The Awkward Silence

Extroverted Main Man

00:33

0

Q: How do I tell my cousin that her boyfriend is an elephant seal?

I have always been close to my cousin, but in the last five years we have had a more open relationship W/R/T conversations about relationships and life goals. She told me a few months ago that she met someone that she feels really comfortable with, but I noticed that the partner she was referring...

Extroverted Main Man

01:06

0

Q: How do I deal with other people's children talking during the movies?

Sometimes I've sat down during the movies and at some point after the movie has started, I have found out that I'm seated near children who won't stop talking during the film. Either they are trying to talk about something else with their family members or they are commenting on the film in a way...

united-states public-issues

Extroverted Main Man

02:32

3

Q: Are "pleasantries" in emails still ... "pleasant"?

Hi [your name here]! It's been a long time since we last had a chance to catch up and I really hope you're doing well. Everything is great on my end [. . .] I'm writing because I really need someone to help me out this week with a project and I was thinking you would be a great option with...

united-states etiquette email

Bradley Wilson

04:18

@Catija shall i remove the older citations at the bottom and just keep the block quotes from the 2010 study to avoid confusion? he cites many papers over a prolonged period of time

Catija

@BradleyWilson I don't know. I'm still thinking. It definitely did confuse me and I'm not sure that the old citations are very useful because they don't relate to the question.

Bradley Wilson

@Catija I'll have a gander and see what I can do, I know there's great information in that study, it's just choosing the right stuff

Catija

The irony ... I guess... is that I tend to find sourced articles like that really, really bland and boring to read... which is intentional because they're trying to be impartial... That's not your fault, though... I'm trying to come up with questions that actually need something other than personal experience as answers and that one came up yesterday.

Bradley Wilson

It's a great question that makes you go off and learn something aswell as an answer and it's also something that won't get 15 answers in an hour too. I'll have my morning coffee and have a re-read and see what relevant stuff I can emphasise

Catija

I'm glad that someone is finding it interesting! :D I'm having to shrug off the downvote it got from somewhere. :(

Bradley Wilson

04:29

people will be people

Catija

Yep.

Enjoy your day! I'm off to bed.

Bradley Wilson

Have a good sleep, we'll have a sak

salvageable answer for when you get back

Bradley Wilson

08:27

if anyone could offer their two cents on my answer, that would be great. interpersonal.stackexchange.com/a/2505/2167

Extroverted Main Man

0

Q: This is urgent... plese help

Okay, so my girlfriend and I have been dating for quite some time and we finally decided that we wanted to have our first time. There was no pressure from either side so we naturally looked up the safest ways to have sex. We looked up the condom size and types most durable and even how to use it ...

family

Mithrandir

@ExtrovertedMainMan No. No. Just no.

You are in the wrong place.

Bradley Wilson

I've VTC

Mithrandir

I would, but I'm still seventy odd points off.

I've flagged for closure though.

And given it a downvote.

@BradleyWilson I think literature.meta.stackexchange.com/q/219/58 applies. (Different site but same point) aside from that, looks fine

(oh, interesting. Didn't remember that HDE wrote that)

SQB

09:01

I've VTC as well.

Meanwhile, @Mithrandir, you're a mod; do you think this needs to be bumped to CM-level?

@gracious1 "Smoke and Choke" – Oil

Mithrandir

@SQB nah

It's not suicide or anything

SQB

I left a comment pointing to Planned Parenthood.

Mithrandir

If it's suicide, escalate. If it's something like a school shooting (yes, this has come up on SE before), escalate (and then the CMs will escalate). It anyone is in danger, escalate. Otherwise, I don't think so. But I haven't dealt with this much.

(believe it or not, mods aren't given a training course or anything, and the mod help center is mostly unhelpful. Some parts are helpful, most not.)

Bradley Wilson

11:11

@ExtrovertedMainMan, are you okay today?

Mithrandir

@OldPadawan - no need to VTC spam, just flag it and move on. If you start to VTC spam, people will think to just VTC and not flag. So please just flag. Thanks :)

OldPadawan

11:39

@Mithrandir oups, sorry if I've done it the wrong way :/ I had flagged it too though :)

Extroverted Main Man

0

Q: My girlfriend's family keeps downplaying her major.

She's studying both math and CS at the best university in our country, which is literally the hardest way to get through university in our country. The acceptance policy says that they only accept Olympiad winners and finalists, and even they usually drop one of the majors after a year. She's ve...

family school

SQB

12:08

We now have a poland. I'd like to add usage guidance, without just saying "use this tag on questions on Poland". I do want to convey "use this tag when the cultural background is Poland and Poland is the appropriate level of granularity".

And then we need to apply that to all locational tags.

And other nested cultural tags, such as religion -> {christianity -> {catholic, protestant}, islam -> {sunni, shia}}, if you catch my drift.

Hm... I guess meta is the way to go.

Extroverted Main Man

13:41

0

Q: How to confront friend who won't give back borrowed money?

Let me explain the situation better: my group of friends and I decided to buy a birthday present for a person. This friend, let's call him Bob, couldn't come with us to buy the actual present, so he asked me if I could pay for him, assuring me that he would have given me the money as soon as he w...

friends money

Introverted Meta Man.

14:50

0

Q: What should the usage guidance be for tags where that aspect has different levels of granularity?

We have a number of tag groups, mostly for tagging the cultural background of a question, where the cultural aspects have different scopes, different levels of granularity. What should our usage guidance be for these tags? Location An example is the location. If a querant lives in Amsterdam, a...

discussion tags tag-usage-guidance

Introverted Meta Man.

15:22

0

Q: Is being on-hold the same as closed and should we avoid putting questions on hold if they can be salvaged?

A moderator said in comments yesterday: Putting a question "on hold" is the same thing as closing questions. When I say they should not be closed, I mean they should not be put "on hold". I'm pretty sure that most of the users I've interacted with are the same. This is not how I under...

discussion moderation vote-to-close

NVZ

16:01

@SQB So should we limit it to having country-wise tags? And similarly only major religion tags?

I think, for example, "the netherlands" as a tag is good enough. Any detail going further should be mentioned within the question.

SQB

@NVZ no, we should not. We should have tags of the appropriate scope, and the tag usage guidance should encourage us to choose the correct one.

NVZ

So, that means have both "netherlands" and a subset tag?

Or avoid the "netherlands" tag if a city or place is already tagged?

SQB

That depends on the question.

NVZ

If I were to ask about something in south India, should I create a new tag as such?

SQB

But the usage guidance for the-netherlands should encourage users to think for a second to decide if it's the appropriate tag.

NVZ

16:07

Obviously India is an entire "continent" within a continent. So that will mean creating a ton of new tags, perhaps.

SQB

@NVZ if south-india is the relevant tag, yes.

NVZ

Wouldn't it be better to use "india" the tag, and mention I'm in the south in the question body?

Else, we are gonna have a billion tags, for as many cities or countries or bedrooms there are.

SQB

Let's assume we have a question Q, and locational tags L, M, N, and O, with L and M being parts of country N which is on continent O.

If question Q was asked twice, once tagged L and once tagged M, but under those tags the answers would be the same, the tag level was too fine.

So we can tag both questions with N instead and close one as a duplicate.

NVZ

I see

So if the answers to a question tagged "north-india" and another tagged "south-india" are more or less the same, then we change those tags to "india"?

SQB

On the other hand, if Q was asked tagged with O, but users have to preface their answer with caveats about which part of O they assume to be relevant to the question, the level is too coarse and we need to go down one level.

@NVZ yes. Because apparently, whatever cultural differences there may be between the North and the South of India, they have no bearing on the question.

NVZ

16:16

Good. I understand better now.

SQB

Great!

Great that you understand and great that my ideas about locational tagging seem to make sense.

The problem is that we don't always know beforehand which cultural aspects are important to the question.

NVZ

Thanks for dropping by to clarify. I'm going out for dinner.

SQB

Bon appetit!

@apaul34208 perhaps have a discussion here instead of comments on your answer?

Introverted Meta Man.

17:38

2

Q: Should we edit out "clickbait" titles?

I recently made an edit to another meta question titled "How do I convince someone else to change their behavior". My edit was because the title seemed to not match the question, which seems to be about whether we should allow questions that seek an outcome that may involve getting another p...

discussion questions editing

Extroverted Main Man

0

Q: Should I "fake it" when I don't recognize someone?

I have mild developmental prosopagnosia. It is very difficult for me to recognize people, particularly if I have not seen them in awhile, or if they're in a context I'm not expecting. If I have enough time (sometimes up to 10 minutes), I can usually figure out who they are, although I rely heav...

united-states greetings

Extroverted Main Man

18:32

0

Q: How to ask for a friend to repay me?

I have one friend that always borrows money. He has been one of my closest friends for most of my life, and normally he's pretty trustworthy when it comes to paying me back. However, as of late, he has been letting his debt to me rack up. I understand his financial circumstances and I am not in a...

friends money

NVZ

@ExtrovertedMainMan Oh, just stop lending money. You're too nice to people, and they aren't.

Em C

18:55

idk how long it takes extrovert man (good superhero name??) to catch up, but I tried to get my question into working order interpersonal.stackexchange.com/questions/2539/… - would appreciate feedback if it's too rambly / vague :)

Extroverted Main Man

0

Q: How to get family to stop trying to make me to forgive and forget?

(Some similarities to this question, except that I have explained, and my family is not on my side.) I have been avoiding / ignoring my sister for the past ~6 months, after she seriously hurt me. I am not ready to forgive her. It was the sort of move that people end best friendships over; if she...

family conflicts

0

Q: What is an appropriate response for "Why privacy if you got nothing to hide"?

As the title says: What is an appropriate response for "Why privacy if you got nothing to hide"? For example: I saw a question about Partner going through phone: It was stated in the question that when the partner was asked to stop going through the phone, she responded with: Why does i...

conversations family boundaries privacy

NVZ

@EmC Looks okay.

Btw, so you cannot stand the sight of her?

If you both were invited to the same meeting or party, would you be able to be there when she is?

Em C

@NVZ last time I saw her was June, at a family member's graduation party, we did not make eye contact the whole weekend

I don't know now if I could do that, because something further has happened. If I had to I guess, but I really do not want to

NVZ

@EmC So you're both in 20s?

Em C

@NVZ yep

NVZ

19:04

How long do you expect to not forgive a person for this sort of issue, regardless of their relation to you?

I'm not asking you to forgive. Just want to know how big of an issue this is.

Em C

@NVZ I'm not sure. I've never really been in a situation like this before. There was a guy I had a toxic relationship with in college and it took a couple years to be ok with it (but I also had no contact with him those years)

NVZ

Hmm

Em C

the problem here is that the situation is not going away, like with the guy, we split up and never have to see each other again. with my sister she is around forever

and of course since ~family~ it's not socially acceptable to cut them out like it would be if your friend did the same thing

NVZ

Our policy here is that we should not question OPs decision, and that our answers should just help the OP on their issue, as per their requirement. Or something like that, iirc.

Em C

i do appreciate that

Catija

19:08

@EmC I'm confused.... You say she hasn't apologize but then say that you did nothing wrong... I'm sure you don't want to be overly specific (otherwise you would have been already) but is there any more detail of what the transgression was?

NVZ

So, the answers you should be getting are tailored to your decision in this.

But I can't guarantee that those answers are in fact the real life best choices for you.

Em C

@Catija err I'm not sure how to specify. she made a choice which she knew would hurt me, and when I told her it hurt me, she said "yeah I knew it would" and attacked me (tldr)

Catija

@EmC You should meet my mom. She doesn't talk to her sister at all and had stopped talking to her mom and dad before they died. Blood can still screw up enough to never forgive.

@EmC So... something along the lines of going to an anti-gay march and then attacking you for being gay ? It doesn't have to be the exact situation... a similar one would at least be helpful (I think).

Em C

@Catija :( yeah my dad hasn't talked to his siblings in years. but they use this as a "don't do this" tale

Catija

Or voting for one candidate in an election and then attacking you for voting for the other one?

NVZ

19:12

I have an uncle who has ruined our whole family reputation, a good reputation that our huuuge family built up over the years, and he spoiled that with his own life story, because in our culture a person represents the family. My grandparents died never giving up hope that one day this son would change his ways. One day. Never gave up hope.

Em C

@Catija hmmm not quite? i have to think of a good analogy

Extroverted Main Man

0

Q: Being talked over in conversations

Didn't see any questions regarding this; sorry if it's a dupe. I'm a fairly quiet person and during conversations, I quite frequently am cut off by people that I'm talking with (This happens in more than just one group). I find it very irritating because I usually forget what I was going to say,...

united-states conversations shyness

Em C

maybe if it were like I got an abortion, and she is now running a pro-life group?? the real situation is too messy, ugh

NVZ

@EmC So, I'm sure somebody will give you the right answer to your question. But imho, if you wouldn't be offended by my opinion, I'd say, find some common ground between you and sister. Let that help you forget this episode. I'm not asking you to forgive, but have it in you to be around her nevertheless for your old mom's sake. Let her (mom) be happy.

Catija

@EmC Ah, so when you say "you did nothing wrong" it's because it's something that, outside of the religion, is more accepted?? Something like attacking you for eating pork when she's Jewish? That might be an example that's less... subject to off topic comment wars...

Em C

19:17

and then when I say "hey, so, I don't think you knew but the reason I was so upset is because I actually had an abortion a couple years ago", she says "yeah I found out, i can't imagine how you sleep at night knowing you're a baby murderer"

@Catija right! sorry I guess that wasn't clear

@NVZ not offended :) I think maybe I am still too upset to do that. but maybe eventually

Henry WH Hack v2.1

> Everyone has a right to respect reasonable privacy. This is quickly becoming an important, basic human right in today's connected world. - 4 mins ago

I thought it was automatically a human right.

Catija

So, between the two of us, I'm "burn the whole thing down" and NVZ's "make love not war".

Henry WH Hack v2.1

Why are we waiting until now to be concern about privacy?

Oh sorry.

NVZ

@HenryWHHackv2.1 Apparently not. In India it is a huuuge news recently. edition.cnn.com/2017/08/24/asia/indian-court-right-to-privacy/… India Supreme Court rules privacy a 'fundamental right' in landmark case

Henry WH Hack v2.1

ok

NVZ

19:25

@Catija Nah, it's more like we're too angels on her shoulders. You be the devil. :P

Em C

haha. that's the nice thing about asking online, you get all the perspectives :)

NVZ

@Catija Should we remove the bits inside a question body that reads "as the title says"?

I usually do that on ELU. What about here?

interpersonal.stackexchange.com/posts/2541/revisions

@EmC Here's my final thoughts on it. I have family members who have done the worst things (not murder or stuff, but things that harm family reputation as a whole, and reputation is a serious matter in Indian society). But we have not burned our bridges... yet. We keep our contacts with these persons to a minimum, but never giving up hope.

Em C

@NVZ I like your optimism :)

NVZ

Optimism is what keeps us alive, ain't it?

Catija

@NVZ Yes. It's repetitive and unnecessary/

NVZ

19:34

Thanks.

NVZ

19:47

@HDE226868 So does Stack Exchange fall under social media? Just a trivial question based on reading your wonderful answer. :)

Extroverted Main Man

0

Q: How to remember names?

I am "working" in the local library team (about 20 members). I don't know why but it is very difficult for me to remember the names of the other members, even though I know some of them for more than 6 years now. We don't meet very often (every two months) and it is a big problem for me to reme...

greetings

NVZ

@ExtrovertedMainMan Why? Are you Arya Stark?

HDE 226868

20:04

@NVZ I wouldn't call it social media. I think I was trying to make a point about different interactions online.

@Catija Your pleasantries question is quite good. I'm looking forward to seeing more answers, if any come.

Catija

20:56

@HDE226868 Me too!

Bradley Wilson

22:00

I'm sure this guy has many people cooking for him interpersonal.stackexchange.com/a/2566/2167

SQB

Hey, did we just have a user removed?

Bradley Wilson

@SQB I lost some rep from a user removal about an hour ago

Catija

I did too. No clue who it was, though... I'm not even sure if I can see who.

Extroverted Main Man

22:39

0

Q: Is it OK to stop greeting people you barely know and have no interest in them?

I got introduced to this person in my neighborhood and for a couple of times I greeted him out of politeness. I don't have any interest to keep greeting him so I just stopped doing that. Similar situations has happened before. However I would like to know if what I did was very inappropriate? And...

greetings

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