@orthocresol Maybe, maybe not. Questions like this could be fodder for canonical

Until they get a canonical answer, they could be tagged needs-canonical

(I know, yuck, more meta-tags)

But there seems to be general community support for some form of canonical, and having OPs provide the prompts for them may be useful.

To my mind, "I'm confused, can you tell me how to {method}?" is much less odious than "HEER, HAV PROBLM, DO {method} FOR MEEZ ANSR NOW PLZ"

The real frustration of "I'm confused, can you tell me how to {method}?" questions is the sinking-gut sensation that the same question is liable to come up over and over again, and nobody wants to type up the same @%&$( thing fifty times a month.

What would be great is some sort of site-based incentive for writing up canonicals.

Maybe a standing offer from hi-reppers for a 200 rep bounty for anyone whose answer on a needs-canonical is the first to hit +15 score or something?

Maybe sort of a patronage system, where people declare their intent to award a prize bounty of whatever amount to such an answerer.

The 7 day window for a bounty once offered is probably too narrow

@ortho One potential downside of a Google Doc: it'll expose IRL identities.

e.g., It'll show the name of the last editor, however that name shows in their Google account.

or, maybe not - I tested with my wife's account in a different browser, and it shows her as anonymous

Anyways, the first draft of a scheduling spreadsheet is here.

Editing is enabled. I have a copy saved as it sits now, so if you have ideas for trying to improve it, go ahead and fiddle.

→ 1 message moved to Trash

@hBy2Py I'm not a big fan of this moving to trash.

If you've handled it, reply to it. We're kind of creating the public record for cleaning stuff up here. It's okay when it's spammed

@Martin-マーチン Is Trash purged?

It being chat, I thought it was forever

@hBy2Py Nah

It is indeed forever

But why move stuff to another room in the first place?

@Martin-マーチン @ortho was deleting them

@hBy2Py After retagging them of course

NO stop.

let me finish

ortho was deleting the CHAT messages

or, no

he was editing them

sorry

I was.

removing the post image and putting in a description of what he'd done

leaving the link

As a non-mod, I can't freely edit

Meh, you were just doing extra work by moving them to trash

so I was Trashing instead, figuring that it was roughly the same thing

Nothing wrong

except w/o annotation

So, that might be worthwhile

(annotating)

If @Mart wants to handle differently the new items coming across the transom, I'm fine to discuss.

But AFAI understood, @ortho and I had just come to an implicit consensus and were proceeding apace.

ok, done

→ 1 message moved to Trash This was a test message, to see if I can post-edit 'moved to Trash' notifications

Yeah, to me it is not a big deal.

And, yes.

I would prefer editing, however you are not able to, so...

And @M.A.R., the idea was (at least) twofold: (1) declutter the feed, and (2) make it so it's easy to scan the room history for posts that haven't been dealt with

Now that I realize I can post-edit to-Trash messages, then it adds (3) documentation of what was done.

@hBy2Py They're called audit messages, and are editable like any normal message

TILOSE

What does the "O" mean?

i really wish i had editing privileges on Chemistry

@orthocresol "on"

TILASE would work equally well

@hBy2Py Today I leaped on something eccentric?

@heather Well, I guess you can get closer and closer by helping in the future event for retagging stuff

Just reply and link to the message from feeds and the mods do the editing later. It probably doesn't take long until someone is around with the power.

There shouldn't be any special privileges necessary for tag edits. They just have to be approved and my experience says that's being done very quickly.

@Martin-マーチン So, is it that you specifically prefer editing to Trash moves?

@hBy2Py yes. The transcript here should be: this is the question we're dealing with, this is our discussion, this is the result. It's transparent for anyone interested and provides enough evidence for what decisions have been made and why.

@Martin-マーチン Would you prefer to retain the full autoinserted title/text/etc. of the question?

Or are you okay with edits reducing that down to a link, as @ortho's been doing?

Editing will always remove the one box.

I know

However, I like the onebox being removed, because then any remaining BIG FAT ONEBOXES IN CHAT are clear signs that "this question has not been dealt with".

Yep, exactly

That's why I felt like the Trashing was more or less an on-parity solution

Mm.

Though editing in the action and reason definitely makes sense

Because the Trashing leaves a link to the post where it ended up in Trash

It is one extra click for someone following the trail

Actually, you know what you could do?

I could edit in the post link and title, along with the action and reason

You could trash the message, and then edit the "1 message moved to trash" with the question link, and the action

{{<<*echoes echoes echoes*>>}}

Great minds :-)

yeah precisely. That way, the only difference is that the message comes from your user acc, instead of from the feeds acc. But that is hardly a problem.

If it is one at all. :)

<nod>

Having the notices still be associated with the Feeds account does enable fast searching for all acted-upon posts.

That would be the main residual downside, I think.

Then, simply add a keyword to the front of the post, that would not be reasonably otherwise posted.

@Feeds ^ Removed my test feed

Like... idk... pineapple?

"ACTION:"

"hornswaggle"

Yup.

Hahaha

"repatriate"

"unguent"

That was actually what I was aiming for with my :: in front of the messages.

However, it does not show up in search. :(

Whatever we do, we should standardize it among the four of us with the powers

Indeed.

Just create some code word, it can be anything you like, and we will try to follow it :)

Maybe not unguent though, I googled that, and it doesn't sound nice..

hehe

"!!CLEANUP!!"

Where do you even find such words from?

or "##CLEANUP##"

or similar

I read fiction a lot as a kid

I think symbols don't get counted, so if you search ##cleanup, it returns all instances of cleanup.

which is a shame, because a hashtag would actually be perfect

CLEANUP-ACTION:

searching for "cleanup-action" returns nothing

hm

neither does searching for "hashtag"

maybe it takes a while...

From some quick testing, looks like everything from today is not found in search yet

Mm, found this ok: chat.stackexchange.com/…

So the window is on the order of a few hours, maybe

Short enough that searching the day's transcript will work well enough for recent actions

I think it should be really easy to follow for anyone who's not here, but at the same time but used too much. How about keepified

trogdorific?

I'm inclined to use something more serious; keepified seems kind of frivolous

@Mart, loosely related, are you planning that we'll similarly document all of the actions taken on other posts as part of the "official" cleanup?

i.e., once the event starts, everyone would post their actions, with links to posts, in the room?

If so, we should probably write up official guidelines.

They could go in a Meta post introducing the effort, I guess?

Working on that.

@ortho, @Mart, @M.A.R. Please take a look at the GitHub project for reaction cleanup -- I've finished laying out the co-tag lists.

The reaction and homework feeds have been gratifyingly quiet.

(@Melanie @penta @Mart @heather)

@hBy2Py How can I do that?

Oh

Add a new row at the bottom with your username on the left

then shade the relevant cells for the times when you're fully available, or insert the appropriate symbol for times when you're intermittently avaialble

OK, lemme try

AAH! NEW ANONYMOUS FERRET!

OH

SOrry

@M.A.R. Go to the other sheet!

I should delete that one, or make it not the first one you see

OK, I think I'm done

@M.A.R. What do you think of this scheduling approach?

Any thoughts for improvement?

Nah, already pretty awesome

Although I'm accustomed to MS Word, but not Google Docs

<nod>, Excel is nicer, all told.

But it's hard to beat the collaborability

I guess the newer versions of Office (2013 and 2016) have real-time collaboration functionality

Haven't tried them yet, though

room topic changed to Spring Cleaning: Dedicated to the discussion of specific questions, finding consensus to improve or delete them. Current focus is cleaning up tags. Join us on GitHub for easier coordination. Ping a room-owner to gain access. github.com/orgs/ChemSECleanup. Indicate your availability on the Google Sheet here: goo.gl/rvHDFM [homework] [reaction]

@Feeds @ortho, if I flag this for moderator, rather than as spam/offensive, will only the Chem.SE mods see it?

no, everybody will see it

ok, so I need to stick with pings

Anyways, it's taken care of; simple retag

Did we end up agreeing that I could Trash it as long as I edited in action and reason?

CLEANUP ACTION → 1 message moved to Trash -- Kc only effected by temperature? -- Simple retag to remove reaction, add two other relevant ones.

@hBy2Py @Mart, how's this?

CLEANUP ACTION → chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/71606/… <-- nuked on sight by orthocresol

CLEANUP ACTION → 1 message moved to Trash -- How would one correct for a blank in a potentiometric titration? -- Full style/formatting/tag edits; remove homework

CLEANUP ACTION → 1 message moved to Trash -- Grignard Reagent R group -- Simple reaction de-tag

@hBy2Py where are you getting the list of questions to go through?

@heather Any question that the bot posts into this room is a candidate for cleanup.

Usually, that entails removing the [reaction] or [homework] tag, adding relevant tags, and editing other bits and pieces (if necessary).

Once you've cleaned up some question, reply to the feeds message with a short summary of what you did. A mod will edit the feeds message to reflect that action.

@Hexacoordinate-C I think this is a candidate for blatant off-topic...

Oh.. it's already been closed as blatant off-topic...

@heather If at all possible, fully edit any questions posted here via @Feeds as @ortho described.

@orthocresol ah, i see

Worst-case, though, at minimum edit them to remove homework or reaction

okay.

They'll be at/near the top of the front page feed anyways, so other people will be seeing them for more thorough editing if need be.

I think the retagging bit is most important. Remove bad tags, add good tags. Cleaning up mathjax, etc. is secondary. As much as people like to say "make substantial edits", you should not be forced to put in excess effort if you don't want to, especially if the question is likely to be closed.

<nod>

Especially for these Spring Cleaning feed posts

I mean, if you want to, do feel free to. But don't feel obliged to.

<nod>, the key thing for anything posted by these feeds is to stop any new questions from being tagged w/these two tags-for-elimination.

Wait .... @penta, did you put your name down in the Google Sheet, but leave your availability blank, intentionally? :-P