The Whiteboard

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user55340

12:48 AM

@gnat The awkward bit is that he's got a different direction/goal. He's trying to promote the site and he's got the "Discuss this ${question}" as something that he wants when posting on Ars Technica.

user55340

He's after questions that will spark discussion threads on Ars. Admittitally, these very questions are also the ones that are problematic here for the same reason.

Jimmy Hoffa

7:04 AM

> Q: How to prevent my new creativity from copying? [Duplicate]

irony

gnat

7:16 AM

@MichaelT I understand, and his previous picks were like you describe, "Discuss this ${question}". It's just... this time he managed to get into a simple question with a "single correct answer", scores distribution indicates this quite strongly. It just happened that other (low interest) answers bumped the question to top of hot list and made it look like popular discussion. I do tricks like that to SO questions almost daily, it's easy when one knows how list works...

great experiment! To help in testing, I plan to visit Stack Overflow questions in the hot list and actively vote up posts I like. This way will let SE team study how effective it works against "lemming effect" using familiar material (instead of obscure questions at smaller sites like Programmers, Workplace, Math, Code Golf, UX) — gnat Feb 4 at 5:48

...really funny how it depends only of question having sufficient amount of answers (no matter good or bad) and of it being not closeable. It works like sort of self fulfilling prophecy Jeff was so worried about 5 years ago. Rather easy for single determined voter to push things so that question gets +30-40 and top answer gets +50-60. 2-3 voters can make it a total mess

gnat

7:35 AM

It's also interesting to see how more experienced SO users instinctively try to offset fake hotness by voting down the impacted question...

Such a useful question, so many downvotes. What's wrong with people? — Howard 23 hours ago

above comment is in question having vote split +59/-18. I bet if its score was like 5-10-15, nobody would bother voting down, it would feel "fair" ;)

gnat

8:24 AM

-8

Q: what is the use of Object Oriented Design principles?

Please explain me with examples what is the use of object oriented design principles.

in an object oriented design, Stack Overflow would be an object having method explainProgramming(question), while meta SO wouldn't have such a method and instead would have method explainHowSiteWorks(question) — gnat 49 secs ago

5 hours later…

gnat

1:08 PM

-2

Q: Why PSE is unpleasant place to ask question

I visit PSE once in a full moon, and all I see is closed questions, most marked with down votes and close votes. Seriously, with this ratio of negative votes towards questions and unpleasant welcome to new users, I had to ask this question. Does the rules of PSE are only well known to its moder...

discussion

"an open discussion platform"... priceless

amon

It's even tagged with discussion. Are we sending mixed signals? ;-)

gnat

1:34 PM

oy wey

gnat

2:10 PM

o-o-o-o. o-o-o-o! o-o-o-o!!!

this is how you confuse new members... Good subjective, bad subjective, half opinion based, full opinion based, semi opinion based, good fit, semi good fit, bla bla.. So, you mean people should take one week off and read all the posts, blogs, faqs, articles before asking their question? every person doesn't come here with a motto to be moderator and learn all the rules, a simple guideline should be enough to get started and let them ask their question. — Jhilke Dai 19 mins ago

"you mean people should take one week off and read all the posts, blogs, faqs, articles before asking their question?" is there a way to answer yes to this... politely?

@MichaelT mind writing a meta post addressing above? ^^^

gnat

2:28 PM

141

A: How much research effort is expected of Stack Overflow users?

A lot. An absurd amount. More than you think you are capable of. In fact, asking a question on Stack Overflow is the absolute last thing you ever want to do. You want to avoid it at all costs. You want to think of it as a horrible shame1 that will forever haunt you and pass down from you to your ...

amon

@gnat I took a more diplomatic and liberal stance, but I would prefer to let that conversation die slowly as it leads to nowhere useful.

@JhilkeDai I agree, that's why we have the about page. It outlines how the site works, and what is acceptable. And then there's the general idea that one should be respectful of other people's time – try for yourself before asking others. And when your ask, clearly show what you've tried, what you want, and what you have: make it easy for others to help you. Together, about and respect are the simple guideline to get started, the rest is just elaboration on that. — amon 3 mins ago

gnat

2:46 PM

@amon I think you do it right, and I much appreciate your patience. Myself I try to abstain because of feeling too emotionally involved...

2 hours later…

user55340

4:18 PM

@gnat I'll think about it... its not a small thing I'm thinking of for that.

user55340

Also, that user is fairly consistently "P.SE" is a bad place and posts comments to that effect.

gnat

5:50 PM

@MichaelT tough challenges make road to solid guidance - it's hard do come up with bullet proof explanations when everybody around only agrees and applauds :)

Yannis Rizos

6:01 PM

@MichaelT @gnat @amon Cleaned up the "you are bullies" comments and messaged the user (I wouldn't, but then I noticed his comments spilling on the main site). Hopefully he'll get the message, but if he doesn't there will be little point in further engaging him (and it might make things worse). If he comes back and starts raging again, just send us a flag and we'll take it from there.

I wouldn't have a problem with him if he had contained his rage on his own Meta question, but going around and commenting on random Meta and main site posts is just too much.

1 hour later…

user55340

7:13 PM

@YannisRizos Thank you. In the "once in a blue moon" when he does show up, its sometimes appropriate to check his network activity too. Didn't happen this time, but in the past he's raged around SO comments too (a SO mod could poke at this to pull out an example)

gnat

7:57 PM

►

4 hours later…

user55340

11:40 PM

Q: Why was my question closed or down voted?

Help! My question was closed (or down voted)? Downvoted Duplicate Off topic What language to take up next Recommend a tool, library, or other Career or education advice Unclear Too broad Primarily opinion-based Other The answers below try to summarize the issue and provide links to related ...

discussion close-reasons

user55340

Though its still in the process of being worked on. I hope I don't hit a rate-limiter on it.

Ampt

Rate Limiter?

user55340

How many things you can do in a given time frame.

user55340

Like how many answers you can post in an hour.

user55340

I'm already hitting one - 1 answer every 60 seconds.

user55340

11:42 PM

(I made a mega answer with all the parts, but I'm breaking it up into linkable parts)

Ampt

Well I think one answer every minute is relatively reasonable.

user55340

It is.

user55340

But I've got one answer for each close reason.

user55340

So I wrote 9 answers in one... and then breaking it up into 9 answers.

Ampt

you're just doing it for the shiny repz

user55340

11:44 PM

M.P.SE reps are nothing.

user55340

They don't even count.

user55340

Up vote, down vote... it doesn't change the rep.

user55340

Meta rep = main site rep.

user55340

I wonder if I'm spamming the mod inboxes with this.

user55340

And done!

user55340

11:55 PM

@gnat So, there's the starter of it at least. I'm sure there are other questions and blog posts out there that could help clarify certain points better.

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