The Water Cooler

12:05 AM

Well, see you later guys

I am a bit nervous, as tomorrow I am due to Take the TOEFL test, again (planning to search for Master Degrees and Scholarships)

I took it some years ago, and did a great score IMO (113/120)

Don't know why I am nervous now though. TBH I didn't study much for this time, I have already 5 more years of knowing English and practicing it, plus surely I have more subjects to talk about or general knowledge to be able to respond more eloquent answers.

motosubatsu

8:40 AM

morning all

Nofel

9:24 AM

Morning everyone

Hello @motosubatsu

motosubatsu

10:48 AM

I'm developing an intense dislike for the obsession TWP has with declaring everything a duplicate.

Nofel

11:46 AM

Take it from me, I had to ask a Mod to tell me why

coz I had rather abandon SE for just declaring everything I post as a off-topic or dup

@motosubatsu Here is my doubt again

about new job coz I cannot so a certain task

motosubatsu

@Nofel is there a specific task you are worried about.. or is it more general?

Nofel

My mindset is so fake or wrong that I should just run a program and it hould run right away coz I had been doing it for long or it is easy for other

e.g loop

Like i said I been doing a degree which let u pass onto next project if u pass previous

motosubatsu

so it's a general doubt/fear?

Nofel

both

From time I posted the question, I was able to break it down and make it

but when I don't get it or never done it before

fear and doubt sink its long teeth in my soul

motosubatsu

12:05 PM

because of the way you've been beaten down by your current (and some previous) jobs - you've demonstrated that you have a good ability to learn, you just need to get back to the place where you believe that. The new job really will help in that regard but there are other things you can do to help yourself in the meantime. Every time you do something well or "get" something in your studies (either for the degree, for work or self-study) make a note of it.

Either use your phone's notes app or actual post-its, then every day take 5 mins to look over the last week or two's worth of achievements and remind yourself of them, "bad" experiences stick in the memory more (it's an evolutionary thing) so this will help you re-enforce the memories of the good ones. It'll take a while (think weeks or even months) but it will help train your brain to have a more balanced view of your abilities.

ooh.. lunch time. Be back later :)

Nofel

When I can't make certain instruction work I ask myself "Do I need to be here"

although I do make chores assign to me in current job

I talk about my degree

motosubatsu

12:52 PM

@Nofel if you find a particular set of instructions doesn't work for you for something - take five mins and clear your head (have a walk or something - get away from the screen) and come back and try a different set, there's so many tutorials and guides on the internet that you'll almost certainly be able to find one that "clicks" with you

motosubatsu

1:15 PM

mmmm...tasty lunch :)

Nofel

@motosubatsu did u have english breakfast again?

motosubatsu

@Nofel nope, went to the work cafeteria today as the special was a carvery

so I had roast beef, roast pork, roast potatoes and veg

Nofel

oh man

motosubatsu

hit the spot perfectly on a cold wintery day :)

Nofel

u just made me hungry again

I had uncle's ben tasteless rice

motosubatsu

1:18 PM

oh and I'm munching on a tub of Cadbury Heroes as well - I helped one of the salespeople change a flat tire this morning so they got me them to say thanks :)

Nofel

Nice

and now I wanna cry

motosubatsu

@Nofel because of the chocs?

Nofel

no, I am not a choc fan unless its 80% dark choc

but with roasts etc

motosubatsu

sorry dude.. it really was rather tasty :)

Nofel

I can only imagine.

The Snark Knight

1:37 PM

@Nofel get a copy of "Rhinoceros success" Its a great, small book that really helps.

Nofel

@TheSnarkKnight I did go with it a little

on audible

Take this, docs.google.com/document/d/…

This task seem easy has turned hard

motosubatsu

ugh... not a fan of how they write their "ideas for how it could work" sections

very hard to read

which bit are you stuck on?

or were you just commenting that it was bigger than you thought?

Nofel

When I cannot that, I ask myself

Am i fit for the role which emphasis on JS

I did it 60% without functions

bt when I see functions, I am confused, the first bit

@TheSnarkKnight I like the book, it is really a task to go through a task and do it but like @motosubatsu said it is my past and current PM attitude who has given me such ideas

@motosubatsu it is like ur ninja at SQL and If u cannot do a certain task or do it in a quick turnaround then what

The Snark Knight

1:52 PM

@Nofel right now, you have a terrible self-image. You need to rebuild that.

Nofel

@TheSnarkKnight ur in apostion to hire someone, say u get a guy who is for JS and u posted 30k per yr

u intetrview him, u see his is weak but know what he talk about

and say I donno of subjects which might be JS crutical,

would u offer that guy on 25k saying he need to put work into JS

and if so why

why would u hire him rather than a guy who asked 35k and Is better than the previous

knowing he can take time to do or might not do a time crucial task

The Snark Knight

@Nofel funny you should mention that. We just hired someone a few months back who was way underskilled. I brought him up to speed. Why? Because he has a good attitude, is eager, and wants to learn.

Nofel

why not hire a skilled person who just asked for 5k extra

The Snark Knight

@Nofel also, they did that with me prior to that. I agreed to 30/hr instead of 35 to get the position.

@Nofel As an old boss said to me, and I say now. "I would much rather hire someone missing a few skills with the right attitude. If you're weak in an area, I can teach you or send you to a class. If you've got a bad ethic/attitude, there is nothing I can do with you"

Tech skills can up taught and trained. Talent, drive, and attitude cannot.

Nofel

I tell myself, look at urself back in 2011, u didn't know WordPress, I got fired after 2 months into the job

before that I had 3 yrs job in CSS and UX

so I made it my mission to learn WordPress and I did freelance, a lot of mistake and made a lot client annoyed but eventually I was so good at it

that I would get bonus for turnarounds from freelance clients, then got job here in uk

again I was go to person for WP, then lost it coz of discrimination, then recuiters screwed me and my passion for magento also screwed me loosing jobs one after anitger

then I had to give up on that and come back to my own UX and CSS

now 1 yr into it and I am a go to person for WordPress while my peer has refused to do it coz he knows I can beat him to it

the new job, is more JS and less CSS and I dread

The Snark Knight

2:10 PM

@Nofel the secret about IT is that everyone is making it up as they go along. You're not unique. Don't put so much pressure on yourself. You need to be able to screw up from time to time or you won't learn.

Nofel

coz I be changing my home, my job for this new one and If I cannot get it like I didn't get Magento or WordPress. I am screwed.

The Snark Knight

@Nofel You'll get it. JS isn't that hard, it's just tricky.

Nofel

yes true but I ask myself, the test they gave me taught me a lot but When I was stuck, I hired a freelance to do it

but he couldn't make me understand and I couldn't too

so I ask myself Am i being honest with myself

The Snark Knight

@Nofel No, you're not being honest, you're being too hard on yourself. BE BOLD

Nofel

Tell me ppl do that

hire ppl to complete task they are hired to do

I think no one

If I ask myself where was I when I joined this job which included JS, I was 1% now I am 60% coz I learned by doing and fixing my peer error

motosubatsu

2:14 PM

@Nofel as @TheSnarkKnight said ""I would much rather hire someone missing a few skills with the right attitude. If you're weak in an area, I can teach you or send you to a class. If you've got a bad ethic/attitude, there is nothing I can do with you""

Nofel

yet when I fail to do that x task and hired someone that rating went to 0 for me

motosubatsu

I'll take slightly weaker skills and know that I can help someone build on that rather than ninja and a bad fit any day of the week

@Nofel funny you should mention that.. I'm currently having a difficult time with some complex SQL.. yes it's taking me far longer than I thought it would but I know that if I keep plugging away I'll get there

The Snark Knight

@Nofel there has never been a time where I have not struggled. Don't sweat it.

Nofel

@TheSnarkKnight @motosubatsu when I was given the test, I didn't new a feature used via terminal to run the app but they aseked for it and I got 3-4 premium membership, so I start going through, and in a few hours I was generating the app via terminal

and when I was asked in interview, how and what you did and wyy

I was explaining it like a pro like I knew this for ages

The senior dev said "I am very happy with what nofel told me"

I might be saying the words I learned from tutorial but withhout that tutroial I would have failed

The Snark Knight

@Nofel there's a saying in the American mid-west. "Don't borrow trouble".

Nofel

2:28 PM

@TheSnarkKnight Here is a simple example. My manager in other peer absense asked me how would payment gateway work and I told him the error he was having was related and it made sense to him but If someone would have asked me to do it hands on

I couldn't

The Snark Knight

@Nofel that's called "analysis", and it's a valuable skill.

Nofel

So I might in wrong job?

coz that info came to me after studying

and those who can do are better than who just talk?

The Snark Knight

@Nofel no, it means you have a skill that you weren't aware of. That can be used to fit into your team.

Nofel

I had change in my nature, so this peer want to compete with me in Sass, so he copy pasted and used it with his style of learning but showing manger he is doing it

when i asked why u did that and can u fix this error, the way he did it was so dumb

he didn't even use the CSS class he created and asked me if I ws happy

I said yes, If it works im happy

done with giving them free advices

Nofel

3:01 PM

and yet again, I made my functions work

damn self doubt

The Snark Knight

@Nofel keep up with Rhinoceros success. You need to kill those voices in your head put there by the toxic environment you've been working in.

Chris E

hey

Nofel

Hello Chris

motosubatsu

@ChrisE good afternoon sir

Nofel

3:17 PM

@TheSnarkKnight One of self doubt came from idea of online tutorials, when they seem to do something without references or mistakes

it sink in my mind, why cannot I do it like them

I spend x yrs into this

@motosubatsu something for u to advice me on

Chris E

@Nofel Those videos are heavily planned, practiced and edited. Mistakes are edited out and the examples they use aren't real world examples.

motosubatsu

@Nofel remember though that a tutorial will have all the extraneous bits cut out - so you'll never see all the mistakes etc that the person made while they were learning it

Chris E

It's like giving a speech. You don't just walk up on stage and start talking, you prepare ahead of time.

The Snark Knight

@Nofel all that means is that you don't learn well from tutorials. I could never learn from code-snippets, I'd have to see them in action

@Nofel try W3 schools. They let you hack around in a sandbox and experiment.

Chris E

I don't think one really knows anything from the videos so much as they have a better basis upon which to build through their own trial and error.

Nofel

3:20 PM

@TheSnarkKnight w3school and php.net or MDN is wackiest place to learn

I can never understand

I learn fast with metaphors or analogy

Chris E

@TheSnarkKnight oh god no. they're well known for incomplete and inaccurate information.

Nofel

yes @ChrisE

I subject php.net for screwing me up

The Snark Knight

@Nofel I have learning disabilities, so I get it. What you need to do is find something that works to your way of learning.

@ChrisE yes, they are, but I usually ignore the tutorial part and play in their sandboxes

Nofel

sandboxes FTW

motosubatsu

@Nofel to be fair it is dealing with PHP...which screws everybody up

Nofel

3:24 PM

I envy people who get it so fast

it is like they have the pill from LIMITLESS movie

motosubatsu

@Nofel that pill would be awesome if it were real :)

@Nofel generally this impression is a fallacy.. people "get" different things at different speeds, somethings you struggle on and they get in 5 mins and there will be other things where the reverse is true

Nofel

true

I started Sass last yr, just 1 go on tutorial got me doing it like a pro

motosubatsu

Take me for example... I've been mucking around with CSS for years and I still don't "get" it. SQL on the other hand I can make dance on a pin. And I've known plenty of people who can make CSS do things that I'm pretty sure are actually Magic disguised as code but couldn't wrap their heads around a simple SELECT statement

we all have our own strengths and weaknesses

Nofel

@motosubatsu I was given this page back in 2011 but I havent mastered it but still I think SQL is fun blog.codinghorror.com/a-visual-explanation-of-sql-joins

they way u pull out data and JOIN tables to form a union and display

motosubatsu

JOINS are another case where I think how you get taught it matters massively, when I had SQL lectures at university I honestly couldn't even begin to wrap my head around JOINs - once I had a database to play with where I understood the relationships between the rows I picked it up dead easy

Nofel

3:35 PM

@MisterPositive I had lovely cookies yesday with pistacho, punes, almond, white choclate and other delights in it.

@motosubatsu nothing beats right direction n hands on exp

Love the way I was listening to a talk where the person said, "It is software and not hardware coz u can rewrite ur mistake so go ahead do a lot of mistakes"

Mister Positive

@Nofel milk too?

Nofel

no the kettle broke down

Mister Positive

@Nofel NO!

Nofel

well i ate the om thier own

damn they were good

Mister Positive

I had an oatmeal chocolate chip yesterday. Home made

real yummy

Nofel

3:43 PM

groceries.asda.com/product/cookies/…

motosubatsu

@MisterPositive I'm planning on trying to make some cookies soon as part of my adhoc plan to learn baking. I've already had successful Mince pies and flapjacks so cookies to follow soon.

Nofel

cookies have belgiam, dtcuh and what not

like coffee,I cannot know what is latte and forthe

motosubatsu

Assuming they are successful I will of course post pics here for the delight/amusement of the Water Cooler cookie-addicts

Nofel

taste same to me

Chris E

Ugh. Just found out my boss' boss got laid of yesterday.

Nofel

3:45 PM

@motosubatsu U can invite me

surely i can come over

@ChrisE so ur boss is his boss and the new boss?

Chris E

well, here's out it works. My boss is actually the owner of the company that employs me. We (my whole project team) are contracted to a certain large telco. The sponsor of the project, a director, is the one who was laid off.

She'd been here 12 years.

motosubatsu

@Nofel latte = espresso + hot milk, "frothy" coffee is usually a cappuccino which is espresso + lower quantity of hot milk and the milk has high pressure steam passed through it to whip it up into a foam. The taste isn't a million miles apart to be honest, the main difference is in texture - a cappuccino is "fluffier" and is a bit "lighter" to drink as a result.

Mister Positive

@ChrisE !

Chris E

middle management is always the first to go.

Nofel

@ChrisE there goes job security. (who believes in it)

motosubatsu

3:49 PM

@ChrisE ouch.. laid off after 12 years is a kick in the teeth (unless it was voluntary of course)

@Nofel job security is largely mythological

2

Nofel

it is powerful.

In pakistan, government service employee get a house as long they r serving

dpending on grade

my brother is so good with typing and translating that for his family to give them shelter he has been in that job since 32 yrs

Chris E

that's why I don't mind contracting. There's no illusion of job security.

2

Nofel

he rejected foreign trip just to take care of mom

motosubatsu

@Nofel I'm sure I can work out a way to get you some cookies.. it might have to wait until I've got the technique right, I'm hopelessly inept in the kitchen and my first attempts tend to be something of a disaster

Nofel

so they think it is job secuity, I reject it

The Snark Knight

3:56 PM

@Nofel I'm one of those "instant learners" Believe me, it comes with it's own set of problems. Don't worry about how others learn, find the way you learn, and run with it.

Nofel

This is a new bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-42023605

Mister Positive

@Nofel {shakes head}

Chris E

4:18 PM

It's like a morgue around here today

Nofel

@ChrisE why was she only lady in the office?

Snow

Yeah. I've been working hard all day and seen that nothing much has happened here at all.

Mister Positive

Slow day on the stack

Snow

@motosubatsu For most people (and shops/restaruants, it seems), a cappuccino is the same as a latte, but with chocolate sprinkles on top.

Seems like we've wandered into the "Land of the Obvious"....

Nofel

@motosubatsu then just marketing gimmick

nothing more than air passed to fool people

Chris E

4:23 PM

@Nofel no, it's about 50/50. It's just then when someone gets laid off, everyone gets nervous and conversation is muted. Hopefully it's just a middle-management reorg and won't affect our project.

Snow

And at some point soon, someone will turn up with the sole purpose of overcomplicating perfectly straight-forward answers to perfectly straight-forward questions.

Mister Positive

@ChrisE I hope so too.

@Snow who, me? (LOL)

Chris E

Literally billions of ad dollars (spending and buying) are tracked and analyzed through our app, so I'm hopeful.

Nofel

@ChrisE u in telco, ever heard of OpexLogic or SiteLogic

Chris E

and invoiced, etc.

Nofel

4:24 PM

hw was she middle tier, when u say she was boss's boss

Chris E

Nope. I work at the bit T

Nofel

it make her upper managerment

@ChrisE Me waiting for contract then I annouce my depature

2

I am worried thought, what after sending contract they backtrack

saying, we don't need to hire etc

what r my options then

Chris E

middle because she's a director. This is the 8th largest company in the world. Director is very middle. 5 different people between her and the top.

She had 7 direct reports. The rest are contractors on my project.

actually 4. One of her reports has 3 under her.

Nofel

why they let her go

all of sudden

who uses github here

Chris E

probably planned reorganization. she didn't know it was coming, but I'm sure those above her planned it a month or so ago as part of a larger reorg. There's nothing on the net about layoffs, but we'll have to see. Could be just Mobility that's shifting some things around.

Nofel

4:31 PM

so ur boss is under stress

coz her work falls onto ur boss

and bosses put it on subooridnates

Chris E

Not really. He's under stress because he's concerned about the funding of our project for next year. It was already tentatively approved (even by the ex-boss' boss) through June, but until something is signed it's up in the air. And this is an unwanted variable.

Nofel

If it was planned sure there will be shoes to fill in

or company negotiate with valuable employee

I know mine wont

coz even project is done and they r rolling out minor things and I can do that but they cannot give me the raise I m getting on new role

Chris E

4:50 PM

I've been reading some anonymous message boards and apparently, they do layoffs by rounds. On October 18 they told all those who were in "affected groups". Those in affected groups get an email with an offer of severance. If they accept it, they get a check and they're gone...

If they don't accept it, they wait about a month and find out if they're one of those being laid off. Either way, they get severance.

based on her tenure, she should get 48% of her annual salary. It's 4% per year for management up to a 50% maximum and she was here 12.5 years.

The Snark Knight

@ChrisE they've always done it in rounds. It was the same way 20 years ago before the bankruptcy.

Chris E

As long as they don't kill my project (which obviously comes out of a different pocket), I'm good. Last time I was a direct contractor and got caught up in a "get rid of all contractors" wave. That was 10 years ago.

The other bit of hope for me is that I'm in Technical Operations Support (TechOps) and even if they decide to wind down the project, they still need to support it.

Nofel

is it a project in development or a rollout with support and milestones?

rolled out*

Chris E

both

Nofel

It might be the KPI wasn't good.

The Snark Knight

4:59 PM

@ChrisE Ooooh! I remember that too. Shuffling people from areas where fnding was cut to areas and projects that were fully funded. It was like a freakin' game of chess

good luck

Nofel

either way the first tire is fine coz they provide core functionality.

Chris E

It's currently in use but it's being significantly enhanced. The problem is that the one driving the enhancements is the one who got laid off. Fortunately, her boss is a huge pusher of analytics which is what we're mostly building on now.

So I'm in a group whose sole purpose is one project. If they do cuts to the budget for the project, my boss decides who gets the axe to make up for whatever shortfall. There's also another company that works on the project, but they've been drawing down their numbers.

It's all up in the air, tbh

wow, looks like Verizon just whacked a bunch this week too.

Nofel

What are telcos r shutting down?

Chris E

I think they're just cutting costs. Personally, I think it's to improve share price.

AT&T wants to by TW, VZW has been at nearly the same price for half a decade and buys crap. They're probably trying to look better to shareholders, especially VZW.

Think about it. Yahoo. Verizon actually bought Yahoo.

Of course if the ATT/TW merger goes through, ATT will own MySpace. :)

Nofel

5:15 PM

lol

does Myspace exists?

Chris E

Yup.

So does Yahoo.

blows my mind.

Could you imagine the stress of working at MySpace?? Every day you'd have to wonder if today was your last.

Mister Positive

@ChrisE I doubt anyone works there anymore

;-}

Chris E

as of February 2017, 150 people worked there.

Nofel

doing what

lol

Mister Positive

@ChrisE where did you see that info?

Chris E

5:22 PM

hang on, I'm reading something now that said in May they were trying to play dead to avoid a court fight.

enderland

myspace... lol

2

Chris E

i know, right?

enderland

brings me back

painfully...

Chris E

lol, LinkedIn says "see all 519 employees on LinkedIn" I'm going to assume that almost all of them just committed suicide and ghosted their accounts.

Mister Positive

MySpace has been irrelevant for over 10 years.

Its like the WPS gods don't want me to rep cap today LOL

gnat

5:45 PM

any 15ers around to protect this HNQ question? It probably would have been auto-protected long time ago if this feature was implemented properly...

9

A: How many questions escape community protection because of reputation gained within checked question?

Observing for last 5-6 months how protection works (or more precisely fails to work) leaves me quite disappointed. Unless stats show that my observations somehow miss the big picture, I would say that it is probably broken, at least at the sites I am active at (Programmers and Workplace). As an ...

Chris E

not on meta I'm not.

lol, looked at wrong one. Can't, it's not old enough so need a mod

or one more close vote

2

motosubatsu

6:05 PM

@Snow you called? :)

gnat

6:27 PM

@ChrisE "not old enough", hmm looks like they silently disabled old feature allowing immediate protection over here. How friggin' nice...

Jan 21 '14 at 0:10, by jmac

Hey guys, for your reference, if we get slammed by hot questions again in the future and start racking up bad answers, Shog has enabled question protection by trusted users without having to wait 24 hours just for TWP. With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, so don't abuse it or he'll revoke it.

2

Chris E

according to help it has to be a day old for we mere mortals to protect it. <shrug />

just find another person to close it and it's done.

David K

6:55 PM

@ChrisE I think there's an exception if at least two low quality answers from low-rep users are deleted, but we only have one of those so far.

The Snark Knight

@gnat that is a happy thing.

gnat

7:23 PM

@TheSnarkKnight thanks, this way works too. :) Although I am really unhappy how SE team broke that old feature of immediate protection. Makes me wonder if we want to play again that old funny game of work-to-rule to make them feel the pain...

Work-to-rule

Mar 19 '14 at 15:13, 1 hour 47 minutes total – 26 messages, 4 users, 2 stars

Bookmarked Jan 18 '15 at 20:19 by gnat

The Snark Knight

@gnat I started my career in a union shop. I am very familiar with, and good at, this tactic.

gnat

7:46 PM

@TheSnarkKnight yeah, tactic is pretty much the same. SE higher ups officially encourage outsiders join unfamiliar sites to upvote stuff in HNQ (site quality norms? what norms, don't bother - just have fun). They love how this way makes target questions stick and entertain. But what if we start doing this really enthusiastically ("work to rule")? Questions in HNQ will stick for really long and this whole thing will become apparently boring (think of questions stuck in there for a week or two)...

...in prior round this work-to-rule game worked great on Stack Overflow questions. :) Although they quickly invented a hack that protected these hoping it won't work anymore. What they missed though is there are 150 other sites that aren't protected like that. If we start voting up HNQ from these other sites things may get... interesting

Chris E

I'm seriously attempting to be nice and I appreciate (truly) your depth of knowledge of the rules, etc. But I don't get why you seem to have what appears to be such a consuming hatred of HNQ that it appears to almost approach OCD.

Yeah, some crap gets through, but is it really that big a deal?

Mister Positive

[crickets]

gnat

@ChrisE if memory serves previous time you suspected me of OCD hatred against Joe or link-only answers or LQ review or something like that. Care to pick one OCD for me and stick with it? Or you prefer to label every comment of mine with a new sort of a neurosis

The Snark Knight

DarkCygnus

8:04 PM

Greeting everyone

Yey my first deletion

will I lose 10 rep if it was a question I answered with 1 UV?

enderland

yes, within a timeframe

gnat

@DavidK three answers from low rep users have to be deleted, not two (for the sake of precision two deleted answers can trigger auto-protection in case if these were flagged as spam). Maybe I have an OCD about auto-protection

DarkCygnus

@enderland yup, just did

enderland

I think if it's around for either 60/90 days you keep the rep

DarkCygnus

@gnat speaking of Protecting, I once asked a question on Meta SE about the word choice for "Protect"... worth reading at least for the entertainment.

The Snark Knight

8:28 PM

@DarkCygnus funny how the question itself is negative, but has plenty of positive answers.

gnat

@DarkCygnus yeah I remember that. Question and answers made pretty good food for thought. @TheSnarkKnight negative score may be because some voters expressed disagreement with proposal, that's how meta works. Quality of the question itself looks good to me, guess if it was the only motivation like at non-meta sites the score would be positive

DarkCygnus

@gnat This reminds me that, given the fact that votes in meta are more agree/disagree they should remove the on-hover text saying "This question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful" and say instead "I don't agree with the question."

But posting that, I fear, will probably be taken the same way as that other question of mine.

gnat

@DarkCygnus that suggestion would have good chances to be downvoted to death because it would be a blatant duplicate (yes it was already proposed to adjust the hover text this way)

DarkCygnus

sauce?

@gnat could it be asked in a way that it is not a feature request or similar, but more like discussion on "Why does the hover say X if it is known that DV really mean Y?"

gnat

@DarkCygnus unlikely. if memory serves suggestion to change hover was answered with a fairly detailed explanation of why it is done this way. To increase chance for positive reception you'd have to find and refer it and explain what is missing, wht needs to be additionally explained. Shog once posted a hint on how to survive meta, I think it was all about doing and explaining research prior to posting

63

Q: Show your work: one simple trick to make meta effective

Every day, good-hearted people come to these sites and run into serious problems. And then you come here or to another meta site, seeking to propose a solution to the problem you've encountered... And no one cares. Your discussion gets ignored Your feature-request gets downvoted Your bug gets s...

DarkCygnus

8:54 PM

@gnat thanks for the info :)

lol

113

A: How do I participate in Meta and not die trying?

What exactly is meta? Why/how is it different? What goes here? Meta Stack Exchange is a special place for suggestions, bugs, support questions, and discussion about the Stack Exchange sites. It is the only place where more frivolous discussions are allowed. Meta is also harsh(er) to your feeling...

from that Q you linked @gnat

DarkCygnus

9:07 PM

I am actually Laughing at the Waffles.... and the Ponies....

LOL-ing too hard now

DarkCygnus

9:33 PM

SE minions, Silently and swiftly removing bug tag since 2011

or before that...

DarkCygnus

9:50 PM

59

A: The Many Memes of Meta

Meme: Changing your display name on a whim. Originator: Welbog Cultural Height: TBD Official Response: Limited to one change every 30 days. Background: User Welbog likes to change his profile whenever it will make a post of his seem funnier. Other times it seems to just be on a whim. He will also...

DarkCygnus

10:30 PM

awww, hate it when I have some time writing an answer and the post gets deleted (in this case OP accepted dupe)

Is there a point in wanting to VTRE if the OP accepted a dupe? I think it does, because not only the OP can benefit from such post, and it should allow it to be opened for more answer that complement the ones given.

(i recall some TWP meta question about it)

5

Q: Reopening accepted duplicates

It is my understanding that when someone proposed a duplicate and the OP accepts that as a duplicate that it's put on hold by Community. So if the person asking the question is calling it a duplicate too, why is it still available to reopen? It seems to me that the OP accepting the duplicate is...

discussion duplicates

Yep, it was a post from Chris

Is there a way to "bounty" on meta... that is, doesn't matter the rep, but how you promote some post to get better answers?

MetaEd

10:50 PM

17

Q: How to get attention to a post on a child meta site

If I want to draw people's attention to a post on a child meta site, how can I do that? I want to get people involved in a discussion over at Area 51 to see what they think of the idea, because it requires opinions from the community. However, posts on the discussion zone of Area 51 rarely get ac...

discussion feature-request per-site-meta

DarkCygnus

thanks @MetaEd

DarkCygnus

11:50 PM

Sometimes, on Friday evenings, I feel like The Water Cooler is mostly a chat with myself... good thing I like that fella

Work-to-rule

Transcript for