You Are Here - 2014-04-03

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happybuddha

00:22

Morning everyone

Mark Mayo

01:16

Kazakhstan visa took me 10 days in St Petersburg, going back to the embassy every day. That sucked :/

But generally Uzbek/Russia are a pain

7 hours later…

Mark Mayo

08:33

If anyone's bored, a few of the oldest unanswered questions could do with some close votes, potentially - have a look. Some of them I voted to close as off topic back in the day, but it never happened, others the OP hasn't returned to answer questions clarifying their problem. Worth a bit of a tidy-up, perhaps, if people agree at least.

1 hour later…

Mark Mayo

09:47

Also congrats to @AnkurBanerjee, @RoflcoptrException and @mindcorrosive on their Sheriff badges (ie 1 year as elected mods)!!

2 hours later…

Mark Mayo

12:12

Q: Can we have a Cake Day icon, or similar?

I don't know of any way - fun or otherwise, to be able to track the anniversaries of members joining the site. Much like reddit has 'cake day', could we have site specific ones - on travel, even the travel 'pin' icon next to someone for their 'pin day', with perhaps 2 pins for 2 years, and so on...

feature-request

I fully expect to get flamed for this, but I like the idea

if it fails, I may still just start a CW on our meta to track people's anniversaries.

Mark Mayo

12:27

good grief I'm getting flamed into oblivion, and can't delete it as there's an answer now. Is there no way to stop the downvotes??

2 hours later…

mindcorrosive

14:03

@MarkMayo I wonder if the custom comments accompanying flag resolutions are actually displayed for flagging users

Mark Mayo

not for flags. For custom close reasons, yes

mindcorrosive

can you please check for one of your latest flags?

Mark Mayo

one sec

mindcorrosive

that's on airport transfer between KUL and DXB

Mark Mayo

the one about 'contradictory'? I can't see it anywhere on the post

although no action appears to have been taken either

incidentally, he's replied to the comments, but isn't updating his answer :/

mindcorrosive

14:11

no, I meant on the flag summary in your profile

Mark Mayo

well, yet. I suppose he might be looking

you mean your response on the flag? yes I can see those

mindcorrosive

but it turned out I can actually see that myself for each user (is that public?)

Mark Mayo

don't think so. I just tried changing my flag-summary page to use @hippietrail 's id, and nothing loads

mindcorrosive

yeah, probably a good idea for it not to be

Mark Mayo

and indeed if I go to his page, I can't even see his flag count

very good

especially when people flag stuff as offensive etc

mindcorrosive

14:14

hey, it's been a while ;)

you are getting some heat from your MSO post, I hear

Mark Mayo

Shyeah

ironically, I suspect if I'd put it on meta.travel it would have had a couple of upvotes

we're more social on travel :/

many of us actually WANT to interact with each other ;)

mindcorrosive

it's a whole different mindset

Mark Mayo

For any expat fans, I've put an 'advert' on /r/iwantout if interested

mindcorrosive

after all, when you travel, you do expect to interact with complete strangers

Mark Mayo

yeah

I made this on our meta:

Q: Anniversaries of members

We have a lot of members who are long-term, sometimes helpful in the chat, but not necessarily noted for their high rep. I thought it'd be nice to show in some way the long-service of members. We could remove them if they're inactive for more than a year, perhaps? Anyway, my answer will be a C...

discussion

if anyone wants to give it a go for our site, at least

I just picked a few users from the squat toilet question, as it's one of our old ones ;)

mindcorrosive

14:17

which reminds me of the care package SE promised, I hope I can put my hands on it before the summer vacation

Mark Mayo

They did say 5-6 weeks or something, so hopefully next month :)

mindcorrosive

I hope it wasn't a "6 to 8 weeks" gag

Mark Mayo

haha

we were also going to get the design when in beta 'any day now' for about 7 months ;)

mindcorrosive

but from experience with stuff from other SE sites (this would be my third fourth SE shirt!), it is usually a month or so

Mark Mayo

cool

it'll be my first

although I do still use my Stackexchange mug daily at work

guess most just assume it's a geeky purchase

mindcorrosive

14:22

I do have an idea for the perfect T-shirt to send to a moderator: "Community moderator coming" on the front, "Community moderator going" on the back, both in bold, calming letters

I missed out on SE swag when it was available to purchase

but this way it feels much more special

Mark Mayo

haha, that shirt would be awesome

mindcorrosive

yeah, I got an inspiration from a teenager some months back -- his said "sex machine" instead of "community moderator" though, and it did cause heads turning on the street, even in Sweden

Mark Mayo

wow, people like stats

mindcorrosive

approximately 46% of them, yeah

Mark Mayo

when I announced the expats site on /r/iwantout - 18 votes total

this latest one, with numbers, 10 votes in an hour

Expats has slowed down massively this week

same thing happened with travel though

mindcorrosive

14:27

doesn't seem like it from the stats, though

post averages are indeed a bit down, but not by much. Easily attributable to good weather and spring mood (at least in the northern hemisphere)

Mark Mayo

but answers per post are rising

on expats? far fewer questions a day compared to start (70+ on first day)

mindcorrosive

it is to be expected -- there are only so many questions you can actually have in the space of a few weeks

Mark Mayo

but after 4.5 months, Travel was getting 360ish visits a day

so here's hoping that keeps up

and expats is getting more than that after 15 days

Glad I kept a record back then:

Q: Statistics compared to other sites

Not a question as such, but I wanted to make a record of our stats cf. other sites as of November 4th, 2011: Total number of stackexchange sites on http://stackexchange.com/sites: 72 Travel.SE. Columns are: Criteria, rank (num), number of sites out of beta that we beat: Questions - 49th (787 ...

discussion

We were 55th in traffic back then, now Travel is 38th! Despite all the news sites that have been made as well

33rd if you take out the newer sites

Right, I must sleep. Stats keep me awake too easily ;)

hippietrail

@MarkMayo i feel somewhat summoned

wow even despite all the SE sites about news eh? (-;

3 hours later…

Flimzy

17:33

I have a question that I fear is too broad for the general site, so I'll ask it here. How does one go about finding a first travel rewards credit card? I don't have excellent credit... does that make it impossible?

Doc

in the US?

are you looking to collect miles or cashback?

Flimzy

In the US. I was thinking miles, but of course if the cash back is worth more, that's worth more.

Doc

what airline do you fly?

personally i've moved over to the Barclaycard Arrival Mastercard. in effect it gets 2.2% back on everything, but to get that you need to do it as a credit against travel expenses charged to the card

Flimzy

In the last 6 months, I've flown more on Delta than anywhere else. Although I fly others as well... in July, I'll fill Iberia and American

Doc

personally that's worth more to me than miles, but only because i have more miles than i could be bothered counting

Flimzy

17:46

Until late 2013, I haven't flown very much, so I've never considered a miles card to be worth it for me. But that's starting to change, so I figured I should look into it.

Doc

there's so many variables. eg, some cards will give free checked bags, which might be a benefit to you (isnt to me as i get that free via status anyway)

Flimzy

I never check bags.

Well, almost never.

Only when the security is over-picky, and makes me check my TSA-approved gear, for instance.

I suppose I need to work on improving my credit score... without living in the US. That may be a bit tricky :)

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