Electrical Engineering

Asmyldof

12:08

Bacon for lunch! Because it's Sunday and I had a sensible breakfast!

yogece

13:51

hi all

i would like to a simple mechanism for a smart lock (dead bolt type) any reference on where to get started?

Mast

14:51

@yogece That sounds vague. Start by choosing whether you want to go NFC, Bluetooth or something else.

jippie

18:11

morning

jippie

18:54

sigh chinese new year. .. I finally decide to buy a tester from eBay and I get a "this seller is on holiday" notification ...

forcefully procrastinating for a week ...

Mast

19:14

@jippie Thanks for reminding me, we were sending schematics tomorrow towards them. That can probably wait a while now.

Nick Alexeev

@Mast @jippie Would you consider making it a Public Service Announcement (PSA)? I'm tempted to do it myself, but I don't want to steal you thunder.

Mast

19:37

@NickAlexeev It was @jippie his note, so feel free to run with it if he doesn't respond.

Good thinking on the PSA by the way.

jippie

20:19

@NickAlexeev Public Service Announcement? What's that?

Asmyldof

Checking a calendar that hard?

@Mast You can send the Schematics whenever you want, you're even likely to get a response within 24hours, they will just not do anything more with it

But anything received will be processed in the order of receipt

Nick Alexeev

@jippie The term Public Service Announcement comes from radio broadcast industry. It's a message broadcasted free-of-charge to raise awareness of some issue.

Vi.

20:35

What is the maximum weight typical Ethernet cable can support?

Shalvenay

@Vi. no idea -- I suspect the crimp or the RJ-45 would fail before the cable did

Vi.

I mean when using the cable not for it's purpose, just as a rope.

(Imagile you evacuating from burning building and you only have long network cable)

Shalvenay

@Vi. haha :P

@Vi. I suspect it'd be fairly significant, but the exact details would depend on cable construction.

Asmyldof

Cat6 can easily take a grown man.

Well, me

jippie

@NickAlexeev /me shrugs.

@Vi. Don't come crying to us when your cable isn't up to spec after using it as such.

I believe we've reached critical mass when it comes to review queues. More posts getting into the queue than anyone is looking at (including myself).

I've been getting depressed about review queues long ago.

Vi.

20:56

What happens is one curbs oneself and makes a firm decision... to stop visiting the queues altogether? "See no evil" => problem solved...

(at least it's better compared to being depressed about triffles)

Mast

21:16

@Asmyldof Chinese New Year isn't on most calendars here, neither is it on most digital ones I've seen.

jippie

@Vi. No what happens is it takes a lot of time reading the question, then trying to make sense out of a potentially nonsense answer (you don't know beforehand) and consider whether it deserves closing or not and for what reason.

Then I see how much of my time I've lost trying to understand stuff that just isn't meant for understanding and I conclude I can use my time better. Especially since it is an awful amount of posts every day.

Nick Alexeev

@jippie You are right about the review queues. We have only 5 to 7 people reviewing (that includes Nick with the +5 hammer). WhyTF has everyone neglected community modding?

Since our review queue is so long, newly flagged questions take a long time to close. They remain unclosed long enough for rep whores to get to them.

Vi.

@jippie, What is the problem in leaving the question as is and letting votes or other reviewers decide? There is "skip" button.

Or removing (or not propagating) the question from close queue carries approval connotations?

Nick Alexeev

To compensate for all this I have to be fairly aggressive with hammering questions (wherever I find them: in the review queue or elsewhere), and make lots of judgement calls. That increases the amount of flak that I get. Funny thing is, flak comes from members who have enough reputation to do community modding, but don't bother to do it. ( @EMFields , I'm looking at you.)

Vi.

There is saying like "one fool can ask so many questions that a hundred or wizards fail to answer".

Marla

21:29

@NickAlexeev I don't know if you ever visit the Arduino SE, but Nick Gammon seems to be the loneliest moderator. However, he is doing a great job there. (Don't know when he finds time to work)

Vi.

@NickAlexeev, Isn't overly aggressive moderation worse than lazy (incomplete) moderation?

Nick Alexeev

Arduino.SE could use another mod. Due to the nature of the Arduino ecosystem, the need more modding than EE.SE. @Marla, I'd encourage you to apply.

@Vi. Et tu, Brutus...

Marla

@NickAlexeev I am barely over 300 rep there. I go there more for the electronics as I am not great at the software.

@NickAlexeev Tempted, but I won't star that comment :)

Shalvenay

@NickAlexeev -- I don't have the rep, otherwise I'd jump in with both feet

Nick Alexeev

@Marla Modding is more about common sense than hard skills like software. Look at this freshly minted Arduino.SE pro tem mod. When he got the modship he had 150 rep there (and not much more on other stacks). Modships are pretty much laying on the ground on Arduino.SE .

Asmyldof

21:39

@NickAlexeev I don't like mod ships.

Leave them to the mod wolves, I say

I'm going to make one more elaborate coffee... and maybe cookies... because... I can

Vi.

@NickAlexeev, If modding is less about hard skills, why there's no inter-site elected mods? Or modding situation is pitiable globally (on most SE sites) and it's not reasonable to redistribute workforce to this site?

Nick Alexeev

To sum it up. Everybody want a clean forum. Everybody want mild moderators. Very few want to put their effort into community modding.

Asmyldof

At the moment I'm not overly concerned about anything outside this chatroom.

In fact, I think I have 9 unread mails

Vi.

Is there self-balancing system here:

Too few moderators (or too inactive) -> less moderation -> lower quality -> fewer visitors -> fewer questions -> easier moderation -> enough mods now?

Nick Alexeev

@Asmyldof This chat room is so much fun. Too much fun? Should I lock it until you folks reduce the close-vote queue by 30%? Tempting.

Asmyldof

21:45

@NickAlexeev I'll just go elsewhere

The couch for example

With elaborate coffee

And possibly cookies

Vi.

@NickAlexeev, ~"People spending too much time in toilets? Close toilets -> problem solved. Tempting...".

Nick Alexeev

@Vi. There is no negative feedback. Lower quality will not result in fewer visitors. Lower quality will result in losing core members (probably for good).

Vi.

Is there any positive feedback then? Like this:

lower quality -> less percieved barriers for questions -> more questions overall -> even lower quality -> ... -> closed SE site?

Nick Alexeev

@Vi. Actually, it's you who is suggesting to stop unclogging toilets. Besides, this chat room is not a toilet.

@Vi. Kind of. Unkempt forum feeds back into itself and gets worse.

Vi.

What would happen if questions from new users temporarily stopped being accepted at all if queues are overflowing? (to enforce the negative feedback)

Nick Alexeev

21:51

@Vi. Having a barrier to entry tends to improve quality.

Vi.

What if some questions come "pre-closed" (invisible from first page and search unless approved by some queue)? Can it serve as milder barrier of entry compared to just blocking asking until queue cleared?

Marla

@Vi. If I visited a site for the first time, and had my questions blocked, I wouldn't be around very much longer.

Nick Alexeev

@Vi. StackOverflow has something called triage that serves a similar purpose, as far as I understand. I thought about it too and dubbed it quarantine.

Vi.

@Marla, It should not appear as "blocked" or "closed" or "suspended". It may be termed like "waiting for review" or "waiting for pre-moderation". The feature may be active only if there are queue problems and the site can work normally when queues are OK.

Marla

@Vi. I did experience something like that on a "comment" section of a financial web site I frequent. Must admit I did stick around there until my comments were accepted without delay.

Nick Alexeev

22:01

@Marla You would come back eventually. It's like yeast excretions. They don't taste all that nice the first time one tries it. But eventually one drinks it by a liter. It's called beer.

Vi.

Also maybe questions from users that have big problems with English (even if they have some background topic knowledge) may appear nonsensial at first and second glance, and only on third reading one understands that the question (after massive editing) has it's place. "Agressive" moderation may spill it away with the rest of water.

Nick Alexeev

@Vi. For the record, I don't nail questions for poor English alone. (Neither do other EE.SE mods, of course.)

Vi.

Another idea: when undermoderated, rep requirements lower and site begins more active advertiseing/inviting to review the queues.

Nick Alexeev

@Vi. ... or reduce the number of close-votes required to close a question. Under-moderation can be detected by the average time that a question stays in the review queue.

Mast

@NickAlexeev They tried it at Programmers. Didn't work.

Vi.

22:08

@Mast Is there a failure story on meta?

Mast

@Vi. Yup.

I think.

Vi.

Reducing it to lower than 3 does not seem right.

Mast

13

Q: 3 votes for closing/reopening experiment: the results

I'm sure you remember this experiment, which changed the required number of close/reopen votes from 5 to 3. Before getting to the meat of the analysis, I should point out that the change worked almost exactly as intended. Close votes clustered around 3 and the median time to close dropped noticab...

The results of that experiment may be applicable on EE as well, you guys know that better than me.

Vi.

For editing queue there is nice workaround (I call it "strong approve" or "strong reject"): go to the question and manually edit it again (if not approved) or revert (if not rejected).

There is probably no such workaround for close queue...

Mast

I don't have the rep here to help out. Got quite some reviewing done on CR though. A lot of regulars there help out.

Nick Alexeev

22:15

@Vi. Some other things that can be done: special powers for certain classes of questions given certain conditions. For example: duplicate can be insta-closed by a member who has a gold tag-badge for one of the dupe's tags (this is already in place at least on SO).

Shalvenay

@NickAlexeev dupehammer power is on other Stacks as well -- I've seen it in action on RPG.se

Vi.

(Previously I though that "Programmers" is just a trash can of "Stack Overflow" to detour semi-offtopic subjective content there and closing questions on "Programmers" is not appropriate)

Mast

@NickAlexeev It's on all SE sites.

Shalvenay

(I only have one tag badge whatsoever, and that's my bronze electrical badge on DIY)

Nick Alexeev

@Vi. It's the other way around now: StackOverlow is a trash can for Programmers.SE .

Mast

22:17

181

A: Increase close vote weight for gold tag badge holders

Update: this is now enabled everywhere! The rules are: You can instantly close as a duplicate any question that was originally asked with a tag you have a gold badge for. You can instantly reopen any question closed as a duplicate that was originally asked with a tag you have a gold badge for....

Vi.

@NickAlexeev, Swift close-as-duplicate should be accompanied by reopen-as-not-really-duplicate (AFAIR something like that is indeed implemented: I saw some special button).

Nick Alexeev

Bronze dupehammer: 3 votes (proposed). Silver dupehammer: 4 votes (proposed). Gold dupehammer: 5 votes.

Vi.

@NickAlexeev [fun] Then rename it to QueueOverflow? [/fun]

Are there any scientifically modeled findings of what number of votes should be to do X, how much rep should be to do Y and so on and in general how community-supporting system should behave (given some mathematical model of a community)?

EM Fields

@NickAlexeev I don't understand what you're saying, since if a question is closed down before anyone even gets a chance to answer it because a moderator misinterprets it and closes it immediately, that makes it doubly or triply hard to bring back to life since all that's available is comments and editing which is still at the mercy of the moderator.

Vi.

@Mast Glanved over the post, but don't understand why is it called "failed" there. What constitutes a failure? People whining and wanting to go back? Some numbers? Just a management decision to roll back?

Nick Alexeev

22:31

@EMFields Why aren't you participating in community moderation? That's all I'm saying.

EM Fields

22:56

@NickAlexeev I thought I was... I edit others' posts, vote to open and close posts, ask for moderators' actions to be reversed on occason, comment on spelling and grammar, etc. What more is there?

Nick Alexeev

@EMFields I'm looking at the logs for the close and reopen review queues for the last 30 days (that's as far back as it goes). Your name isn't there to be found.

EM Fields

23:35

@NickAlexeev Strange... I went looking for the post I voted to be released and asked you to release from hold, and it seems to be gone.

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Electrical Engineering