Conversation started Apr 10, 2014 at 20:17.
Apr 10, 2014 20:17
Hey GraceNote ;-)
@GraceNote comes to save the [chat]day!
No saving to be in the doing here.
@GraceNote Hi, and also bye. I'm leaving :)
@Morwenn later!
@Morwenn - ut this is your baby too.
Apr 10, 2014 20:18
Take care
I get the impression everyone is holding their breath.....
(face turning purple)
Anonymous
@Morwenn infected mushroom?
Anonymous
meh. dubstep's not my thing
Apr 10, 2014 20:21
@GraceNote if blogs are only for graduated sites, ...then we need to update the "advantages of graduation" meta-post ;) ...are they?
@Mat'sMug No, they're for all levels of sites.
(happiness ensues)
The documentation on the blogoverflow is relatively dated.... and the chat room is quiet.
In fact, the blogoverflow was not even able to show me the current sites with blogs.
Oh no! Grace Note's here! Hide the bear traps! :D
2
all seems vary 'bare'.
2
Apr 10, 2014 20:24
7
A: What's a Zombie? And what are the many other memes of Code Review?

MorwennMeme: Exploding bear traps Originator: Grace Note Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor, Website Graduation Background: During the endless talk about Code Review graduation, some were wondering whether Code Review could even graduate some day or was doomed and would close. The answer was as follows...

^^ exploding bear traps have been immortalized ;)
Anonymous
@Morwenn Hard{style|dance|core|whatever} first, then House, then Electro, then Good Prog House, then Glitch Hop, then Nu Disco/Indie Dance, then Drumstep, then Trance, then Dubstep, then DnB and finally then Shit Big Room
There's some underlying work being done about how the blogs are hosted and the like.
So there's bound to be some quietness. Also the blog chatroom is always quiet.
I think we can be patient, especially with MSE/MSO happening... I imagine folk are busy...
I think the critical aspect is whether there are any blockers/hurdles we have to cross to get there.
@GraceNote we are beyond saving
At the moment it appears we have significant momentum on this one too.
Apr 10, 2014 20:28
@rolfl maybe they're going for the minimalist look.... like a whiteboard, nice and clean
That would be for the Programmers 's blog ... they like the whiteboard style ;-)
It concerns me that some people think we're penalizing the site's path to graduation on account of "having an influx of new users".
Oh?
I think that's about one of the comments I made, hold on...
Over on the meme post, in the comments.
Apr 10, 2014 20:32
I am not sure I have heard it expressed that way .... the only concerns I have heard are that we have a fair amount of low-rep users who have not been active since before the 'upsurge' last November.
oh, that
Which given Mat's reaction, that justifies my having used "some people".
Lest it be misunderstood, my using "exploding bear traps" in that context was meant to be a "reductio ad absurdum": to cast doubt on the usefulness of a metric which (it seems to me) will penalize a site for having a continuous influx of new users; and not to suggest that new users are unwelcome. — ChrisW Apr 3 at 13:08
Influx of new users is a good thing. We want sites to have more people, after all.
totally (still looking for that comment of mine..)
Apr 10, 2014 20:34
Well, it would help if we were given more guidance about exactly what criteria we're missing for graduation. Is it just the number of high-rep users? Is there anything else? If the former, could we agree on some numeric targets?
Don't shoot for numeric targets.
Then some other guidelines?
We don't go purely on numerics, so you shouldn't just try to "meet whatever thresholds there are". Your goal is to focus on overall growth in all departments.
Do we just need a few more monkeys?
7
^ probably
Apr 10, 2014 20:36
It doesn't matter if you've "met" any of the "thresholds" that we might have for certain categories. Graduation is a sign of sustained and sustainable growth - so you want to always be focusing on improving all facets.
I still personally find issue at the rep distribution, but let me go break the numbers from our wider time span and focus solely on what's been around since December.
I keep getting the message to just keep doing what you're doing, and it will happen ... sometime.
So whoever wins the race only earns bragging rights...
23
Q: The race has started. Are you running?

Mat's MugPCG.SE is going on a mission. And so the race begins. For Code Review!! -- syb0rg 2 days ago Let's see: Programming Puzzles and Code Golf Voting & Activity PCG.SE Voting and Activity Chart Compare to: Code Review Voting & Activity CR.SE Voting and Activity Chart ...

@rolfl I hate to be simplistic but that's kinda how it is.
I was not being flippant ... ;-)
It is very much a "Keep doing what you're doing".
Anyway, so numbers.
Apr 10, 2014 20:37
watch us with a blog!
I think the whole... general progress thing hurts programmer's brains, we're programmed to do things very specifically :)
@GraceNote - I know I am, and I imaine a lot of us, are goal driven, and we seem to have latched on to graduating as a 'goal'.
It is hard to undo that mindset and be patient.
Out of our numbers, 800 users basically haven't been seen since December, so our "active user count" since your big shift we'll call this at 1804 users.
@rolfl how about we make not graduating for as long as possible our goal without trying to hinder ourselves
bear-traps?
Apr 10, 2014 20:40
So really it's rates of change that matter, not the actual values?
(looks at the time) darn, gotta run - I'll catch up later...
ohhhh calculus
Hah. Didn't mean it in a calculus way, though that could certainly apply :p
byte byte @Mat'sMug
2
by the way, graceNote, when you see shog9, and Pops, tell them that we are loving the MathJax.... and thanks.
Apr 10, 2014 20:41
@Corbin acceleration vs velocity... I remember derrivatives
803 (~44%) - 150-200
717 (~40%) - 200-500
151 (~8%) - 500-1000
74 (~4%) - 1000-2000
18 (~1%) - 2000-3000
15 (<1%) - 3000-5000
17 (~1%) - 5000-10000
9 (<1%) - 10000+
That's the numbers only looking at people who have at least contributing or moved within the past 120 days. The percentages past the fourth one are largely not something to think about.
(it should be noted that we have a few people who are on the threshold of 10K as well... expect that number to be 11 within the week... if they keep up their rate
Argh, I have to go rescue my daughter ;-) apparently she likes going home each day.
TTGH.
Apr 10, 2014 20:47
byte @rolfl!
I want to see that giant chunk that is currently ~84% of the site being under 500 reputation, I want to see that shift some of its bulk into the higher values. That's what I want to see.
Let me bring up for a moment, Robotics. Robotics is a smaller site than here. Not nearly as far down the road. And when I did their review last week, I noticed something odd that I decided to investigate further. Every single question that turned up in their site evaluation, as well as basically every single new question I saw on the front page or from a short query of new posts, was asked by someone either under 50 reputation, or at 101-125 reputation.
Raspberry Pi beta is the same way.
Are you saying that we need more repeat customers?
This is an extreme case of low engagement. You guys aren't going down this road, but I want to bring it ups as an extreme case of low engagement. No one is sticking. Nothing is convincing people to stick around because there's no progress to be earned. So no one is moving up in the ranks. With no rank movement, things stagnate. Which is sad because Robotics has some REALLY cool answers that I loved reading when I did the review.
Oh, Grace is here. Is it good news or bad news?
Apr 10, 2014 20:53
Good news.
It's Friday tomorrow?
3
I'm earning the Fanatic badge tomorrow?
@200_success We want more repeat customers, yes. And getting rewarded is how we usually keep people engaged. A sense of accomplishment is not just something that feels nice, but it gives people the devotion to the place to keep it running, and that's largely what the community is responsible for as a whole. You have the 59 users up there at 2000+ reputation who will be in charge of the "community maintenance" so to speak, and the moderators in charge of the moderating.
We're graduating?
@SimonAndréForsberg It is in fact Friday tomorrow. For me at least. If it isn't for you, then I will laugh at you. Even if it's already Friday for you.
@SimonAndréForsberg Not quite yet. I think.
Apr 10, 2014 20:55
Only one hour until Friday... now I'd better read some chat history here so I understand what this is all about...
Thought @GraceNote was talking about SO for a second with the whole low engagement thing
When I say that I want to see the numbers shift, it's not because I think there's too many people on the lower amounts - I just want to see more people in the upper amounts. I want to see people moving on up, I want to see what shows up to me as signs that there's a continually growing community, often silent, but still there, that is helping make the community thrive.
@SimonAndréForsberg lucky! it is thursday for many hours more for me
I think this is relevant for this conversation:
13
A: The race has started. Are you running?

syb0rgThis is just a friendly reminder to vote. You have 40 votes to use every day, and I don't see many reasons to not use them all. Your voting on answers is what makes the reviewing process fun. In case you don't think I practice what I preach.

man I miss all the good conversation because of work
Apr 10, 2014 20:58
@Malachi I almost missed it too :)
@syb0rg I love my job, (cuz I getz ta Code) but I miss my Code Review
Oh, and since you guys mentioned @Pops, here he is~
Hello @Pops
Hey @GraceNote
Heyhey
Dangit, mod invisibility cloak must be broken.
4
Apr 10, 2014 21:03
@BenVlodgi why were you asking about my Holy Loops Room? you were in it
@Pops sorry
BTW.Work
Hiya @all
@Malachi I know, but what was its original purpose... when I joined there was no talk of loops
We were talking about while vs do while loops
@GraceNote Regarding our , I'm almost at 11K now, I'll be going on vacation for a week shortly but then I'm aiming towards 20K, but after that there's not so much more I can do personally, is there?
You mean while (true)?
@SimonAndréForsberg I would've gone with "You should take a well-earned vacation" but I think you already got that part down.
@GraceNote yeah
Apr 10, 2014 21:06
(Totally you should spread the word while you're out there)
2
0
Q: Can this list comprehension be made more pythonic

user1741339So quite a specific question can the below code be made more clearer / pythonic in any way. Essentially based on the condition of the string x((len(x) / 3) - 1) I use this to extract out parts of the string. def split_string(x): splitted_string = [x[counter*3:(counter*3)+3] for counter in ra...

lol, earning 10K rep in 5 months earns me a vacation? Gotta tell my boss that...
4
@SimonAndréForsberg you would have gotten a raise too but it took you too long
Yes, I do plan to spread the word while I'm out there. Hopefully I'll meet a programmer who loves clean code as much as I do.
@SimonAndréForsberg not likely... its a dirty code world out there
Apr 10, 2014 21:09
Preferably a female, there's definitely too few females around here (both in my life, and on the site)
3
ts
@Malachi oh.. I thought it would have had to do with massive amounts of nested loops...

do{}while(true) == boss
Hello @LokiAstari
@syb0rg Ping
@LokiAstari ding
@LokiAstari Do you not like when I ding you?
Apr 10, 2014 21:13
@BenVlodgi only when it is used correctly
@SimonAndréForsberg Oh, you started out only 5 months ago?
@Malachi I think you mean... while(true) ;)

    bool isDoWhileTrueBoss;
    while(true)
        isDoWhileTrueBoss = true;
@GraceNote I sure did! About the same time as @rolfl started here, although he's gained reputation twice as fast as I did.
Hi @Pops (hello from phone chat - / parked of course)
Apr 10, 2014 21:15
Safety first!
I see, I see. I like that, I like that.
@sim it's the monkeyface
I guess I don't have too much to add to what Grace said. The big thing is that I do have access to voting data, so I ran one query you guys can't do in SEDE.
@Mat'sMug Yeah, I thought that was the reason...
@LokiAstari What is that for?
Apr 10, 2014 21:16
Voting has increased, but it's almost entirely thanks to a small group of really enthusiastic users.
@Pops what is that? can you share? more?
@Pops Was one of them me?
It explains Ping
@syb0rg All of them were you.
Over the past month, the most active voter voted 1277 times.
(Sorry, I can't read across a straight line of a spreadsheet apparently.)
Apr 10, 2014 21:17
cough cough
I was overtake after I got that one badge
I didn't look up who it was, I was only interested in the totals.
@Pops That's what I said!
12
A: 100 days later: what's up?

200_successA lot of progress has been made, but we're not there, yet. In the one month since we've had access to the data, we've barely made a dent in the distribution of avid users among reputation tiers (the "Grace Note query"). There is still a massive backlog of users who are still suffering from the ...

The top three voters accounted for almost 25% of all voting in that period. The top ten voters accounted for 50%.
Apr 10, 2014 21:18
@Pops sorry?
But only 40 users cast more than (on average) one vote per day.
I hate VB sometimes.... it's just so hard to read without all the brackets and Semi colons
Hello @nhgrif
I try to log on every day but I keep falling short one day out of 100
Hi.
Apr 10, 2014 21:22
@200_success Yep, and you were right, but I wanted to get real numbers. (And remember how to use SQL.)
@Pops What can we do to get our non-regulars to vote more?
We've been experiencing FTP issues with the app I'm working on... and I don't know anything about FTP or servers or networking, but I'm convinced the problem is server side and not with the app.
I don't know how to diagnose the problem..
Getting non-regulars to vote has been an issue for a while now. I notice it especially when a CR question hits the "Hot Topic" list on the network.
"Here are a few little problems I found with your code. But I found this really cool obscure bug! Upvote me and I'll tell you the rest!"
2
@SimonAndréForsberg invite everyone to this chat, maybe make a blog post about being in the CR community with links to meta posts about zombies and stuffs... link to the chat
Apr 10, 2014 21:24
@BenVlodgi I already invite a lot of people to chat.
@when I started coming here I wouldn't have joined the chat except @Malachi invited me
2
@syb0rg that is good... it is where I learned about how this place works
@nhgrif What convinces you of that?
and it is TTQW
For starters, the FTP code is almost exactly copy pasta from an Apple example.
@nhgrif what is happening?
Apr 10, 2014 21:25
@nhgrif Who is in charge of the server?
@SimonAndréForsberg Good question, but I think it might be backwards. Typically it seems that regulars tend to vote, so it's an issue of turning more people into regulars.
are you trying to FTP from inside of an application you are programming? or are you trying to FTP files to a server?
People who don't necessarily know a whole lot about it either... this has been an ongoing problem.
Welcome back @Morwenn
@syb0rg Ow, thanks :3
Apr 10, 2014 21:26
The nature of this site really lends itself to drive-by askers, though, more so than many other sites on the network.
I'm uploading and downloading, but the errors are happening sporadically while trying to upload.
what errors?
Today, one device logged about 10 errors. Most were Broken Pipe. One was connection reset by peer, and another was something about a socket.
@Pops I think it's better than a site such as Raspberry Pi.
Is your wifi connection reliable?
Apr 10, 2014 21:27
There is so little retention of users on that beta site...
Broken pipe, reset connection, etc implies connection is stuffing up
@nhgrif what I have found out about FTP is that you download the files from the server then you disconnect, work on the files, then you connect and upload. I was trying to keep the connection open while I worked, that is not a good idea. is that what you are trying to do?
The good news is that leading by example does seem to be having an effect, and hopefully that will snowball.
Not 100% where the errors are usually happening--there are some deadspots. But the error has also happened on occasion in good wifi spots.
And no, I don't keep connections open.
I'll keep thinking about other initiatives you might be able to take.
Apr 10, 2014 21:28
They're closed immediately after transfer, no matter what the transfer.
@Pops Perhaps ads?
well there are more people here than when @Mat'sMug @Jamal and I started Chatting in here back in like October
@syb0rg Ads with what message?
@Malachi That was around the time I became active on this site again!
What percentage of connections would you say result in an error? If it's less than 1% or so, I would just make sure your error handling is good and chalk it up to WiFi being a pain.
Apr 10, 2014 21:29
@Corbin I agree
If it's like 20% though, then yeah... something is wrong.
@Pops Idk, something like "Your code probably sux, get it reviewed to make it better".
(Or your connection is terrible)
Along the lines of that ^^
I don't know. The error logging was put in this morning... and I realized, I have no way of keeping track of successes versus failures, so tomorrow morning I'll put some code to track successes versus failures.
Apr 10, 2014 21:30
FTP over WiFi probably isn't the best way to do it, but I don't know what you are doing either @nhgrif
@nhgrif that sounds like fun, what language?
Well, there's not really any other great options for transferring files to and from iOS devices...
Objective-C.
@Pops And obviously worded better than my example ;)
@nhgrif there is your problem. iOS JK LOL
Oh, a question!
... that is off-topic.
@Pops Are you able to perform SQL queries on Chat data as well?
Apr 10, 2014 21:32
we take spaghetti and turn it into linguine!
@SimonAndréForsberg whoa hey I don't need to get in trouble here for starring messages now
@SimonAndréForsberg I've actually never thought about that before. Let me see.
@syb0rg That might bring in more people, but I don't think it would do anything about retention.
don't do it on the amount of stars I give out. you might crash the server
@Pops how about
@Pops I don't know. The more people that come through, the more that some are bound to stick.
1 min ago, by Malachi
we take spaghetti and turn it into linguine!
@syb0rg "My code is correct... but it does not work..." xD
3
Apr 10, 2014 21:34
sorry bout the pings
@Morwenn I don't get how people think sometimes.
@Malachi As long as you stick to your limit of 20 stars per day, I don't think you'll get in trouble
Then again, I have .
@SimonAndréForsberg what if I had more.....I did some indian giving a couple of times there
0
Q: Having trouble converting a whole sentence from uppercase to lower case in C

ModuleMy code is correct as I can see it has no errors at all, but when I execute it and say for instance I type in "MY NAME IS JACK" it only converts "MY" to lowercase. #include<stdio.h> #include<string.h> int main() { char str[20]; int i; printf("Enter any string->"); scanf("%s",&str); ...

Apr 10, 2014 21:35
@StackExchange BURN!!!
@StackExchange You're always too late.
On further reflection, I have thought about it before, and the answer was no. Would have to get a dev involved.
@Pops You can see some basic stats on this page anyways: chat.stackexchange.com/…
@Pops for the chat thing?
Just hover over the avatars.
Apr 10, 2014 21:39
@Malachi specifically for running SQL queries on chat data.
@Pops is there too many locks or something? I would imagine that the chat data changes so quickly with people chatting, I haven't tried to query a chat DB before
@Pops Ok. It would be really interesting to see some stats on this room, such as "number of stars given per day", "number of unique users chatting per day", etc... I have considered writing a program to do a lot of HTTP requests to gather a bunch of data and then analyze it locally, but it feels... non-optimal.
@Malachi I don't think I have access to that table at all. CMs don't get as much as devs do.
NOT THAT WE'RE BITTER ABOUT IT
7
* NOTE
@Pops lol that sucks a little bit. but less of a headache at the same time too right, SQL is both Fun and Frustrating at the same time, or maybe I just don't know it as well as I should
TTQW
be back in about .5 hours
Apr 10, 2014 21:47
TTGTB
Be back in 9 to 10 hours :p
Well, commute done, and daughter rescued, and caught up on chat.
@GraceNote - closing the loop on the blog for Code Review.... I don't see any 'next steps', or 'issues' in the chat history, did I miss something?
(The discussion on user retention and numbers is pretty consistent with what's been said in the past... - what I think of as the great divide)
I just got here. What's this about, @Pops?
Nothing emergent, just sharing some info.
Quick summary: Grace (and Pops) did a quick once-over of the numbers, exlcuding the deadweight from pre nov.2013. The bottom line is that not enough users are advancing through the ranks, and retention is low.
Monkeys!
Apr 10, 2014 22:03
@Module Erroneous code is not reviewable. Code that does not work as intended is considered erroneous. — syb0rg 21 secs ago
@SimonAndréForsberg To the rescue! ^
I'm not surprised to hear that. I'm not sure what else could be changed, and we may just stay in eternal beta.
I'm trying to distribute my votes to the lower reputation end of users.
I think we have to get a bit creative about getting new users to stick around.
12
Would this be all new users together, or askers vs. answerers?
(nudge nudge @GraceNote / @Pops ) a blog would be helpful ... ;-)
Apr 10, 2014 22:06
@Jamal Both, but I think we need to focus on answerers.
We need to dispel the myth that you have to be an expert at a language in order to be a reviewer.
@Pops: Could it be said that nearly everything else (unanswered and 10K+ user quantity) is okay?
Thanks for the rescue, @syb0rg
@syb0rg We may also need to look at the line between factual and "opinion-based" answers. We cannot accept all of the latter, but there may still be some when you're reviewing code. After all, these are peer reviews.
There's still room for improvement with the unanswered list, but the work done since Grace Note's post is really impressive. For the user rep thing, it would always be nicer to see more high-rep users, but the main issue is the lack of retention for lower-rep users.
Lots of chat to catch up on. I probably should've skipped calc III class for this. :-P (kidding)
Apr 10, 2014 22:09
This is going to be an exaggeration, but the numbers kinda make it look like there are a hundred good reviewers here serving a never-ending stream of drive-by askers.
2
@Pops Mug and I should be next to 10K, although I may still run for "reelection" (making one less 10K after graduation).
I gotta run for a bit, but will be around later on tonight.
@Pops Goodbye!
Later!
0
Q: Pattern to avoid Variable Functions?

mattI have some PHP code where I use Variable functions to call the right function. Something like this: private function foo($groups, $getter) { foreach ($groups as $group) { $value = $group->$getter; // Do calculations with $value... } } and then the function gets called ...

Apr 10, 2014 22:14
carp, I am out of Stars
@rolfl I just had to pin that. I think that is something that we need to focus on.
@Jamal The 10k+ bracket isn't as much of a concern. Yes, you want folks in there but you don't need barrels of them. Focus, as rolfl mentions, on getting new users to stick.
And we've just had two posts from new users within the last few minutes (including the above question).
As for 10K for myself, I have been on a pretty good trend lately. I don't think it was too long ago when I reached 9K. But I also don't want to go overboard with pimping answers.
@Pops You should look into raising the voting limit for that top user. ;)
Hey GraceNote, sorry to labour the blog .... but, what is our next step? Is there one? have we done it and we shoulkd just be patient?
Apr 10, 2014 22:22
The next step is mine to make
0
Q: VB.Net Database Access Class

JohnLBevanI've recently been asked to make some emergency changes to a legacy application. It was written in VB.Net. I come from a C# background so am not overly familiar with this language, though there are enough similarities for me to get by. The current code has no separation of concerns (e.g. DAL c...

Thanks... ;-)_
Alright, @Bloggers .... go sign up.....
 
Conversation ended Apr 10, 2014 at 22:24.