I feel you! :D
 
2:59 PM
So, @Beofett @Torben when y'all have a minute we should chatter a bit.
 
3:09 PM
@AarthiDevanathan Sure thing
 
Basically, I want to schedule a chat event to talk site promotion.
I'm thinking, based on analytics, it should be Mon/Wed (peak days for us)
and possibly after lunchtimes.
Make it all Official and stuff with a banner and everything.
 
That sounds like a good idea
are you thinking both Monday and Wednesday, or just one?
 
@Beofett one or the other. m/w trade off being the peak traffic day week by week.
 
k
 
that sounds good, then? :D yaaay.
 
3:20 PM
absolutely!
 
Wonderful. We should make the event, yes?
 
@AarthiDevanathan It gets my vote. Let's let @TorbenGundtofteBruun have a chance to chime in, though :)
 
Torben's been afk a lot of late! :O
i miss the guy :(
then again, Parenting's just been quiet lately, full stop.
 
yeah, I have to admit I've been getting my chat fix on scifi, because its been so quiet here :(
 
:(
the problem that I keep coming across is that others seem to believe that my presence => conversations.
which, while not untrue, should also not be the case.
 
3:31 PM
@Torben shared this image recently:
I generally self-identify as geek, with strong nerd tendencies
the nerd tendencies largely lie in my inability to start a conversation :P
 
Knowing my obsessive tendencies, I try to tamp that down as much as possible.
Likely, I'm a Geek as well, with a good helping of Dork most of the time.
Any day I fake being a normal human being is a triumph in my mind.
 
@AarthiDevanathan lol I've given up on that long ago...
my rationale being normal = average (in mathematical terms), and why settle for average?
which is, in itself, about the definition of nerd/dweeb thought
 
laughs
I'm still trying to fake the normalcy thing.
'cause my friends are only somewhat accustomed to my weirdness.
 
@AarthiDevanathan That's the hardest part for me now. After I moved out of the city, I stopped hanging out with people who are as weird as I am :P
 
@Beofett And faking normalcy is tiring!
 
3:43 PM
@AarthiDevanathan most definitely!
having a kid helps, oddly enough.
 
@Aarthi I'm a victim of crossposting! The conversation in here is more interesting!
 
laughs
there's more people involved over here hahaha
@Beofett huh really?
 
the whole small-talk thing was always a problem, particularly since there's very little mainstream topics I have interest in. With a kid, though, you can always chit-chat about what they're doing. If the audience are parents, they'll generally be receptive, and have stories of their own. If the audience aren't parents, you can sometimes tell stories that are still amusing enough even though they may not directly relate
"last night I spent 2 hours removing finger paint from our cat" generally goes over better than "so, how about them Flyers?"
 
@AarthiDevanathan You've never been in a conversation when someone won't stop talking about their kid? Even the most socially awkward person can go on and on if the other party feigns interest. Parenting is the most obsessive hobby I've found.
 
@SteveJackson exactly!
 
3:48 PM
oh gosh yes, parents will go on and on about their kidlings
it's cute, then kinda boring, then annoying as all get out
 
@AarthiDevanathan yeah, that's something I try to be aware of, but since my issue is generally getting conversations started, rather than maintaining them once they get going, it works as a legitimate ice breaker (so long as I recognize when I'm reaching the "boring" stage)
although that is easier said than done at times, due to how obsessive we get :P
 
laughs for me, anyway, I'm fairly patient. boring takes a long time.
 
plus if the audience are parents, this becomes less of an issue, since they'll inevitably fire back their own stories
fortunately, most of my friends who aren't parents are pretty into kids, so they tend to be more tolerant
 
Truth. And then you turn into storyshare time! :D
Still, I feel like your kids accept your weirdness until they get to school.
Then things turn funny.
 
4:05 PM
@Beofett Jumping into an old discussion: Same thing happened to me. Apparently all the nerds are in Denmark; none in Austria. <lonely sigh> That's why I'm online! <cheer>
But yes, @AarthiDevanathan I'd like to do a chat event.
 
@TorbenGundtofteBruun brilliant.
 
I think the earlier we announce (or, the later the date is), the more eyeballs = participants we get.
 
I'd make a meta post but what's worked best is getting the chat event going, period
based on our analytics, between 1300 and 1700 EST is our best timeframe.
 
... and EST is what, in global terms?
 
I'd say maybe 1500-1600 EST for a chat event on a Monday or Wednesday.
EST is...-5 GMT.
 
4:08 PM
I swear, I will never get the hang of EST and mountain time and what you guys use. The rest of the world runs on UTC coordinates....
 
We're -5 UTC right now
in the summer we're -4 UTC
 
so 1500 EST would be 1000 UTC, which is 1100 GMT+1 where I live.
 
@AarthiDevanathan this is why I have such a hard time with UTC
 
@Beofett my problem (apart from US-internal time codes) is that the whole world does not have the same date for shifting summer/winter time.
 
Nope
1500 EST = 2000 UTC
 
4:11 PM
Some countries don't even do the summer time, they're on winter time all year round.
 
@TorbenGundtofteBruun Such as India.
 
@AarthiDevanathan well in that case 1500 EST suits me FINE!!
@AarthiDevanathan and Japan.
 
I'm becoming much more favorable towards the "abolish DST" camp
 
Hello Susan!! Long time since I've seen @HedgeMage here!
 
Hi, @TorbenGundtofteBruun :)
 
4:12 PM
Hi @HedgeMage :)
 
@Beofett Meh, it's nice to have the daylight match the rhythm of humanity, but it's a confusing factor.
 
I've been around occasionally, just not as much as usual. You should see me more now that I'm done traveling for awhile.
 
speaking of which....
 
So, 3-4pm EST (2000-2100 UTC) on a Monday or Wednesday.
 
I'll be on the road for the holidays coming up, and not certain how much I'll be around from Nov 18 - Nov 26
 
4:14 PM
@AarthiDevanathan I agree on the day&time. Now we just need a date!
How about Wed 16 Nov 2011 ?
 
@TorbenGundtofteBruun That works for me.
 
@HedgeMage we'll be driving past your area on Black Friday... by any chance are you still up for meeting, and would Friday work for you?
 
@Beofett Which area? I'm not sure yet if I'll be in Indianapolis or the family farm in Illinois then.
 
@Beofett <envy> :-)
 
We'll be driving from Chicago to Lancaster, PA
 
4:16 PM
@AarthiDevanathan would this work for @Beofett and perhaps even @HedgeMage ?
 
@TorbenGundtofteBruun Aww... on my birthday :) Sure!
 
our route is somewhat flexible, but we want to break it up so we're not subjecting Hunter to a 12 - 14 hour drive
 
@HedgeMage OH! discreetly makes a note in the calendar
 
@Beofett I did Chicago to Philidelphia a couple of weeks ago -- I-80 is under construction through basically all of Ohio. Other than that it was a nice drive.
 
4:18 PM
@TorbenGundtofteBruun that works fine for me!
 
@Beofett Both I-80 and Route 30 (your two most likely paths) pass within 3 miles of my parents' home -- I'll make sure to be there to meet up with you. :)
 
@AarthiDevanathan So we have a date, and a time. Topic is just "general" I guess. Or why not make it "meet the staff"? Will you make the arrangements? (meta, sysmsg, etc)
 
@HedgeMage Excellent!
 
@TorbenGundtofteBruun sure that's good to me. and a little chatter about site promo :D
@TorbenGundtofteBruun I can make the meta post. BUT -- you or @Beofett has to set up the chat event.
 
@AarthiDevanathan oops, I forgot that you started out mentioning site promo!
 
4:20 PM
It'll auto-sysmsg one hour befor ethe event.
hee it's cool
 
@beofett Would you please email me at susan@stackexchange.com so we can trade phone numbers?
 
Just one hour? Seems awfully short.
 
@TorbenGundtofteBruun there's no reason we can't hang out after -- that just means we only need hour agenda to cover an hour :)
 
the DIY chats regularly run two hours, and the moderators have one-hour ones that just....end.
 
@HedgeMage sent!
 
4:22 PM
Thanks!
 
@HedgeMage Sorry, I meant: it's awfully short to announce it by sysmsg just ONE hour in advance. I think most people just peek in briefly, so the further in advance that sysmsg is, the more will of course see it.
I think a one-hour session is a good time box. I wouldn't want to commit to more than that. (But I'll hang around afterwards, too.)
 
the sysmsg stuff is all @HedgeMage -- Community Team has very specific feelings about those.
 
We don't use sysmsg for chat events, period. However I or any mod can mark the meta post about the event as "featured" which will cause it to be advertised in the sidebar until either we un-feature it or a newer featured post exists.
 
A sysmsg will automagically appear for a scheduled chat, iirc.
It'll show up on the main page one hour and then ten minutes prior to the start of the chat.
 
a top-bar notification, not a sysmsg -- the former can be dismissed once the user is done reading it, the latter can't.
 
4:35 PM
We made that sysmsg mistake once before. I still would prefer it if the featured posts were more visible (the sidebar only appears under pretty specific circumstances, iirc)
 
@Beofett It appears whenever one is viewing a question
 
@HedgeMage aha! I wasn't aware of that, thanks for the clarification. I am not sure about the meta "featured" though; we've marked several meta posts as "featured" already but I'm not really seeing them anywhere -- or at least, only rarely.
 
@HedgeMage ah, I think i was missing that sometimes it gets pushed off my screen by the cross-site ads
actually, no, scratch that
I have one question open where there is no meta links on the sidebar. Is that because there are no current [featured] posts?
 
@Beofett yes, there are none, I just checked.
I wonder if the "featured" tag is automatically removed after a while?
I have tagged a number of meta posts, but I haven't seen anyone untag them.
 
@TorbenGundtofteBruun iirc they do expire
but if we have them up currently, they force the meta sidebar to appear on every question? because right now the meta sidebar does not appear 100% of the time
 
4:42 PM
@Beofett yes, they do expire: this one doesn't show a tag, but when you click "edit tags", it's suddenly there: meta.parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/191/…
 
hold on a sec, let me try an experiment :)
Where is the chat event meta post?
 
Also, last time we feature-tagged some posts, it took a while before they showed up on the main site.
 
@HedgeMage if you're going to tag a question, from what I remember there's a delay before it triggers the sidebar event
 
1
Q: Should we have a regular chat event of our own?

Aarthi DevanathanOver in DIY, we have a regular chat event that happens weekly, where ostensibly we talk about projects that participants are working on. (Lots and lots of pictures!) The conversation usually meanders into salivating over tools, talking about our favorite "helpers" (children or dogs, depending), d...

 
@Beofett Yes, it's on a job, etc.
@TorbenGundtofteBruun Most sites have better luck if "we're having a chat event and here's the when and where" is its own separate post. People don't want to read through everything that led up to it.
I was just curious that nothing shows up at meta.parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/featured
and wanted to see if the event post would show there if tagged
 
4:55 PM
@HedgeMage What? No it's a sysmsg -- the DIY ones aren't the redbar, they're the yellow one.
But yes, I can write a meta post after lunchtimes.
Either @Torben or @Beofett will need to create the chat event, however.
I am Not Allowed to do that.
It won't give the message notification that we want.
And, we can run a simple house ad for the chat event on Parenting, if you want.
That's easy enough.
 
@HedgeMage there are already posts tagged featured, but they don't show on that page. I wonder if they would show, if we removed and readded the featured tag.
I'm on mobile chat now; limited capabilities
 
Make @Beofett do it :D
 
I can go there but the page won't let me enter the time; it's some kind of ubersmart textfield-become-dropdown.
 
sigh
 
if you need me to do it let me know
 
5:05 PM
Or I'll do it tonight.
 
Nah it's more fun to make @Beofett do it
 
In the mean time, would you guys please go upvote my answer here -- I'd really like it to float above all the people who are overreacting:
0
A: How do I teach my child to express his frustration?

HedgeMageThis is pretty common -- frankly, head-butting or head-banging makes a more satisfying sound and causes less pain than its common adult/teen corollary: punching the wall. Icing on the cake, it's also less likely to damage your drywall. :) If ignoring it completely doesn't end it, you still don'...

 
2000 UTC on Nov 16, right?
 
@Beofett Yes.
 
One time only (for now), correct? Description: Site Promotion Discussion?
 
5:07 PM
@HedgeMage "Little kids get relief from doing something physical with their strong emotions" -- then I'm clearly a litte kid :-) I've already learned the hard way which of my apartment's walls are hard concrete.
 
check and check
 
rofl @TorbenGundtofteBruun
@TorbenGundtofteBruun Well, grown-ups do, too, we're just usually a bit more measured about it.
 
afk lunchtimes
 
Beofett has added an event to this room's schedule.
 
5:11 PM
any time!
(except for 2:30 to 2:45... that's Beofett's time!!!)
 
LOL
Signing off... Commute is ending. Family time!!
 
ttyl @TorbenGundtofteBruun
 
@HedgeMage As the asker of the question, thank you for your measured response :)
 
@SteveJackson You are very welcome!
 
I seem to have a problem asking questions on SE, I provide what I think is context and everyone sort of jumps on that as the question. I asked on fitness about exercises to strengthen my knee and got several answers about going to the doctor and surgery options.
 
5:22 PM
There's a certain tendency to assume the worst, or at least the most dramatic, of possible interpretations. You can write carefully to try to mitigate it, but you can't entirely keep people from overreacting.
@SteveJackson If you accept my answer, at least it floats to the top, above everyone who over-reacted.
 
5:37 PM
@HedgeMage I do think it's a good response and it addresses my underlying concern. However, I'm still looking for an answer to what I feel is the main question: "How do I teach my son to express his frustration?" Is your answer to take away destructive ways until he settles on an ok one? Just wait it out? Can I propose a "better" one? How do I do that?
For instance, @Aarthi posted an interesting article yesterday mentioning playacting methods.
yesterday, by Aarthi Devanathan
I saw this in the paper this morning, @Beofett @Torben, and thought to share: http://on.wsj.com/sJdExe
As I mentioned to @Beofett yesterday, I think he's testing them out :)
yesterday, by Steve Jackson
@Beofett I'm coming to the realization that my son is trying different temper behaviors to see what gets us to react and give him what he wants. You're right that prevention is 90% of the cure, but there are times when there's no alternative other than "No you cannot stand on the table".
 
@SteveJackson It's a hard one to answer, because what is an appropriate outlet for frustration varies so much from family to family based on culture and other factors. If I knew more about your family I could try to answer.
 
@HedgeMage Interesting. I hadn't thought about it that way. Ideally of course he would say: "I am unhappy that I cannot go outside at this moment, but I understand that it is bath time and will acquiesce to the wisdom of my amazing and seldom-wrong father"
 
roflmao
@SteveJackson Okay, you start by replacing your two-year-old with a robotic look-alike... :P
 
@HedgeMage Hmmm...I should go find robotics.SE - I've got a lot to learn :)
 
:D
 
5:45 PM
But yeah, I'm ok with screaming, though I imagine others in the house would prefer it didn't happen. Throwing, biting, hitting, and self-harm are out.
 
More seriously... in our house, I expect LF to be able to tell me how he's feeling and precisely why (mostly because if more adults could do this they wouldn't be so screwed up), and I'll tolerate him needing a break from whatever is frustrating him, or a certain amount of pouting... I won't tolerate screaming, yelling, stomping, growling, muttering rude things, harm to self/others, banging, throwing things...
If you teach him screaming is okay now, you'd better be sure -- he'll still be doing it when he's 10 and when he's a teenager.
 
Oh that doesn't sound good :( Screaming and yelling are currently fun things to do, he doesn't do them when he's upset.
 
Here's how I accomplished it:
1) Recognize that there's a difference between rational frustration (I thought we were going to the park but a storm hit so we can't go, my favorite toy just broke, etc.) and typical little-kid not getting one's own way. Part of raising an emotionally mature human being is teaching your child to tell when they are being rational and when they aren't.
If it's irrational (I don't WANT to have a bed-time), I am extremely curt. I explain why the thing is the way it is ("You need to get good sleep or you will be too tired to go out tomorrow"), once, and go on about my business. Either he'll misbehave and get punished, or he'll learn to go about his business. There's a middle ground where he's trying to do what he's supposed to but pouting or dragging his feet. I'll gently hurry him up or make a joke to try to lighten the mood
"Don't bother with that boo-boo lip, you know mommies are immune."
 
ha :)
@HedgeMage I really really appreciate you taking the time to walk me through this, but I have to pick up my non-robot from the babysitter. I'll try to be back an hour and will read whatever you have put down, or if you want to pick this up again, I would love to learn more about how you handle this.
 
If it's rational, I'll spend more time/energy on helping him feel better.
@SteveJackson np... I'll finish at least the first part so I don't lose my train of thought and we can catch up whenever
 
5:57 PM
Thank you. Be back soon.
 
If we can't go to the park, we'll make something else fun to do (bake cookies? build a fort?). If a toy broke, we'll try to fix it or figure out who can (my dad is phenomenally good at rescuing toys I thought absolutely done-for), plan to replace it (if we intend to) or find something else to play with... you get the idea. Teach him that there are ways to make it better, you just have to find them.
(I still don't tolerate bad behavior of course.)
And, I always hit him with "I can't help fix it if I don't know what's wrong" -- teaching this young, while the things that frustrate them are still very concrete, makes it much easier for kids to learn how to identify WHY they feel what they feel.
It's one of those "use your words" moments.
If it's rational, but not anything I can fix (no, we can't do $fun_thing because we need to go grocery shopping) I'll look for a compromise that makes it more palatable IF he uses words to tell me how he feels and why. (If you are extra-good and help me get done quickly, we should have time for one video game after shopping.)
I guess in general I feel that expressing emotion is fine, but I'd rather teach my child to dismiss irrational feelings, and directly deal with rational ones.
It works -- he's now 8 and generally deals with frustration by trying to solve the underlying thing "I'm upset that it's too rainy for the park, but I'm thinking of what else we can do"
there's stuff that's not solvable, but even a grown-up has a pity party now and again ;)
2) So the second thing is that sometimes before he can get to dismissing or dealing with the feelings of frustration, he needs some sort of release so he can think. If he does something naughty, he gets time-out per normal, but after time-out we talk about what he can do that is okay -- and anything I suggest is something I'm fine with him doing all the way up to adulthood. How we react to stress is a hard pattern to break, so I'd rather spare him having to break a bad habit.
In our house, that's drawing/writing, diverting attention to something less stressful for a while, or finding an acceptable target for wrath and retribution (when he was small, LF had huge problems with reading homework -- if it made him really mad he could "get back at it" by doing it in purple, it was his own little rebellion and it made him feel better that he got the best of it), or exercising.
@SteveJackson Anyhow, feel free to ping me later :)
 
6:52 PM
@HedgeMage I love that advice; great stuff!
I've taken the liberty of bookmarking it. I hope you don't mind

Teaching a child to deal with frustration

1 hour ago, 26 minutes total – 22 messages, 2 users, 1 star

Bookmarked 3 mins ago by Beofett

3
 
Thanks :)
 
Mind if I pin it, at least for a bit?
(I've never pinned something... I presume it shows at the top of starred messages?)
 
sure, if you want to :)
yes, it just stays at the top of starred messages
 
done :)
Incidentally, are these questions too similar?
0
Q: Can you guide a toddler to learn specific words?

BeofettMy 14 month old has a pretty good vocabulary for his age. However, it is a source of frustration for my wife that "mommy" (or some variation thereof) is not part of his vocabulary. He says "daddy" quite often, which only adds salt to the wound, so to speak. I have pointed out that while yes,...

0
Q: How do toddlers pick their first words?

BeofettMy son has a pretty eclectic selection of vocabulary. Some words seem to have been picked up from my wife and I repeating them (such as "uh-oh" and "daddy"). Others seem to have been learned without us doing much to single them out ("balloon", "blue", and "duck" for example). Other words we've...

 
7:24 PM
@HedgeMage - this is great advice. We're working very hard on the "use your words" part of this, at this point he's still angry initially and isn't "listening". His tantrums are very short though and he tends to move on quickly. So we feel stuck - he's "over" it, do we now try to get him to reason about it? For the same reason timeouts aren't effective yet, they curb the behavior well enough, but we don't feel like it's a teaching experience.
He's just started answering questions this last week though, hopefully that's the key part we're missing.
 
@SteveJackson Just keep trying -- it'll come as he matures.
 
7:47 PM
@HedgeMage I hope you'd consider linking to the conversation or adding some of this to your answer. It's exactly the kind of actionable information I was looking for.
 
aka, do it do it do it
 
@AarthiDevanathan I'm practicing my tact - don't blow my cover!
 
tact is overrated
ask forgiveness instead!
 
I think you would have to join me in the penalty box if we worked together @Aarthi. My customer likes to talk to me because I don't sugarcoat things, but my coworkers dislike unpleasantness, so they would prefer I keep my mouth shut.
 
8:05 PM
:( I'd keep you awesome company in the box, i assure you.
0
Q: Will you be free on November 16th at 2000 UTC?

Aarthi DevanathanIf so, we will be having a chat event at that time, to discuss site promotion, future chat events, and other things. Swing by, enjoy the company, meet some new faces, and ask your mods / me any questions you may have. Please hit "register" on the above-linked page to indicate that you'll be join...

 
8:24 PM
@SteveJackson I'd be happy to as soon as I have a chance, or you are welcome to do so. Everything on SE is editable :)
 
@SteveJackson You do know that you can edit her answer to add links and quotes from this chat, right? Go ahead - I'm sure she won't mind!
 
Even if she did, she'd just roll back the edit.
 
didn't read to the end of the chat before posting
@Beofett I think the 2 questions are similar but they do focus on different elements of language learning, so I'd keep them separate.
 
@TorbenGundtofteBruun that was why I posted them as two questions, but I wan't to make sure. thanks!
btw, off-topic, this is fun: chaosinyourtown.com
 
@Beofett I replied to both. I tried to make my answers distinctly different too.
 

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