The Awkward Silence

IPS Comment Bot

01:27

Your stated motive and suggested method for dealing with it are direct opposites... If you want to respect her choice of not talking to you then I obviously you should not engage in any contact whatsoever... please edit in why reaching out to her is necessary, as it stands we can't tell what your overall goal is. — Jesse 1 min ago

#10869 Jesse (3334 rep) | Q: How to reveal a stalker without harm? (score: -2) | posted 2 hours ago by jdlcgarcia (1 rep)

Matched regex(es) ["you\\W(really)?(need\\Wto|should)"]

Jesse Barnett

01:59

interesting that that comment got flagged. Seems pretty standard :D ooh well

sphennings

@JesseBarnett It matched the regex so it got flagged. It's a really simple filter with a high rate of false positives and false negatives.

IPS Comment Bot

02:31

@clueless – I totally agree, if you don't like the way someone speaks to you by all means let them know. However you should not attempt to make someone do anything: you said "How do I get someone to..." and "demanding respect". Your language is telling. — Reggie Pinkham 2 mins ago

#10729 Reggie Pinkham (101 rep) | Q: How do I get someone to call me by the name I prefer? (score: 43) | posted 55 hours ago by clueless (944 rep) | edited 17 hours ago by clueless (944 rep)

Matched regex(es) ["you\\W(really)?(need\\Wto|should)"]

Jesse Barnett

03:31

@sphennings hahah yeah, where is the high quality comment-bot learning algorithm :D

sphennings

There's enough comments that it would probably be a decent training set.

ArtOfCode

ML is hard

We have 100k posts in Smokey's database and we've still never got over about 60% accuracy

Mithrandir

05:42

@JesseBarnett it belongs to Andy :P

Extroverted Main Man

07:11

0

Q: How to deal with a girlfriend who always lies with career choices?

So we have been together for the past 3 years 9 months. Ofcourse before our relationship we knew each other and did spend a couple of months before giving our friendship the "relationship" tag. We met when we were undergrads, and then continued it through our graduate studies as well. After our g...

Rory Alsop

09:34

@ExtrovertedMainMan wow. The question makes it seem like the girlfriend will be much better off without this guy. Always interesting seeing one side and having to infer the other...

Tinkeringbell

@RoryAlsop Yeah, I was creeped out by the calling 17 times as well :/ Well, breaking up and then having no further contact shouldn't be a problem :)

Rory Alsop

@Tinkeringbell yup - also, the wanting to give their side and then no more communication seems a lot like just wanting the last word. It's easy to stop communicating - just stop :-)

Cashbee

I don't think it's about having the last word. He clearly still has feelings for her, but his head knows that he needs to stop pursuing this relationship. So he wants to break free, but he wants to explain his reasons before he leaves.

Tinkeringbell

@Cashbee Sounds like a classic 'break up over text message' opportunity :P

A J

@Tinkeringbell My answer to your question didn't get much love, but still it's #3 among all answers. :/

Funny that my current IPS rep is divisible by 11.

Cashbee

09:47

@Tinkeringbell 'sorry bae, it's not working out. It's not you, it's me. I hope we can stay friends.'. Love it :D

Tinkeringbell

@AJ Which is a good score for a question that reaches HNQ ;) My answer on the photograph question is basically doing the same, while I feel I'm actually the only one that provides guidance on the conversation aspect (top answer from Andreirom suggests explaining but goes to watermarks (which the OP specifically stated they didn't want) very quickly)...

@Cashbee To be honest, I prefer personal communication over text messages when telling people I'm done with them, but yeah, if you really want to have the last word then a text message is perfect, because it's asynchronous

Cashbee

yeah my answer on your question wasn't really loved either. I guess it was too long :'(

Tinkeringbell

Don't worry, I'm going to put bounties on the stuff with sources :) I want more answers with sources! XD

Cashbee

i just hate that many answers are about the "mhmm" backchannels, which is clearly not a non-verbal signal :D

Tinkeringbell

@Cashbee Yeah... well, 'don't do it' is an answer, so I guess backchannels are okay. They may actually be the problem too, because I tried keeping track since yesterday of when and how often I use them.. answer is practically not..

JAD

09:53

@AJ Mine is divisible by 1 :) beat that

Cashbee

mine is divisible by 0, deal with it 8-)

@Tinkeringbell personally I think they are the most important signal to show that you're listening. But since I consider them to be verbal, I was not focussing on them and only mentioned it in the nodding section of my answer ..

Tinkeringbell

@Cashbee Yeah, and those answers are good as well, apparently I should not only smile when there's a joke.

And not only nod when there's some sort of question

I think I've been overthinking/controlling my body-language a bit too much

Cashbee

Hah you should've seen me practicing posture-mirroring. I couldn't listen at all I was totally focussed on my body and trying not to be too obvious xD

Tinkeringbell

10:19

@Cashbee Hmmm.. You know, I'll skip :P

Wow. The commenting on the answers on that latest girlfriend question is a lot!

A J

@JAD Nothing can beat that. :P

Tinkeringbell

10:34

Yay, I passed 1000 votes today :D

Cashbee

upvotes or downvotes?

Tinkeringbell

@Cashbee Totals ;)

417 up, 584 down

Cashbee

wow thats a lot of downs.. good thing ups count more

*count more for reputation

Tinkeringbell

@Cashbee Yeah, I'm a bit strict on the down + close vote stuff, and I try to downvote answers (one-liners, vlq, naa) as soon as they pop up ;)

I'm a bit more conservative on the upvote side, I keep those for stuff that's really good :D

Cashbee

aahh you mean the votes that you did, not the received ones .. oops :)

Tinkeringbell

10:38

(Everything that does a good job of explaining how/why, has sources. Questions that don't ask 'how to tell X' but are really good IPS questions get an upvote as well)

@Cashbee I dunno, where can I see those? Should I count them manually? :P

JAD

@Tinkeringbell well, the net is easy to find. Just sum up the scores of all your posts

Tinkeringbell

@JAD Yeah, I was wondering if I could get the data on SEDE. Lemme look.

JAD

I'm not sure. I think SEDE only gives net score

Tinkeringbell

@JAD I'll start counting soon :P

Cashbee

you can calculate it: receivedUpvotes = x *(yourAge / 3) , where x is your favourite movie

JAD

10:41

so 20

Cashbee

yes, if your favorite movie is Austin Powers

JAD

Almost got deputy badge on Drupal :o

A J

The site where I am nearest to deputy badge is SFF.

Cashbee

there is a new answer to the question "How do I tell my parents I don't enjoy their company?", where the OP mentioned having attempted suicide multiple times. The question is a delicate one (professional help?) and i fear this new answer is not helping in any way.

since I do not know enough in that field, or how this stack handles these delicate questions, I just wanted to mention it and let you guys decide what to do with it.

Tinkeringbell

11:04

@Cashbee downvote 'bad' advice

And ponder whether it warrants deletion for not being an answer to 'how to tell the parents I don't enjoy their company'... 'tell them to stay in a hotel' is the closest to an answer it gets

So, I calculated some stuff:

I have 57 answers with a total of 1744 upvotes and 20 downvotes.
I have 15 questions with a total of 662 upvotes and 13 downvotes.

And I have deleted 3 answers, one scored 0, one -2 and the other one is too old for me to see but was at -3 because it earned me the peer pressure badge

Does that satisfy your curiosity @Cashbee? :P

Cashbee

12:07

@Tinkeringbell yes, now I can sleep calmly

Tinkeringbell

@Cashbee I also calculated I missed over 6000 rep points due to rep cap ... I really need to go to meta to see why that exists, it seems a bit too strict (It's almost half of my total rep)

Cashbee

rep cap? can you only get a certain amount of rep per question/answer?

ArtOfCode

per day

Tinkeringbell

@Cashbee You can only gain 200 rep per day

Cashbee

whaat that sucks

Tinkeringbell

12:11

So, apparently somewhere between 600/1200 of the upvotes I received (10 for answers, 5 for questions) was made after I already hit the reputation cap for that day :(

Oh... I see why now. At least I very much agree with part of the reasoning ;)

link: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/22447/…

Cashbee

I find it extremely sad that I keep hitting my rep cap on Meta, but can barely get a vote on any of the other sites. I should seriously get a hobby. – BinaryMisfit

haha

yeah but the cap makes totally sense after reading that

Tinkeringbell

@Cashbee I'm a bit sad that it affects me that much, at the same time I wholeheartedly agree with the 'don't get privileges too soon'. I've only really been active on SE for 7 months or so, and there's still stuff I don't understand even though my rep suggests I'm very trusted

Cashbee

12:28

you don't simply walk into SE

Tinkeringbell

@Cashbee Nope :P

Cashbee

I mean, when does one truly understand SE?

Tinkeringbell

@Cashbee Well, for me that would mean knowing when to flag stuff, when to delete stuff, how to use SEDE and understand how to use the comment bot (these are just a few things on the list of stuff I still need looking into)

Cashbee

wow just googled what you mean by SEDE.. this site is awesome! it even shows you the actual SQL xD

Tinkeringbell

@Cashbee Hahaha. Yeah, it looks cool, I really need some time to look into what data SE actually stores.

ArtOfCode

12:37

@Tinkeringbell most things

unless you'd be able to identify a user on something you're not meant to be able to

so votes don't have user IDs associated, reviews are rounded to the nearest whole day instead of exact timestamps, etc

Tinkeringbell

@ArtOfCode Ah. But am I associated to my downvotes in any way (I can see them in my actions for example?)

ArtOfCode

@Tinkeringbell you are in the real site database, but SEDE is a slightly modified copy of it

so you're not in SEDE

Tinkeringbell

@ArtOfCode Ah, bummer... so there's no way to make a query to see if the stuff I downvoted was edited/deleted/needs undeleting. :(

ArtOfCode

@Tinkeringbell weeeelll... you could find the post IDs that you downvoted on the site, then copy those post IDs over to SEDE and use them

but no, no "proper" way

Tinkeringbell

I'll hack it, someday :P

JAD

12:45

too bad there is no SEDE api, else that mightve been a useful userscript

although, it's only updated weekly

maybe a userscript might work, since it's not a huge amount of posts that need to be checked on

Cashbee

there is no way to run own SQL (select) scripts in SEDE, is there?

JAD

you can do quite a bit of sql stuff in there

but you're limited by the data they expose

and there is no API afaik, so only in the editor on the website

Cashbee

ah I just found the 'compose query' button

Anne Daunted

@Tinkeringbell You can get more than 200 - this is just the rep cap for upvotes. But it doesn't affect the +15 rep from an accepted answer. Though you'd probably have to be Jon Skeet to make full use of that ;-)

Tinkeringbell

@AnneDaunted But the 15 for accepted answer is only once, it isn't awarded every day you're the accepted answer :P

That's probably why they excluded it from the rep cap ;)

Anne Daunted

12:50

Sure, but if you wrote more answers that were accepted

sphennings

@Tinkeringbell It's the same for bounties.

Tinkeringbell

@AnneDaunted I'd have to write what... 6000/15 = 400 answers that get accepted a day would I have wanted to make up for the 6000 rep I missed due to rep cap :P

I don't think even Jon Skeet has time for that :P

Anne Daunted

@Tinkeringbell Are you sure? ;-)

sphennings

Points aren't everything. I'm all for the cap. If I'm rep capping that's a good signal that I should take a break from the site.

Cashbee

is the cap global for SE or is there a separate cap for each stack?

Anne Daunted

12:56

separate

Tinkeringbell

@sphennings Not really, you can rep-cap by writing one anwer to a HNQ question in the morning :P

@Cashbee It's 200 on every SE site, but yeah, you can gain 200 here and 200 on SO for example ;)

Tinkeringbell

13:10

interpersonal.stackexchange.com/a/10773/1599 They have a point, what's wrong with that one? It even has sources and is better some of the other upvoted suggestions? Am I missing something, if so, can someone go and help?

Anne Daunted

I don't see the problem with it either.

Cashbee

There is no problem at all with that one

I find his comment quite funny though. Thanks, downvoter(s), for leaving me wondering what is wrong with my answer (!)

his sarasm sign makes no sense here :)

JAD

Well, the thanks is kinda sarcastic

also, eeeeew a sourced answer on ips

Tinkeringbell

@JAD I shamelessly stole that and put it in my comment :P

Extroverted Main Man

14:00

2

Q: Convincing superstitious people

My mother believes in astrology (not the scientific astronomy, but the apparent effect of stars on human lives). She recently found out that there's something weird in store for me this year after consulting the astrologer. I'm supposedly born with a natural 'affinity' for getting physically hurt...

india parents

Cashbee

14:16

hah the top query on SEDE is actually incomplete. It shows you how many upvotes you have for each tag, but it doesn't show how many answers you wrote for each tag (which is also a requirement for the tag specific badges)

Here is my fixed version if you are interested ;)

JAD

curious

11

Q: How to politely tell someone "No Smoking here"?

I am pretty allergic to smoking and often come across people in public, public transport and in gatherings, etc. who carelessly smoke without caring about their environment. This issue gets more serious when you are in a public transport and can't escape it. There was Anti-smoking act, 2002 pass...

public-issues public-transportation pakistan smoking-vaping

Tinkeringbell

14:31

@ExtrovertedMainMan Done answering that one, with sources! interpersonal.stackexchange.com/a/10887/1599

@JAD I saw that too, not really the kind of behavior I'd like to encourage :P

Extroverted Main Man

1

Q: How to stop dad from telling the same jokes again and again?

Context: I am 23, studying in Switzerland. I have a really good relationship with my father. Often when I visit my dad(55) we go for a walk or just have a tea. We talk about all kinds of things and from time to time he will tell jokes he has told many times. This is boring and annoying to me. M...

parents

Cashbee

@Tinkeringbell linking twice to the same resource? cheeky!

Mithrandir

@ExtrovertedMainMan you'll regret that

Tinkeringbell

@Cashbee It's an excellent resource, and I confessed it, so why not? :P

Mithrandir

interpersonal.stackexchange.com/questions/161/… - seems a bit broad

Anne Daunted

14:37

@ExtrovertedMainMan Gift your father a collection of jokes.

A J

Never say no to work

sphennings

@Mithrandir Why do you think it's broad? It seems ok to me.

Rory Alsop

@ExtrovertedMainMan you can't! This is what we have kids for. To embarrass them with our dad jokes.

sphennings

@RoryAlsop The best way to embarrass children is to be unappolegetically yourself.

JAD

@Tinkeringbell Well, everybody is free to award bounties as they please. But I don't think it's a particularly good answer

Mithrandir

14:44

@sphennings There are a lot of ways... It's turning into a repeat of the Wikipedia list of irony punctuation.

sphennings

@Mithrandir You're judging the question based on the answers.

Tinkeringbell

@Mithrandir As long as people keep adding new ways to it, and using sources, I don't have a problem with it.

Mithrandir

Well, yes. That's part of the "too broad" close reason "too many possible answers, or a good answer would be too long for our format"

sphennings

@Mithrandir Perhaps construct an answer that says "On common solution is sarcasm marks..." Then list out every one you can think of with a sentence or two about where they're used.

Rory Alsop

@sphennings I do my best :-)

sphennings

14:49

Answers are capped at 30k characters. I don't think you'll run up against that limit.

Tinkeringbell

@Mithrandir Hmm.. Right now, it only has 5 answers, of which only 3 are upvoted. The other two don't cite sources and are thus downvoted. I don't think there's too many possible answers yet :P

Cashbee

too many possible answers is not the same as it has too many answers saying the same thing

Mithrandir

@sphennings right, I've only hit that once before ;)

@Cashbee I attempted to flag some of them. They haven't really been culled.

Cashbee

@Mithrandir pls share that answer of yours xD

Mithrandir

@Cashbee it's on Science Fiction & Fantasy, one sec

My self-answer to this question:

71

Q: Was the mythology in "Moana" based on an established myth?

I just recently finished watching the film Moana. The plot includes the Realm of Monsters, complete with upside down giant crabs, a shape-shifting demigod with a magical hook, a giant lava monster, a giant mother island... Are these based on an established mythos, such as one of the Oceanic my...

behind-the-scenes inspiration moana

Extroverted Main Man

14:52

-2

Q: How to answer to a 'manipulative' compliment/joke

Context The other day at work, one of my female coworker from another team and I were working on a common task on my computer (we were discussing about our respective understanding of the problem we had to solve). At one point (I was searching silently something in my computer), she decided to ...

politeness compliments

Cashbee

@Mithrandir whoa srsly..

sphennings

@Mithrandir That's a thorough answer.

Mithrandir

It took me several hours :D

sphennings

Good job.

Mithrandir

From like 11PM to 3AM I wrote the original thing then continued researching for the next couple days.

@sphennings thanks ^.^

Tinkeringbell

14:56

Anyone understand this? interpersonal.stackexchange.com/questions/10846/…

Rory Alsop

@Mithrandir I remember upvoting that one around Christmas. Can't believe you aren't the top answer there...

sphennings

@Mithrandir I've never come close to hitting that barrier myself. Last year on Worldbuilding I had the highest ratio of upvotes to characters of any user with over 100 posts.

Rory Alsop

@Tinkeringbell I think he/she is being snarky, but I'm not sure why they are being snarky to you

Tinkeringbell

@RoryAlsop Well, I reacted so let's see if there's another comment. Then we'll most likely know for sure..

Rory Alsop

@Tinkeringbell I'm guessing they are put off by attitude towards new posters (every site gets this on occasion, no matter what they do) and see your comment as offputting to new folks. I think I agree with you that it at least is trying to help new posters get it right, rather than vote to close straight away

Tinkeringbell

15:00

interpersonal.stackexchange.com/q/10884/1599 Also, I kinda disagree with the duplicate here, because I think the mom-child relationship is very different from the friends/acquaintances... Also, I'm not really convinced OP is wanting to necessarily discuss science. I interpreted it more as 'what skills can I use to convince mom' ;) But let's see where it goes :)

@RoryAlsop You know, I can be nice sometimes :P

Anne Daunted

@Tinkeringbell When we're at it: Flag-worthy comment

Tinkeringbell

(I do vote to close straight away though, since I don't want stuff answered before)

@AnneDaunted Already did that :)

Rory Alsop

@Tinkeringbell yeah - I was swithering with just adding more links like you did, but felt it was just over the line

Tinkeringbell

@RoryAlsop I'll have something to put on meta again if it gets closed :P

Yep, snarky! interpersonal.stackexchange.com/questions/10846/… I think it can be flagged?

Anne Daunted

@Tinkeringbell Flagged 'em both

I guess I kind of lost my patience with comments

Tinkeringbell

15:06

@AnneDaunted I have already lost my patience with it looong ago

Cashbee

that 131-rep-scrub is teaching you about the ways of ips.se :)

Tinkeringbell

@Cashbee hah, just flag it, and let's hope he takes it to meta :) that's where it belongs

On the other hand, maybe not flag it, so he can use it.

(sorry, they :P)

Anne Daunted

Just mentioning that the OP of that answer gets pinged with every single comment

sphennings

@Cashbee Be nice. We were all there once. I was there less than a month ago.

Tinkeringbell

@AnneDaunted Oh that's a good one too ;)

Anne Daunted

15:09

Learned it the hard way when someone pinged me with multiple, consecutive not so nice comments

Rory Alsop

I may have added my flag too :-)

Tinkeringbell

@RoryAlsop Delete our comments there as well then?

Now it's just disjointed conversation

Rory Alsop

yarr - will do mine

Tinkeringbell

Anyone wants free flags? Flag mine before I delete them :P

Rory Alsop

lol

Tinkeringbell

15:12

I'm giving you all 1 minute :P

Anne Daunted

@Tinkeringbell Already did

Cashbee

@sphennings I did not know what offended you. so i looked up what scrub actually means. I did not mean to be too derogatory, sry :|

sphennings

@Cashbee You didn't offend. I was trying to warn you about what seemed an dismissive attitude to newcomers to the site.

Should they have been ranting like that? No. But we should try to encourage good behavior instead of making fun of them for being new.

The more exclusionary we are the worse this site will become.

Cashbee

good point

I was only joking but you're right - I shouldn't

sphennings

@Cashbee I have no doubts about your good intentions.

Anne Daunted

15:22

Very low quality

Tinkeringbell

@AnneDaunted Comment first

sphennings

@Tinkeringbell Very important point. It's hard to correct behavior if you don't understand what you're doing wrong.

Anne Daunted

@Tinkeringbell I did but they should already know as they do that frequently.

Tinkeringbell

@AnneDaunted Well, at least they can't see we didn't try to help now :)

I didn't look that closely, and thought it was a new user

Anne Daunted

No, they aren't

And surely several of their answers have already been deleted

Tinkeringbell

15:31

@AnneDaunted In that case... raises a flag and downvotes

Anne Daunted

Why you should stop smoking ASAP:

2

Q: Cigar "borrowing" conversations with manipulative stranger

I'm a Spanish 26 year old guy. I have the appearance of what people would call "loser good guy", so when I'm hanging out it's really frequent people ask out for a cigarette (especially girls who make it pretty clear they are not trying to flirt, but just obtain a free cigarette). Personally I onl...

conversations strangers

Tinkeringbell

And there's the random downvote on the question about non-verbal communication. Great that people also tell me what is wrong with it.

Extroverted Main Man

2

Q: Cigar "borrowing" conversations with manipulative stranger

I'm a Spanish 26 year old guy. I have the appearance of what people would call "loser good guy", so when I'm hanging out it's really frequent people ask out for a cigarette (especially girls who make it pretty clear they are not trying to flirt, but just obtain a free cigarette). Personally I onl...

conversations strangers

Cashbee

@ExtrovertedMainMan yeah thanks, I almost missed your last notification :)

sphennings

15:46

@Tinkeringbell 1 out of 17 isn't bad. I find it best not to sweat a single downvote here and there.

@Tinkeringbell How would you feel about an answer suggesting verbal cues to indicate that you are listening?

That's the solution I've found works best for me.

Cashbee

I just got 1 rep.. wut?

Anne Daunted

Downvoting an answer costs you 1 rep. when that answer gets deleted, you get back that rep.

Cashbee

aah, that makes sense. ty

sphennings

@AnneDaunted Do you know how that interacts with the rep cap?

Anne Daunted

What to do about this and that?

sphennings

15:58

Leave the -3 alone and NAA the 0.

Anne Daunted

@sphennings No, but You can earn a maximum of +200 reputation from upvotes and suggested edits in any given day. suggests that it may not be affected.

Very low quality?

It's basically a Try this answer with no explanation

sphennings

@AnneDaunted It's on the cusp. It's incredibly poor advice though. Especially since the OP doesn't want to look like a snob.

Anne Daunted

I flagged it

IPS Comment Bot

You should dive into portretrecht, because you are mistaken about your ownership. — Thomas Yates 32 secs ago

#10842 Thomas Yates (105 rep) | Q: How can I stop acquaintances from reposting my photos on social media without credit to me? (score: 22) | posted 26 hours ago by Belle (242 rep) | edited 16 hours ago by Catija (9418 rep)

Matched regex(es) ["you\\W(really)?(need\\Wto|should)"]

sphennings

@IPSCommentBot Well that's rude.

Catija

16:14

@sphennings Why?

sphennings

@Catija After translating portretrecht and seeing how the comment was edited, my opinions have changed.

IPS Comment Bot

17:16

For those who don't think this is a big problem, you need to watch this PSA — T.E.D. 53 secs ago

#10886 T.E.D. (642 rep) | Q: How to stop dad from telling the same jokes again and again? (score: 5) | posted 2 hours ago by Hakaishin (131 rep) | edited 2 hours ago by Hakaishin (131 rep)

Matched regex(es) ["you\\W(really)?(need\\Wto|should)"]

Extroverted Main Man

17:28

0

Q: What to do if I'm going out with someone who broke up with her boyfriend because he moved to another country?

I have been going out with a girl who I find to be my "soul mate" for around a month. There are occasional kisses, cuddling but that's about it. She was with her boyfriend for 4 months and then he moved to UK. She still talks with him, and she will go to the UK in June to visit friends (she lived...

relationships

Introverted Meta Man.

0

Q: Why is answer (3615) being offered a bounty from Community even though it has a negative score?

This answer about aggressively handling people smoking in public has a negative score. I don't know what the score was when the bounty was first offered, but as of right now, the users seem to agree that it is a problematic answer (myself included). Yet the Community has offered a 500 rep bounty ...

discussion bounty

IPS Comment Bot

17:43

@user13181 Closer! We still can't tell you if you should or shouldn't do something. We can only suggest ways in which you can do something... For instance, if you wanted to have a conversation with her to address how you feel, we could try to find a good way for you to approach that with her. — Jess K. 54 secs ago

#10904 Jess K. (8417 rep) | Q: Should i date someone who broke up with her boyfriend because he moved to another country? (score: 0) | posted 29 minutes ago by user13181 (1 rep) | edited 3 minutes ago by user13181 (1 rep)

Matched regex(es) ["you\\W(really)?(need\\Wto|should)"]

Extroverted Main Man

18:01

1

Q: How can I gracefully decline a ride from a friend?

Background I sometimes get together with some friends I have in common with a relative and in those events, this specific friend which I will name Bob. Situation When we want to go somewhere, Bob always offers a ride, because he is the only one of the group that has a 5 (five) seater car. He o...

friends awkward-situations

Tinkeringbell

19:11

@sphennings they're already suggested. I even admitted in chat that those might be the problem ;)

@IntrovertedMetaMan. oh, so that's why I lost 15 points again today

IPS Comment Bot

19:29

@Christoph It is a bit disingenuous to make a claim on a post about gender and then backpedal and say "I didn't bring up genders." Commenting on this post makes it clear your opinion also applies to gender. if you want to discuss how to inform people about assumptions they make other than gender, you should start a new question. — Azor-Ahai 1 min ago

#10756 Azor-Ahai (237 rep) | Q: How to politely notify in an online conversation that I am a woman? (score: 89) | posted 57 hours ago by Trabool (520 rep) | edited 49 hours ago by AmagicalFishy (133 rep) | Has magic comment

Matched regex(es) ["you\\W(really)?(need\\Wto|should)"]

NVZ

20:00

86

Q: How do you write a Stack Exchange answer?

Over my years on StackExchange I've come to view answering SE questions as its own, highly specialized writing subgenre, with its own demands, and its own ideal format. By trial and error, and observation of highly upvoted answers, and of answers that I personally find useful, I've created my ow...

technique structure

sphennings

I'm surprised how low the upvotes on the answers are on that question.

IPS Comment Bot

I think that you should the setting you are working in. Are you on a smoke break at work? Are you hanging out in a store parking lot? Are you bar-hopping at night? Are you at a party with friends? Additionally, does the person just ask for a cigarette and immediately leave or stick around? there are different social cues to be learned in each of these situations. — MonkeyZeus 59 secs ago

#10894 MonkeyZeus (469 rep) | Q: How do I handle strangers who want to "borrow" a cigarette and give nothing in return? (score: 14) | posted 4 hours ago by Alexander Aeons Torn (201 rep) | edited 1 hours ago by Community (1 rep)

Matched regex(es) ["you\\W(really)?(need\\Wto|should)"]

sphennings

It's basically the ultimate introspective naval gazing question.

NVZ

@sphennings which one?

sphennings

How to write a Stack Exchange Answer

Even I got in on the fun.

NVZ

20:10

@sphennings No. How to write an SE answer, it was. Maybe we could make another one about how to ask an SE question as well? Feel free to. I don't write on writing.se.

sphennings

@NVZ Look above I edited it.

NVZ

@sphennings Oh nooooo

sphennings

I feel questions are harder to do in such a general fashion.

I know that asking a good worldbuilding question is a skill that many fail to master. Their question sandbox is littered with the corpses of abandoned questions.

Extroverted Main Man

20:24

0

Q: How to handle who to ask to join my wife and I in the delivery room (mother and/or mother-in-law)?

My wife and I have just started trying to expand our family. Last night, the topic randomly came up of who should be in the delivery room with us (if we are lucky enough to conceive) as my wife asked me: Should we be alone with the medical staff or should my mother [my mother-in-law] be in there...

family politeness boundaries

sphennings

20:44

@Catija It was already an excellent answer.

Catija

@sphennings :D

sphennings

My comment is more about stylistic choices than the content itself.

I prefer my answers to be unsubtle and obvious.

Anne Daunted

21:05

Too many reviewers believe that a Try this answer, that is not backed up and doesn't honor the OP's premise Looks ok.

sphennings

@AnneDaunted People have different criteria of what is and isn't ok. That answer is in the grey area. It does have some logic to it but that's only a tiny amount.

Anne Daunted

@sphennings But that shouldn't be enough

sphennings

It's also a very contentious answer 10 upvotes to 9 down.

apaul

Anyone know what the story is on the 500 rep bounty owned by the community user?

sphennings

@apaul There's a meta question about it.

Anne Daunted

21:09

Then again, people try to preserve troll posts at all costs, so it's not like I'm actually surprised

Tinkeringbell

@apaul Thisiswhatyoudo were either removed or removed their own account

sphennings

@AnneDaunted That's how the system works. If you would like to see things like that closed in the future your best bet is to shift the average opinion of the voting population of the site.

Tinkeringbell

@AnneDaunted People don't know. If you want flags accepted, make sure there's a few people online in chat that actually know the rules XD

apaul

@Tinkeringbell Figured it was something like that. Looked like a rep dump.

Tinkeringbell

@apaul Yep.

IPS Comment Bot

21:11

Welcome to IPS.SE! Your question isn't particulary clear, and as such, we aren't able to be of much assistance. You should try taking the tour and reading about how to write a good question. After that you can try editing your question to make it a little easier for us to help you. — Rainbacon 1 min ago

#10921 Rainbacon (842 rep) | Q: Who to tell my parents that I dont want to go on vacations with them (score: -1) | posted 6 minutes ago by Diogo Cunha (1 rep)

Matched regex(es) ["you\\W(really)?(need\\Wto|should)"]

Tinkeringbell

@sphennings Or flag it for a mod now, point out the OP is unwilling to provide why it works, and that the community is apparently unable to handle it since your vlq flag got declined XD

End that one with a question asking them to look into it

Anne Daunted

@Tinkeringbell Maybe it's misleading but it's a bit sad when I look up the history of the VLQ review queue.

Catija

Sort of pointless rep dump since they didn't stay long enough to actually award the bounty.

Tinkeringbell

@AnneDaunted yeah, I get discouraged there as well. I have 21 disputed post flags, of which 12 were deleted anyways later

Sorta discourages me from flagging stuff

@Catija Might be the ultimate troll action XD

Catija

I suppose that the deletion could have gone through sooner than they expected.

sphennings

21:15

@Tinkeringbell I don't know about the mods on this site but on WB they generally don't go against the community consensus lightly. There is a lot more disagreement about what makes a low quality IPS answer than on WB.

Tinkeringbell

@sphennings Hence the need to end your mod flag with a question mark XD

Anne Daunted

@Tinkeringbell It's maybe best to not care that much

sphennings

That question could benefit from some better answers. I've thrown my hat into the ring on that one.

Tinkeringbell

@AnneDaunted meh, I don't anymore. That's why I flag less

@sphennings I noticed ;)

sphennings

I don't think SE is supposed to work 100% of the time. I think it's designed to work well enough most of the time so that mods don't get overwhelmed handling every infraction.

@Tinkeringbell * Cough Cough *

Tinkeringbell

21:18

@Catija Why? I thought it would always take at least 24 hours or something?

Extroverted Main Man

-1

Q: Who to tell my parents that I dont want to go on vacations with them

I am 17 and I have good grades, dont get in trouble and have a good behaviour. Me and my mom live togetger and my dad works abroad. The problem is the following: I dont like to go out with my parents that much because I think its quite boring. They want me to go one week on vacation with them but...

family

Tinkeringbell

@sphennings stop smoking that cough sounds nasty XD

sphennings

;)

Anne Daunted

@Tinkeringbell The in my opinion best contributor to IPS stays away from it as long as it didn't become what it's supposed to be. Just increased my respect for them.

Catija

@Tinkeringbell I don't know when deletion was requested but if they have less than X rep, they get deleted immediately.

sphennings

21:21

@Catija What's the policy about editing questions to invalidate existing answers on this site?

Tinkeringbell

@AnneDaunted What? I've always been told to just disengage if things get too frustrating ;)

And you can do whatever I do. So unless you're talking about someone else, I'm not worried

@Catija ah. One of those SE things I don't know XD

Catija

@sphennings Sort of depends. It's pretty much the same... if a question's closed, and someone answered it when it was too broad or off topic or unclear, and their answer no longer fits the edit that was enacted to get the question reopened... then it's sort of their fault for answering a question that wasn't ready.

If the question's never been closed and wasn't likely to be, and the OP edits it... that's not cool.

Tinkeringbell

Notifying after editing though, that's fair and good IPS

sphennings

@Catija The OP of the pregnancy question just edited it in such a way that invalidates basically every answer.

Tinkeringbell

@sphennings close it, or roll back the edit I think

sphennings

21:24

@Tinkeringbell I know what I'd do on WB but this is definitely a site specific thing so I'm asking if this is something that has been discussed here.

Catija

@sphennings The problem is that they're getting a lot of close votes because they're looking like they're asking what they should do in general.

I cleaned up the title, let me see if I can fix the body.

Tinkeringbell

@sphennings Not yet, but there's a meta on chameleon questions I think. Dunno what the consensus was there

I noticed closing happening on another SE

sphennings

@Catija I noticed that. I think it's because they're very unsure about what they're going to do and are asking "what do we say?" before knowing what they want to say.

Anne Daunted

10

Q: How should we address chameleon questions on this site?

I've run into a minor irritation here lately where someone posts a question, and I post an answer that seems to answer the original question pretty well and receives upvotes and generally positive comments. Later on the OP or someone else edits the question and removes/changes details or more o...

discussion comments editing

didn't seem to convince people

sphennings

Every answer has downvotes. The highest voted answer is at +2. There are a lot of walls of text. I don't think there is agreement yet.

apaul

21:29

Ugh... interpersonal.stackexchange.com/a/10908/59

Anne Daunted

@sphennings You can get away with everything

sphennings

@AnneDaunted I'm still required to be nice.

Anne Daunted

@sphennings No

@apaul you are surprised that people never change?

Tinkeringbell

@sphennings Probably because that was one stupid question XD If you have a better example (less controversial perhaps) you might just ask again

I'm still curious why my flag on that question was approved but the question is still around, I think it must have been the question mark XD

Anne Daunted

@Tinkeringbell Are you both talking about the chameleon meta question?

Tinkeringbell

21:33

@AnneDaunted I assumed we were, and about the news vendor all guys are creepy example question in that meta

sphennings

@apaul FTFY

Tinkeringbell

@sphennings what's that?

sphennings

Fixed That For You

Tinkeringbell

Ohh

sphennings

It generally has a rather confrontational tone.

Anne Daunted

21:36

@sphennings See, you needn't even be nice. QED.

sphennings

Which just to clarify, @apaul, I was intending in a more humorous fashion.

Tinkeringbell

@sphennings that user is known for that... I think there's even a meta post saying we're tired of cleaning up their posts

sphennings

@Tinkeringbell Seriously?

Catija

I've definitely said it... I don't think it was on Meta... I'm pretty sure it was on a deleted answer.

Tinkeringbell

@sphennings I'll look it up

@Catija I tink nvz wrote that answer

Anne Daunted

21:39

They were banned for a month or so. But @apaul, you were among those welcoming him back, weren't you?

sphennings

@AnneDaunted That's what we're supposed to do. Welcome people back after their ban is up. The goal is to get people to change their behavior not punish them.

Tinkeringbell

Meta: interpersonal.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2243/1599

From what. I've seen, they're polite for a post or two and then degrade again

apaul

@AnneDaunted I was hoping that he got the point.

@Tinkeringbell yup.

Tinkeringbell

@sphennings not to say you shouldn't edit, but please flag if they keep it up....

sphennings

In other news I got to bring up how the Australian army lost a war to a bunch of birds, over on Worldbuilding.

Anne Daunted

21:46

@sphennings So it's not enough to treat them like every other user? You have to be especially nice?

Tinkeringbell

@sphennings missed that. I'll look it up tomorrow ;)

Almost home, yay! Driving class tomorrow though :(

Anne Daunted

I think that's what got them banned.

Tinkeringbell

@AnneDaunted Probably just not hold a grudge ;)

Anne Daunted

@Tinkeringbell I agree

sphennings

@AnneDaunted I'm not one for special exceptions. I wasn't around for that meta discussion so I have no context for it. Newer users have no other option besides treating them like every other user. Especially since reasons for banning aren't supposed to be discussed.

Anne Daunted

21:51

But people rarely change. We already experienced that earlier this week, didn't we?

sphennings

@AnneDaunted When discussing the temp ban on Stack Overflow they said that temp bans had a 10% repeat offender rate.

That would imply that most people change when given a clear warning and a chance to change.

Anne Daunted

Just to be clear, I'm holding no grudge against them and also didn't downvote or flag the answer you guys were discussing. Just saying how it is.

@sphennings On SO where people may want to get the chance again to ask for help with their home assignments.

sphennings

@AnneDaunted I've seen very problematic users on Worldbuilding improve greatly after being put in time out once or twice.

The best way to get someone to screw up is to act as if you expect them to do so.

Think of it as an IPS question "We've welcomed someone back into our group who we previously kicked out for being problematic. What is the best way for us to do this if there are lingering concerns that they could act up again?"

apaul

@sphennings Too broad and primarily opinion based.

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