The Water Cooler - 2014-04-10

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2:08 AM

Hey @CMW. I wanted to thank you for participating in the election. Although you didn't win a seat, your actions speak for themselves:

4

> Hi User, welcome to The Workplace. While what you saying may well be true, it does not really address the questions at the bottom of the original post. It rather comments and elaborates on the assumptions at the top. Would you mind also including a section on those questions? Thanks in advance!

This is exactly the sort of approach we need to take to lead.

2:49 AM

@Chad I have made a reply, hope this helps:

0

A: Is this a "Bad" answer and what should be done with it?

Chad asked me to share my views in chat as a mod. To me, this is a great example of when the community is best-equipped to handle it. Person posts answer that makes statements/assumptions some community members disagree with Community discusses issue and refers the answerer to that discussion ...

3:37 AM

0

Q: Why close questions about Work Sampling, Slacking and Idle Times

I don't understand why questions about idling at work gets closed as subjective, but other questions that also ask about how much time are spared. However, from the management point of view, if the project deadlines have already been sacrificed, then how much of idling time can we attribute to t...

discussion closed-questions specific-question questions

3:52 AM

I am going to try to step away from TWP and let you all work this mess out, or let it burn. Either way I have done my part and it seems that my continued involvment at this point in time is unlikely to be constructive. Good Luck guys hope you can make this work.

@Chad Hey Chad, of course it's your choice, but could you explain a bit better what the issue is?

@chad ? Did I miss something? Because, at least to me, it seems that you've been doing a lot around here, in a constructive way...

4:12 AM

0

Q: When/how should I flag content as 'very low quality' or 'not an answer'?

I have over 15 reputation and have been given the flagging privilege. I understand the guidelines for spam and offensive flags, but it seems The Workplace has different standards for 'very low quality' and 'not an answer' flags, when/how should I use them?

discussion flagging faq-proposed

^^ Above meta post is community wiki faq-proposed for how/when to flag. Basically, if it can be fixed, don't flag as 'very low quality'. If it can be fixed, edit/comment/request a post notice to give it a chance to be fixed. If you give it a chance to be improved and it isn't, feel free to flag.

2

Your input and comments are appreciated -- that is just a draft based on my recent expeditions in to the flag queue.

I like it, though it should probably be extended to the other flagging reasons as well, such as "rude or abusive".

also, was the linked answer meant only for users with 10k+ rep?

@panoptical Yes, nobody else should be able to read it (since it is deleted). I added the entire text of the answer as a quote for those without it. Maybe I should take a screenshot

I think that spam/offensive are pretty self-explanatory, are you unclear on when to use them based on the link explaining them on SO meta?

well, I meant more along the lines of what is and what isn't considered abusive... though I don't know if SE has some sort of official policy regarding that already.

@panoptical It's linked in the question body as "I understand spam and offensive flags".

4:24 AM

The reason is that many answers here, by the nature of the site, are just advice, and as a result many more people can take umbrage over what can be minor reasons.

I've just seen more flare-ups in attitude here than I've seen on other SE sites.

4:35 AM

@panoptical Yeah, the content does make things a bit more complicated at times, but a large part of it seems to be related to our recent graduation and the increase in posts we've gotten at the same time (when a site graduates, reputation for privileges increases, meaning it's harder to self-moderate for a little bit)

2 hours later…

7:02 AM

0

Q: When there are many answers already, help me check that mine won't repeat others

When posting my answer I check that it doesn't repeat others as required by our FAQ. In current UI, this becomes difficult when question already has many answers. I would want that questions with 10 or more answers have additional UI allowing me to review each of previous answers individually p...

feature-request answers

7:14 AM

Hey anony, and welcome to The Workplace! I've put this on hold because it is polling for opinions which isn't a good fit for our site as explained in the help center. If you can focus on a specific answerable problem with an edit, it will automatically be reviewed to be reopened. Thanks in advance! — jmac ♦ 1 min ago

Hey TMOTTM, and welcome back to The Workplace! The best questions here focus on "practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face" as explained in our help center. If you can edit your question to focus on a specific situation (like the one you faced) rather than polling for opinion, it would be appreciated. In the meantime, I am going to put the question on hold. Once you make an edit, it will automatically be reviewed for reopening. Thanks in advance! — jmac ♦ 8 mins ago

If anyone can figure out how to make either of these questions in to good ones for the site, I am more than happy to look in to reopening. Thanks!

7:31 AM

Oh god how does this work.

@RenéRoth ?

Sorry for that test post. Still getting used to the whole Stackexchange system, but loving it so far.

Ahh, well welcome then!

@RhysW Hey, thanks! I hope I'm not breaking too many etiquette rules I don't know about... :)

Nah, in chat things are a bit more relaxed, as long as its clean and not insulting people deliberately its usually fine

7:48 AM

Hey @René! Welcome to The Workplace chat. We're a lot more relaxed in here, so kick off your shoes and be friendly and all should go well.

As far as etiquette rules, if you're new to SE I suggest taking a look at our about page and our help center because we're a lot different from other sites. Chatting in here is great, chatting in the Q&A format (including with comments) is discouraged.

I have reopened this question because I think DJ Clayworth made an awesome edit that makes the question difficult, but answerable:

1

Q: my company has now been acquired by new company - how do i know if they will keep me?

A month ago our company, in Canada, officially became acquired by another company. My previous company had at the time filed for bankruptcy protection. The day we were told the official news that the deal was going through, 1/2 of our employees got laid off - maybe more. The rest of us are still...

layoff acquisition

(feel free to issue close votes if you disagree)

@jmort253 Thank you very much :)

8:07 AM

Hey RSM, and welcome back to The Workplace. Whether or not there are health and safety concerns, as well as your legal rights concerning the printer placement, are both off-topic for this site. You can try to edit your question to focus on how to solve the problem of having a printer next to you, but you will have to add a bit more detail (like whether or not there's another place it can be, or whether there are open desks you can move to, and what you've tried so far to fix it and why it hasn't worked). Thanks in advance! — jmac ♦ 48 secs ago

8:44 AM

Can I ask a favor @CMW? You made a great comment on an answer:

Hi Francine, welcome to The Workplace. While what you saying may well be true, it does not really address the questions at the bottom of the original post. It rather comments and elaborates on the assumptions at the top. Would you mind also including a section on those questions? Thanks in advance! — CMW 16 hours ago

Unfortunately, the answerer didn't understand and posted a second answer. Any chance you could take a look and figure out if they can be combined? If you do, please flag whichever answer you don't edit and we can get it deleted. If you don't have time, or otherwise are struggling, just let me know.

9:00 AM

Looking at it, I'd suggest just copying the old answer to the bottom of the new. maybe with a headline

since the new answer is accepted already

this makes me wonder if there is a good reason to allow multiple answers by the same user

9:12 AM

39

Q: What is the official etiquette on answering a question twice?

When is it okay to post two answers to one question?

discussion questions answers etiquette multiple-answers

2 hours later…

11:18 AM

@jmac We have been using the VLQ to signify that it needs the banners... there was even a meta post where it was agreed that in the absence of a legit tool that should work.

@jmac since when are safety concerns off topic? This seems to be completely on topic... and legal rights are the same that can and should be answered with a refrence to but its not asking should i sue or am i going to get sued

While "$user is a lemming" is more personal and blatant, I'm not sure "outsiders who aren't part of our 'in crowd' are lemmings" is really any nicer -- it's just less directed. I'm not trying to be the Niceness Police; I'm just trying to get us to focus on behaviors over labels that, demonstrably, bother some. — Monica Cellio ♦ 15 hours ago

6

A: Improving the System for Dealing with Poor Answers

Two Stage Workflow I like the workflow because it breaks things out into stages. It takes more than one person to make a call to add the post notice, then it takes more than one person to delete, with deletion only being allowed on positively scored posts if the answer had previously been review...

^^^ per my reading, meta post suggested custom flags for that

though personally I would prefer VLQ

The problem with custom flags is they dont go in the que so that makes it really hard to get enough community support

that is the reason for using VLQ.

Otherwise my lone flag gets ignored

@Chad yup, that's why I am unhappy that we seem to be forced to slavishly copy Stack Overflow way of using these

compared to SO standards (I have 1K+ helpful flags there, for the record), I would say we're using NAA/VLQ flags very incorrectly, but in the absence of adequate System for Dealing with Poor Answers this "incorrect" usage feels surprisingly fair — gnat Feb 27 at 18:59

but the VLQ in the flag queue gets attention and others flag it cause they agree

Ohh I was thinking that was from Shog... but that was the comment I was thinking of

@Chad no way! Shog is a typical SO regular; his reaction to that would likely be "heresy! burn that sucker!" :)

11:32 AM

And this is my other issue: meta.workplace.stackexchange.com/q/2538/16

@Chad my understanding is, we are currently forced to copy SO way of enforcing this (toothless and cumbersome) - comment, wait, flag, wait, flag again. I already have few posts where I did just that, and even flagged to moderator about negligence to the very notices... guess what? posts are there without a change, telling any reader: it's okay if you don't give a shit about mod notice

11:45 AM

another worthy meta post is:

3

Q: Testing proposal: automating review of answers that fail to meet site-specific guidelines

Posted on behalf of jmac. The idea to test automating review of answers that fail to meet site-specific guidelines has been proposed by SE Community manager here: let's test this first, see where it works and where it falls apart, and then implement the system that emerges. Pick a site you'r...

discussion feature-request answers flagging

12:02 PM

9

A: What "comments" are not . . .

Comments are not for voting Voting is for voting. I've seen a lot of "+1 great answer" or slightly disguised variant "+1 I agree with [echo some part of the answer]". These comments are more noise than signal. I know, I know, we all see those answers (or questions) that really get us excited ...

^^^ @jmort253 @jmac @MonicaCellio: Just for clarification guys - Are we still abiding by this rule?

@jmort253 @jmac @MonicaCellio: Reason I ask - I flagged a comment which was in clear violation of this rule and it was declined.

I did as well ("answer as comment", though, not "vote as comment")

Finally getting used to not having a flag counter

4

A: How many answers are required to turn a question into Community Wiki on a beta site?

Previously, there were sites that had different thresholds. I believe it was Programmers, Super User, and Workplace that had a lower threshold at 15, while some specific places had higher thresholds of 60, 200, and in one exceedingly odd case 300. We're still not sure why that one had that high. ...

^^^ this can have quite a substantial impact on hot questions

12:17 PM

@gnat they just won't auto-convert to CW

@Jim voting down 10 of 20 answers in CW was free, helping to cool it down. Now only crazy ones would risk loosing 10 rep on voting low quality garbage that sticks in there (not that this will stop me from voting down though)

i think the bigger concern we have with Hot Questions is the influx of low-quality answers and non-answer, which can be mitigated by protecting

oh, that

I never really worry about the 1 rep cost of downvoting ... -1 is nothing

@Jim I thought about that, let's wait and see. i am not too optimistic here, as protection only covers from <10 rep users

true

@Jim yeah, -1 is nothing. But -10 (in multi-answered, non-CW question) is something - to me personally, and I guess to vast majority of voters

12:20 PM

if there are that many bad answers, at least a few will inevitibally be deleted

and unless you're fairly low-rep, or right at a privelege threshold, even -10 is pretty insignificant

@Jim let's wait and see. current party line for flagging seems to be bending to copy that of SO which means, your expectations of mass deletions might fail :(

cultural clash

Mar 18 at 18:34, 39 minutes total – 22 messages, 2 users, 0 stars

Bookmarked Mar 19 at 14:28 by gnat

Mar 18 at 18:38, by gnat

believe it or not, but MSO post I referred "defends" four answers all stating the same "use Bit DataType", give or take 2-3 more words. At Workplace, there would be a downvoting and flagging storm there, on all four of them

^^^ flagging storm mentioned above will likely meet cold shower of declines now

0

Q: Line between Workplace and Project Management

We had this question in meta a while back about what should go in Workplace and what should go in Project Management. I wanted to bring this back up, as we just received this question. I'm not suggesting that we reopen it, as I do agree with the unrelated close reason, but my question here, again...

@Chad As @gnat pointed out below your post, I thought the agreement was flagging as 'other' with a request for a post notice. Don't worry about community support, one flag on a question that merits it will get a post notice if the mod reading it clearly thinks it merits it (and generally I think the community is good about identifying posts that merit it from my experience)

@Chad Safety concerns (if well-scoped and not a question that requires legal advice) I believe are on-topic. The question I closed was not well-scoped, and that's why I closed it. If you think it can be edited to be well-scoped, please feel free to do so, and flag with a custom flag letting me know and I'll take another look. As-is, do you think it's a good question?

@JimG. In general, I've been handling most of the flags (assuming it's been in the past 48 hours). I'm new at this, and may have totally botched it. My apologies if I did. In order to prevent us going back and looking at individual posts one-by-one through time stamps, if you really feel that a flag was mishandled, and that resolving it on that post/comment is critical, flag it as 'other' with an explanation and we'll take another look.

12:38 PM

@jmac congrats again on the election!

@Jim Refer to the above post. I may have botched it. I don't have the breadth of experience you do yet Jim! I'm shooting from the hip, and doing my best (though by no means flawlessly), and I hope you can dig back to the good ol' days when you started out and sympathize a bit.

ha, of course

@Jim As Adrian Monk would say, "It's a gift...and a curse"

it can be tough to make the right call, especially on comments, especially highly voted

I eventually ended up going with a "comments are temporary post-its, so if anyone has an issue with one, do some cleanup"

keep in mind if one single comment is flagged "not constructive", there're often several more that go wtih it, even if they're not flagged

@gnat I strongly disagree that the flagging line (assuming my recent meta post and chat comments) is matching SO. I have deleted several flagged answers that definitely would not be deleted on SO because of the unique nature of our community and what we've discussed on meta as our policy. I get that there may be growing pains during the transition to new mods, and I'm human and may make some boneheaded mistakes. I hope we can work together to solve them, cool?

@Jim Yeah, I've been erring on the side of moderation (when in doubt with comments, delete). There are a couple exceptions, but generally speaking I am doing my best to follow the advice that comments are post-its (and I believe there are a couple deleted comment threads that mention that exact quote with a link to the help center on commenting)

I am doing what I can to use the tools at my disposal to work with the community as I did before I had those tools. I'm human and I muck things up from time to time (as I did before I had the tools). I am incredibly honored (honoured for @Rhys and @gnat) that the community elected me, and I'm doing my best to live up to expectations, but there will be growing pains. I look forward to working together as a community to improve our site.

2

12:54 PM

@jmac let's work together, fine. Just to avoid misunderstanding, I was referring strictly to lines alignment - and this is what I perceive as happening, honestly. The way how particular flags are handled by particular mods may differ from the official line, sure - but in my experience, this is also the case at SO, some mods there deviate from official line

@gnat Sorry, could you explain that in a different way?

(I mean, at the end of the day we're all human and making judgment calls on the judgment calls of other humans, there are bound to be some differences, and that can't really be helped until we create super-computers that can interpret and judge human interaction along strict guidelines. So that's kind of unavoidable. We are more than happy to work to fix any problems that arise from that, but that's part of the 'working together' thing -- good communication is good)

1:11 PM

1

A: When/how should I flag content as 'very low quality' or 'not an answer'?

When should I flag? Flags are a way to let the moderators know about issues with content on the site that can't be handled by the community, or are so harmful to the community that they need to be dealt with promptly. If you aren't sure whether or not to flag, consider asking in chat, or asking ...

^^^ this reads essentially a copy of SO line wrt VLQ/NAA flags

and this makes me unhappy (not that I am going to deviate, but I am not going to hide what I feel about it either)

2 hours ago, by gnat

compared to SO standards (I have 1K+ helpful flags there, for the record), I would say we're using NAA/VLQ flags very incorrectly, but in the absence of adequate System for Dealing with Poor Answers this "incorrect" usage feels surprisingly fair — gnat Feb 27 at 18:59

in The Whiteboard, Feb 27 at 6:24, by gnat

about time to stop the madness when single site forces its norms at the rest of the network, as if it's the same when answer quality can be verified with computer and with human brain only (hint: Whiteboard doesn't have compiler)

1:43 PM

9 hours ago, by jmac

^^ Above meta post is community wiki faq-proposed for how/when to flag. Basically, if it can be fixed, don't flag as 'very low quality'. If it can be fixed, edit/comment/request a post notice to give it a chance to be fixed. If you give it a chance to be improved and it isn't, feel free to flag.

It is faq-proposed and also discussion -- please feel free to object, change, or discuss as need-be. It is community wiki. Just because I have a ♦︎ next to my name doesn't mean anything I say is etched in to stone tablets. I'm the same person I was two days ago, and still want to discuss like I did prior to the ♦︎.

2

@jmac Cool. Thanks man. I think you're doing great so far.

@JimG. Thanks. I appreciate the support. I've got a lot of support from @jmort and @monica since they're veterans at this moderation thing.

(the mistakes are mine, successes theirs)

2:08 PM

@jmac I missed that, sorry! All right, consider above as my objections against how it is currently stated. I will try to figure how it can be better adapted to our site specifics.

@jmac That has not been my experience

@jmac If we limited this site to only questions I think are good we would be lucky to have 100 questions remaining.

I do think that it is in scope, answerable, and not even close to the bottom of the barrel of questions that have been deemed acceptable on this site.

@jmac You are going to hate this response but... if you mods dont feel the pain of the vlq flags being used for this, there is no fire for you to press SE to get the solution we ultimately want implemented. With out that fire I believe that feature will get back burnered and eventually dropped.

2:30 PM

@Jim we get some of that but that really has not been waterfall so much as a few instances. I most of the low quality posts are coming from users that have been around long enough they should know better.

But what we get from the hot list is a flood of rep into the system that may not actually be deserved. I have been the recipient of more than a few of those

And while my answers were what i could consider good. Beth posted a couple after me that I think were superior but only get a few votes... thats the problem with the hot list question effect.

2:46 PM

Blog - Stack Exchange: Changes and guidelines for the Protected Question status

Shog9 on April 08, 2014

Protected status is an often-overlooked feature of Stack Exchange. It’s based loosely on Wikipedia’s semi-protection, and like that tool is meant to be a reaction to persistent abuse from anonymous or unproven participants: when a page attracts a lot of noise or vandalism from outside the community, Protecting it reduces the amount of clean-up needed later on.

Protected questions are not answerable by folks who haven’t earned at least 10 reputation from activity on the site where the question resides. This effectively means you need to have posted an answer somewhere else that’s attracted an up-vote or a question that’s earned two. …

@Chad At the end of the day, I want to make this site better by all means possible (doing what I can do, getting the community to do what it can do, and getting SE to do what we can't do). It's been all of two days since I got elected, it's not like I get a magic whistle that summons SE devs to do my bidding (@jmort gets the whistle because he's the most senior), and adding flags to my burden just makes me spend more times handling flags rather than focusing on bigger picture stuff.

We're all humans with real lives and limited time -- yes, even mods. And if the community wants me to focus on painfully clearing flags, I will cheerfully clear flags because the community thinks that's what's best. If you want me to focus on talking to SE about stuff, the effort of raising flags may be better spent collecting data on why flags are raised, and how best to fix it, and working with me. At least from my perspective.

@jmac you gave up your right to be human when you got elected... you are a machine now :)

@Chad Resistance is futile. Your flags will be assimilated.

3:02 PM

@jmac Here my cloths and boots but you will will have to drag my motorcycle out from underneath my cold dead body

@Chad Would you put your brain in a robot body?

@jmac Thats step 44 in my 87 step plan for taking over the world.

@Chad (the video is actually pretty amusing, if you have 13 minutes, and enjoy absurdist cartoons)

@Chad Isn't there like a 3 step process to achieve that?

1) get a squid

2) ???

3) world domination

(I can't for the life of me remember what step 2 was)

It turns out I do not work well with squids... probably cause im an Army guy

3:06 PM

@CMW I believe it was 'profit'

@Chad That's a navy reference, right?

Anyway, midnight in Japan, time to punch out of the flag mines and get some shut-eye. Enjoy your day folks!

(for context Squid is the euphamistic term for US Navy Seamen... because being called a seamen isnt derogatory enough)

@jmac That was step three of the other plan whose second step I forgot, too

@Chad Look at all that slang knowledge I got! :D

What's the corresponding terms for airmen and ... landmen?

^^

Zoomies

3:10 PM

I just read zombies and wondered which one to apply that to...

Jarheads are marines and grunts are High speed US Infantry Soldiers

Hooooaaaaah!

oh, jarheads and grunts I knew already. Didn't realize. Most of the military stationed where I'm from are that

rest are probably zoomies ^^

@jmac oh, yes, night night

@jmac Night man

@CMW Yeah alot of Zoomies in Ramsien and Wassenburg. Used to be quite a few in Wiesbatten(sorry is if i mispelled) but I think i remember them decomission that base.

Ramstein is still overflowing with them

And I think Baumholder was mostly Army

Artillery I think. Thought I'm not sure a lot of people are stationed there anymore

@CMW yeah Ramstein is the main German base for the Airforce and it has ESOC, GMAP HQ's

3:24 PM

@Chad They even have a drone center there now. A friend of mine who's piloting those is stationed there

(at least she says so)

@CMW Yeah thats what GMAP did but I think they redesignated that

yeah, when googling that just now I found something about a master of arts program :)

thats where most of the drones being used in Afganistan and Pakistan are controlled from

I think she's part of ther recon (?) department

It was Group military air patrol or somehting similar i think its now ADOC Air Defense Operations Center

3:29 PM

Ah found it

3:42 PM

@CMW Ohh thats ESOC

@Chad I thought that was space operations?

is that the same thing?

@CMW Sorry EUCOM

Or maybe usafe.af.mil

I dont know they re-designate their acronyms to much to follow when your not involved with it daily

usafe is a cute acronym

But yeah, eucom is probably it. sounds right

4:35 PM

"lemmings" are bad but "downvoting police" isn't complained about, welcome double standards? meta.workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/2530/… <=> meta.workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/2496/…

5:08 PM

@gnat People only complain about what they feel abused by. Not what they stand behind.

I've rarely seen people described as lemmings here anyway

it's mostly actions or behaviors

2

@CMW well to me this police label felt somewhat offensive. I only abstained of complaining for the reasons you mention, it was referring actions / behavior

Yeah, I didn't want to complain about it either

5:28 PM

@CMW And when we do call anyone lemmings its a call out to each other to mob a SO question.

2

5:40 PM

@Chad exactly

Which is why i find I'm not sure "outsiders who aren't part of our 'in crowd' are lemmings" is really any nicer so offensive. No one has ever said that

And I think most of us would correct anyone who tried to say that

@Chad I think so, too

We have no mod on :(

workplace.stackexchange.com/posts/22513/revisions

I guess jmort could be foudn somewhere

I am not getting into an edit war with him... flag the hell out of that please

5:47 PM

:D

I started that war :D

do users get a notification when you roll back something in their questions?

They get a your answer has been edited message

ah, ok

What should we flag that for?

Its rude to do call out the other user in your answer.

if he leaves the revision i guess it handled

sorry, I meant with, not for

or as?

I'm fresh out of english at the moment, it seems :)

6:10 PM

@jmac I sense i have been pinged

@JimG. I don't know if we're talking about the same flag. I declined a flag on a comment that said (something like) "+1 I agree" but also went on to say something more relevant. The pure "I agree" comments are noise and, except in the highly-unusual case that the author of that comment is relevant to the situation, I've no problem with deleting them.

(A case of that exception: I've seen the occasional comment from someone known to be an expert in a particular field endorsing an answer from somebody unknown. That lends credence to the answer and should stay. This almost never happens, however.)

Anyway, thanks for flagging, please keep helping with comment cleanup, and please don't sweat it if the occasional flag gets dismissed (which, with new mods, might even be an accident). Everybody -- you, me, every other mod, Shog, anonymous 101-rep user, etc -- has slightly different thresholds for this stuff.

Wow this chat has been bus the last few days

can barely keep up with it all

@Chad looking only at the revision and not the two answers involved, I don't think it's necessarily wrong for one answer to refer to another answer on the same question. As a matter of "defensive writing" I tend to link rather than refer to a user by name, because sometimes people change their names, but two answers on the same question are at the same level of publicity so this doesn't seem like a problem to me. Could you help me understand where you're coming from? What am I missing?

As an alternative to 'vote raping' if i may suggest one, 'vote spamming' might be a god alternative, people know that spamming is bad so still keeps that connotation, without being so vivid / negative culturally

@MonicaCellio Its the whole "I Am going to start out by saying that @XXXX is wrong."

It is noise and pretty disrespectful to do that in an answer. And useless unless you explain why.

I did not flag it until it was rolled back

It seems that he is going to leave it now so no action required.

I figured better to flag than start an edit war

6:17 PM

Yeah, edit wars are bad. Thank you for raising the issue with the community instead; that's the right thing to do.

I'm going to check with @jmort and @jmac; on other sites I've seen answers respond to each other like this and it's been left alone, with the author of the answer getting the final word, but I don't know if that's the practice here.

If he said "so-and-so is wrong" I'd be inclined to edit; saying "I disagree with so-and-so" seems on the right side of that fuzzy line. OTOH, I see your point about noise. On the third hand, if the answer being responded to is highly-voted (not the case here, but in general), I can see wanting to make it more clear that there's a disagreement.

@MonicaCellio i think the same guideline as comments apply, its fine to refer to eachother, but outright insulting / degrading / conflicting for no good reason is frowned upon

If you can accurately and fairly and politely refer to someone in a negative way, i.e 'I disagree with @Chad because x y z' then thats a lot more acceptable than '@chad is wrong, heres my answer and its better'

(sorry chad :P)

@MonicaCellio Id agree there too. Its not the case here though. I would not have flagged in stead just removed it. There was no value added to the answer with it thats what down votes are for.

@RhysW insulting and degrading others is inappropriate anywhere on the site. Conflicts are bound to happen; when they do we should strive to be respectful. So I guess this comes down to whether this disagreement is "for no good reason", and not having read the whole page I can't judge that yet.

@MonicaCellio Perfectly understandable, just throwing my two cents in there

@RhysW yeah, no argument there.

6:25 PM

i imagine moderating more than one site has extra difficulties, as different communities want you to handle similar situations totally differently

have to find that right mindset for each site and adapt it as the communities evolve

@RhysW Why I agree. though really that probably belongs in a comment below the answer.

@Chad Oh chad, just reminded me of a story

my sisters rabbits got out the other night

one spent the entire night trying to break into the females cage, the second we couldnt find

until we wandered around for 20 minutes and the 2nd one turned out to be hiding next door eating all his plants

neither of them had wandered more than 10 feet from the house

thats funny :)

we expected them both to be long gone!

6:50 PM

0

A: When/how should I flag content as 'very low quality' or 'not an answer'?

Submitted as an answer since I couln't find a way to match below into neither of comment / chat message / meta question. Original revision of the proposed FAQ contains a statement that makes me uncomfortable: If the post is fixable, and the poster is not given time to fix it before the flag ...

@jmac ^^^ feedback on the proposed FAQ you asked about

@RhysW well, if your neighbor was kind enough to provide a tasty buffet, why go farther? :-)

It's just as well he was asleep, hes rather hard of sight and likes to shoot at rats

@Chad that's the crux of it, I think: he should have said "xxxx's answer is wrong" not "xxxx is wrong". Also, he should have linked to it, as @Monica noted.

7:07 PM

@Shog9 I fail to see how that adds anything to the answer either way. That fact that you are posting an answer can be assumed to mean that the existing answers are different from yours.

@Chad not necessarily.

There is a down vote button that allows people to say they disagree with an answer.

@Shog9 It is supposed to here.

Dont repeat others and all that

Im not asking for a blanket policy either. It was the way that answer handled it that was inappropriate.

@Chad It's certainly possible to agree with / complement / reinforce an existing answer without repeating it.

@Chad I agree - it would be potentially useful to reference a different answer in your own as a way of highlighting the contrast in your guidance - but just mentioning another author doesn't do this.

However, I'm inclined to attribute this to ignorance rather than malice.

the whole @-mention thing is deeply ingrained

@Shog9 I wasn't claiming malice. I probably could have done a other flag it was inapproriate and did not want to start an edit war over it

I removed it he rolled back I flagged.

Or just edited it to reference the actual answer rather than the user.

In my experience, folks tend to react more negatively to edits that just remove vs. edits that change

To the extent that, even if your only goal in editing a post is to remove something, it behooves you to also change something else - fix a typo, grammar errors, title, etc.

Counter-intuitive, I know

7:18 PM

@Shog9 It added no value to the question. Comments on answers or questions do not belong in answers unless they are actually a part of the answer. And the way it was done was rude. Since the comment that was included with the answer was not really part of the answer it did not belong. The OP disagreed I flagged. What did I do wrong there?

:shrug:

The only time I complain about the mods dismissing my flags is when they delete the answer or make the change requested and still mark it invalid

You're arguing for the inherent "correctness" of your edit. Fine, your edit was correct - it was also rejected. So you wasted your time. If you're happy with that, so be it.

I've had plenty of edits rejected, and learned a thing or two in the process - just trying to share that.

Its not correctness it is about the appropriateness

tomato / potato

7:20 PM

I dont care as much about being right as using the site apporiately

I can be wrong I do not want to be inapproriate unintentionally

You can be right, appropriate, and still unproductive.

When you edit, strive to respect the author's intent, to make him look good without altering the deeper meaning of what he wrote.

That'll usually serve you well.

By which I mean, fewer wasted edits.

@Shog9 Mmm, tomato fries and potato salsa.

@Shog9 If I cared about being productive I wouldnt come here in the first place... did I really just admit that?

@Chad so you are saying you just want the post to end up in an "appropriate" state?

@NickC I was trying to improve the post... saying XXX is wrong as the first line of your answer makes you look like an idiot and is rude. I removed that line. The OP reverted the edit, so I flagged it to let the mods decide if the post was acceptable rather than get into an edit war over it.

7:32 PM

@Chad sure, I get it. So you're unsatisfied with the handling of the flag?

@Chad oh that's why I tend to agree with you so much. "right, appropriate, and still unproductive" is all about me, that's what my favorite manager told at one of the past projects. gnat says the right things but somehow does it in a way that makes me wish to tell him "go to hell" :)

I am only concerned that my actions were appropriate. I can handle it if my actions were wrong since they can be corrected. If what I did was inappropriate accidentally I have a problem with that. (the problem is that i did something inappropriate unintentionally not that it is being called out) And I want to make sure I can avoid that in the future.

@NickC I honestly havent even looked

Another user rolled back again so far as I know it stayed rolled back

@NickC :O He speaks!

@Chad I think that what you did sounds perfectly fine. I can't remember where I saw this, but I read somewhere some good advice that even invalid/dismissed flags don't mean that the flagger did anything wrong

everyone will have some invalid flags -- while flags act for a specific purpose for a given post, over time they also act as a rough communication tool between flaggers and mods.

@Shog9 And FWIW I completely agree here. Which is why I tend to comment when I have a problem with the accuracy of a post rather than try to edit to correct it. And with making signifigant edits to save a question that is blatantly badsubjective.

@NickC Yeah I dont worry about it I run 87% thats a B always been good enough for me

@RhysW scontent-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/t1.0-9/…

Thats what we got last night :)

7:42 PM

@Chad I was initially going to suggest instead of just removing it, possibly rewording it to be less brash and link directly to the post so it can be clear what is "disagreed" with

they look like tiny furry hippos!

@NickC i dont think it needs it, why does it need to be linked? does the answer not stand on its own?

however, now having read all the posts, it's not at all clear what is disagreed with, so I think removal is the right thing to do. But it's possibly the edit message was accusatory enough ("it is completely inappropriate...") that it caused the owner to get defensive

@RhysW that was my thought. It was a comment and not really part of the answer. If the OP had addressed points from that answer in his answer I could see it. But it wasnt that

I would possibly consider removing it and saying "Without being clear what's being disagreed with in order to provide context for this answer, this statement reads as an accusation without value. Consider explaining how your post differs instead of simply calling out another user."

we are a q and A site first, forum second, the answer should be able to stand on its own, unlinked, or its not an answer

7:44 PM

@NickC I can concede that.

I mean, that may be long-winded, so maybe just a comment would work

@Chad Yep, totally agree. It needed this otherwise the statement adds nothing.

(ofc there are some exceptions but there always is)

@RhysW It's all about context, and it's up to the author. The author didn't provide any justification in this case, but I can see it being appropriate to say "Some other advice says [blank], but I think that could be wrong or dangerous because [blank]"

I think @Shog9 actually already made this point, and I agree

8:11 PM

I have a feeling that the answerer in that case was projecting a lot onto the question asker, because it made many assumptions about the situation that don't seem to be in the question body, unless I missed something

I may have done my own projecting, but in any case, I gave it a stab at an answer:

0

A: Employees I manage in conflict and face to face leads to further conflicts where one of the two sulks and goes into a shell

You've asked a question where there are about a million possible solutions, none of which will work all the time, some which will work better than others, and some which will never work. I'll just focus on what I believe will work, plus a couple danger points to avoid. Here's some required read...

8:28 PM

@NickC nice

3 hours later…

11:23 PM

@RhysW I understood that the UK has a 'u' shortage, so I lent you an extra to help out.

11:35 PM

@gnat Thanks. I'll continue the discussion there. I do get your point, and I agree that we need a new way for the community to effectively handle these which is in the process of being worked on, but in the meantime we have to find a way to share the community moderation burden between the community and the moderators (there are a lot more folks in the former than the latter)

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