what makes you think it's a public office? get off your high horse, it's not like you germans are well known for your ability to manage your own tempers now is it
The room has been full of snarky comments all day today about people flagging things that aren't inappropriate and non-regulars not "respecting the room's culture". You guys should read the star list and try to pretend you're not a regular for a minute, and decide what impression you get. I'm not...
@MarkM doesn't give you the excuse to turn it into a place acceptable for just a few users. The chat room belongs to the entire Server Fault community, not everyone is going to agree with your language (myself included), I think it is quite vulgar and embarrassing
Age notwithstanding, think of people behind very stupid firewalls and 'custom' boxes built by a monkey that has a T shirt saying I CAN HAZ STRING MATCHING?
Should people "watch their own language", especially once you remind them that the transcripts are for ALL TIME. Yes, they should. but it reflects poorly on them mostly - the question is does it also reflect poorly on SE as a whole
@MarkM There is no explicit policy saying it's not. But if you write something that contains profanity and someone finds it offensive, those of us (like me) who have full mod access chat wide may validate that flag.
And when I do, I don't want to hear you moan about it. Should I? That depends on the context. If I don't have time to view the context of what you said, I'm not going to touch the flag.
@TimPost I didn't get a chance to finish that thought. My point is that SF is unique compared to many other SE sites in the sense that it's targeted towards professionals only. We're not meant for young children.
@studiohack You're free to refrain from using profanity, and I for one will not be offended if you flag someon else's profanity. I think most would agree.
On a normal day (i.e. not today) it's only professional admins in here, most at their desks throughout the workday. I really fail to see how cursing is offensive as long as it's not targetted maliciously at another member.
@ChrisS Iain's meta post seemed to have drawn a bit of attention
@Zypher pretty much the way I see it -- You get a bunch of sysadmins in a room and we're going to cuss up a storm (and demand our whisky), Personally I don't mind that.
I will say I've been mildly offended by some of the stuff that pops up in here (cough*RebeccaBlackVideoGIF*cough -- mostly because she slowed my poor workstation to a crawl)
Iain does have a valid point -- I'm the guy who said I really wouldn't want a potential employer judging me on some of my sophomoric antics in here. But by the same token I'd be fine with them seeing some of the technical discussions we've had here.
I have zero interest in moderating any chat room unless multiple people complain of issues. And then, I have even less interest in moderating a chat room. I have my hands full with what people wrote last week. Just think a bit about what you write, before you write it in a public place.
Personally, I feel that profanity in and of itself is not offensive. If we are not allowed to curse in the normal flow of conversation, then that's oppressive. Profanity that's meant to harm another user is offensive, but that user could still be offended with a targeted comment that doesn't contain profanity.
The point being that if there's an attack on a user, profanity matters little. By itself, profanity just is not enough of a reason to accept a chat flag.
How to improve chat, in 3 easy steps. 1) Remember it is not a democracy. 2) We are not picking on you, we pick on all assholes alike. 3) If you don't like it, Fuck Off.
@TimPost the thing is ... every now and again someone will go through and flag 10 things in this room for ... i have no idea why ... but anyway that bring a bunch of mods from other sites in say "You need to change, you guys have a horrible culture" without knowing the culture ...
@voretaq7 there have been a bunch of new regulars in chat over the last 6 months. Obviously things aren't overwhelming here otherwise we'd just be down to you and me.
but I personally do take offense at mods from other sites popping in and acting on flags without the benefit of community context (and I think that's a system problem. I've ignored flags I get in chat because I can't tell if it's "OK" by that room's standards)
@TimPost The user that said that was talking about himself and in context, you'd see that it was in response to a different user being a dick. That user was not disciplined. That example is exactly what I mean about mods reacting to flags without knowing the context/culture.
@phwd "we" also want to make the SF site welcoming, but sometimes bad questions get closed, and people turn around and say 'those jerks', they are mean to me. We don't know in advance what individual people will or will not take as offensive, but on the other other hand, this is the internet, and the SF Q/A site is I think pretty "professional". Is chat the other side of it? Maybe. I also don't know what the SF chat profanity rate is vs the SO chat profanity rate
@Aaron I'd imagine we're pretty high - but again just my experience, every SA-oriented site I've been around has been profane (and occasionally even obscene - yeah I'm drawing the FCC line there)
I'm also definitely someone who puts his toe on the line -- I posted a painting of Lady Godiva (a "tasteful" one with everything covered) in response to something
I consider that "safe for work" -- It's a well-known piece of art and I had a boss who had it on his wall a few years back -- but it's a naked chick on a pony....
we also had some site's chat (can't remember which) where somebody threw a tantrum and started flagging everything
and I know a lot of mods and high-rep users went into that chat and told them to knock it off
sometimes it's obvious (everyone in the chat is piling on). Other times I might pop in and say "hey the flag-o-matic is bugging me. what's up with[LINK GOES HERE]?"
There are a lot of 10k users across all networks now. There are too many different communities for everyone to be judging each other's flags - especially considering how little you see in a flag notification. If a flag is raised in a room where there are more than 5 10k users, THOSE USERS should see the flag, no one else. The only way that 10ks from other networks should see chat flags is if there aren't enough users in the room to handle a chat flag.
I just notice a diff. culture here scrolling through the chat history so I don't think I have the experience to deal with SF flags. I say stick to your guns. If the majority allows profanity and takes no offense slap it into a meta post so all other mods from the SE network can see it
@ChrisS Do you know the algorithm for flag assignment? I've only ever gotten the one. I assume it has to do something with how recently you typed something?
Personally I wish the flag-handling feature had a better "nanny" mode where someone can be told "Hey, you got flagged. You might want to stop pissing people off" -- warnings before the clobbering
@voretaq7 (coming in late, busy day at work) This, right here, is why SF is the first Sysadminly community I've ever really stuck to. And a big part of why I'm not a chat denizen. It has been hostile in here for some time. But I haven't hammered things since I know the rest of gregarious sysadmindom consider it normal and acceptable.
@ScottPack sniffle that's the nicest thing you've ever said about me!
@sysadmin1138 What really worried about is people perceiving us as hostile. Like I said I really don't want us to be scaring our target audience out of chat
@sysadmin1138, I agree that people in here are kind of 'rough', but I really can't agree with "hostile". I equate hostility with being mean to people. Even people that are asking questions, I don't think we're outright mean to them. We might snipe, or something else, but hostile doesn't jump out at me
I think the two things that bug me the most is that 1) Some folks have apparently been offended and not said anything to the group as a result. I feel bad that it might have been to a point where people didn't think we were approachable on a direct level. 2) A culture is possibly being judged inside of a frame that it doesn't belong in.
@Aaron It jumps out at me rather readily. The boobs meme has been making me shake my head for nearly a year now, but the most I've done is quietly un-star some historic posts a while ago.
@Aaron I sysadmin in social services. Nobody in here threatening or harassing anybody. It's mostly all in good fun if a little inappropriate. Perhaps having been assaulted and held at knifepoint by a client a time or two gives a little more perspective.
At the "Women in Tech" session at Lisa, one of the ladies on the panel described her first experience attempting to get involved in open-source, "I saw IRC and mailinglists, and went away crying." That same dynamic applies to sysadmin spaces, since we self-police through sarcasm and ridicule.
@ChrisS Right, that's the big issue I believe. Widely different views on acceptability. Do we cater to the lowest denominator or the furthest threshhold or try to balance it somewhere in the middle?
I guess I don't see boobs as hostile. I see it as juvenile, immature, and 'man, those guys are a bunch of losers, they are still giggling at 58008 jokes'. But not hostile
@sysadmin1138 I do believe the boobs meme as ungodly misogynistic and who even knows why some of the few females that show up in here haven't rightfully gotten one of the Top Brass to gun us down at the bus stop.
@sysadmin1138 I'll admit my real concern with our chat: We're a total sausage fest, and our obsession with double-entendre avians definitely doesn't make us seem welcoming
@mfinni Take a look at our user-list some time. Going from the top, the first obvious female is Kara Marfia down in the 6000-range, and I can't find the next.
@phwd He had a blowup with syneticon about being a mod and then an hour later his name was off the list. We knew he'd been contemplating it, but it appeared to be the straw that broke the camel's back to us.
@sysadmin1138 Yup, although I'd be interested to see how it compares to the gender distribution in IT overall. Doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to be better, more inclusive.
No offense to @sysadmin1138 - we think you're doing a great job. But @chopper3 was the epitome of a community moderator. I think we're all upset about him leaving. The rest of the crap today just set this room off.
@sysadmin1138 Which might be shorthand for a little bit of teenage-boy (and a wee bit of locker-room) culture. It looks like many (myself certainly included) can forget the door isn't closed.
@voretaq7 Still doesn't make it any better or more acceptable to some however... Particularly those who see Chat as a direct extension of the main site.
And wooo, unbanned. Got hit for my joking response to @markm's comment of 'http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/2722621#2722621' (preventing markup
@WesleyDavid Hmm, well I'm not often in here, I tend to just randomly hop into random rooms. I'm also not likely to get offended easily. But...that being said...there have certainly been things said in here that would not be the most friendly to users that weren't familiar with things. I'd totally like to see things chill out in here. (:
@RebeccaChernoff Yeah, my philosophizing about what is acceptable is apparently vastly different from many others and I didn't even know it. almost 30 years old and I'm still clueless about life. =)
@RebeccaChernoff I think the problem is that today (for the reasons outlined in my comment that @ChrisS linked to) there have been many more eyes than normal cast in our direction. Some implying that any profanity at all is unacceptable.
I think there's too many issues going on here which caused this mess. Everything packed together plus the stress of the holidays plus misunderstandings from outsiders just escalated this to a level that no one expected, causing even further confusion and making people more upset. I think we should just delete the log from the past 16 hours. Establish some chat rules if things are to be thought that bad, and just move on. We're all BOFH's on the inside anyway ;)
@pauska Exactly. We were so darned patient with that one guy, lovesk or something, that wanted to build an Indian Facebook killer. We practically spoon fed the dude.
The rules for chat are essentially the same as the site. I mean obviously there's not the "this must be a factual question blah blah", but as far as language and images and explicit stuff, same.
@WesleyDavid @RebeccaChernoff I don't want us to degrade into crazy-go-nuts mad-max chat. I honestly do think sometimes we approach (if not edge a bit over) the line. It's definitely something we need to watch
@pauska, I think it's more of a concern that people will find it, think 'man, this stack exchange stuff is a load of crock, I don't want to help out the site' and then we've lost knowledge addition
@pauska It's like a user walking up to the helpdesk, looking in the window, seeing a massive nerf-gun battle going, and walking right on by. When if they'd have walked in instead, all the guns would be put down, and everyone would be quite helpful.
@voretaq7 Yeah, I think we hit the line often and go over it too. The sock thing kinda hit the tasteless level (... oh wow I want to riff on what I just said) especially when I made a poem about it. =)
Personally, I feel that profanity in and of itself is not offensive. If we are not allowed to curse in the normal flow of conversation, then that's oppressive. Profanity that's meant to harm another user is offensive, but that user could still be offended with a targeted comment that doesn't contain profanity.
@pauska IDK that anyone ever reads the transcripts. I will say we have definitely chased one or two people out of chat, but it's usually ones who ignore the live support banner, or when they come in here to complain about closed questions.
@RebeccaChernoff I agree. I think that our point is that diamonds from other sites responding to random mod flags from today's unusually heated conversation shouldn't be making that judgement without knowing the users.
@WesleyDavid I don't mind the sock thing -- I think it's a little iffy when we actually re-post it for someone who doesn't know the inside joke, but as an inside joke I think it's pretty harmless...
@MarkM I don't mind a little profantity, when there the area is mostly good conversation and content, but these days, the signal to noise ration isn't that great.
@Aaron I dunno of many legit sysadmins / engineers / whatever that would be good contributors that wouldn't understand that this chat room is just who sysadmins are in general. Even if he/she doesn't want to participate in that kind of culture, I doubt anyone would dart to another site for that reason alone.
In light of these new ideas.... I shall sensor my post. I've been on hold with Verizon simply to ask if they support multilink on DSL for (insert choice of colorful words here) 20 minutes.
@RebeccaChernoff Generally agreed (certainly the explicit images part) -- I think chats in general tend to be a bit more relaxed around the language rules, though I know we're way more relaxed than most.
In addition to @Basil I was a recent addition to this chat. While I'm prolly one of the more immature users here, I'm in here often enough to see that everyone is well-mannered enough to newcomers as long as they don't just spam "PLZ HALP MEH SERVRZ ON FYRE DO I POOR WADER ON IT?"
the bottom line is, when something gets flagged on chat, mods from the entire network see that. keep things clean enough, it won't be an issue. cross that line, and you're kind of asking for it, ya know?
Those bug me because if someone walks into my office and chat is open and one pops up it's like "er... yah... really we do talk about technical things in that chat too"
@MarkM, well, I don't think it's the 'issue', but I can also see where if you see 8 ones of most interesting man in the world', you might get a little turned off
I've seen things that outsiders that are sensitive to profanity might find offensive, but I cant think of a single time when a user was ever singled out in here
@RebeccaChernoff but that's where we wind up in the gray area of community standards. "clean enough" here versus "clean enough" in say.... Cooking (a community I hope is samer than us)
@RebeccaChernoff, the issue is more that each person does have their own line. For example, I will rarely rarely curse, but I'm not above quoting Samuel L Jackson from Pulp Fiction about english, do you speak it', when I'm dealing with a particularly difficult vendor
Google is better at finding chat fragments than the SE Chat search - and sometimes I remember $user said $thing about $technology and google for it to pull it back out....
@RebeccaChernoff That's the tough spot. I'd say 95% of us are okay with most of what goes on in here. We're good at self policing without hitting the flag button. However, once in a while someone precious shows up and freaks out.
@RebeccaChernoff ...or it got sucked into a flag war. The majority of the cases are probably the former, granted, but without context and culture a lot of things can be "offensive"
@RebeccaChernoff Not necessarily. We've gotten a ton of crappy flags lately. Someone flagged a oneboxed question in the Vote To Close room today, for example
