The Litter Box

1:41 AM

@Nai54 I was thinking about the recent comment you left on Joseph's answer. I totally sympathize with the essence of the message you left, but I cannot help to think it is delivered in a way that's a little patronizing and has a general tone that you are "schooling" another user from a position of authority; on the other hand, you technically indeed have the position of authority in a sense that you ...

@Nai54 ...are more experienced with the site and SE network. But still, I usually see comments in that tone on other SE sites and not Pets, and I am always happy that it is not on Pets (of course it is even not up to me to decide what types of comments are welcome and what are not, I am just stating my opinion that certain tone of comments tends to create more pleasant aura than others). I am talking about the subtle "snark": that comment says (I'm paraphrasing) you both ...

@Nai54 ... have already talked about frequent low-quality answers, but this contains the implicit message (at least in my understanding) that there had been some agreement between you and Joseph that was broken by the act of Joseph continuing that pattern of answers. However, there was no such agreement because Joseph didn't even respond to that comment of yours, so no promises could have been broken (even though you still had the right to be disappointed that your ...

@Nai54 ... guidance had apparently not been taken into account). A few days ago, Joseph has mentioned his age in one of the comments (I don't want to directly say the number myself and I will only say that yes, he is old enough to use the site); the comment containing age is public, so I am just stating the comment's existence and the fact that it could be easily found from the publicly accessible menu user-profile->comments) and I can assure you, back in the times that ...

@Nai54 ...I was his age my contributions would have been much worse, and my attitude unbearably worse; what is more, joining and creatively contributing on a network like (barely existent then) SE in the first place was probably one of the last things on the list of my priorities back then. Of course, we need quality control to distill the good contributions from the low quality contributions, but as long as answers are not rude, abusive, or deliberately offer highly harmful advice, ...

@Nai54 ...I think our voting system is enough. Lower score answers get sorted more and more down, and as soon as an answer gets a score of -3 or lower, it fades out behind a semi-opaque "fog" that unambiguously indicates right off that the answer hasn't been fully "approved" by other people and that something is wrong with it. And some of the Joseph's answers are actually good (although quite short). In the comments thread under community wikia answer ...

@Nai54 ...listing spring cleaning answers, Joseph's comment about us being awesome and his expression of gratitude for corrections applied to his answers is one of the most heartwarming things I have seen in weeks on Pets SE. I am happy about your comments in that thread as well - I think Joseph is a good egg, and in that thread I could "see it in your eyes" that you "clicked" to ...

@Nai54 ...genuinely believe the same thing as I believe. And by the way, yes I noticed that comment of yours with the question about age, haha that was sooo mean! :D I vaguely suspected that you were setting up a trap like this, but didn't fully believe it and dismissed it thinking that I was paranoid yet again; still, it is brave and admirably honest that you have admitted your intentions afterwards, though, I definitely appreciate that!

@Nai54 And sorry for the short length of my response to this :D

@Nai54 Oh, and also please see this: pets.meta.stackexchange.com/q/554

Nai54

2:57 AM

@lila Looking back at that, I realize that you're right. And I'm truly sorry now.

@lila That is exactly what happened.

And as a side note, I am 13 years old.

(which I don't like to advertise and this is the first time I have said my age, and I am saying it now, not to excuse my behavior, but just to make sure we're on the same page.)

I apologized to Joseph Casey. It's not enough, and I know that, but I will work hard to improve relations between us and to be kind and welcoming.

@lila I can't say how much I respect you. Sometimes in life, we need a reminder of who we are and what is our behavior, and you just gave me one. What you have told me has made a huge influence. I feel different already. Thinking about how my actions impact others is a life skill, that I didn't use too often, but now I see. I see that I was wrong. I see how my comments looked from a different perspective. And I understand how to do better. You have brought tears to my eyes.

Thank you lila. Thank you.

lila

3:47 AM

Oh thanks
for your response, appreciation, understanding, and for all the stars :D it is extremely flattering. Don't worry please, I don't think this situation was anything especially serious, your comment was a bit harsh but still civilized; Pets SE is generally one of the quietest and most peaceful SE site and each event like this sticks out like a sore thumb, thus is easy to notice. Some time ago I clicked to see Litter Box discussions back from the site's early days (you can click "see full transcript after scrolling up until you see it) and I was surprised how much drama there was on v…

Nai54

Thank you! I have to say, between all the moderators I have ever encountered on SE, you are by far the most patient, active, and welcoming. You have no idea how much I appreciate that. Goodnight!

Elmy

4:41 AM

@Nai54 Well, we all are just human. It's the mistakes we make that define us as human beings and it's the way we deal with our own mistakes that makes us grow. I can honestly tell you that there were times when I was frustrated with users, too. I left comments that were definitely rude and I have voted to close questions that didn't deserve it.

@Nai54 For your age you act very mature, especially when trying to uphold the quality standards. The best tip I can give you when you get frustrated with certain things is to ignore it for a while. Here on SE there's a high chance that within an hour or 2, either the author edits their own post or another member of the community points the mistake out.

When you return to the offending post after doing something completely different and clearing your head, you'll either see it in a different light or you'll be all the more convinced about its bad quality and can vote without regrets. At least that's what I do most of the time when I feel grumpy and frustrated by something (which happens a lot lately... must be the plague)

Meta Moose

12:48 PM

0

Q: Activity on Pets.SE

I have joined this almost a month ago and had a lot of fun answering peoples cuddly creature questions, however it seems that activity on the site has plummeted to only two questions a day. Why is this and how can it be fixed? I want to answer people's questions.

Sarov

2:14 PM

@MetaMoose "plummeted" implies it used to be much higher. Did it?

SerenaT

@Sarov I honestly feel like its alays about the same

There are ups and downs in the amount of questions asked but its not like 20 a day

It fluctuates :D

Sarov

That's what I figured. An actual plummet would be weird and alarming.

SerenaT

2:32 PM

I guess if someone REALLY wants to answer questions they should have a look at the unanswered ones

Nai54

Hi

SerenaT

Good time of day where you are :D

How are you

Nai54

Good. You?

It is the morning here

SerenaT

I am good too
Afternoon here

Nai54

nice

(gtg see everyone later be back in several hours)

Nicolás Castellanos

2:56 PM

Hi

SerenaT

Hello

lila

3:50 PM

hi

Nai54

6:39 PM

Hello, I'm back

lila

7:00 PM

hi I'm back too

Nai54

Just noticed that by hovering over profiles in chat, those gray bar lines represent activity levels in chat, and right now is the highest peak for both of us

We must have similarly structured days

How is everybody doing?

Sarov

Everything is on fire. You?

Nai54

not bad

May I inquire in what way everything is on fire? ;) :D

(literally or metaphorically or both)

Sarov

Metaphorically, unfortunately.

Were it literally I could just leave. :P

Nai54

:D

lila

7:30 PM

Haha yes there is a graph, now you can see with your own eyes that I really sleep sometimes :D

Sarov

(It's a cover, she secretly uses a different account to make it look like she's sleeping.)

lila

Haha I see we are getting creative here, the usual spiel is that I am a bot :D (no, I am not a bot and I have never been a bot and I am happy to identify pictures of fire hydrants and road signs).

Nai54

7:51 PM

She is such an advanced bot she can identify CAPTCHAS! :D

lila

Nowadays CAPTHAs are so simplified that they require to do is clicking a box "[ ] I am not a robot" so of course, that's so simple that even a human could do that! :D

[v] I am not a robot.

Look, 100% evidence, I passed the test. ^

Sarov

"even a human could do that"
citation needed.

lila

8:18 PM

No, no, it was a joke! The point is, it was a subtle assumption that human intelligence is inferior to robot intelligence to say "even a human could do that", but the plot twist is that these tests by definition are made to be easy for humans and hard for robots :D

Allison C

8:50 PM

One of the sites has some more "fun" CAPTCHAs. :) Sometimes you have an image of an animal you have to rotate to be upright, other times you pick the correctly rotated animal from a group of pictures

*sites I use

it's clearly the end of my day!

Sarov

I'm just waiting for them to go meta. In order to prove you're human, you have to design a CAPTCHA.

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