Hi folks!

We'll get started in about 10 minutes.

oy

let's do this

Y'all being available during playoff baseball is rather fail. q:

and we're all eastcoasters! double fail

@Rebecca I guess...but I ditched TV a couple years ago...and it's err...baseball

aww come on, no knocking baseball

but yeah, if I kinda disappear, just @lert me and pull me away from the Cards game lol.

hey, I don't need to leave my PC to watch the yanks get shafted

@nick if I weren't running for Mod, you'd probably get my vote just for that comment alone !

@everyone, hi, and what baseball are we talking about? :)

let me google

Hi @lazer

collegebaseballinsider.com/12Articles/…

hey

this one? good luck with the matched.. I dont follow any of it..

*matches

Ok, let's do this!

Hi everyone!

@Lazer - this: mlb.mlb.com/index.jsp

hi @RebeccaChernoff

@RebeccaChernoff hi rebecca

Welcome to the DBA SE Town Hall Chat

Sorry I'm late.

vote @mrdenny for office

summoning @jcolebrand since I'm still not sure about that guy...

Hi all

We're just here to get to know the candidates and ask questions regarding the candidates views on moderation that may help in voting.

Jack, good afternoon

A few notes about the format:

The format is open, feel free to ask your question(s) unprompted, however please be mindful of whether or not candidates have answered the previous questions so that they don't get behind and start missing questions. Other than that, feel free to jump in.

Candidates, please please use the reply feature so that questions and their answers are linked together. (Hover your mouse over the left of the message, click the down arrow, click reply)

When a question is asked, I'll star it - please star it yourself also to help! Please save stars for only the questions so that candidates can refer to the star list to make sure they haven't missed a question.

We will be creating a digest version of the town hall chat after it is completed. This digest will take the form of a question on meta, containing all the questions asked as well as their answers for easier reading.

There's a system message up on the site, so we may get some stragglers joining us.

The candidates I see here are: @Lazer, @Nick, @DTest, @jcolebrand, @JackDouglas, and @mrdenny.

Hopefully @mrdenny can join us too! (:

With that, I think I've got all my initial messages, so I open the floor to y'all. I've got some questions to fill in as needed, but... Who has a question to start us off? (:

I do.

@Nick shoot

Since I figure we're all gonna think our questions are dumb, I'm gonna toss some dumb ones out there...

Do you like our site's current name? If not, what do you propose and how will you go about making it happen?

What do you think constitutes a spam answer?

Hey everyone, sorry I'm late.

hi mrdenny

@Nick I am not overly happy with our current site name, because I think it detracts from the NoSQL crowd joining in freely, but I think the time has come and gone for branding changes, until we get much larger and am happy to keep things as they are. I would, however, love to see some better community marketing.

@mrdenny s'all good, hi. (:

@jcolebrand link to a totally unrelated website, or inline text about totally unrelated topic..

@jcolebrand I'd say that a spammer is someone who is simply using the site to advertise their product or service in every answer they make. The community is usually pretty good and pointing them out pretty quickly (at least from what I see on ServerFault).

@jcolebrand I think that a spam answer is defined by the repeated use of a particular single or multiple URL in the posters answers to promote one of a handful of sites, which are geared towards tools for sale, and which appear to be the only reason for that user to post. I think that they have to have used URLs in more than half of their posts for us to consider them spammers.

@Nick I think the name is fine and is one of the things that attracted me to the site to begin with. I don't necessarily like that the domain is a subdomain, but unfortunately don't have a good alternative.

Are you the kind of mod that will make decisions or do you need to have another name on that close/delete list before you act? Especially on borderline cases.

@random I generally act alone but am willing to defend my actions on meta, and am open to being shown I'm wrong. Having said that, it's always nice to have someone else to make sure I'm doing the right thing before I just charge in with swords and pistols drawn.

@Nick I'm ok with the site's name. I think that it keeps the focus on the set and tuning of the various database platforms.

@Nick Related to names, I dont like the decision that only expert db questions are supposed to be asked here. Its like go to SO if you have an easy one and come here, if you have a difficult dba specific one. I think 'Administrators' word is a bit distracting, but then again thats what differentiates us from SO, its a deadlock situation, i think

@Nick I like the current name but I have a hankering for fullouterjoin.com because "full outer joins are esoteric enough ... and the 'full' kind of implies 'full fat' or 'full blooded/bodied' which is what this site is: a place for grown up database professionals and those who need their help"

@random Generally I like to let the community take care of the bulk of the closes. Especially is something is borderline, just because I don't want my will to overly influence. If there's something totally obvious I'll move it / blow it away without anyone else having ever voted on it. This is especially important on a younger site as not very many people had the vote to close right yet.

@jcolebrand The biggest indicator of a spam answer to me is linking and promoting a specific product, without offering any expert-level advice to the original question. If an answer has expert-level advice, the product promotion can be editted out or encouraged to be removed through comments.

@random Since my vote will shutdown the question altogether, especially on borderline cases, I might wait for someone in the community to echo my thoughts.

In response to my question (it appears I can't link a message to an earlier one from myself): "Database Administrators" has served us well so far, but it threatens to limit our audience. I've proposed a name change but would obviously solicit community approval to execute something like that.

As @jcolebrand said, it may be too late to change everything, but I wouldn't consider that an answered question. I want dba.se to really turn into something that all database professionals go to--NoSQL and data warehouse designers especially.

@random If it's borderline cases, it needs to be a vote. If it's outright not a good fit according to the FAQ, I'd close it.

What do you think about our logo?

In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching higher rep privilege levels?

@jcolebrand Spam is promotion of anything without providing instructional value. It's fine to promote product or company if you explain why they are the right choice and that explanation has technical merit. Of course, I expect answerers to disclose any relationship they have to a product they are promoting.

@random Jeff's blog A Theory of Moderation says "Judiciously limiting your use of moderator powers to selectively prune and guide the community — now that’s the true art of moderation." I agree with that principle, that a mod shouldn't be fighting against the community or aggressively trying to steer it.

@Lazer I'd prefer a more traditional database icon as a logo, but I think that as is it covers all the database platforms including the non-relational platforms. Granted I have no artistic taste what so ever, so you should probably just ignore me on this one.

@Lazer I like what we have so far. The blue silhouette give it a smooth look.

@Lazer Not a designer, but I like gbn's answer to the meta question, more transparency on the outter shell.

@RebeccaChernoff I've got the time to help keep the questions on point, and I like giving back to the community when I can.

@RebeccaChernoff It is not about the rep for me, and I don't have it anyways :) . I will be here more often and will get a chance to contribute back better.

@random As you said, it's your confidence that matters. If I know that this is a slam dunk case I'm not gonna wait for others to take action. On the borderline cases I will consult with at least another mod before taking action. If the case is just symptomatic of a larger issue, I'll open a meta discussion around it to understand the community's stance before establishing a standard to use going forward.

@Lazer Personally I hate the current logo. I'm not saying I could do any better, and it seems almost everyone else likes it so I made up my mind a while ago not to lose any sleep over it :)

@RebeccaChernoff The mod tools offer more in the way of in-your-face notifications that things need looking at. Reviewing content represents most of my activity on the site, so my reputation doesn't go up quickly to reach those tools otherwise.

Can you explain (or link if you can easily find it) an example that demonstrates a valuable contribution to the site that shows your leadership / how you would handle something as a moderator?

@RebeccaChernoff Reaching higher rep means you ask and answer a lot of questions and do so well. You may not be interested in cleaning up after others, steering the course of the site, or taking care of things like the tagging ecosystem. Having mod privileges means there is less time to action and a stronger feeling of commitment to the community. It also does not bind one to spend a lot of time doing things for rep. They can spend that time moderating.

Did everyone else fall asleep? (:

@RebeccaChernoff I linked to the following two posts in my nomination blurb. First: My tag cleanup discussion. Second: My response to a new user who was put off by some SE standards.

@RebeccaChernoff I enjoy organizing and simplifying our tag ecosystem and I love SE's structure and philosophy enough to make sure new users buy into it and understand why it's good.

@RebeccaChernoff Aside from flag weight, editing, etc, I feel compelled to leave comments to new users to encourage them to provide more detail, or leaving comments especially when I downvote

@RebeccaChernoff I'm sure I've got examples from over on ServerFault, but I can't think of any because I don't really remember that stuff. Just sort of do as needed and move on.

@RebeccaChernoff Can't find anything in particular to link to for leadership. I brought up two issues on meta - logo and recently, code tag size.

If you could change one aspect of the DBA.SE community (not the software) without repercussion—whether it's banning a particular type of question that's currently acceptable, allowing a type of question that's not, emphasizing on something that DBA.SE ignores now, or something else—what would it be and why? (taken from the gaming.se town hall chat)

@RebeccaChernoff There's all the normal stuff of talking to the new users getting them to actually provide the information needed to get their question answered, even if it isn't a question that I'm going to be able to answer.

@Nick We should not migrate any simple db questions to SO, if they are first asked on this site. I am not sure if this has happened or not, but users should not have to go to whole another site because their question is easy.

@RebeccaChernoff Even without 10k rep and mod tools, a non-mod can be very 'effective' in moderation by looking hard at content and flagging it appropriately - I don't feel becoming a mod would necessarily make us 'more effective' in that sense. However, moderation is a vital role, particularly for those times when things go wrong and in those rare cases I hope to be able to contribute more.

@Nick The only real kind of question that I've seen recently that I don't like (saw this most recently on SF) is the "opening this question to be the catch all for this type of question" questions. There are always different angels that need to be explored and these catch all questions just don't work. The one that comes to mind was about software licensing. People wanted to close it as duplicate because there was a generic catch all question that didn't answer the specific question asked.

@Nick The biggest type of question I struggle with being off-topic are subjective questions. An example I think these are closed too quickly, and can provide valuable resource for the site.

@Lazer I think that our logo is too undefined when it's in a small resolution. I would like to see something wtih two or three colors.

@RebeccaChernoff Since I'm already a moderator and have shown how I work, I don't know that I can add any more to this than my existing experience shows. However, I am active on many of the Stack Exchange network sites and want to continue to pay back to the community, and being a mod here allows me to do so.

@RebeccaChernoff I was happy with my responses meta.dba.stackexchange.com/questions/421/… and I know that there are many actual occurrences on Database Administrators proper of my existing moderation that I think show well how I deal as a moderator. If it is of importance, I can add details on this at request.

@Nick I'm with Lazer on this. I think "easy" DB questions are OK if they are asked first on DBA.SE. I would also like to see a lot more NoSQL, NewSQL, and BI questions. Finally, I actually think DBA.SE would benefit from having a few "shark vs. gorilla" discussions that get CW-ed/closed after a bit. They are always big hits, draw lots of traffic (just look at SO).

@Nick The ones that I want to see brought here are the NoSQL category of questions. I think that too few people think of database administrators as having expertise in non-RDBMS systems, and I think that the concepts fit to both categories equally well. I would love to see more of these types of questions on our site.

Again from gaming.se: What is the biggest problem facing DBA.SE today?

@Nick Lack of users and questions being spread over SF and SO that could/should be on DBA.SE.

@Nick missing real dba's on the site, which contributes to poor content

@Nick I think the 'fuzzy' line on what constitutes questions to be on (or off) topic. An example is the overlap between SQL query help (at what point is it considered 'expert' enough to go on DBA?)

How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

@Nick We are at risk of just becoming another old-school RDBMS Q&A site instead of a serious platform for database expertise of all kinds. This is closely related to our name being "Database Administrators".

@RebeccaChernoff In three stages: I would encourage by use of comments for them to change their behavior, I would encourage them next via system message to change their behavior, and then I would encourage them via suspension to change their behavior.

@RebeccaChernoff start with a comment, then an email with some consequences. If a helpful users just wants to pick fights there are other sites they can be a PITA on.

Do you think that Powershell questions would have a place on Database Administrators?

@RebeccaChernoff will try to explain to the user how important he/she is to the community and how a small change from their end would make them even more 'reputed' here. I hope they will understand and I will not need to do anything further.

@RebeccaChernoff Encourage the valuable material with upvotes, do the converse with the inflammatory material plus comments advising a change of behavior in those instances. Persistent bad behavior should eventually result in suspension, even when complemented by valuable material.

@jcolebrand "it depends". If they relate to working with PoSH and the database engine for managing a large enterprise, sure. If it's a PoSH in general question then it should be kicked to SF or possible SO.

@jcolebrand no, SO is the right place.

@jcolebrand I think that any technology that a professional dba has need of is generally fair game here. This isn't a site for ONLY powershell questions, but they have some room here as well.

@RebeccaChernoff An Oracle expert recently took offence to some editing of some posts he made, having recently arrived at the site - I tried to understand his point of view when he raised his issue on meta, and contacted him via the feedback form of his blog in the hope of encouraging him back at least to read my effort at reconciliation. I think the approach worked in this case as he has since returned and is contributing again.

@Lazer technically they could be on SF, SO, SU or here. Even Programmers and CodeReview

@mrdenny I thought that might be a nice tickle given the current twitter stream ;)

@jcolebrand Absolutely, as long as they are about using Powershell as a tool to manage databases. Of course, they would probably have a good place on Server Fault as well and that would up to us to decide what questions were too "server-y".

@jcolebrand cheater.

@jcolebrand yes, looks like I am missing something from @mrdenny's reply

@RebeccaChernoff Being unfamiliar on what tools are available for mods, I would comment to encourage a change, talk to them in chat to give them a chance to give their side of events (a lot of context is lost in text and limited space of comments), and discuss with the other moderators other courses of actions. Obviously this is a community and at some point abuse and flagging will outweigh the value of the content the user contributes.

@Lazer There's a whole thread on "is PoSH a scripting language" on Twitter, again. SQLVariant is defending his baby again.

Do you think there are hard and fast rules for questions from other sites to be migrated here? I'm considering the supposition of a question asking about an ER design asked on Programmers. Where would you draw the line on "that doesn't really belong here"? (this may be too vague)

@jcolebrand Late to the party on this one, but I think most questions would qualify on SO (with any hosting questions on SF)

@mrdenny thanks, will find out more about this tomorrow

@Nick I take an optimistic view of the site, which is still in it's infancy. I think the focus should always be on content - our content is good but it could always be better. We especially need more great answers, because that is what benefits the majority of visitors (who arrive from search engines). If there is one problem it is shared with all the SE sites: you'll probably get more rep from 5 shoddy answers than one really good one :)

@jcolebrand No I don't. I think there's some guidelines that the other sites have, but I don't think hard and fast rules would help anyone.

@jcolebrand What is Powershell :p

@JackDouglas hahahahahahahaha

@JackDouglas it's a scripting language <ducks>

@JackDouglas is that a question to answer? hmmm

@jcolebrand Programmers was created, among other reasons, for more discussion-type questions that don't have a right answer. If it does, and it is about hardcore DB design, I would propose migration right away. Obviously, I would want the Programmers mods to agree with me before taking any action. In general, though, there aren't hard and fast rules for migrations--only precedent and consensus.

@JackDouglas Absolutely.

@jcolebrand hard and fast is the part that makes me say "uh no". As for "where do I draw the line" if it fits on the home site, I say leave it there. No sense migrating something that's already well at home.

@RebeccaChernoff I'd do nothing without giving it a lot of thought first, and here's the reason: content is what makes or breaks the site, "a steady stream of valuable answers" is a goldmine.

That puts us about at the hour, anyone have a final question?

I don't have a question but I do have an .. bit of encouragement?

@jcolebrand This goes back to the overlap issues that DBA has (what is expert-enough). In my opinion, if it deals with consequences of a certain design, it belongs here. I would probably stray more towards migrating interesting questions, like hierarchy design. If in doubt, ask in chat for community support, or leave it.

@jcolebrand The question for this site is what to do with content that is migrated here - SO, SF etc need to decide for themselves what to migrate - we can only try and raise awareness and plead our case, primarily by providing an excellent home for content they do migrate

I want everyone to vote their heart, but don't "not vote for someone" just because you think "everyone else is going to vote for that person". Vote for the three you want to have moderate, because those are the three you want to be the current moderators.

@RebeccaChernoff can we change our votes once they have been cast?

Yes, I do want final thoughts from the candidates. (:

@jcolebrand yes

Vote for who you think will do a good job on the site. That's the most important thing about these elections.

@RebeccaChernoff Final thoughts: Databases suck. Real Programmers write everything to a text file.

ha!

@jcolebrand Yes, I am hoping that a lot of people come vote as well. Don't see many in the chat here today..

@Nick oh, we are going that route? "Databases are for little girls. Real men use perl for data access"

@mrdenny pfft, don't make me talk to you about butterflies

@RebeccaChernoff If I get zero votes, I hereby pledge to continue to support the site as much as I can, and not go off and sulk. I encourage you all to do the same, especially @jcole :)

@Lazer fortunately this becomes a meta Q&A on our site later ;)

Thanks for participating everyone!

@JackDouglas but of course. See Meta Stack Overflow and Stack Overflow

@RebeccaChernoff Coffee for all* provided by stack exchange. (*disclaimer: They are not really going to provide coffee for all).

A digest will be posted in a day or so.

@RebeccaChernoff thanks for being our moderator!

@RebeccaChernoff Sweet.

@RebeccaChernoff thanks for modding the chat.

Thanks and goodnight (00:06BST)

Peace out everyone. This was fun.

@RebeccaChernoff thanks rebecca, and everyone else.

@JackDouglas lol good night