EL&U 2014 Election

phenry

00:01

I should be going too, I'm afraid. talk to you later!

medica

ok, good to chat! CU

Any user who has a question for the mod candidates, please post it with @(no space)medica, and I'll see to it that it is readdressed to all the mod candidates. Thanks!

Yoichi Oishi

01:29

Mari-Lou. To answer your question, I love English words, "Love," above all, then "Generous," "Open-minded,""Flexible," "Democratic," "Equality,""Intelligence" and "Human."

The word I most hate is "Bigotry" and "Off-topic," which I think is the symbolic word manifesting speaker's arrogance and narrow-mindedness.

MrHen

02:05

@YoichiOishi You think the word "off-topic" is symbolic of arrogance and narrow-mindedness? Or do you simply think that the way people here use the word is arrogant and narrow-minded?

Yoichi Oishi

03:04

@MrHen MrHen. Yes I think so. Tis is based on my conviction - We are each other human. We are not God nor judge. Everybody has the right to ask question, unless he / she gives malicious or wilful question.

Cont.If you are school teacher or father, you cannot snap back student's or kid's innocent question. We are human, and I think we should behave like human with spirit of modesty, generosity - Love others, innocent others. I said the English word that I like most is Love in response to Mari LouA's question to me. You shouldn't turn it down by saying it's a stupid and off-toic question.

Cont. We should respect others no matter how silly they, including me, look to you. Confucious said, those who don't know a thing is not vice. Those who don't know that he don't know a thing is vice.

Yoichi Oishi

03:26

My latest question about English word equivalent to Japanese Bureiko and Chinese Bu fen zuo ci reflects my conviction of freedom of speech, mutual respect and "Don't blame rule" of others' statement as silly, low level, and off-topic on the blanket.

@MrHen. I saw your elaborate answer to the above-mentioned question about English equivalent to Bureiko. It's very thorough and helpful input. Thanks a lot.

medica

05:44

-6

Q: What's a 'Basic Bitch' and a 'Bad Bitch'?

I would like to know the difference between a 'basic bitch' and a 'bad bitch'. terms referring to certain types of young women. I believe these are recently created idioms. I suspect these terms are better known to university students and I expect the correct definitions will come from college st...

@MrHen - last night a post appeared (above). Say you are a mod. What is your opinion of this post, and would you do anything about it?

@MattЭллен - last night a post appeared (above). Say you are a mod. What is your opinion of this post, and would you do anything about it?

@phenry - last night a post appeared (above). Say you are a mod. What is your opinion of this post, and would you do anything about it?

@Manhax - last night a post appeared (above). Say you are a mod. What is your opinion of this post, and would you do anything about it?

@YoichiOishi - - last night a post appeared (above). Say you are a mod. What is your opinion of this post, and would you do anything about it?

@AndrewLeach - last night a post appeared (above). Say you are a mod. What is your opinion of this post, and would you do anything about it?

@oerkelens - - last night a post appeared (above). Say you are a mod. What is your opinion of this post, and would you do anything about it?

@FracturedRetina - - last night a post appeared (above). Say you are a mod. What is your opinion of this post, and would you do anything about it?

medica

06:09

Any user who has a question for the all of the mod candidates, please post it with @(no space)medica, @(no space)MrHen, @(no space)phenry, @(no space)MattЭллен, (or the @name of any mod candidate you have a question for) and I/we will see to it that it is readdressed to all the mod candidates. Thanks!

Andrew Leach

06:20

@medica I believe it's been correctly closed. While slang is on-topic, very new slang is still evolving and I don't believe it can be tied down in the way the question asks. There is another question about beast as a verb (as occurs in military slang), which I have offered an answer for as that's more settled after 400 years.

That said, I would only have cast vote number 4 or 5 on it.

Are you going to ask yourself the question? :-)

medica

@AndrewLeach - I saw that and was a bit more pro-active, which I'm now wondering if I should have been.

May I ask your opinion?

Andrew Leach

On what?

medica

I saw that and immediately thought it didn't belong; I didn't see any value in the question, no currency in that question.

So after close voting, I took it to chat. Just to see if there were people there who wanted to close it as well.

My thought being that it didn't belong on the front page for a great length of time.

Andrew Leach

I was beaten to the last vote by a couple of seconds.

medica

Now, I'm thinking that I may not be as objective as I thought I would be as a mod...

Do you think it's appropriate to alert other users to offensive or very low quality posts?

(I'm thinking that as a mod, I should definitely avoid this type of behavior.)

(It has the appearance of pushing a private agenda.)

(But it is also possible to look at chat as a place to discuss this type of question with other users.)

Andrew Leach

06:29

I don't see anything wrong with doing that. Questions are referenced in chat quite regularly. And it can be useful to gauge a bit of community opinion (although the sample size is quite small, so that needs to be taken into account).

It is more often used for obviously poor-quality Qs or spam.

[Dear me, chat doesn't work very well on an iPad]

medica

OK. Thanks, That was my initial thought, but I wasn't sure of the dynamics of doing that.

@AndrewLeach As a mod, I would not hesitate to delete spam.

but lower quality... If I say I will let the community decide, then that's what I should do.

Thank you for your answer and your advice.

Andrew Leach

OK... I won't answer that (removed) question! The answer's probably guessable anyway :-)

Matt Эллен

07:36

@medica Seems like an OK question. I am vaguely familiar with the idioms. Seems like a fair question about terms that are not readily defined in reputable dictionaries. I would prefer that he shows some research, i.e. looking in urban dictionary. If I were a mod and I saw this I would consider censoring the title, as per SE standards.

Yoichi Oishi

07:59

Mari-LouA. Though it's too late now, I wonder why didn't you raise ｈａｎｄ for EL&U moderater candidate. You deserve much more than me for the role.

Mari-Lou A

08:09

I see that oerkelen is online, can we ask him to answer medica's question. @oerkelens I would very much like to hear your opinion on the recent closure of a controversial question.

@medica @oerkelens please see medica's post here

@YoichiOishi That's very kind of you, but I feel it's a position of responsibility, and it would limit my freedom. I am not suitable as a mod, as the saying goes: "Know thyself", and I know me pretty well.

@medica He was back, but he's been suspended for a year now. Can't say I am sorry, unlike Thursagen english.stackexchange.com/users/8183/thursagen whose contributions I keep bumping into. Suspended for two years, was he? His parole is due shortly. What did he do exactly that warranted such a lengthy suspension?

Three years?!? That's like a life time ban, not even sexual abusers receive such sentences. I guess that @MrHen was referring to him in one of his questions.

Matt Эллен

09:32

@Mari-LouA I believe, at least to begin with, he admitted to being too young to use SE. (noöne under 13 can sign up to SE) There may have been quality issues and behaviour problems. I can't really recall.

Matt Эллен

09:44

in English Language & Usage, Aug 3 '11 at 20:42, by Thursagan

@JasperLoy I'm five

Thursagan purported to be Thursagen's niece

Thursagen has another alias: Ham and Eggs. I think basically he did bad things with multiple accounts.

Mari-Lou A

11:04

@MattЭллен He was twelve!? Precocious little man.

Matt Эллен

11:27

Indeed :D

KitFox

13:06

@Mari-LouA Sexual abusers receive much stiffer penalties than three years in the clink and most of them don't survive their first year in prison.

So maybe a less dramatic comparison is warranted here.

The short version of the story is that he admitted to being underage and so is suspended until he is old enough. The long version is more complicated and less interesting.

Shog9

@medica oh, good grief... Another "this is urban dictionary with less ads, right?" post.

KitFox

Hello, @Shog.

You've been hanging around a lot lately, but The Evan Carroll™ isn't even running this time.

Shog9

He always runs in my heart

KitFox

Mine too.

KitFox

14:01

:16176068 Not much really.

I find it concerning that there are so many deleted messages in this chat room. If messages can't stand on the public record, perhaps they ought not be posted.

4

I think I will pin this.

tchrist

14:18

@KitFox That was bugging me a bit, too.

MrHen

@YoichiOishi Thank you. I'm glad you found it helpful.

@medica It looks like the community took care of the post rather quickly. I don't think any further action is necessary. Personally, I think the "unclear what you're asking" close reason would have been slightly more accurate since the question does not give us any references to the terms' usage and is asking about two different terms at once. The users' history does not suggest that they post questions like this frequently.

@medica I think it is appropriate to draw attention to posts that are "borderline". Closing and flagging is part of the community's responsibility and encouraging regulars to participate in discussions about posts like these is a good thing.

@Mari-LouA No, I was not specifically referring to that user. I was deliberately being vague. :)

I respectfully disagree with you, actually. I think that some questions are not a good fit for the StackExchange site. This is not intended to disrespect the question itself but merely acknowledge that our site has a specific purpose and is only truly excellent at answering certain types of questions.

The most obvious example would be a question about mathematics. Such a question isn't one that our site has the authority to answer. I consider it inappropriate to treat ourselves as experts in all areas and noting that "mathematics" is "off-topic" is merely attempting to tell the poster that…

Caleb

14:43

@KitFox Yes, this! Especially from moderator candidates I would expect the ability to A) use discretion before speaking not after and B) willingness no have their words/opinions be public record.

MrHen

@Caleb I'm sure the users involved can explain why they removed the messages.

(I wasn't there; I don't know what they said.)

Caleb

@MrHen I do. And yes they have some explaining to do.

tchrist

@Caleb Indeed? That bodes not well.

MrHen

@Caleb Oh. Uh, well, interesting...

KitFox

→ 8 messages moved to Trashcan

KitFox

15:14

@phenry I agree with you. I see a lot of questions flagged for "migrate to ELL" and they are perfectly well stated questions about English grammar. We do that here. It's one of the things that's actually on-topic. Why send that somewhere else?

MrHen

@KitFox They probably get flagged because people keep calling for those questions to get migrated. :P

KitFox

Well, let me tell you what gets my panties in a knot.

Users flagging questions to go to ELL. This seems to fall generally into 1. this question is garbage, so it must go to ELL, or 2. this question is about English and I don't feel like answering it, so it must go to ELL.

There are very few that I see that look like they actually pertain to learning or teaching English.

MrHen

@KitFox Haha, great. I like (2).

That's one way to "work" on the Unanswered queue. :)

KitFox

And using a close reason of "because it belongs on ELL" really chaps my hide.

MrHen

I only flag things I think are too basic or boring.

KitFox

15:25

If it "belongs on ELL", please spell out for me exactly why you think so.

What makes it a question about learning or teaching English?

MrHen

@KitFox Yeah, we had Wendi stop by and chew us out for that.

30

Q: "This question appears to be off topic because it is better asked on ELL."

A bit of background before I begin: I am a moderator on ELL, and I admit to not being entirely familiar with what is and isn't on-topic here on ELU. I am posting this discussion because I see a trend that I think needs to be addressed, and the following are just my brainstormed thoughts and opini...

discussion migration scope ell

KitFox

Because if it's because "it's about syntax that I already know", that's insufficient.

MrHen

0

Q: We had the game controlled

I have come across these two sentences: We had the game controlled. We didn't have the mental energy to finish these games. Is in the first sentence used the construction have something done? If so, I don´t understand. I thought that by means of this construction „we describe situations wh...

grammar

KitFox

You'll note that I commented on her post.

MrHen

So there is one I flagged as an ELL candidate.

@KitFox I linked it for the sake of chat, not you ;)

Do you think that migration suggestion was appropriate? (Even if it didn't end up getting migrated.)

KitFox

15:31

It could go there, but since it was asked here, I think it's fine to leave it. The question could be asked more clearly, but the question was specific and answerable and about English.

MrHen

@KitFox Mmk. I'm still trying to figure out what is supposed to go to ELL. :P

KitFox

Questions about learning and teaching English.

MrHen

No one seems to agree.

@KitFox That's not a helpful answer, though. That just deflects the question.

tchrist

@MrHen Stuff that needs nothing but a native ear to sort out.

And does not provide nor solicit scholarlily elaborated explanations.

KitFox

7

A: How do I determine whether a question fits on English Language & Usage or on English Language Learners?

We brought this up in a proposal discussion. I'll copy my suggestions here. ELL is intended to be geared toward the needs of both people learning English and people teaching English. I feel these general topics encompass many of those aspects: article usage (a, an, the, no article) prepositi...

Amongst other discussion.

MrHen

15:34

@KitFox That's the problem, isn't it? ;)

KitFox

Always. If they would listen to me, it would all be fine.

But clearly techniques for pronunciation and simple rules for remembering spelling and things like that are all ELL topics.

How do I teach verb tenses to Chinese speakers (who don't have tense as part of their language)?

phenry

There are some questions that are pretty easy calls. Questions asking which article to use in a given situation, or whether to use an article, are likely to be from a non-fluent speaker, and would be better asked at ELL.

0

Q: Which is right and why: Why do people go (to zoos/to zoo/to the zoo)?

I couldn’t find these explanation of exactly how the rules of articles apply in questions like this: Why do people go to zoos? Why do people go to zoo? Why do people go to the zoo? It’s not a question about a specific zoo, but about zoos in general. The first variant sounds correct, but I’m...

articles questions definite-article zero-article locatives

MrHen

@KitFox That's a pretty good example. I like that one.

@phenry I don't think ELL means "non-fluent" questions, though.

phenry

Preposition questions in which the answer is largely due to convention, but is obvious to anyone who's a native speaker.

MrHen

@tchrist I don't like that definition, though. Most of ELU's questions are like that.

phenry

15:40

0

Q: "Reason for/of/to doing"

Which of the following is correct? This is the main reason for doing that. This is the main reason of doing that. This is the main reason to doing that. I am not a native speaker of English. Are there other ways still to express the same thing?

word-choice grammaticality prepositions to-for

@MrHen - I dislike the "native/non-native speaker" dichotomy for a few reasons. I use "fluent" here to mean "speaking English at the level of proficiency of an average adult native speaker".

MrHen

@phenry Mmk.

KitFox

I asked a couple of questions on ELL that were applicable to my children learning English.

Like spelling rules and help with pronunciation of some of the harder sounds.

MrHen

@KitFox Yeah, see that makes sense to me.

KitFox

But most of the flags I get are for questions that are either garbage, or really on-topic here, just not very interesting.

I do not want to send garbage to ELL, and I think it confuses the users to have people suggest it and then have their question closed.

phenry

@KitFox - the problem is that the kinds of questions and difficulties that adult non-native speakers face tend to be qualitatively different from the ones faced by children who speak English natively but are still in the process of acquiring language skills.

KitFox

15:45

Sure, but they are both learning audiences.

tchrist

@MrHen Which is part of its problem.

KitFox

And ELL is for teachers too.

phenry

@KitFox - but does that mean ELL must serve two masters?

MrHen

@phenry SE sites can have more than one audience.

KitFox

ELL serves a different audience.

MrHen

15:47

Case in point, Stack Overflow services a ton of different audiences.

KitFox

@phenry Language learners has many subsets, but the questions are all related to the process of learning English.

phenry

@KitFox - The difficulty is in determining how that audience is different.

I still consider myself to be "learning" English. I assume we all do.

KitFox

Oh sure.

But generally, I have internalized verb tenses and such.

phenry

One important thing to keep in mind is that, as a website hosted in the United States, SE is subject to COPPA and is therefore limited in its ability to directly serve children under the age of 13.

by that age, native speakers will have mostly progressed past the language acquisition stage.

so any questions we get from native/fluent speakers will almost certainly not be in the nature of "learning English" as we are thinking of it.

KitFox

Except in my case, where I'm asking about my children.

phenry

15:53

Yes. There are exceptions for pedagogy.

KitFox

Not exceptions. The site is specifically for pedagogy.

Amongst other things.

phenry

I mean pedagogy as in serving the needs of teachers and instructors, specifically.

KitFox

Right.

phenry

and your question on ELL regarding "TH" pronunciation happens to be one that is also directly relevant to non-native speakers, so it's a good example of the kind of question that is very well suited to ELL.

11

Q: Is there a standard technique for practicing the "th" phonemes?

My son is still young enough to be practicing his pronunciation. He has trouble (not surprisingly) with th in particular. I have modeled the correct mouth shape for him but it still takes him a lot of effort to get the sound right. In regular speech, he just slurs the sounds into f or s dependi...

pronunciation

tchrist

@KitFox Nobody ever gave a contrasting set of examples of questions that would be acceptable only on ELU, only on ELL, acceptable on both, and acceptable on neither. Perhaps if we had at least a half-dozen such examples in each of those four categories, it might help.

KitFox

15:55

Probably.

phenry

I believe it would be best if the "acceptable on both" and "acceptable on neither" categories were relatively small.

If the "acceptable on both" category is large, that raises the "why do we have two different sites" question again.

And if there are a lot of serious, legitimate questions about English that go into the "acceptable on neither" category, does that mean we need a third site? That idea won't go over well.

tchrist

16:17

@phenry The problem is that these are not “serious, legitimate” questions. These one-and-doners are too used to Yahoo Answers or “social media”.

phenry

@tchrist - if that's true, then we shouldn't have any problem filling the list.

but it should also be clear to the average observer that the questions on the list are either unserious or are answerable with a trivial amount of effort on the part of the asker.

I see questions being closed today that don't fit that bill.

tchrist

One-sentence questions in broked English that show no research nor focus nor broad appeal do not add value to the site. You can only take care of so many four-year-old at a time before it gets to you and you start turning them away for their abject gimmeness and laziness.

KitFox

16:41

Well, my four-year-old is not like that.

phenry

@tchrist - On the first two pages of newest questions, there are 7 closed/on hold questions that aren't duplicates. Of those, I see maybe 1 that fits the description of "one-sentence questions in broked English that show no research nor focus nor broad appeal"

KitFox

Look out! The World Tree is backward!

lisardggY

That I am.

tchrist

@phenry Oh? Try this:

-1

Q: Could some one tell me the difference between " Mission Succeed X Misson Success "?

My Friend and i, have a Doubt about this..

grammar

lisardggY

@tchrist Ugh, just noticed I had a typo in the close message there. :(

tchrist

16:46

They cannot even ask in actual English. They have not consulted a dictionary. They have not shown their previous research and how this did not satisfy their confuddles.

phenry

@tchrist - That's a question that belongs on ELL but does not belong here.

It is not a question that belongs at neither site.

KitFox

Well, you can't evaluate it until you can understand it.

tchrist

I’m sure that SE would be a lot friendlier if it forbad down votes, close votes, and delete votes.

phenry

I think ELL should be a valid migration target for ELU... if people here can be trusted not to abuse it.

tchrist

Friendly at any cost is like saying all free beer is good beer, or any job that pays is worth doing.

phenry

16:49

By comparison, there's this:

0

Q: Figure of Speech: Ulcers

Person 1: "School starts in 2 days!" Person 2: "Shush! You're giving me an ulcer." What is the meaning of this figure of speech used by Person 2 ("You're giving me an ulcer.")? I've never heard of it before. Usage examples: In Google Books In Twitter

figures-of-speech

KitFox

@phenry Which they can't.

lisardggY

@tchrist I might be jumping in mid-discussion here, but saying that the so-called "summer of love" people are demanding "friendly at any cost" is a bit of a straw-man argument.

KitFox

If the flags I get to migrate stuff are any indicator.

phenry

Closed as GR, yet if you don't know about the folk wisdom that peptic ulcers are caused by stress, you won't find an answer at any of our commonly used reference sites.

@KitFox - Do you think it's possible to change that by making our policies more specific, and educating users about them?

KitFox

No. People don't pay attention to policy and they give you ulcers when you try to teach them.

But really maybe. It depends on how much the high rep users buy-in.

tchrist

16:52

@lisardggY I don’t think it worked.

KitFox

We have quite a few diligent high reppers, and they would more than likely diligently enforce policy if it were clearly set and agreeable to them.

They could change the tone for the site.

Possibly.

phenry

@KitFox - Then that should be the first task, shouldn't it?

KitFox

I should think so, yes.

I would be glad to have you do that.

tchrist

Although I have no actual data to back it up, I firmly believe that first postings, whether questions or answers, are the ones most likely to suck for real. They don’t know the culture, nor the expectations, nor even what a good or bad question or answer even looks like from our perspective.

They are also the most likely delete candidates. I always look at any rep=1 posting to check for spam, for example.

phenry

@tchrist - by "suck for real," do you mean they are likely to be incoherent, or not an answer, or otherwise violate the policies of the site? Or do you mean they are likely to provide an answer that is wrong?

For the latter, downvoting is the remedy, not deletion.

tchrist

16:57

All of the above.

phenry

17:09

I'm looking at my first post review queue, and granted that I'm a radical and a liberal and all that, but I see very few answers that warrant corrective action other than downvoting.

tchrist

@phenry Clearly, downvoting is not what the Low Quality Review Queue is for, since it does not allow you to do that. It is for editing or deleting, or perhaps commenting. It does not permit voting.

phenry

@tchrist - the first posts review queue lets us downvote. Isn't that what you were talking about?

tchrist

@phenry I misread the queue.

phenry

I think the low quality queue should let us downvote. the available options are a Hobson's choice.

or a morton's fork, or whatever.

Mitch

@MrHen Without it, it would be even better: pic niced

@medica WTF with all the deletions. Are you doing that yourself or is some mod doing it? Do you know why those things were deletable?

@medica Schenectady? I've been to Schenectady. I've eaten meals in Schenectady. And let me tell you, Schenectady is ...

phenry

17:32

@medica - My brain and my heart are at war with each other on this one. I don't like the "decide a question is bad first and then look for a close reason that sort of fits" approach, but this might be an exception. I credit Mr. Shiny and New with developing the appropriate rationale for closure.

It is at times like this that I wish we had the Not Constructive close reason back.

Mitch

@medica Not exactly dying, rather more piqued interest, but OK, what is your second favorite word?

@phenry considers

phenry

@Mitch - @medica and I were deleting our own messages.

Mitch

@phenry 'datalicious' it is then.

@phenry Yeah that's word. Were so many of them unfit for the rest of us? Very cagey.

phenry

@Mitch - the first couple were deleted for, well, let's just say "appropriate reasons." The rest were deleted because they were incomprehensible without the first couple.

Mitch

@phenry (removed)

@phenry (also removed)

phenry

17:42

ha

Mitch

Now you know what.. oops (partial removal)

medica

19:35

@Mitch and to the community - Deletions seen to have become an issue so I will address the reasons for various deletions that you can see and those that you can't. The first deletions occurred because a candidate was being spoken about by another mod candidate in a way that was inappropriate on this thread (it had nothing to do with his views or actions. Shog9 deleted those without anyone asking.

Some deletions occurred between Mari Lou and I because we were discussing the sister-rape case. The user asked a second question about rape immediately on the tail of his sister rape question which was a quote from an Indian newspaper about a woman who lived with a man, but after he left her, she reported rape to the police. He wouldn't accept the usual definitions of rape. when I suggested he look uo rape

...and when I finally suggested he look it up in a dictionary, and accept (not choose, but rather choose to believe) the answers which had been graciously provided to me, he answered with (and here I rely on my memory): "Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do. Fuck you. I don't have to listen to you. I'll do what I want to do." I responded

wait, I'll give you exact quotes because my memory fails me. This was my *first comment to him (after others had already answered and commented):
"Your article explains nothing, and you (and readers) are speculating about unspecified scenarios. Rape is forced sex regardless of relationship status. This is your second question about rape in the past 24 hours. Please read about it. Then ask about what confused you about the English words you did not understand."

That was when he tossed out his first obscenity lashed comment at me.

I tried to edit that last line but ran out of time expanding on it. This is why memory is not a good thing to rely upon.

His first comment to me was (approximately) I meant to ask about this in my first question but ran out of time, My time is precious to me, you know."

My response was:
Time is precious for everybody, not only yourself. Do some work on your own, then ask us about English words you cannot understand. That is what we are here for. Since you referred to the rape of a sister in your last question as being a terrible sin, surely you understand the meaning of the word. Read the answers graciously provided for you and perhaps you can be done with rape questions. – medica May 9 at 7:00

That was when he unleashed an obscenity-laced comment at me. He was removed and placed in the penalty box for (?I think a month? but am not sure.)

I also don't know if there were other things which led to that decision on other posts or behind the scenes.

phenry

20:00

@medica - a year.

but what does any of this have to do with deletions in chat?

medica

This is the (@phenry - not the first time, because he came back - and asked another question. I've only been here 6.5 months now) part I was discussing with Mari-Lou: This user's friend blamed Mari-Lou for his suspension!

phenry

oh, I remember now.

medica

I was telling Mari-Lou about how I had seen that, and we were remembering details about it. I felt these details, the obscenities, and the user's name, which had nothing to do with the election chat, didn't need to be on view for all to see. Especially the obscenities.

Most of the other deletions were of a jocular nature which I deleted because they weren't about elections.

One was that I asked Andrew Leach if he was ready to be a mod? A question not answered, so I thought I might have offended him so deleted it.

After it wad deleted, he answered with a non-answer.

Some comments were deleted because they were personal things. since we do not have PMing abilities, I was taking advantage of the ability to finally dialogue with people who don't go to chat.

But they had nothing to do with the election.

A few deletions occurred with pHenry. We were discussing low quality questions and he mentioned something to the effect that we don't test people's IQ before they post. @pHenry, maybe you want to correct me.

phenry

21 hours ago, by phenry

this is going to sound terrible, but... we don't administer a test for mental fitness before allowing someone to post here. Some people are just eccentric.

...this in a discussion about how we get bad answers/questions.

I don't remember what you responded to that.

medica

I responded that I wished that we would require new users to take the quick tour before they post their first (thank you, @pHenry) answer. But becausi I believed that was not likely to ever happen, I removed it.

phenry

20:15

oh yes

medica

This made some answers obsolete, so they were removed as well.

phenry

and I responded:

21 hours ago, by phenry

@medica - I write technical documentation for a living. trust me: just because you require someone to read something doesn't mean they actually read it.

medica

Yes, this was the conversation.

I do not know what Caleb believes is so shocking.

The only controversial question I can think of is about religious beliefs. I know Andrew Leach is a Christian; we are both members of Christianity SE.

phenry

@medica - @Caleb was probably thinking specifically of the dozen of so messages you and I deleted in a short amount of time, right before midnight UTC

Ironically, it was in a conversation about how difficult it is to delete messages in chat.

Most of those deletions were the result of the cascade effect, where a message gets deleted, and then messages that responded to it get deleted because they're now incomprehensible, rinse, repeat.

medica

I don't see that (though I recall that conversation; again, they had nothing to do with the election, so I deleted them), but things that have been deleted are not big, controversial issues.

phenry

20:22

medica

I asked a question about faith to Andrew, to which he did not respond; I took this as an indication that he (perhaps more wisely that me) didn't want to discuss it, so I took it down.

@phenry - oh, thank you.

phenry

I don't remember most of what was deleted, but I can speak to some of your deleted messages, because some of my responses remain.

21 hours ago, by phenry

do we? I've never been prevented from removing anything

that was in response to your question about why the window for deleting messages is so short.

medica

I was commenting that I'm rather slow at picking up computer skills and that this concerned me. He reassured me that he thought it will come as needed.

phenry

20 hours ago, by phenry

:16176077 - oh, I'm not thinking of anything particularly bad per se, just idle gossip.

I had said I sometimes like to search the chat transcripts for occurrences of my own name. you asked about what I found, or something like that.

medica

OK, I don't search the chats for mantions of me; I would be demoralized.

phenry

20:25

yeah, and then I said:

20 hours ago, by phenry

actually, when I searched the chat transcripts for my name, I was surprised at how little there was, and how innocuous it mostly was.

medica

I told pHenry that there was a user in chat that had thrown some comments made in chat privately, just to hurt me.

I believed there were probably other comments made about me, and I preferred not to know about them.

So I did not search chat for comments made about me, as it is bad enough having one or two thrown into my face on purpose.

That was that discussion.

phenry

I think all of my deletions there were of messages that made no sense following other deletions.

medica

There is is. Personal discussions having little or nothing to do with the elections. E.g. Why is there a time-limit on chat comment editing?

pHenry has not removed any of his comments that were not preceded by my own deletion first, rendering his incomprehensible outside of context.

He has nothing to explain.

It is I who have deleted personal comments (like mine to Mari-Lou) or my ramblings, in an attempt to keep this election chat uncluttered,

but as it seems to be a question, I have 1)answered and 2) will no longer delete any comments.

If anyone else has any questions for me, I am glad to answer them, just @medica them to me.

And I apologize for the appearance of impropriety it has caused. I apologize to anyone who was offended or concerned about them.

@Mitch, my second favorite word is pulchritudinous. It is a beautiful word, rich with meaning; Latin, my Organic Chemistry professor's reminiscences about Latin, the way it sounds so awful in English but so beautiful in Latin. My favorite words are laced with memories and meaning to me.

@Josh61 - perhaps the issue I'm most passionate about is making this site more welcoming to new users. I am somewhat distressed when a new user, who doesn't know the ropes, gets a snarky comment or three for posting such a bad question. I am not interested in suppressing free speech, I am interested in (myself, and hopefully others by example) welcoming them.

For example, a first user's answer was not an answer. This is the comment I used:
"Welcome to EL&U. This is an interesting story. We appreciate links to sources where applicable, especially in Answers. You can improve your answer by providing links, even with answers in response to seemingly opinion-based questions. Thanks."
Not a big deal, I assure you. But just trying to gently get new users to know what our standards are.

@Mitch - see above. If you have any other questions about my comments, please ask.

phenry

20:51

@medica - This is especially troublesome when the questioner clearly has only a rudimentary knowledge of English. It comes across like schoolyard bullying.

medica

@pHenry - thanks for your honest response. I admire your honesty and your courage. I was feeling really guilty about my first response to this question. Thanks for answering that you had some brain-heatr moments as well.

phenry

That makes my blood boil, and I'm a misanthrope, even.

medica

@phenry Yes at worst; at best it comes across as uncaring and matter-of-fact, when someone is putting themselves out there for the first time.

phenry

I've complained about the way ELL came to be, but as long as it's a thing, would it kill us to just gently point someone in that direction?

medica

@phenry Especially a propos for people who are struggling with English. Then they are hurt.

phenry

20:54

In my experience, the people who have the hardest time making themselves understood here are usually grateful to the point of tears to learn that a place like ELL exists.

medica

Why hurt someone? It's not hard to be kinder.

@phenry I've seen this too.

@phenry But as you point out, we can't regulate kinder answers. That's not what a mod does. We can only encourage and act for ourselves.

phenry

Okay, so here's a platform plank for me: if I am elected, messages that bully non-native speakers get terminated with extreme prejudice.

And if I can, I'm handing out suspensions.

medica

Then try to answer the angry complaints in Meta.

@phenry Again, I admire your courage. I'm sure some will say them's fightin' words.

phenry

@medica - True, in that a moderator can't stop a bad (in whatever way you want to measure bad) message from being posted. But moderators can react to messages that have already been posted.

@medica - You know what? F 'em. Someone who's going to stand up for bullying is a stain on this community.

medica

I agree. I don't think I'd go that far, though. Repeat offenders, I might email. I would like to know (if I become a mod) the whys and hows of their decision making.

phenry

20:59

As my dear mother has been reminding me for 40 years, there's a right way and a wrong way to talk to people.

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