why is the GIS town hall chat posted on Meta Stack Overflow?

@KyleCronin because @RebeccaChernoff loves Meta so much!

sorry about that >_<

I swear I selected GIS for the parent room. |:

Oh you know it's true @Rebecca. Admit it, meta is more fun than anywhere else!

well it looks like it's gone from Meta now, so no harm done I guess

room topic changed to GIS Town Hall Chat: meta.gis.stackexchange.com/q/387

In other news, we'll get started in about 20 minutes. (:

Hello!

Hi there

Hello, everyone. I'm glad someone showed up! ;-)

it looks like @Mapperz is here to answer questions, and Kirk is our only non-candidate participant so far ;-)

...I'm the only non blue person here, huh? LOL

Welcome to the GIS Town Hall Chat

We're just here to get to know the candidates and ask questions regarding the candidates views on moderation that may help in voting.

A few notes about the format:

@Kirk ought to be a candidate anyway...

The format is open, feel free to ask your question(s) unprompted, however please be mindful of whether or not candidates have answered the previous questions so that they don't get behind and start missing questions. Other than that, feel free to jump in.

I'm just waiting to see who bids highest for my vote.

Candidates, please use the reply feature so that questions and their answers are linked together. (Hover your mouse over the left of the message, click the down arrow, click reply.)

hello world! i'm still arriving, whole attention in few minutes

When a question is asked, I'll star it - please star it yourself also to help! Please save stars for the questions so that candidates can refer to the star list to make sure they haven't missed a question.

@Josh will be creating a digest version of the town hall chat after it is completed. This digest will take the form of a question on meta, containing all the questions asked as well as their answers for easier reading.

There's a system message up on the site, so we may get some stragglers joining us.

The candidates I see here are: @scw, @whuber, @mattwilkie, @underdark and @Mapperz

With that, I think I've got all my initial messages, so I open the floor to y'all. Who has a question to start us off? (:

And I'd like to reitterate what @RebeccaChernoff said about the reply feature -- it makes the digest much easier to compile!

(y'all read fast? q:)

By star, do you mean asterisk?

@KirkKuykendall Yup, on the right.

Star meaning clicking the small star icon to the right

If you hover over a message, a couple icons appear at the right of the message, one of them is a star, which puts it into a list in the sidebar on the right.

Hi.

Welcome @underdark

For all candidates: what do you think the biggest impediment to the proliferation of GIS technology is today?

@Kir

@KirkKuykendall Bandwidth

@KirkKuykendall The human factor: finding appropriate uses for innovations in GIS and using existing GIS effectively.

@KirkKuykendall In Europe: data availability

@underdark there is good improvement in the UK with the Ordnance Survey Opendata (quality and maintained data)

@Mapperz: Yes, INSPIRE should also help some

but many gigabytes of data is slow to 'get' hence why I mention Bandwidth as a limitation to GIS currently

there is no GIS without data!

What role, if any, would GIS.se play in overcoming what you perceive to be the biggest impediment?

How much time do you anticipate spending on the site? How much of that would be "moderating"?

@KirkKuykendall Understanding of the technology: its a relatively new field, and most folks now attracted to it come through the 'neo-geography' door and don't necessarily understand the whys of the approaches they use, which limits the utility of the results

On the GISse most days - already approving or rejecting 'new users' edits

@MichaelMrozek Moderation is part of what every high-rep user is expected to do. If you look at the 'User' tab on our main page you can see the mod candidates are already active on meta, with voting, and editing. The progression to formal moderator status isn't a great leap; it's just a small change that doesn't require much more commitment of time.

@Michael: I check at least twice a day, usually more often. Time spent depends on what is going on on gis.se and in the real word

@KirkKuykendall GISse is becoming a much healthier resource day thanks to the community as a broad range of questions and fast answers...

@Mapperz is this your answer to @KirkKuykendall or @MichaelMrozek's question?

@KirkKuykendall basic computer literacy. I see many people using all these fancy tech gadgets and not having a clue how they work or what their limits are. For many, it's indistinguishable from magic, it actually is magic. Even now it is not uncommon to see spaces and tabs used to indent paragraphs for instance. There is a chasm betwixt that and understanding point, lines, polygons and linking them to tables and coordinates

@MichaelMrozek As a pro-tem moderator, I've spent around 10-20 minutes a day moderating, relying on the model of letting most things bubble up through the flagging system -- the moderation system says that's 94 interventions over a few months. I try to consistently visit the site to moderate, then participate when time allows in addition to that.

@josh @KirkKuykendall question

@Mapperz thanks!

@mattwilkie Any technology that is sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic (Arthur C. Clarke)

@scw and @mattwilkie have done an excellent job would be happy for them to continue if they or voters want them too.

What are your thoughts on company-specific questions (e.g. ESRI)? Allowed, disallowed? With constraints?

I am concerned that this forum will become a substitute for other forums that are software specific. What should be done to ensure that the questions and/or answers are platform independent and/or highlight advantages or disadvantages between them?

@Mapperz Ditto. Kudos to @scw and @matt. I would be quite happy to see them continue.

Do you think a market economy helps or hinders innovation in GIS?

@Mapperz +1 for @scw and @mattwilkie

@MichaelMrozek based on my experience thus far, I spend about 20-30 minutes a day, of the days I come to GIS.se at all, moderating (This includes thinking about moderating but not actually doing anything). That has been slowly ramping up as the site's popularity increases and more things are flagged for attention.

Let's make sure we give the candidates a chance to answer the questions.

@MichaelTodd it can get a bit E-S-R-I orientated but thanks to @underdark and QGIS it leads to other ways GIS software can do it for minimum cost and fuss.

@whuber Thanks for the kind words -- there was a question a while back on the site about the expectations for being a moderator, and I think it is worth reviewing periodically and making sure folks are still up for the commitment -- we have two other pro-tem moderators who are now in absentia and probably don't want the commitment any longer.

@MichaelTodd: I don't see how we could disallow ESRI-specific questions (and I'm not known as a big fan ;)

@MichaelTodd Company-specific is fine. Why should we discriminate in such a draconian manner between commercial and open source software? Of more importance are the quality of the questions and the answers. "Quality" means how general, timely, accurate, and well-formulated they are.

@whuber emphatic agreement :)

@MichaelTodd: It's great to finally have a site where both "worlds" (comm. and opensource) meet.

but ESRI do have their own forums.... but GISse does get users faster answers! (bonus)

@DanPatterson It's very hard to ensure Q's and A's are platform independent. That's really asking to much. However, careful moderation--primarily through gentle comments--can go a long way towards encouraging answerers to think about the potential scope of their replies and to craft them in ways that may be broader than the immediate question. Not all questions are amenable to this, but many are.

@Mapperz And I've even seen some ESRI employees responding here and there.

@KirkKuykendall A market economy compared to what? Five-year planning on the soviet scale? North Korean isolationism? Out of curiosity, how are you going to relate our answers to this question to our characteristics as would-be moderators? :-)

@DanPatterson My strategy so far has been to try and involve people who are involved in GIS using a variety of technologies in the site, I myself use a mixture of software and think its a productive environment. Getting questions & answers on topics outside of the historical norm of GIS helps; people doing web mapping, using spatial data in NoSQL data stores, javascript implementations --

@whuber (Bill) I hope that there would be an intentional move on the part of the moderators to ensure that platform specific questions could be "genericsized (sic)

I don't mind the answering the 'non' PURE GIS questions some lead to a different way of thinking - Server set up is important to delivering a GIS Platform too.

@DanPatterson (con't) these all broaden the audience, and give us a nice intersection of developers and those with the technical knowledge that historically has been tied to a few major software packages

@MichaelTodd if we disallow product or company specific questions the site will suffer, and so will I. At a guess I'd venture less than 20% of my questions and answers so far are sufficiently general enough to be not tied to a company/product.

@DanPatterson Mods are limited in what they can do, Dan. We may have a little more power to persuade, by virtue of our ability to (re)move some messages, but we have to be attentive to the wishes of the community. One meaning of "moderation" is "not overdoing it."

@KirkKuykendall I'm not sure I have a good answer for this, I suspect some mixture of market economy and public investment is best, but I'm not qualified to speak on the economics of the space

What do y'all see as the biggest challenge when it comes to moderating GIS-SE?

@DanPatterson: I'm with @scw here, I doubt the community would be big enough if we'd discourage software-specific questions.

@RebeccaChernoff Generating wider interest: publicizing the site, attracting good questions and great answers, and keeping people interested for the long haul.

@RebeccaChernoff time is the biggest challenge (how to cover holidays and vacations??)

@whuber I know people in both Esri and FOSS4G camps believe very strongly about their tools, to the point that things get heated. Understanding a candidate's view of what promotes innovation might indicate how he/she would handle these conflicts, no?

@DanPatterson I think we've got some of that, but it can be tricky when you get questions that are just tied up in the guts of some piece of software -- the 'juicy' questions are the ones I like answering, but those aren't always the ones folks ask, and I'm not if its possible to only get juicy questions ;-)

@RebeccaChernoff: Keeping up motivation on all sites, but until now the site seems to run smoothly.

How do we promote GISse for a big community base? more blog, twitter posts - any more ideas?

@DanPatterson I think you're correct, Dan, in suggesting that the mods can have a role in establishing the tenor of the site and encouraging certain practices. But I think there will always be a large number of practical GIS programming related questions asked.

Must go now...best to all and thanks for your involvement, there is a polar bear in my backyard that needs attention :)

@Mapperz: Forum signatures?

@Mapperz Blogging, talking it up at conferences, telling colleagues and researchers. There are some more creative ideas out there, like the stats site's Journal Club (where authors of recent papers have been invited to participate, and some actually have). That raises visibility and credibility.

@underdark in other forums? GISse frown on this (as discovered in the early days)

@DanPatterson Bye Dan. Thanks for coming.

@RebeccaChernoff The scale of the site isn't such that I think the act of moderation is burdensome, I'm more concerned with getting a cross-section of users who are interested in GIS and might of never heard the acronym, and providing a great resource for people in this exciting field. Secondarily, how to keep the community structure functioning over time, a problem all online communities must deal with (see reddit, hacker news, stackoverflow, etc -- its a problem with no simple solutions)

@Mapperz: Good to know

@DanPatterson thanks for coming and providing some interesting questions

@MichaelTodd that said, I would like to see effort put into questions and answers which will transcend programs and companies. A person I admire who was instrumental in fostering the growth of GIS in British Columbia (Canada) once told me, "It's all about the data and processes [stupid]. Software is just so much fluff. It comes and goes." (Bruce Mackenzie, paraphrased. Bruce is much too kind to say "stupid". That's how it rings in my mind though and how I try to recall it).

@DanPatterson bye see around soon.

@scw Yes, much of moderation is in cultivating the community: keeping it focused, stemming off incipient flame wars, maintaining civility. Even professional communities are fragile things that require constant watching and nurturing. But I think the risks of the GIS site spinning out of control (the way math almost did early on) are low.

@DanPatterson: Bye and thanks

How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

@mattwilkie Agreed, but at the end of the day, I have software to support. If questions related to what I need are watered down by a moderator simply because they're not interested in a platform, then this site becomes less useful to me.

does GISse have a budget? (for online ads etc) - i doubt it - so word of mouth the best way.

@mattwilkie Love the quotation. It should resonate with anyone with more than a 10 year perspective in computing. E.g., who was programming in Python in 2001? (Zilch) How many do you think will still be programming with it in 2021? (Likely the same answer.)

@MichaelTodd agree too.

@whuber those are all great ideas -- I definitely have promoted the site to those I know and while attending Where 2.0, but it does take concerted effort -- most people think of a site like GIS.SE as the end product of a Google search, not necessarily a community to be involved in.

@Mapperz Any community that shows sufficient effort and innovative ideas to promote their site will be offered a budget and resources to make those ideas happen. Think of it as matching funds — except we’re matching effort, innovation, resources, and ideas from the community. And it has to come from within your community. You’re the experts, not us!

@RebeccaChernoff I deal with this all the time on stats :-). There's always a good reason. It's important for the mods to communicate and coordinate regularly. That doesn't entirely eliminate conflicts, but it minimizes them and makes it easier to cope with the ones that arise. Mostly I just accept what happens, make suggestions for the next time, and move on.

@RebeccaChernoff: I'd initiate a discussion about it on meta

@RebeccaChernoff don't we vote for a post to be closed? if 3 moderators is the minimum to close the post should be straightforward correct?

or the chat, if it becomes more lively

@underdark You can create a private chat room for mods (if it doesn't already exist). You need that, because a lot gets discussed that shouldn't be on meta.

@whuber as an aside, Paul Graham has an excellent essay on the language 'blub' discussing this very issue.

Moderators have binding votes. Make sure you read blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/05/a-theory-of-moderation

Should GIS.se be a forum to announce bugs of Esri, which might motivate them to fix them more quickly (what happened to the bug tag?)

@Mapperz One mod will close a post. That's unfortunate: it makes you think hard about every close action.

@KirkKuykendall: No, I don't think we want to become ESRI's bug tracker

@scw If you get a chance, can you provide a link?

@whuber: Thanks. Lot of hidden tools to discover

@whuber paulgraham.com/hundred.html should be it

@KirkKuykendall We could announce bugs, but ESRI has been making more of an effort to manage these itself and it has a history of serenely--and totally--ignoring all third party efforts to identify bugs. We should step around this issue delicately.

@scw Thx.

@underdark You'll get them all figure out in a day or two. But that's one reason why I value continuity and hope at least one of our pro tem mods is re-elected.

@MichaelTodd down voting is not a moderator activity. Or better said: it's not a moderator-specific activity, it's something we all do, hopefully only after thought and consideration. I agree that if questions are closed or deleted because it comes from an opposing "camp" we are all the poorer. I personally have not seen much of that kind of activity here.

@RebeccaChernoff Contact them through email and try to set out some ground rules in the FAQ or on meta -- this is an area which could use improvement, being more explict about the rules used to govern the site. In practice, it hasn't been an issue.

@whuber: I'm with you there.

@MichaelTodd It's difficult to see how a mod could "water down" the site. What we could do, though, is insist (by editing and comments) that questions be well and clearly formulated and helpfully answered.

What can be done to bring more people to the community? Do you feel that's part of your responsibility as a moderator?

@mattwilkie I didn't see the original comment on downvoting, but mods simply haven't the power to contribute many downvotes: at most one per mod per reply/question is it, just like anyone else.

@Mapperz I like @whuber 's response -- we provide value in the questions, but also providing a venue for new things would be a great addition -- we want ways to retain the interest of those who might not have any specific question, but still hunger to be part of a community.

@whuber I'm just concerned about the extreme case of an immoderate moderator. Someone who's not only not interested in a s/w stack, but actively dislikes it and uses their powers to obliterate or substantially alter questions. Not that anyone here has that in mind, of course; I'm not sensing any rabid anti-establishmentism.

@RebeccaChernoff Yes, promoting the community is definitely a moderator responsibility. Unlike almost all the other responsibilities, which are reactive, promotion takes initiative: it is proactive. Best, I think, would be for the mods to work together rather than individually so that they can use all the site's capabilities (and SE resources) towards a coherent promotion.

@RebeccaChernoff we (the pro-tem mods) created a private gis-mod only chat room. I'd start by expressing my dissenting view there, ask them to elucidate their reasoning, and if need be migrate the discussion to meta to catch a wider range of opinion.

@RebeccaChernoff can promote the site whether a mod or not - moderators are to help keep the quality and consistency through the GISse...

@MichaelTodd An immoderate moderator would be a sad situation indeed. That's one reason we have at least three (plus the 10K+ rep members, who can do a lot, too).

@Mapperz Good point: promotion is an initiative that any member can take up.

@KirkKuykendall I wouldn't want to see the site become politicized and have a vendor specific agenda -- if questions come up and that helps bugs get fixed that's great, but I'd rather get vendor folks on the site answering questions where its appropriate, and redirecting to their internal systems where it isn't.

@RebeccaChernoff: Bringing new people and perspectives to the community should be everyones goal - moderator or not. Mods have the added responsibility to ensure that the site gives a good first impression to new users.

Newspapers have increased their readership by sensationalizing (if it bleeds, it leads), to what extent should GIS.se be made more sensational (LocationGate? tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/04/26/locationgate-the-counterattack/… )

@scw Maybe the issue lurking here is that vendors and open-source developers often have their own user sites. How should we distinguish our site from theirs?

@RebeccaChernoff I wish moderators had the option of casting a non-binding vote. There have been questions which I thought it should be closed, but had enough ambiguity in mind that I wasn't ready to close it outright. In these situations moderators are actually lesser community members.

@MichaelTodd I think the combination of a public process (this election for example) and high rep users mostly eliminates the problem -- and as a fallback, the stackexchange folks are VERY helpful and willing to listen if you see the community going astray (or at least have been in my interactions with them)

@KirkKuykendall I would actively resist any move towards sensationalism: it is unprofessional and inconsistent with the site's usage criteria. (It's hard to see, though, how one can "sensationalize" anything much in a Q&A format.)

@scw would you favor the existence of a "bug" tag? @whuber The vendors are often so secretive about bugs, it is difficult to find workarounds quickly when they are encountered.

@mattwilkie One thing we've started to do on stats, Matt, is just to flag postings without taking immediate action. That gives the other mods a chance to express opinions before anything is done.

@mattwilkie agree non-binding votes (though 3 mods votes can close a post)

@whuber how about this question: "What is Steve Jobs doing with my location data?"

@whuber Right, I see questions asked here that may be just as good on a vendor specific forum. I guess one difference I do see is people more likely to post alternative solutions, but this doesn't help if someone asks specifically 'how do I do X in Z?'

@MichaelMrozek I do like this suggestion and would use it often. Instead of making a close vote I often leave a comment suggesting a close would be appropriate.

@KirkKuykendall Closed as potentially argumentative.

@KirkKuykendall there are using it to create a map base to compete with google maps....

A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

@KirkKuykendall I'd have to think about it a bit, but I think something like a 'bug' tag would probably be fine: I myself am on academic licenses for the proprietary software I do use so I know the sting of being a 'low priority'

@RebeccaChernoff The biggest challenge I've had so far is figuring out how to handle one line answers that are technically correct, but are actually bad answers. "your solution is [here], bye." I don't want to discourage participation altogether by downvoting or closing. I sometimes leave comments asking for more info etc. but so far very very few have taken up on the suggestion.

@MichaelMrozek Frankly, I don't notice the diamonds and suspect others don't either. (In many places they don't even appear.) But you're right; it does change how you behave. My activities on the GIS site changed radically after I was elected mod on a different site, because my perspective changed: I had to take more responsibility for, and think harder about, every action.

@MichaelMrozek: It's not like we've been anonymous until now. It won't make a difference.

@MichaelMrozek don't mind having a rhombus after my name.... geometry specific there.

@mattwilkie It's ok to close such posts after some time has passed with no action. The user has the option to reopen them after applying an edit. (You usually need to explain this with a comment.)

Are any of the candidates restricted or pressured by their employers to toe a company line with regard to GIS.se participation?

@KirkKuykendall I'm not sure that the site would be best as a repository of news, that feels like the wrong focus for it. I do admit that it provides a lot of profile however, the 'locationgate' authors were at Where 2.0 and it did provide a lot of buzz and interest to have CNN cameras on the scene... but again, I don't believe this is worth focusing on as an approach to grow the site

@KirkKuykendall Good point. Bugs and ESRI and I go way back :-) so I'm sympathetic with providing alternative ways for people to work around them. At the same time we should encourage communication between the users and the developers. I would need to think about how to manage the situation if we gradually became overwhelmed with questions about bugs. Fortunately there's no sign of such a thing happening yet...

@MichaelMrozek I think more carefully about what I post because of this added weight, but I don't think it changes my answers significantly

@KirkKuykendall no none so far.

We've got about 10 minutes left. (:

@KirkKuykendall I'm not constrained about participated on GIS.se by my employer, except in so far as I may occasionally be told to put it down, slowly back away, and pay more attention to my real job.

@scw I think a lot of mods do less answering after getting elected: your attention is less focused on answering and more focused on helping other people produce great answers.

@KirkKuykendall: not expecting any troubles

I'm self employed and enjoy the independence from such pressures.

@KirkKuykendall (The preceding was my reply.)

@whuber yes, my behaviour changed significantly after starting to moderate as well. I think even if/when I put that role down it will continue to influence my participation (for the better!)

How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

@whuber yes, definitely true in my case

@DanPatterson I'm impressed by all the participants in this conversation and sorry that we can vote for only three of the candidates.

@KirkKuykendall I'm in an educational setting where questioning your choices is celebrated and have no commercical interest tied up in my responses.

@whuber I agree!

Good luck to all candidates! have voted for 3 in this room :)

@whuber also quite true in mine

@RebeccaChernoff Privately. I like to pretend such users are luminaries in their field--perhaps people I already admire--because that helps keep the politeness level high. I emphasize the value of their replies and ask them to be aware of the reactions to their less-considered behaviors. That's key, too: you discuss behavior, not personality, because the one can be changed but not the other.

@RebeccaChernoff: I think it would only be fair to discuss such problems in private before taking any further steps.

@RebeccaChernoff like this: meta.gis.stackexchange.com/questions/140/…

@mattwilkie Good example. "Make him stop!" He he...

it's not exactly the same, but similar. The idea is to raise the profile, expose a number of viewpoints, express the complaints, but not attack or denigrate.

@Mapperz I figure everyone has already voted by now anyway :-)

@RebeccaChernoff Intelligence doesn't equate social skill, and I think a polite email explaining the concern is often enough to redirect things sufficiently. Fortunately, GIS.SE hasn't shown much propensity for this kind of user

Alright, we've got time for one last question if anyone has one.

What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

Sorry. Had to.

@RebeccaChernoff While we're waiting for that last question I would like especially to thank the non-candidates for their participation and questions.

Would it be appropriate to nominate all the candidates as moderators?

@RebeccaChernoff diplomatic persuasion to be a good community and highlight their good points.

@RebeccaChernoff Dan already beat you to the final thoughts question ;-)

I've enjoyed the conversation and questions. Thanks everyone.

@Josh I know! Totally stealing my thunder! ):

q:

@Josh Next THC I'm asking it right after she opens the floor for questions

@Michael 57.6

thanks for all the great questions, I think regardless of the outcome of the election we should keep the conversation going on meta and elsewhere about the direction of this community.

Thanks for the interesting chat. cu soon.

@MichaelMrozek LOL

@scw yes, meta-meta discussion is good

I'll be posting a "digest" version of this chat to Meta -- it got a little crazy and I need a bit of time to sort through the replies, so expect that to appear tomorrow morning.

@MichaelTodd African or European Swallow? ;)

Time for me to go pick up kids from school. Be well everyone, and thanks for all the fish.

@Josh Thanks Josh. I look forward to seeing all the stuff I missed. :-)

@whuber If you or any other candidates missed a question, feel free to answer after the fact and @Josh me in chat, and I will include them in the digest in the same format

Thanks to all, good luck gang & happy GISse-ing...

Thanks everyone for participating! (:

Thank you @RebeccaChernoff and @Josh for hosting us, and thanks StackExchange for the platform on which we can do so!

@DanPatterson vote it counts!

my refresh-based testing shows we've got one additional vote cast since the beginning of the chat, and I'm sure more will follow up after reading the digest