Election 2016!

The SO queue is 1600 right now. I know it's not true, but I subconsciously believe that if I do nothing, it'll fall to about 1580. If I jump in and start handling stuff, someone's flag script will run and suddenly it'll be 1700.

Paul White

9:13 PM

@ArtOfCode I kill 2k per month, but probably for different reasons.

Shog9

This is why we need Andy.

All hail Andy, Destroyer of Comments

3

Undo

We need Andy for President

that'd fix everything

Shog9

(PSA: this room is now about the SO election, the REAL 2016 election)

10

Paul White

I'd vote for him.

Aaron Hall

speaking of which, I never got a satisfactory response to:

17 mins ago, by Aaron Hall

Well speaking of electioneering, I'm running for moderator on Stack Overflow - any questions? concerns? advice?

ArtOfCode

9:14 PM

@Shog9 I don't think anyone would object

BlueEyedBeast

@Shog9 someone pin this

ArtOfCode

Well if you're doing it, @Aaron, I might as well: questions/concerns/advice for me, anybody?

Paul White

@ArtOfCode Oh you're running as well?

ArtOfCode

@PaulWhite oh yeah

Paul White

I thought you were sane.

Clearly I was misled.

ArtOfCode

9:15 PM

Currently, yes.

Undo

@ArtOfCode You have a slightly better idea of what you're getting into, but you still don't know :P

ArtOfCode

If I win, possibly not for much longer

Shog9

I was a human being once

►

ArtOfCode

9 mins ago, by ArtOfCode

I'm messing. Moderating SO is... daunting. Even with the diamond experience I have, I don't know what I'm getting into.

Indeed ;)

Paul White

Feels like being elected SO mod would be the ultimate sacrifice.

Maybe slight over-dramatizing :)

Undo

9:17 PM

If only. The queue seems to demand about three per year.

ArtOfCode

a tad, perhaps

Aaron Hall

@ArtOfCode that's a bit of a contradiction - you don't know what it is, but you say you know what it is.

ArtOfCode

@AaronHall lil bit. I know how moderation works, but I can't comprehend the scale of SO

BlueEyedBeast

@PaulWhite tries not to make comparisons to others making an ultimate sacrifice

ArtOfCode

for reference, on HR alone I've handled about 100 flags in the last month

noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC

9:18 PM

@AaornHall one request: (if you become a mod) can you set up an open office (like jon ericon's) where people can come to discuss issues, ask for advice, have you pass stuff to SE internal?

Shog9

@ArtOfCode ok, so... Now imagine that compressed into a half-hour and you're ready.

ArtOfCode

yeah, that's the scale bit

Undo

Or thirty seconds if you're Martijn

ArtOfCode

how do you handle that fast

noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC

:P

ArtOfCode

9:19 PM

I take a good few minutes to handle a flag

Aaron Hall

@noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC If they don't mind coming to my already established office hours, sure.

Undo

Yeah, that'll change fast :P

Shog9

delete, delete, delete, reject, delete

noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC

@AaronHall \o/

ArtOfCode

But.... but...

Paul White

9:20 PM

Well comment flags are easy :)

ArtOfCode

What I really don't get are comments. On HR, I leave a comment on everything I delete, and quite a number of the things I close. That takes time. What d'you do on SO?

Undo

Just delete stuff, mostly

ArtOfCode

and if the answer to that is "we don't comment at all", how do you get away with so few meta complaints?

Aaron Hall

well comments should be understood to be subject to deletion at any time.

Paul White

I comment on deletion if it's at all unusual or would help the poster beyond the automatic thingy.

Shog9

9:22 PM

An overview of the current flag queue:

Aaron Hall

That's why we answer in teh answers.

ArtOfCode

automatic thingy?

Shog9

(that's ignoring comment flags)

Paul White

@ArtOfCode "Your post was deleted see xyz in the help center" or some such.

ArtOfCode

oh that

@Shog9 what does "Closed" cover?

Undo

9:23 PM

@ArtOfCode Flags on stuff that is closed

Aaron Hall

what's the word to describe the impermanence of comments?

ArtOfCode

O...kay? So how do you make use of that classification?

Paul White

@Shog9 Big numbers.

@AaronHall Transient?

ArtOfCode

@AaronHall ephemeral

Undo

@ArtOfCode Anything to make flags more homogenous helps.

Aaron Hall

9:24 PM

there we go.

ArtOfCode

@Undo yeah, that makes sense

Aaron Hall

those work

Undo

(although I don't tend to use that one)

BlueEyedBeast

Is the number of moderators required a linear relationship?

Aaron Hall

Any thoughts on improving my answer here? meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/337571/…

Undo

9:26 PM

@BlueEyedBeast Not really

Communication and churn complicates things

Aaron Hall

I got one suggestion about fleshing it out more, which I did to the satisfaction of the suggestor - and one comment that seemed to misunderstand what I meant, so I rewrote my thoughts on the subject.

Petter Friberg

@AaronHall Point 5 is weak according to me.. maybe because I flag 50 of those a day...

Aaron Hall

Not An Answer (NAA) means that the "answer" does not answer the question, and is not actually an answer.

Very Low Quality (VLQ) means that the answer attempts to answer the question, but it is so deficient as to make its value to the site negative, and worthy of deletion.

Depending on the severity, I might delete them in either case.

If it was a Very Low Quality answer, I would see if they had been told to improve the answer, if they had, and been given sufficient time (a week?) but had not, I would delete it.

What part is weak?

Petter Friberg

The explanation of NAA... you need examples ... Thank you, I have this problem to

For VLQ you have a flag what do you do?, delete?... it's not that you can wait a week...

Shog9

yeah, chances are if you're even seeing VLQ it's been sitting for a while

Aaron Hall

9:33 PM

with upvotes

Petter Friberg

Example of my VLQ flag 1 h ago stackoverflow.com/questions/30893015/… what do you do?

Aaron Hall

I could downvote and comment "please improve this or I will delete it on the next flag for low quality".

Paul White

Delete.

Aaron Hall

I wouldn't, it's the only answer there

ArtOfCode

Why's that matter?

Aaron Hall

9:35 PM

only had one hour to fix

Paul White

If I saw it in VLQ, delete with link-only answer auto comment.

Petter Friberg

@AaronHall Then we will meet at meta :D....

Aaron Hall

downvote and comment

ArtOfCode

SO is about getting quality answers, not just answers.

Shog9

Paul White

9:36 PM

@AaronHall As a user, maybe. Not as a mod.

ArtOfCode

If answers can't live up to those quality standards (which aren't that taxing, really), they don't need to be there

Petter Friberg

@Shog9 Was hoping for the direction sign

Paul White

@Shog9 That does look (red) delicious!

Aaron Hall

convert to a comment then?

El'endia Starman

Since when did this place become the Teacher's Lounge?

Shog9

9:38 PM

Fresh, juicy orange, sign pointing to apples... May be useful in some contexts, but are not apples. Questions, commentary and links can be useful, but not answers.

And... then there's the stuff you read and think, "what the hell am I even looking at?"

That's VLQ.

Paul White

"Unsalvageable"

@El'endiaStarman Maybe we should rename it Smurfs and Proto-Smurfs

Aaron Hall

I'm used to seeing the same content again and again (lots of edge cases) as I focus on curation, I'm sure I'll start to get aggressive on deletion as I go as a mod.

Can you delete accepted answers? I probably would have done so with a couple.

Shog9

mods & 20K users can delete accepted answers

20K users need the answer to score < 0 though

Aaron Hall

yeah

ok, that might be a solution to the outdated accepted canonical answers then.

Shog9

MOAR DELETION

bluefeet

9:45 PM

@AaronHall you shouldn't be making that decision solely

even as a mod

Paul White

TRUNCATE TABLE SO.Posts

Aaron Hall

well if we do it as we go, concensus should be easy.

Paul White

Are we back talking about the US election now? ;-p

Skooba

@PaulWhite I think we can all agree that strange women, lying in ponds distributing swords, is no basis for a system of government! #draintheswamp

2

repost from yesterday but i like it

Paul White

Very nice.

BlueEyedBeast

9:49 PM

@Skooba king arther?

Skooba

@BlueEyedBeast Yes, Arthur: King of the Britons

Paul White

Monty Python & The Holy Grail

TylerH

@Skooba Now you see the violence inherent in the system

BlueEyedBeast

so you want strange women not in ponds distributing swords to form a government?

Skooba

@TylerH Yeah just imagine if I went round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bink lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!

Shog9

9:51 PM

as long as government is formed based on the distribution of swords, we're good.

Paul White

> Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

Shog9

last thing you want is a government with no swords

BlueEyedBeast

so the overlord here is the swordssmith

Skooba

Help Help I'm being repressed!

BlueEyedBeast

♪Brave Sir Robin ran away♫

noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC

9:57 PM

Unrelated, but @mods; can I have some feedback on

2

A: Please allow us to add a bounty on a documentation entry

In more detail... How? Allow bounties on specifically tags, topics, and examples Tags - for empty or abandoned tags that need more documentation in general Topics - for critical topics the bounty giver believes are critical Examples - for widely read examples that are messy, wayward, and uno...

Have not received feedback after several days.

Shog9

a discussion of bounties in a PPCG room? What could go wrong?

Dan Brown

What are androids enthusiastic about, you ask?

Shog9

...that... is indeed wrong.

Dan Brown

Slightly. This was in the main android enthusiasts chat lol

noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC

@Shog9 It's a follow up to this:

meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/331946/… .

Also btw I love the openness and the "we're in this together, employees & users" rhetoric of SE.

This exploded from random small "get it out of TNB main" chat room to something much bigger.

Dan Brown

10:01 PM

We all do. Also ( a bit safer for work):

Picture of Putin and Trump sans shirt, on a horse

That's the last one

Paul White

Glad.

noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC

^

Dan Brown

:) I'm just surprised what site this chat spawned from.

Paul White

@DanBrown Sorry that was burning my eyes.

Shog9

@DanBrown did you see this?

87

Q: GO OUT AND VOTE

Today is November 8th, 2016, Election Day in the United States of America. If you are a U.S. citizen eligible to vote, then go out and vote if you haven't already before answering this challenge. Do not discuss who you voted for. It only matters that you voted. If you are not a U.S. citizen or ...

Dan Brown

10:08 PM

@PaulWhite Don't worry, that's what edits are for.

Paul White

My eyes thank you.

Dan Brown

Your welcome lol

Paul White

On a more serious note, I would like to see the US and Russia have a more grown up relationship. Not anything that goes quite as far as those two images, it must be said.

Aaron Hall

6

A: PHP: Public, Private, Protected

They're there to allow for different levels of encapsulation

^^^ Should be deleted, right?

noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC

@DanBrown TNB (PPCG's main chatroom) is one of the most active chat rooms on SE. Lot s of (good) off-topic chat.

Zizouz212

10:10 PM

Second that :)

Paul White

@AaronHall It's an answer.

Shog9

@AaronHall Answer WITHOUT clicking through.

Paul White

@AaronHall Canonical is here with more pictures of apples etc.

Dan Brown

Ah. Not been around on PPCG for long, usually squat at android, sometimes sitting at world building.

mbomb007

trunews.com/article/the-clinton-foundations-days-are-numbered

Shog9

10:13 PM

> We have to fix this, and the broken reasoning behind it. There’s a fleeting fun to gang-ups and groupthink. But it’s not worth what we are losing in the process.

2

mbomb007

Also, Trump invited UK prime minister for a meeting. Idk if we have any UK residents or not, but here you go: trunews.com/article/…

Paul White

@AaronHall BTW on the earlier one. On lower-volume sites (like my home) if the link is suitable, I will sometimes do what the author should have done (quote relevant portion, add attribution, make it an answer without clicking) via an edit as a demonstration. Probably not time for that at SO volumes though :)

Burn auto-play videos on web pages with fire!

Dan Brown

@mbomb007 trump invited UK Hillary to something? Oh dear.

@PaulWhite that can be arranged

mbomb007

@DanBrown That chat policy of "be nice" still applies. That includes being nice to world leaders.

ArtOfCode

@mbomb007 yes, yes we do

Aaron Hall

10:16 PM

Might be an answer, but it's rather low quality in my book.

Shog9

@PaulWhite kill flash, run uBlock Origin

mbomb007

@ArtOfCode Ah, yes. Bri-ish

Paul White

@Shog9 I suppose but it irks me no end that I should have to.

Dan Brown

@mbomb007 fair enough. On a political stance though, the UK is gonna burn quicker than the US - Its a race to be razed!

ArtOfCode

@mbomb007 there's a T in there

MetaEd

10:18 PM

@ArtOfCode Of course there's a T ... they're British.

2

Dan Brown

@Zizouz212 (I feel inclined to say this) Wynaut?

Paul White

@Shog9 That's encouraging.

Zizouz212

Wobbuffet!

ArtOfCode

@MetaEd I walked right into that.

noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC

UK and US have always had a Special Relationship - the wikipedia article on that is even called "Special Relationship" - like a pronoun. But the fact that the head of state of the US is banned in the UK probably that special relationship will go away.

@Shog9 yay, another uBlock origin user

Shog9

10:19 PM

it's... a start. We'll see if anyone remembers any of these lessons by 2020

ArtOfCode

@noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC and another one

Zizouz212

uBlock -1

noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC

Let's bury a time capsule for 2020 when trump loses presidency. It may seem obvious now but it will be a miracle to see in 2020

@Zizouz212 huh?

mbomb007

@noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC 2024, you mean?

Zizouz212

I don't have it :P

Dan Brown

10:20 PM

@Shog9 I have a barreling we won't. Its kanye vs trump.

A barreling? Meant feeling.

mbomb007

@DanBrown Kanye is guaranteed to lose.

DrMcMoylex

2

mbomb007

@DanBrown Kanye hates women more than Trump allegedly does.

noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC

@DrMcMoylex It's you again! nice to see some more PPCG users

ArtOfCode

@mbomb007 that's what they said about Trump.

noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC

10:21 PM

@Zizouz212 Get it, performance is 3x better & it is open source and all

Dan Brown

@mbomb007 Holy **** That's worrying.

Zizouz212

Nah, I don't browse a whole ton of sites anyway.

I need to figure out how to get wikipedia unblocked from my school... -_-

mbomb007

@DanBrown Just look at how he treated Taylor Swift

Paul White

@ArtOfCode Ah but Kanye isn't a Master Persuader.

Shog9

I'm barreling pretty hungry right now

mbomb007

10:22 PM

@Zizouz212 make a clone of it. :D

DrMcMoylex

@ArtOfCode I was like the second person in here, what are you talking about?

ArtOfCode

@PaulWhite That's... also what they said about Trump.

Zizouz212

@mbomb007 How would you say I go about that?

ArtOfCode

@DrMcMoylex try again

mbomb007

@ArtOfCode I guess "they" aren't very trustworthy, are they?

DrMcMoylex

10:23 PM

Haha whoops

ArtOfCode

indeed

Dan Brown

@Zizouz212 Wynaut? Also, ask the IT devs. They shouldn't be blockinit.

Paul White

@ArtOfCode Won't believe it until Scott Adams says so.

mbomb007

@Zizouz212 Step 1... give up.

noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC

@Shog9 1. what will you eat? just curious :P 2. why is your avatar different on MSE (yes, very random)

DrMcMoylex

10:23 PM

55 secs ago, by DrMcMoylex

@ArtOfCode I was like the second person in here, what are you talking about?

Dan Brown

@mbomb007 ..... Oh. Well.

ArtOfCode

@Ziz make a forwarder

Zizouz212

@DanBrown No clue who they are. I'd use a VPN, but apparently, they have tools to track whoever does... A few people had interesting conversations with the office

Shog9

@noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC 1) sammiches. 2) check your eyes

noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC

@DrMcMoylex I mean online & talking

ArtOfCode

10:24 PM

@noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC it's either SO or SE it's different on

mbomb007

@Zizouz212 I stand corrected.

How to set up your own copy of Wikipedia

Shog9

well, see, there's your solution!
1) Use VPN to browse Wikipedia
2) Get hauled in to talk to TPTB
3) Talk to TPTB about unblocking Wikipedia!

noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC

@Shog9 gravatar.com/avatar/…

Dan Brown

@Zizouz212 ow. Hmmmmmm..... Use a android phone, lots of mobile data, USB tether. Done!

Shog9

@noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC looks like me to me

Paul White

10:25 PM

I have probably watched more CNN, Fox, and CNBC in the last 48 hours than in my whole life previous to that point.

mbomb007

@DanBrown Use the school's WiFi

Zizouz212

I'm too poor to afford data... And I can't get service in my school anyway :P

noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC

@Shog9 Guy in black hat avatar ≠ decapitated head

Shog9

not decapitated. That's just how I roll

2

mbomb007

@Zizouz212 When I was in school, all you had to do to get around the filter was add an "s" after "http"

Paul White

10:26 PM

groan

Zizouz212

@mbomb007 Then you get certificate issues

> If you’re mirroring the English Wikipedia, this file will be around 7.5GB; other wikis will be considerably smaller.

Downloading Wikipedia is 7.5 times the amount of space on my school hard drive

Shog9

shoot, you can fit that on a thumb drive with room to spare these days

Dan Brown

@Zizouz212 use @Shog9 's method.

Zizouz212

Well... Considering that the usb ports on half the computers are broken too...

Shog9

amazon.com/Sony-Flash-Smartphone-Tablets-USM16SA3/dp/B01A7A7GVS

There. $10, 16GB, will even work with your phone.

Dan Brown

10:28 PM

Get a USB hub, then only one USB port is needed to handle it all

Or just use that. @Shog9 Has won?

No, you'll need to decompress it. Its 25 GB with no pics

Shog9

Well, that's $3 more

good grief, storage has gotten cheap

Dennis

And small...

Dan Brown

Aye. Its wonderful, ?

Shog9

when I was in school, $20 would get you a 120MB "superdisk", and if you were lucky there'd even be a machine that would read it somewhere.

Dan Brown

For me, it was when USB 2.0 started showing up.

Paul White

10:34 PM

Disks? Luxury. We had cassette tapes.

Dan Brown

@PaulWhite Ouch. Cassette tapes are hip tho!

Shog9

when I was @Zizouz212's age, I paid $100 for a 3-pack of used hot-swappable 200MB IDE drives and the hardware to swap them. Only worked on one machine, but hey... Swappable.

ArtOfCode

@Zizouz212 My EC2 server may be able to take a Wiki copy... we'll see how that goes. It's telling me about 100 minutes left to just download the dump

noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC

"Election 2016!" is the new (talk-about-anything) TNB

Dennis

My first computer had a 40 MB hard drive and the OS occupied less than 6 MB of it. Simpler times...

Dan Brown

10:36 PM

((Sees a picture slide in) it looks like gaben)

noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC

@Dennis old but not that old

Shog9

Computer Shopper's phonebook-sized catalog advertised a shiny 9GB harddrive for a cool $1K. Could only dream.

Dan Brown

@Shog9 nowadays, you can get it for a few bucks/quid

Shog9

@Dennis did it sound like shaking a paint can while seeking? Good drives, those.

Dennis

Nah, you could barely hear it over the FDD.

noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC

10:38 PM

You can use 1TB SD cards to expand your RAM by a lot. +1TB memory. Much faster than swap.

Shog9

(I may be getting slightly bored with the election)

2

Aaron Hall

Anyone ever use 8 inch floppies?

Shog9

machine I'm typing this on has 64GB of RAM. Good grief.

ArtOfCode

I still have my first laptop. 72 GB hard drive, 512 MB RAM, 600 MB OS. Compared to the machine I'm using right now, it's titchy.

Dan Brown

@noɥʇʎPʎzɐɹC Or just SWAP anyway on a SDXC card. It may as well be RAM.

@AaronHall Used one once, for the Lols. Best tea coaster ever, but what were actually for?

mbomb007

10:40 PM

NASA went to space with like 48 KB.

ArtOfCode

@Shog how does the SE scheme work? I hear they replace your PC every 2 years - do they just give you a wad of cash and say "knock yourself out", or what?

Shog9

@ArtOfCode 3 years. You tell 'em what you need, they buy it.

mbomb007

@Shog9 All hail Jon Skeet!

Shog9

Or maybe it's 4. I never remember

ArtOfCode

@Shog9 cool, so you do get full control over the spec?

Dennis

10:42 PM

I assume there are reasonable limits. :P

Shog9