The Hangar - 2021-05-11

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2:52 PM

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Q: What patterns of editing are inappropriate?

What patterns of editing are inappropriate? Consider this answer -- https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/87040/34686 . Yes, 26 edits are showing. But if you look at the dates, it was edited very frequently during the first 2 days after it was posted, or possibly two rounds of frequent editing, ...

1 hour later…

4:05 PM

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Q: A specific question about appropriateness of editing

When a question is bumped up to the top of the stack by a new answer by another user or by edits made to the question or to an existing answer by another user (which might include tag edits), or by "community", is there anything inappropriate about the author of the question (or the author of an ...

3 hours later…

6:48 PM

Hi DL: RE Let's reserve the delete function for 1. abusive posts, spam – those don't need the delete button; correctly flagging takes care of that / 2. very low quality answers – how do you define those? "Clearly, demonstrably wrong" fits the bill for me. / If people want to argue ... let them – I don't think SE had in mind for their platform to be the internet's friendliest soapbox.

Happy to discuss here though.

7:41 PM

ymb1, you can't just delete posts, flagging is part of the process to activate the delete button. Very low quality answers are those that simply make a short statement without any further background information / reasoning, often they are not even complete sentences.

@DeltaLima: flagging is part of the process to activate the delete button – not for spam/rude, correct flagging even comes with a free DV: Tip: asdasdasdasdasdasd is abusive, and should be flagged as such, not as low-quality

enough correct flags, and poof, no queue needed

Re ' I don't think SE had in mind for their platform to be the internet's friendliest soapbox.' - I think the model of SE was designed exactly to support opposing views and let the community vote up and down what they see as valuable and invaluable.

Someone on MSE linked me to an eye-opener (the history of that button):

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A: Rename "Looks Good" or add a "Looks OK, just Incorrect" in Low Quality Question Review

Update: we went with "Looks OK". Slightly less of an endorsement than "Looks Good", but hopefully still enough of a barrier to conscientious folk clicking it with abandon to allow cruft to get deleted. Remember: an awful lot of what goes into that queue actually does need to be removed; it's im...

> ... we went with "Looks OK". Slightly less of an endorsement than "Looks Good" ... to allow cruft to get deleted.

From the help pages: Voting up a question or answer signals to the rest of the community that a post is interesting, well-researched, and useful, while voting down a post signals the opposite: that the post contains wrong information, is poorly researched, or fails to communicate information.

And given my reservations about the wording of Looks OK, I suppose I'm in that "conscientious folk" group

Help Center also says: You may vote to delete answers in the following cases: ... The answer is extremely low quality: There is little to no scope for improvement

Maybe judging LQ is more subjective than needs to be(?) – given the linked history of that button, I will no longer feel bad about pressing Delete when Looks OK makes me uneasy

The Help Center also has a thing or two to say about arguments in comments 😏

You may also notice that I'm absent from said arguments as well, like those you linked to

7:59 PM

For me, low quality refers to the way the answer was written: no proper sentences, no interpunction, no clear line of thought. It does not refer to whether the answer is wrong or wright or whether I agree or disagree with it.

BTW I do not endorse deleting answers I do not agree with, not one bit, I do however fully endorse deleting the likes of this: aviation.stackexchange.com/review/low-quality-posts/57671

My review history is as public as anybody's.

That example is without a doubt, pure LQ noise, and Looks OK does not fit it at all.

Even expeditedescent remarked in a comment (footnote to their answer): "I don't necessarily agree with this logic" – this is the point addressed by the button's wording history

If it is illogical to press Looks OK, it's meant to feel like that, and then Delete is OK

I don't think the site is any better without it. If the next person comes along thinking it is a 307, they will answer the same. Now the answer is there, sufficiently downvoted and even somebody was so nice to say why.

It is LQ, but not unrecoverable. But I don't feel so strongly about this kind of answer.

If SE followed the suggestion in that button wording post, and renamed it, "Meh..." – then sure, I'll press Meh :)

The ones that bother me more is where somebody but effort in, making a reasonable argument to support their view (albeit demonstrably wrong) and just a few people come by and... pooff... gone. It is pure dictatorship from those who visit most frequently. That is extremely frustrating for those who write the answer, possibly making them leave forever. And wrong answers have value

In aviation we try to learn from mistakes of others. If we hide wrong answers, there is nothing to learn from them

I remember a recent one like you describe, and IIRC I voted Delete, but not for the view being expressed, it was for not even attempting to answer the question. Was it MCAS related? I really can't remember, I'll check my review history.

Found it: aviation.stackexchange.com/a/86804/14897 -- the rest by same OP I did not touch

8:14 PM

There were a few deleted MCAS ones recently that made me feel uncomfortable. But some of the deleted posts were also borderline rants.

That is a good example. A person like Berend could really be valuable to this site, if only he tunes the way of answeringso that it fits this site. He thinks things through, has knowledge, can phrase things. I'd like to encourage such a user to improve their way of answering and become part one the permanent residents. But the way he has been treated is quite hostile, or at least if I were in his position I would experience it as hostile.

I think if you come across an actual attempt at an answer that was unfairly deleted, bring it up on our meta or here.

SE shows pop-ups to new users to guide them through their first answer, in 3 simple steps too

If one can't take the time to read the manual so to speak, perhaps, and I'm talking generally here, the site isn't for them

You've brought up the issue of retaining new users – there's also the issue of established users that stopped contributing.

Or established users that get tired from dwindling quality. Impossible to please everyone I suppose.

I'm not sure if empirically true, but I feel generic and unbacked answers are also on the rise.

If what someone is expressing is valid, then it should be very easy to back up the claim. Sort of like Wikipedia's Be Bold guideline: be bold, but back it up.

8:30 PM

It is impossible to please everyone. I get tired from the dwindling quality as well. And whenever I can I take the time to welcome new users and help them on their way. But I see increasingly that the moderation of this site is focused only on the factual correctness and quality of posts, but forgets to look after the people that bring posts.

As you very well know, delivering a high quality answer takes time and experience that is build over many posts. If we don't spend time to support new users, if we don't encourage them to grow, we will be spending all our time deleting low quality answers.

support new users – example on how to? What I do is politely point out what could be wrong, and welcome them. Don't know really what else to do, example: aviation.stackexchange.com/a/87010/14897

What I do is politely point out what could be wrong, and welcome them. It think that is exactly the right way.

Aah. This then brings us into one of my biggest pet peeves: misuse of comments 😔

Example :-)

Plenty :) press anywhere on the site

8:41 PM

I think we should be quite liberal with comments, and make sure they get removed. I have frequently had an exchange of thoughts with a poster in the comments, and in the end flagged it all for deletion. I always left a nice note for the moderators to apologise for the mess we made..

But there are dreadful examples of comments all around, you are right

An example would be one of those MCAS disputes that erupted in comments, or the thirty comments that were moved here

Using comments to discuss an answer for instance, is misuse of comments

flagged it all for deletion – this is nice. I usually just say to OP to delete and I follow suit, easier for mods, usually works :)

took place for example here, no evidence left :D

The let's move this converstation to chat suggestion only appears after about 10 comments I think.

It would help if you could force that quicker.

It would be, sorry for the all caps, GREAT, if it actually moved the comments

Actually, don't flag all for deletion, as this generates a lot of noise for the mods. Just flag the last one and put in the comments to mods that you want it all eradicated. That seems to be easier for them according to Federico

Ah yes – I think Federico prefers flagging the post itself, which I do.

Though many times I don't flag, it feels burdening. It would be better if established users just didn't misuse the comments.

There's always Reddit for amusing comment sections after all

Back to your point, new user retention – I think it mostly depends on the user

More than the older users, I mean.

Writing good answers takes effort as you remarked, something many just don't want to do online.

I'm always trying to improve that, and it must be working; rarely now I get any comments on my answers 😂

Compare to the olden days. The downvotes had their intended effect you could say. Because I liked the site, and its quality, and wanted to add to it, I switched the mindset from that of the typical forums.

Just a hypothetical, let's say comments were disabled, and only voting remained. Would that provide a better new user experience? I doubt it. There will be zero disputes, but then they'll wonder why the downvotes, and also leave ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And briefly back to my point, I wonder if SE cares about established users that stopped contributing, and considers reaching out to them. Maybe an analogy is a restaurant, one that markets everywhere to get as many new customers as possible, but fails to retain them and the older customers. Are there any public metrics on SE's user turnover? It would be interesting.

9:10 PM

I have create several queries on data.stackexchange in the past to look at our retention.

One that I recently recreated is this one: data.stackexchange.com/aviation/query/1381723/…

I think SE's model is that restaurant, but it's main business is the hotel upstairs; the private Q&A platform. But then are we just the mascot on the street? :D

You can set a reputation threshold (default 10 000) and a time-since-last-visit (default 90 days)

In some ways I sometimes feel we are the mascot indeed

I remember that one, I think I forgot to mention its update:

6

Q: Missing high rep users by last post date

This stems from a chat: We lost indeed quite a few high reputation people over the last year. Seven in total by the count of this query: https://data.stackexchange.com/aviation/query/1381723/which-high-reputation-users-have-we-lost The query checks last visit. I tried to fork it and check last ...

support data-explorer

Bigger list as you see :(

Cool, I didn't know it had been forked

Well, if we're the mascots, shouldn't we demand clean streets? :P Nice twist there, and just kidding ;)

9:20 PM

@ymb1 Indeed much bigger. Quite few people who went from active to passive, but are still there.

Which, on one hand is a sad state of affairs, on the other hand it means that they may become active participants again under the right conditions.

10:20 PM

@DeltaLima agreed

10:57 PM

New processing lets a supercomputer design a radical new wing

Not new, but interesting.

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May '2111

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