Ask Ubuntu General Room

TheWanderer

00:01

lel

Ask Ubuntu Meta

0

Q: What to do with copy-pasted answers by a new user?

Just now I've opened the main page of the site, and see that new user, Shawn Moore has copy-pasted effectively the same text to 3 posts (last two of which are apparently duplicates of each other, since the answers on them are effectively the same). How to handle such situation ? Answer itself p...

TheWanderer

BURN THE WITCH

> /**
* If this setting is set (to anything), then all references
* to Gmail on the device must change to Google Mail.
*/
public static final String USE_GOOGLE_MAIL = "use_google_mail";

wat

TheWanderer

00:29

> /**
* I am the lolrus.
* <p>
* Nonzero values indicate that the user has a bukkit.
* Backward-compatible with <code>PrefGetPreference(prefAllowEasterEggs)</code>.
* @hide
*/
public static final String EGG_MODE = "egg_mode";

@edwinksl found in Android ^

I am the lolrus

well I had fun

edwinksl

lel wut

TheWanderer

lolrus

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive body detected: I added a script to /etc/rc.local and now ubuntu doesn't start by TxCraft on askubuntu.com

SmokeDetector

01:51

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Username similar to website in answer: how to cron job a .sh file by Jazuly on askubuntu.com

TheWanderer

yik

Grayson Kent

Did I over edit this question and change the meaning? askubuntu.com/review/suggested-edits/722549

edwinksl

03:01

can a mod make a chatroom for this askubuntu.com/questions/923519/qtwebkit-on-ubuntu-17-04

Nathan Osman

03:55

@edwinksl I think you need a site mod so I can't help. I'm only a chat mod.

edwinksl

yeah

Nathan Osman

Also, my OP3 just crashed

The screen was black after pressing the power button and but it still vibrated the first time I used the fingerprint reader

edwinksl

06:52

wow smokey has been busy

Zanna

is it migrateable or is it the other thing

I'm going back to sleep...

edwinksl

or you could keep cleaning :p

Zanna

done nothing yet except write a boring meta answer

edwinksl

you needed three hands

amazing

jokerdino

07:15

lol can we get thumbs up from all the hands?

Zanna

for you, anything

3

jokerdino

o.O

Zanna

O.o

but you will just have to have faith that I'm giving thumbs up with the invisible third hand...

user136984

07:51

Why are there so many 11.04 questions in the review queue marked as either EOL or that and no longer reproducible? Every day loads more appear, this is becoming really annoying... And the mods seemingly can't do anything about it so it will just stay annoying. Can't they just find who it is and speak to them about what to close and what not to?

user136984

Because seriously, if it was just a few, that's ok, but every day there are loads more...

edwinksl

08:11

?

isn't that how the review system supposed to work?

terdon

@SergiyKolodyazhnyy Cheers :) It's not an election though, SE will choose. And, more importantly, I'm happy with pretty much anyone on that page so it's a win-win.

user136984

Well, yes, but if we have one user who VTCs like 50 questions a day which shouldn't be VTCed, it becomes incredible clogged up and annoying for reviewers as it really wastes their time. With a situation like this a moderator should just find out who it is and let them know that we don't VTC old EOL questions nor ones as being unreproducible when the asker has said nothing of the sort, I guess they do it just because they are old.

user136984

But really it's getting rather annoying and adding on another half hour to the review work that I do every day.

edwinksl

@terdon triple diamonds :O

TheWanderer

08:46

2 days ago, by jokerdino

do me?

Zanna

@ParanoidPanda how can it be adding time to what you spend reviewing? you can only review 20

@TheWanderer ;)

TheWanderer

:p

that doesn't look like sleeping

user136984

@Zanna: I don't just review what's in the queue, I start in Tools so that I can do more.

user136984

Then once I've done in there, I get all the one vote ones in the queue.

Zanna

well if it's annoying you, then don't do it!

it's your time

nobody is forcing you to spend it doing review

user136984

08:50

But I am wasting my time if I go into review and most need to be kept open, so I never get to the stuff that doesn't.

user136984

As there aren't that many reviewers.

Zanna

and this is a new thing, it's only today a bunch of unanswered 11.04 questions went into review

user136984

That could become a problem for closing things.

Zanna

and they should not be kept open

they should be closed if they are version specific because they are unanswerable

user136984

It has been discussed many times, they should be kept open even if they are version specific, if the version was on-topic at the time.

Zanna

08:52

NO they should not

user136984

Otherwise the amount of question to be closed each time a version goes EOL would just be too much.

TheWanderer

I think @Zanna wants the questions closed as no-repro

user136984

Well, you can take this up in Meta, as I did many times, but the community is stuborn.

TheWanderer

which is valid, according to @terdon

Zanna

^

TheWanderer

08:52

(I think it was terdon)

Zanna

and according to meta

user136984

Unless it changed very recently?

Zanna

no

I'm not saying I agree with seeking out these questions to close them in a bunch

but if they are in the queue, they should be closed

unanswerable questions should be closed

TheWanderer

someone is improperly VTCing them as EOL though

Zanna

besides, whoever did it picked a great moment

TheWanderer

08:54

and I think it's Peachy

Zanna

the queue hit zero for me earlier this week

yeah it's no-repro, not EOL

user136984

I heard that even if that is the case, if they were on-topic and solvable at the time, then they are to be kept open. I know it's silly, I argued against it many times, but that's the way they say it should be.

Zanna

no!

that's silly and wrong!

user136984

But it's the way the moderators and community want it to be.

Zanna

there are only 41 unanswered questions left tagged 11.04 - we can close them all easily

@ParanoidPanda no it's not, you are misguided

user136984

08:56

You can find many discussions about it on Meta which all end up in the same resolution.

Zanna

if the questions are unanswered, and version specific, they can be closed as no-repro

you are misreading the discussions

user136984

I don't think that was specified in them.

user136984

But maybe something has changed for the better now.

user136984

Although, the quantity of those questions will be huge, you can't find them all.

user136984

I went round doing it once and got told off.

Zanna

08:58

the quantity in this case is 41

that is very manageable

user136984

Not all 11.04 questions are tagged as such.

Zanna

5 of us could close them all in one day if we wanted to

user136984

And that's not the only EOL release.

Zanna

yeah but whoever is doing it is doing it by tag

yeah I'm not saying we should go on an EOL question purge frenzy

terdon

@Zanna Um. It is?

25

Q: Please don't flag old questions as EOL

This discussion recently popped up on Active Questions because of a new answer. Ever since then, there have been EOL flags in the Close Vote queue for questions that were not EOL when asked; there are some from 2015, 2012, 2011, etc. None of these flags should have been cast, but I believe that ...

discussion

I do agree that I see no benefit in closing old questions just because they're now EOL.

TheWanderer

09:00

they should be closed as no-repro, not as EOL

terdon

If no-repro it is, yes.

Zanna

exactly!

terdon

But not just because they happen to mention an EOL version.

TheWanderer

someone (I think Peachy) is closing old questions as EOL that should be closed as no-repro

user136984

But what if it is still reproducible on that version? Do we still close it as such?

terdon

09:01

In other words, that the question was asked about an EOL version is not a reason to close. If you can be sure that the issue mentioned is no longer relevant to current versions, then it is indeed non-repro and can be closed.

Zanna

well everyone else is voting correctly, as no-repro

user136984

@TheWanderer: That's a silly name. :P

terdon

Kinda hard to know that most of the time though.

Zanna

@ParanoidPanda we don't use that version, so it's no repro

user136984

Well, if someone could have just mentioned that when we last had this discussion, then that would have been great!

TheWanderer

09:02

@terdon if I link you some of the questions, can you see who cast the original vote?

Zanna

many are closed now

terdon

@TheWanderer Only by closing it so the names appear.

Zanna

so you can see from who voted first

TheWanderer

because I'm pretty sure it's Peachy

OK

user136984

I brought this up with others many many times and I was always told by the community and moderators alike to leave the old stuff open. Nobody ever mentioned that it was just another close reason.

user136984

09:03

So I think this is probably a recent development.

TheWanderer

no

Zanna

@ParanoidPanda see my answer to the question terdon linked

user136984

Otherwise it is strange that it never came up.

Zanna

it's not new, it was in one of Oli's old answers iirc

TheWanderer

@terdon can you mod-ping Peachy here?

user136984

09:04

@TheWanderer Well, then somebody could have mentioned instead of just telling me to leave them open.

TheWanderer

no

:p

Zanna

also @ParanoidPanda I thought I explained it to you when I voted to close an EOL question of yours?

TheWanderer

@terdon close this one as no-repro and we'll see who's voting askubuntu.com/review/close/722479

terdon

@ParanoidPanda 90% of the cases you should leave them open. It's relatively rare that problems are version-specific anyway and even more rare that you can know that this issue was specific to that release.

Zanna

that's a terrible question haha

TheWanderer

09:05

askubuntu.com/review/close/722484

STOP CLOSING AS EOL

user136984

But it's unmanageable to close all those EOL questions because there are probably more EOL ones than non-EOL ones as there are more EOL versions than non-EOL versions, we can't find and do this with them all. Anyway, those questions are left alone, nobody does anything with them, they don't hurt anyone, why bring them all up and just waste reviewers rather than concentrating on the new stuff where we are needed now?

terdon

In the vast majority of issues, the version used is completely irrelevant to the question.

TheWanderer

> put on hold as off-topic by Martin Schröder, Sumeet Deshmukh, karel, Paranoid Panda, TheWanderer just now

Zanna

so stop your false accusations ;)

TheWanderer

Martin Schröder, Sumeet Deshmuhk, karel, Paranoid Panda

you guys tsk tsk tsk

Zanna

09:06

Peachy knows better

user136984

Yes just now I did that. To hurry up the closing to see.

user136984

Yes, I didn't think it was Peachy, but the name does sound like it.

user136984

Considering they only edited one of the questions and didn't even add the tag in or anything.

TheWanderer

Martin Schröder >_>

@terdon close this one too askubuntu.com/review/close/722471

Zanna

that one is unclear

see these questions really deserve to be closed

TheWanderer

09:09

I wanna see who VTCed as EOL

user136984

But if the correct reason is not chosen then it helps no one.

Zanna

nobody apart from the original voter is using the wrong reason

user136984

@Zanna: Do you propose that we close all questions which are no-repro and old like this? Wouldn't you all get rather grumpy with me if I went and shoved 50 old questions into the queue a day? And if someone else joined in, then that would really overwhelm the review queue and we wouldn't be able to deal with the new stuff that actually needs dealing with.

Zanna

if those questions get roomba'd, it sure helps people a lot not to get crappy useless search results

TheWanderer

well the one I linked two links ago, 4 votes were EOL

terdon

09:11

@Zanna I still see trigger happy closing.

Zanna

@ParanoidPanda I've said several times that I don't propose that

terdon

Unless you know the problem disappears if you upgrade, don't vote to close. Don't vote to close as EOL and don't vote to close as non-repro.

TheWanderer

OK so it isn't Peachy

it's Martin Schröder

Zanna

@terdon what do you mean?

terdon

@Zanna That I found a few posts where people had voted to close as non-repro but with absolutely no evidence that it isn't in fact reproducible as far as I could tell.

user136984

09:13

@Zanna: Then why is this fine? It's pointless to only do a few of them. Especially if it's now blocking up the queue. What if they start doing what I just suggested? When does it become too much? Where do we draw the line? We need to have a proper policy with dealing with all this. If we had an auto-closing system based on tags that had to be applied for versions then maybe it would be more manageable.

user136984

And if it then asked them if they still have the issue on supported versions when that version goes EOL, unfortunately though I don't think that's going to happen.

Zanna

@terdon I actually think the burden of proof should be the other way in the case of old, abandoned, unanswered questions! They are not useful and we can't answer them, so we should close them

terdon

@Zanna How do you know? Someone could come by and answer them at any second.

Theoretically.

Zanna

@ParanoidPanda feel free to propose such a system

terdon

I so, so agree with Oli's take here:

24

A: Please don't flag old questions as EOL

I agree with head post and I'd go further. If in doubt, leave the old stuff alone. I know there are strong views, particularly about our "unanswered questions" number but it's just a statistic and "fixing" it by closing and deleting a load of old stuff is only conditioning that number. Removin...

Zanna

09:16

Oli just says don't bother

and I want to bother

because old stuff really does matter

user136984

@Zanna: I might do, but I doubt SE would just have it for one site or a few. If you've ever proposed anything on main Meta you will know that you get instantly downvoted for everything like 30 times and people continue downvoting years afterwards even if the idea was rejected and there is no reason to downvote any more. :D

terdon

@Zanna No, he says there's no benefit whatsoever in wasting our time trying to find old things that were OK when asked but aren't so today.

Zanna

well somebody else did that

and from what I see, most of those questions are bad

and it's a good thing to close them

user136984

The amount of old bad questions will be overwhelmingly more than the current ones that need to be dealt with, so even if you take it upon yourself to deal with the old stuff, you are stuffing the review queue with the old stuff and really blocking up the system so that we only focus on the old stuff and then the new stuff will get out of control. So it's better to make a compromise and just deal with the stuff that's actually in the now.

user136984

It's really pointless and just clogs up the review queue so that the stuff that needs to be dealt with now doesn't, at least not so quickly.

Zanna

09:22

well @ParanoidPanda I have been cleaning old stuff for many months now

I very very strongly don't think it's pointless

because everyone I meet tells me they find the answer on AU before they have to Ask

that means the old stuff matters

user136984

Yes, and you are a really nuisance that others have complained about. You're stuffing the front page with constant old stuff and it's really rather annoying. We want to see the new stuff, not mountains of old stuff.

Zanna

the site is everything, not only today

terdon

@Zanna Which does seem like an argument against removing old stuff.

Zanna

it is indeed

TheWanderer

I need to fix my left click

Zanna

09:23

but it's an argument for removing BAD stuff

that's what I try to do

improve stuff that can be improved, remove stuff that is bad

old or new

@ParanoidPanda I don't think I put mountains of old stuff in the queue

But if I'm a nuisance and nobody wants me around, then fine

terdon

@Zanna Great. All I'm saying is that the fact that something was asked incidentally mentioning a version that's EOL today should not mean it should be closed.

Zanna

I'm too sleepy for this conversation in that case

user136984

Not necessarily in the queue, but on the front page, it's just keeps getting stuffed and overwhelmed with old stuff from your editing of posts that don't matter any more. We should focus on the new, not the old that would be just overwhelming for the site to try to deal with now with the system we have.

terdon

@Zanna When did this become about you?

Nobody said you're a nuisance!

Zanna

3 mins ago, by Paranoid Panda

Yes, and you are a really nuisance that others have complained about. You're stuffing the front page with constant old stuff and it's really rather annoying. We want to see the new stuff, not mountains of old stuff.

that's when it became about me

@terdon I agree with you.

user136984

09:27

That was just in response to this:

user136984

4 mins ago, by Zanna

well @ParanoidPanda I have been cleaning old stuff for many months now

Zanna

but the other person in this conversation is saying something else

user136984

And I have spoken to other users who hold the same view.

user136984

@Zanna: But anyway, that was just a response to what you said, there's no need to focus on it.

user136984

This is not about you, that was just a response to something you said about what you were doing.

user136984

09:28

You brought you up, I commented my views, that's all.

terdon

@ParanoidPanda I don't care what that was a response to, that's not an acceptable tone to take.

@ParanoidPanda No, you called another user "a nuisance". You made it about her.

And that is not cool. All of us are doing our best to help the site in the way we see fit.

user136984

It's my personal view which I'm allowed to hold, I find the spamming of the site with old questions and mass closing very negative and not helpful to the site.

user136984

I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't have put it that way.

user136984

It was just a thing of the moment.

terdon

@ParanoidPanda You're allowed to hold any view you like but you need to take care expressing it. If you can't be civil, then don't express your view at all.

@Zanna I'm sorry about that. I'm doing many things in parallel right now (including work) so I missed that. I would have stepped in earlier. This is absolutely not about you but only about deciding the best way to handle such situations.

user136984

09:33

I'm sorry, but that is my honest view, looking back now I don't know how else I could have expressed it, it was directly commenting on something she said, where she said she was doing it and no one was complaining so it's fine, my opinion is otherwise so I contracted that. Maybe I could have put it in a different way, but I'm sorry, I can't find the other way. I don't think I'm being uncivil, I'm just expressing my view, she's not the nuisance, but it is a nuisance to me what she's doing.

user136984

That's all, I can't really take back what I said now, but I would have been clearer about what was the nuisance to me and I would maybe use a different word if I could travel back in time.

Zanna

@terdon no it's fine :)

terdon

@ParanoidPanda Note the difference between "what you're doing is a nuisance" and you are a nuisance. That's the key.

user136984

@terdon: It was a thing of the moment, I didn't put it the best way, I'm sorry for that, but now we know what I meant so can we please move on?

user136984

I apologised for putting it in such a way that is more confrontational than I meant it to be, so there's no point concentrating on this any more.

user136984

09:36

@Zanna: I hope that you understand, I didn't mean you, I was just commenting on what you said you were doing. :)

Zanna

I was told by some folks that I was making a mess of the front page when I was cleaning tags. Seth said that editing old posts should be done slowly so as not to mess up the front page. I completely agree with that, and now I always try to make sure I edit slowly when doing that kind of work

including the non-https image cleanup, which we were told to do by the folks on high afaik

and including the bit.ly edits that had to be done by hand, because Shog's script wasn't able to catch them all

user136984

@Zanna I thought that was all automated? Maybe not though...

Zanna

I vote to close old questions at a rate of 10-20 per week I'd guess, as part of our self-answered question query cleanup

@ParanoidPanda a lot was automated, but there were 600 posts that were left behind and had to be done by hand

user136984

@Zanna Ok, it would be good if we could do them silently without them appearing on the front page, but as we can't, slowly does it unless they are really old and it just doesn't matter. Though of course you can, if you really want, just slowly so as it doesn't affect others who don't want it. :)

Zanna

slowly does it is the principle I've been employing

I tend to speed up a little if I can when the CV queue hits the bottom!

user136984

09:47

Ok, but regarding old no-repro questions, there will be hundreds if not thousands of them, and really there's no point, they're old and lost. Even though you may not be doing that, this started because we not all happy that some other users are doing it and clogging things up. It would be more ideal if this has to be done for a mod to just go through and do it instantly for them all rather than having them have to enter the review queue.

Zanna

mods have enough to do

there are enough of us janitorial types, just about, to manage

user136984

Well, maybe you can do that then if you become one one day. :)

Zanna

hmm :/

user136984

A moderator that is, not a janitor. :P

Zanna

I don't like making unilateral decisions about anything higher-level than the formatting and grammar of a post

user136984

09:52

Well, you wouldn't necessarily have to do more than that if you didn't want to and keep general law and order regarding spam. Though it might be expected of you. Anyway, it was just a thought. :)

Zanna

But since the things I vote to close get closed, I can get the idea I'm on the right track

OK, the chat has been about me for way too many minutes/messages :S I'm going to return to the queues

user136984

@Zanna: See you around then.

user136984

I need to go and do some work as well.

user136984

:)

Zanna

\o

user136984

09:57

Nice sunny day outside too.

user136984

Might go for a walk in the park some time.

cl-netbox

11:36

Hello :)

TheWanderer

>_>

TheWanderer

11:52

I see a byte

C_C

Ubuntu Questions on U&L

12:15

0

Q: How to calibrate and adjust colour in ubunto 14.04?

I've tried colour settings, dispcalgui and couple more stuff. I've looked around on askubantu too but there isn't an interactive method which renders the applied change. Help!

ubuntu

Android Dev

12:36

The CIA has lots of ways to hack your router

See, here's the problem:

No matter how secure you think you are,

You're really not

If you want to be completely secure, you don't carry a cell phone and you don't use the internet

But I don't think most people are willing to go that far :D

TheWanderer

gonthag yes

Android Dev

Lol, edited

TheWanderer

13:20

YOUTUBE IS DOWN

terdon

@TheWanderer No it isn't.

TheWanderer

500 for me

Zanna

downforeveryoneorjustme.com/https://www.youtube.com

TheWanderer

@Zanna the site is up

Zanna

... clearly I need more sleep

I feel like a zombie today

Takkat

13:29

those days when microsleep lasts for hours.

TheWanderer

YOUTUBE IS BACK

AGH NEVERMIND

Android Dev

@TheWanderer Down for me too

TheWanderer

HALP

it signed me out

Byte Commander

@Zanna Why did you edit that question here and converted the included answer into an invalid, hidden HTML tag? askubuntu.com/posts/894587/revisions

@TheWanderer And I see a wanderer...

TheWanderer

>_>

Byte Commander

13:37

<_<

TheWanderer

:>

Android Dev

youtube is still down

@TheWanderer nordic.businessinsider.com/…

15,000 people say it's down

still down

terdon

US outage, apparently. That's a nice change.

Byte Commander

Works for me. Europe seems not affected, or at least not Germany

terdon

Yeah, same here.

TheWanderer

13:51

pls

Android Dev

@terdon a nice change from what?

still down

terdon

@AndroidDev It is very common that videos are available for the US and not for the rest of the world so it's kinda fun to see the tables reversed.

TheWanderer

this isn't content restriction

Android Dev

Also down in Peru apparently

TheWanderer

and Mexico

Android Dev

13:57

Also down for some people in the UK

New Mac ransomware!

See, Mac isn't immune to malware

People can think whatever they want

But it isn't

Byte Commander

surprise surprise

Uhm... could it be that the archive.getdeb.net repository is down since yesterday too?

terdon

@TheWanderer I know. But let me get my schadenfreude where I can.

Android Dev

@terdon Hrm, well if it isn't down for you that probably means they have multiple datacenters across the globe and not just in the US

TheWanderer

@terdon nein

TheWanderer

14:13

BACK

cl-netbox

NICE

TheWanderer

LOL

cl-netbox

:D :D :D

Android Dev

14:44

I can confirm it's back :)

cl-netbox

NICE

Android Dev

@cl-netbox Now it's down for Japan though :D

And Australia

cl-netbox

@AndroidDev Hi :) How are you doing ? :)

Android Dev

@cl-netbox Not bad. And you?

cl-netbox

@AndroidDev quite good - thank you :)

Zanna

14:55

@ByteCommander I removed it without destroying it

So they or I would be able to add it as an answer more easily

I don't think I do that any more though...

Nathan Osman

So my carrier got their hands on some new spectrum.

Android Dev

And....

Byte Commander

15:10

@Zanna IMHO hiding something never helps...

Nathan Osman

@AndroidDev hopefully my phone's radio supports it this time.

Android Dev

@NathanOsman Ah. So btw rotation in CE is broken atm because we're migrating from overriding the default rotation behavior to using the default rotation behavior because the sliding menus break with non-standard rotation behavior.

TheWanderer

probably 600MHz @NathanOsman lol

Zanna

@ByteCommander it's trying to show the user what to do rather than explain at length (I'm a teacher...) but I don't remember doing that for a while anyway. I deleted my comment so idek what I advised

jokerdino

15:34

no need to keep a copy when we have revision history

Zanna

15:57

So just delete it you mean?

jokerdino

Make a comment, if OP no respond, then edit out the answer and make a CW post.

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