@YoichiOishi - no one enjoys having a question closed. It does feel like an insult, as attested to by the posts in meta. If people were more aware of the SE model - that a down vote and a close vote reflects on the question, not the user, and if all this was done respectfully without denigrating comments, perhaps it would be less painful.
I agree with MrHen that down votes should remain anonymous, and posted reasons for this in meta. Comments with down votes are too often unproductive fuel for a comments war. Emphasizing respectfulness all round might help.
Looking solely at your last 150 questions, I saw only one closed. This is proof that your questions are a great fit for this site.
MrHen. I' not opposing anonymity of Down / Close vote. I'm saying when you cast down / close vote, it's better to manifest the concrete reason(s) for your down / close voting. As I mentioned I've seen and hard of many cases of morbid down voting simply because of their disliking questioner and answerer, and for the vague reason of '0ff-topic."
Actually I kept receiving down-votes from single, two at most from unknown users to almost every questions of mine as soon as I posted in a row for a quite long period.
Though, fortunately, that practice has ceased, I wondered why most of my question had to be down-voted at an instance I post, when the share of the total budge I received including 13 Gold budge account for 50% plus. We should take measures of locating the pathological or stalker-like down-voters as long as we acknowlede current down-vote and close-vote sytem.
@YoichiOishi - this is a good reason to keep down votes anonymous: to not depict a down voter as pathological. Are the people who up vote your questions also pathological? People up and down vote. One is not pathological if one down votes. Abnormal down votes (revenge down votes, etc.) are detected by the system and reversed. Do people abuse the system? Certainly, at times. Are all down votes wrong? Not at all. No more that all up votes are perfectly reasoned out.
@YoichiOishi As I said in my post, if people accept up votes as proof of their intelligence, but down votes as proof of something undesirable in the down voter, then they are not understanding the system.
Speaking of up votes feeling good and down votes feeling bad, I realized that @tchrist has a right to support whomever he pleases in whatever manner he pleases. What felt unfair at the time is, in retrospect, fair, and for that reason (and I'm sorry I didn't realize it at the time) I apologize for casting him in a negative light above. He was within his rights.
user116848
2:08 AM
@medica So Miss Medica what are your chances of winning? :D
Well, I heard that there is a high voter turnout for this election, much higher than for the last. That reassures me that whoever wins are the moderators the community wants. And that is a win for everyone.
Media. Do you think my particular experience of receiveing fown-vote for most of my questions at least every other single one within one minits I posted during almoast one year until just a few month ago is the deed of sound-minded individual.
I reported this case in meta in the past, and I repeated several times to stop such dirty action in my comments below my question. And I've read users' comment of similar experience many time in Meta. Do you think such deed is sound and normal deed. I doon't think so. Unless you have experieced mal-deed, you can't tell everybody is sound-minded.
If you actually have the system to check and identify such malicious doer, I want to know it what it is like. I trust 99.9% users are fair and human, but I think there are a few exception based on my experience of 40 months as a non-native English speaking user.
@YoichiOishi - We can't determine if someone is of sound mind. If someone is leaving inappropriate comments, they should be flagged. I think people don't flag enough, out of fear of making work for the moderators. The moderators can investigate irregular voting patterns.
Most if not all of us have experienced inexplicable down votes, myself included. It's a risk. Over the long run, things even themselves out. People should feel free to flag, though, not just post in meta, if they believe they are being targeted.
@MrHen @AndrewLeach @YoichiOishi and @medica What about this case? Stephen King has deleted his answer (which was upvoted 44 times) and I think, purely speculative mind you, that his reaction might have been motivated by this answer which attracted four downvotes (?) english.stackexchange.com/a/177977/44619 and here english.stackexchange.com/questions/180173/…
@Mari-LouA Deletion like this is called vandalism, and is not allowed. Flag it. There's no point in rolling back since it will only result in an edit war. Authors cannot prevent SE from displaying their answer: see the first sentence of Section 3 of the Terms.
Oh, I have :) But I was curious as to the motivation behind the deletion. I tried contacting him, but he had probably already logged out. What do you think? What could a mod do in this case?
@AndrewLeach I don't think I have never seen that TOS, but I guessed as much. I have seen enough greyed-user avatars (deleted accounts) to know that answers and questions are pretty permanent.
@Mari-LouA What appears to happen -- given that I've not been involved in actually dealing with these -- is that the edit is rolled back by a mod; a comment is added warning the user not to do that; and the post might be locked. In particularly egregious cases I'm sure a user has been handed a long suspension (although if they want their account deleted, that can be arranged).
If a user has done this to a number of posts, contact may be made privately to try and ascertain the reasoning. They may have been the subject of untoward actions by other users, and those need to be investigated.
But vandalising your own content isn't really the answer to anything. I can only see that it damages; I can't see any benefit.
@AndrewLeach but what do you think about his latest post receiving four downvotes? I didn't find it particularly poor, and at least his written English is impeccable (I know mine isn't!) The user, Stephen King has only deleted his top answer.
Right, that one. But it doesn't actually answer the question. Does one surmise from the answer that the presence or absence of a preposition doesn't matter; or that in should not be present at all? How is that answer "useful"? Anyway, receiving downvotes is not a reason for vandalism.
If a user chalks it up to experience and deletes an answer the community doesn't like, he gets the rep back and (at -3 or below) a badge!
@AndrewLeach OK, but obviously he tried to rectify, he edited his piece ten hours ago. A comment, reminding him that he didn't specifically answer the question, would have HELPED him, and would have been CONSTRUCTIVE. english.stackexchange.com/a/180176/44619
And he is, was, a newcomer, probably still needed to learn the ropes. A potentially useful and articulate contributor, lost forever. EL&U needs more native speakers, not fewer...
I'm not convinced that the edit made the answer any more useful. A comment by one of the downvoters might have helped, yes. Or he could have written a "Why the downvote?" comment, which might have elicited some advice. I agree that the loss of a potentially valuable contributor is regrettable.
"climb the rankings" , "ascend the rankings", and "surmount the rankings" That's SK's answer, isn't it? I mean, four downvotes, for that?! Maybe the conclusion sounded pompous to the downvotes, overly literary, who knows? Four people saw fit to downvote without leaving any explanation. (Anonymous voting always gets me, sometimes it's hard to interpret the downvotes)
BTW is there a way to make the chat box larger? Once I reach the bottom it's impossible to read what I've written.
Anyway, I have to go. Thank you @AndrewLeach for your time. Good bye.
In many browsers the chat box can be extended horizontally -- drag the triangle in the bottom right corner. But three or four lines appears to be the maximum, and that depends on the size your browser renders text at.
@medica: It's a little late for apologies. I forgave the first time, and the second, but you have a history of flying off the handle in the face of the slightest frustration. If it's all about people picking on you, why did you admit you were wrong the first time, and even changed your SE username because your "image" was compromised? Why are you apologizing now in one breath yet implying that it's still my fault in the next?
That strikes me as disingenuous at least. More to the point, it's the sort of behavior that should disqualify someone from a position of authority. Pique is not a substitute for patience.
I mentioned in our second go-round that I was testing your equanimity, which I think is a valid thing to do to one who wishes to moderate this site. If we look to the dictionary definition of moderation, we find: "the quality of being moderate; restraint; avoidance of extremes or excesses; temperance." Do you really think that describes you?
You seem to think that the number of downvotes is relative to the quality of the post. It isn't. The number of downvotes is more correlated with how many people saw the post and *agreed* it should be downvoted. There is nothing about a -4 post that suggests it is worse than a -1 post.
People *think* such a correlation exists but they are simply incorrect. That isn't how things like this work. Yes, the worse a post is the more likely it is to be downvoted but once it has passed the "obviously downvotable" the only thing that matters is visibility.
@Mari-LouA I basically agree with Andrew Leach on this.
@Mari-LouA If that is their answer then it should have been downvoted because it wasn't answering the actual question being asked. The content was valuable but not an answer to this particular question which was only asking about the difference between "in" and "the". The post in question was treating this like a literary exercise when the question was actually just asking about prepositions.
Regarding anonymous downvotes, we've talked about this in the past.
I'm going to assume people already know my opinions on them.
So I'm reading the transcript, catching up, and there are a few things I want to say.
The first is that I appreciate that some folks are stepping forward to say they are uncomfortable with chat and they want things changed. That's great.
The second is that it has nothing to do with the elections or current moderation. If you don't bring it to our attention, we don't know about it.
The same thing goes for rude or offensive or bullying comments made on the main site. I handle plenty of flags for these behaviors. For every clear-cut case, there are probably two or three where the flagged comment is "You should post some links to support your answer" or "You need to provide more information about [thing you are asking] so we can give you a better answer."
I don't see, and I mean it literally, I don't see huge numbers of comments that are actually rude or offensive in my flag queue. If it's there and people are being unfriendly, flag it so we can do something about it.
So I'm concerned about the implication that EL&U is incredibly rude to its new users. If people have noticed this, why are they allowing it to continue?
SO that's the thing, you see? "EL&U is incredibly rude, look at all this evidence." If the evidence is there, it must be that you did not flag it, not that the mods don't care.
@Mari-LouA- I don't know what mods do and don't do in cases like this. but I'll give you my take. I've been watching Stephen King as a new user with good comments, answers and the potential to become... well, real an asset to the community. Myself, seeing this attempted deletion of his top answer, I might have dropped him a line explaining why down votes occur, their capriciousness nature,
that down votes are for an answer and *not a person - but only if I had known about it, which means someone would need to flag about it. I would have attempted to keep him; I hope he stays.
@Mitch - I think the people who say that we are unfriendly to new users are doing what they can, which is to raise the issue in meta as well as flagging where appropriate.
@phenry I think Kit's point is that there isn't a large number of flags which implies there isn't some massive issue. @KitFox, correct me if I misunderstood your point?
I would say that the appearance of unfriendliness is the result of a number of factors, which can't all be gauged by looking at comments that are clearly rude or offensive when viewed in isolation.
Although, at this point -- given the questions asked of the candidates -- I'm wondering what the community thinks the moderators actually do around here.
Here's the text of a comment I once flagged as being rude, but the flag was declined: "Neither one is correct. There are too many other, simpler, mistakes here, none of which has to do with perfect usage. Learn more grammar before trying the perfect constructions."
@MrHen Yes. But I dislike that the implication is that our current moderation team contributes to the negativity of the site. There are none of us who would encourage rude behavior.
Could you explain the differences between the two tenses? When should I use present perfect continuous and when should I use past perfect continuous?
"I had been doing before I was young"
"I have been doing"
I want to emphasize that the person who left that comment is someone I have great respect for, and he's absolutely correct about the question having other problems.
But there's a right way and a wrong way to talk to people, and that's the wrong way.
I think that there is a culture at ELU that has good aspects and bad aspects. Ideally, we should all be encouraging the good aspects and discouraging the bad aspects.
As an individual, I'm limited in what I can do to shape the culture, obviously. As a community, it's very difficult to get everyone lurching in the same direction.
The moderators, by virtue of having more power than other users as well as being a small group that can act in concert more easily, have a certain ability to influence the culture that is not available to me as an individual, or to us as a large amorphous community.
It's not offensive. It is direct. On the internet people tend to take directness as a personal attack (because text isn't like speaking), and thus find it offensive. I know I feel that way
I declined it. I didn't feel it reached the level of rude or offensive. He suggested a problem and gave clear advice on how he thought the OP could resolve that problem.
you won't find it offensive if you remember people aren't out to get you, but asking a question puts you in a vulnerable position, so you're already on the defensive
@KitFox Well, that's part of why I don't think the community really understands what the moderators do. There is an interesting collision between "community run site" and "moderators run the site". :/
That's why retailers say "the customer is always right." Obviously the customer is not always right, strictly speaking. But if my customer is pissed, that's a problem for me, regardless of why he's pissed and of whether his complaint has merit.
(Somewhat off-topic) People have the right to be offended by anything they want to feel offended by. But that doesn't automatically imply that a community has to respect that offense.
@phenry Yes, exactly this, and also why I was irritated about Jez's complaints about being flagged in chat. Someone was offended. Did they have a right to be? Of course they did.
People have a right to feel offended about whatever they feel offended about.
It's not up to me to tell them not to feel that way.
@KitFox - Does it have to be? I recently left a comment that, while it made a good point (IMO, obviously), had a very sarcastic tone. Someone edited it to remove the sarcasm. I never found out until I happened to run across it again, hours later.
@MrHen And this too. Which is funny for me to say, but there's the line there. I'm not going to tell you to not be offended, but I'm also not going to tell someone not to say offensive things if that's how they feel.
If someone is offended about my pastafarianism, that's OK too, unless they are going to use it as an excuse to argue with me about it so they can get offended.
Comments are actually not a terribly visible portion of the site. Post titles are, so I would be much more strict about making post titles less offensive.
@KitFox - I don't think I should say, as it was a dispute that (directly or indirectly, I don't remember) involved someone who may be present in this room.
I had written something like "@OtherUser - It's a good thing we have you here to tell us that X is true" and it got edited to something like "It is hard to know for sure whether X is true" without the @reference to the other person.
The irony here, obviously, is that even the people who are most "pro-friendly" make comments that are actually not very friendly. It isn't easy to be nice to new users.
@MrHen - We make pretty heavy use of comments here, more so than a lot of SE sites; they become this omnipresent Greek chorus constantly kibitzing whenever someone says something. If attitudes taken in comments contribute to an atmosphere of unfriendliness, maybe that's something we should look at.
@KitFox Testing... -test one- and --test two-- and test three
Thanks.
@phenry Sure. My point wasn't that we shouldn't take a look. My point was that different areas of the site should have different thresholds for culling potentially offensive things.
@phenry Whoa, if its the thread I just found by that hint, that's one crazy thread.
@KitFox Also, the odds of you getting an entire community to play nice is ridiculously small. The Summer of Love was an attempt to get the entire SE network to play nice. It had mixed success.
That isn't to say you shouldn't try. Just be prepared for a very long and difficult struggle.
I have tried, and occasionally have spurts of unexpected patience, but mostly I rely on the community to handle up through the edge of the grey area, and then I try to take up the slack on handling the serpents.
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The closest thing we have to a pre-election poll is the votes on the candidate questionnaire page, and those numbers are a couple of orders of magnitude lower than the total votes cast. So I have no idea what's going to happen.
Could you explain the differences between the two tenses? When should I use present perfect continuous and when should I use past perfect continuous?
"I had been doing before I was young"
"I have been doing"
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EL&U 2014 Election
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