The Awkward Silence

Mithrandir

9:00 PM

*rubs hands*

Heads up: LQP queue will need some eyes soon.

sphennings

@Froopy That's a good way of putting it, @Tinkeringbell Are you taking notes for this meta post we've been talking about?

@Mithrandir Fire away.

Froopy

Yeah, that's all. Sorry if I came off like a doofus. :D

Mithrandir

@Froopy no worries

Froopy

Answering questions on SO is like stepping on a landmine sometimes, so I try to be super careful.

*on other sites as well

sphennings

@Froopy We like people who are invested in learning how the site works.

Rainbacon

9:03 PM

@Mithrandir I don't see that queue listed on the privileges page. What's the rep needed for it?

Mithrandir

@Rainbacon 1,000

Hmm... opinions?

Froopy

@sphennings, that's fair. If I'm going to do something, I'd rather do it right.

Mithrandir

@Froopy An admirable attitude.

Rainbacon

@Mithrandir Guess I need to go earn a little bit of rep...

Froopy

Thanks @Mithrandir.

Mithrandir

9:06 PM

That moment when you find a post that you'd upvoted in August but would downvote and flag if posted today :|

Froopy

I'll return later. I think I'm gonna start hitting up chat rooms around SE. Thanks for the help, peeps.

*around SE when I get home.

Lol, have to go home.

sphennings

@Mithrandir The norms on the site change. That's over half the lifetime of IPS ago.

Mithrandir

@Froopy There are some awesome people around these parts ;) Always feel free to pop in

sphennings

@Mithrandir I have similar feelings when I look at some of my earlier answers on Worldbuilding.

Mithrandir

@sphennings Yeah... I look at some of my posts from 2014 and go "Ugh" :P

Anyway, I think I just pushed 10 posts into the LQP queue, so reviewers: your turn!

JAD

9:09 PM

@Mithrandir edit it, then downvote

:)

spiral succulent

wish I had enough rep to help

Rainbacon

@Mithrandir That's how I feel about my most upvoted post on SO

Mithrandir

@JAD meh, there's not much to edit there

@spiralsucculent You'll soon be there, don't worry

(yay for digging up new queries)

spiral succulent

I know :P

I was excited to help until I realized my rep increase yesterday only got me to First Posts and Late Answers

I forgot that review queues had 2 tiers of access as soon as I had the second tier on SO

JAD

I'm actually quite happy with my most upvoted post on SO, granted, it's only at +4

4

A: Why does dbListTables give a warning message when called via a function? (R DBI)

TL:DR calling odbc::dbConnect within another function causes this warning. After a lot of digging in the odbc github, I have found the source of the warning. Calling dbConnect creates a db connection. Within this function is the following code: # perform the connection notification at the top l...

spiral succulent

9:13 PM

My top upvoted posts on SE are the same answer to nearly the same question on two different sites

sphennings

My most upvoted post is entirely HNQ's fault.

spiral succulent

hahaha

JAD

@sphennings hah, same

spiral succulent

as long as its a good answer... that should be fine

JAD

hmm, I got a bunch of answers on M&TV and SFF about game of thrones/ASOIAF I'm pretty happy with

sphennings

9:16 PM

It's an OK answer. I think it's ranked second with over 100 upvotes.

spiral succulent

bigshot over here :P

sphennings

On this site the answer I'm most happy with had 6 votes the last time I checked.

spiral succulent

Sometimes I put a lot of work into an answer and then it gets no votes

I've learned to love the SO SEO though, as the answers will get their first upvote a year later

JAD

This is probably mine: interpersonal.stackexchange.com/questions/8334/…

Mithrandir

The answer that I was the most proud is at 59, which is pretty okay... although the question is at 71 and it was a self-answer.

sphennings

9:21 PM

Still counts.

spiral succulent

I almost never ask questions

Mithrandir

@spiralsucculent Asking questions is fun.

I've asked 300+ on the network ;)

spiral succulent

I never have questions that I can't find a dupe to

steps go
1. lets ask a question

whoops

2. check for dupes

3. find answer

4. Abandon question

well,

0. lazily research*

Mithrandir

I've asked 331 non-deleted questions on non-per-site-meta-sites.

spiral succulent

nice

I'll eventually have questions

I think I'll have some questions here eventually

Mithrandir

9:24 PM

On IPS? Yeah, probably ;)

spiral succulent

since I like thinking about and discussing interaction, I'll eventually come up with something I want to ask about here

I also recently came up with a "question from hell" for IPS

Mithrandir

opinions?

spiral succulent

which would theoretically be on topic and difficult to narrow down, but too broad for answering

sphennings

Then it's too broad and should be closed.

@Mithrandir I'm inclined to leave it. It has an answer and an explanation.

spiral succulent

@Mithrandir "The blank stare" is a very effective interpersonal communication tool

Mithrandir

9:30 PM

I've pushed it into review, anyway... worst case scenario is a disputed flag

@spiralsucculent Sure, but is that explanation sufficient? Does it meet our standards?

A@JAD - Why did you review this as "Looks Okay"? interpersonal.stackexchange.com/review/low-quality-posts/8306

It provides no explanation for why it says to do that.

T.E.D.

Mods:

spiral succulent

I admit it could use explanation, the first time I read the comment as part of the question

T.E.D.

Might I suggest deleting the entire comment thread on my answer here:

7

A: What is the best way to begin a discussion around a compromise for our wedding location with my fiancée?

Who is paying for this wedding? The tradition in the USA is for the bride's family to pay for and plan the wedding, with the groom's family paying for the rehearsal dinner. If their family is paying for the wedding, which again is traditional and it sounds like they are probably expecting to d...

Mithrandir

@T.E.D. probably just flag

T.E.D.

Well, I did. But I screwed up and neglected to provide a reason, which I'm afraid may look like I'm trying to trick the mods into deleting a single critical comment. :-(

Mithrandir

9:35 PM

The mods here look at the whole thread when a single comment is flagged.

JAD

@Mithrandir hmm, not sure, felt like it had some explanation and didn't think it as overly problematic

sphennings

@T.E.D. Given that you are talking to a mod in the thread I'm sure they are aware of what's going on.

T.E.D.

:-)

Sorry. Don't see diamonds in here.

Cool.

Mithrandir

@JAD What explanation?

JAD

@T.E.D. Well, catija is in here

@Mithrandir I might be wrong though

sphennings

9:38 PM

Looks like it got cleaned up.

spiral succulent

@JAD You should do X, continue doing X, X is good. Maybe you made the same mistake I just did in reading a comment that fills out the post as part of the post

Mithrandir

Whatever. I think I'll take some of these to meta.

Catija

Catija's always pingable in here... or the TL. :) The comments are already gone, though.

T.E.D.

Cool. Thanks Cat. And thanks for the help. I really do appreciate people telling me when I screw up.

spiral succulent

@Mithrandir Digging through the HNQ answer debris is a good strategy to define bad answers

Catija

9:42 PM

@T.E.D. You're welcome! By the way, I probably could have been more clear... I think you could rephrase what you said in a way that won't be as likely to cause offense... "Weddings can be really stressful for everyone, so it's a really good idea to find ways to avoid causing extra stress as much as possible"... for example.

T.E.D.

Yeah, there's probably a good rephrase possibility in there. But I'm not sure I trust myself to do it without partially reintroducing the problem, or adding an entire paragraph.

Catija

Length is never a problem here. We really appreciate good, detailed answers.

Mithrandir

Whaddya'll think - one meta post for the lot or a separate one for each answer?

T.E.D.

That's probably a pathology on my part. I'd be unhappy with myself if I took a paragraph to say what right now is a perfectly adequate sentence.

user15026

@Mithrandir Maybe instead of calling individual people out, which might make them uncomfortable (especially with the "why did you do x" language, because it kinda can put people's hackles up - you wouldn't ask if it didn't matter/wasn't percieved as incorrect sort of thinking), make a general meta post to remind people of whatever it is you're noticing?

user15026

9:45 PM

That might go over better than chasing people especially if you're going to take it to meta

JAD

@Ash sounds like it could be a IPS question ;)

user15026

I don't think SE as a thing is on topic on IPS, though ;)

JAD

it's tricky, but I don't think it is explicitly off-topic

user15026

True

JAD

but there is a communication part there that isn't necessarily unique to SE

Mithrandir

9:48 PM

@Ash Like a "Reminder that posts must meet standards on this site" kinda thing?

Catija

Depends on who you ask. Robert's not a fan. :P But you could easily make it more generic without it necessarily being about SE... There's also Community Building, which is a great, underutilized site.

user15026

I mean I just find people take things better if they don't feel like they're being personally attacked - so if you just make a Meta post reminding the general community of a thing, a) it gives you something you can link in later comments as a "did you see this post" sort of thing

Mithrandir

I mean, I leave a comment usually when I flag a post, which links to a meta post...

Hey, thanks for the answer! Can you please explain exactly why you think that this is a good idea? Why do you say to take this course of action? What’s the thought process behind this answer? As this currently stands, this is essentially a “Try this!” answer. We require that answers provide some sort of explanation for why they are suggesting this solution, and unfortunately, at the moment this answer doesn't appear to do that. — Arwen Undómiel 42 mins ago

user15026

(We do this on Arqade a lot - we actually have a featured Meta post right now that we made a while back about writing answers in comments, because we found people were handling them differently than the community expected)

user15026

@Mithrandir Right, but you're still chasing after and calling out reviewers

Catija

9:49 PM

So... there's a slight problem, I think... We've really got (at least) two factions... one who has specific, very strict rules for answer quality... and one that has... less strict rules. The problem is that how those rules are interpreted can be very subjective...

user15026

Makes sense.

Mithrandir

interpersonal.stackexchange.com/users/flag-summary/…

user15026

So then I think chasing people down and calling them out about reviews when the community itself is kinda split...is almost worse

Catija

And one of the biggest problem there is that the rules here aren't necessarily the rules everywhere else... There are a lot of really poor answers on Cooking that we'd probably kill in a heartbeat... or at least... that I'd really want to kill... but we don't... because they really think that answers are pretty sacred if they even attempt to be an answer.

Mithrandir

@Ash I mean, there are these rules that were laid out on meta, but... people don't always like to enforce them.

Catija

9:51 PM

Having people agree "this is not OK as an answer" and getting the community to actually act on it... isn't the same thing. Meta usage is pretty small... so many reviewers don't know what rules we have for answers.

sphennings

Worldbuilding is in the middle. They're pretty accomidating of what I would consider low quality answers but they need to address the question.

spiral succulent

@Catija Isn't that a problem though>

Mithrandir

7

A: Should we be more strict about one-line answers?

Yes, we definitely need be. I think we even need to be a little more strict on the quality of answers in general, not only the one-liners. An answer of 4 or 5 lines can be just as bad. Take a look at these answers to 1 question: A one-liner suggesting online shopping (deleted, might be edited...

spiral succulent

?*

user15026

@Catija Right. So you need ways to point people to what your rules are

Catija

9:52 PM

And if they did know... they're probably not going to agree with them... since they keep voting "looks OK".

user15026

I don't think chasing people down and haranguing them individually is a good approach though.

Catija

@spiralsucculent Which part?

user15026

It just tends to make people not want to help anymore, if they're feeling attacked.

sphennings

A lot of the problem is that you can get a lot of privleges off one good HNQ answer. That's how I got the majority of my rep on this site.

spiral succulent

People participating in review but not Meta/without having a grasp of defined community standards

Mithrandir

9:53 PM

I've had 5 flags disputed in the past hour. That's a bit discouraging.

Catija

@Ash I would agree. We need to find a way to actually convince people that what is good for the site is X and get them to act on it... and that applies to quality of answers... and to closability of questions... and... all sorts of stuff... but this isn't something we can force... sometimes you have to let people realize that the site's broken before you can start to fix it.

@Mithrandir This all ties back into what Shog said last week to Tinkeringbell... You're playing the long game... If you need a break, take one... if you don't, you'll probably eventually leave and never come back... but if you take a break when you aren't "done" with the site, you may come back and be surprised by the forward movement that's happened in your absence.

user15026

Remember, you don't have to fix the site alone. Heck, if you think you're fixing it and a bunch of people don't agree, maybe you have to look at why they disagree (instead of assuming you're right and they're not)

3

Mithrandir

sighs

user15026

It's great this site has a lot of passionate people, but it's a community, at the end of the day.

user15026

Gotta work together and all that fun buzzword team yay stuff

Mithrandir

9:59 PM

@Ash I think the problem is that there isn't a ton of native community... There are a lot of people with rep and privs from HNQ who don't know the standards and stuff that can access the queues.

Catija

So ask for higher rep levels?

Mithrandir

Well, not the whole problem.

A contributing factor

I'm probably a little too invested in this at the moment.

D.Hutchinson

I have some thoughts :)

user15026

@Mithrandir Then you have to find a way to teach them, and I don't think individual callouts is going to win you long term community members. Especially if you, like them, are just a concerned user.

Mithrandir

Obviously the link hiding in the autocomment isn't doing an adequate job.

user15026

10:07 PM

For the reviewers, maybe not.

Mithrandir

Sorry, I didn't mean to cause a hullabaloo.

D.Hutchinson

(I'll hold off for another time ... )

user15026

It happens sometimes. :) Take a break, eat a snack (I am just fond of excuses for snacks), watch an ep of something that makes you happy, and regroup. :)

user15026

(or you know, whatever works for you)

Mithrandir

Snacks are good. Unfortunately I don't have many available :(

user15026

10:14 PM

I'd share if I could (I discovered today they took all the leftover holiday candy and it is now on top of the microwave closest to my office. Oh, the temptation.)

user15026

(And yes for some reason we still have leftover holiday candy midway through March)

Mithrandir

o_o

user15026

I mean it's mostly candy canes and such but still, it's here

spiral succulent

10:55 PM

candy has a looong shelf life

I'm writing a long answer to @scohe001's meta question, ill post it here and ask for feedback when im done

user15026

@spiralsucculent It does

user15026

And I discovered what I (and likely many others) thought was mint flavoured candy canes is actually fruit flavoured which makes them infinitely more appealling

D.Hutchinson

🍭🍭🍫🍪🍰🍦🍹😋

spiral succulent

11:15 PM

@Ash I feel the opposite way about candy cane flavors

spiral succulent

11:46 PM

text wall meta answer to @scohe001's question solidifying my thoughts after our discussion in chat interpersonal.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2621/12145

scohe001

11:58 PM

Ooh thanks for the meaty answer @spiralsucculent. I'll give it a read through now...

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