Language Overflow

AIQ

01:31

Countless questions like this from this user

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Q: Are these expressions valid, "do you want to put the box over yourself?", "do you want me to put the box over you?", etc?

Some children like to play like this. That is they cover themselves with a big box. Are these expressions valid: -do you want to put the box over yourself? -do you want me to put the box over you? -do you want to put yourself in the box like that? -do you want me to put you in the box like...

They are learning baby-talk from ELL ...

Eddie Kal

@AIQ I have seen a lot of their posts. They seem to be aiming to teach their child to speak proper English and improving their own by learning idiomatic English on this site. Proud of the fact that the site is of help to people

AIQ

hmmm ... but I guess I have a different opinion of this.

most of their questions don't show any research effort

Eddie Kal

@AIQ True that. I've downvoted a whole bunch of them. Still happy they are here to learn.

AIQ

for example, in the above question, they are confused about the usage of "you" and "yourself" and then they are providing us with two different phrasing of the sentence ...

I don't mind anyone asking questions, but they should be clear in what they want and do some research ... they are asking "do you want me to put the box over you" and then "do you want to put yourself in the box like that"

Eddie Kal

@AIQ What do you mean? I don't see any issue with that

They are asking about idiomatic phrasing.

Those are worded differently

AIQ

01:43

those are two different things

could be two different questions

Eddie Kal

So apparently one of us is not reading those lines correctly. Those are not two different things

Not to me

AIQ

the user has 9000 rep points. I think they are very well able to phrase the question in a better way

Eddie Kal

Let me come back to this. Let's continue this discussion in a bit

Eddie Kal

01:59

@ColleenV I had to go missing for a good few hours since I had some stuff I needed to attend to. Now I am ready to say my piece. Since there are too many points I see worth discussing, I will just go about it without any particular order.

First please rest assured I brought this matter up in the mod chatroom as soon as you suggested it. Since you apparently consider that to be of the highest priority, so be it

Let's get the terminology bugger out of the way

You objected twice to my use of the word censorship. So we shall do what's asked of our posters/contributors, let's cite a source and look at dictionary definitions of "censorship" and "censor"

> the institution, system, or practice of censoring

That's Merriam Webster's definition of "censorship"

> to examine in order to suppress (see SUPPRESS sense 2) or delete anything considered objectionable

Again good ol' M-W defining the verb "censor"

Based on this, what you suggest the mods should do falls squarely under censor/censorship

I understand you may consider it a heavily loaded word

But rose by any other name, right?

We should call a club a club (I am staying away from using the word spade for obvious reasons)

Whitewashing it doesn't make it any rosier. I am not saying censorship is necessarily a bad thing, mind you

I agree with what @M.A.R. said the other day, minimum censorship sometimes can lead to a lot less trouble/work for the moderators

But we can't shrink away from the term just because it has a wider, less-pleasant application scope or it could be politically charged

If it makes any difference we could use censoring if you prefer

> Moderating it is not censorship

No it is not. But censoring is moderation

Per the M-W definitions, is to examine in order to delete anything considered objectionable not part of moderation?

Is that not exactly what you are asking me to do?

ColleenV

@EddieKal Frankly, it’s not my problem any more. I don’t need to convince you, and you don’t have to justify anything to me

Eddie Kal

I understand. But I'd still like to say my piece if I may

Let me finish what I started. And I am just getting started

@ColleenV Also more importantly this discussion has potential impact on future similar issues

ColleenV

02:14

Sure, but I’m heading to bed.

I don’t moderate here any more, so do what you think is best for the site

Eddie Kal

@ColleenV Sleep tight. Hopefully I will be done by the time you wake up. lol

CowperKettle

02:55

24 kilometers in 2 hours 7 minutes

My longest run thus far

Eddie Kal

03:09

@ColleenV Frankly I just don't see mincing words helping in any way. The bottom line is I disagree that FF's comments should head to the bin or mod-modified.

> And yes, you will take many actions that people won't like

@ColleenV Ironically that is exactly what I am doing that's giving me a big target on my back

No, you are right, this isn't a forum, and that is something I like enough to stay here and want to be part of it. But comments and chattiness have always been allowed on this site.

The comment function was put in place as an afterthought, but even in the early years of StackOverflow, they were appreciated for their wittiness and relevance. I am citing Jeff Atwood here. And yes I had to bone up on this a bit just now

Comments: Top n Shown

Jeff Atwood on April 23, 2009

You’ll notice that the top 5 comments are now shown under each question or answer. If you want to see all the comments, or add a comment of your own, clicking will load the rest and reveal the comment entry box. The flagging and voting tools are still there for each comment, but require a…

I have been cleaning up a ton of comments since elected. I do that daily in the spirit of keeping the site relevant, tidy, and Q&A-focused. I am a hardliner when it comes to clearing up comments.

So this is a meta comment of J.R.'s from 2018:

Also worth noting: A good portion of the comments deleted by the mod team are flagged comments. Sometimes it seems like for every one person who is upset by disappearing comments, there is someone else who is complaining that we aren't getting rid of them fast enough. — J.R. ♦ Sep 4 '18 at 22:33

I don't know who those users were exactly that were complaining the superfluous comments were not disappearing fast enough, but I definitely consider myself one. I just revisited my old flags, and I was averaging 3-4 flags a day against unnecessary comments (on top of post flags)

On Aug 28, 2018 I raised 17 no longer needed flags against comments in a single day.

I don't know who J.R. had in mind when they said some users were complaining about unnecessary comments, but I certainly wouldn't be too off base if I guessed yours truly.

You know what, while I was counting old flags, I saw around that time two of my comment flags were declined and the chatty comments were allowed on the site for some reason. They were nothing more than pure bantering. So now I finally get to clear them.

Of course whoever declined my flags had their reasons but on the surface it appeared they were not purged because they happened between two advanced users.

If we were to strive for consistency how could we allow a bit of chattiness to remain on while getting a bead on anything that could be tangentially or subjectively interpreted as "political BS"?

So my comment cleanup ethics are simple. I keep useful stuff. I fully agree with the oft repeated assertion that comments are temporary. They shouldn't be intended or expected to stick around forever.

That is the reason I defended @userr2684291 's comments and still consider a lot of their comments highly useful

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Q: Why the heck do you keep removing my comments telling askers to look things up

Let's see, Exhibit A: How to address a woman in a letter? When writing a letter or an e-mail to a man I know the (sur-)name of ("Smith"), I would write: Dear Mr. Smith, What should I use when addressing a woman? Is it (like for married women): Dear Mrs. Smith, Or just: Dea...

discussion comments moderation

I dislike comment-answers as much as the next guy, but there's always a gray area where things are not so cut and dried. Several users' comments often contain bits and pieces of wisdom and helpful information. I would coerce them into reworking their comments into answers if I could, but alas I can't can I?

Comments from @userr2684291 are a great example. So are those from several relatively new users BadZen, user105719 (sadly these two are not active any more), just to name a few. I am sure there are many others, but I have not been around for very long to know them.

AIQ

04:07

Was the "native" part necessary?

Welcome to ELL, I think your contributions are a real asset to the site. We need more native speakers like you around here. — Mari-Lou A Jun 9 at 13:10

Eddie Kal

Some users have reacted very strongly to their comments being converted to answers. Some give very helpful information in their comments without bothering to give a fuller explanation. How to deal with these comments has always been a challenge for moderators

@AIQ No. And I was thinking the same thing.

So I am going to wrap this up with a link to the absolute go-to page on moderating comments on Meta SE

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A: A guide to moderating comments

When should moderators edit comments? Almost never. Comments have no publicly visible revision history (the changes are logged in case of abuse, but these are only visible to moderators). Therefore, it is critical that moderator edits do not misrepresent the author's meaning or intentions. Edits...

2

> When should moderators edit comments?

2

> Almost never. Comments have no publicly visible revision history (the changes are logged in case of abuse, but these are only visible to moderators). Therefore, it is critical that moderator edits do not misrepresent the author's meaning or intentions.

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Emphasis is original

So no @ColleenV I don't think the situation demands a mod edit. And it should be used truly sparingly

Two things we can't do, we can't afford to do. We cannot police comments/posts only from certain users but not from established users (this doesn't apply in FF's case, but might have in some other cases I have seen). We cannot only pay lip service to things while mincing words

Anonymous

04:48

@EddieKal And because there's no revision history, people really don't like it when their comments get edited. Like, way more than they dislike it when you actually just delete the comments.

Anonymous

I rarely edit other people's comments, but when I do it's usually because someone asked me to (which hasn't happened in a few years now), or because I'm fixing a typo in the Markdown or a broken link – the sort of thing where I'm sure there's no chance I'm misrepresenting their intent.

Anonymous

Usually if there's a problem with a comment, the best solution is just to delete the comment.

Eddie Kal

One of my earliest ELL memories involves a user asking me to clarify my question. Then a second comment came from the same user protesting: "Someone edited my comment. I didn't put that link." Comment authors do protest. I think we should respect their authorship and ownership and I agree with your approach

CowperKettle

07:01

Word of the day: lyssophobia

CowperKettle

07:29

- Let's start all over again
- No, influenza virus
- I've changed, baby
- Why do I keep falling for this?

Martin Sleziak

08:58

I wasn't sure whether using modal as a noun is correct. As, for example, on Meta Stack Exchange: The new ask page is now live on the network! (current revision)

Modal what? Modal dialog? Modal window? — P.Mort. - forgot Clay Shirky_q 14 hours ago

But this is indeed listed in Wiktionary: modal

AIQ

09:58

Holy fuck one question from Martial Arts SE became a HNQ with only 135 views! And I answered it ... it's funny because the question is sort of like a "word request" in ELL. I just provided the word ... nothing special ... but good for me I guess ...

3

A: Is there any device to practice defense while attacking?

If you attack the top then it will rotate the bottom stick to attack you. What is that? Not really sure if I have ever come across something like that. But I think this is what you are looking for: the "spar bar". To get the bar to "attack" you, you actually have to hit it so it spins and ...

ColleenV

10:45

@EddieKal I shouldn't have interfered - it's not my place to do that any more.

userr2684291

16:05

@EddieKal I don't know if it's because I'm not a native speaker, but I see that comment as providing a biased story on something that wasn't asked about. The asker asked about the construction, rather than the meaning of some expression; it's very "helpful" of FF to provide some context – given FF's role of Trump adviser and counsel – namely that all that is Trump's master plan, and that these critics are falsely accusing him of basically tweeting all day.

It's providing a god damn excuse for something ... and no one asked about that. It's clearly politically motivated.

In the case that it was made to actually clarify something, it's still biased and therefore unacceptable. And in that case I should also be free to comment about this, quoting some idiotic tweet or newspaper article that deals with that matter.

Because since you're now accepting this as some kinda "innocent, helpful, context-providing comment", I should also provide more context...

Because it's context, right?

You should delete this instead of trying to follow some overly generalized rules that can't actually be applied. Yes, it's bad to edit comments because people complain about that, but this is a valid exception.

You're giving them the benefit of the doubt, that's what you're doing here, in case the user was simply "misinformed" and is "innocently quoting some very valid ... whatever". This is how you waste time on fact checking and being all "both sides" about it instead of just nipping it in the bud before it buds into that sunflower you call president.

I wonder how many euphemisms I know for fucking.

Or, you could try and actually argue your non-point about ... the definition of censorship (???) or whatever ship you think this is.

CowperKettle

17:10

Word of the day: pin bone

Why do they call it thus?

Eddie Kal

17:25

@userr2684291 I am just going to respond to one point and then I am done, because most of this should have been explained, discussed, put to bed, and tucked in.

> Or, you could try and actually argue your non-point about ... the definition of censorship (???) or whatever ship you think this is.

CowperKettle

Word of the minute: assless chaps

Eddie Kal

You apparently agree with me that censorship is not even a point worth arguing. Damn straight userr. Because if not censorship I don't know "whatever ship" it is.

There shouldn't have been contention in that regard

Glad we reached an agreement there and finally got that out of the way.

userr2684291

18:59

@EddieKal Damn straight, but not because of your misconceptions and following some dictionary definitions. If you really want to consider it censorship, you can, but in this way: "the institution, system, or practice of censoring", censor: "to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable", objectionable: "undesirable". So, the practice of examining in order to delete something undesirable. Yup, I'm perfectly content with this definition.

Normally censorship implies something else, but now we're gonna do what you want me to do. Because you're like "do you really want me to cEnSOr stuff?", and then you're like "but censoring isn't bad". Well OK then, here you go.

And the reason you haven't responded to anything else is, I assume, that you agree with it. So I'm glad we've put this matter to bed, and you can just do your job, maybe. Or maybe you can pretend you're right about something.

What I wanted to say is it's meaningless to discuss this definition, because it's not even clear what you're trying to say with it.

Or how it's relevant at all to the matter here. Is it relevant in any way? Are you just unsure whether you can use that word in this situation? Well, here you go, you can use it; see the substituted dictionary definitions above.

I personally wouldn't, which is why I asked whether you just wanted to say edit (because it seemed you were trying to imply more than is actually there, i.e. the usual way the word censor is used).

The word censor in this context, and especially when talking about politics, is used with bad connotations, for your information.

New Meta Question

20:00

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Q: Why is this like Reddit?

This entire platform is like Reddit, the upvoting system, the body of text etc. But was this first or was Reddit first? I've tried to look it up but I can’t find anything.

discussion

AIQ

20:13

Suppose there are two answers worth selecting as the "accepted" answer. One answer is very lengthy and detailed - this answerer has taken the time to write the answer. It was initially a comment. I asked them to turn it into an answer. They did and they also added details. Although correct, this answer is not exactly what I am looking for (it may be my second choice). This one has 1 upvote.

The other answer is very short: a one liner. This is exactly what I am looking for. This was initially posted as a comment too. I asked the commentator to turn their comment into an answer. They simply copied the comment and posted it as an answer. Now, it shows they did not bother about writing me a detailed answer. But this one has 3 upvotes.

I don't know which I should select as "accepted".

I don't want to reward the person who did not go the extra mile, but then again that answer is what I am looking for.

@EddieKal

Eddie Kal

You are the OP, and as the owner of the post you have some options of going about it. Have you considered awarding the second closest answer an upvote and accepting the accurate yet curt answer without upvoting it?

Or just don't accept that answer and maybe someone else will come along and flesh it out

Or you can also flesh it out yourself and explain why you decide to do it and where you get your ideas from

AIQ

I actually upvoted both ... and I couldn't make up my mind so I didn't select any of them as "accepted"

hmmm ...

Eddie Kal

You could wait till the bounty option is available and go that route

Stating that you want an accurate and detailed answer

but I wouldn't in this particular case. You don't have to spend your rep to search for something you already got

AIQ

20:31

Right ...

AIQ

21:10

@EddieKal @ColleenV Is this right?

> Out of curiosity: where in the world are you? In the places I know it would be completely socially uncaccaptable as a parent to speak with a professor about their children (and not legal for a prof to give the parents information on theor chidlren). – user111388 Jun 10 at 19:00

> @JonCuster While I understand the general sentiment, the idea that a parent would take an active role in the relationship between their adult child and the university sounds completely out of bounds to me. Would you also do the same if their employer did something inappropriate to them? – Denis Nardin 2 days ago

> I feel like the complaints about this post are missing the point; a parent talking to a professor is inappropriate, but a professor actually encouraging a student who is doing well to drop out is so much worse that it overshadows that. +1 – Jeff 2 days ago

Parents can't talk to professors about their children? Why?

Eddie Kal

21:24

So I don't know where in the world these people are, but if it is US law that they had in mind with that comment about not legal, in the U.S. there is something called FERPA

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA or the Buckley Amendment) is a United States federal law that governs the access to educational information and records by public entities such as potential employers, publicly funded educational institutions, and foreign governments. == Overview == FERPA gives parents access to their child's education records, an opportunity to seek to have the records amended, and some control over the disclosure of information from the records. With several exceptions, schools must have a student's consent prior to the disclosure of education records...

> FERPA gives parents access to their child's education records, an opportunity to seek to have the records amended, and some control over the disclosure of information from the records. With several exceptions, schools must have a student's consent prior to the disclosure of education records after that student is 18 years old.

@AIQ And the assertion that parents can't talk to their child' professor is definitely inaccurate at best

Of course it is off-key for a parent to talk to a professor to negotiate their kid's grades, if they think their kid has been graded unfairly.

But if a parent meets a professor at a social, an orientation, or some other event and goes "Hi my daughter is dying to study with you. What classes are you teaching this semester?" There is no way that's considered a faux pas by anybody

AIQ

@EddieKal But it wasn't about grades. It was about a prof telling his students that they should drop out if the prof felt that was best for the student ...

Thanks for the link, didn't know about this

Eddie Kal

21:40

In that case, no, I don't see anything off-key with that situation. I could tell you some stories about people I personally knew or met who got their parents involved in similar situations. It is not good practice, but it happens and the professor wouldn't like it and can choose to not meet with the parent but they wouldn't scream "illegal" either

@ColleenV Didn't mean to beat a dead horse, but I have to ask you this and after some consideration I recommend we escalate this to an ethics and conduct discussion. So I have to ask you this: Did you have any idea what @userr2684291 wrote in their flag, at all?

So I think it's time I posted this reminder for some users here: Keep in mind that bigotry is not allowed and obscenity and insults will not be tolerated. Period.

3

You want to call another user stupid and you want to argue with me, with the mod team about your right to do that? Learn to respect others first.

As a reminder: no one should take this lightly or pay lip service to it.

meta.stackexchange.com/conduct

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