The Heap™ – Consultancy ©® - 2012-02-16 (page 1 of 2)

1:16 AM

@AaronBertrand it's been suggested to make it tag-related.

and also yes i think you are being targeted

unfortunately whoever is doing it is being clever and not downvoting with enough frequency to make it something that will be easily caught

Aaron Bertrand

@JNK yes but I don't know why there has to be a limit. Why not have all the SE sites in the list?

JNK

its a design limitation

doesnt mean it cant be fixed, they just don't see it as a major issue

Aaron Bertrand

@JNK using the tags to sort by relevance would be a plus, but surely they can easily generate a list of sites and populate the list.

JNK

i think partly its to limit migrations to the non-core sites

so a mod does it

Aaron Bertrand

@JNK well if a lot of folks start flagging for migration the mods might get sick of dealing with it manually. Does SE still not consider dba.se a "core" site?

JNK

1:20 AM

potentially 5 wrong-minded people could flood a smaller site

by core i mean high-traffic

we are getting there but arent like programmers or su

SU/SF/SO are the "Trinity"

first 3 official sites

Aaron Bertrand

@JNK and yes, whoever is doing it is gaming the system and winning. So far. Though the down-vote spree last week seems to have been automatically corrected.

JNK

(trilogy maybe?)

then theres meta and programmers

they are all higher volume and high-frequency for migrations

Aaron Bertrand

@JNK I flagged a question this week but was told there wasn't anything they could do about it. Think it's a canned response because it was worded quite like something I read in here or on meta recently.

JNK

yeah

"The issue was researched but no evidence was found to support it"

i always flag if i get 2 or 3 in quick succession too

declined - a moderator reviewed your flag, but found no evidence to support it

Aaron Bertrand

And that's ok, I get it, they can't investigate. But in cases where there is a question that has multiple answers and only one has down-votes (and it also has up-votes)? Something should be triggered behind the scenes to investigate without involving a human.

JNK

1:23 AM

i kind of agree

but the tags we dont look at are crazy high volume

have you ever watched the php or iphone or android or c# tags?

and the folks in those communities aren't always super bright

so i have to imagine that actually happens with great frequency

have you see the SEDE?

if not i think its something you would be interested to play with some time

they have a SQL console that is connected to the databases for the sites

data.stackexchange.com

you can query the databases directly to get answers to your questions :)

Aaron Bertrand

Here is my decline: declined - Unfortunately we cannot do this. Keep an eye on it; if it gets ridiculous email the team@stackoverflow. Sorry to decline in order to tell you this.

JNK

you know how to do a SQL query right? </sarcasm>

oh that might not be canned

i haven't gotten that one before

Aaron Bertrand

Ooh, maybe I'm special. Maybe there's some way they can see that I was targeted recently and the system did catch it, and they pay closer attention.

JNK

most of the mods read meta frequently

Aaron Bertrand

Anyway it's all very childish and pointless.

JNK

1:27 AM

yeah thats the internet for you

Aaron Bertrand

Ah, that's true, they might have seen me whining about it. So I guess it's possible they did investigate in that case.

Or remembered me when I set the flag more recently.

JNK

very possible. the mods are actually pretty good

the volume of flags they deal with is fairly nuts

like some will do 300+ flags a day

Aaron Bertrand

so do we compare them to chuck norris or jon skeet

who I think are the same person

JNK

they might be

that could be one of their powers

hi simon

so dont get frustrated too much

though i know its a PITA for you especially to spend so much time and then get jerked around

Aaron Bertrand

feels like the cafeteria in grade school some days.

JNK

1:32 AM

not far off

i actually kind of hate it sometimes

like how you can get rep by just asking questiions

and then use it to downvote people who know things

ive learned a lot though so its been a worthwhile experience for me

Aaron Bertrand

yeah I've re-learned several things by seeing how other folks solve the same problems I've been solving for ages.

and then just life things, like don't get too hung up trying to help people.

JNK

and overall the quality of participation is very high

Aaron Bertrand

especially with the number of ingrates and numbnuts.

JNK

i cant think of any other place on the internet you can talk to the level of people you talk to in this network

Aaron Bertrand

yes I agree. I just seem to attract the dregs too.

JNK

1:35 AM

i mean i can ask questions of people like you and gbn and remus and get quick responses

also kiwi

its kind of incredible if you think about it

Aaron Bertrand

I bet I had some argument on here three years ago and someone is still getting back at me via dozens of sock puppet accounts

JNK

i mean eric lippert answers c# questions

very possible

Aaron Bertrand

it is pretty cool. Now if only we could create an SE site where only cool and smart people were allowed.

:-)

JNK

isnt that what dba is for?

Aaron Bertrand

we'll see. I suspect as it gets more popular it will change.

JNK

1:36 AM

im sure it will

itll be a good problem to have though

Aaron Bertrand

Especially if we are inadvertently driving morons over here by aggressively migrating questions. :-)

JNK

i think it could become the go-to place for sql questions

yeah I know

it cuts both ways

Aaron Bertrand

all right I'm out. Good chatting with you as always. Gots to pay attention to the wife.

JNK

gnight

me too

Aaron Bertrand

I've been stuck at 19977 for a while, I'm going to stop watching the pot and let it boil while I'm away.

:-)

JNK

1:38 AM

ill toss you a few

Aaron Bertrand

no no that's not what I was going for

JNK

they will be honest

im sure there are good posts you made that i havent seen today

example:

3

A: NVARCHAR(?) for Email addresses in SQL Server

I've always used 320 based on your latter calculation. It doesn't cost you anything to allow more, unless people abuse it and stuff junk in there. It could cost you to allow less, as you'll have a frustrating users if they have legitimately longer e-mail addresses and now you'll have to go back a...

Aaron Bertrand

check out the drawn out discussion I had with this guy who kept changing his requirements. He's going to go with bit flipping instead.

stackoverflow.com/questions/9301892/sql-2005-tracking-changed-fields-without-maintaining-history/

Hmm, why didn't that paste right?

0

Q: SQL 2005: Tracking changed fields without maintaining history

I have a table named Books which contains some columns. ColumnNames: BookId, BookName, BookDesc, xxx I want to track changes for certain columns. I dont have to maintain history of old value and new value. I just want to track that value is changed or not. What is the best way to achieve thi...

JNK

not sure

Aaron Bertrand

There we go.

JNK

1:40 AM

yeah i watched that one

asked about your downvote

ok 20k now

Aaron Bertrand

Oh yeah, I see that now. Sorry lose track of context quickly.

thanks, talk to you soon

JNK

k later

Aaron Bertrand

3:45 AM

Attention paid, hockey game over, now I'm bored. Questions trickle in slowly outside of east coast business hours.

I've looked through unanswered queue on dba.se but it's slim pickings (for me, at least)

Over on SO there are over 46K unanswered questions under the android tag. I should start adding answers to each one telling them that whatever problem they're solving would be easier on an iPhone.