The Awkward Silence

Stacey

2:00 PM

it still is a bit annoying, though. I'm suuuper rusty in some areas

Tinkeringbell

@Stacey ;) That sounds familiar.

Stacey

maybe I should be careful what I say around here

Tinkeringbell

Why? Afraid we'll all start asking you to fix our electricity? :P

Stacey

thankfully there isn't much I can do through the internet

@Sid how are you coping so far?

Tinkeringbell

But yeah, if you don't want people to know, keep it out of the room ;-) if you feel you slipped up, let us know. We can clean it up ;)

Stacey

2:02 PM

@Tinkeringbell no, it's fine. I'm happy with my current level of vagueness

Sid

@Stacey So far, quite good. Enjoying myself. But, then, we haven't reached the hard part yet(which apparently, we'll do in the next 2 years).

Stacey

@Sid how long is your degree? Mine was 4 years and it got progressively harder from years 1-3 and then #4 was much easier

the maths was brutal though

Sid

@Stacey 4 years, yeah.

Stacey

yay multivariable calculus

Rainbacon

@Stacey I didn't mind multivariable calculus much. It was differential equations that got me

Stacey

2:09 PM

If there was anything my degree taught me (in addition to how to be an engineer), it was that even if you're mediocre in some subjects, a good work ethic can get you through. I spent hours doing practice maths excercises

@Rainbacon yay that we have tools for that now! I haven't solved a partial differential equation since I graduated :D

haven't needed to either

Rainbacon

I haven't needed to either, but that's partly because I switched from engineering to computer science and became a consultant

Stacey

@Rainbacon I'm in that weird in-between place where I'm an EE but spend a hell of a lot of my day programming

.... what's the policy for swearing around here?

Sid

@Stacey That course has been scrapped in my uni. It was part of Maths-IV(which is Math thing that you read in the 4th Semester) but apparently, it garnered way too many people failing it.

Mithrandir

@Stacey generally discouraged, don't complain if your profanity is flagged

Stacey

@Sid yeah it's notorious. my classmates were dropping it like flies

@Mithrandir I figured as much but thought I'd check

Mithrandir

2:14 PM

I don't think your message is an issue, if that's what you're wondering

Sid

@Stacey Well, Engineering is inter-disciplinary.

Stacey

@Sid I did an interdisciplinary degree called mechatronics

Mechatronics

Mechatronics is a multidisciplinary field of science that includes a combination of mechanical engineering, electronics, computer engineering, telecommunications engineering, systems engineering and control engineering. As technology advances, the subfields of engineering multiply and adapt. Mechatronics' aim is a design process that unifies these subfields. Originally, mechatronics just included the combination of mechanics and electronics, therefore the word is a combination of mechanics and electronics; however, as technical systems have become more and more complex the definition has be...

Tinkeringbell

@Mithrandir It's okay. It starts getting a problem when you start calling people 'pancakes' :P

Stacey

maybe it's more popular now but back then it was almost unheard of

Tinkeringbell

@Stacey Ooh! I did an online secret santa this year, and the person I sent gifts to was also studying that :)

I sent them some mini-tronica though, they fit better in the mail ;)

@Stacey I think it's pretty common? My brother contemplated studying that.

As far as he said, classes were supposed to be big

Mithrandir

2:19 PM

Would it be useful to have @IPSCommentBot post comments here that were left after a certain period of time after the post was created?

Tinkeringbell

@Mithrandir Meh... maybe better to just pick up on those in the Closet

Stacey

It's definitely gained in popularity. When I was studying I graduated with 30 other people in mechatronics, and there were like 900 EE graduates

by EE here I mean plain electrical (non-multidisciplinary)

Tinkeringbell

That's quite a difference....

Stacey

There were also like 3 girls. hopefully that's gone up too

Tinkeringbell

@Stacey I hope so too, although I have seen some cases were idealism troubled the waters and girls made the wrong choice ;) You have to pick a study/job that matches your brain, not your ideals :P

Stacey

2:25 PM

@Tinkeringbell I encountered that too. Although I think the opposite is more common too. I have a friend who is deciding what to study and she would totally study engineering except "engineer" reminds her too much of buildings and civil engineering, so she's choosing science instead

she doesn't want to be called an engineer, even though she would be brilliant at it. it really makes me sad

Tinkeringbell

@Stacey :( That last part is sad indeed. The first kinda made sense if she doesn't want to anything with buildings and civil engineering, and doesn't understand what other opportunities it offers (which is quite often the case as I've experienced it)

And even so, maybe she could be brilliant at both science and engineering. Then, you'll have the luxury of choosing to follow your heart and feelings

Sid

@Stacey Yeah, Gender ratio is still a problem in Engineering...

Although, it's much better than 3 girls as of now.

Stacey

I've gone out for coffee with her a couple of times and she knows there are other options. I think the name engineer just bothers her. But science is a good option too.

I am biased, though

naturally

Sid

Well, Engineering is a good way to guarantee we won't starve. So, there's that.(Be warned that my views on this are purely from a local perspective)

Tinkeringbell

@Stacey :P I think what bothers me most about the whole gender ratio discussion here, is that it's become almost forceful to the other side... 'girls have to pick technical studies'. Women have to become high level managers, that kinda stuff. It almost seems there's no place left for a mother that wants to raise her kids like mine did

Stacey

2:32 PM

@Sid I see from your profile you're from India. I believe it's a pretty popular choice there

Sid

@Stacey exactly. Popular choice because it's an (comparatively) easy way to guarantee we won't be starving...

Stacey

@Tinkeringbell I agree with you! I'm 8 months pregnant with my first and that decision is very much on my mind

Mithrandir

@Stacey oh, congratulations both belatedly and in advance

Sid

Although, the number of decent uni is very less and the competition is terribly high and cut-throat...

Stacey

@Mithrandir thanks I'm mildly terrified

Sid

2:34 PM

@Stacey Oh, Congrats in advance!

Tinkeringbell

@Stacey I could twiddle my thumbs for you? :) Congratulations though, I hope everything has went well so far :D

hello @anonymous2 :) Welcome to IPS!

anonymous2

Howdy.

Mithrandir

(meanwhile I have to actually take a test at some point to finish high school and get a certificate)

anonymous2

@Stacey Congratulations

Tinkeringbell

@Mithrandir 'at some point' > do you have a choice? or is the date like set...

Stacey

2:36 PM

It has gone very well. low risk, not too much to complain about. I'm hoping to take 3 months off and then work part time

Tinkeringbell

@Stacey That sounds reasonable ;) I think that's what most new mums do here nowadays

Mithrandir

@Tinkeringbell proooobably this summer

Better to do it before the drafting process starts

Tinkeringbell

Although a lot also do return to full-time work (I personally find that a bit weird, unless there's a full-time stay-at-home dad)

Stacey

@Tinkeringbell my husband and I both work from home so we're hoping to take turns (me 4 hours/day, him ~6 hours/day)

Tinkeringbell

@Mithrandir Ugh... But you do get a choice.. that's kinda strange, here it's just '6 years of school, ended with an exam'

Sid

2:38 PM

@Mithrandir Drafting? For army?

Mithrandir

@Tinkeringbell I'm homeschooled, but I'd like to get a certificate

Tinkeringbell

@Stacey Working from home helps a lot :)

Mithrandir

@Sid indeed

Stacey

@Tinkeringbell yes, absolutely. I'll see how it goes and how we cope and then probably adjust my hours more/less as needed

Sid

is That a compulsory thing there? @Mith

anonymous2

2:39 PM

@Mithrandir Nice

Mithrandir

@Sid correct

sphennings

This question is starting to get chatty, again. Can we get some flags on the comments.

Mithrandir

I've raised 61 comment flags today. That's probably not good.

Tinkeringbell

@Stacey Don't worry too much then, it sounds like you've got it figured out quite well :D

Stacey

@Tinkeringbell thanks, I hope so!

Em C

3:57 PM

interpersonal.stackexchange.com/questions/13194/… does this qualify as r/a? (second sentence)

Tinkeringbell

@Magisch @AJ Well, the coffee grounds did their work I guess... things didn't smell half as bad as I expected after having been sealed in a garbage bag for workday.

Rainbacon

@EmC It absolutely does and I've flagged it as such

Em C

@Rainbacon thanks, I will do the same

sphennings

@EmC First sentence too.

Tinkeringbell

@EmC I just put it in VLQ... but r/a might do it too

Em C

4:00 PM

@sphennings oh, yeah :\ was so surprised by the second one I glossed over that. lol

Rainbacon

How many R/A flags does it take to nuke an answer? I know it's a base of 3 scaling up with upvotes for comments. Is it the same for answers?

sphennings

As a general rule it's a bad idea to call someone paranoid and autistic.

2

Tinkeringbell

@Rainbacon I think it was 6

Em C

meta.stackexchange.com/questions/22174/… 3 removes it from front page, 6 deletes it

Tinkeringbell

interpersonal.stackexchange.com/a/13203/1599 I do think we may be a little overbearing on the rude/abusive flags... This one definitely was soapboxing their opinion on the matter, and not giving an answer, but I'm not sure it was actually rude/abusive :/

sphennings

4:05 PM

@Tinkeringbell I'm not sure but it might be that if a post gets at least one R/A flag it gets automatically treated as one once deleted.

You'd need to see who took what action to be sure.

Tinkeringbell

@sphennings Oh yeah, that's true... sorry! I forgot about that. I cast the last delete vote as VLQ.

sphennings

@Tinkeringbell Still you make a good point.

Rainbacon

@Tinkeringbell Did it pop up in the queue with a R/A flag? I cast NAA on it a few hours ago

Tinkeringbell

@Rainbacon Nah, it popped up in Low Quality Posts, so I think (hope) that there was only 1 flag or so...

It got deleted by delete votes from the queue, not the flags, so it's got that going for it

Just, with all the controversy we had lately, we might be a little more careful about when we cast those flags, if we are going to cast flags on this, are we going to cast flags on the next post that makes blanket statements too, even though they might not be warning against bigotry?

Rainbacon

I only used an R/A on the answer that was calling the OP autistic as a slur

Tinkeringbell

4:10 PM

:)

Not saying anyone in here did it, just trying to mention some worrysome behavior :D

Extroverted Main Man

3

Q: How do I politely indicate that I want to go home?

Situation: I hang out with A for a while. Having lunch together, shopping for a bit. I now feel tired and I want to go home. I don't dislike the person and I don't want to give them the impression I do, but I can't enjoy hanging out with them when I'm tired and I'm not enjoyable to hang out with ...

socializing

Mithrandir

@sphennings only in that it's hidden, none of the other punishments

If you raise a mod flag, they can retroactively dispute the flag.

sphennings

@Mithrandir That's well designed. Thanks for clarifying.

Clay07g

4:28 PM

@Tinkeringbell Blanket statements aren't inherently rude. You could see an answer like "I've been to Spain many times. Everyone from that country is so nice, so you should never have to worry about talking to strangers if they are from Spain".

Extroverted Main Man

0

Q: How can I show some appreciation to mycoworkers for allowing me in their car-pooling group?

In the last weeks, tired of commuting every day for more than 2 hours, I started to look for different options. Luckily I discovered that a group of coworkers that I had never met before (we work in a large company) travels every day from the city where I live to my workplace and back. I asked ...

coworkers cars saying-thanks

Tinkeringbell

@Clay07g Yes, very true, although technically that is backed up with experience ;)

I think of blanket statements more like 'all swans are white'.

If you can tell me you've only ever seen white swans, that's already a load better ;)

Clay07g

I may have flagged that question as rude before it got edited. It had a few meta digs and basically was asking how to "politely be rude"

Tinkeringbell

@Clay07g Don't worry. This was about a now deleted answer ;) If you'd click the link, yes, you'd go to the question...

Clay07g

But I retracted it, as it's really not rude, but just not the best question

Ohhh

Hopefully problem solved, then

Tinkeringbell

4:37 PM

@Clay07g I hope so ;)

@Clay07g That's btw always a good thing to do, with close and downvotes as well if they're no longer warranted.

Clay07g

@tink

Tinkeringbell

That's a me :D

Clay07g

@Tinkeringbell I try to. Do we get notifications when a post/answer is edited after a flag/close/downvote?

Tinkeringbell

@Clay07g Not really... Sometimes, if you've left a comment, an OP will notify you when they've edited. I try to drop that stuff in chat whenever I think it should be reopened or if it's at like 4 votes and dangerously close to being closed (and I think it should stay open ;) )

Clay07g

Fair enough.

Tinkeringbell

4:42 PM

(just don't go posting dots everywhere in the hope they'll notify you XD I've seen that stuff on Facebook lately, sooooo annoying!~)

So, @Clay07g, do you know any good music to listen to? Yesterday, all I got was Peter Hollens XD

Clay07g

Well, I mostly listen to American/British punk/alt rock.

Tinkeringbell

I grew up with classical/instrumental or Dutch music. I'm trying to catch up a little ;)

So far, I like some country songs, some of the more classic rock song, some of the a-cappella music like Peter Hollens, I've learned some battle songs XD and a lot of pop music

I think I'm also quite up to date on the Disney songs

Clay07g

That's quite a start. If you want to explore some non-classic rock that isn't straight up head-banging, I recommend starting with the bands Oasis, Green Day, The Killers, Muse.

Anyway, I need to get back to work.

Tinkeringbell

4:58 PM

Good luck :) (stupid timezones :P)

Mithrandir

@Tinkeringbell gist.github.com/superplane39/16877a1fbf1d1781c5468b1b3b0305c1

Tinkeringbell

You keep your playlist on Github???

That's a funny way to use git :P

Mithrandir

No, that's just a list I made for someone.

Tinkeringbell

Ohhhh :) That makes more sense :)

Sid

@Mithrandir I can't remember where I have heard you mention "superplane" before. I am sure you had mentioned it some time....

Mithrandir

5:05 PM

@Sid It's a username I use around the web often

@Tinkeringbell I actually assembled that list for this person, who's an online friend of mine:

~butterfly~ an original *read description*

►

Tinkeringbell

@Mithrandir She sings better than me...

A J

5:24 PM

Every Child Is Special - Full Movie 2007 (Subtitled PT/BR)

►

Nice Bollywood movie

about a child with dyslexia and how he overcomes that.

It got subtitles.

Extroverted Main Man

6:44 PM

1

Q: How do I deal with a friend who throws loud parties when he stays at my place?

I have a family friend I have known for years who now lives in a different city, but when he comes home to see his parents, etc, he likes to stay at my place. I'm totally fine with this, but recently he has started to invite others to my flat when he stays. I don't even mind this, and I enjoy h...

friends awkward-situations

Tinkeringbell

^ What should I do?

Rainbacon

@ExtrovertedMainMan OP censored their censor

Tinkeringbell

7:00 PM

@Rainbacon Somehow I'm guessing this one is salvageable :)

Extroverted Main Man

0

Q: How can I deal with someone wants to have reason(as me)?

I have a best friend. We live together in an apartament since 2 years ago. We have never had any issue. We go out to parties or any kind of event together and have the same friends. In general, we are a good friends! The only problem is that we always want to have the reason. No matter what topi...

conversations friends

Rainbacon

I definitely think it's salvageable, but I was just noting that most people when censoring swear words will either insert another word in it's place or replace some of the characters with asterisks. In this case the poster did both.

Tinkeringbell

@ExtrovertedMainMan I'm guessing reason might be reasoning > argument??

Sooo... interpersonal.stackexchange.com/q/13216/1599. Setting a boundary and following it up? Can we make that one question or would it be too broad?

I'm hoping it'll work

Rainbacon

7:27 PM

@Tinkeringbell It sounds like the OP wants to stop having situations where they and their friend disagree. I'm not sure on that because the question is kind of vague (even after the edits), but if i'm right then I don't think it's a good fit

Tinkeringbell

Nah, Em has got it. I think 'how does this usually end' is what was missing :D

Rainbacon

@Tinkeringbell Maybe, I trust what Em is doing, so I'll keep an eye on it and throw a reopen vote at it if it gets into better shape

Em C

aww, thanks guys ;)

Tinkeringbell

2

Q: How do I follow through after setting a boundary for a friend who throws loud parties at my place?

I have a family friend I have known for years who now lives in a different city, but when he comes home to see his parents, etc, he likes to stay at my place. I'm totally fine with this, but recently he has started to invite others to my flat when he stays. I don't even mind this, and I enjoy h...

friends awkward-situations boundaries

Opinions?

Em C

@Tinkeringbell good edit imo :D

Tinkeringbell

7:33 PM

Then I'm going to retract a close-vote :)

Rainbacon

I think it's a pretty good edit

Tinkeringbell

@Mith I know you cast one too.. care to take a look?

Hi @BillyDoe! Glad to see you took the bait :D

This is the main chatroom for Interpersonal Skills SE, if you ever have a question about how the site works, you can ask here (or on meta)

Mithrandir

Close vote retracted, downvote retracted, comment deleted

Tinkeringbell

@Mithrandir :D Nice :D

Mithrandir

@Tinkeringbell protip: [meta] is a magic link

Tinkeringbell

7:38 PM

Interpersonal Skills Meta?

Oh cool!

Interpersonal Skills too then?

:P

@BillyDoe, I've removed much of the comments we exchanged, as they're no longer needed ;) You might wanna do the same, although it won't hurt much to leave them until someone else cleans up :P

sphennings

Magic links are such a wonderful addition to the site.

Rainbacon

Anyone else starting to get confused by the similar gravitars of sphennings and BillyDoe?

Tinkeringbell

Nah, I'm on a big screen. They're sufficiently different over here :D

Mithrandir

I just switched devices, so no.

!!/alive

IPS Comment Bot

I'm alive and well :)

Rainbacon

7:43 PM

@IPSCommentBot I'm glad you're ok

Mithrandir

→ 16 messages moved to Trash

Tinkeringbell

^What did I do wrong?

Why did you put me in the Trash :(

Mithrandir

Oh, I had the replies button ticked.

Tinkeringbell

@Mithrandir Well, for the sakes of keeping this room relatively drama free... I shall not cause any further drama about that

Mithrandir

Tinkeringbell

7:47 PM

Looks nice :)

ArtOfCode

@Mithrandir where do I get this userscript?

Rainbacon

@ArtOfCode I think it comes from their github

Mithrandir

3

Q: Chat Move Helper / Bot Cleanup Tool

Description: Extends the room-owner move message tool in chat to make it easier to quickly clean up after bots by moving their messages, commands, and replies to them. Adds a couple visualization features to the normal move function as well. I hope this is useful, I know there's a number...

script chat room-owners

ArtOfCode

ta

Rainbacon

@Mithrandir I thought I saw something like that when I was poking around your github looking for the autocomments. Did you put a link there as well?

Mithrandir

7:54 PM

you probably came across my userscript dump

Rainbacon

That would make sense

Mithrandir

this thing

Rainbacon

Yep, that's what I saw

Pheo

@Mithrandir can I use that? That one that is the image?

Mithrandir

Use what?

It's not mine, I have no claims to it

Pheo

8:06 PM

@Mithrandir This one.

Oh, I meant to notify a mod about this: stackexchange.com/users/2058164/cerbrus?tab=accounts. Odd that he made soooo many accounts in one month, isn't it?

Mithrandir

Nope.

Pheo

It isn't? Hmm. I'll note that.

Mithrandir

He's a Charcoaler, he has accounts on every site so he can flag spam everywhere. Just like I do.

Rainbacon

Did he change his profile picture?

Pheo

@Rainbacon uh... no. Don't think so. Thinking of ai.stackexchange.com/users/4770/cerberus?

Mithrandir

8:14 PM

it's been that pic as long as I've known him

Rainbacon

I feel like the wolf in his picture used to have a bit more teeth showing

Mithrandir

he wrote one of the userscripts in my dump above

Extroverted Main Man

8:28 PM

0

Q: How can I tactfully refuse to switch seats on flights?

On flights, seatmates have approached and asked me to swap seats (reserved in advance), usually to my disadvantage. Some will ask why or seek reasons for our refusal. I then feel silent, but detectable, hostility and scowling from some of these rejected seatmates. How can I refuse tactfully, w...

conflict-aversion

Tinkeringbell

→ 26 messages moved to Trash

Mithrandir

8:43 PM

...gack comments

Rainbacon

@Mithrandir Yeah, and that's what's left after HDE cleaned things up

Mithrandir

I'm about ready to just request that SE nuke the comments database for IPS and then disable commenting.

sphennings

@Mithrandir That would just cause people to argue with their answers instead.

Mithrandir

@sphennings and they'd quickly get answer-banned

sphennings

It would be nice if there was a repercussion for too many chatty comments.

Right now there is no distinction between comments that are no longer needed and comments that are never needed.

Mithrandir

8:58 PM

> Hello,

I'm writing in reference to your Literature Stack Exchange account:

https://literature.stackexchange.com/users/792/locutus-of-borg

We've noticed that you have a pattern of engaging in lengthy discussions in comments, frequently consisting of responses involving multiple, back-to-back posts. Comments are intended as brief messages to [provide feedback, add minor information, ask for clarification, or discuss the *content of the post*](https://literature.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/comment). Lengthy clarifications should be edited into the post itself or posted separately as…

@sphennings ^there is.

Catija

The problem is that mods have no way to track them. We are warned if someone gets 3 r/a comments flagged in a week... but we have to remember who has chatty comments... and with the wide quantity we get, there's no way to keep track.

@Mithrandir That really doesn't apply to most of the comments here.

sphennings

@Mithrandir Emails like that are a human solution not a data one. There is no way to track chatty comments since they are removed the same way that a legitimate comment that has served it's function is.

Mithrandir

@Catija true

Catija

The more types of comment flags you have, the less likely any of them will be used "correctly".

Did you see this from MSO: meta.stackoverflow.com/a/365854/4548692

sphennings

@Catija Having a never needed option is just asking for it to be abused.

Mithrandir

9:02 PM

Yeah, I saw it.

Catija

@sphennings I don't think I follow.

Cascabel

and really, there's fuzziness between categories anyway. If you try to split "should this have been said in the first place?" into even three categories, yes (obsolete), maybe not, definitely not, you're gonna get flags that are "off" by one or two steps. So... you can only really learn from it once you get a lot of flags.

Mithrandir

I actually contributed to that meta in a way, by providing an edited version of the first paragraph of Bhargav's answer there after he requested I take a look at it.

sphennings

So if there was a way for a user to flag comments as chatty, separate from NLN, if there was any sort of automatic penalty for someone with too many flags like that. It would make it very easy to penalize someone on this site.

chatty is much more subjective than R/A so it'd be easier to argue that any individual flag was made in good faith.

Catija

We already had that. There used to be four flag reasons for comments and it was confusing to people... so they combined "obsolete" with "chatty" into NLN...

HDE 226868

9:06 PM

121

A: Drop "not constructive", combine "noisy", reword "rude" and "other" comment flags

Adam makes it happen! This is the new UI for flagging comments: (for reference this was the old UI) The first flag replaces the former "rude or offensive" flag; the last replaces "other". The middle flag - "no longer needed" - is new, and is intended to cover all of "too chatty", "obsolete",...

sphennings

I think that's the right design choice.

Mithrandir

I pretty much just use NLN. If it's R/A I'll use that, and sometimes I'll write a more detailed explanation in the custom box (blame Monica).

Catija

If you give me an autoflag when someone has 15-20 comments flagged/deleted in a week... I can take it from there... I don't really care the flag reason.

Mithrandir

@Catija I'll attempt to keep an eye out, but don't actually expect anything

Catija

... I mean the system... not you :P

apaul

9:09 PM

So... Did I actually miss a clarifying detail, or was the question just closed because people don't like the subject?

sphennings

Perhaps a warning popup above the comment box, if someone has too many comments removed by mods or flags in the past week.

Simply reminding someone to keep the comments clean.

Catija

@apaul There are three recent comments on your question... how about you read them?

HDE 226868

It's still lacking context/specificity. There's a huge difference between approaching someone who's uninformed and has bought into veiled bigotry (that's kind of the point of veiling it - it gets people on board easily) and someone who's actually bigoted and possibly arguing in bad faith. I think that fully addressing this would require picking a type of situation and narrowing down. — Cascabel 12 mins ago

Voted to close. I would like to see clearer what examples of situation this applies to as an answer will likely not answer much. There is an enormous chasm of potential arguments between homophobia, traditional family values and religion, most of which are not necessarily bigoted? I don't understand how you can answer without adding (personal) assumptions into it. — Stian Yttervik 12 mins ago

What does this have to do with Interpersonal Skills? The entire question appears to be about debate tactics. — BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft 13 mins ago

Catija

Where's that question that Hamlet asked about going to a political event and trying to argue with people... there are some good answers there...

9

A: Correcting what I see as factual errors in a political discussion

Did I do anything wrong in this situation? Yes: you defended Crooked Hillary! Ha-ha, just kidding. Well... Mostly. Let's back up a bit and try to figure out what your actual goal was, and then maybe we can examine where you feel like you fell short of that goal... The day after the Uni...

sphennings

@Catija When you said Hamlet I thought Shakespeare and got very confused for a second.

Mithrandir

9:15 PM

heh

Catija

@sphennings Ah, no... Hamlet removed his account so it's difficult to find his questions unless you know who answered them.

Mithrandir

...in this case, I found the question around the same time as you did by looking at the politics tag.

Catija

Ah. Yeah, I don't think of using tags :P

sphennings

Two flags left

Rainbacon

@Mithrandir could the comment bot be modified to keep track of the number of times specific users have tripped the regexes? It wouldn't be perfect, but it might be a good starting point

sphennings

9:23 PM

@Rainbacon Probably a better tracking would be to provide how many comments have been made by a user in the past week.

Mithrandir

Eh... I wouldn't trust the regexes to that extent at this stage

@sphennings that would probably just catch like me and Tinkeringbell :P

sphennings

@Mithrandir It would catch a lot of the regulars.

Mithrandir

Prolific commenting isn't, in of itself, an issue.

Catija

... No... but it's an indicator... which is why I don't think a user-based project could catch things that would actually be useful... like flags and deletions of comments.

Rainbacon

I'm not saying to have it flag anything. It could just notify us and we could look through the posts by that user to see if a mod flag is needed

Mithrandir

9:26 PM

...okay, let's try something slightly drastic. Please tell me if the bot gets too noisy.

Cascabel

Yeah, there's definitely mod-only stuff here, unfortunately. But just getting a list of outliers in some sort of number of (flagged/deleted) comments would probably be useful, just to let mods know who they should consider looking at.

Mithrandir

Okay, so if this new thing is too noisy, head to The Closet and run !!/del ips a ^((?!\?).)*$ no-question-mark.

sphennings

That's going to be incredibly noisy.

Mithrandir

Mhm. Perhaps it should get a room for regex hits.

Cascabel

do you have a way to run this on existing comments?

(or a saved set of past comments)

It seems like it'd be really useful to validate your rules and see how many reports they'll generate.

Mithrandir

9:35 PM

Uhhh. Not really.

Possibly thesecretmaster could run it on the database he has.

...which now has 16,062 comments in it, I think.

Em C

@Mithrandir a separate room could be useful so you can search for a username and get a count of how many comments of theirs got hits

... although with the current format I haven't yet figured out a way to write that search term

Mithrandir

If you have a room that would be good for this purpose, it's a matter of changing a number in the config file.

@EmC tracking that in the bot might be a thing to consider

sphennings

A test regex function that shows how many comments match, how many new comments it would match, and perhaps a random sampling of some comments would be helpful.

Cascabel

@Mithrandir I looked at the last week in data.SE, and 390 had no question mark, while 160 had one.

Mithrandir

I wonder just how many of those 390 are delete worthy.

Em C

9:39 PM

@Mithrandir yeah. I was just trying for the easiest route of using the existing chat search ;)

Mithrandir

@sphennings cc @thesecretmaster

Cascabel

I don't know, but I don't know if it's realistic to review 70% of comments (plus however many were actually deleted by the time of the data dump).

at that point you might as well just put them all in

sphennings

Can you turn off the new regex? It's going to catch far too much.

Mithrandir

Yeah, I just removed it.

sphennings

If we wanted that much noise we could lurk in the closet.

Thanks :)

Em C

9:42 PM

@Mithrandir also - if you can, it should probably exclude OP comments from getting triggered, since OP responding to clarification is ok (obviously should be an edit and then deleted, but allowable)

Mithrandir

@EmC problem is that they could get excluded from offensive checks, etc

Cascabel

I think it might be worth a step back to look at your goals and what you can accomplish with chat review.

Em C

@Mithrandir oh I was just referring to the no-question-mark regex

Mithrandir

AFAIK they're all treated the same in the code; the regex is modifiable directly from chat.

@Cascabel that's a good idea

Rainbacon

The sort of changes I was thinking of would be to the code itself. I don't know how feasible they'd be since I don't know what the code looks like.

Mithrandir

9:49 PM

@Rainbacon github.com/thesecretmaster/ips-comment-bot

Em C

@IPSCommentBot lol, the irony...

Rainbacon

Certainly looks interesting. Does it store all comments in the db or just the ones that trigger the regexes?

Mithrandir

@EmC indeed

@Rainbacon all of 'em

Rainbacon

That would make looking for troublesome patterns a bit more difficult

Mithrandir

@Cascabel I'm pretty sure my goal here is to detect bad comments and bring them to users' attention so that they can attract flags and delete themselves.

...might be time for obsolete to go away

Cascabel

10:02 PM

@Mithrandir so then I think more detail: in the current setup, how many comments can users here reasonably review? does that cover the number you want to review? if not, can you improve precision/recall? can you structure review differently?

apaul

Someone mentioned a comment repository somewhere in chat the other day, anyone know where?

I feel a meta post coming on and I'd prefer to be as accurate as possible.

Cascabel

10:18 PM

Deleted comments should be regarded as gone for the purposes of non-moderators.

Mods aren't infallible, but in general, if they didn't migrate them to chat then they're not supposed to be visible anymore.

apaul

Mhmm so quietly sweeping it under the rug hours later is what we're ok with...

Cascabel

So, to be clear, I'm not an IPS mod, this is just generally how SE works.

I can see bypassing that in certain situations, like comments that would be exceptionally helpful for clarifying site policies (though usually fake examples suffice) but you'd have to ask the mods if they're okay with giving out the information in a specific case. The fact that you care about accuracy suggests that this is about rehashing a specific situation, for which the process is generally to let the mods look in private, rather than to turn something public.

In any case, the point is that if you have good reason, you should probably be asking the mods rather than trying to work around the system here.

apaul

@Cascabel More about shedding some light on a site culture problem. I've been saying that we have a culture problem for a while now, and some of those comments were good examples of it.

Cascabel

I see. I think I've still covered that, though, it's really strongly preferable to try to work with mods.

apaul

@HDE226868 would it be possible to get the text of those deleted comments? Not looking to name and shame, more trying to shed some light on the often... not great experience of being a vocal minority on the site.

Cascabel

10:31 PM

Also, if the comments are deleted, then the site is at least partially addressing the issue, and mods have all seen at least some of the comments. You might want to think about what you're asking to do about it.

Speaking as a mod elsewhere, if there were awful comments, and I've already deleted them, generally the last thing I want to do is give them more visibility, even in the form of "let's all talk about how ugly this was".

apaul

@Cascabel Mostly just trying to get through to people that these things really do happen here. It's not imagined or exaggerated.

Cascabel

Okay, sure, I believe that people say bad things. This is the internet, and there are controversial topics. What are we gonna do about it?

apaul

And to some extent that it's amazingly irritating to see surrounding comments disappear while some of the worst ones hang around for hours or days.

Extroverted Main Man

0

Q: Is yelling or raising one's voice actually "disrespectful"?

Is yelling or raising one's voice actually "disrespectful"? From my personal observations, it to be, it seems to be a subconscious means to indirectly say, "I NEEEEEEEEEEED you to listen! " when we feel that we are not being actually listened to. If this is the case and it the yelling itself is n...

conversations conventionality respect

apaul

@Cascabel Acknowledge that it's really a problem? Seems like a good starting point.

Cascabel

10:37 PM

I don't think that mods or the overall views of the folks on the site would ever say there are no problems with ugly things being said.

I mean, someone's even dumping comments into chat to try to review them and get them deleted faster if necessary.

apaul

@Cascabel It's basically more evidence of this: interpersonal.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2711/59

sphennings

@apaul is there a specific type of toxicity you want to bring attention to or are you just wanting to talk about the general toxicity of the site, especially around questions regarding minorities.

apaul

Figured that it was about time that we dealt with it.

@sphennings especially around questions regarding minorities.

Cascabel

So if you just want to solicit suggestions about how to deal with it, you can do so without real examples. Just say, people say nasty things sometimes, often regarding minorities. What can we do?

sphennings

Just ask mods for the number of deleted comments on a post.

You don't need specifics.

apaul

10:44 PM

@Cascabel Eh... People on this site are exceptionally hung up on specific examples. Also... Without having seen it first hand people like to pretend that it doesn't actually happen, or that it's always handled promptly and appropriately.

Cascabel

I guess it depends on the exact claims you want to make, but the claim that there are a lot of bad comments that get deleted seems pretty obvious.

sphennings

In this case I think specific examples runs the risk of sidetracking the post into the specifics of those comments rather than addressing the larger problem.

Cascabel

a thousand times yes

apaul

Hmm... But the content of the comments is kinda the point.

Rainbacon

@sphennings I think even without specific examples there is risk of the post getting sidetracked.

apaul

10:48 PM

It'd be pretty easy for people to say "yes and the comments were removed, what's the problem here?"

sphennings

Mods can easily get you numbers about how many comments that they deleted on those posts. That's a good metric for the toxicity of a question without getting sidetracked.

Because they never should have been posted in the first place.

Cascabel

@Rainbacon yeah, and it gets so much worse if there's specifics to debate.

apaul

@sphennings But the problem was solved. The system is obviously working as intended. /s

Cascabel

@apaul This is true with or without the text of the comments.

sphennings

When a mass of comments is deleted an incident is solved. The problem you are talking about is how this is a pattern on the site.

Cascabel

10:52 PM

If you want to talk about the harm done, and what can be done further to address/prevent it, I think that's a really good discussion to have - but it doesn't need the shock value of specific ugly comments to base it on.

apaul

@Cascabel It's harder for people to claim that this isn't a symptom of a culture problem when it isn't just numbers... People don't emotionally connect when they don't have to see how truly hateful things get.

sphennings

@apaul We don't want another emotionally charged meta exchange.

Rainbacon

@Cascabel apaul has posted answers on both main and meta that have attracted a lot of deletable content recently. With these being issues where people tend to have strong emotional reactions it is likely that people will add in the context from those posts. When he posts another meta about this issue, whether it includes specifics or not, there will be some bad behavior.

apaul

@Rainbacon Yes I have.

Rainbacon

@apaul That was not intended to call you out as a problem, only to illustrate that people may rehash some of the problematic conversations that occurred on your other posts (just want to make that clear)

apaul

10:58 PM

@Rainbacon Oh, no, on a few of those I was very deliberately causing problems.

Rainbacon

@apaul I'm aware of that, but I hadn't intended to point it out for purposes of this particular conversation

apaul

@Rainbacon ;)

@Catija could I possibly get a count of deleted comments?

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