Workplace 2014 Election Number 2

Jim

01:03

As for participation, I don't see active participation in one SE site as a barrier for active participation in another

in fact, I see it as encouragement

enderland

@jmort253 I am more than eager to understand and work with the community regarding the overall feel and attitude on this site. However, to answer what you are getting at - if the general community feel here is that Workplace should be more chatty and similar to a forum, I will absolutely fight against it, even if this is against "popular opinion"

Blog - Stack Exchange: Stack Exchange is not a forum: the role of “niceness” on a Q&A site

Shog9 on August 08, 2012

It’s been a few weeks now since Joel kicked off our “summer of love”. There’ve been some excellent discussions in the blog comments and on Meta, and we’ve tried to present some hard data on how objectively “nice” we are. But it’s high time to talk about what place “niceness” really has on Stack Exchange. And to do that, we need to start by talking about you:

You, sir, are a jackass.

And that’s ok.

Stack Overflow wasn’t created to be some utopian ideal of peace and love. When Jeff & Joel set out to create this system, they knew full well the sort of problems that face online commun …

Jim

Aside from the people that work for StackExchange, presence on SE sites, and participation in SE communities, is secondary to the rest of our lives

jmort253

@Jim For sure, and I've definitely taken breaks before myself, sometimes just checking in daily just to make sure the sky isn't falling....

Jim

particularly on this site, where we discuss workplace-/career-related issues, our primary focus is our jobs (or at least more so than an internet community, ignoring family commitments, etc)

The reason I'm not running (slash didn't accept the appointment) is because I can't commit to spending an appropriate amount of time moderating

I'd like to, but I just can't

jmort253

@enderland I guess more of what I'm getting at is, if someone disagreed with you, or perhaps several someone's, would you still drive forward with taking action, or do you think you'd take a step back and first try to understand where those folks are coming from?

Jim

01:08

If someone is able to commit the time to moderate one site, I don't think that moderating that one site is a valid reason to prevent them from moderating another

enderland

@jmort253 Until I see an official SE perspective or publication indicating they would prefer a site to become more forum/discussion board like and less comprehensive Q/A like, it would be difficult for me to support a site being this way - I aim to make this 100% clear in all my "election related" posts.

jmort253

@Jim It is a huge time commitment.... no one should feel bad for not being able to commit if they know they have other responsibilities.

enderland

@jmort253 I guess that depends on a variety of factors, namely what the disagreement is

Jim

clearly they've got the time to commit, they're willing to deal with the issues that come up, and they've got experience the job

enderland

if it's a "what is SE policy?" question then well at some point I'd involve SE employees

Jim

01:09

@jmort253 I do feel bad, mostly because I did invest so much time and effort when I was able

enderland

if it's a question more specific to running Workplace I would post it to Meta and ask about it there (as I've done previously, obviously less meaningful as a non-moderator)

jmort253

@enderland The forum problem is perhaps not the best example because I've come to agree it is a problem.... folks are using comments to subvert the SE system and use it as if it were a forum....

Jim

and now I spend maybe an hour (tops) per week hitting the review queues, and almost answering questions (except they already have answers I support)

jmort253

I didn't used to see it that way, actually.... but I do now.

Jim

I just remember that a significant portion of the flags I saw as a mod were comment flags

jmort253

01:11

@Jim Answering here can be tough..... I find I generally don't answer something unless I'm the first one there...

Jim

and a lot of them were not useful or helpful comments

but they weren't rude, offensive, etc

enderland

@jmort253 no, it is, many active site users act in this way which is basically against SE perspective. Perhaps the moderation staff see it less as a problem but it goes against the principles of SE. But this is definitely against the overall community momentum

Jim

so it was tough to draw the line between "this is kinda helpful/useful", and "this can get erased"

enderland

The only other thing I disagree with the "feel" of the community on is I would much rather close a question which is unclear/off topic and then allow it (or do so myself) to be edited than try to "save it" before it is closed

Jim

@enderland That is exactly the point of closing a question!

jmort253

01:13

@enderland Okay, you're right... comments are one of the biggest issues on our site... so, if you were elected, how would you approach this issue?

enderland

@Jim You might be surprised, no one here votes to close - most people vote to answer first

Jim

@enderland FGITW

jmort253

@Jim I won't get into specifics on those flags, but it's a lot worse since graduation. :)

Jim

aw man

Aaron Hall

I have a question or two in the watercooler if anyone wants to join me there.

Jim

01:14

now I feel worse about not coming back

enderland

@Jim I've had extensive discussions with other people here about this issue, many people here are more than willing to not "offend" users or whatever other reason than voting to close - there is a reason I put this question on the Q/A

jmort253

@Jim Heh, they're not your fault. :) It's just growth, man.

@enderland I like the way Rachel and Shog put it... just be objective... take the action, but don't be mean about it. At least that was my takeaway....

But I do agree more closing needs to happen.

enderland

@jmort253 I have disagreed with Rachel in nearly every conversation about closing questions or overall answer/question quality - she has a much stronger "be nice! even if compromising the site quality!" perspective whereas I have a much stronger "quality matters! even if compromising niceness" perspective

Jim

@enderland That sounds like the philosophy that made StackOverflow what it is

enderland

again, I will link this article which is exactly the attitude I have and will carry into moderation if elected:

Blog - Stack Exchange: Stack Exchange is not a forum: the role of “niceness” on a Q&A site

Shog9 on August 08, 2012

It’s been a few weeks now since Joel kicked off our “summer of love”. There’ve been some excellent discussions in the blog comments and on Meta, and we’ve tried to present some hard data on how objectively “nice” we are. But it’s high time to talk about what place “niceness” really has on Stack Exchange. And to do that, we need to start by talking about you:

You, sir, are a jackass.

And that’s ok.

Stack Overflow wasn’t created to be some utopian ideal of peace and love. When Jeff & Joel set out to create this system, they knew full well the sort of problems that face online commun …

> Stack Overflow wasn’t created to be some utopian ideal of peace and love

jmort253

01:17

@enderland How often do you feel we as a community need to compromise on the niceness part? And do you find yourself oftentimes compromising on that particular guideline or do you find that most of the time you can enforce quality while still being cordial?

Jim

I do believe it needs to be adjusted on a per-community basis, but the general spirit is right

enderland

@jmort253 It takes work to enforce the guidelines while not being an asshole

the problem is, there are plenty of questions from users which are basically no-effort, completely off topic, and worthless questions for the site - I have no problem downvoting/voting to close those questions as an individual here

Jim

"you're only asking your terrible question here because this is where the experts hang out. the experts only hang out here because questions are well-formed and they can figure out how to answer them. if the questions here were nonsense, useful people wouldn't bother reading and answering them

jmort253

@enderland Haha, yes indeed... If you only knew how many comments I've written that I've had to stare at for a few mins before sending... :) Definitely not easy.

Matt Giltaji

Ahhh, this chat exploded today

enderland

01:19

@jmort253 I've written tons of them myself, and the best party is when people push back and act offended, but I'm well past caring, you can't let people get to you in that sense if you have any interest in such things

Jim

Absolutely. Difficult to be the authority AND the good guty

jmort253

Very difficult.

enderland

Then you get gems like this:

@enderland - there is nothing in that question that was "unnecessary and inflammatory". I called attention to a specific problem in order to focus on the issue, and since said moderator has shown bias, it was necessary to warn about recusal, because those who are biased tend to meddle. If my rejected edit changed the meaning of the question "What are tools/resources I can use to check a company for ** and ** during a job search?" as alleged, your edit has changed the meaning of my question far more. Your edit is heavy handed and invasive. — Vector 6 hours ago

Jim

There have been so many cases where I went to comment/act on a post and found that somebody (usually @) had already made a useful comment, and felt so relieved that I didn't have to word a tough statement

@enderland I am actually relieved that I don't have to deal with that

That user is taking it way too far

jmort253

@enderland My focus is more on the core community members.

The ones who have invested lots of time and energy.

Jim

01:26

@jmort253 always has been

jmort253

And new users who don't walk in the door with a bad attitude.

enderland

@jmort253 the trick is knowing who is a drive by help vampire vs someone who might actually help themselves, too. Fortunately many people make this ridiculously obvious

jmort253

I see some comments (not by you) where it seems the asker is sort of attacked... and then they lash back out.... where a nicer explanation sometimes disarms folks....

enderland

I guess that's obvious, and anyone who is even remotely interested in my perspective on that need only look back through my comment history to see I've probably made more "welcome to Workplace!" types of statements in comments than anyone else here ;)

But eventually if someone is spamming low quality answers I'm not going to keep posting helpful comments, I'm just going to downvote them or VtD where appropriate

Rachel

@jmort253 Thank you, that actually means a lot to me :)

I considered it once, but I know I wouldn't be able to dedicate the time needed to do the job properly. I would much rather have one of the other candidates take the spot.

2

jmort253

01:30

Shog's post does say that patronizing people doesn't help.... meaning that giving them slack on the way in by letting things slide just leads to problems later on....

enderland

The harsh reality is that some people are not going to be positive influences on the community no matter how many questions/answers they post, period

There's just no way around that, some people will simply not follow what the purpose of SE is no matter how many comments, deletions, or downvotes they receive

jmort253

@Rachel Okay, I understand, but I was kinda looking forward to grilling you like we're doing to the other candidates. :D)

enderland

I mean, even some of the candidates post answers like this but then basically campaign against the site policies for backing answers up

jmort253

@enderland It sucks when the olive branch gets slapped away for sure... it's the hardest part about the welcoming comments is preparing for the hypothetical punch to the solar plexus.

Rachel

haha I know what my answers would be for the majority of those posts too, and am sure they're not what some people would want to hear :)

enderland

01:33

but as much as vietnhi complains against me, he also posts things like:

> I had several run-ins with the Pedantic Police in the first month I participated in the Workplace but I have to say that I have had no harassment on the subject since. I have been asked occasionally to "back it up" and I have always complied, apparently to everyone's satisfaction. I've gotten much better at giving thorough answers so these demands are few and far between, as far as I am concerned.

which in my opinion is the exact outcome the site should be aiming for

Rachel

to be fair, my first posts on SO are pretty terrible

no explanation whatsoever, sometimes only guesses

jmort253

4 hours ago, by Monica Cellio

@WesleyLong - thank you for not running a negative campaign. Could you elaborate on what you said here? Maybe you could point out some cases where you think "back it up" was mis-applied? Are there other rules besides that one that you think aren't being followed on the site?

Rachel

i'll sometimes get a comment on one, and realize how bad it is so I'll go rewrite it

jmort253

We definitely want to hear from Wesley. He's going to have a tough time because of a lack of meta participation, so he's going to have to make up for that in this chat room I suspect. :)

enderland

I'm actually rather curious what SE would do if a moderator who basically campaigns against the SE vision for sites is elected.. ;)

Rachel

01:35

haha ask them to step down

jmort253

@enderland He'll probably vote for you too! He credits you with being a better user.

@enderland I think some sites do have mods that go against the grain a little bit....

Aaron Hall

Ha, I know Vietnhi.

jmort253

and it's not always a bad thing....

Rachel

its often good to have your ideas challenged

jmort253

and SE is kinda open to that.

Rachel

01:36

I would hate to be surrounded by people who agreed with me all the time

jmort253

@Rachel Exactly :)

enderland

It depends on what your goal is too, if you have 10 generals and no privates your army isn't going to do anything

jmort253

@enderland That would be a nightmare.... and is sort of why SE went with just 3 mods to start... too many cooks in the kitchen is a saying that comes to mind... :)

Rachel

I found this article a very interesting read

What to Do When an Online Community Starts to Fail

its about how to keep mature online communities healthy

I think it's worth a read for any established member of any online community :)

jmort253

@Rachel Throwing a party? :)

Some turnover a good thing...

Existing users must engage new ones...

all great points.

Rachel

01:43

:) Yeah, especially since people change and move on in their lives. they dont' stay at the "I want to moderate an online community" stage forever

jmort253

@Rachel What do you feel are the key takeaways for Workplace SE?

Rachel

I'm not sure I understand waht you mean

for regular users?

oh, you mean for us to take from that article?

jmort253

@Rachel Just from the article you linked. In your opinion, what does this mean for our site? What should we takeaway from that?

Yes :D

Matt Giltaji

hi all, about to post a long reply to an early question directed at me (sorry to take us off the current track)

Rachel

That we should never stop helping to encourage and mentor new users at understanding the site, since established users will move on and we need these new users to become the high-rep community users of the future

2

Matt Giltaji

01:45

@MonicaCellio You have a knack for asking good, yet tough questions. This very issue was what originally gave me pause before nominating myself. I've lurked for a little bit, I've contributed for two months, but I haven't really been around long enough to pick up all of the nuances of the community.

We had a discussion in chat the other day over burninating the software-industry tag. By the end of the chat, I found myself quite enlightened by the points brought up by @Rachel, @Ian, and @Bmo. I'm sure that being open-minded, adaptive, etc is a good skill to be a mod, but it did also echo (to me at least) that I am still learning the ropes here, and maybe that's not the best position for a mod candidate to be in.

At the same time, I'd rather be open about that lack of experience with TWP than try to hoodwink anyone. I'm quite bad at hoodwinking. A long term project that I stuck with was a 3 year project at work. That's not to say that I have a habit of dropping commitments when I get bored, its more that I haven't really done side projects or anything like that. And again, I appreciate your feedback. I feel it is respectful, tactful and damn good criticism.

now back to our regularly scheduled discussion

jmort253

@Rachel The constant introduction of new faces who became good contributors... like @MattGiltaji... makes sense.

@MattGiltaji - What was the biggest challenge for you as a new user?

Rachel

TWP already has a very strong welcome committe, who works to welcome new users and guide them in using the site correctly in a friendly manner. I thnk that's part of why this site succeeded and made it past beta

don't lose that attitude :)

Matt Giltaji

@jmort253 getting a good answer in so I could have enough rep to do more

I would click on a question, think that I knew the answer, then see these great responses

from all the usual high rep answerers

and think how the hell can I compete with that

jmort253

@MattGiltaji I see that pattern with new users.... we sometimes have to remove a lot of answers posted by 1 rep users...

but some folks catch on and realize the secret to competing is to write a better answer.

:)

enderland

@jmort253 this isn't technically the case, the secret is to just post a ton and as long as some people think "hey that's kinda true" you get plenty of rep

Matt Giltaji

01:50

my realization was that I could not compete with those answers, but that I could find a different question

eventaully I found one that was like a "duh" for me, so i posted a response

jmort253

@enderland Hmmm, I guess maybe that's coming from my experiences on SO.

Matt Giltaji

and it seemed decently well received

but looking back it was not that great

jmort253

There, I learned to not rush it. Writing a good SO post to me is like experiencing a fine whisky... slooowly and delicately....

aged to perfection almost.

@enderland It does feel like that is an established norm here....

yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal

It kinda hit me that our back it up rule sort of leaves the door open for some logical fallacies...

enderland

Of course it is, no one other than Chad and I consistently downvote or even comment on low quality answers (actually I think gnat still does, I have a hunch) so there is no incentive to not keep posting them

heh this conversation is going to convince me that being a moderator is likely to be incredibly frustrating

Matt Giltaji

but it was other questions where I started doing better. Finding links to back it up. Answering stuff where it was almost like i was giving advice to my past self, because I had gone through the exact some thing as the asker. Good answers just flow. Bad answers don't have quite the same spark of life while I write them, so I know that they are not worth posting

Yeah I learned that some rep grinding users like to throw out any old answer. Because it takes 5 downvotes to cancel out the rep from a single upvote, even a net of -4 on a post is a win.

jmort253

01:55

@enderland A challenge, but hopefully not frustrating. :)

@enderland I can say that there are certainly other users who participate in the community moderation aspects. You and Chad are a large part of that group, but you're certainly not the only ones.

enderland

Perhaps

It is most certainly a very small and outnumbered minority

jmort253

Indeed...

enderland

7

A: What does second last employer means?

I'd guess that with common usage, it'd Company B: Last employer = Company C. Second to last = Company B. But you could always ask them.

just looking at recent questions, that got 7 upvotes and no downvotes and has literally no explanation at all

0

Q: Deal with subpar colleague

I work in a relatively high-paying and high-pressure SAAS company on a legacy (no tests) c++ backend component that is critical to the business. A flaw in this component could easily result millions of dollars of losses. Despite its importance, it has been maintained by a team of three marginal...

colleagues

jmort253

workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/32108/…

The more and more experience I have with bad answers, the more and more it makes me look at the question as the culprit.

enderland

"What can I do" is the question as stated and yet only 3 close votes?

the only hard thing about voting to close that is what close reason!

jmort253

02:01

Hi Raj, in this case, instead of playing guessing games, I'd suggest just asking for clarification from the recruiter/hiring manager. As you can see from the answers, all we can really do is guess, and that's not what we're here for. Check out help center and be sure to take the tour. Good luck! :) — jmort253 ♦ 30 secs ago

enderland

@jmort253 this is why it's important to close them before they start getting bad answers

"what should I do" will get lots of "here is my 2 cents" types of answers

jmort253

In this case, on that one, I can't see it being reopened.... maybe... I'm happy to be wrong, and folks are willing to edit.... but I don't see it. :)

How would you encourage more close voting?

How can we get more people involved in that process?

enderland

I've actually considered that becoming a moderator will actively hurt that since I am frequently and vocally voting to close off topic questions and I will likely be less frequent in doing so if my vote is binding, especially in less obvious cases

jmort253

@enderland Early on, maybe....

but I've found it isn't the end of the world if I close something.

The key is if I do and it gets reopened, I just move on.... if I'm wrong I'm wrong.... but most of the time if something does get reopened it is in much better shape than when it's closed.

@enderland What do you think about deleting closed questions?

Could that encourage people to stop answering questions that are likely to be closed?

enderland

@jmort253 "does this question add value to Workplace and the internet as a whole? yes - keep, no- delete"

jmort253

02:11

@enderland I encourage you to think more about the question of how to encourage more people to VTC early and often.

enderland

@jmort253 I don't know, the majority of site users (about 2/3 of the meta votes) seem to disagree with my approach to downvoting mediocre content

jmort253

You have a ton of experience on SE and on this site, and there's a lot of different things to try.

@enderland Would it help if we were able to clarify "mediocre"?

Some might see that as meeting the standard but not being outstanding, whereas others might see it as just simply not meeting the mark.

enderland

@jmort253 workplace.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer

jmort253

Any answer with "I guess" in the content, that feels less than mediocre to me, and I know it does to you....

but language is tough.... I think clarifying that can help. :)

Monica Cellio

@MattGiltaji thank you very much for the thoughtful response! My question wasn't meant to be criticism -- just a question, maybe a concern. Open, honest communication is a key value to me, and I appreciate your answer for that. (And I am impressed with your contributions so far!)

enderland

02:15

8

A: Why should answers be long?

I do not "like lots of words." I like answers which provide meaningful information and context so that someone in the future finding this site can get value from it. I often search google and find StackOverflow questions. This causes me to really appreciate the difference between short, "here'...

Monica Cellio

@MattGiltaji I sometimes look back at my earliest answers (on any SE site) and think "wow, that's the best I could do? Really?". Fortunately, there's no time limit on editing; you're always able to go back and make them better.

jmort253

I think people who focus on "long" (i.e I don't like to write long answers) are missing the point.

To me it's about whether they've explained enough to teach not tell...

length is a side effect of that...

But I get what you're saying, you're looking right at the how to answer page and taking the info straight from there.

enderland

> " I like answers which provide meaningful information and context so that someone in the future finding this site can get value from it.

> This is why I do not like short answers. They do not provide a future reader the context necessary to gain significant value or insight unless the situation is nearly exactly the same as what is asked in the question.

Monica Cellio

@MattGiltaji yeah. One thing I've learned here on The Workplace: sometimes bad answers are the canary pointing to a bad question. If the question is problematic, put it on hold and fix it if possible. If it can't be salvaged, deleting the whole thing may be the correct response.

jmort253

@enderland Short is still a side effect of that, but at some point we're just sort of dealing with semantics.

At some point, a post does get so short that it's literally impossible to include why...

enderland

02:19

@jmort253 all I care is that an answer says why it is correct, somehow

a large number of answers here don't do this

jmort253

@enderland Amy eventually came around....

I remember that post now that I'm reading through it...

enderland

also

13

Q: What should the "Back it up" policy look like for The Workplace

Nearly two years to the day since "back it up" was introduced to Workplace, there seems to be a lot of confusion regarding what the principle looks like on The Workplace. Here is all our on-topic says about this: Please note that answers should be backed up either with a reference, or expe...

discussion faq-content answers back-it-up

jmort253

There are some people who are quiet (they don't say much in chat) but who do VTC....

workplace.stackexchange.com/review/close/history?page=1

check this out...

enderland

02:35

I know

jmort253

There are also people in the Low Quality Queue:

workplace.stackexchange.com/review/low-quality-posts/…

enderland

but poor questions still remain open for many hours if not days

jmort253

But the problem there seems to be just getting things into it....

@enderland thank you for the awesome discourse and bouncing around ideas... not only does this conversation serve to help voters, but I really feel it's given me a lot to think about as an existing mod on this site.

To the other nominees, feel free to address any of these questions as well!

We're looking forward to hearing from you.

Matt Giltaji

02:51

@enderland is a tough act to follow

Monica Cellio

@MattGiltaji be bold. :-) Every candidate should feel free to speak up; you're all going to say at least slightly different things, and it all helps the voters.

Matt Giltaji

There are certain questions which "smell" like they will end up on the hotlist

sometimes there is a little nugget of greatness within them

sometimes not

Smacking them closed quickly would give that nugget time to come out and shine, through community edits

jmort253

@MattGiltaji One possible thought is this: We're a graduated site... assuming we don't steer the ship off a cliff, we're pretty much here to stay (I hope anyway)

so if some possible hot list questions get closed early to get cleaned up, will that hurt anything?

Just a thought....

Matt Giltaji

@jmort253 my thought is that while to the regulars, hotlists are something to be avoided

but to someone new to the site, all that rep flowing in can be very nice

the OP might have spent a lot of time crafting it

and smacking it closed quickly, even with a nice comment, might drive away that new blood

and fresh perspectives

jmort253

@MattGiltaji The idea of close early, close often, is that a problematic post gets closed before it gets answers.

Matt Giltaji

03:03

what seems to work is when one or two community members take a liking to the question, and edit it repeatedly to get it into better shape

jmort253

@MattGiltaji One thing I've learned, experimentation is key.

A change in something doesn't have to mean forever....

Matt Giltaji

very true

jmort253

if something works, we keep doing it... but if it doesn't work, we change again.

I think that's one thing we tend to get stuck on sometimes as people... many of us are afraid of change....

Matt Giltaji

what also is helpful is that the community has a feedback mechanism in the reopen votes

jmort253

I used to be, until I realized that if something sucks, eventually something will change again....

it might be better, it might be worse, but if it does still suck at least it's a different kind of suck :)

@MattGiltaji My goal in closing is always with reopen as an end goal, and that should really be the community's goal as well.

A closed post shouldn't anger anyone... it should be seen as an opportunity to turn a piece of raw material into something useful and lasting.

Matt Giltaji

03:07

are Vtc and reopen votes shared, or a separate pool?

jmort253

@MattGiltaji I think they're in the same pool....

Just, when a post is closed, the close button turns into a reopen button... and of course any edited, closed post gets shipped off to the reopen review queue.

Matt Giltaji

then close early, close often seems to be a great approach

and hopefully a comment with "why" will be sufficient motivation to the OP

or the community , to get it reopened

jmort253

@MattGiltaji The big challenge we face is how to encourage more people to vote to close instead of jumping right in to posting the "I guess" type answers and other ... not so hot content.

Comments play a huge role here.

Matt Giltaji

part of it may be using the binding vote to put it on hold very quickly

if the traffic patterns of the last few weeks are indicative of the larger trend, it seems that we get a flood of stuff around midnight UTC, but relatively few posts during the hours before that

being on pacific time, that coincides with business hours nicely

jmort253

@MattGiltaji I do sometimes, when I'm around... my typical response is comment, close, ask clarifying questions if it's an unclear or broad question, then drop a link in the Water Cooler.

Matt Giltaji

03:15

@jmort253 which is great, except there seem to be well under 10 people who are in teh chat regularly, and 2 of them are you and jmac

probably there are many more who look at transcripts but stay quiet

jmort253

Many good Stack Exchange users eventually end up in chat at one point or another.

Matt Giltaji

ok, to get to some other questions previously raised

we should definitely be encouraging new users, over-commenting to explain things as needed

we do have a comments problem

I've seen threads go ad-hominem attack really fast, those need to be nuked as fast as possible

there are some more gray area comments, where it is closer to a debate about the post, so it does have some merit as far as constructive criticism of the post

the problem is that those are not getting merged back into the posts through edits

or when they are, the comments are not being removed by the owners

and it always feels a bit strange adding a comment to tell other users not to comment

but unlike vote to close/reopen, i don't see a community mechanism to undo deleting a huge swath of comments

maybe with meta threads

and i know that it is plastered all over the place that comments are temporary

but given that the community still pushes back when comments are deleted, I'm not sure what the proper middle ground is there

i have no problem nuking the "really bad" comments, but maybe for the gray areas it needs to be a "these comments will be removed soon.... you have 48 hours to comply" warning of some sort

i haven't looked at the data, so I have no idea how feasible it would be to warn, then circle back in a few days to delete

as for deleting closed questions, I'm not sure how I feel about that

as a low rep user, having the closed questions around as examples of what NOT to ask provides some value

because I would not be able to see deleted questions

but at the same time, if new users are just reading the questions and answers and ignoring the big gray box explaining why it was closed... then it would be better off deleted

I also appreciate how deleting the question nukes any rep

so that should encourage less posting on questions that will be closed

but by the time the question gets deleted, the answers may have been posted weeks, months, or years ago, so it's not as effective a feedback as a more immediate result would be.

jmort253

03:39

@MattGiltaji More people maybe could be aware that flagged comments are auto-deleted

if enough people flag them....

Matt Giltaji

@jmort253 spam and offensive

jmort253

as appropriate... if it meets the official definition of spam or offensive.

Matt Giltaji

if its just one comment out of a pile that is spam/offensive, I see that working

but when you have 5 or 10 comments part of a back and forth, the whole thread needs to be gone

jmort253

136

A: What are the spam and offensive flags, and how do they work?

What makes something spam and when should I flag it? A post should be marked as spam ONLY when it contains an unsolicited advertisement. It should NOT be marked as spam when: The answer contains no useful information, such as an answer that says "I don't care about your problem". Flag an answ...

Matt Giltaji

and flagging each individually would use upp all teh flags for the day

jmort253

03:40

This is the official definition of spam/offensive.

@MattGiltaji No shame in that....

Matt Giltaji

@jmort253 unless you need them later on

jmort253

Just... that could be a lot of flags for mods to handle if they don't reach threshold...

not an easy answer....

I like some comments... 2 to 3 can point out something interesting or highlight something of value in a larger work....

but when it goes beyond that it no longer highlights the Q&A and instead detracts it.

Matt Giltaji

@jmort253 but what is interesting or highlights value for one portion of the community may detract from the Q&A for others

I had an answer where one comment disputed/misunderstood something in the answer

jmort253

@MattGiltaji Were you able to then clarify based on that?

Matt Giltaji

and that comment was buried under 5 more comments basically restating parts of my answer

jmort253

03:46

yeh... that's bad commenting for sure....

Matt Giltaji

@jmort253 I did clarify the answer to include the specific points brought up

jmort253

I picture a logarithmic curve? Where for each comment added, the value of any individual comment approaches zero....

Matt Giltaji

hmm, a good visualization

jmort253

One valuable comment standing alone.... versus one valuable comment buried in 30 comments on 8 answers....

Someone actually timed how long it would take to read everything in one of those posts..... it was something like 22 minutes.... 30 minutes... something like that.

Matt Giltaji

@jmort253 i think that was jmac

jmort253

03:48

On Stack Overflow, when I google for a problem, I can tell in under a minute whether the SO post I've clicked on has my answer....

and I can then move on....

Matt Giltaji

there was more content in the comments than in the question and answers combined

jmort253

if someone spends 30 minutes just to figure out their answer isn't in that post, we've may have failed that person.

SE could do a blog post on that point alone... it's compelling....

Matt Giltaji

@jmort253 in that scenario, I think we definitely failed that person as far as answering their question

jmort253

@MattGiltaji Not if the person is a visitor, not an asker.

How many people do you think visit a Workplace SE question who are here because they searched on Google for that same problem?

Matt Giltaji

to be honest, I am not familar with the stats

jmac likes to tout his "language fluency on resume" question that is #1 on google

but I am not sure how much other questions show up

jmort253

03:53

I can say that the average site... about 90% of traffic comes from search engines.

So for every post we make, for every comment, there's this silent large group of people watching everything we do....

Like the Sixth Sense, but they're people with workplace problems rather than ghosts with unfinished business.

This is what the self-eval reviews were really good at in beta, looking at content from the perspective of the visitor with no actual Stack Exchange account.

For instance, if you are using Chrome, you can browse this page in incognito mode:

19

Q: How can I be productive at unproductive meetings?

I work for a manager that is very fond of meetings. The problem is, however, that more than half of these meetings are both unnecessary and wasteful. For example, we have a regularly scheduled meeting that has become so useless and pointless that our manager has begun to volun-order people to g...

productivity meetings presentations

Not a lot of comments... 5 answers, question is clear and to the point.

Matt Giltaji

04:26

@jmort253 is there any way we can run the self-eval script even though we're out of beta?

I keep learning more and more nuances every time I engage in chat

this has been very interesting, but I think i'm going to call it a night

i look forward to more debates and such next week, hopefully other candidates will jump in

jmort253

05:02

@MattGiltaji Great question. Would you mind creating a Workplace Meta post on that with any questions/thoughts you have?

Rachel

21:00

If I only submit a 2nd/3rd choice for the election, does it still count?

RhysW

how many people are we voting for? just the one in addition to what we have?

Rachel

Yes, just 1

but if your first vote doesn't contribute to a winner, your next vote is used

up to 3

enderland

21:23

A lot of people voted without even waiting for any answers for questions...

Matt Giltaji

people are voting already? wow...

enderland

workplace.stackexchange.com/help/badges/81?page=2

Matt Giltaji

we have 8 days... what is the rush?

Monica Cellio

21:39

@enderland wow. I want to see the answers to the questionnaire first, because while I've preliminarily sorted candidates into "yes/maybe" and "no" piles, (a) it's preliminary and (b) order is undetermined.

Wesley Long

22:08

I've completed the questionnaire. I plan on being available in this chat room this evening to answer questions. Thank you, everyone. - Wes Long

BTW - I love the adoption of Instant Runoff Voting. Very efficient!

Matt Giltaji

yesterday, by Monica Cellio

@WesleyLong - thank you for not running a negative campaign. Could you elaborate on what you said here? Maybe you could point out some cases where you think "back it up" was mis-applied? Are there other rules besides that one that you think aren't being followed on the site?

Wesley Long

@MattGiltaji / Monica Cellio: I had a perfect example, and it was in the referenced post about "Off-Topic Quesitons," which I had answered: http://workplace.stackexchange.com/a/31895/9264

But the comments have been wiped out.

Essentially a user disagreed with my answer, and refused to accept my explanation of why it was fraud (the second paragraph in my answer), so kept throwing "Back it up" at me, which I had already done.

The wiping out of reputation points by deleting questions, rather than closing them, is not consistent with the terms as outlined in the Workplace Tour ( workplace.stackexchange.com/tour ) - and needs to be addressed.

And finally, the rules are in conflict with the meta tag content. The prohibition on "what to do" questions is in direct conflict with having an "Ethics" meta tag. By definition, asking a question on ethics is asking a question on what to do in a certain situation. Those two elements (the rules prohibition and the ethics meta tag) are in direct conflict with each other, and the users have suffered as a result.

That conflict needs to be resolved by the moderators, and no longer at the expense of the users.

I was (and to some degree still am) personally insulted that one of my best answers was wiped off the board. The one I got my "Gold" badge for, actually. I am even more upset that the kid who asked that was "shunned" by the community when he asked a VERY good question about how to handle a workplace situation. I was ashamed of this board that such a thing was done. That's why I'm running - to prevent things like that from happening in the future.

You can keep my rep points, but that kid's question and the other answers in it had the respect of the Community by the large number of votes cast, and it was a bad decision by the moderators to discard all of that.

Matt Giltaji

22:27

I don't have the rep to see what was deleted, do you remember what reasoning was given for why it was deleted?

also, did you raise this specific example on meta?

Wesley Long

Oddly enough, I don't seem to have the rep, either.

The title of the most significant post was "My first freelance project took me twice as long as estimated - How should I proceed?" but it was among several others on "Black Tuesday" (7/22) that were deleted.

My attempts to contact the moderators were apparently lost.

I did not post on meta, as I had reason to believe this was done as a personal attack, initially. However, looking back at it, it seems to have been done by "policy," which in some ways makes it even sadder.

Essentially a kid (19 years old) had a project he was doing as a freelancer run way past deadline, and was not sure how to handle it.

He asked for advice.

I've been that kid (man, that was a long time ago), and while his project was a website, mine was an album for a small band (as an audio engineer).

I gave him the best advice I could, and several other people did as well. It was a VERY good collection of information, especially for kids just starting out.

It was closed to prevent the "Me, too" answers, according to the site, but then was wiped out on 7/22 for reasons that have not been disclosed.

Matt Giltaji

@WesleyLong i think that is an extremely good example of what should be asked on meta

if there is some new question deletion policy put into place, we need to learn about it and discuss it as a community

Wesley Long

@MattGiltaji - You may be right. However, the idea that questions like that are even being discussed for deletion is troubling.

I mean, if we can't help teenagers as they enter the Workplace, what good are we?

I received some very good (and some not-so-good) advice from many mentors in my teens and early twenties that was very valuable. It would seem to me that being able to do the same, now, would be one of the fundamental purposes of TWP.

Matt Giltaji

22:44

my understanding was that deletions were saved for particularly egregious examples of stuff that was NOT adding value to the community

if the question needed work to salvage, it should have been editted

Wesley Long

According to the reason it was closed, there was no policy violation, but just to stop the "Me, too." answers. That made sense. How it moved to the deletion bin is something I have not been able to get an answer from the moderators about. According to them, none of the responses to the private messages they sent me reached them.

I can accept that there may have been a technical glitch, but deleting posts such as that one is something that needs corrected.

I also believe that the inherent conflict between the prohibition on "what to do" questions is incongruent with the "ethics" meta tag. That conflict is probably at the heart of a lot of these deletions.

Matt Giltaji

@WesleyLong I thought that stopping the "me too answers" is just putting it into "protected" or "locked", deleting valuable stuff like that is a mess

Wesley Long

That was my impression, as well.

But I'm not one to yell from the stands. I'm one that wants to dive in and get dirty to fix the problems, so here I stand.

Matt Giltaji

@WesleyLong as long as your meta post isn't a long rant about moderator bias and hypocrisy,I wouldn't think of it as yelling from the stands

Wesley Long

Well, "Black Tuesday" wiped out 16% of my reputation points (over 1000), so raising this issue might have seemed self-serving. I didn't know how to overcome that.

So I'm going to lift that barge, tote that bale, and fix it.

But I do think the conflict of "ethics" vs. the prohibition on "what to do" needs to be tackled. I don't think you can have a site dedicated to the Workplace with a prohibition on "what to do."

Matt Giltaji

22:53

just because you have a vested interest in it doesn't mean that you cannot raise the issue. If it is a respectful question (and you acknowledge your bias), i would imagine that it would be well received.

@WesleyLong (I keep meanign to reply to that but get sidetracked, lol)

i see "what to do" as the question being worded poorly

If the question is "should I do X or Y", than that is not likely to be useful to future visitors

Wesley Long

Other sites are dedicated to "What to do." StackOverflow and Programmers are exactly about What to do. TWP bans it.

Matt Giltaji

But if the question is asked in a way like "what are the repercussions of doing X or doing Y in this scenario", then that encourages mroe useufl answers

Wesley Long

Inconsistent, and adding an "ethics" meta tag to the mix just makes it confusing, and thus frustrating.

Matt Giltaji

@WesleyLong good answers on SO and prog.se say "do X and here's why"

Wesley Long

I wish you could see the question.

Yes, and that was what my answer was, and most of the other answers, as well.

Matt Giltaji

22:57

yeah, where is a 10ker when we need them

Wesley Long

I was really impressed with us as a community with our response to this kid.

workplace.stackexchange.com/users/9264/… - I was close. :)

Transcript for

Workplace 2014 Election Number 2