@JourneymanGeek I've thought a little bit

@JourneymanGeek There are some differences, cultural differences about politeness vs. clarity line

@JourneymanGeek There are people, mainly from uk, us, .de, who like to us euphemisms for any critical communication. And there are people who like to say what they think

@JourneymanGeek This results, for example, that the first group thinks: "X is a braindamaged asshole", then they say some like this: "maybe X doesn't know the topic enough well, particularly compared to the intensity of his statements", and similar. This is some like an... "automatic translation" in their mind

@JourneymanGeek This results an automatic "re-translation" in the mind of the other people listening them. They decode and understand nearly correctly the original meaning. In their cultural codex, it is an acceptable form of critics, because no rude words were used, despite that it means around the same.

@JourneymanGeek Now the problem is if somebody from the second group tries to talk with a duch polite-communicator. For example, if I detail, that "mods of the same site tend to behave similarly".

@JourneymanGeek This "re-translation mechanism" starts also in this case, and gives a false result. For example, it identifies also the "mods are behaving similarly" statement as a similar euphemism. And thus they think, I wanted to say some much worser, for example "mods are brainwashed robots" or similar.

Your really trying to place your hostility on cultural differences?

thats classic...

@JourneymanGeek I only wanted to say, that in this case there were no euphemism. There were NO some secondary, rude meaning what I had packed in this polite formula. To me, it was a perfectly neutral statement, to be interpreted literally, without any negative secondary meaning.

@Ramhound There are really rude people everywhere, but also this false euphemism retranslation effect causes troubles.

@Ramhound Also I am often rude. But in that post I really didn't have such intent. Only the "community" interpreted it so.

@peterh: I donno, One can't use the "lost in translation" excuse when I'm saying very clearly where the issue is.

@Ramhound Roughly how long has it been going for?

@peterh I'm saying "your current wording on many meta posts is potentially actively harmful at worst, and misleading at best"

@JourneymanGeek It wasn't excuse, I tried to explain, that interpret that "mods are similar" statement literally and neutrally, because also I interpret that statement, my own statement, so.

@peterh eh. In which case, try to be less ambigious.

Some of your main meta posts are well received. Where they arn't I think people are pretty specific over what gets their goat.

@JourneymanGeek About my meta.SE style: It is for you. For me: I say what others dare only to think. And to my best conscience, I say what I think, with the intent of helping the askers and the googlers of the future. The "actively harmful" is surely not true, the "misleading" may true in the case if my yearlong SE experience was mainly false.

@peterh That's called being diplomatic. Its a lovely skill.

@peterh I gave you a clear example where you're essentially telling a member of the community, working on a site you're not involved in, that the project he was working on would be killed off.

Another example is claiming SE does not want non english SOs cause of some language-centricness while a CM's basically said "I want to see this happen, but we need to do some significant changes to our codebase"

Oh, and not all CMs are US based.

@JourneymanGeek What project, what member, what site? The german se?

@peterh the guy asking about translation stuff

He's working on russian.

Also, german se exists and is pretty vibrant. So, I think you don't mean the german language SE.

I'm assuming you said the wrong thing, rather than attempting to actively mislead.

But this is in the comments of one of those questions. Pretty much all of it is.

Opinions are fine. Opinions claimed as facts are not.

@JourneymanGeek Since 3/25

@JourneymanGeek A lot of ru.so questions came, each after the other, and I've thought, considering that I think the SE doesn't really want any nonenglish thing, it may be dangerous for them. Normally, intra-cm communication doesn't happen on the meta se. If it happens, it means for me that that at least one of the relevant cms is... unstable

@peterh "You thought" - who confirmed?

and the guy who is doing it is asking on MSE because someone else seems to be handling transiflex.

@JourneymanGeek You don't understand this whole thing............. german.stackexchange.com is an english/german site about the German language. The initiative, what TimPost killed, probably executing a more higher directive, had been the de.stackoverflow.com .

@peterh .... you mean a german stackoverflow

YES!

So, people would go "What the hell is he talking about?"

Not our fault

Tim Post has probably read the post, and I am sure, at least he understood it well.

Also Cartaino

2 downvotes and one downvote then an immediate reversal on the 25th, 1 downvotes on the 26th, another on the 27th, and one is pending today and they are normal 12 hours a part. Anyways, it's just odd timing, I had gone months, without a single downvote and 4 days in a row

SO we're talking about discuss.area51.stackexchange.com/questions/19351/…

I very distinctly recall a specific post about this from a CM somewhere

@Ramhound Ok, but votes are always coming, I think calculating on induvidual votes is like calculating the induvidual drops in the rain. I think the weather is more important as the location of the next drop

@peterh Its a moderation issue. I'll deal with it.

@JourneymanGeek Also I read. "we can't translate, it is so big work", "we won't divide the so", and many similar. Ask Jimbo Wales, they started withiut any problem new wikipedia languages without even a translated wikipedia engine.

@JourneymanGeek What? Which?

@peterh wikipedia has a very different model from SE though

@peterh ramhound's problem

@JourneymanGeek ok, sorry

@peterh I see the problem though

> Primarily, this is due to native speakers of that language being unlikely to also speak English to the degree of proficiency required for them to comfortably participate on an English sit

Germans speak good english

;p

@peterh I was accused of something earlier this week, wouldn't normally notice a couple votes, but I just happened to notice them.

@Ramhound you get accused of things a lot ;p

We need to knock the rough edges off

Well in this case i was innocent

@JourneymanGeek It is not true. Even German programmers not always. Although they are more better as the countries to east or to south from them. And they are also much better as the french

@JourneymanGeek Note, my first langjage is not German, I talk on it around on the level like on English. And I wanted the de.so because it had been the very best German learning for me

@JourneymanGeek A lot of other people had the same goal on the proposal. To learn German, like as we've learned English from the net and from the computers (and from the rpg :-) )

@JourneymanGeek I still don't think it had been timpost's decision. And I still think, the real reason the killing of the proposal was, that it had grown too fast

@peterh that is speculation

So because of limited developer resources, and perhaps less interest the you actually realize, a project was cancelled. So what are you accusing Tim of exactly? If a Stackexchange website grew fast that would have been a good thing not a reason to cancel it. Where do you get this idea SE doesn't want non-English communities?

funny thing about SE sites

once they reach a certain size, we rarely need CM interventions

@JourneymanGeek Here the SE has shot itself on the foot. And they lied, and changed their saying, and destroyed the work of a lot of people

Building a neew community tho, ayayae.

@peterh where's the work?

They lied.... that's a strong claim

See, that's what I'm trying to get across to him

I mean, at this point, I get what he's unhappy about it

@JourneymanGeek In the deleted proposals section on the A51. I am not sure, but afaik the a51 also physically deletes the deleted posts after a time, not only logically as the normal sites

If the community was a large as you claim, SE would have no problem to push the money for the hardware required, and the UI work is something else entirely

@Ramhound from what I've read of the server team, hardware requirements arn't actually that bad.

UI work + actually running the community to the point it runs itself is hard

Oh I know just saying. I am assuming Superuser/Programming size was reached. But I got my doubts if the proposal was deleted

@JourneymanGeek The hw prices are very few compared to the people working on it. A fulltime programmer in the US can earn $80k in a year or much more, what server cluster could you buy from this money?

AFK a bit. Need to walk the dog

Less then you think

@peterh so they'd need a programmer, who speaks german, who can also manage a community

and as a mod, managing communities is not easy

Specially when you are accused of telling lies by somebody from that community:$

@JourneymanGeek Programmer they have. But translating a dict file doesn't really need a programmer, any native german speaker can do it, if he can open a text file, and edit in it below all English lines the German one.

@JourneymanGeek CM... I don't know, in the ru.se they could solve it

@Ramhound Before they killed the proposal... there was a phase, as the proposal waited for starting

@Ramhound And somehow it hadn't started. They I already felt, that there will be a problem

Yeah, but since it's Cyrillic, it's a good test case for non Latin scripts.

@Ramhound And then they put the proposal into a suspended stage, stating that we have to wait until they have some resources for that

Also huge market. Likewise for pt and Brazil.

@peterh and there's no malice there. Especially when the initial run of localised so sites would make future ones easier

@Ramhound Until then I didn't ever seen that the SE will officially change its word. They were euphemist, they bullshitted, they did many bad, but nevef changed their word and never dedtroyed anything on this way, retroactively

You still have made a case for any ill-will towards German users.

@peterh that language. Sounds like they kicked your dog or something

.......You seem to really dislike SE as a company. I found SO near the beginning.

@Ramhound As tbe proposal was suspended, I was nearly sure, they only wait the community to dissolve silently. After that, they will delete the proposal, silently. And they will lie and change their word. And exactly so has happened!

Zero evidence of that

@peterh why not run your own then?

@JourneymanGeek Possible

Clearly​ you feel this is an unexploited niche

If not for the fact you accused me of saying something I didn't say, I would be shocked by your comment, but it's common for you it seems

@JourneymanGeek I have other plans, too, on the SE line

And you feel localisation and running a community is trivial

@JourneymanGeek I am simply surprised, the SE seem to working against its best interests

And 80K is enough compensation for a NYC based tech company :$

its not....NYC is expensive.

@Ramhound Also I knew them. I didnt register, because I've seen they prefer m$ things and I am a linuxer

Yes; They would pay their global employees close to their NYC pay rate

Yet; Ubuntu and Unix SE exist since nearly the beginning

@Ramhound What? Who? Where?

@Ramhound German IT industry doesn't go so well as the size of the economy would make it reasonable. The programmer salaries start to near the postcommie block of the eu

@Ramhound But I know at least 1 german programmer worked on the se code

You don't know about the Unix SE? Ubuntu SE has been around for at least 8 years.

I have around 1.5k on the unixse. They have the usual self foot shooting idea on the se

in their case it is, that they simply forbid any programming question. On the bullshitting mode: in throry, they are ok, but in practice, they close thrm

......there your hostility

Actually nearly all se site have some policy, with can't be explained by any other, as an irrestable suicidal urge

The unix se fotbids unix programming

physics se forbids numerical questions

......How is it bad they want have focus?

numerical questions that are on topic at math

serverfault fotbids the servers with any web interfaces

android se forbids all android programming

....

Superuser doesn't alllow programming questions

mathse is a very positive site, a positive exception, in my opinion. And it is big, good, useful

numerical questions would be on topic at mathematics SE so why would physics SE handled them, they got physic questions, to answer

Android programming is better answered by the programming community not Android users.

on superUSER it is maybe not a problem. But on unix.se, I can't ask, how a signal is delivered to a multithreaded process?????????? What the f*k is unix if not this????

If you continue that language I will flag it and place you on ignore

I might curse like a sailor in my personal life but, in a environment like this, assume your talking to your 110 year old grandmother who also is the Virgin Mary and married to the Pope. In other words; Don't use vulgarity.

questions with numerical results, or using too many NUMBERS are forbidden. They communicate this politely, in their explanation, they are "homework-like" and in theory, only the homework questions are forbidden. In practice, if a question contain too many NUMBERS, then they consider this as a homework question

ok, I dont use

Answering somebody's homework questions is boring. I have never needed help from a community to do calculations for my professional work.

@peterh We do too

And scope is important.

And it sounds like you're essentially saying that if someone isn't fitting your view on how to run things, they're wrong.

Or, on the serverfault. Since around 15 years, nearly all server systems have something, software, addon, anything, what makes them webconfigurable. They call them control panels. This name is coming from that a particularly low quality web configuration tool for linux had the name cpanel (what came from "control panel"). Sysadms started this job earlier as around 15 years, all started with some web frontend. Now all questions about using, debugging, etc. web frontends, are all forbidden there

@peterh this don't want web hosting consoles cause they're terrible and not best practice.

there's a meta post on this.

I completely agree with that, and run my servers properly, from scratch ;)

and I'm familiar with SF site culture, and the bit of tug of war over it. Are you?

@JourneymanGeek 1. not all 2. yes, around 90% of the cpanel questions are coming from ops, whose main problem is that they cant find the characters on their keyboard 3. many of them actually destruct the system underneath and then makes bugs because he harmed the system below it. Yes, these are all true, but for them already exist reasons!

@peterh and a lot of people disagree

and if you arn't familiar with how the site runs and why, how come you're judging them?

@JourneymanGeek Because I am a user, a member, a visitor, and yes I can have an opinion and I am allowed to communicate it

@JourneymanGeek Kill all of them, of course. On the SF meta, this is an universal answer for all similar questions

@peterh gee. At least pretend to read the answers.

@JourneymanGeek They communicate it very politely, of course. But the result is always the same: they kill all questions, retroactively.

@peterh the community? Well, clearly they feel these questions don't meet quality standards.

I'd do that too.

People have even yelled at me about stuff like that.

.... What your questions? Who's questions? The questions deemed by a community to not be on topic?

@peterh in a very real sense, community management is about finding a balance between keeping newbies comfortable, and keeping old hands happy and posting answers and helping run the community.

@JourneymanGeek On the meta site, actually not a decision process happens. Not people are saying different things and then the community decides by votes. No. People are RACING, eho can explain more beautifully, why the actual topic should be made offtopic. It is not a question, if it should be made offtopic, the real question is, how we want to explain it.

SF's had a massive bout of soul seaching over what they are.

Your this angry because of questions that are deleted because their quality is basically that of the noodle you thrown up against the cabinets to see if it's cooked?

@peterh how would you do it then?

Actually, I'm curious - what experience do you have of running a community?

@peterh that's not what I asked though

@JourneymanGeek maybe I wißl take part on a secondary account :)

I feel that you're somewhat hostile to people "in authority"

If you want to see what happens if any question topic is allowed just look at quora or Yahoo Answers.

(granted, in this case my authority hopefully stems from the love and adoration of the masses, rather than getting granted a shiny diamond by the powers that be)

I'd like to know what your experiences are from my side of the fence.

You don't take part in a community because of flair?

@JourneymanGeek :-) Ive toke part in a lot since the firdt irc channels in 1995

having been a apart of that world... that's something you should be proud of.....

@JourneymanGeek Against unexplained things, against power misuses, against suicidal behaviors harming also others, yes

@JourneymanGeek against authority, no

@Ramhound Ok. But asking something about the unix kernel programming interfaces, how can it be offtopic on the unix se???

@JourneymanGeek It depends on, what is your goal

I would say it entirely Depends on the scope, and how easily a question like that can go down the programming rabbit hole.

@JourneymanGeek None of them was so hardcore as an se modship

@JourneymanGeek The group was always small and strongly focused to the same task.

@JourneymanGeek If I delete a chat message, can you still see it?

@JourneymanGeek Despite that, there were always strong internal conflicts

@Ramhound In theory, unix programming is not offtopic by them, in practice, they close all

@Ramhound I should fight a lot for that on the unix se meta, and I would probably lose

@Ramhound Once I tried. I tried to argument, that highlevel programming questions would attract highlevel answerers, and the SE itself says, that professionals attract enthusiast. but not in the other direction

@Ramhound The result: I got accusations that I want to expel newbies and fill the site with programming........... they entirely missed the focus

@Ramhound And this on the unix se

@Ramhound Dince then, I am not very active on this site

@Ramhound I think it could be some CM or inter-mod agreement in the background. The SE (company) wants all programming questions to the SO, they communicated it many times, and somehow so happens it. Despite that the mods are, in theory, "independant"

@peterh actually its the other way around

We don't want programming questions on our site

and SE is cool with that

and when we do, its from people qbanned on SO most of the time

@peterh yes, I can see deleted chat messages

@peterh I can confirm there is no such thing

In fact stackoverflow.com/legal/moderator-agreement is essentially the only agreement I have with SE, though it might be an older version

@peterh I had to ignore you, you send far to many, small messages and honestly most of it is hard to understand.

@Ramhound !Sorry I had to work. I quickly wrote and then went away. Have a nice day, or good night or anything!

@JourneymanGeek I believe you, but then I simply can't understand. Good bye!

This answer has a dead link and two dead images. The remaining line of text is only part of the answer. How would y'all mods prefer to handle things like this?

(I checked the Wayback Machine for the images, they're not there, but the page is)

deleted for now