The Whiteboard - 2013-01-03 (page 1 of 2)

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12:53 AM

@JimmyHoffa The query I linked to continues to say that I'm one edited post away from getting the badge...

I will work on it when I get the chance :)

6 hours later…

6:54 AM

@Omega as far as I understand such question would be of Guessing Game kind - not quite welcome here: "...guessing game questions do not meet our goal of making the Internet better. Quite the opposite, in fact."

7 hours later…

2:13 PM

@YannisRizos there i Finally Posted a Question!

0

Q: How is Chase Mobile Deposit Secure?

Chase has this App that allows you to snap a picture of a check with your phone and deposit that check into your Account. How do they prevent: Someone from depositing a check that's not written to them? (I can’t imagine this app is smart enough read the scribble “to” Filed) Are they leaving it...

@Morons I didn't even think about the fact that your question is terribly off-topic (in it's current form, not sure how it could become a constructive version actually..) but I answered anyway because I was too slow to think about that fact based on the fact that you have high Rep I figured you'd know better :P

Either way, read my answer, I think you'll have a Duh moment.

Then delete the question unless you can figure out how to make it constructive... I can't..

@Morons you think that the picture you use with your phone won't be looked at by a banker when the automated account-number-finder on the server side (yes it's surely not on the phone, but I guarantee you this exists on the server) fails?

@JimmyHoffa They have have some kind of automated verification...

It fails to figure out where the debit end is to come from and it will be put up for review

That's what I just said, no?

I know that if some one complains there is a system in place to track everything...

But this seem like too important of a task to leave for a reactive system, they must be proactive

2:29 PM

Think of it this way, it's more secure than any number of publically available APIs used for executing banking transactions against arbitrary credit cards or bank numbers which shopping cart developers use all the time

because it has a picture to trace

and of course it's proactive, the proactiveness goes like this: You use a phony picture, when remittance batch is run, the automated process can't find the bank number in the picture

thus the debit doesn't happen until review is completed by a banker to identify the bank number manually from the picture

If you are talking about people taking pictures of other folks checks, that falls under the same rules as how I got a call from my credit card company one day asking if I commited 3 particular transactions which I hadn't. How did they know those weren't me? No idea, extremely complex smart algorithms used for analyzing my habits.

For all I know the CC has a bloody GPS in it that's logged with the transaction (that would actually be genius wouldn't it?) so they know where the CC is when each transaction is logged

@Morons are you satisfied yet that the chase mobile deposit doesn't change the security of the banking landscape from what it was before chase mobile deposit?

You or I could freely write a shopping cart application right now and start punching in arbitrary banking numbers for ourselves. Stand in a checkout line at any store and with your smart-phone you can snap pictures of other peoples credit cards when they pull them out and start buying stuff online with the # from the pic you took

@JimmyHoffa that's a good possibility\probaility, they are looking at deposit trend like the CC co's

Thnaks

There's security holes all over the way we do banking in this day and age, but that's because the banking industry feels (whether it is or not) safe that their analysis algorithms will successfully pick up on fraud before people get screwed.

@ThomasOwens i need to wait to days to delete the question? whats the rational behind that? Answers can be deleted instantly

@Morons No idea. I believe it only applies to questions with answers, though.

2 hours later…

4:19 PM

@Morons I think that's only questions with answers. Deleting a question with answers prevents the users that took the time to answer from getting any rep at all, while if you wait a day or so then the answers have a chance to get rep, and if they get rep the question can't get deleted.

Its probably one of the many steps they have to encourage people to answer questions. I wouldn't like to spend the time answering a new question, only to have it deleted right after I post my incredibly awesome answer. :)

Interesting, that Q was migrated to ITSec.se

would have figured it too open-ended even for them

@Rachel I though you Quit! Welcome Back! we are glad (and lucky) to have you!

@Morons Eh? I haven't noticed any significant absence (more significant than is normal) from @Rachel

@Morons I have quit :p

Really?

That blows.

4:31 PM

@JimmyHoffa Yeah, I stopped answering or asking questions a long time ago. Quit the blog too back in March or so

I still visit meta and chat every once in a while though to see if things have changed, and will help reopen questions where I can

I have vote to reopen questions privileges as of the other day! Woot! Maybe I can have an impact around here

You Know @user281377 is Still active

I'll give it a shot anyway.

programmers.stackexchange.com/users/6617/…

@JimmyHoffa Congrats :) I usually frequent the "Tools" section to find questions with reopen votes (programmers.stackexchange.com/…)

It's better than the Review queue imo since you can vote stuff out of the reopen queue, but not out of the reopen list in 10k tools

@Morons That's AmmoQ

Apparently he changed his status during the Contest over some dispute related to it. Not sure if that's the only thing he's angry about though

4:35 PM

@Rachel what you have a Cross ref Table of User Names & Numbers?

@Morons No, I just remember him because I thought he was one of the ones who left because of the changes to the site, and got was corrected by someone :)

@gnat you're probably reading a bit much into this in terms of a script "telling" you anything. :) the posts were edited (and significantly improved) and undeleted at which point something happened. I'm looking at what exactly it was that produced your specific rep history as a result.

Fraud detection scripts don't run on deleted posts, but we might be hitting an edge case here because posts were undeleted.

@Rachel that's nice but I haven't got moderator tools permissions, that probably requires like 4* the rep I've been able to achieve in a year. I don't suspect to ever get that much rep, that would require far more gaming than I care to bother with.

Always wonder how people have tens of thousands of rep. I've managed just over 3k in something like a year. At this rate I would require 10 years to get 30k, and year 20-30k is pretty common site around here

@JimmyHoffa Oh, for some reason I thought you meant you got 10k rep :)

@JimmyHoffa 20-30k reps are not Common

4:43 PM

@JimmyHoffa There was a glorious time when there were a lot of questions I could answer and I was here all the time. Hence the 20k I'm now sitting on. These days I just collect rep from occasional votes on old posts.

programmers.stackexchange.com/users

20-30k reps are common on SO. but not here

@JimmyHoffa there are a total of 8 people with a rep of 30k+

@AnnaLear Yeah I'm the same way now. I used to try answering questions, but after so many of the questions I found interesting started getting closed (some in the middle of me writing my answer!) I just stopped bothering

@JimmyHoffa People have too much time on their hands.

But it's hard on this particular site.

@Rachel I can't say I ever had that problem.

Well, sometimes, but not egregiously so.

@DavidWallace It is.... Actually I wrote some queries a while back for one of @Morons questions on meta, and one of them shows user participation. If you look at this graph, you can see the number of votes on this site has gone way down

4:48 PM

Wow, that's really dramatic. We're a tough crowd!

@DavidWallace I run some of the queries from my answer to that question every once in a while. Shows some interesting statistics and graphs

For example, open vs closed questions per day....

data.stackexchange.com/programmers/query/69756#graph

Rachel, as you know, I've always found the very existence of this site to be something of an enigma.

@DavidWallace You're preaching to the choir here :) (meta.stackoverflow.com/a/153093/158605)

yeah david, I feel the same way. Reading the FAQ honestly makes it sound like a clone of SO or CS or DBA.

@Rachel You should end the date range at 31/12/2012, so that you don't get that spurious dip right at the end.

4:51 PM

@DavidWallace Yeah, I've edited that answer too many times as it is though, so didn't want to bump it yet another time

@Rachel Yes, I remember that discussion. I poked the bear a little, arguing with Yannis like that.

and our amusing discussion in that other chat room of course.

@DavidWallace I remember that now :)

You skipped your lunch, if I recall correctly. Just to talk to all the lovely people there!

Hrrrm yeah that happens sometimes when I get into something interesting

Not skipping my lunch today though! I'm hungry and it's making me distracted

Isn't "making you distracted" the whole purpose of this chat room?

4:57 PM

Well I visited the chat room first because I was waiting for something to run....

Then saw @Morons question and figured I'd give it a shot at editing

Then you guys started talking :)

Yes, how could we!

It sure feels like clicking that "Leave open" button in the review queue

*nice

Though that doesn't cancel out a close-vote does it?

It just acts as a neutral leaving the question for more close votes

@JimmyHoffa I think if a question gets enough "Leave Open" votes, it gets removed from the Close queue (I think it's 3, but am not sure)

Although often I try to see if I can edit the question to fix the reason it was closed in the first place

Honestly, now that I can see into the close-vote queue it's saddening, I've left open on like 5 questions already that really needed no editting, had up-votes and were frankly good questions and should have not been in the close-vote queue

It's no wonder people flee this place

it doesn't help that there are lots of terrible questions that should be closed

5:06 PM

I don't disagree, but I think some folks are just going bananas from what I see. I mean, if a question has multiple up-votes and multiple answers already why are people close-voting it, clearly more people than just them want the question here

@JimmyHoffa Its been driving me crazy for years now. I'm actually a lot happier now that I've (mostly) quit participating in the site

Not to mention being answerable, descriptive, and on-topic

@Rachel I just ignore it generally. When I pay attention to it I want to start swearing at the over-active minority. They're like an immune system out of control killing the host.

The problem is there is a set of question guidelines that define a good question for SE, but Programmers was never meant to be so strict about those guidelines, so the community was built around one set of guidelines but then the site's scope changed and the actual "rules" say something else

I just ignore it and enjoy answering questions when I have a chance to share my knowledge.

So we have a lot of old content which gives a very misleading view of the site's scope

5:08 PM

@Rachel That's not exactly right. Some of the guidelines SE has now are because of Programmers and its early days.

@JimmyHoffa I did that for a while, but got too frustrated with how new users were treated all the time

@AnnaLear Hrrmm that's true, I think the "six subjective guidelines" came about from Programmers

yeah, that's the main one. The whole "not constructive" thing evolved out of Prog.SE. It's not without flaws (and it's currently pretty badly misused on SO in particular), and we're working on making some improvements to that.

@AnnaLear I preferred the one guideline of "Does this make the internet a better place" :)

You could always come back and start showering expletives on everyone who feels like they are the community and need to go around controlling the place.

@JimmyHoffa I'm not into starting arguments, I'd prefer to try and fix the problem in the first place

5:11 PM

I never said anything about arguments, I just refer to swearing a lot :)

@JimmyHoffa It would be easier to ignore me and discount me as a troll if I did that ;)

They do that anyway

at least the swearing part makes it fun for you

But I genuinely want to help and think some of my ideas are good ones

@JimmyHoffa I have fun helping people :)

Good luck, I prefer the peanut gallery when the balance of power is twisted like it is here

And by "people" I am referring to users that come to the site seeking answers to their questions, not the existing crowd of users who want a site that conforms to a specific set of rules :)

5:13 PM

an underactive majority and overactive minority

@JimmyHoffa That's totally how I feel about the really active meta users :)

If the majority of site users would participate more in meta, I think we'd get a much better "community" view of matters

That's the whole site. The majority of users don't want it to be the way that minority wants it, but the majority doesn't police 10% as much as that minority.

@JimmyHoffa Have you gone through some of the links in this question?

17

Q: What is the history behind the site scope change from NPR to "conceptual questions about software development"?

How did the topic of this site to change from "Not-Programming-Related" to "conceptual questions about software development"? I've tried looking through meta questions to find where the change in site scope was discussed, but haven't found much. The biggest change in site scope I see on meta is ...

discussion site-definition site-history

The Programmers community didn't actually want the site scope change. That was something SE decided upon

Most of us only wanted some of the nonsense questions to stop (like "what are the best socks for programmers")

I get that, but the current scope is actually ammenable to a good site. We just need the overactive minority to stop trying to close good questions within that scope like this one right here

1

Q: How to create view models - Constructor, Factory Method, ...?

I'm trying to lead a charge for re factoring our rather bloated controllers. We currently have a BaseModel from which all our other models inherit. The BaseModel contains things common to all pages, such as the page title, css files needed, current user. Each constructor has a private method to ...

programming-practices asp.net-mvc model

and this one

5

Q: is there anything wrong with copying terms and conditions from another product?

I am creating a web application and would like to have a basic terms and conditions. There is a similar application which has very good, well thought out terms and conditions which I would like to use as a starting point for mine. Since T&C's are really about intent and not necessarily a cre...

terms-of-service

these didn't need edits, or anything. They're perfectly valid questions. Like I said, the overactive minority is like a diseased immune system attacking the healthy tissue, those questions are good yet people try to close them anyway

the current programmers scope can be a great site if people quit trying to shut down stuff within it's bloody scope

Regardless of my vote to "leave open" this one was closed anyway, even though the question is totally valid and basically boils down to "Do people often unit test code down to the hardware-level code of actual drivers, if so how?"

3

Q: Does anyone actually do TDD on low level components? Are there real life examples?

If you were writing a low level driver or OS components/kernels how would you do it? The osdev.org folks seem to think that the important bits are not meaningfully testable this way see http://wiki.osdev.org/Unit_Testing I have read some discussions where people thought differently, but I have ...

unit-testing tdd development-methodologies operating-systems

@JimmyHoffa This question just got closed. I suspect it's because it really needs an answer from a lawyer to be accurate, and its not something a regular programmer could be expected to answer "expertly"

5:23 PM

Licenses are completely within the realm of the site, if not take it out of the FAQ. Goes back to my point, the scope is fine, people just don't accept the scope that's given

@JimmyHoffa This one was probably closed because it was asking for a list of examples, and asking for an external list of anything on SE usually gets closed

all license questions would require a lawyer to answer expertly

I just came across the first two in the review queues. I don't know why the view models one was voted for closure, and the second is off-topic since terms of service has nothing to do with development.

@ThomasOwens seriously take licenses out of the bloody FAQ if they're off-topic

@JimmyHoffa Licenses are on-topic.

5:24 PM

Why does the minority of this site reject the FAQ so much?

Terms and Conditions are part of a license

Licenses specifically refer to the GPL, MIT License, BSD License, EPL, Mozilla License, and so on. Not terms of use or EULAs.

So some licenses

Licenses that a professional software developer would be expected to know about and interact with when creating software.

if it's only those licenses that are allowed to be spoken of then that should go in the FAQ, right now it says licenses and EULAs (which everything you just listed is a EULA) are licenses

We interact with EULAs all the time, have you ever tried to redistribute any MS software with an installer? You need to read the EULA to find out the redistribution rights.

So any non-MS EULA you're saying?

No. If you had a question about including MS products in your distribution, that would be on-topic.

5:27 PM

These are arbitrary rules you guys make up to just invent the site in your own image rather than in the image of the accepted FAQ scope

You just said you don't allow EULAs though, so which is it?

EULA refers to the thing the user agrees to when installing software. Not distribution or use of libraries or source code.

@JimmyHoffa I rewrote this one in a way that would probably be considered "constructive". Take a look and add your reopen vote if you agree

3

Q: Is it a good idea to do TDD on low level components?

I'm considering writing a low level driver or OS components/kernels. The osdev.org folks seem to think that the important bits are not meaningfully testable this way, but I have read some discussions where people thought differently. I've looked around, but have failed to find any real life exam...

unit-testing tdd development-methodologies operating-systems

The EULA has the redistribution rights in it

I can't re-open, not enough rep

would take me ~3 years to get that rep at my current rate

rather, 2 more years I guess

Oh, thought you could vote to reopen

It's basically the same question, but with the request for real-life examples taken out and the question rephrased a bit to clarify the core question

I guess that's part of what drove me away from this place. People would rather downvote and vote to close than actually read the question, remove the "not-constructive" parts from it, and turn it into a good question that is beneficial to both the OP and the community

EULA distribution refers to installing and deploying the software - something that happens after software development happens.

5:31 PM

@ThomasOwens EULAs are where redistribution rights are written. Either we can ask about a portion of a EULA or we can't

@JimmyHoffa The difference is who uses it. Is it by a developer for a developer? On-topic. Is it for an end user by a business person? Off-topic.

So redistribution questions are off-topic

what license questions are on-topic?

Not always.

redistribution is by definition the attempt to redistribute a product to your end-user

And that's outside the realm of what's on-topic.

However, distribution or use by developers is on-topic.

5:33 PM

haha they're the same thing man

You've clearly done very little actual software distribution

Perhaps you should make a meta post explaining which "licensing questions" are on-topic and why, and change that line in the FAQ to a link

It would clear up a lot of confusion without cluttering the FAQ more

The difference is who accepts the license agreement.

an end-user always accepts it

In fact, "freelancing and business concerns" could probably use the same treatment

If you accepted a license @ThomasOwens you are the end-user of that product

5:35 PM

@Rachel I can't even define freelancing and business concerns.

There are two or three meta discussions. Licenses has always meant the licensing of source code and libraries. Not applications.

@ThomasOwens Ummmm shouldn't it be removed then if the moderators of the site don't even know what it means?

@ThomasOwens That definitely needs clarification then

@Rachel It's come up. There's been no agreement on anything with it.

a library isn't an application? so if it doesn't have a main entry point it's ok to ask questions about the licensing?

There are many closed/deleted questions on the site. If you don't want to keep closing/deleting questions, then you'll need to work with the tools you have to stop them from getting posted in the first place

as soon as there's an entry point on the assembly licensing is no longer questionable?

5:36 PM

Which includes the FAQ

@JimmyHoffa A library is something like ImageMagik, JGraph, or Numpy. They are designed for use in other systems. Something like Eclipse or puTTY are applications.

@ThomasOwens Seriously that is such a subjective description. Eclipse has tons of libraries usable outside of the main .exe, but you're saying we can't ask questions about Eclipse's license regarding whether we could redistribute software written using Eclipse's underlying libraries?

Either allow or disallow licenses as a whole, you can't imagine barriers and expect anyone to know wth you're talking about. A library is an assembly without a main entry point, otherwise it's an executable, that's all their is to it.

s/their/there/g stupid brain

an executable is a library afterall if it exports entrypoints other than main. Hell main only makes it an "executable" in so much as it's a library the OS uses in a particular way.

@JimmyHoffa On-topic. Much (all?) of Eclipse is covered by the EPL.

But you just said eclipse doesn't fit

However, a question about distributing Eclipse is off-topic.

5:45 PM

Do you not see how thoroughly subejctive you're being? How these rules only exist inside your head?

It's on meta. In several questions.

haha

seriously. you're attempts at defining a "library" are a joke. Library's have no distinction from any other software.

Except that I need to understand the license that a library is released under to determine if I can use it.

and not an application? A LIBRARY AND AN APPLICATION ARE THE SAME

That's unique to software developers.

5:47 PM

A question about redistributing either is identical

An understanding of Microsoft Word's EULA is not unique to software developers because other pepole use Word.

undistinguishable

@ThomasOwens but software developers need to know it's EULA as well if they wish to redistribute extensions for it

it's undistinguishable!! You are imagining these differences!

@JimmyHoffa That's in the context of releasing YOUR software.

So an identical question from one person who's not a programmer and the identical to the letter question from someone who is a software developer is where you distinguish on-topic vs. off-topic? Seriously. Give me a break. You guys need to decide to allow or disallow license questions

imagining these barriers between on-topic vs. off-topic license questions only harms the site because you are literally imagining this stuff in your head and so the site ends up full of closed questions that appear to be for arbitrary reasons (because they are; all in your head remember?)

Read this question on developer agreements, this question on the types of questions allowed.

5:52 PM

You're first question the answerer claims the EULA for the Apple Developer services and the EULA for FOSS are off-topic and on-topic respectively

somehow a license being FOSS is imbued with special powers in your head making it different from every other EULA you need to know about for development purposes

EULA != FOSS licenses. I distinguish between the two.

hah

that's stupid.

They're the same thing. Put FOSS licenses in the FAQ then

Other, non-FOSS, licenses are on-topic.

if those are the only licenses allowed to be asked about

but not the apple developer services license?

haha I'm baffled you don't realize these rules you guys are making up are arbitrary. Foss licenses are good, others are too like what? But Apple developer services is not, and MS word is not. got it, What's the other on-topic licenses we are allowed to ask questions about?

MS-RSL is on-topic. It's not FOSS.

5:56 PM

Ok, so FOSS and MS-RSL license, put that in the FAQ then

Really, any of Microsoft's dozen or so licenses that are developer-oriented.

If you think those EULAs have special powers put them on their pedestal in the FAQ and call it a day, at least then the site can be treated as though it's scope is in agreement with the FAQ

@ThomasOwens all of MS's licenses are developer oriented

@JimmyHoffa The Windows EULA is not. In fact, it has almost no bearing on me writing software.

every single one of them has clauses specifically aimed at developers for things like reverse engineering, redistribution, extension and use

And they aren't unique to software development professionals.

5:58 PM

haha yes they are

nobody else is going to try redistributing NT32.DLL

only a software development professional is going to try and write software that alters NT32.dll and needs to know if that is in violation of the Windows EULA

which is explicitly stated in the Windows EULA

you guys either allow license questions or you don't, the idea that any license is targeted at devs and not users is simply untrue.

If you can make it about professional software development and that requires the knowledge and experience of professionals, it's on-topic. It's really that simple.

All software licenses are targeted at both or else they will end up with developers doing funny things with their software, and since the software is written by developers, the developers were smart enough to put clauses into their licenses to ensure other developers treated their software the way they wanted them to

Note that writing licenses is also different than understanding licenses.

"Does X allow me to do Y?" and "Is there an existing license that let's me do Y?" is different than "How do I write a license that specifies Y?"

I also view "Can I redistribute randomMS.DLL?" is different than "What restrictions are placed by on my use of randomMS.DLL in my application that I want to release under <license>?"

@ThomasOwens @JimmyHoffa Perhaps the whole thing we should take away from this, is the "software licensing" line in the FAQ is confusing and should be clarified

My suggestion would be to change it to a link going to a meta post that explains in more detail what type of licensing questions are on/off-topic and why

@Rachel I don't see how it's confusing. Can you relate it to the development of your software application or library? If yes, it's on-topic. If no, it's off-topic. There's a nice big graphic in the FAQ that describes that.

1 hour later…

7:22 PM

@ThomasOwens "Software Licensing" is a very broad category, and the "big graphic" you explain specifically says "All Careers" since it was created for career questions, so it's understandable if people think "My question about software licensing doesn't apply to all careers"

@ThomasOwens Was just my 2 cents anyways :) I see a bunch of software licensing questions closed regularly, and then was reading through your discussing with @JimmyHoffa and definitely think that line in our FAQ could use some improvement. It may be minor, but we should probably start somewhere

0

Q: lightweight document indexing to handle less than 250k potential records

Recently I've found myself chafing at the limitations of document indexing engines. I was developing a small website that needed some fairly robust searching capabilities but due to their hardware constraints I couldn't deploy a Lucene-ish solution (such as Solr or ElasticSearch, like I normally ...

web-development indexing

Another one that I don't understand why it should be considered off topic

Needs 1 more re-open vote.

7:48 PM

@psr I went to check it out but it's already reopened :)

Here's one I saw earlier today that I thought was OK:

2

Q: R vs Python for data analysis

I have been programming for about a year and I am really interested in data analysis and machine learning. I am taking part in a couple of online courses and am reading a couple of books. Everything I am doing uses either R or Python and I am looking for suggestions on whether or not I should c...

python analysis machine-learning r

@gnat - Thanks for the edits on this one. I thought it was good to start with but then you did improve it.

Its true that "what language should I learn next" is off-topic, however I'm fairly sure that "Which of these two languages is better for this specific situation" is fine

It only needs 1 more reopen vote

@Rachel - I think it's on topic (the original title made it sound off topic), but it has some gorilla vs. shark in it. Normally I would watch it to see if it turned into legions of dueling fanboys or had reasonable answers, but it closed after one (pretty reasonable) answer. So I'm trying to decide.

@Rachel - Some nice information in the comments of the answer convinced me.

@psr Thanks :)

8:10 PM

I put a "Leave open" on the R vs Python earlier today

I actually left it open because my reading surmised it as a "Which of these is better for data analysis and do they work well together?"

the second part being the part I felt most interesting and direct as a valuable question

8:22 PM

@AnnaLear thanks, your effort is much appreciated. All I want to know is whether script does indeed intend to ignore cases when all user's posts are deleted. If "undownvotes" indicate just an edge case / data race related to undeletion in this particular instance, I would be OK with that - afterall, posts edits done by author look good to me and I'd retract my downvotes myself after the edits

8:47 PM

@gnat far as I know, the script doesn't look at the deleted posts at all, regardless of how many there are. if they had stayed deleted, you'd just see the rep back from that like normal. mind you, there are multiple scripts.

(that's my current theory. I haven't had a chance to chat with a dev about the specifics here. I currently know what happened, but not idea on why.)

8:58 PM

@gnat Was this comment at all related to @Mark Trapp's now famous Google+ post? Or was it totally unrelated?

@JimG. not being on Google+ ... care to share what was in this now "famous" post?

@Walter plus.google.com/107485877062152067451/posts/jQzpvHwYQVE

@JimG. Mark's situation was completely different.

@AnnaLear OK. Good to know. Thanks.

user20683

nature.com/news/quantum-gas-goes-below-absolute-zero-1.12146

user20683

9:04 PM

I think my brain just imploded

@JimG. thanks for the link, I hadn't seen this before

@WorldEngineer Does this mean that we should redefine absolute Zero?

@Walter Sure thing. I'm not familiar with the particulars of his case, but it seemed like he was blowing a lot of hot air.

@Walter To be sure, he made an oversized contribution to the Stackexchange community (in terms of posts and activity), but I always thought there was something strange about him (in light of the fact that he was unilaterally closing posts in the middle of the night).

user20683

@JimG. it means absolute zero is more the like the pirate's code...

@Walter and unilaterally closing posts in the middle of the night on the weekend! [And he's only in his mid-20s!]

@Walter While Stackexchange is grateful for moderator contributions, I think it should monitor for moderator burnout. [Seriously.]

@AnnaLear I would appreciate if you check that with someone from dev. If there's a regression bug, I would really want it to be fixed. If there's a change in the rules of the game I would really want to know about that. And of course I would be just happy to hear a confirmation that it's just an edge case (pretty understandable in this particular case by the way). Thanks

9:09 PM

@JimG. Hm, I've been unilaterally closing posts in the middle of the night for months now (just saying...)

user20683

@JimG. Late twenties

@gnat To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what you think the problem here is or why it's related to deleted posts.

@YannisRizos You seem a lot more balanced though. I think you always make an effort to understand the other side of a discussion too.

@YannisRizos Whereas he did not.

@YannisRizos You've also been going on deletion sprees in the "middle of the night" :p

@gnat I'm curious about the specifics too, and I'm going to find them out, but my casual read of it is "you serially downvoted a user's posts, they were deleted, edited, then restored, scripts are dumb and can't tell your intentions, so the votes got reversed."

9:10 PM

@AnnaLear does script appy to deleted posts or not? From what you wrote so far it sounds it's your theory that it doesn't - I would like to know that for sure if possible

@gnat the posts weren't deleted when the script ran

ah!

one minute please let me re-check

I'm still curious about why your votes got reversed, since it wasn't via the normal fraud detection script, but deleted posts weren't an issue here far as I can tell.

@JimG. Fun fact: we do, but with 300+ moderators, it's a bit difficult. we trust folks to take a break or come talk to us when they feel overworked.

user image

....perfect fit ;P

Wish my work didn't block imgur, I always just get "Image not found" pictures everytime people post imgur crap all over SE

user20683

9:14 PM

@jimg remember that SE is a teensy business

@JimmyHoffa now there's a reason to get a new job if I ever heard one ;)

My workplace does that too, but I have a login to get past that ;)

@JimG. having served as temp mod with Mark in the early days I know he's on the US west coast and has weird hours... and I've never given much to the number besides one's birthdate... I've seen many advanced age people act like children and visa versa.

@AnnaLear hah, there's plenty of those, not the least of which living under an architecture regime that cut their teeth on Pascal and think procedural code is proper and OO is overly complex crap

...not to gripe or anything.. :)

@AnnaLear "curiouser and curiouser" per my recollection the posts were deleted when my (first) flag on this post was marked helpful; and "undownvote" notes came few hours after that, is that correct?

9:16 PM

and I've never seen anyone with weirder hours than @YannisRizos :)

@AnnaLear That sounds completely reasonable. I guess I was being somewhat sarcastic.

@gnat that's right. the posts were undeleted between the deletion (obviously) and the undownvote records. You actually got the rep back when they were undeleted.

user20683

@JimmyHoffa proper OO code is beautifully simple

My only question here is what reversed the votes. It doesn't look like our usual serial voting detection script, but we have a few that do slightly different things, AFAIK.

Sheesh, why are people trying to close vote historical questions that have tons of up-votes and were appreciated ages ago

9:18 PM

thanks @AnnaLear ...and posts undeletion came much later than "undownvote" notifications, is that correct too?

@gnat no

user20683

improper OO is flagrantly convoluted, byzantinely structured drek.

post undeletion came before the undownvotes

wait, I'm wrong.

hold on a sec.

@WorldEngineer Don't have to tell me, I've been an OO developer for plenty of years at good shops. This job was just a mistake I made to get moved across the country.

@JimmyHoffa Sheesh, why do people post crap answers to historical questions that are already sufficiently answered...

user20683

9:20 PM

@JimmyHoffa understandable, I may make one of those mistakes myself in a couple of months

@WorldEngineer Speaking of, are you on Careers.SE?

user20683

@JimmyHoffa technically yes

user20683

also technically on Linked In

@gnat My bad. UTC always screws me up. I'm looking again (though this is probably best tabled until I can corner a dev and see what actually happened.)

user20683

need to do profile things with those

9:21 PM

@AnnaLear bring a fly-swatter or else they might get away when you corner them.

@WorldEngineer you have a particular area of the country you're aiming for?

user20683

@JimmyHoffa PacNor

Ah, shouldn't have trouble.

user20683

I'm native to Palo Alto, been there done that. Hate southern summers

user20683

NYC wouldn't be terrible but I prefer rain to heat

@AnnaLear as far as I can see, first undeletion happened "23 hours ago", while undownvote notifications came yesterday, at "03:00" - all three of them, which per my prior observations matches the time when script kicks in

9:24 PM

@YannisRizos People may do stupid things like that, but why do people then come around and decide 55 people think this is a good question, countless others voted thinking answers were of a high quality, but this is clearly something the community shouldn't have around, and close-vote it

yeah please corner a dev if that's possible :)

@gnat yeah, I misread the dates originally. in any case, I'll get back to you when I know something concrete.

@AnnaLear thanks!

I could understand if a moderator killed Q's like that as violating the scope and bequest of SE in general, but for non-moderators to give a shot means they think it's just bad for the community regardless of the community overwhelmingly disagreeing.

@JimmyHoffa Closing != not worth having around. Simply put, closing == no more answers, kthxbai.

9:26 PM

I presumed closing == unwelcome, will be deleted in the future

I thought no more answers was a lock action moderators could do

@JimmyHoffa For crap, yes. For awesome questions that just don't fit a rule or two, no.

Closing is the only locking you guys can do?

@JimmyHoffa consider re-checking The Trouble With Popularity. There's quite orwellian note "...hope you can understand why our community moderators are obliged to step in and protect the community from, well … itself."

@JimmyHoffa We can lock the question, but locking also prevents editing and voting (and re-opening).

@YannisRizos to be fair, this "yes except when no" situation is somewhat unfortunate. we are currently looking at some improvements to the close system to see if we can clarify these things.

9:29 PM

@gnat I agree with that; that's what moderators are for as I said if it's bad for the community the community will decide that, if it's bad per SE guidelines regardless of the communities desire, then that's for a moderator to decide

Good to hear @AnnaLear

Crazy, 44% of all close-votes reviews on this site were by 3 members if the numbers on the review queue are correct

user20683

9:55 PM

@JimmyHoffa keep in mind those are reviews, not actual close votes

@WorldEngineer good point, also keep in mind that multiple people have to review each question in the close queue, so it's even less questions.

user20683

I think it's what? 5 reviews per question?

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