@Novak No worries, asynchronous chat always seems to cause hiccups, especially for me. I've never quite had the hang of it

This answer, though, seemed especially stark (if you prefer that over 'brazen') because it did say pretty much out loud and directly what I had perceived for years: "This question should only be open if someone convinces me/us that it can generate a good/better answer." And by inference, if you could think of a better one, you wouldn't have said that at all.

This was the answer, to my perceptions, that turned the subtext into the text.

I felt that the "this is undefinable" nature of the answers already on the question covered that entirely, and that extra back-and-forth on opening and closing questions is itself bad for the stack, particularly on questions that have received little attention in years

That is to say, if five users overzealously closed an question (or if five users overzealously re-opened an old closed question), it doesn't strike me as extremely important

More of a "let sleeping questions lie" sort of attitude

It is exactly because of that subtext-to-text shift, that I considered it vital to respond to that answer itself.

Whether or not you agree with that, can you at least understand it?

I have entirely understood your position this entire time-- it's not subtle, and you've made it at length

It is the mode in which you did so which I had some issue with, and an apparent feeling that the situation justified that mode beyond dispute

And while I do believe that the question is a bit iffy (in the same way that a question like "if dragons were real, how much like D&D dragons would they be?"), I'm perfectly content for a different perspective to be the one which governs the question's status

At the risk of both of us sounding like broken records, I just don't recall anything particularly aggressive in what I said. It's just a more brief version of what I said just now. And if you consider that aggressive, then we're at a complete and final impasse, and as much as you want me to "just scroll up" to see what's aggressive, I'd suggest equally that you meditate on why the comment stung you so badly that you flagged it.

It didn't sting, I simply wanted someone else's input on it. And I've said what I have to say

Perhaps I can reflect more. I encourage you to do likewise-- others have noted that your tone may be other than what you would prefer

@Upper_Case I hope that wasn't because of my comment. If se, I think we have a misunderstanding (sorry everyone else, leaving context slightly vague)

@Someone_Evil It isn't

Ok, @AmethystWizard Please just drop this whole thing. It's very at odds with room mood and function

@Upper_Case Glad to hear it

I was actually writing a comment on it, but it isn't too important

Probably not to any constructive purpose, at any rate

→ 13 messages moved to Trash

"hmm appropriate"

If you've been told to drop something and the stuff gets moved to chat, please listen. It means you've already crossed the line, and it's time to correct course rapidly

I'm interested to know what the room is about, there isn't a summary that I am aware of

how can I know what is appropriate or not if I don't even know what the room is about?

"For topics that should be opt-in, not opt-out. Please respect the room's purpose and treat it as a meeting room more than a casual general-purpose hangout. Good and respectful conduct is expected of all visitors, exactly as in the main chat."

It's at the top right of the screen, below the room name (on my screen layout, at least)

hello nice to meet you

what are you arguing about?

There's no point in stirring things up further. You'll have to be satisfied with the chat log

okay can I change the topic then?

@Someone_Evil We're well past the point where satisfaction is on the table for anyone, and certainly any efforts in that direction would strain your role as a mod. It's very unfortunate that the comment was insta-deleted.

@AmethystWizard Why is the main chat not suitable?

It's for opt-in topics, which is vague. But trying to turn a disagreement into a spectator sport probably isn't going to go over well in any room

hmm, I find this confusing. In places where things are discussed in public, usually there would be an address to said public as to the context so they can participate. And a refresh if it goes for some time.

@Upper_Case Yeah, that probably set a lot of this off on the wrong foot

The room description is where it always is. If you're using the desktop interface it's in the upper right-hand corner. And you can always find it on the room info page.

You're already in the main chat room, TRPG General Chat, where casual conversations happen. This is a spillover space for stuff that would be uncomfortable to force on everybody who logs into the main chat.

FWIW comment flags are really built towards "this comment should be deleted". If you'd just like some mod eyes on a comment chain you can put a custom flag on the post itself. If nothing else it lets us post feedback

@Someone_Evil Exactly what I did, and I believe it was 100% justified. I would have liked actual input on the actual comment, and apparently its absence has really shifted perceptions of events all on its own

Also, not all values of "public" are equivalent; Pokemon Go taught us that, I think. The Stack's chat system doesn't allow private conversations, and instead expects localized policies to compensate for a lack of infrastructure support.

@Upper_Case Uhm, I meant a flag on the answer, not a comment. There's some technical differences between comment flags and post flags

@Someone_Evil Yet another example of the Stack's opacity, and the foolishness of using mainsite mechanics for meta.

The requirements of meta mean that comments should be an entirely different class of participation compared to comments on main, but instead meta is saddled with the same tools built on the same mainsite epistemology.

@Someone_Evil Ah, got it. I would not have thought to flag my own answer but I will remember that for the future (though hopefully no similar issues will surface). I remain irritated by a presumption of fault on my part, but recognize we're past any real remedy

I am grateful for the mod efforts of BESW and Someone_Evil, and wanted to make sure that I point that out

Well, custom flags autodeleting comments is pretty silly mainsite too

Yeah, though within the context of mainsite epistemology it makes sense; comments aren't rateable/sortable content, and ALL GLORY TO THE CONTENT GOD.

having the first comment is gold

it can be like a flag on someones answer

a flag in the sense of an actual flag

-an annoying stick with a banner on your territory

@BESW for what it's worth at least on Stack Overflow meta moderation is very lax, most comments stick around unless ad hominem or too much against company goals. There was an event where a good mod asked if this should be made stricter community said "no", so another (no-longer-)moderator started doing just that anyway. But this was entirely that latter ex-mod's abuse.

That sounds like a good example of my point about the Stack expecting soft policies to compensate for problems with the hard interface.

oh, absolutely

rpg.se's meta space is likewise much more relaxed about comments than it is on rpg's mainsite, recognizing that meta is a place for conversation and comments are the best substitute for that which we've been given.

company just doesn't give a shit, frankly

But we've just seen an example about how the hard interface of flagging/deletion algorithms will always override any attempt to use soft policy to change the interface's epistemology.

Yeah, although I don't understand the context at all, how false that false positive was etc.

automatic systems sometimes go haywire even on main sites, an when that happens on meta it's more harmful from a social perspective

I didn't see the original now-deleted item, I can only observe the behaviors displayed in the aftermath on chat.

Yeah, but it's plausible that the original item was borderline, and deletion could've been OK, and it's communication that spiralled into escalation.

With the disclaimer that I didn't read the argument thoroughly.

At the very least it's demonstrative of the problems with putting social curation into the hands of algorithms. Weizenbaum strikes again.

Again for what it's worth, my experience with the auto-delete-on-flag filter is that it's pretty strict, and needs some keywords that are usually absent in polite conversation.

the bulk of social curation on meta should not be (as in is not) in the hands of algorithms, in my opinion

but I only have anecdata, and I don't see the content that does get deleted, for obvious reasons

I feel like the entire Stack is liable to go down in programming history as a case study in How Not To Expand Your Niche Service To A General Audience, and will probably also get a couple pages in the chapter "Individuals Are Not Fungible."

By general audience do you mean non-SO sites, or maybe more specifically non-tech sites?

Both, really.

But do you think that the model is OK (to the usual somewhat dehumanising extent) for SO specifically?

I guess there are two concerns to distinguish: whether the site serves its purpose and whether the site serves the users.

I'm not in that professional space, so I can't speak to it from personal experience. Looking at what I've seen going on from afar, though, both in public discourse about SO and from the personal attestations of acquaintances, it looks to me like SO is built from the ground up on deeply biased assumptions that perpetuate a lot of the most toxic epistemologies in the programming "culture."

My understanding is that SO serves its technical purpose, non-tech sites probably not, or a lot less. And the human side is questionable all across the network.

I feel like "does it serve its purpose" needs to include "is its purpose a fit one."

sure

We know that the Stack is not and has never been interested in serving its users; it treats its users as fungible content generators. "Pearls Not Sand" is not a policy which could ever have taken root in a user-focused space.

Yeah, that's pretty explicit