The Water Cooler

9:16 AM

@jmac I would continue to be vocal. Else the site will just degrade into all of the stereotypes people seem to put on the site

2

@jmac I'm in agreement with this, discussion here really turns this site into a self help group rather than a Q&A outlet

1:26 PM

SO question quickly getting hot. At Workplace, stuff like that would be mercilessly upvoted and would stick at the top of the list already: stackoverflow.com/questions/21428549/…

1:50 PM

> 1<<x is equivalent to "2 to the power of x".

Now that is probably the most stupid syntax for 2^x I've ever seen

(maybe because it's a bit-shift, really)

3:55 PM

@jmac I have the same problem... part of why I have tried to reduce my active footprint here... We have a group of users that want this site to be ask anything as long as it is interesting if its is not or is too hard we will close it as opinion.

@jmac Which is why I say we need active moderators to leave these notes. people will get all uppity at the rest of the community but it seems different when it comes from a mod most of the time.

Is there a list of mods for a site?

jcmeloni

4:25 PM

omg why do we even bother answering questions from That Guy? I feel like an ass for actually doing it, now. I should've known better.

2

Q: Moderators Pro Tempore, just like mamma used to make 'em

13

Throughout the beta, we need members from the site whose focus is to engage the community, both in community-building issues and site management. That's why we select a few members from each community to act as temporary, provisional Moderators. You can read about the program here: Moderators Pro...

@jcmeloni What question

jcmeloni

4:41 PM

1

Q: Good performance on technical assessments feels like wasted time in light of early-stage salary questions

I've recently had a number of initial interviews that combine two elements: (1) some technical skill assessment, usually a software task or a statistics/math task to be completed in a day or two, and (2) some type of HR questionnaire. These are very time consuming for me, especially with a limit...

interviewing job-search salary applications

@CMW workplace.stackexchange.com/users?tab=moderators

@gnat Ah, thank you

Q: What does this left shift in a for loop exit condition mean?

@CMW wow, it is at +57 now, top answer over +60 and it has pretty good chance to stick at the top of hot list for quite a while. Upvotes keep comin' in... :)

57

I saw a loop which I've never seen before: for (int i = 0; i < (1 << list.Count); i++) I can't understand what (1 << list.Count) means, maybe someone could explain me this?

c# .net list for-loop

it even pushed that sexual ELL question off from the top (ELL regulars are probably happy to see that)

@jcmeloni He just wants to have the discussion not actually get an answer to the question...

This is a question where NARQ was the perfect fit

4:56 PM

I think you should revise the question, look at the key points that are important to you and trim down. This question is a lot of detail that seems overweening and I think people trying to answer get caught up on the wrong detail for you because there are so many of them. A concise question, properly formatted, with only the details that are important to you works much better for finding the help you need. — Chad 2 mins ago

above comment makes pretty good sense

It seems you want to have a discussion so I have voted to close as unclear what you are asking. SE is not a place for discussion it is a Q&A site. Please see help center for the proper use of the site. — Chad 14 secs ago

@gnat have some community support in the form of an upvote

@RhysW +1

We need custom close reason 'Closed as off-topic because this is intended to incite discussion about a topic rather that receive solid answers' (or some better wording) because we have a lot like this

bangs head against brick wall

jcmeloni

@Chad yeah, and I should've known better,but I was weak for a moment and felt helpful.

5:11 PM

@gnat to paraphrase a co-op 'Every little helps'

Everyone should flag the question asking for a mod to take action about all the comments from the OP

@Chad Expect a few more, trying to get him to choose which of the three points he wants to address

@RhysW He does not want to address anything. He wants to have a comment war

Then I will edit it myself once he chooses one of the 3

I will close it. Edit it, explain why its better, and show it to the community for approval

As is community procedure!

I will find the rule book, and beat them all about the head with it til they absorb the knowledge through some form of osmosis

@gnat I think you just helped it get back up near the top :)

5:17 PM

@Chad well a small effort can make a noticeable impact there :)

@gnat its not about the size of the effort its the visibility of the impact :P

2 days ago, by gnat

riding a wave. Hot wave

Yannis Rizos

@gnat Our evil plan to turn WP into ProgSE's toilet bowl is working! Let's migrate all the things!

@YannisRizos I will follow you and keep posting my sad face! :(

@gnat The thing is SO has like 10x the traffic of the rest of the SE network... so even if everyone on SE goes to SO its just a 10% Bump in traffic. Not the 1500% That we get from hot questions

5:22 PM

@YannisRizos well if they won't come up with clear guidance we could feed to any sucker commenting this-belongs-to-workplace, it will eventually end up there. I still shudder seeing belongs-to-programmers comments spread over crappiest questions at SO - just because at the very beginning, it looked like a good idea

Yannis Rizos

@RhysW On a (perhaps) more serious note: The WP needs to get a bit better in advertising itself. There are days that I have absolutely no idea what's on or off topic here (and I've been around since the private beta).

3

@YannisRizos I thought that was the current model... if it should be closed on programmers migrate it to TWP

@YannisRizos Thats because everyone has their own opinion about what should or should not be on topic and even how a meta post about it went.

Yannis Rizos

@Chad Hey, that's why we build this site in the first place (true story, a ProgSE mod proposed WP on A51, for all the questions that didn't fit ProgSE)...

Load balancing (computing)

@Chad that's for sure. Thing is though their questions on top lower the pressure at smaller sites, by rebalancing the moderation load to where it's stronger... much stronger

Load balancing is a computer networking method for distributing workloads across multiple computing resources, such as computers, a computer cluster, network links, central processing units or disk drives. Load balancing aims to optimize resource use, maximize throughput, minimize response time, and avoid overload of any one of the resources. Using multiple components with load balancing instead of a single component may increase reliability through redundancy. Load balancing is usually provided by dedicated software or hardware, such as a multilayer switch or a Domain Name System server ...

Ethics were acknowledged to be offtopic by 3 different posts but there is a small window where they are on topic... so some July Sunset Containers on the site say that means the entire subject is ontopic

@gnat OK I see the strategy

6:25 PM

I think he is going to run me out of flags...

Q: How do you tell a friend they are not qualified?

7:28 PM

@YannisRizos Thanks for the heads up, I will see what I can do about that then. Maybe I'll rope @jmac into it too, he loves our long discussions :P

Paul Brown

Someone please get the last reopen vote for this post

74

An old colleague asked me to recommend him for a job in my company. I'm hesitant because when we worked at the same company, he didn't have the best reputation. He constantly missed deadlines, never took accountability, and did the bare minimum to not get fired. He told me that he wants to app...

communication relationships recommendation qualification

7:44 PM

Mine is already on it, sorry :(

enderland

7:57 PM

@RhysW I just found out that SELECT @@IDENTITY includes trigger based identities! :P

8:16 PM

@enderland :O I didnt know that, i will be stealing that piece of knowledge!

8:42 PM

workplace.stackexchange.com/help/badges/76/marshal

From now on expect you all to respect my authoritie

@PaulBrown I still think it is off topic

enderland

@RhysW it can really, REALLY screw you over if you are relying on it to get an auto-inc ID if another table has a lower one and is added after the one you hope. Just saying. Lol

@YannisRizos Basically imo - a practical, answerable question about the workplace

Most questions fail on being either of the first two, not the later

Q: How to politely request salary budget information before spending personal time on a technical skill assessment?

one more close vote here anyone:

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Two details about recent interviewing issues: Many companies do not provide me with any initial contact in which to ask about budget, and instead present me with a technical assessment as the absolute first point of contact. An HR questionnaire or phone chat often comes after the tech assessmen...

interviewing job-search salary applications

9:54 PM

@enderland that would better be expanded into a more detailed meta post. You know, I've got a feeling that most crap-throwers at SO giving their brainless belongs-to-programmers honestly believe the crap they throw is "practical, answerable question about programmers". Workplace would better have something more concrete to repel inappropriate stuff... some... guidance one can refer to potential crap-throwers at Programmers and SO and say see - this is a bad fit

enderland

10:07 PM

today is officially "holy * who is the idiot who wrote this, oh it's me?" day in coding

@Chad tl;dr

oh. it's shorter now than it was before