@StrixVaria I appreciate that you don't want to call anyone out. Such is the difficulty of the whole nominations bit.

It's tough to talk about that topic because of that.

I'll explain in a min.

To be clear, I'm not talking about anything I've ever seen you do. Dissenting opinions on meta, with thought-out arguments, are a very good thing.

For the folks on the nominations who mention things they want to change, there is a desire to not point fingers, but then how do you describe behaviors you want to change? I was just trying to get a general sense for cases where you felt like the bans weren't being used when they should be.

An example came up on the Bridge today where a user asked and self-answered a trivial question.

That is a relief, btw

In a case such as that, good faith should be assumed.

The user is new, and doesn't know the kinds of questions we like here.

It really didn't add any value to the site, especially since his own answer was wrong, but there really isn't any moderator action to be taken there.

If, for example, a user were to repeatedly ask and self-answer every trivial thing he came across in a game, just as a means to expose himself to upvotes, that would warrant closer inspection.

Heh - I was already halfway through typing that.

Again, I don't want to go into specific cases where users may have acted in an unbecoming way, but that is an example of what something like that might look like.

I see, that makes sense.

Things of this nature come up in chat more often than on the main site.

I've seen the Bridge get derailed by a single disruptive user on a few separate occasions.

People coming in and demanding that everyone else see things their way despite a pre-existing community with pre-existing ideals.

I have on occasion seen Chat offenses go unpunished too, but my default reaction is normally just to leave if it is bothering me. I'm not a mod though :)

People are so afraid of flagging and suspensions on chat like it's some kind of horrible punishment.

A 30-minute timeout is one of the mildest punishments I've ever heard of.

They shouldn't be handed out willy-nilly for silly little things either, but they are certainly underused right now.

It's funny to be having such an extended discussion about this, too, because for the most part these things don't come up.

I blame the character limit in the nominations.

I've seen worse too. I've seen users stripped of all powers on other forums. I agree the small space is limiting, but I suppose there has to be some limit. That's why I decided to come here. I get where you are coming from now, it make much more sense with context.

I'll comment to that effect over on the thread. Thanks for the time.

No problem! I think it's part of the deal of being a candidate that I have to answer questions.

It's something that should carry over to mod-hood too.

@StrixVaria Where can I find clear information on chat flagging and offenses?

@Yuki Do you mean what is flag-worthy and what the punishments are for validated flags?

@StrixVaria Mostly the punishments, because the one time I got flagged and approved, I got an hour-long ban, not 30 minutes.

@Yuki That's actually a good question. I've mostly seen 30-minute bans but I do also remember at least one 60-minute ban. I always attributed that to stacked 30-minute bans.

For example, if 3 of your messages get flagged and validated, you get 90 total minutes.

Did you happen to get 2 at once?

If not, then maybe there's more to it than I realize.

@StrixVaria I think I only got flagged once. Although it might have been twice for the same message.

Moderators can also set custom ban times.

Not sure it works like that though.

@StrixVaria 1 hour long for the first offense seems a bit harsh though.

Then again, I can't even recall what I got banned for.

@Yuki It should be 30 minutes. I can't explain why you got an hour :(

@StrixVaria I think it's 60 or 30. I don't know how the system decides which length suspension you get though.

And I can't find anything anywhere about it. But I've seen 60's before Yuki's too...

@EBongo Primarily I want to improve our new user experience. I think that once a user has spent a month or more around here they start to get the hang of the way we work, but that first month is pretty rough on them. Without naming names there are quite a few users who're needlessly blunt when new users that don't know better ask a question or post an answer and I think it's something the community as a whole needs to work on.

Taking for instance a new user asking a question that we know is off topic, I think that rather than just turning them away with a blunt "this is off topic" question we should consistently at least offer some form of help - politely referring them to another Stack Exchange site or other resource on the internet that will help them.

The key here is creating a good enough first impression that the next time they've got an issue, maybe they'll return and give us another chance, rather than forming the opinion that we didn't want to help them in the first place.

For examples of what I mean, try these.

There are of course other ways we can improve this experience, like clearly identifying community consensus to make it easier for new users to get to trip with why we do things the way we do

...and making tweaks to the way the site works to make some of our friendly resources more obvious.

@Strix @uni @yuki custom bans are intervals of 1h on chat and 1d on site.

Flagbans are always 30m per message, but that does stack. And then there's always system bugs (I could imagine two simultaneous flags causing a race condition bug inferpreting it as two messages)

@kalina If you check my Meta rap sheet you'll see plenty of examples of me advocating the same thing. I've gotten a lot of counter arguments that essentially we can't be polite and welcoming to new users without causing content to suffer.

As in other cases, I believe there is a happy medium and right now we too often guard rail to the side of protecting content and shunning new users. These are definitely the kind of changes from the status quo that I would like to see.

@EBongo Being polite and maintaining a high standard of quality are not mutually exclusive. Being polite is a common courtesy, all it costs is a little bit of time and effort. You can still tell a user that their question is off topic while remaining polite. (See my examples)

It's something I would actively encourage from all users on the site.

@LessPop_MoreFizz Thanks. Good answer.

@kalina @EBongo On that topic, I'd love if when we vote to close identify this game topics, we leave a helpful and friendly comment pointing people to this blog post. Explains that such questions are off-topic (and why), welcomes to the community, AND still potentially helps them

What I don't like is the attitude I sometimes see that "If you help them in the comments, it'll just encourage them to ask more questions like this"

@Sterno yes, I completely agree

Even if that's true, which I'm not convinced it is, who cares? We have an extra 2 questions a month to close, if so. Big deal.

@Sterno and with this, that's not a valid reason to not be polite

It'd be nice to have more blogs posts like that for the really common close reasons.

@Sterno and if we have extra questions, they'll be from returning users, and if they've chosen to return then a portion of them will eventually pick up how we work and maybe start contributing in a positive manner

Then again... few other close reasons are quite as narrowly focused.

@Sterno write a custom close reason including the link!

@LessPop_MoreFizz I usually just add a comment.

I do seem to remember a script or something that let you save and insert some custom close reasons. Maybe I should dig that up.

@sterno no no no I mean a real stock custom close reason that people can just select with a radio button.

@LessPop_MoreFizz I thought we were at our limit.

We need a new one for ITG still because Shog is a jerk.

That is the one that got nuked, though, wasn't it.

I'll go add one to that meta

Or maybe not, because then I have to come up with the other 3 to go with it

I still find it a bit annoying that was changed by someone not part of the community for pretty much no reason.

@Sterno Welcome to the club.

Speaking of welcoming new users, I have no issues at all being welcoming to them; in fact, I try to leave a comment on all new users' problematic questions to point them in the right direction.

I do have an issue of putting new users above quality content, however. If we're bending the rules to accept them here, that's something I'm totally against.

@Frank In many of these instances you can come across extremely bluntly

I don't think anyone is advocating leaving off-topic stuff open because a new user posted it

I think we're just saying that helping them in the comments, on a question that will end up closed/deleted, is a positive thing

@Frank Nobody is saying leave the questions open - off topic is off topic and that's clearly defined. Therefore nothing is being put above quality. That being said, there is no harm in being friendly and helpful.

@kalina And that's something I'm working on, like I've said. I think I've been getting better at it.

@Sterno Which is something I agree with, and already do.

The whole "be friendly and helpful to new users" movement is not about making off topic questions on topic, leaving off topic questions open, etc - it's about pointing the users in the direction of their answers regardless of the quality or the on topic-ness of their question.

@kalina I'm going to have to disagree at least partially with you here.

@Frank Then yay!

I'm a big fan of effort shown by the asker. Especially new users.

@Frank that's fine as long as you tell me which parts you disagree with

@Frank This is a Stack Exchange thing, while effort is important, some users just don't know what to do and therefore can't demonstrate effort

Users that ask obvious questions, or do absolutely nothing to help themselves, I'm of the opinion we show them Google and go on our way.

They might be valid questions that we don't close, but that is definitely something we downvote, and downvote hard.

@Frank If a question seems obvious to you - great, help them with it. Just because it's obvious to you doesn't mean it's obvious to them.

And if the first result on Google isn't a link back to Arqade, then most of the time we could probably do with a question covering it, so our extreme levels of Google-juice can help others with similar issues.

There are of course exceptions, there always are.

Such as our most downvoted (and yet, still valid) question. A user shows up, asks about something that happens at the beginning of the game, and points out that he totally ignores every story bit that has happened thus far.

That, right there, is utterly worthy of every downvote it accrues.

It's still a valid question, however, so it doesn't get closed.

@Frank Downvote away - however, there is more than one person in the world that plays games like that.

It's not something I think we shoud be welcoming, however.

If the question is on topic, then why isn't it welcome?

Either way, this isn't the place to try to convince me about anything. That is my stance; there are questions that are too simple or stupid to be allowed to exist.

On Arqade we have very well defined and frequently refined rules for what is on topic - if a question can make it past that net I don't see why we should then go on to tell a user their question is "pointless because it's obvious" or whatever other bluntness we can apply.

@Frank This worries me, in the event you were elected would you personally make this call and start deleting things without the community's input?

@kalina Of course not.

I hope that you stand by that.

Just because I personally feel something is stupid doesn't automatically mean I'd just start deleting stuff I don't like.

I've always stated I'm a huge fan of community consensus, and that's always been something I stand by.

Otherwise I'd start deleting lore willy-nilly.

@Frank Why not?

> That is my stance; there are questions that are too simple or stupid to be allowed to exist.

Especially if the game already gives you that information, and you flat out ignore it.

I find it funny when things are up-voted even when they show absolutely no research effort on the part of the user, and sometimes it feels as it it's simply people up-voting because it's not badly worded, or whatever, and they don't understand why someone down-voted it. It sort of annoys me that a good chunk of my rep on this site isn't from answers that provide thoughtful responses, but from stating the blindingly obvious (not that I necessarily want to lose that rep).

I can see a lot of questions of the form "I missed this key information and now can't progress because of it", which would be perfectly valid, because humans make mistakes and don't all have eidetic memories.

They won't be the best questions on the site, but they certainly have a chance of helping out other users in the future.

@StrixVaria That I can understand, too.

@TZHX research effort isn't the only reason to downvote or upvote - there are many questions on the site that are genuinely useful to the rest of the internet that demonstrated zero research effort.

@Frank So what is different from this in your example?

I'm talking story bits that require no effort to find or see again, but the user just skips it.

Or ignores the solutions provided in game for reading/seeing it again.

@Frank You say "ignore", "unaware of" is also perfectly possible

@kalina Indeed, there are. I said I found it funny, not that it's the worst thing to happen to the Internet since Hitler.

So a question like "Hey, where did Deckard Cain go in Act 2? I can't find him anywhere."?

:)

@StrixVaria Yes. That would not be a question I would welcome.

@kalina And if the question reflects that ignorance, we can happily point them at it, and everyone is happy.

@TZHX sometimes asking a variety of questions about a new game that you already know the answer to is important for driving traffic to the site - quite often, if we're the first site with any real resources for game, that in itself will attract more users here to ask questions - because we already have questions and they're already on here

It's more, "What happened at this point in the game, and oh, yeah, I skip all text and story, so explain it to me, please"

take the last Candy Box game, fredley got a large number of questions on the site and the site went completely crazy for a few days because we were one of the few places to find conclusive answers about the game

@TZHX That often just means a lot of people had the question too, however obvious it may be.

@kalina And that's fine; I wholeheartedly support that.

@Sterno I think you're looking for this

Especially for new games.

Not sure if that still works, though.

@FEichinger Yup, thanks

I have to go and do some work for a bit, back shortly

@Frank So what. "Hey, I skipped the tutorial, what's the Grenade key?" shouldn't be deleted either.

Fundamentally, lore and gameplay aren't all that different, if you go for "the user didn't listen to what the game said".

@FEichinger I feel that it should. The community doesn't agree with me, though, I will content myself with downvoting it and moving on.

If you can't even be bothered to check the key bindings, that's really not something I feel we should be encouraging.

It's a bad question, but not a question that doesn't belong on the site.

Categorizing content that doesn't belong on the site on its quality is completely arbitrary. When is it enough effort to be asked on the site? After sifting through pages after pages of manuals, forum discussions and wikis?

Not to mention that there is a difference between deletevotes and downvotes for a reason. Otherwise we could just delete anything that hits score -X

Applying such a filter is, in my opinion, actively harmful to the site.

@FEichinger for now, we just delete stuff that hits - with no answers after a few weeks. which, I think, is just as bad.

Right now, our questions that fall into that category are rather minimal. If I see another one, I'll just grumble and downvote. If it turns into more of a problem, though, it's something I think we should visit.

@TZHX Arguably. A case can be made that a question with negative score and no answers is unfit to be answered (not clear enough, etc.). I don't like auto-deletion in general, I'd much rather get a review queue for such stuff that triggers every time a set interval is hit (f.e. 6 months) and we then get to decide what to do about it.

But that'd be a feature-request for a different time.

@Frank Well, when is it "more of a problem"?

@FEichinger If we happen to get questions of that nature more often. I can't define an exact figure, because I don't know when I think it would be more of a problem.

not a good case, but yes... not really on-topic for here.

At what threshold do you intend to revisit this - presumably to introduce a "blanket ban on stupid questions"?

And more importantly, do you think the frequency of these questions is increasing?

@FEichinger So far, no.

Which is why I don't think it's a problem that needs to be addressed.

You sound like you're expecting it to increase, though.

I like to be prepared for worst case scenarios.

It's the engineer in me.

You seem rather pessimistic on this. Rather than expecting good quality to come out of serving such questions in the long run, you are preparing for what might happen in the unlikely event that there may be more of these questions at some point in the future.

@FEichinger I don't see how questions that are inherently lacking in effort can produce good quality of any sort.

At best, we're parroting a manual.

Their askers stick around, get accustomed to the site and may post better content in the long run. On top of that we get more traffic onto the site, because we have yet another question to be found on Google, which brings even more users on board.

Our goal is to make the internet better, not leverage Google to get more people.

More people means more content means more well-curated information for the Internet.

I don't think "slippery slope" arguments are a helpful way to look at site growth. Even in some of our worst floods, like say, the LoL contest, the situation still did not become completely untenable and cleanup was able to be reasonably done, both during and after the event.

How is that not making the Internet better?

I don't think questions where we're repeating what's alread been said in game due to user deliberately ignoring it makes it better.

@Frank And yet again, you're saying it's deliberate, which may not necessarily be the case.

@Frank I don't think that's entirely true. We have to be honest here; Google is a majority part of search traffic. The fact that we take steps to improve SEO kind of is proof that we want to leverage Google to get more people here.

@Frank I disagree, as with the example I provided yesterday - two of my WoW questions which were immediately self answered displayed a lack of effort - they were simple issues where a quick Google would have revealed the answer and between them they got ~700k hits. That is a significant amount of traffic and many, many instances where we fulfilled our primary objective: to provide answers to the internet

@kalina Self answer is a different beast, and not something I am referencing.

@Frank You're referencing questions that display a lack of effort and research, I think it's completely relevant. What is to stop a new user from asking a question displaying a lack of research and effort that then goes on to get similar levels of views?

You'd never know, because it would have been downvoted and deleted before its potential was realised.

@kalina A large amount of views does not correlate to good content.

If a question is asked well, and it displays at least a modicum of effort, I have no issue with it.

@Frank It does point to content that many other people found useful.

@JasonBerkan Not necessarily. It just means lots of people looked at it.

That has no correlation to whether or not it's a good question.

@Frank I never said it did, however it does mean that it was useful to the internet at large. Striking the right balance between useful to the internet and satisfying our quality requirements is important. If we remove a question that some may deem low quality but that was essentially on topic and resulted in driving a significant amount of traffic to our site, I view that as a failure on our part.

I doubt anyone is saying it is a "good question" in terms of quality.

@FEichinger That is the implication being made.

Views = good.

@Frank Yes, views are good. Views don't make a good question, but they're good for the site.

Views are good. We are a site that survives off views.

Views are not the be all end all of our site, however.

Otherwise SO would allow subjective and recommendation questions.

@Frank They're not, but they're still very important.

Views, while good to have, take a back seat to actual quality.

@Frank For that, we have our topic definition and the format specifications.

@Frank This has nothing to do with subjective/recommendation questions - we're still applying our basic rules of what is on topic

A question that doesn't work with the format of SE is closed and done away with.

Deleting a question that is of a lower quality but is still on topic is bad for the site.

That is the point that is being made, here.

@kalina No, I'm pointing out that views do not make a question automatically good.

@Frank And we have told you, three times now, that nobody is saying it makes the question good.

Nobody here has said, or can honestly believe, that views make a question automatically good.

But that it is good for the site as a whole.

You're misunderstanding what is being said, then.

@Frank No, it is not.

I think we're kind of talking in circles here. I'm pretty sure that you all agree that there needs to be a good balance between quality and views for the overall health of the site.

If I had some peanut butter, I could make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, if I had some jelly.

@Sterno Same here, but I'd also need bread.

A random question, that probably 10 people here know the answer to: When a user becomes a mod, do their old posts inherit the diamond? I would assume yes, but if so it creates another factor for me to consider.

@EBongo Yes, I believe so, in the same way that name changes apply.

@EBongo yes.

Now I want to make a crappy programmer joke about how exactly 10 people knew the answer...

The statements in the nominations about previous posts and the diamond make more contextual sense now :).

@kalina @FEichinger I'm happy to see I'm not the only one who feels this way. In days of yore I asked and answered a Meta question very much in this vein. There was a little more to it, but I think most of the controversy around DragonVale questions was that they drove a lot of traffic, but were perceived as being too easy to answer.

Views don't guarantee that we helped every person that looked at those questions, but because of the nature of them, I think it is fair to argue we helped a large majority of those that viewed..... and that's a lot of people.

@EBongo I've read through that meta question again, and once again I find myself agreeing with agent86 - one great reason to allow simple questions is that we can provide a better answer than the other places.

@JasonBerkan Indeed. That @agent86 is a smart guy. :)

Oddly enough I said much the same thing at the time: meta.gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/5004/…

@EBongo Every single thing inherits the diamond in name. Posts, comments, even closures and the like. That's why sometimes one can see a diamond in the middle of a close chain, for example.

@GraceNote I see, thanks.

No problem.

@JasonBerkan Yes and I appreciated that then, and now. I don't think there is much that needs changing with Arqade - but being a little more welcoming to new users, and a little less elitist about simple questions would go a long way in my book.

@Grace Or multiple diamonds ... There's a neat image on GFSE with lots of diamonds.

@kalina @JasonBerkan Because the goal of a StackExchange site is to build a community of experts.

And part of the way you do that is by making the site interesting to experts.

And part of the way you do that is by separating wheat from chaff, and getting rid of garbage. That's what the whole SE model is predicated upon.

Bad questions drive good questions away. It's in the interests of everyone that they be downvoted and disappear.

That said, this is what downvotes are for, not close votes.

I do think that every SE site needs more downvoting - especially on questions.

@LessPop_MoreFizz I don't see myself as an expert gamer nor an expert programmer, yet I participate in Arqade and Stack Overflow. Also, how exactly do bad questions drive good questions away?

@JasonBerkan That's great, but a good Q&A site lives and dies by the expertise of it's most knowledgeable users - that's the whole basis on which SE was built. If you create a place where experts want to go for their information, everyone else will want to go there too.

High standards are good for everybody.

Bad questions drive good questions away because Yahoo Answers.

Eventually, the people who know the most get tired of dealing with all of the garbage and leave, and all that you have left behind is the idiots that can't string a few sentences together.

And so, the internet evolves and some new site takes over at the place people are going for information.

If you want to stave off that last phase, you need to be aggressive about not letting sand overwhelm your diamonds.

@FAE right, but do you remember how many people flat out left until the event ended? And not just 'people', but the very 'experts' that we need to guard so jealously because they keep the site going. The reason it's important to downvote garbage is to, among other things, avoid our eternal september scenario, The Perpetual League of Legends Contest.

@EBongo I think, fundamentally, my issue with the whole 'BE NICE TO NEW PEOPLE' movement is the implication that so many seem to be hung up on that downvotes aren't nice. If that argument disappears, I think most of the contention goes away in general.

@LessPop_MoreFizz The flip side is if the site gains a reputation as elitist, everyone else will go elsewhere.

@JasonBerkan Right. Which is why we need high standards, and a welcoming presence. I have zero issue with anyone who wants to argue for nice friendly "Welcome to Arqade!" comments. I find the whole scripted copypasta thing to be a little cheesy and possibly kind of robotic and off putting - and it's too much work, at least for me, to be the guy to actually write up something new every time, but I'm willing to accept that maybe that's on me.

What drives me up the wall is the implication that that 'go out of your way to be friendly' behavior is incumbent upon anybody; the only thing that ought to be incumbent upon anybody is not being a jerk. And pointing out that something is wrong without a friendly word (but also without a hostile word) is not being a jerk. NOR IS DOWNVOTING BASED ON CONTENT. EVER. POINT BLANK.

99% of the downvote drama comes after someone explains their downvotes.

@LessPop_MoreFizz Yet many people (myself included) see large numbers of downvotes on their posts as the site being mean / unwelcoming. How do you propose we get past that hurdle?

@JasonBerkan Step One: Experienced Users Who Ought To Know Better should stop treating them as such.

I agree there should be no onus on anyone to leave nice comments. At the same time, flat out saying "this question is dumb" is damaging, I think.

That's not something anyone typically would directly argue with, yet I still see comments that either directly say that or heavily imply it quite a bit. In those cases, I think people should find a way to nicely explain their problem with the question or say nothing at all.

@Sterno It costs 0 effort not to leave a hostile comment, and at least some effort to leave one that's hostile. I don't quite understand the people who do the latter.

@FAE Sometimes it does take more energy to stay silent than to rage. :P

@Sterno As evidence, I offer the fact that I suspect I am presently being revenge downvoted on beer.se.

@LessPop_MoreFizz I don't see how that solves the issue. That solves the arguing about the issue, since we'll all be on the same side. But the 200 rep user with a question with 10 downvotes?

@JasonBerkan I said it's step one. Which is to set a tone throughout the community that understands the fact that a downvote doesn't mean "I Hate You". Lead by example and all that.

It's a lot easier to downvote someone and be nice when there isn't some other high rep user yelling at you that downvoting is inherently mean.

Or arguing that you're downvoting wrong

@LessPop_MoreFizz and our answers should reflect that

@Sterno Good luck with that one.

Everyone will argue that downvotes done against their posts is wrong.

@Frank Yeah, that's what I mean. If you explain a downvote, it just invites an explanation of why you're mean, or why your reasoning is wrong.

Probably about 10% of the time someone think "Oh, thanks, I'll fix that"

So, as @LessPop said: Get established users to stop arguing about said downvotes, because it's not personal.

I'm not saying a person should never explain their downvotes, but if you're going to bother, you might as well try to sugarcoat it to alleviate the drama

Part of our established process for new users is to explain our processes better. I have found that just leaving a comment tends to not work well.

Downvoting, and pointing out what's wrong works much better.

@Sterno Sugarcoating will help nothing.

@Frank Pissing people off helps nothing either.

If people disagree, they're going to disagree, whether it's sugarcoated or not.

@Sterno There's room in the middle; we don't need to be hostile, neither do we need to sugarcoat it.

Personally, I find trying to bend over backwards to welcome new users and be super welcoming kinda disingenuous.

Welcoming, yes. Going, "OMG NEW USER MUST WELCOME!" kinda devalues the contributions made by our established user base.

@Frank How?

@FAE By putting so much effort into welcoming new users, we're sending the message that they're more important than established ones.

That seems like a stretch. But I'm also not advocating we use all caps and bad English.

We're treating them differently than those that are our more important asset.

And by "sugarcoat", what I really mean is try to make sure what you're writing won't be interpreted as an insult.

Even the simple "This shows a complete lack of research effort." comes off really badly.

@Frank how do you know? The right welcome to the right person could result in another high rep user

I was a new user once, you were a new user once

Which is why I rail so hard against @EBongo's attempt to be more lenient to new users.

@kalina Yes, and we're still here.

@Frank Why did you come back on your second day?

The value of Arqade is that we are the experts.

If you have a question, we can probably answer it.

@Frank that's not a reason

@kalina I honestly don't remember.

I think you're confusing what I'm talking about with being lenient. I'm not even talking about new users specfically. All I'm really saying is "If you can't manage to not be a dick, or come off sounding like one, stay silent. It's better for everyone."

@Sterno And that I agree with.

@Frank well, I came back because everybody was awesome

both times

I think I originally started hanging around due to the single Defender's Quest question the site had.

I have no issues with trying to get new members. But our main focus should always be quality content.

That will bring in users.

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

@FEichinger I'm not saying they are.

I'm saying that valuing new members above quality content devalues that which our site, and what we've done, is built upon.

I'm unclear on how being nice to someone values them over quality content.

Or how I've put forth that idea.

I'm not really sure what an example of such behavior would be.

@Frank Have you seen a pattern of established behavior from other established users who feel this way or is this just your own experience?

@Sterno I'm referring to @EBongo's stance (as I understand it, anyways), of new users.

@FAE This is my personal experience.

Okay. Apparently we're all arguing about something that no one currently participating in this chat said.

Because I'm having difficulty trying to think of any scenarios where established users have voiced displeasure or indicated that they feel undervalued due to us trying to create a better new user experience.

@Frank so you, personally, think that welcoming new users and being friendly to them devalues your own contributions to the site?

@kalina You know that's not true.

I'm talking specifically about bending over backwards to welcome new users.

@Frank But this is what I just asked...

@FAE Oh, I misread what you said, then.

I took it as, "Is this the way you see things going if this happens?"

I'm not talking about bending over backwards, I'm talking about giving them a single friendly comment pointing them in the direction of their problem, after kindly welcoming them and explaining why their problem is not on topic here - which could just be a nicely framed link to a blog or meta post - before we go and downvote and close their question

@Frank What I want to know is essentially what @kalina just asked. Have you seen a larger number of users voice this problem, or is this just your own personal feelings on the matter?

@FAE As far as I know, I'm the only one voicing this problem. And, really, it's not a problem here at all. And I'd like to keep it that way.

I think we're all more or less on the same page here; I'm arguing about an extreme example.

I really don't like this constant negativity. Almost any suggestion you disagree with gets met with big talk about how you expect the worst to actually happen.

@Frank I'm unsure as to why you keep bringing this up as a sticking point then, if it's a complete theoretical that even you yourself don't have a personal issue with.

I'm sorry, but when I look at a moderator position, I'd like to see someone who doesn't frequently make up worst-case scenarios and then argues as if they already happened.

@FAE Because I don't want it to become a problem.

@Frank If others have an issue with behavior welcoming new users, then I would hope they would voice it. Until then, until such an issue exists, it seems confusing to me to worry about something on the behalf of others who aren't even having a problem with it yet, and for whom we don't even know if it ever will be.

@FEichinger And that's fine; I'd rather see budding problems nipped before they become full fledged problems.

they've got to actually be problems, first

@Frank I am still not convinced there's an actual problem, or even the slightest likelihood of your scenario coming true at all.

Want to ask candidate a question, but can't find non-rude way of asking it.

@Sterno Tell it to me and I'll ask it in a ruder way.

@Sterno If it's me, be rude - I can take it.

@Sterno I don't think I would care.

@Sterno what question?

nvm

@Sterno I just wanted to ping you as well.

You know, testing your hearing and all.

At what rep do you get access to the review queue?

@Sterno 2000 - meta.stackoverflow.com/help/privileges/access-review-queues

thanks

@JasonBerkan It's 500 here I think.

@FAE You're right.

gaming.stackexchange.com/help/privileges

@FAE C'est possible. I searched Meta.

I couldn't find it because I wasn't looking that far down the list. I was convinced it was higher up.

It used to be 150, if I'm not mistaken.

I kind of want to nominate just to see my stats, then remove myself :P

There have to be data.SE queries for that.

@Sterno You can see reviews on your profile.

gaming.stackexchange.com/users/118/ullallulloo?tab=activity

For you

Actually, that isn't even shown in elections.

@Ullallulloo &sort=reviews

Calculator + meta profile page for scoring, I guess

@LessPop_MoreFizz Forgot to reply to this until now, that's also a fair point.

Pretty sure I just posted the definitive answer to "What can you do as a mod that you can't with that big pile of rep" in the comments on my declaration.

@LessPop_MoreFizz If that's in regards to Jeffrey Lin's question, I agree there.

@FAE Yup.

@LessPop_MoreFizz ...probably not the most politic response. :P

@FAE I think it's very politic. Whether you want to read the implication of intent into my statement is all on you.

He asked what can I do as a mod that I can't with all my rep.

The answer is "Ban @JeffreyLin."

It's not an exhaustive answer.

But it is an accurate answer.

Two more nominations in the last hour! I wonder if they will last.

@LessPop_MoreFizz Well, if nothing else, you're giving people a very accurate picture of your personality. :)

@ken Wipqozn is certainly in it for the long haul. Dunno m'vy well enough to judge, but the low flag count/meta participation 1-2 punch seems to be very strongly correlated with flakery.

Presumably because when it's pointed out, it boils down to "that stuff you aren't doing? As a mod, the primary thing you will do is a lot more of that. So if you don't like doing it now, why will you start liking it later?"

@Sterno He didn't ask "What will you do" he asked "What can you do"

@OrigamiRobot I know. I know he's not going to ban him. My point is, that style of communication is very @LessPop_MoreFizz, and he's definitely not afraid to let it show during the election (for good or bad).

Is it wrong that every time I pull up that page and scroll down to that comment I laugh at my own joke?

It's not clever by any means. But it is exceedingly honest, which counts for something, IMO.

@Sterno this is one thousand percent by design.

@LessPop_MoreFizz I figured. It'd be really hard to do that without being aware of it in these circumstances.

I fully expect to have the largest gap of any candidate between number of first place votes and number of not on the ballots, whether I win or lose.

I wish the timer didn't exist for nominees replying to comments.

Oaky, screw this. That's too many comments.

I'm posting my response here anad linking it.

you need to ask questions with shorter answers @FAE, the site just handle it! Too many characters, not enough space.

oh zeus, chat is even worse.

I wrote a 600 word response to your question.

@Wipqozn - Replying to a comment question with more characters than the nomination allows.

...it's only 2700 characters with spaces...

...maybe closer to 2800..

Maybe I'll just link the google doc I typed it in.

@Wipqozn I'll respond tomorrow. It's midnight here, and I've given myself a cutoff on nomination involvement stuff, otherwise it eats up my night.

@FAE Good, because I don't want to type up another essay tonight :P

haha

@LessPop_MoreFizz - I’ve had some time to organize my thoughts, and I figured I’d spew them out while I have a bit of time before dealing with my kids. (And I hope we aren’t abusing this chat room with this discussion.)

I agree with you that downvotes are good (*).

oh man, asterisk. This is going to be good!

(*) I have concerns about the perception 10+ downvotes on a question gives users who don’t understand how the site is supposed to work, but that is not relevant to the main point that bad questions should be downvoted.

I disagree that all simple questions are bad. In particular, the Dragonvale questions @Ebongo and I were discussing are not bad.

Finally, despite your bluntness, you ability to argue your point will make you a great moderator.

And I'm off.