So, who are our hosts and guests of the chat-cast?

We'll be starting momentarily. The chatcast will last 90 minutes instead of the 60 mins in the schedule.

We'll try to cover as many issues as possible and have every candidate participate.

Arbiter: Frosteeze (will prevent us from getting off-topic or too heated)

Candidates: Matt, Senshin, Memor-X, Madara Uchiha, Killua, and Krazer (joining late due to traffic)

Format: Three to four predetermined topics will be addressed with a 75-minute total time limit; questions to individual candidates will be permitted for 15 minutes after this.

Roll call: @Matt @senshin @Memor-X @MadaraUchiha @ʞɹɐzǝɹ

hai

Hai. Guess we'll be starting a bit late if we're the only two

If you guys are ready we can get started

Unless you guys think we should wait

I'm ready whenever. I don't think we necessarily need to wait.

Whatever you want to do.

We can start but I'll be a bit slow to respond

@Frosteeze Want to start us off with a topic of discussion?

Welcome @ʞɹɐzǝɹ @ mobile

Alright then. First issue will be about Id-requests since it seems to be the most pressing. @senshin what is your stance on the issue?

Shouldn't you be saving the best for last?

It's fine at the start (IMO) since it will get us most talkative.

^. Also try to mark where you will end your speech so no one "interrupts."

:P

I think they suck and the site would overall be better without them.

But, like, I'm not going to be hardline "my way or the highway" on this.

Anything that makes them suck less helps.

When you say "they suck", what do you mean specifically? How do you think they detriment the site?

My opposition to them is twofold. First, I think that on a quantitative basis, they cause significant moderation overhead without bringing commensurate benefits to the site. Second, on a qualitative basis, I think they are fundamentally incompatible with SE in the following way (which I have only figured out how to articulate since the last time we discussed this in chat):

@eric it's @Frosteeze's job to ask follow ups

I'm here

Identification requests are, at their core, out-of-universe list questions. It is equivalent to saying "Here is a list of features of an anime/etc. Please list all the anime that meet these criteria."

We can hope that there will be only one such anime, but as we know, this often does not happen in practice.

Often, there are many (which is bad), or there are zero (and we can't tell that there are zero, so these questions hang around forever in an open state, which is bad).

(end)

@Killua Do you have any thoughts on this or does this explanation satisfies you?

I'm satisfied by the explanation. I do not agree with it entirely, but it answers my question.

@ʞɹɐzǝɹ and @Matt do you have anything to add?

Not to that, no.

I'll wait for @ʞɹɐzǝɹ for his response then

Not specifically on senshin's stance.

Alright. @Killua what do you disagree with @senshin stance?

I'll be slow to respond so move on and I'll catch up

I'll keep that in mind

I'll address each point in turn. For the moderator overhead, I think this is not an issue we should be worrying about. Just as we do not add or remove laws based on the number of police officers, we should not be concerned with the overhead of moderating on specific issues when deciding their fate.

As for the "list" comparison, this is both true and untrue. They do not suffer from many of the problems that list questions do.

1) ID requests are reasonably scoped. There is only one answer (according to the OP).

2) ID requests do not change over time. (New anime will not be introduced that the OP is looking for.)

A user does not have to know every anime to answer the question. They need only one. That is, they do not need to know that there are more anime out there that might fit the description, in order to answer the question.

Good evening

For these reasons, I do not believe that ID requests are strictly comparable to list questions, nor do they actively harm the site nor participation.

They're a good gateway to bring in new users and thus, even if the benefit isn't as high as on other tags, destroying the tag would actively harm new users' abilities to join the site.

(end)

+1 on that kilua

Domo @Dimitrimx -san

@Matt which do you agree with more? @Killua or @senshin ?

I agree with krazer

While I do see where @senshin is coming from, I have to take @Killua stance on this one

On the moderation overheads, I don't think that's a major issue at all - our review queues are almost always kept at zero, so it's not like we're drowning in work here. I don't think they make that many extra tasks that it's an issue to be concerned about.

Work input vs. reward outout is another matter, but the point that they make too much extra work isn't something I agree with

(end, I think. Does that count as a speech?)

@Matt well keep in mind that mods will have to deal with more than just the review queue. @ʞɹɐzǝɹ as a seasoned moderator, do agree with @Matt about this? Or do you think it will create more problems as @senshin said?

I've been pretty clear about my stance on id reqs. They are not worth the time and effort to deal with. We should CV and down vote bad questions from the front page. It sends a clear message that we're not going to deal with your crap question if you dun bother to read our guidelines. There are other parts of the site that need attention，we should focus on those like user retention, voting, and engagement

@krazer issent the user retention also partionally due to he ID-requests?

@Frosteeze spread the questions around there are other ppl besides Eric and senshin

@Dimitrimx please try better articulating your question

@ʞɹɐzǝɹ I think he's asking if ID-requests is causing problems for user retention.

E.g it keeps new users away because of how bad the front page looks like.

I was actually reffering to the users that post and leave, as I believe those also count as user retention.

My english is really horrid today. I have been playing dutch word games for the last 7 hours..

We're running out of time for this issue so I'll cut it off. Next issue is about NSFW/Hentai topics.

@Matt what are your thoughts about NSFW content in this SE? Should we keep questions /posts about hentai?

The questions aren't the problem it's the users

There's little we can do about these users as they are essentially help vampires

@Frosteeze The site has a PG/13 rating, so what we post has to adhere to that, but aside from that point, I think they're fair game. Obviously it can be a bit difficult to ask a question on mature topics in a SFW way, but if that's taken care of, I don't see why not.

Naturally, they'd have to conform to the other guidelines as well

@Dimitrimx from the stats by JNat we can clearly see that most id reqs users don't contribute much at all

I'd rather have 5 users that contribute than 1000 that only ask one or two questions and never come back

@Dimitrimx @Killua @senshin @ʞɹɐzǝɹ do you have any rebuttals with what @Matt said? It seems like NSFW content is more @MadaraUchiha 's issue and he's not here today.

I agree on @matt 's statement. If handled in a mature way in accordance with the site

Basically every problem we've had with highly-NSFW content has been in ID requests. Nobody has had problems discussing eroge (Fate, Grisaia, etc.) or whatever like reasonable people. It's just the people who come here and ask "plz give me sauce for pr0n" that are problems.

I'm strongly of the opinion that we need to conform to Stack Exchange's content guidelines, but beyond that we should not be setting further rules or policies on what NSFW content can be posted.

Any questionable images that still pass content guidelines in Stack Exchange's terms should be hidden by a spoiler tag and tagged as NSFW.

But I do not see any reason why we should be any stricter about that issue. (end)

Apologize for being late

I'm here now

@MadaraUchiha Welcome.

@Matt I'll tell you where I have problems with that

It's a very very slippery slope

And once you open that door, closing it is hard

It's not a chance that there is no other recreational Stack Exchange site that allows NSFW content to be discussed

And even the scientific ones like Biology have very VERY strict rules

Now, it's not that I'm against the subject, and it's not that I think that disallowing any sort of discourse is a good thing

But I don't think we can handle it sanely.

explicit content has no place on our site borderline lewd content should be tolerated at best as it's part of the culture and put in a spoiler. Adding a pg 13 rating w/o starting the criteria doesn't help much. We each have different standards based on our own views upbringings and culture, so we can't always see eye to eye

Not in a way that will also allow us to keep the quality bar high

Also, exactly that ^

This is what I think, too, but explicit content is already covered by Stack Exchange's policies (as a complete no-no, no images, no linking, etc.).

> Sexually Explicit Material. Accounts that use Stack Exchange to post sexually explicit or pornographic material, or links to it, will be suspended. (ref)

Yes, plus the subject of web filters was already raised a few times in the pat

past*

Explicit gore and violence should be noted too

talking about Boku no Pico a lot will associate our site with Boku no Pico and get us blocked on web filters (and I know it's an exaggerated example, but it is an example)

Even without actually mentioning any scenes, linking to any images or videos, and keeping everything as professional as possible.

This is something we must take into account, and is beyond our direct control.

We can control the content we allow, but not how others (services and people) interpret that content.

@MadaraUchiha That's a good point

(my internet connection is shitting the bed right now, fyi)

Therefore, I think we should tread VERY carefully in these uncharted lands

A misstep can cost us a lot of users, and backing from Stack Exchange.

So here's my TL;DR on NSFW serieses based discussion

Explicit content is a no-brainer. Gore, sex, images, videos, links, obvious hentai meant to get you off without actually having any artistic or plot value.

As for the borderline ones, we need to be careful and selective with regards to what we accept and what we don't, and state so explicitly in our [help] and Anime & Manga Meta.

@ʞɹɐzǝɹ @Killua @senshin @Dimitrimx @Matt any rebuttals?

Something along the lines of "Questions regarding adult anime/manga are under individual review, please keep your question as professional as possible. Please note that your question may still be closed nonetheless"

I'm largely ambivalent on this issue, but Madara's stance seems "safer" and I'm inclined to side with him.

At least until we can somehow come up with clear guidelines, with a clear border.

I agree with your points there: explicit content, that's definitely something we can't reasonably tolerate on the site. Borderline might have to be more of a case-by-case basis until we have more examples to define very explicit (heh) guidelines.

Rather safe then sorry. I can agree on that

This seems like a much more reasonable stance than I had taken Madara to believe in in the past. I'm fully against explicit content (because of SE's policies), and am totally okay with individually reviewing borderline content.

In the general case, I think most NSFW content can simply be spoiler-tagged.

@MadaraUchiha This seems good to me. A Stewartian "I know it when I see it" approach seems most appropriate. Trying to legislate corner cases is an exercise in futility. (end)

But there can of course be extenuating circumstances that require review. (end)

I don't think the situation is a big problem as long as users know to flag these types of content if they can't vote to delete it. High rep users also contributing can take a big load off the mods.

Yes

Eventually, this is a community decision.

Questions from a NSFW series that are on a SFW element in said series should be ok though, at least imo

Moderators have absolute vote powers, but ultimately, moderators won't close every question they can. Mods are there for the exceptional cases.

@Matt Absolutely.

And we aren't getting many of these questions, so I think we should be ok to take them as they come, at least for the time being

@Matt Yes, it doesn't scale very well, but we aren't "scale" yet

I think we're all agreed on this one.

But how does this cover gore? There are plenty of gore driven series, which might sometimes require images of a pretty 'gory' content

taking Berserk for a example

@Dimitrimx Those will still fall under "explicit" or "borderline" and be subject to the same review process, IMO.

@Dimitrimx I don't see the difference here

Alright it seems that everyone's stance is clear. Let's keep moving. Next issue is up. @Killua , user participation is an issue in this SE. How would mods help solve this problem?

"explicit" covers sex, violence, gore, etc.

Unfortunately, mods do not have ultimate power, so we cannot be the only ones involved in this process. However, it is important for moderators to lead by example, by up- or downvoting questions, commenting, being friendly toward users, and welcoming them to chat.

In the long run, this will encourage a community attitude of participation and get users to communicate with each other well. This will, in turn, increase participation.

People will be more likely to ask/answer questions in a community they feel welcomed and invested in.

TL;DR: by moderators interfacing with users more, we can encourage regular users to do the same, and increase engagement and participation. (end)

@Killua I don't feel like this is a moderator's job.

I agree with what you've put there mostly, although it's everyone's job to have a welcoming approach, not just the mods

I feel like a good moderator is almost invisible. Not felt until needs be

It's up to us as a community to vote more

To engage more

And us as mods can certainly encourage that

We're at the 1 hr mark

But a big part of the reputation/privilege system is to keep users we've managed to attract

I'll try to clarify my perspective, since I feel like it isn't coming through.

@Matt you are probably the newest user out of all the candidates. What's your perspective on this? What made you become a regular user? And do you agree or disagree with what's been said?

I agree with madara's statement, but think that a more active approach through commenting sometimes can be very usefull. 'generic comments' tend to scare people away

The reason there are so many privileges so close together at the low reputation points is to hook users up on trying to get the next near privilege, and familiarizing themselves with the site

We need to be more active, on the days I have the time to be here for more than a couple hours, I tend to max out my votes for the day

Votes are our blood, and we need to pump it like there's no tomorrow.

@MadaraUchiha "It's up to us as a community to vote more" - Exactly, but we have to encourage that behavior. Telling users to vote won't work. It just won't. It will last for a day, maybe two, and people will go back to how they voted before. Unless you can breed that attitude in the community, it will never stick.

That's why moderators have to be ones to do that regularly. They must participate in the community the way they want others to.

@Frosteeze I agree with what's been said so far, but while mods should generally take a more 'invisible' approach like @MadaraUchiha has said, they can still be present and active in welcoming and improving the lives of other users

Also

(end) :P

I think we need more community interaction to help with this issue. We should do more stuff out in the community. The gift exchange was great, but we need to have things that engage the lesser involved members of the community. A few ideas I mentioned a while back where having chat made more visible to get some more people in here, and a sort of weekly poll in a box at the side, like StackEgg was

But what I think would be really useful would be a blog post or something every so often by one (or all) of the mods

@Matt Site-specific SE blogs aren't a thing anymore: meta.stackexchange.com/q/244467

It can cover good quality questions and answers from the community over the last period, pressing issues (like voting) and other community issues or events that are taking place

@senshin Well, it could be on meta or something, it doesn't need to be a specialised blog

@matt I disagree a mod needs to be visible and lead by example, they can't always be behind the scenes they need to be able to take up the mantle and arch the community forward but at the same time they don't need to have their hands in everything they need to give users room and time to follow suit and develop on their own

@Matt moderators aren't special members

They're members with elevated privileges

@senshin nothing stops you from starting your own site blog outside blog.se :P

But they are community members like any other

I just think that'll draw more attention to certain matters. As people that are often in chat, we can see issues like voting and stuff, but those that don't are gonna be more oblivious, so I think this could draw some more attention to certain things that need to be covered

@MadaraUchiha you said that mods should be invisible. The gift exchange last year, which was successful, was coordinated by the mods. Are you saying that mods should have no hands in encouraging participation in events such as that?

@Frosteeze The gift exchange was arranged by us, regardless of our moderator status

Too much silence can breed apathy too little can be considered nagging being able to strike a compromise is important

Normal community members can arrange events too

Very much so

The email we used for example is a private inbox I opened

It's not anything special, it wasn't Stack Exchange backed

@MadaraUchiha Yeah, moderator involvement doesn't need to go any further than maybe [featured]-ing some posts or whatever.

@ʞɹɐzǝɹ That's true, but I still think it's nice to see the higher-ups 'showing their faces'. That might just be a personal thing, but that's what I believe.

It's something we've talked amongst ourselves, asked around, gathered people and coordinated

@Matt But that's the thing. Moderators aren't "higher-ups", they're janitors.

@Matt I don't see moderators as higher ups

@senshin No, not anywhere except on Stack Overflow

@MadaraUchiha I think lmitiing this to mods alike is a good thing. As if the community takes all these events in their own hand, they might go out of control with such

@MadaraUchiha Fine, "custodial engineers".

@Dimitrimx I think moderators are figures the community trusts

So moves coordinated by mods have a higher chance of being successful, that's true

Moderators are recognizable, visible members of the community from any user's perspective. It's like seeing a police officer being a jerk, versus helping an old lady across the street. Even given that moderators are no higher than other users, the general perspective is that they are.

But it has nothing to do with the duties of the moderator

People are more likely going to be influenced by a moderator than any other community member, regardless of if the influence is good or bad.

I agree with that ^

Then why do you disagree with what I said above, where I mentioned leading by example?

Moderators need to be active and participate in the community so that other users follow suit.

@Killua Because aside from the public facing behavior, which I agree should be exemplary, there's not much mods can do

@MadaraUchiha If the quarterly(?) post idea goes through, that's also moderators showing themselves in the community

That's my point, though! To put forward our best interaction and engagement so that we can get other users to do the same.

Alright guys, I'm really sorry, but RL has a habit of killing any plans made :|

That "not much" is enough to start the ball rolling. (end)

I'll have to read the transcript at a later time

I have to go for now

See ya.

see ya

Good luck to everyone, and again, sorry ^^"

Good bye.

See you

Alright, we're almost at the 75 minute mark. Users may now ask any questions to the candidates. Fire away!

@Unihedron @Gao @OshinoShinobu @AsadaShino

And @Frosteeze, I'd like to include you in the "users" category now. You should ask questions as well if you have any, since an arbiter should no longer be required (unless things get heated).

@Frosteeze ?

Oh I forgot I joined this chat

lol

@Frosteeze dispute being a cool guy, why do you have to be responsible for global warming?

@Dimitrimx In lieu of other people asking, I'd like to ask what specific ideas you have for improving the community. You mentioned in your nomination, "every possible way," but I'm curious what your actual vision is.

@Killua I am quite the spontanious guy, even when it comes to improvement. The things I currently see is the user retention. Which is something I would like to find a solution for, by also making the site more alluring to new users.

I ultimately want us to be competitive with the other top rec SEs. Growing the user base to be a fun and friendly place to be is most important to me.

Also I would like to straight out things regarding ID-requests, as this seems to strike a sensible spot with quite allot of community members

If you're not enjoying yourself I wanna know why so we can make things more accommodating

And through feeding the people cookies every once in a while (end)

Fair enough.

@Matt Do you have experience dealing with disgruntled users?

@ʞɹɐzǝɹ I personally am enjoying. But as I got my hand in a fair group of cosplayers, con go-ers and the likes. I also get allot of feedback when I ask them to join. Most comming down to the fact that the initial bite through period (starting) seems quite repetetive to them

And that the would have a hard time actually fitting in (end)

I want to focus on intrinsically motivating ppl vs using extrinsic means. Finding the right balance is tricky, but still achievable bit by bit

@Killua I think you mentioned meta organization is an issue and Logan did mentioned how some high-rep users don't follow it when looking at the review queue. What would you do about this if you become a mod?

@Dimitrimx this feedback is extremely important. If you can provide more, it will be very insightful

@ʞɹɐzǝɹ I can, it is quite the book work though.

@Frosteeze I want to take the opportunity myself, and with anyone else willing to volunteer (other mods and users alike), to go through all open threads on meta. It's a daunting task, but I feel like it's a necessary one to find the policies we're currently enforcing and bring them to the front. Old threads should be closed as duplicates of new ones (or deleted entirely to avoid confusion).

@Killua Not here, but I've had experience dealing with disgruntled clients at work a couple of times. It's all about keeping things impersonal and not getting yourself caught up in their anger.

@Dimitrimx I'll read it all, for as long as it takes

I think we also need to revise the current policy posts we have to be more clear to new users, as many of them are very jargon-y and read like walls of text.

If users don't know where to start, they won't read it at all. So, that coupled with cleaning up old threads one-by-one would be my take on how to clean up meta. (end)

@Matt People tend to be a little more aggressive online, though. When a screen is between them and their target, they can get quite out-of-hand. Have you had authoritative dealings in other online communities or impersonal interactions before?

(gotta skedaddle; will catch up later.)

Eventually I want to start a community blog authored by the community to promote the community and any related content they feel strongly about

@ʞɹɐzǝɹ On con's questions seem to naturally pop up. And I also tend to hint them to ususing the site, wether the answer is already there or not. Taking their feedback I came down to the point that most feel like it is a closed of community after looking through the first few quetsions (usually the hot page).

Very generic comments seem to be the biggest cause for most of them. Not being sure how to ask, and not willing to take the risk that the community throws them for the hungry dogs is another. As for people that tend to be very knowledgable, allot of them just 'know' things and don't like searching for sources, which gets encouraged allot.

@Dimitrimx it's true that we have a huge shonen slant but if it's just the tags, ask them what they would like to see more of?

@Killua The interactions at work have been screen based, but nothing aside from that, unfortunately. But I'm confident in my ability to translate those experiences to this format.

There is also a set group that feels that no matter what they would do, they would not add any worthy contribution to the community. and there for prefer not to do so at all. And just look if there is a answer to their question readily available on the site or not. THen leave again.

@Matt 'Kay.~

Alright, it's been 90 mins! Chatcast is officially over! Although feel free to stay and ask/answer questions.

@ʞɹɐzǝɹ more diversity in general. I know quite allot of the knowledgable guys shun the bigger/ longer running series. and would like to see more attention on the smaller series. Not that they will ask, because they feel like there is no hope any of us on here know anything beyond the well known naruto and such

@Dimitrimx did any of them read the tour?

I know of some they did. I can't garuantee for all.

The big three are almost unavoidable

They should not be avoided. But they do dominate over the rest, by far.

@Dimitrimx what would they personally like to see more of?

And also less of?

Gonna get lunch. If needed, ping me and I'll respond when I'm back.

@Killua How would you approach this? Is this worth the effort (Logan doesn't seem to think it is)?

@Gao As I said, I would do it myself, teaming up with any volunteers that wanted to help. I'm familiar enough with our policies that I can pick out the ones that are no longer relevant

I think it's worth the effort. I honestly have trouble navigating our meta sometimes, looking for a specific thread that has our current policy.

@ʞɹɐzǝɹ Ill poll some of them to see what they think. My knowledge so far, based on the few I speak quite often. Yaoi-yuri related questions. They feel like they are unwelcome in the community, and would like to ask more of them. Manwha/manhua, they also feel that there is not enough knowledge the quetsions the have regarding those kinda series. they gave the game, ruler of the land, as sample

And if someone who has been at the site for over two years has that issue, I think new users will have a great difficulty as well.

(end)

and one of them specifically noted that they would like to see some questions regarding umineko specifically (end)

@Killua How can regulars like me help this cause? Do we read the whole thing, edit both the posts and the tags and merge all posts on the same topic into one?

If this is looking through all the meta backlog, I've made a little bit of a start already. I've been busy lately, so I've only got through about 30.

@ʞɹɐzǝɹ more facebook / twiter interaction is also recommended by quite a few. One of them notes that tagging some questions to specific authors. scanlator groups, or specific fan groups. Would help both them, as they would feel more welcome, and it would probably help the site as well as it could help quite a bit if within limits. They gave as sample the post facebook.com/…

@Matt Hey same! I got to around 30 questions before I got employed and too busy to continue.

@Gao If the two topics cover the same policy, the outdated version should first be VTC'd as a dupe of the most recent version. Edits are case-by-case, but yes, updating the tags would be helpful as well.

This is roughly the opinion and voices of a few hundred people I spoke to at cons/ cosplay meetings/meetings in general, and quite allot of dedicated fans that I know personally through those events(end)

If we can at least close all the irrelevant policies as duplicates, someone can read the top of each question and find the newest material.

@Dimitrimx what specifically about yaoi yuri? I'd reqs aside we don't have many about them. I don't recall instances outside if reqs where they were treated badly

@ʞɹɐzǝɹ Not really sure, ill go and ask a few for some more in-depth insights on those. All tough I believe most of them are asleep right now, so ill have to come back on that one at a later time.

We need to post moar click bait add to our top question

@Dimitrimx thanks! Your help in the matter is greatly appreciated!

No problem, I would love to see the site bloom even more :)

@ʞɹɐzǝɹ just a side question: is there a way to see whom voted for me? Else I might get a hard time providing my cookies.

@Dimitrimx bribe a cm to leak confidential info (no)

Also, is it just "these guys won" or is there placings?

I gave myself a tough task. Oh well, ill figure something out. (counts out the cookies to bribe a cm)

Like 1st to 7th?

you can ask for breakdown tally

no identifiable info though

No identifiable = no user names = not very helpfull

status by design

Guess Ill fix it through them contacting me through chat, or a meta post maybe.

prevents collusion

And that is a good thing

Well, off with me then now as well. I am going to a sushi party in half a hour. Good evening people!

@Dimitrimx pix plx if you can

o/

@Dimitrimx Goodbye

We should get pamphlets and stuff to distribute at cons and stuff

What we should do is organise a community meet up somewhere and film a promo video for the site, that'd be good

@Killua I suppose I'm too late am I? only just woke up (vision is still blurry)