The Whiteboard

Matt D

00:14

ok, so do we have any entity framework experts in the house

Mike

probably not, but amateur eyes might help

Matt D

alright. im working on a complex application. there's a read and write side. both are "seperate" they however need to share data. plan is read will use views on the write side DB's for separation. Both sides are code first. so i need to somehow make code first play nicely with existing views. view usage will be RO not RW

I do have some RW tables, but they are specific to my "side" of the app

So, just wondering if anyone's done something similar. tips for getting fluent to work with existing views, what happens with migrations, that kind of stuff

Mike

my eyes... too amateur... =/

Matt D

perhaps a better question would be 'using an existing database with code first'

I was hoping to use Dapper, but we have some neat linq queries that need EF to work properlly

Mike

msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/data/jj200620

may be of some help, may be stuff you already know

Matt D

00:33

i forgot i had "Programming Entity Framework: Code First" on my kindle.. so reading that now.

you know. i REALLY hate video tutorials

they're probably great if you have 0 knowledge

but frustrating as hell when all you need is like 2 minutes of a 50 minute video

thanks for the link though :)

just a random rant

Mike

Agreed, I love a video for something conceptual, if you want to show me code give it to me in text please.

Jimmy Hoffa

01:18

Hah I just spent the past couple days doing analysis of EF, what you want is going to be a combination of abusing the migration history table so EF thinks it made the views coupled with multitenant database which is new in EF 6 so the read and write can live together, my first guess

Though I don't know how detailed it validates things, it might notice the text of the views is not in line with the definition in migration history, would have to test

Disclaimer I've done no working with ef, these are just points I hit while reading up on it and playing around the last couple days

Matt D

01:35

wait, multitenant database?

(im using EF6)

Jimmy Hoffa

02:04

@MattD Yeah, one second...

Here's a good place that I was reading through that mentioned a lot of the neat more advanced features: entityframework.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=specs

@MattD Here's the multitenant thing: entityframework.codeplex.com/…

It's so you can have multiple class Blargh : DbContexts which all point to and work in the same database, so you can have your reads in one dbcontext and writes in another

(based on that separation you have going on?)

the feature is based around previously the MigrationHistory table only identified migrations for one dbcontext, now it has a column that distinguishes so it can store migrations for multiple dbcontexts

you could also just do your read-only context that's based on views as a db-first and then use code first for the write-only context or some derivation of that

Matt D

ok. that sounds sensible

ill have a read

thanks

Matt D

05:25

@JimmyHoffa that link was beautiful thanks

gnat

07:20

0

A: Regarding the Stack Overflow close review queue

Tag-oriented analysis would be terribly incomplete (up to the point of total failure) without a corresponding data breakdown by closure reasons. I mean, say, if a question is like "recommend me a library / tutorial", it doesn't really matter if it's php or heroku, because it falls straight under...

Matt D

so

is there a neat way to generate constants from a EF table

like some kind of crazy reflection type thing

gnat

09:46

1

A: Which SO (not MSO) behaviors are we most "losing the battle" against?

We're not doing nearly enough of what is in this link.

exclude Programmers from that "we". We-at-Programmers are good enough already. Sure we still have to whack some moles that occasionally fly in (typically from Stack Overflow) but that's a matter of minor maintenance, not a big deal anymore — gnat 50 mins ago

...am I proud of Programmers? you bet! — gnat 49 secs ago

free spam flags here and at Ask Diff...

-2

A: How to advertise iphone application

Try Appcrazi Social (appcrazi.com). Appcrazi is a must when exposing your apps!

0

A: How can I advertise my app on the App Store?

Great post! Try Appcrazi Social (appcrazi.com). It's not the Apple store but it will expose Apple apps. Appcrazi is a must when marketing apps!

gnat

11:20

+52/-17 - over fifty upvotes in 12 hours. Not bad for the post that opens with "going to make me unpopular..." — gnat yesterday

at +63/20 now - not bad either

43

Q: Close Votes review: I'm going on a strike!

I know this question is going to make me unpopular here - but I feel I have no other options. I have been concerned by the size of the close votes review queue for quite a while. When I started reviewing (less than a year ago) this queue already had ~30K questions pending review. Time passes an...

Shog's sense of acknowledgement might be tricking him I guess...

I'm not sure how much more acknowledgement I could give it without becoming a Single Issue Candidate, @gnat. I've acknowledged it. Multiple times. Doesn't make it the single biggest problem facing Stack Overflow or my top priority though - sorry, I'm not trying to ignore it, but sometimes there are bigger fish to fry. — Shog9 19 hours ago

thorsten müller

12:00

anybody know a good database type for sales statistics? thinking about something like Solr, or NoSQL in general.

Mike

13:52

@thorstenmüller Solr is all about search if I'm not mistaken. If the data is all uniform and relational then a RDBS would probably be the best fit, if it changes from record to record quite a bit I would look at NoSQL.

thorsten müller

@Mike, yes that's basically the question. We get EDIFACT data. First step we put it into some RDMS tables. But for faster queries and statistics of any kind we need something else. I know you can do a lot with Solr or ElasticSearch, but there are other NoSQL technologies that could be better for that kind of big data number crunching (compare between various customers and product groups)

hlegius

@thorstenmüller about my unvoted question :P - did you feel that in the near future - in your region - backend positions in Ruby will emerge more than now?

I point this because I'm sooo noob with frontend engineering and I don't like that area at all. So, my "fear" is Full Stack Engineer became mainstream in "Ruby community", you know

thorsten müller

14:07

@hlegius I'm quite happy not to have to do much with browsers in future too. But no, I don't think that there will be very many such positions. I'm in Germany and even Rails itself is not that widespread here. Interestingly the Rails positions you find are more often from medium sized companies and if you land such a job it's somehow up to you what you make of it.

But the overall amount of Rails positions doesn't make it statistically relevant.

I see a lot of potential in Ruby for this area, but if companies will make use of it is very questionable. If you are good with Ruby and your company does not really care what you use then there are opportunities. But it's more an individual thing. And if you look for libraries that can handle ERP stuff like EDIFACT you will soon find that there is not much going there in Ruby or Rails in general (compared to the large amount of available libs and gems for your common small/medium shop website).

hlegius

As you said in the thread, Ruby is very, very awesome as OO language. But people only use 10% of this powerful making Rails' CRUD. Ok, Rails was and is important to the Ruby community, but I can't see Ruby running in places where Java runs today.

Mike

@thorstenmüller Maybe something like Hadoop / HBase? Could even run it in "the cloud" aws.amazon.com/elasticmapreduce

thorsten müller

@Mike yes, Hadoop could be a thing. It's often mentioned with big data and it would nicely fit into the Apache stack.

@hlegius Not large style. Especially not in very large companies where they already invested a lot into Java. On the other side quite some of those Rails projects will grow from small simple shops to something of more strategical value to the companies as in our case. See, we did never have any Java. All business stuff was done with MS Navision and this is just not flexible enough to respond very fast (while still the working horse for everyday ERP)

Another point maybe: Quite some of those small startups that hyped Rails are growing now, too. And since mobile makes the frontend stuff more complex they are more and more splitting teams by expertise. The company I worked before (and where I learned Rails) now works far more specialized while when IO was there everybody did frontend and backend. (And as our company may even outsource frontend or cooperate with companies who are specialized in frontend tech like PhoneGap or Icenium)

hlegius

14:34

Yeah, I saw this scenario here in Brazil, too. Some startups hiring Rails Developer and than, split it out to backend and frontend. Maybe we need give more time to market get stable. I spoke with 3-4 companies in last two months: all of them are looking for a Full Stack developer at this time.

Four months ago an England startup based in London tell me the same: OH, we read your unit test and OOD code that you sent us. Are so good, but we need that you develop CSS3 and HTML5 as well in our Rails stack.

user55340

15:14

Language idea thought from conversation in the past - the language has two "modes" - two fundamentally different ways of operating. One is the "Library / Framework language" which one uses to get at all the meta programming and can do "dirty" things. The other is the "Business tier language" which can import library / framework modules, but is limited in what it can do.

user55340

The idea being to keep separate the layers in the application in an attempt to keep business logic from doing ugly things (oh, we'll just use reflection to find out whats in this data object...).

gnat

15:30

@MichaelT according to David Pollack, Scala pretends to have two "facets" / modes addressing these two ways of operating, he calls these "library consumer" and "library producer"

neopythonic.blogspot.com/2008/11/…

...the kind of thinking I have to do as a library consumer and library producer are radically different.

As a library consumer, I rarely concern myself with Scala's type system... or most of the other language complexities. My consumer code looks and feels a lot like my Ruby code did. I've got great DSL support. For the most part, the types that the compiler doesn't infer are the ones I need to document anyway. But, unlike my Ruby code, I only need 50%-60% test coverage (vs. 95% coverage) to have stable, deployable code.

user55340

15:49

@gnat I'll have to dig into scala some more some day...

user55340

how do you expect this to work for small CV queues? Or this idea is targeted primarily at stackoverflow? — gnat 2 hours ago

user55340

@gnat small cv queues should not be a problem. Its more of a cosmetic feature there, though I do see a lot of other small SE's with notable sized queues.

user55340

superuser.com/review - they've got 396 questions in the cv queue.

gnat

@MichaelT I was mostly wondering about how the nice chart you mocked would look like when there are only a few questions in the queue...

you see, when there are 100, 1000, 90K :) questions waiting in the queue, it's all fine and well. But at Programmers or Workplace, the number can be like 2, 3, 5 :)

oh and it can be zero of course

user55340

Actually, right now, incognito, we're 46.

gnat

16:00

would the chart throw NullReferenceException at zero?

user55340

It should do the same as if you hit it now at 0 - "there are no items to review".

Jimmy Hoffa

16:14

@thorstenmüller You sure? I automatically reach for RDBMS for statistics because NoSQL is for quick data retrieval but for doing complex calculations/computations across sets? RDBMS is built for working against sets like that. It's just a matter of the topology and what it's structured for, traditionally if you want statistical information you want OLAP which means you throw out the whole relational de-duplication model in favor of a duplicate-full schema that has tables structured

to give different perspectives on your data quickly so you can compute statistics performantly, for when your data isn't changed often/at all

the duplication in OLAP makes any data that get's frequently changed a nightmare, but it makes calculations and reads ultra fast by having tables structured to perform well for querying X and a duplicate of that where it's structured to perform well for Y and the data duplicated in another table structured to perform well for Z et al

gnat

@MichaelT ah! that makes perfect sense, sure. Okay, what if there are 1 or 2... oh I think I got it now that you mentioned how 0 is handled. Nothing stops SE devs to fall back to some plain text when the number of posts goes under particular cut value, 10 or 20 or 100, whatever

all right this thing will work in any case if done right

I was scared for a moment that boundary conditions could kill such a good idea. Quite a relief to find out it's not so

user55340

16:35

Ever notice how "monad" sounds a lot like "moan"?

user55340

Fun CSS effect - dvncan.com/2013/10/19/focus.html

Sparticus

My rep keeps evaporating. Yay!!

getting further and further from that ever-deadly 3k

user41796

@Sparticus FWIW, I agree with @JimmyHoffa's cautions regarding the "we'll get the offer to you real soon!" non-offer. Give 'em a deadline and stick with it.

Sparticus

@GlenH7 It's worth a lot actually, thank you

thats happening in about 20 minutes

user55340

@Sparticus Ahh... you had two up votes from mystery deleted user?

gnat

16:43

oh my an excuse for a comment from LQ queue. Soon there will be an MSO feature request to auto-generate excuses like that...

Hey Stephen, sorry to bother you. this message is printed automatically when I "review" (check out the new "beta" review system") low quality (few words) answers. Nothing personal. I just choose to indicate this answer should either be edited or removed. I can remove it if you want. — Jalayn Aug 22 '12 at 17:32

Sparticus

@MichaelT I did indeed

user41796

I was skimming over the older posts, and when I read that my first response was "@Sparticus is gonna get screwed if he's not careful"

2

Sparticus

@GlenH7 my current place of work really really wants me though

so im not gonna be jobless by any mean

at this point its just me trying to make my salary and benefits better

I Sparticus, Project Engineer

Is Project Engineer a better title than Software Engineer? I have my choice

user41796

If nothing else, check with your peers to see what they're being offered. Yes, there's a cultural taboo against talking salary. But, there's no better way to level the playing field than to share information.

Sparticus

@GlenH7 actually been doing that quite frequently tbh. got a lot of friends who are very laid back about that kind of stuff

it only helps everyone so that we don't get screwed

user41796

16:46

Titles are meaningless. But I'd pick software engineer over project engineer to start with. Project engineer means you ran projects. Software means you built stuff

Sparticus

I am running projects, just not with a super large team under tham

user41796

@Sparticus exactly. I'll see if I can dig up some articles from The Register that will give some good perspective

Sparticus

them*

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Which just begs the question... what is a konad and how do I structure one?

user41796

@Sparticus -- theregister.co.uk/2013/04/12/it_salary_trends and theregister.co.uk/2012/03/21/how_to_get_paid_more and theregister.co.uk/2011/11/10/your_cv and you get the idea

Sparticus

16:49

@GlenH7 that would be awesome. I also need to figure out how im going to come up with a number for compensation to my current work

user41796

His point of view is from London, but a lot of his advice is universal

Jimmy Hoffa

@Sparticus if they "really really" want you, but they can't really do more for you money wise, think about what they can do for you in other terms. You could always go to them and say "Y'know, if you guys really want me but can't do anything particularly well for me on the money side, you could promise me this project, and that responsibility over there and promise me 10 hours a week at that guys side for outright mentoring..."

There's a lot of value for you to gather right now other than fiscal

is there anything they're doing which you could learn a lot from? Things that would make you much more valuable to the next company?

user41796

Those are all very good points

gnat

@Sparticus there's your repz and badge, unlikely to evaporate this time (skimming through your answers, you seem to put too much effort into stuff that carries risk to disappear, Glen was right here - take care)

Sparticus

@JimmyHoffa In terms of having free reign over what I work on and with who, I'm very lucky that I get to do that. I wrote up the project proposal for my next project already and its on its way up the totem pole.

They seem to see my skills at being able to work on a huge array of stuff and are giving me enough rope to use those skills

Jimmy Hoffa

16:51

@Sparticus That's cool, are there any people there you've bumped into that are clearly very good engineers you think you could particularly learn from?

user41796

@Sparticus Moving up the career ladder really means having more freedom in picking what you get to work on next. You won't have a lot of that freedom working as a consultant.

user41796

To be a little crass, the consultancy is your pimp and you're the product they're selling. Never, ever forget that if you work as a consultant.

user55340

@Sparticus btw, in your next technical interview you go to... when they say "you can use any language" when writing the algorithm, use whitespace or lolcode.

2

user55340

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
IM IN YR LOOP UPPIN YR VAR TIL BOTH SAEM VAR AN 10
    VISIBLE SUM OF VAR AN 1
IM OUTTA YR LOOP
KTHXBYE

Sparticus

@MichaelT I think interviews are over but that is pure gold

@JimmyHoffa very clearly good? Hmm... thats tougher. we are a very small team

why do you think I hang around here :P

user55340

17:00

@Sparticus As a consultant, you'll find yourself pitching ideas for projects sometimes...

Sparticus

I'm definitely gaining a lot of experience here though

on everything from writing code to making projects happen

user55340

And apparently, all our advice is good... right @JimmyHoffa and @RobertHarvey?

user55340

18 hours ago, by Robert Harvey

lolwut? You mean you actually take my advice? You poor soul.

Sparticus

nah, I just have to run everything you say through the Cynicism filter first

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT I stand by the results as screenshotted. :)

Sparticus

17:01

sometimes it gets a little clogged and I actually start to believe some of the stuff you say.... hahha

Jimmy Hoffa

@Sparticus This is a valuable note worth keeping in mind. There's a lot to be learned from having the freedom to do your own thing, but there's also a lot to be learned from having mentors on hand. I've worked in both situations and learned from both but they're different. And I definitely think I learned more quickly with mentors, though at your current situation it may be even because of the sheer magnitude of stuff available for you to be learning

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Mentors on hand is very important for people of all levels (though at the very pinnacle of ability, the mentor is more a peer than a mentor...). For what its worth, I'm still in an occasional mentor role for a guy who I used to work with at my previous job (both of us now work elsewhere).

Mike

@JimmyHoffa You are absolutely correct. I'm in a situation now where I'm essentially the sole developer and I yearn for mentor. I'd settle for a peer to compare and contrast with. I find it is very easy to go down the wrong path when you are on your own as well (unless it is a path you've traveled a few times before).

gnat

slippery dupe closures are likely means to maintain folksonomy in the absence of a dedicated tag - "Tags are keywords or labels that categorize and group your question with other, similar questions..." — gnat 44 secs ago

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Yeah, I've mentored at previous places but here my team's all peers if not teaching me things.. I've heard tell that one of the guys I mentored a couple years ago now (damn it's been that long?? time warp...) habits to ding people with principles in code reviews heh and before that job I was being mentored... the role can always change back and forth in your career, but it's a very valuable one

gnat

17:11

funny that my prior comment about this has been removed (diamonds can see it though)

user55340

Do NOT click this link its a Game Boy Advance emulator in javascript - gbagames.github.io/gamecenter

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT ...why not? what?

user41796

@JimmyHoffa kiss your productivity goodbye

user55340

@JimmyHoffa If you accuse me of killing your productivity with things like computer songs and poetry... a GBA emulator online?

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT The key to productivity killers are that they're on the cusp of just normal reading/surfing. A straight up video game system is something I just wouldn't bother at work

user55340

17:17

But its friday... and things that aren't panic due for today are next week... and thats a ways out.

user55340

Then there's also the "ohh... how do you do that in javascript" and digging into the source.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT There's also the fact that I got linked a javascript GBA emulator like 2 years ago and dug into the javascript a little then. :)

(very little)

user55340

@JimmyHoffa That would have given you some immunization from it. A weakened form of the time waster in the past... GBAntibodies?

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Perhaps heh

user55340

As an aside, the Friday activity in chat tends to be higher than the rest of the week.

Jimmy Hoffa

17:25

@MichaelT Seems logical.

thorsten müller

@JimmyHoffa that sounds interesting too. Data will basically never change once written. It's all just sales numbers we collect from different sources.

Jimmy Hoffa

@thorstenmüller This is the prototypical definition of when you use OLAP.

write-once data that exists for reporting only

the A is for Analysis (or analytical? Iduno..)

as opposed to olTp structure where the T is transactional (transaction as in update/delete etc)

thorsten müller

Just reading on Wikipedia. Point is, that we have about 30k products and need a lot of categorisation (product groups, customers, locations). Just to find out what kind of product we sell best. So something like Solr facet search is somehow mandatory at least for the first step.

Jimmy Hoffa

17:40

@thorstenmüller Nah, facet search is an attempt at bringing some OLAP to an OLTP database

user55340

Oh, btw... quiet day today... people are heading out early to go into the woods.

Jimmy Hoffa

If you can structure the database as OLAP then you don't need facet search

@MichaelT Annual wisconsinite winter snow-sleep? This time of year your foreheads grow the robust nanderthal arch and you have to spend a weekend romping in -10 degree weather with animal skins on?

blackbee

i am pretty unsure if this is the right place to ask this question: i am trying to do something interesting so i thought of writing an image genome (in perhaps c or python) ... but to begin with. what are the things that i need to know inorder to start a project like this and how should i move forward...

Jimmy Hoffa

@blackbee Don't ask it on the site, but feel free to ask it here in chat

blackbee

:)

Jimmy Hoffa

17:44

...that said, uhh that's a pretty formidable thing you're trying to undertake...

user41796

@blackbee understanding more of your background would help. If you're a complete newbie, you're biting off a really big chunk to chew on.

blackbee

yes... i read about the music genome project at wikipedia

Jimmy Hoffa

@blackbee yeah as @GlenH7 mentions, if you give us a description of what you have done and your experience is it can temper any suggestions. At first guess the best answer to your question is: Go get a few books on the topic and read them. You are probably lacking a great deal of the necessary fundamentals required to even think through such a thing if you haven't done such study already

blackbee

i have started reading O'reilly s Collective Intelligence

Jimmy Hoffa

@blackbee Does it have exercises to do?

blackbee

17:48

i have 2 years of experince in C .. but limited to DS only.. i also have experince with Java.. and DBMS...
.. i have to look if it has exercise.. generally Reilly books have.. is there any book ar material you would like to suggest

!!

Jimmy Hoffa

I've never personally studied that space, but the first author that comes to mind if I were to start poking around in there would be norvig

amazon.com/Peter-Norvig/e/B000AQ4JBU

blackbee

the pearson book..

ok...

books are quite costly... 32$ is nearly 32*60 nearly 2000 ruppees...

:)

Jimmy Hoffa

@blackbee I know, you also might think about some of the online learning websites like coursera or whatever I know there's a lot of them and some are free

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Gun season opens tomorrow. People are heading out to the hunting camp.

Jimmy Hoffa

@blackbee Also you might look online at MIT and stanford coursework, they have a lot of their course materials available online for free

gnat

17:54

@GlenH7 could you please protect this question? Its dupe is going to be featured at ArsTechnika, which puts it at risk of lemmings leaking in through a dupe link

Jimmy Hoffa

cornell too probably does lots of this

blackbee

mit is a good option...

user55340

@gnat Got it.

Jimmy Hoffa

@blackbee ocw.mit.edu/courses/music-and-theater-arts/…

gnat

@MichaelT thanks! didn't notice how you hopped over 15K (congrats by the way)

Jimmy Hoffa

17:55

@blackbee ocw.mit.edu/courses/engineering-systems-division/…

user41796

@MichaelT thanks! @gnat - anytime. :-)

blackbee

secured a pdf of 32$ book : stpk.cs.rtu.lv/sites/all/files/stpk/materiali/MI/…

user55340

@gnat I'm also in the "I want 20k" club for speedy deletes and answer cleanups.

user55340

Anways... lunch time.

Jimmy Hoffa

I got 8 Qs trimmed out of the keyboard yesterday with flags. Woot. I could get more trimmed to but I'll let that simmer for a minute...

(take that, delete voters, how many questions did you guys get deleted yesterday? :D)

don't answer that @gnat

I was being histrionic, I don't need to hear about the 50+ questions you got clipped yesterday @gnat

user41796

18:00

@JimmyHoffa I have dropped some vote-to-deletes in that category as well

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Wasted probably. Mods killed them and you didn't get those DVs back.

user41796

@JimmyHoffa but I'z getz moah tomahro

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 In fact, you know how you could get your DVs to go further? See something that clearly wouldn't be declined deletion by mod? Flag it. DV if you feel it's delete worthy but think it would require a mod to think about it for a moment before stabbing it.

Do you DV first then start using flags right now?

user41796

@JimmyHoffa I consider mod flagging to be an exception type thing. If I have delete votes, then I'll use them. Or wait and come back the next day and then use them. But if I see something stuck, I'll flag that.

user41796

Did that earlier actually. The answer has a lot of up votes so it will take a bit to get enough Deletes to kill it. It already had 3 delete votes so I flagged it.

Jimmy Hoffa

18:04

@GlenH7 Eh? Mod flags aren't for exceptions, they're just for notifying mods about things they can do something about. They can choose not to do something about it, but if it's something that upon sight they would do something about, you're just helping them.

(that's my take on mod flags anyway)

blackbee

ok... i will be in touch... i would need help with the algorithms.. minmax and alpha-beta purning to start with

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer @YannisRizos @ChrisF @RobertHarvey what are your thoughts, any guidance you care to give me/us? Should I flag stuff just because I think you would do something about it, or should I only flag things I think you must do something about, the exceptions if you will.

gnat

@GlenH7 same here. @JimmyHoffa my mod flagging also goes for exception type things. If I can put a compelling appeal for deletion into 500 chars, I flag it. Sometimes (often), 500 chars are not enough - I cast a DV, expecting others to find it in the queue, thoroughly evaluate question and answers and decide whether to support that

user41796

18:20

@JimmyHoffa I think the difference here is whether or not I can do something about the problem. Using the janitor analogy - I don't call for a janitor if it's something I can clean up myself. VTC, VTD are routes I have to clean-up the problem. Or I can roll through the closed & no-answers search to down vote the questions and let the much-maligned Community mod clean that up for me. But if I can't do anything about it and something needs to be done, then I'll mod flag.

user41796

@MichaelT - if you haven't seen them already, Sam's Friday edits have already hit the review queue.

gnat

@JimmyHoffa I am neither of them, but. Consider flagging both should- and must- kind stuff, but (and this is a very VERY BIG BUT) only if you can communicate it clearly via flag message

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat I put delete flags with just the message "Unsalveageable, delete" when I see stuff that I deem a broken window with absolutely no way of editing it to make it valuable content for the site. Perhaps this is the wrong approach.. I'm definitely open to guidance but so far it's been fairly beneficial, the vast majority of those flags result in deleted questions

gnat

> please take a look, question has 4 reopen votes (review has been completed at 2Reopen:3Closed - <URL>). As far as I can tell, edit made in revision 2 managed to address the current close reason

above is an example. I lay out facts, explain specific edge case and leave it up to moderator to decide

user41796

@JimmyHoffa but you don't have vote-to-delete privileges yet, and that's a big difference.

Jimmy Hoffa

18:23

I kind of leave it up to the mod to say "Nah, that's not deletion-worthy", and if they declined or didn't delete most of the flags I raise I would take that as guidance that my approach is wrong, but the results from mods has told me it is appropriate.. Again, now I'm curious and would like to have some guidance from mods if this is the wrong approach.

@GlenH7 Not really.. if I had them I would use those delete votes wherever but would still flag just the same.

user41796

since I have the ability to VTD, I only call out the janitor when there's puke in the hallway. Otherwise, I do my part and help pick up the trash.

Sparticus

called both companies. one with the super early deadline didnt pick up so i left a vm

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Sure, but I mean I would attempt to delete on the same grounds and just as much with those votes as without them

Sparticus

other one wasn't very responsive to being asked to be moved forward

aweeeeeesome

user41796

@Sparticus are either of those your current employer?!?

Sparticus

18:25

no lmao

user41796

@Sparticus ok, I'm confused. :-)

Sparticus

but i want numbers so i know what to tell my current employet

no, lowball was the one with the crazy deadline

C = lowball offer, 3 day deadline
A = taking forever to get back to me
B = Current employer, no offer yet, wants numbers

user41796

ah, that makes more sense.

Sparticus

called C and A and not sure if they're gonna budge

also called my career services. so far for this year the average for my major is around 63

so i think I'm gonna ask around there

user41796

that's not a bad way to go. You could use those numbers with your current for a basis.

user41796

18:27

"who cares" what any particular offer is. Here's the competitive average per the career office....

Sparticus

yeah thats my train of thought

the lowball offer has awesome benefits but i dont think it's going to make up 13...

21 personal days, 7 holidays and 4% on the 401k plus great healthcare

but honestly im going to stay on my parents plan til im 26 anyway. i have a younger brother so me leaving their plan saves them no money

plus my parents have a ridiculously good plan

user41796

@Sparticus double check the regs on that. I think there's an exception of you not being eligible for their plan if you're eligible for another plan. But I'll acknowledge I haven't looked into that too closely.

Sparticus

@GlenH7 will do, but my mother is one of those HR types so im fairly sure she did the paperwork and would know best

Robert Harvey

Guidance for flagging:

1. It is unlikely to be handled by the community

2. It is actively harmful to the site.

user41796

@Sparticus I would double check either way. You don't want to run a period of time where you won't be covered. The other question you need to ask is if B's offer will be closer to that average than C's offer. If so, then tell C to bugger off.

Robert Harvey

18:31

3. Explain what is wrong in the flag, and what you think the mod should do about it. If a canned flag doesn't accomplish this, use a custom one.

Sparticus

Yeah C seemed like a good company but their offer is awfully low and their deadline makes me wonder about them as a company

Robert Harvey

4. Don't flag things that a mod doesn't get involved in, like technical correctness of an answer.

user41796

@Sparticus it's a sign...

Robert Harvey

5. The occasional declined flag is OK. If you never get a declined flag, you're not flagging hard enough.

3

Jimmy Hoffa

10 mins ago, by Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat I put delete flags with just the message "Unsalveageable, delete" when I see stuff that I deem a broken window with absolutely no way of editing it to make it valuable content for the site. Perhaps this is the wrong approach.. I'm definitely open to guidance but so far it's been fairly beneficial, the vast majority of those flags result in deleted questions

Robert Harvey

18:33

That's pretty much it.

Jimmy Hoffa

How does that sound to you in general? Would you suggest I should be doing something differently?

Robert Harvey

It's better if you just state in plain English what is wrong. If it's gibberish, then say so. If it's link-only, then say that.

Jimmy Hoffa

to be fair, my flagging level is really low enough it doesn't have any severe effect on the site, but I go on binges

Sparticus

I'll usually only get the flags out if it's something really bad like blatant solicitation of work or lewd

Robert Harvey

Those are good examples of flaggable offenses.

Jimmy Hoffa

18:36

@RobertHarvey Should I not take my flag success rate as indicative of value in my approach?

Sparticus

@gnat Just saw that, thank you haha. I put work in where I feel that I can actively contribute, which, admittedly, is a very narrow area

user41796

4 mins ago, by Robert Harvey

5. The occasional declined flag is OK. If you never get a declined flag, you're not flagging hard enough.

Sparticus

I'm 8 for 8 haha

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 I recognize that, I just mean since I have very few I tend to assume I'm not doing it wrong, but this discussion gives me the thought I am doing it wrong

gnat

@JimmyHoffa my flagging level was also quite low first 2 years. Link-only answers pumped it at Programmers. Dupe-closures (when I was under 3K because of bounties) did it at MSO. And, Late Answers queue at SO... oh that queue, after a strict flaggign diet, i felt like a shark getting to that treasury of crap...

2

A: How to get more people doing reviews?

This might be a self-balancing process. When there are little-to-none items in the queue, there is a little interest among most of the users eligible for reviewing. And this is unlikely to change; if one checks the queue occasionally and there's always only 0, 1, 2 items in there, there is littl...

user41796

18:37

@RobertHarvey - how do the 10k tools & reviewing flags fit into that then? If I review a flag and agree with it, am I just adding another flag on to the total count for that item?

gnat

> In December 2012, there were few thousands items in this queue and I was visiting it daily, submitting 50 flags a day (review limit was 40 if memory serves, but I flagged some posts out of the queue, using Skip option to avoid bumping into the limit).

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey See is this really best though? I tend to assume it's like a two-person DV; I act as one voter and the mod has to do their due diligence to identify for themselves if it deserves their vote... If it's not obvious like "They put this spam link in all their posts" that's one thing but for generally "This is just trash and doesn't belong here"... Iduno.

seems like I don't want to bias the redundancy in the system with my comments, otherwise it stops being a good failsafe

gnat

10

A: Why is this answer not considered "link only"?

Probably, moderator who declined was one of those guys willing you to do more work, like: first, comment suggesting OP to improve and vote down, next, wait for several days to give a chance to OP to fix their crap, then flag, preferably with a detailed message explaining what you did and how it...

collecting ammo (easy MSO repz) for a terminal ride against hotness formula...

►

user41796

@gnat Another example of the difference between SO & P.SE.

Robert Harvey

@gnat That could have just been fat-fingered. It did have an answer in it, however. "Maybe it's your antivirus software."

user41796

18:47

I kind of scratch my head at your war analogy regarding the hotness formula.

Sparticus

clearly you aren't voting right then @GlenH7

if it doesn't hurt then it doesn't count.

Robert Harvey

@JimmyHoffa Basically, it's about helping out the mods a little. Rather than making them go through the whole analysis (edit history, question veracity, blah blah) from scratch, spell it out for them. Your flags have a much greater chance of being marked helpful if you explain why you are casting them.

user41796

@Sparticus yeah, I should be more aggressive in my down voting.

Jimmy Hoffa

►

Sparticus

woah now, careful where you point that thing. don't downvote anything you don't want to delete

user41796

18:50

@Sparticus see, I get like 40 down votes. But I currently only get 12 or 13 delete votes

Robert Harvey

This is especially critical on Stack Overflow, where the community casts nearly a thousand flags per day. But it's still useful on Programmers.SE; where people are still confused about site scope, you have to be very specific about your intention when flagging.

Sparticus

@GlenH7 also make sure you use proper pointer form. Don't leave your finger on the mouse unless you're ready to click

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey But wait, what about "Bleh!" flags? I mean, those are a treasure trove of information wound up in one word.

Robert Harvey

Joking.

user41796

I <3 pointers.

Jimmy Hoffa

18:51

@RobertHarvey I still got 8/9 helpfuls with "Bleh!" that were deleted.

@GlenH7 How can I do the opposite of star this??

Sparticus

@GlenH7 This is my pointer. There are many like it but this one is mine...

user41796

@JimmyHoffa left click my username, then select "ignore this user (everywhere)"

Jimmy Hoffa

@Sparticus This is what the industry needs, more people with cultural taste from Stanley Kubrick. You'll go far like this.

gnat

exclude Programmers from that "we". We-at-Programmers are good enough already. Sure we still have to whack some moles that occasionally fly in (typically from Stack Overflow) but that's a matter of minor maintenance, not a big deal anymore — gnat 10 hours ago

...am I proud of Programmers? you bet! — gnat 9 hours ago

Sparticus

@JimmyHoffa I just have to navigate the minefield that is working with HR

gnat

18:55

@GlenH7 ammo means repz for bounties :)

Jimmy Hoffa

@Sparticus Yeah, there's unfortunately no good solution to that problem, the best anyone's got so far is "Get lucky enough to be dealing with HR that isn't retarded"

user41796

@gnat that makes more sense

Sparticus

HO, HUH, HR, WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? ABSOLUTELY NOTHIN!

user41796

@Sparticus HR exists to help keep the company from getting sued. If you're lucky, that goal aligns with providing benefits to the employees. If not, well, life happens.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 depends on the company...

Sparticus

18:56

@JimmyHoffa how about that snow?

gnat

@GlenH7 @JimmyHoffa after that, spend a while trying to figure how to roll that back, then go to MSO, ask a question and get it closed as a dupe... :)

12

A: How can I un-ignore a user in chat?

There are several ways to do this. Directly in the room If the user is in a room with you (which is very likely if you just now ignored them), they'll not be totally hidden; their avatar in the user list in the top right has just shrunk: If you click this small avatar, you can choose "don't ...

user41796

@gnat Hilarious examples there of who Bart chose to ignore.

user41796

The two people I'm ignoring haven't been in chat for 108 and 218 days.

Jimmy Hoffa

ah, I'm not ignoring anyone.

That's boring, I should fix that

gnat

Sparticus

19:03

Anyone seen jimmy? I haven't seen that guy in months

Jimmy Hoffa

@KronoS I think you're going through a tunnel...you're breaking up--OO and we've lost KronoS...

gnat

@Sparticus are you talking about that guy who spammed this chat about a year ago? I haven't seen him since

Sparticus

Gosh, was it already a year ago? Guess he must have gotten really busy

gnat

@Sparticus I have occasionally seen him at Programmers though, collecting repz in collider questions. Funny that he stopped visiting chat, isn't it?

Sparticus

@gnat Nobody voted for him for mod did they? That could explain his uncanny absence

kinda like @WorldEngineer

gnat

19:07

@Sparticus maybe he became a mod at some obscure SE site? Pets or something?

Sparticus

@gnat would you trust that guy with a pet? I was thinking something like area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/62165/yerba

gnat

@Sparticus cleaning Bombilla?

area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/62165/yerba/62168#62168

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat I couldn't be a mod, if I did I'd know what I do and I'd be forced to ban myself

Sparticus

@gnat didn't he mention his love for dancing? area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/49985/dancing

gnat

@Sparticus Dating? there was a proposal IIRC

enderland

19:15

108

Relationships and Dating

Proposed Q&A site for people seeking answers to questions about dating, long term relationships, love, marriage or other commitments, and everything else typically considered a "relationship".

Currently in commitment.

3

Jimmy Hoffa

I do quite enjoy dancing, but I don't think dating site participation would go over so well with the wife

@enderland star just for the current status line...

Sparticus

area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/44577/…

enderland

Nov 4 at 22:18, by enderland

I'm in a committeed relationship with Relationships and Dating

gnat

@JimmyHoffa don't you know? part of the mod agreement includes divorce for those married

Celibacy

Celibacy (from Latin, cælibatus) is a state of being unmarried and sexually abstinent, usually in association with the role of a religious official or devotee. In its narrow sense, the term is applied only to those for whom the unmarried state is the result of a sacred vow, act of renunciation, or religious conviction. Celibacy has existed in one form or another throughout history and in virtually all the major religions of the world. Celibacy is distinct from the lack of interest in sex, which may be due to a number of reasons, such as asexuality. Etymology The English word celibacy der...

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat No wonder the mods are all fun-hating nazis...

gnat

19:18

@JimmyHoffa yes, that explains a lot

►

11 upvotes - not bad for the post that has been initially voted down to -10 — gnat 2 hours ago

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat After I made my wife watch the movie fallen (if you haven't seen it; it's a great flick) this song permanently creeps her out.

amazon.com/Fallen-Snap-Packaging-Denzel-Washington/dp/…

►

gnat

@JimmyHoffa wow. I've got to see it! A second hit today (first was Pantera) - you're in a good shape :)

despite a year of absence :)

Ampt

Conversation with a co-worker just made me think of this short story by Isaac Asimov. worth a quick read if you like Sci-Fi

filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm

(since it is friday and not yet early enough to start the beer discussion anyway)

enderland

19:34

@Ampt are you saying it's not too early to start beer discussion?

I don't even drink beer and I know that'snot true!

(I'm going to get banned for saying that. RIP enderland)

Ampt

@enderland I figured we would start in about 25 minutes anyway

and you won't be banned, you'll be educated

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat Aye, it's one of those rare movies that 15 years later doesn't seem to have aged at all, easily worth the watch.

user20683

I don't ignore anyone. That would give me fewer people to yell at and/or ban.

Ampt

Speaking of people who are never on anymore has anyone seen World Engineer anywhere? I miss that guy

2

user41796

19:52

@enderland we frequently discuss other cordials. It's not always about beer.

user20683

@Ampt I know you can hear me. Cut it out.

enderland

@WorldEngineer you always get pings even when someone is on ignore. Don't ask me how I know

gnat

how dare you. That would put Shog's favorite "third example" into the danger of deletion. Get off your axe from his "haXe" — gnat 1 min ago

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