The Awkward Silence

TheTinyMan

00:21

Yay! It's Dutch National Compliments Day! @Tinkeringbell, this is such a great tradition you've introduced us all to!

Anilla

00:43

Oooo birthday party. Happy birthday (whenever the actual day is) @TheTinyMan :)

TheTinyMan

@Anilla Thank you! :-D It's Saturday. Very convenient for party-planning this year!

Anilla

@TheTinyMan Ooooo looks like the celestial bodies aligned perfectly this year :P What type of dessert did ya choose?

TheTinyMan

@Anilla Oh, I should get one of those

hm

haven't thought very far ahead really :-P

Anilla

@TheTinyMan Haha. That's me. What's your personal favorites?

TheTinyMan

@Anilla Cookie cake! :-D

Anilla

00:48

@TheTinyMan Yummy :) I used to love keylime pie. I've been having a particular taste for red velvet cake lately though hehe

TheTinyMan

@Anilla Ooohhh, I loooove red velvet. And anything that even remotely resembles chocolate. xD

Anilla

@TheTinyMan It's the best :) I LOVE chocolate... dark is my favorite.

TheTinyMan

Yesssss. I'm also a huge fan of chocolate-covered fruits! But basically more chocolate = more favorite treats for me! xD

user15026

I have 6 lbs of cookie dough in my office, i could make a pretty good cookie cake.

TheTinyMan

ooohhhhh! You should make me a cake and bring it to my party! :D

user15026

00:58

(A co-worker's kid had a school fundraiser and it was various kinds of cookie dough)

user15026

(So I splurged a little)

TheTinyMan

Although raw cookie dough sounds niiiiice!

user15026

@TheTinyMan Something tells me that we're not very close in geographical area, and I am not sure a cookie cake fits through the internet... :(

TheTinyMan

We are in fact not if I recall. :( You're super cool and should be theeeere! xD

Anilla

@TheTinyMan is your .NET able to serialize cookie dough into a byte stream? :P

TheTinyMan

01:01

Cookies, maybe! xD

But not when it's still dough!

Anilla

Argh! Maybe in the next version hehe

TheTinyMan

Maybe! xD

Anilla

I want chocolate covered strawberries now... thanks a lot lol

Journeyman Geek

0_0

TheTinyMan

Insert picture of Maui from Moana here? xD You're well-come!

Journeyman Geek

01:09

I want chocolate now, but I have a elderly terrier on my foot

TheTinyMan

How debilitating!

Anilla

You better have a chocolate fountain at your birthday party now. XD

TheTinyMan

Haha, maybe I can borrow my ex wife's from our wedding!

Anilla

@TheTinyMan Oh my lol. Are you on good terms with them?

TheTinyMan

I am in fact :)

Anilla

01:17

Ahhh, that's really cool then :)

Extroverted Main Man

03:37

0

Q: Does including a reason when making an assertive request make it more effective?

I need to make an assertive request to my neighbours about making noise outside my bedroom early in the morning. I am ill at the moment, and being woken up early is more than just an annoyance, it is worsening my condition. Will it help if I say that I am ill? I am remembering some social scien...

Extroverted Main Man

04:33

0

Q: How can I ask someone in a quiet library to stop clearing their throat?

I have ADHD and as such have terrible difficulty maintaining my concentration, especially when working on homework. Because of this, I often like to work on the "quiet floor" of my university's library. This floor is basically supposed to be silent, though there is no authority to enforce this. ...

united-states strangers public-issues approach

Tinkeringbell

07:35

@TheTinyMan You need to send out those invites earlier if you ever want me to come :P I can't arrange for travelling docs in those short amounts of time! :P

Mithrandir

07:48

→ 7 messages moved to Trash

avazula

@Mithrandir Nooo I was about to do it!

:p

Mithrandir

;)

avazula

08:06

Hi @Alex, I'm wondering which link are you referring to in the second bullet of my latest meta post?

Alex

@avazula You wrote: For instance, here is one of my latest questions on which I'm challenging the site functioning. But you didn't include a link to "here". You might have meant one of these:

5

Q: Should we invite hurting users to come discuss it in chat?

Trigger warning: depression, suicide, anxiety What brings me to ask this question today is because I recently created a Stack Exchange proposal which scope may partially overlap the IPS scope. One of the proposal's followers raised that concern and I was dazzled by that answer to the question:...

discussion scope questions

2

Q: Should we consider reducing the speed at which we close off-topic questions for new contributors?

Sometimes an off-topic question is asked by a new contributor who doesn't understand well our site requirements yet, or simply didn't take/have the time to read our guidelines for asking a good question. Such question may get closed very quickly, sometimes without a comment left for explaining wh...

discussion vote-to-close new-users

avazula

08:42

@Alex oh, that must be a mistake. I'll fix this. Thanks

Alex

@avazula You're welcome.

avazula

fixed: )

Alex

Great.

Ælis

09:49

Did anyone saw my motivation? It's not even 11am and I can't find it...

Tinkeringbell

@Ælis Mine is gone too. My SO watch would arrive 'by end of day' and it just arrived, so my day and motivation are over :P

Ælis

@Tinkeringbell Oh, can I ask for a picture of the watch? In any case, that's always nice to receive gifts from the post office. Sometimes I'm even tempted to buy myself something online just to have that feeling when the package arrive :p

Tinkeringbell

in Tavern on the Meta on Meta Stack Exchange Chat, 9 mins ago, by Tinkeringbell

Ælis

@Tinkeringbell Oh, that's a huge but very nice one!

Tinkeringbell

@Ælis Hahaha. Yeah, getting gifts in the mail is cool :) I'm a bit used to ordering online, so a package arriving in itself isn't that special anymore ;)

A J

09:55

@Tinkeringbell Can you give a front shot of the watch?

Tinkeringbell

Like that?

Ælis

@Tinkeringbell I honestly can't imagine getting used to it. I love unpacking stuff too much :p

A J

@Tinkeringbell Thank you. Looks good!

Tinkeringbell

Yeah, it looks really cool. :)

A J

You didn't take the plastic off?

Tinkeringbell

09:59

Not yet ;)

A J

I am wondering when mine would arrive. It's landed in the country today.

But still telling me that it won't arrive before 4th.

Tinkeringbell

Perhaps because there's a weekend in between

A J

@Tinkeringbell Did you have to pay import duty?

Tinkeringbell

Nope. Just sign :)

A J

@Tinkeringbell maybe.

@Tinkeringbell lol

ok

Ælis

10:48

Oh dear, I had forgotten how not nice it was to work with the not-so-nice coworker. Too bad I don't know of any polite way to ask him "when will you be out of the project again? It's just to know how much longer I will have to support you"...

avazula

@Ælis he's not gone yet ? :(

Ælis

@avazula If only... I wish I could found back errors instead of front ones, this way I wouldn't have to deal with him that often...

A J

@Ælis Ask like "how long you're gonna be on this project?"

avazula

@Ælis Do you remember how to say (in French or English, doesn't matter) that you're overly critique towards yourself?

@Ælis :(

Ælis

@AJ Why the "anyway"?

A J

10:51

anyway.

The most comfortable chair. :P

Ælis

@avazula You just said it in English, are you looking for something one-word instead of several ones?

@AJ Oo What is this suppose to be???

avazula

@Ælis I found "self-critical" online, I thought there was a French equivalent but I can't figure out what it might be

A J

@Ælis a chair? ;)

avazula

@Ælis I think it's glass...

Ælis

@avazula "autocritique"?

A J

10:54

with glass shards.

avazula

@Ælis maybe ...

Ælis

@AJ Oh, what a nice gift... :p

A J

hehe

A J

11:15

avazula

@AJ syntax?

A J

Correct!

Extroverted Main Man

11:30

1

Q: How to invite my band-members/coworkers to give me feedback on my performance?

I recently joined a music band that's composed of four colleagues with who I don't work (different projects & teams), but I know them well since we have lunch and banter next to the watercooler together. However, the four of them do work together. I'm the singer, I'm new to this role (I normally...

conflict-aversion coworkers self-esteem feedback-methods

0

Q: What can I do to improve my current marriage situation?

Since our son was born (almost a year ago) my wife isn't the same anymore - she is often angry at me and keeps blaming me for all kind of stuff. This has to stop - I can't take it any more. During this last year I informed myself a lot and tried different approaces to improve the overall mood. I...

relationships marriage

Tinkeringbell

13:05

It's a really, really quiet 'complimentendag'! :P

Mithrandir

It's Friday, aka busyday

Tinkeringbell

Fridays are usually slowest here ;)

Mithrandir

busyirlday

Tinkeringbell

Yeah, slowirlday here :P

Is it busy because of Shabbat preparations?

Mithrandir

Yes... and other, sadder reasons

Tinkeringbell

13:20

:( Sorry for poking :(

Mithrandir

:|

Tinkeringbell

Or would you rather I'd ask you to elaborate? :P

Mithrandir

...some friends of ours were in a fatal car crash yesterday... their 5-year-old son was killed. The parents and 3-year-old are in the hospital now. Their 7-year-old was at home and all she knows is that there was an accident.

Tinkeringbell

Oh dear. That doesn't sound good at all :( Are the people in the hospital likely to make it through?

Mithrandir

They should. Middle to hard condition but on the mend.

Tinkeringbell

13:33

Okay. That's at least a small comfort for the 7 year old, I hope :/

Crosscounter

14:03

2

Rainbacon

14:22

@Mithrandir Sorry to hear that

@Tinkeringbell You are doing a great job as a mod here. I had very high hopes when you were appointed, and you've more than exceeded my expectations!

Tinkeringbell

Aww. Thanks :)

Ælis

@Tinkeringbell When I first started coming here, I really liked the fact that you always took the time to explain to me the different rules and aspect of IPS and SE as a whole. And you are still doing it, even though I have less questions now ^^

Tinkeringbell

Hahaha Thanks too. Just to be clear: I wasn't fishing for compliments :P people were so excited yesterday evening and then it just became.. silent :P

Alex

Silent compliments.

Ælis

@Rainbacon I really like your presence in chat and how you are involved in the community moderation. Also, did you notice that my SE rep score is now a very round 8100? :p

Rainbacon

14:29

@Tinkeringbell I was planning on dropping some compliments anyway. Just happened to come across your message as I read the transcript.

Ælis

@Alex That was a nice data analyse you made on that meta post!

Alex

@Ælis Thanks.

Ælis

I will now let people signal their presence in chat before giving them compliment.

Rainbacon

@Ælis Aww, thanks! I appreciate how hard you work to clean up old posts. You're doing a great job. (I also really like that you point out interesting rep numbers)

Ælis

:D

@avazula Are you there? It's the Dutch national compliment day and I really want to give one to you (but I told people that I will wait for them to talk in chat first) :D

Tinkeringbell

14:44

@Alex Yeah, that's a really good answer in general :)

Rainbacon

Should I vtc a question that I flagged as spam?

Tinkeringbell

@Rainbacon No, just spam is good.

Rainbacon

How many spam flags does it take to auto-delete a question?

Tinkeringbell

6

I think it can be less on some sites.

Yeah, ELU and TWP require only three: meta.stackexchange.com/a/58035/369802

Rainbacon

Interesting

Do you happen to know the reason those two sites require less?

Tinkeringbell

14:54

I don't.... Yet :P

Rainbacon

Well, I have to go do my scrum meeting. Let me know if you find anything!

Tinkeringbell

Poked an ELU mod, just a sec ;)

Mithrandir

They used to get absolutely flooded with spam, it was lowered to let them delete it faster

Alex

@Tinkeringbell Thanks.

Ælis

@Mithrandir And they don't get flooded anymore?

Mithrandir

15:04

It's... less of an issue now. I heard they mean to put it back eventually, but it's... not high priority.

Ælis

Also, time to give @Mithrandir a compliment! There is a lot I could compliment you about, but today I will keep it to the comment bot. I must say that I really appreciate have you contribute to it and help the community this way.

Mithrandir

^.^

And you, @Ælis, go above and beyond in your efforts towards helping keep the site clean.

Ælis

:D

I must say, I was inspired to do so by some many people here and one of those people was you, @Mithrandir :D

Mithrandir

:D

avazula

@Ælis I was in a meeting but now I'm here!

Rainbacon

15:20

Hi @avazula! I haven't interacted with you much on the site, but I've really enjoyed interacting with you in chat. You help make this place a very pleasant one!

Matt E. Эллен

@Rainbacon hello! EL&U was inundated with spam, too much for the community to handle efficiently, I think it was love guru and exercise spam, not that the type changes anything. The community managers (people the mods run too when we can't take it any more) lowered the spam flag cap and increased the effect that destroying a user has on the spam filter and eventually the torrent turned back into the usual dribble.

Ælis

@avazula You make my world, and I believe other people world, shine a little brighter with your only presence. You are so kind and I really love how you care about people and things. I love how you educate yourself on sensitive subjects in order to avoid hurting anyone. I'm also admirative of the patience you have to help users on IPS. You are a wonderful person and I wish you all the love in the world <3

3

Rainbacon

@MattE.Эллен Thanks for the insight! I wonder what it was that attracted so much spam to EL&U specifically

Matt E. Эллен

probably a bit unlucky. any similarly sized stack could have been targeted.

JAD

15:37

oh boy, just found out that Dream Theater released a new album

time for a listen

avazula

@Rainbacon aww, thank you! I enjoy chatting with you too!

@Ælis don't ... don't make me cry :p

Rainbacon

Is the minimum bounty you can give on someone else's post higher than on your own post?

JAD

@Rainbacon I think it depends on whether you already answered there

but I'm not sure about that

avazula

darn it, I just came out of a meeting and need to attend a third one ... compliments will rain a bit later, sorry about that guys. BBL!

Tinkeringbell

@JAD Yep!

> For most questions, 50 reputation. There are some exceptions, though:

If you have already answered the question before, the minimum bounty offer is 100.
If you have already offered a bounty on the question before, the minimum offer is double your last offer (see below).

JAD

15:45

\o/

Rainbacon

Ah, I see

Guess I'll be spending 100 rep for the altruist badge

Wish I could link to the badge page with a markdown shortcut

I figured the best compliment I could give today would be to put up a bounty on an extraordinary answer posted by @TheTinyMan

Ælis

@avazula Maybe I should have wait for you to be home. Sorry if I made things difficult for you at work ^^'

avazula

@Ælis No no don't worry, it's just that I have an very busy day :p

@Rainbacon you're a very nice person. It's nice talking to you. Thank you for being in here.

Ælis

@Rainbacon Oh, that's a nice gesture indeed!

@avazula Good luck for the rest of your day then <3

avazula

@Ælis ... what to say ... I'm so glad we got to meet each other through that room. You made me realize so many things about myself and the world. I'm a better person because of you. And well, you're amazing, so, thank you <3

TheTinyMan

15:55

@Rainbacon Eh? A bounty?

avazula

@Tinkeringbell you're just ... perfect. I love you.

TheTinyMan

crept in here wanting to give a bunch of compliments but doesn't have the brainpower because of work fires

avazula

@TheTinyMan there's my favorite pirate! Thanks for being funny, even when we don't feel like it.

TheTinyMan

Yarrr, glad I could make ye smile!

Rainbacon

@TheTinyMan Yep, I put a 100 rep bounty on your answer about polyamory. I thought it was a really well written post with a lot of great information

@avazula that's very kind of you to say. Thank you!

avazula

15:57

I could write a compliment for everyone but the main idea is this

I love you. All of you. Thanks for being here.

4

TheTinyMan

@Rainbacon I thought bounties were usually for before an answer is written! I think I need to read up on how they work more... :-P

avazula

Yeah, even you, @Pseudohuman

Pseudohuman

@avazula I do not understand.

avazula

Of course you don't. Still, I love you.

Rainbacon

@TheTinyMan One of the bounty reasons is to reward an existing answer for being exemplary

Ælis

16:00

@TheTinyMan Good luck with your work fires! Also, thank you for having the courage to talk about polyamory and polyamorous relationships

TheTinyMan

@Rainbacon That makes sense! :-)

@Ælis blush Y'aaaaalllll!

avazula

I want a link! :D

Ælis

36

A: Asking my friend out even though I have a girlfriend

I've been in polyamorous relationships for some time now, so I speak from a bit of experience here. The first question to ask yourself before you even decide if this is a path you can take: You mention that your girlfriend believes that sexual relationships and emotional relationships can be dis...

avazula

thank youuuuu

Tinkeringbell

Well, if we're doing bounties... :P I'm going to look too ;)

Rainbacon

16:22

@Ælis I just saw your comment on the improving my marriage question. You might want to add a bit more context to comments like that. Just asking people not to chat in comments in all bold comes off sounding a bit harsh.

I believe that Mith uses a nice comment template

Ælis

@Rainbacon You lost me here for a second, I though you had post a question about your marriage (!) and that I had left a comment there some hours ago that you had just saw ^^' But yeah, I admit that I could (and probably should) have been more tactfull (even though it seem to have worked). Also, your link doesn't seem to cover the "don't chat in comment" situation ^^

scohe001

@Rainbacon we had a problem with comment templates at one point, so we've been trying to avoid them

14

Q: Is it time to cut the canned comments?

There was a time when we'd get floods of answers from users unfamiliar with our site policy. Unable to spend a significant amount of time and effort on each of these posts, many of the IPS users began using canned comments1. These comments do their job. They tell the user in question what's wron...

discussion comments

ElizB

I consider the comments good guidelines

but I don't use them directly, they just give me an idea of what could be said in a tactful way

scohe001

I like that^

Rainbacon

@Ælis The second comment there talks about answering in comments. Shouldn't be too hard to adapt it

ElizB

16:32

Yeah, I gave one idea, and Arwen gave her version as well. so plenty of ideas to draw from

however this is not really answering in comments, it was chatting in comments

the way I think of it is that if you criticize something, it is always a good idea to provide a solution

Ælis

@ElizB I guess I should have invite them to talk in chat instead (but time to go for me, see you later people :) )

ElizB

@Ælis that's one idea I would suggest :) okay see you later have a good day!

ElizB

17:26

Aaaaaaaa :D I just got asked to do another presentation for training medical providers to learn how to interact with people with disabilities better :D it's 15 minutes but I DONT CARE I LOVE DOING THIS :D

user15026

@ElizB OMG that's awesome I am super excited for you

ElizB

17:48

I'm glowing haha I told my mentor who asked me I'd be thrilled lol

user15026

Yay! :D

Rainbacon

18:34

@ElizB Very exciting! Congrats!

ElizB

18:56

@Rainbacon thanks! it was unexpected. I was expecting to only give that presentation the first three times and be done with it but now they want a 15 minute version of it :P

Rainbacon

19:18

Is there a page somewhere that shows bounty posts across the network?

Alex

19:56

2

Q: How to search for all questions with bounties across the network?

I wanted to search for questions on all SE sites that had a bounty. I am not sure if it is possible, and if it is how can I? I have seen other questions that show how to find questions on each individual site, but how can I find all of them in one search from the homepage stackexchange.com? If ...

feature-request support search bounty

Run the code snippet in the top answer.

Rainbacon

@Alex That's a useful thing to know, though I was curious if there was a UI for this somewhere within SE given the fact that I posted a bounty and immediately two new users popped up with answers to the bountied question.

Alex

@Rainbacon They may have simply seen it on the site.

TheTinyMan

Oof. Work fires are officially out!

Tinkeringbell

@TheTinyMan Well done!

TheTinyMan

@Tinkeringbell Haha, well my boss is who figured the second fire out, not me. But I made it through at least! :-D

ElizB

20:10

@TheTinyMan Good job!

Anilla

I'm rather unsure about questions like the one above. Leasing and other legal arrangements usually encourage answers that involve some sort of advise that can't always be verified.

Upper_Case

Isn't that the typical case for an IPS question?

Anilla

@Upper_Case Yeah, I suppose speaking generically. But for those specific archetypes I see lot's of answers focusing more on legal advise than an actual IPS skill.

Upper_Case

@Anilla True, but the legal questions only arise because of the confrontational approach the OP favors

Wait, I take that back

The OP is relying on legal protections in order to execute his chosen approach, and then looking for interpersonal skills to help that approach succeed.

But the legal situation the OP assumes clearly doesn't exist (and it doesn't take a lawyer to determine it, as many people have direct experience with leases and renting)

I almost think that some askers here are specifically refusing to consider or apply interpersonal skills

Anilla

@Upper_Case That makes sense. I guess it's just a bit shaky to me since it's open to challenging a legal situation within the answer. Maybe each situation is different and it doesn't matter though.

Upper_Case

20:29

@Anilla I do think that there is a legal question there (about whether or not the OP can simply not pay the rent charged without having to leave the house), and that it's embedded deep in the question

Anilla

@Upper_Case Like for leasing specifically, it often seems that there's just defined colloquial etiquette for handling known agreements. Meaning it boils down to understanding how to handle these arrangements typically and less about interpersonal skills themselves.

Upper_Case

@Anilla I do think that that is the operative part of this particular question. It's hard to see interpersonal skills leading to the OP getting a special, reduced rent rate in any event

Though that entire housing situation seems messy, from other questions. Better IPS would probably have helped at all points, and still might, even when they don't quite touch on specific questions

thesecretmaster

22:28

@El'endiaStarman Just about to merge this change in :)

El'endia Starman

:D

Introverted Meta Man.

1

Q: Are We Striking a Good Balance Between Accomodating Askers and Accomodating Answerers?

We've had a few meta posts asking about how we treat questions and the users who ask them here, and those are good and valuable. But I feel that we might have an imbalance with our concern for those versus our concern for answers and the users that post them. I have in mind this question, though...

discussion answers

Extroverted Main Man

23:03

1

Q: Informing friend their girlfriend might be pregnant

Background I have a friend (male; whom I'll call Hamlet) that I've known for quite awhile through school. He also has a girlfriend (which I'll call Ophelia) that he's been dating for over 3 years. I've known Ophelia for as long as they've been dating and have come to not like her at all. There ...

conversations friends

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