@TheLethalCarrot I would assume that applies to python or whatever he was talking about. Because otherwise it would simply be blatantly untrue.

So I am an amazing programmer after all

Not to brag but I did just ship a release on time

@b_jonas Frankly, I'm extremely uncomfortable with this. I know your intents are noble and you just want to avoid drama (not that I think it would be likely). But really, what you're saying there is, that some high profile valued user or mod just needs to come around the corner and say "if this guy wins, I'mma rage-quit!" and suddenly you would not vote for the candidate. But I'm very much opposed to this kind of taking communities or elections hostage and you letting this be done to your vote.

@TheLethalCarrot If you were an amazing shipwright, you'd release a ship on time.

(If you were in a boat race, would you time a ship on release?)

Imma hand my notice in to prove myself as an amazing shipwright

If you were building labyrinths, would you be a-mazing?

(Sorry, wrong room. I'll go bore TREU with these puns.)

How come the first "The" is included in TREU, but not the "at the" or the "of the"?

@cairdcoinheringaahing no idea. It just happened.

Because we don't feel like REU-ing the day

Although it does make sense, since these are the letters that would be capitalised in a title: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

TRatEotU.

@SQB this is what you get called if you turn against this stack

like: You Trateotu!

@cairdcoinheringaahing We golfed it

@TheLethalCarrot treu golfing would be REU, currently TNB is beating you :P

@SQB lets drill down into them over there

@cairdcoinheringaahing Shouldn't that just be NB? (-1 byte)

@AncientSwordRage You mean if you haven't been TREU to the site?

@TheLethalCarrot Nah, you need the T otherwise it isn't The Nineteenth Byte, at which point it is no longer 19 bytes long :P

unTREU sozusagen.

Also we're not using a golfing language over here so TREU is quite a commendable effort

Although TREU is one byte longer than Mos ಠ_ಠ :P

We sacrificed a byte to use a better language

@TheLethalCarrot :P

Maybe we should call it FALSE, since TREU ≠ TRUE.

We should golf that to a falsey value instead: 0

Then we’re doing better than TNB as wel

The empty string is also falsey in a lot of languages, that's zero bytes :P

@NapoleonWilson you got me

@SQB TREU and FLASE

@NapoleonWilson No, I'm not saying I wouldn't vote for the candidate. Frankly if ASR said that about TLC then I'd still vote for TLC and think it's fine for ASR to drop.

@NapoleonWilson Is it really my vote that matters, or everyone else's votes, with 500 mostly uninformed voters.

@cairdcoinheringaahing Of course, I'm a fool

@NapoleonWilson But I think you understand why the diamonds are reluctant to say anything.

@b_jonas So, you're asking the current mods if we want to badmouth any candidates so you can (a) vote for the candidate anyway, (b) want the existing mod to step down, and (c) introduce bad blood between moderators (if that candidate wins). Why would we tell you about any concerns with the candidates if we had any?

@Null No, in probably any case other than ASR and TLC I would not vote for the candidate. That's probably the only case where I'd start considering it. So yes, mostly not (a). Not (b), I probably don't want the existing moderators to step down, but if they turned out to be really disagreeable and couldn't work with any new moderators, which is clearly not the case in this election, then it would be (b).

As for (c), if the moderator steps down, it doesn't introduce bad blood because one of them is gone.

@Null You don't have to tell about every concern, only concerns so serious that you would give up your diamond rather than deal with them. And if none of the seven candidates are that bad, then I'd be glad to know that definitely.

@b_jonas But in that case the election has done nothing except introduce bad blood between users, since the number of mods would be unchanged.

There's a distinction there. I don't expect you to tell me who you think the best candidate is.

@Null Between users? Maybe, if it's a case like Valorum, who stayed on to contribute after he stepped down from moderatorship. I'd still rather know in advance than be surprised after the election to find what we have caused with our votes.

And if none of the candidates are that bad, then I can rest easy and vote on anyone and know it won't lead to a catastrophe.

I am sure if existing moderators had a core problem with a candidate they would elevate that to the CMs.

@Skooba Yes, they are talking to the CMs about Shakar.

If the candidate was still allowed to stand I have complete faith in our moderators to be professional and not rage quit.

But I don't think I'm in the loop enough to know all about what the moderators elevate to the CM.

@Skooba Ok, and why should I believe that after we have had at least two moderators step down on Sci Fi and at least one on Lit?

@b_jonas Well as a regular user no, most of that stuff is, and should stay, between the mods and CMs

Maybe that's the case, but it would be nice to hear that from a moderator rather than you.

@b_jonas because not all moderators or even users are the same?

I'd like to think those two are an exception

@b_jonas It's not a question of being "in the loop", unless you are moderator then most CM escalations will be unknown to you by design.

@Null Yes.

Maybe the following will put your mind at ease. A moderator stepping down is a rare occurrence, especially over the election of another moderator. So I think you're safe to assume it will not happen, or at least not let it be a deciding factor in how you vote. The current mods have made it clear that they do not want to play favourites, so the only thing they have done is encouraging people to run (me being one of them).

Presumably because they think those people might make good mods, but that doesn't mean that they think the people who didn't need the encouragement won't make good mods.

@b_jonas I'd agree with ASR on that. The current mod team is not the old team.

Also, and this should hopefully put your mind at ease, I asked directly about one of the nominees who lied on their nomination "blurb". @Randal'Thor said that it was discussed among mods / with CMs / perhaps both, and that it wasn't deemed bad enough for that candidate not to run. That means (implicitly) that all candidates have the mods approval.

@b_jonas This is always a problem. Sometimes it would be best to have only the moderators or CMs vote. But just it doesn't work this way. But I simply can't imaging it going over well for the moderators to say "don't vote for this guy or we'll step down". At some point they just have to ask their leading questions in the nomination comments and trust for people being somewhat responsible.

@SQB hmm. I don't think that logic completely holds. It means we aren't worried about any of the candidates running

@Skooba Yeah, I'd have to look back at what Randal'Thor said precisely.

Ok, I guess you're right, I should stop worrying about the problems in the case of this Sci Fi 2021 election. I can still think about the voting page instructions.

@AncientSwordRage that is what I mean.

@b_jonas I do, yes.

@AncientSwordRage Approval, not necessarily recommendation.

I think this really boils down to one candidate, which if comments were still up, you'd see some of the other candidates are leary about (myself included)

@SQB Yes, I understand that I only know about it because Valorum complained, if it were between Shakar and the current moderators, then they would have silently talked to the CMs and each other.

there's a difference between someone running who won't make a good mod, but is unlikely to be voted in and even if they are could be removed if issues arose, and someone running who won't make a good mod, but is likely to be voted in and even be difficult to remove if issues arose

which is why earlier we were saying that comments should stay up or another place for candidate interaction besides chat

@SQB I don't think it means that implicitly, because I only know about that one because Valorum posted a comment.

@b_jonas It seems you pretty much know who to vote for and who to not vote for. Everyone in between maybe just doesn't really matter all that much.

If the current moderators had a problem with the other six, which now seems unlikely, I wouldn't have found out about it.

remember there's only 3 mods voting in this election, but hundreds of users who we trust to make good judgements voting

if we thought you'd all make a choice you'd regret we might have done something

@AncientSwordRage That's exactly what worries me. You trust people like me to make good judgements. How can that lead to anything good?

Perhaps (and I've thought about that too) you'd like a short stage after nomination, in which current mods vet all candidates to approve or refuse them?

@SQB Yes, and not necessarily only the current mods, but anyone who spends so much time on this site that they know most of these candidates and can have reasonable opinions about them and they contribute a lot to the site so it would be sad if many of them left because they don't like a new moderator.

@b_jonas You don't trust yourself to make a good judgment?

@Null For this election? No. For certain professional questions in my job? Yes.

@b_jonas Maybe the other moderators just aren't like Keen and Gilles. And frankly, not too many people are.

@Null I don't trust myself because I don't know enough about what happens on Sci Fi, I don't follow all the moderation queues and drama and tomato blight and escalating close reopen wars.\

@b_jonas Why don't you trust yourself to be able to make a good judgment in the election?

@AncientSwordRage hm. That's a bit too trusting that any user (and I'm very explicitly not accusing any current or previous candidate of this; just considering the possibility) wouldn't be able to rouse a cabal to vote for them.

@NapoleonWilson I know a few such people. Outside of Sci Fi, that is. There's one that I respect professionally, and I can keep talking to him and have nice chats because I manage to stop arguing him when they're wrong, but some other people who also can't stop arguing can't talk to him because it leads to endless flamewar threasd with no new content from either side. It's sad, and I don't like to see it happen to two moderators. And

@b_jonas Then...maybe don't vote?

@b_jonas The vast majority of relevant information is publicly visible. You just have to put in the time to make an informed decision. If you don't want to do that then just don't vote.

there was a person in my previous work who was a project leader over me for a short time, but we really couldn't work together, and when he stepped down and left the company, I felt both sad because maybe he left because I couldn't talk to him right, and felt good because maybe he left because we were incompatbile but the CEOs thought I was more valuable.

But in the end I think he didn't step down because of me personally.

@Null I tried to put hours in. That's why I was trying to figure out the voting system. But the information seems to be well hidden.

It's technically mostly publicly visible (I think I can even see behind the tomato blight as a high rep user if I promise to wash my hands very carefully), but it's not easy to search.

And the site is just big.

Although (and I've said this before, in here) I think that it would be good to have a place to have an ongoing conversation with all candidates, where that conversation is consolidated in a meaningful way. (I mean, chat messages are kept, but even in this dedicated chatroom, you'd have to wade through jokes and puns, and discussions about the finer points of Meek STV.

@NapoleonWilson I did consider it, but I don't think that's better. It wouldn't make me feel better if we had a conflict between the moderators and I didn't vote for it.

Most information you need to know is in the candidate's nomination post and the information given and linked to in the candidate score box.

@SQB a candidate could, but I think that isn't the current case with this election

@b_jonas Still this again leads to your vote being influenced by rage-quit threats. (Also, by now I'd say none of the moderators will do that after the election.) They might only if 1 or 2 candidates get elected. But they won't get elected and you wouldn't vote for them anyway.

@Null but that's locked down after nomination, isn't it?

@NapoleonWilson I don't vote on the SE sites where I barely post, because there it wouldn't impact me if there was a conflict between the moderators, I wouldn't lose a valuable community that I used to participate in (or at least post stupid Harry Potter answers in)

but more than likely without sockpuppeting (already hard with the rep limits) they probably wouldn't get anyone to vote for them who wouldn't already

@NapoleonWilson Yes, I'm a consequentialist, I care about what happens, not just whether my hand feels dirty about it.

@SQB Yes, but what difference does that make?

@b_jonas Yeah, but I'm saying you won't vote for Sachin Shekar, noone in this room will. You're talking about scenarios that simply won't happen.

@Null well, more interaction with the candidates might be good.

@NapoleonWilson Yes, and it's good that now I know that there isn't such a threat. But I had to ask on chat about that.

@NapoleonWilson How many of the 500 people are in this room?

@b_jonas Only if your core assumption is that moderators will resign after the election. I get why experience might tell you so, but that's based on a really limited and special sample.

@NapoleonWilson the people in this room are a minority. many users who just stroll in and see high rep, high mod score, long time user, that probably earns a slot on the vote card.

@NapoleonWilson That wasn't my assumption, it was a worry. I wanted to know that it won't happen. Now I'm satisfied enough about it.

@Skooba Do you mean they see Adamant?

@NapoleonWilson Also thank you for bringing up your concerns, it helps.

@SQB Sure, and that's what this room is for.

@b_jonas well of the candidates, "user931" has the 2nd most rep and longest site tenure.

@b_jonas I doubt it'll get better by moderators making a meta post against a candidate. At some point you just have to trust that voters won't be completely deranged. And to be honest, his nomination is clearly recognizeable as trollery. I've seen people unacquainted with SciFi.SE come to that conclusion after seconds. There are really worse cases of bad candidates that aren't obvious trollery.

the rest of us have about equal stats or least not great enough to differ, carrot has the rep, jack has the tenure.

@NapoleonWilson Yes.

That is true.

@Skooba And the lowest candidate score.

@Skooba and the blog

@Null yes which should be a red flag but will it get notices

@AncientSwordRage we have a blog?

@Skooba and ibid is the one who answers the kind of questions I personally care about, besides Rand and FuzzyBoots, yes

@Skooba I think candidate score plays a big role in elections. I'm pretty sure my candidate score (which was perfect when I ran) is at least 90% of the reason I was elected.

@Skooba don't look at me, I only get to say that once per day

I do get your concerns (and I'd share them if (a) I cared more about the site and (b) it was a more dangerous nomination). But there is only so much moderators can do to influence an election. At the end of the day, it's still an open election and there's always the danger of the plebs "getting it wrong".

@Null yeah, as i noted that is currently impossible for me lol

SE tries to improve that somewhat, e.g. with candidate score or moving the questionaire into the nomination. But there is still more room for improvement, like not hiding comments during the election.

@Skooba I always consider the Candidate Score in my votes

Although I generally disregard the 20 rep based points, unless they have <5k

@Skooba You're close enough to perfect. Missing only 1 doesn't seem to me as big of a difference as only having 34/40.

@Null this isn't horseshoes. I want that point by golly! :-P

Candidate score isn't everything. It's important, but other factors matter.

@Null And 4 of the missing 6 are in the Moderation category

if you check my ELU stats, i clearly care about review O.o

@Null I find it to be a generally good indicator of moderation and engagement of users I'm not familiar with

I mostly vote according to my evaluation of Candidate Score, my interactions with that user, comments on their nomination and answers to questionnaire, with each of those being given varying degrees of consideration

I didn't even look at the candidate scores. But then again, I only voted for a single candidate yet. ;-)

you cant throw that out there like that

@NapoleonWilson Vote for me, I'll make the site into a site about foods in fantasy worlds :P

@cairdcoinheringaahing You mean it isn't already?

@NapoleonWilson Not enough :P

I'm sure I can find a lembas question in about 3 seconds.

@cairdcoinheringaahing okay GRRM

Or rather 4 of them.

@cairdcoinheringaahing There are only two candidates who have a perfect score at the moment

Me and @TheLethalCarrot.

@b_jonas I think both @TheLethalCarrot and Sachin have more reputation than I do. As for moderation activity, TLC has the most by far.

Jack has more too. I am kind of in the middle.

@cairdcoinheringaahing Make it fighting foods in fantasy worlds and you've got my vote.

@DavidW Gingerbrute?

I

I’ve got a serious question for all the candidates… what music do you listen to?

I love democracy. I love Stack Exchange.

@AncientSwordRage A Storm of Breadsticks

@TheLethalCarrot I check the new music list on Spotify every Friday and listen to whatever sounds interesting.

Or the video game Lembas of Tron.

@DavidW Do fantasy worlds from DND shows (Critical Role, Dimension 20 etc.) count as on-topic on SFF?

Cause if so, I have a great source of fighting fantasy food :P

@Adamant Four candidates plus me are consecutive side-by-side in the reputation leagues.

Carrot, Rand, Jack, Sachin, Adamant.

Then ibid, Skooba, and SQB are all lower than ASR and Null in rep.

@cairdcoinheringaahing Sure, why not? "SF is a big tent" and all that.

@DavidW Then this is a whole bunch of fighting fantasy foods :P

If I am elected, there will be a swimming pool in every household.

Or, at the very least, I will upload an image of a swimming pool to a publicly accessible link.

@Adamant The easy way to do this is to make everyone live in one household :P

Or build a house like Wonko the Sane did for everyone. You can then live in it with everyone else, or outside it, depending on your preferences.

@TheLethalCarrot if it "rocks" I listen whether it be from the 1950's or today.

@Adamant Hmm. Tempting, but I think this house is too small for that, and I'd rather keep the bed and the kitchen.

@Adamant How many times a year will you replace the water?

Only right before a health and safety department person checks it?

just dump chlorine in

@Adamant If I win, I will hold a pool party at my house. All travel and lodging costs are the responsibility of the person attending...

@b_jonas technically a bath tub is swimming pool, if you are small enough

@Skooba Hmm. I think you could rearrange this apartment by making the living room somewhat smaller, keep the bedroom (which is between the living room and bathroom) the same size but move it sideways, and make the bathroom somewhat bigger. Then a bathtub would be nice. It's impractical because there's a reinforced concrete panel wall between the living room and the bedroom that's holding up the floor above us, so you can't just move it.

But if Adamant proves his abilities on other similar concrete panel houses first, I would like a bathtub, and will vote for him, yes.

@Skooba That house is in Pennsylvania, to be clear, right?

@b_jonas I have to admit yes because thats what my profile says

If so, that's too far, but this is the right direction, keep coming with the bribes or favourite music, at this point they seem to be the best way to distinguish among the candidates.

Though I don't want to be responsible for a war that launches a thousand ships.

I will win that war when I swim under them

Skooba ist eine unterseeboot.

Pretty sure "Boot" is neuter, so it would be just "ein."

@Null Or maybe it's because I left my third choice empty and the system functioned exactly as you planned.

Das Boot, so yeah. Neuter.

Same goes for the "role of moderators" question now on meta.

@SQB That question is by a user who has enough rep that you don't need a superping. They have a chat profile, chat.stackexchange.com/users/189846/jim . You can talk to them.

@DavidW I thought the ungrammaticality was a deliberate style choice. ;-)

@Skooba From your pfp, I always thought you lived in Dorne :(

@cairdcoinheringaahing hmm, yeah i thought about that, i think because my name doesnt match either i went with the truth.

I could change my name to "Red Viper" or "Oberyn" as well....

@Skooba Ah, but then all someone needs to do to beat you in this election is to change their name to "The Mountain" or "Gregor Clegane"

@cairdcoinheringaahing I'll just reach for my Excedrin Migraine!

@SQB I don't see it was deleted?

@DavidW you're right, it wasn't, the other one was — the one spawning that "role of moderators" question.

As one of the close-voters, I was in agreement with Lexible's comment. The question seems to presume that at least some of those androids are not sentient, and goes a fair way in trying to claim that they are not, without ever defining what OP means by "sentient."

O yeah. It's not that they all should be reopened, but I'd like to work with such an OP and try to get a good, answerable question out of it.

@b_jonas only if they've been in here. Or I would need to start a new room with them, but I would much prefer to do it in TREU, especially if it's quiet in there.

That way it's easier to involve other users as well.

And maybe involve more people in chat that way.

@SQB You can tell them in a comment that you'd like to help them in chat, in the Restaurant.

Except that comments aren't possible on deleted questions, or I would do that.

@SQB scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/q/13405/4918 isn't deleted, it's migrated, and it's explicitly asking help about the question that was closed.

@b_jonas yeah, that's the other one. That works too, if the OP takes it (or has it taken) to meta.

@SQB Oh, there's another new user? Ok.

Not new. But still a bit fresh.

I guess there are always more new users whose question gets deleted.

scifi.stackexchange.com/q/250385/19561

That's the one I meant.

Hope you kept it in the fridge.

Hey, how does one go from a stack user profile to the related chat profile? Is there a path?

Because there's one the other way around.

But I can't find one to chat.

If you're lucky, there will be one in a few days.

@SQB Yes. It's a secret: see meta.stackexchange.com/a/76569/222298 under heading "Chat profile for a given network profile"

Huh, TIL.

But yeah, as Napoleon hinted, for mods it's much easier.

Though I don't know what you do for users who are only on a single visible SE site and so you can't easily find their network profile number without looking it up in the dumps or data.stackexchange.com

@b_jonas TIL, thanks.

Ah, that's still a problem then.

There might still be a way then, I just don't know it.

@b_jonas If it helps, I expect to be answering more frequently if I become a mod than I've been as of late. (Though of course with mod duties I will probably not reach my former levels of activity.)

@b_jonas regular chat pings only work on users who've recently been in that chatroom. This is why I missed most of the time you've pinged me.

@ibid sure, but you're a candidate, so you'll occur in the election chatroom and skip all those long rants that I posted, so the pings don't matter

@b_jonas I mean that I recently searched my name and saw that you've tried to ping me in TREU several times over the past year or two. I never saw any of those pings because I wasn't in that chatroom recently enough at the time. (I mainly hang out in KutuluMike's chatroom and don't really check TREU that often.)

@ibid oh, in the Restaurant.