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12:26 AM
@Chad I strongly disagree that it's off-topic. But it would appear that 4 members of the community believe otherwise. And I am the first to vote to close questions most of the time...
@MonicaCellio I wish I could get to 20k, but my downvoting seems to outpace my rep gains most days...
 
@jmac it'll be a while before I get there. I'd been a trusted user for a long time in beta (4k there), but I'm 7k away from it now.
 
hiya
 
@MonicaCellio It only took a year for me to get 10k, but I have been sucked in to the rabbit hole of actually trying to maintain site quality through voting and queues rather than answers, which has slowed down my pace significantly.
Hi @Alex!
 
@jmac yeah, me too. Plus, with more people the odds of getting to an answer before somebody else has said what I would have said go down.
Hi @Alex!
 
12:45 AM
@MonicaCellio about that question of mine, some time ago, about my team communication and workflow issues, in case you remember
I did take it slow and in the end I couldn't notice anyone being less than responsive
so it's definitely a success
thanks again
 
@MonicaCellio I tend to write really long answers, or no answer at all, and there just isn't the time for me to browse for good questions to answer with all the daily cleanup. I hope it will get better after the mod election, and hopefully after they implement a system for dealing with poor answers better than what we have now.
 
@AlexM. oh yes, I remember -- glad that worked out!
@jmac there are (checks) 9 tags that I have enough rep in to earn badges, but I don't yet have enough individual answers in them. Meaning I have some answers that have done pretty well, but not enough in those tags yet. Every now and then I go hunting in some of those tags, but most of the time I don't have enough to add. Sometimes I do -- I've come across questions that have "meh" answers and I can do better. But it's not the way to bet with old questions.
 
@MonicaCellio How do you check that?
 
@jmac the tallies? On the profile in the "tags" section -- it shows you your total rep in each tag (top first), and the number of posts. The latter is only semi-helpful because it counts questions too but the badges are based only on answers. But as a measure of "what does this person talk about?" it does the job.
The bronze tag badge requires 100 rep in 20 answers.
 
Ah, I get it. Wow. I have 375 in professionalism, that's the only one I have a badge for.
(our tags are awful)
 
12:54 AM
I've got >300 rep in , but from only 16 posts.
@jmac yeah, our tags could do with some curating.
But it feels like a big job so I keep balking at it.
 
Oh, I see why my professionalism is so skewed:
No, no I don't.
I have a +264 answer. Holy smokes.
 
@jmac wow. I don't have anything in triple digits yet.
 
264
A: What is a 'friendly' way to let managers know that having good developers is a privilege?

jmacYour manager's job is to manage you. You want to tell your manager that you will leave if he tries. This is going to be an adversarial discussion no matter what. If you want to get the point across without giving him an ultimatum, first you need to understand his reasoning, and then you need to g...

My second place is:
72
A: How do I resign when I know my employer will lose a big client when I leave?

jmacGive Unto Caesar What is Caesar's Assuming you are not the salesperson assigned to that client, your responsibility is to your employer. Your employer's responsibility is to the client. If the client is really only staying with the company because you are there, then the company had a responsib...

All this means is that I am very very good at answering questions that become hot...
 
This is my top one. I have no idea if it was ever hot:
71
A: Is it okay to ask why the previous employee left or was let go?

Monica CellioI have both asked and been asked that type of question without apparent harm. (I've gotten offers after asking.) However, your phrasing is problematic; the better way to ask the question is "why is this position vacant?", which covers two cases you haven't considered in your question: (a) it's ...

And #2, which has more substance to it:
67
A: My colleagues frown on me for using my vacation days. Should I stop using them so much?

Monica CellioYour main problem is a cultural one: you have vacation days (and your manager approves your requests to use them), but there is pressure from the people you work with not to take them. I am assuming this is a long-term trend, not just close to a critical deadline etc. If this cultural meme is p...

 
1:15 AM
@MonicaCellio Probably was. Usually when you see a lot of favorites on a question you would never ever need to refer to again, it's from people on the hot list.
 
@jmac oh, I hadn't thought to look at favorites for that. Good point.
 
(I mean, that friendly developers one has 94 favorites. Who would ever need to remind multiple employers regularly that having good developers is a privilege?)
I made a query which seems to be pretty good at picking out recent hot questions too. It just looks at views/day, and is dominated by recent questions. Hot questions get a lot of views quick, and then die off (because they have little lasting value)
 
@jmac blink 94... so on this site it's actually possible to earn that "100 favorites" badge? (I think that's the magic number. Whatever it is, I always thought it was a myth outside of the trilogy.)
 
@MonicaCellio Yeah, apparently it is possible. But that was the perfect storm of a question, and was by far and away the most popular question we've ever had I think.
In just 3 months, it has 50k views (which puts it near the top)
Oddly enough, our most popular question (by views) is likely driven by Google, and doesn't have anywhere near the score:
29
Q: How Should I Indicate Language Proficiency on my Resume?

jmacQuestion: What are some good ways of listing language proficiency on a resume? Problem: Language is such a complex thing to explain simply. There are several aspects of most languages (reading, writing, speaking, listening), and being good at one aspect doesn't mean you'll be good at the rest....

That question currently has over 100k views. It is by far and away the most viewed question we have.
Vote to close: legal advice
0
Q: Trying to trigger a non-compete agreement

user17551I work for a financial firm and my contract includes a standard non-compete provision (up to 2 years). I've been thinking of quitting anyway and I think they would trigger it if I got a job with a competitor, but I'm not sure. I was planning on getting an offer with a competitor before quitting a...

Vote to close: Unclear what you're asking:
1
Q: How to tell a coworker to stop making akward sexual jokes?

Conrad CI am doing an internship with another worker of my age, early 20s, and he constantly makes non-funny sexual jokes. We are both male. How do I make him stop this unprofessional behaviour?

Hey Conrad, and welcome to The Workplace. I'm having a bit of trouble understanding your question, could you clarify a few things for me? Have you asked him to stop making the jokes? If not, why not? Has anyone else in the office commented on it? Have you spoken to your manager about it? Do other people in the office make similar jokes? Explaining what the fundamental issue is, and why you aren't able to solve it by talking to him/your manager will get you better answers. Thanks in advance! — jmac 44 secs ago
I don't want to go to the HR because it is not an urgent issue. It is just bothering me. I don't know how to approach the subject nor what to say about it. — Conrad C 45 mins ago
Vote to close: Unclear what you're asking:
-1
Q: Dealing with a designer who won't accept feedback

user17540I am a lone web developer in the company maintaining a legacy web application. My job is to maintain this site and implement changes as requested by our web designer. The problem is that the "web" designer isn't very good. Anytime I try to add previously approved details to improve the system, t...

Hey user, and welcome to The Workplace. I'm a bit confused by your question, could you clarify please? You are not the designer, you are the coder. The designer reports to your manager, and your manager agrees with him. It sounds to me like this isn't your decision to make, and that your manager has already made clear that you should do what the designer says. What exactly makes you think that you can convince this designer that he has no taste? As-is, it doesn't sound like there is any way we can provide an answer that will actually solve the problem. An edit may help get better answers. — jmac 29 secs ago
 
2:15 AM
@jmac look at this lol
-9
A: How to tell a coworker to stop making akward sexual jokes?

UmbasaYou could threaten to fork his dongle.

 
Understatement of the week:
2
This is not a very good answer. — Lego Stormtroopr 2 hours ago
 
 
5 hours later…
7:01 AM
READ ALERT: cross-site spam masquerading as Q&A, flag anything from these accounts:
this is cross-site spam. Asker and answerer look like sock puppets planting fake Q&A to promote link advertized in the answer. Their accounts at other sites seem to be doing the same trick, see eg at Freelancing: freelancing.stackexchange.com/questions/1583/…gnat 3 mins ago
 
Your review and (hopefully) votes appreciated:
0
A: Let's get rid of the 10K flag queue

jmac Now days, it's a bunch of Not an Answer flags and a smattering of assorted cruft. 10K users can't even vote to delete these; only 20K users have that privilege. Re-flagging them does nothing but increase their priority in the moderator flag queue, where they frequently outrank more pressing is...

@gnat, I see you bountied my other , but chances are my answer above will get far more attention than the bounty.
 
@jmac no big deal, purpose of my bounty is educational, any amount of attentive readers it may help bringing in, I would be okay with that
 
7:29 AM
@jmac I would wordsmith something like this: "Eliminating the queue will not..." -> "Eliminating the queue, while it's certainly the right thing to do, will not..." - in my experience, 10K flag queue is totally senseless and it won't hurt if your answer puts it upfront that this is so
in The Whiteboard, Mar 17 at 4:51, by Jimmy Hoffa
I just wanted to laugh at the silly deleted content, but seeing the flag queue makes me want to bounty myself back below 10k
in The Whiteboard, Mar 17 at 6:34, by gnat
@JimmyHoffa simplest way to get rid of this headache is not to look at flag queue at all. Works like a charm to me
 
7:55 AM
@gnat Done: "Eliminating the queue, while certainly the right thing to do, will not solve the problem by itself, it will just shift the problem to a different queue which may be better suited to deal with the problem, but still won't solve the actual cause."
 
@MonicaCellio well given that SF/SU don't complain much, I'd guess that sites of Trilogy scale (and topicality!) can cope with current hotness formula. Smaller sites... let's do the math. Typical death spiral for a hot question I've seen is 2-5 garbage answers collected in 1-2 hours. This can happen 2-3 times a day (you see, yesterday and today there were 5 - five! - Workplace questions in hot list, go figure). This is 24x7 risk, hot question may pop up any time...
...How many moderators and trusted users should be permanently active to prevent too much damage and clean up garbage? For trusted (= high rep) users, also account that their primary focus is frequently posting good content, this takes much effort and dedication and leaves not too much room for janitorial. When site has 2,000 such users, it doesn't matter, when there are 2 or 5 or 20... it really does
 
@jmort, I suggest you take a look at this question and maybe give guidance before a potential migration to Personal Productivity. As-is, it isn't a very good question, but hopefully he will edit it and make it better so it will find success there. Since you're involved with that site too, I figured you are the right guy for the job.
Not sure if this question is on-topic or not. I am vacillating. On one hand it isn't covering a practical answerable question based on a problem, but on the other hand, it is asking something common to many workplaces that I think would have value to future users (and has a decent answer or two already):
5
Q: Why do some people in office not greet back (or even look away) when you say Hello?

RonCarl12I noticed that in my current company, there are several people whom I don't work with regularly (often senior, no matter how much) who just look on or look away when I say "Hi", "Hello" or "Good morning" to them, no matter how I intonate it, if I say it loud, smile, with a professional tone, etc....

For now I'm not voting to close, or voting to edit, but if someone has the time to put some thought in to it and explain what's itching at me and convince me which side of the fence I should be on, I would be all ears.
 
 
1 hour later…
9:26 AM
Good Afterdoon guys
 
@jmac You are torn between the manners of saying hi back and the cultural awareness of different cultures being ok with not answering back
 
9:52 AM
-2
A: How to incude creative abilities in cover letter/resume?

AntoopsI think you can put some work experiences which had your creativity. For example, you can say about how much your creative solution/idea/suggestion helped that project/task. From your question, you dont want to go for great details; so it will be good if you use the very specific parameters like...

@AlexM. I tried my level best to make it short and sweet answer :) — Antoops 52 secs ago
we don't like short and sweet answers, right?
 
yup
I guess he did explain stuff
so it's not really short short
it's just bad
I'd flag for deletion but for some reason it looks like it is not appropriate to me
I'll just drop that notice as a comment
 
10:41 AM
interesting perspective: MSO question from one of the answerers in hot SO questions we spoke about recently...
4
Q: Do answers that attract both positive and negative votes benefit the community?

david.pfxI gave this answer to a question. It rapidly attracted a significant number of negative votes and negative comments, to the point where my first reaction was to delete the answer. I could improve it of course, and I did make some effort. What surprised me is that despite getting so many negative...

What surprised me is that despite getting so many negatives, I also seem to be getting a number of positives, to the point where my net reputation on this answer is +66. Deleting the question would be a net loss.

So, what should one do in a case like this? Improve the answer? Answer the detractors? Delete the question? It largely depends on whether an answer like this is a benefit, on balance. And that's hard for me to assess.
sounds familiar to anyone who's been watching how it works
in hot questions (and your answer is posted in such a question), voting is broken: basically any answer "...gets a nice portion of populist upvotes and supportive comments, a portion sufficient to cover any downvotes and critique from site / tag regulars - a portion sufficient for other newcomers to believe answers like that are welcome and rewarded (broken windows anyone?)" — gnat 17 mins ago
 
CMW
11:38 AM
The irony of flagging a question titled 'unique situation' as duplicate.
 
lol ikr
I wanted to leave a comment saying "looks like your situation is not exactly unique"
but when I flagged a comment has been added automatically
 
CMW
Which is even more ironic
 
 
2 hours later…
1:47 PM
New answers on the If question
5
A: Too many 'if' statements?

ChrisI hope I understand the logic correctly. How about something like: public int fightMath (int one, int two) { int oneHit = ((one == 3 && two != 1) || (one == 2 && two != 0)) ? 1 : 0; int twoHit = ((two == 3 && one != 1) || (two == 2 && one != 0)) ? 2 : 0; return oneHit+twoHit; } Ch...

The resign question is still number 5 on the hot list 2 days later
 
CMW
Lemming army marching on!
 
11
Q: Why do some people in office not greet back (or even look away) when you say Hello?

RonCarl12I noticed that in my current company, there are several people whom I don't work with regularly (often senior, no matter how much) who just look on or look away when I say "Hi", "Hello" or "Good morning" to them, no matter how I intonate it, if I say it loud, smile, with a professional tone, etc....

Am I wrong in thinking this is really off topic. its not a problem specific to the workplace
This question on SO About R looks interesting and has quite a few answers that look good to me...
13
Q: In R, how can I access the first element of each level of a factor?

hhhI have a data frame like this: n = c(2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4) n <- as.factor(n) s = c("a", "b", "c", "d", "e", "f") df = data.frame(n, s) df n s 1 2 a 2 2 b 3 3 c 4 3 d 5 4 e 6 4 f and I want to access the first element of each level of my factor (and have in this example a vector containing a...

Lemmings to the cliff
I want to post an answer... I do not really know how to program in R... but if I was going to try in C# I would do something like:
 
CMW
2:24 PM
@Chad I'd like to start my answer with "R is short hand for Ruby, right?"
 
@CMW that would be awesome
 
CMW
Unfortunately I don't know enough about R to even understand the problem. Darn.
 
3:11 PM
there's like... a limit to how many reviews I can make
man that sucks.
supposing the best case scenario, where I do the max of 20 reviews per day
I'd get to 1000 reviews in 50 days
that's like an enforced slowrun :(
 
CMW
is that a problem anywhere?
except SO?
other queues do have a 50 review limit btw
 
yeah I wanted to get to 1000 quick
like I did on gd.se
 
CMW
close vote queue for example
 
it's my hobby here on SE
speedrunning reviews towards badges
 
CMW
I don't think we even have enough things to review really
 
3:14 PM
well I hit my cap in like 3 hours lol
close votes would be great, but i don't have the rep
 
CMW
you should poke around on SO
queues there are HUGE
 
I kinda hate SO
 
CMW
^^
 
3:45 PM
Hey, it's almost 1am in Japan, does anyone have a bit of spare time? Most preferably @gnat or @Chad, or anyone else related to this whole hot question poor answer crusade that's been going on.
As you all know, I want to create a better way of dealing with poor answers but the issue is that our site is very different from SO in general, and so there are 'cultural differences' with many members of the community team.
Shog has agreed to look at the effect of post notices if we post a request on our meta:
Post a request on your meta, I'll see what I can dig up. — Shog9 ♦ 6 mins ago
If someone could do that, that'd be awesome. If not, that's fine too. I'll take care of it this weekend or next week.
(Thinking it through, I should probably do it myself)
 
@jmac Do we not already have that?
 
@Chad We have the post for dealing with answers, but he wants one specifically discussing the stats that we want and can't get through other means.
 
@jmac Ahh ok
 
Chances are that I'm actually the only person who knows what can/can't be dug out of the data explorer and the like (save maybe @Monica?), so it'll probably have to be me, but a boy can dream.
 
4:11 PM
@jmac I think this weekend or next week would be better than now. This better be done well rather than fast, and there are quite some edges to polish there. We only have 3 moderators now and lots of messing with elections ahead, so full scale testing of new system will likely start no earlier than mid-April. We have plenty time to draft and smoke-test
that said I'll start working on a draft, will post it when ready... or merge it if someone else gets it done faster
 
4:32 PM
@CMW i hit the close limit of 20 fairly regularly, i think jmac does too and a handful of others
 
CMW
@RhysW I thought close limit was 50?
maybe I'm confused :)
 
20 :)
 
CMW
probably
 
unless it says come back in 7 hours, then it would be more than 20
i cant remember if it says 7 hours, or tomorrow
someone raise 3 more closes and ill tell you :D
 
CMW
it says X hours
 
4:34 PM
im 3 away from 20 so ill let you know when i hit it
 
CMW
X being the delta to midnight at your place
 
ah so yeah 20 a day
i just usually hit it at 5pm :D
 
CMW
(no matter who looks at it, it's always your place) ;-)
 
i live everywhere
 
16
A: How do the review limits work?

Shog9As Jeff notes, We really want vote diversity here, so that's the point of the limits The limits in place are currently determined in two ways: Per-queue hard limits: after 20 reviews in a given queue*, you're done for the day - if you want to continue reviewing, you can switch to a differ...

limit of reviews is 20 unless queue is over 1,000 items - then 40
 
4:36 PM
woo i guessed correctly
though i did not know that last bit
id be surprised if our queue hits 1000 any time soon
 
CMW
ah
that's why I thought it was that way
I used to review SO stuff and regularly hit the limit about half an hour after starting
because their queue is like 100K items or so
 
4:49 PM
yeah each :D
dunno why they even bother with queues, they arent getting anywhere, they started to get it down, then it rocketed upwards again xD
 
CMW
they have by far enough people with access to the queues, so they could easily cope
people generally just don't bother
 
pretty much
 
5:40 PM
0
Q: Testing proposal: automating review of answers that fail to meet site-specific guidelines

gnatThe 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're active on and propose a c...

^^^ there you go
I tried to make it CW, to break the 2K barrier for users to edit the question, but couldn't find how (a bug in recently introduced site design? at other metas I was able to IIRC). Would be nice if moderator could do that
 
@gnat Im ok with the 2k barrier. We can always do the edits from comments. heck all you have to do to get rep here is post "You should just Quit" answers anyway
 
@Chad rotfl you made my day! and as a bonus, your approach looks reasonable :)
 
6:02 PM
1
A: What is the Goal of "Hot Network Questions"?

Jon EricsonWell, I can tell you what I hoped for when I was a regular user on a tiny site: network-wide exposure. When Biblical Hermeneutics showed up in the hot question list, I vividly recall day-dreaming that everyone who had an interest in the Bible on the network would see our little site and have a bu...

^^^ Jon weights in - that's a good sign, he's one of my favorite thinkers at SE network
 
CMW
6:19 PM
0
A: Why do some people in office not greet back (or even look away) when you say Hello?

user17602If he wears a baseball hat and glasses and his name is Marvin and he is visiting from corporate headquarters today and is sitting on the other side of my work-pod it is because he is an obnoxious elitist snob. Otherwise it is probably because they are watching porn and are in a fight-or-flight f...

 
@gnat Exactly what I thought too. The hot list is supposed to increase the number of active users on a site by selling it to people who are already buying otherthings. The hotlist is the SE equivelent of the candy bars at the checkout line
 
6:35 PM
Hello All
 
 
2 hours later…
8:27 PM
@Vinothbabu hey vino
 
Hello @Chad
 
1
A: Let's get rid of the 10K flag queue

Monica CellioThe 10k flag queue has a lot of problems and I'd love to see it be replaced by a better low-quality-posts queue. There are some use cases that would be negatively affected by the proposed change, so I'd like to see a couple changes to the proposal. The purpose of this queue (whatever form it ta...

 
Wow @MonicaCellio how do you write such big answers. Wow... do u have a robot tied up in your workplace to automate your words mouthed.
 
@jmac I know my way around the 10k and mod tools pretty well, but I don't have much experience with the data explorer. (Not knowing SQL is a barrier for me, which I hope to correct. Right now I write my SQL the way I write my Perl, by imitation, and that can lead to problems. :-) )
@Vinothbabu just the low-tech tools: brain, fingers, and motivation. (Also ~70-80 WPM typing helps.)
 
@Vinothbabu I think I want to ask a question about relieving letters. Just a basic what are they and how do they work in general so that we have it for reference. I think the concept is quite foriegn to most of us in the west. Think you could answer a question like that?
 
8:39 PM
@Chad: Reliving letters are issued on the day when you quit the company, it just says the joining date, your designation and your reliving date from the company.
 
I get that but what are they for and why do you need them
 
Now you share this with your new company's HR.
 
Do I need them all or just the most recent one
 
sec.. sec
typing
 
Well I am thinking it will be a good resource for the site
 
8:41 PM
Your HR would contact your previous organization for verification on those details written on the letter.
Now here comes the important part
There are cases of fake certificates
Let's assume, i don't have any exp and i issue my own reliving letter
saying i worked for some XYZ company and i was designated as software engineer
Companies verify the reliving letter through an third party agency
whether its a fake company listed
or is it a valid one
For instance XYZ company might issue a fake reliving letter for 100 dollors
There might be 100 people who would have bought it
The fake company would have a tele communicater who would beheve like an HR
That's the main reason why HR/Companies ask for reliving letters
Apart from this
 
Why do the companies care though. In the US there is nothing like this at all.
 
How come the company who is hiring you can know that you have quit the previous company
 
You can come get 7 or 8 jobs at one time in the US quit them all and go get 7 or 8 more
 
Can you work full time in two different firms?
 
@Vinothbabu you could yes. And there are people that do
 
8:46 PM
Strange, in india its prohibited
Normally reliving letters are source for verification that you worked, you had experience and you had a good terms with the previous organization. In India people believe in papers than one's word.
I say i have 4yrs exp, but people would ask me to show reliving letter/exp letter to prove i had 4yrs exp working in XYZ firm.
If you say you are freelancer, then they would see you as a third grade animal. Believe me some people had such worst experience here back
Relieving letter only states formally that you have been relieved to ensure that a new employee has resigned from his previous company and he is not trying to do two jobs at the same time (or he could just have taken a holiday to try out another company)
 
9:02 PM
0
Q: What are the consequences of not having a relieving letter?

ChadThere have been a few questions about relieving letters here and based on the context of those question the idea of being required to have relieving letter seems quite foreign to many of us that are not from India. So this question is for those of us not from India that may not understand the cu...

 
9:20 PM
@Chad: My two cents added to the post
 
@Vinothbabu So does being an employee of a company confer any benefits?
If you walk off and never get a relieving letter does that mean you can come back a year later like you never left and just start working again?
 
Benefits in the sense
No
You would be terminated after a period
 
So then are they not required to give you the letter when the terminate you?
 
As per the law, your company has to give you reliving letter, if not you can contact the local labour officer
and proceed a suit against them
Rarely such things happens, most of the company would give you the reliving letter on the day of exit
-4
Q: How does Background Verification through NASSCOM work?

ramRecently I got an offer from a multinational corporation and they want me to register in the National Skills Registry (NSR) and I registered. My first company registered in 2011. I worked there from 2010 and I quit in 2012. I am now worried this may be held against me How is the NSR Verificatio...

Why so much downvotes to this question
This has relation to the second last part, where all the reliving letters are verified through NASSCOM
 
0
Q: How come that there are 5 Workplace questions in the hot list?

gnatLast two days I observe that there are 5 Workplace questions in the Hot Network Questions list. Given that list contains 100 questions and there are more than 100 sites in SE network, equal distribution would mean less than one question per site in that list, how comes that Workplace presence is...

 
9:30 PM
@Chad Where do you work?
 
9:43 PM
@Vinothbabu I work in the US in Illinois
It is what we in the US call a decent sized city... like a village in india
 
Which state?
My previous client was from Nashvelle
Goergia state i guess
 
@gnat They are decent questions at least.
@Vinothbabu Or Tennessee?
 
Any Guys play Chess?
 
@Chad couldn't be the other way, because we mercilessly vote down questions that aren't. It's answers that become a problem when Q is exposed, you know
 

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