The Awkward Silence

5:02 AM

@scohe001 enjoy your holiday!

5:13 AM

Morning!

6:11 AM

o/

Pseudohuman

\o

Morning everyone!

6:41 AM

Morning! :)

Afternoon!

6:58 AM

aloha

@scohe001 That's from South Park

@JAD wanderwell

@AJ and after all.....

you're my wanderwell

> If I spend a day in a well, can we say that my day was well spent? :P

@AJ or well-spent?

yeah

7:06 AM

but I wouldn't say it was spent goodly

yep

...as of Sunday, 24,701 out of 30,687 comments contained the word "the". That means there were just under 6,000 comments that did not contain the word "the".

@Mithrandir +1 Thanks!

*puts @AJ to work*

??

got ya

grabs the hammer and put it on @Mithrandir's head

7:16 AM

*lifts it because I'm worthy*

Not here. ;P

*waves hand* Technicalities.

Q: Feeling jeleous with best friend

7:55 AM

0

My best friend is 9 years older than me. She has alot of experience. She is kind and caring. She is our class representative in medical university. she is married and this makes people be comfortable with her. Specially boys. Everybody likes her and feel respected for her. She is a good leader an...

friends

Magisch

@Ælis In your nomination, you write If you don't like the moderating still I'm currently using I think you mean "style" instead of "still"

didn't want to clutter the comments with that

8:36 AM

@ExtrovertedMainMan off topic, intrapersonal

@Magisch Thanks, I fixed it :)

Wow, someone has been busy flagging answers recently! It has been a long time since I had to review that many answers in a row

hmm

8:54 AM

This might need more details as backup if someone wants to leave a comment: interpersonal.stackexchange.com/questions/22002/…

Q: How to detect if I'm gaslighting?

9:14 AM

0

I don't know if I can elaborate this further than what is in the title. I'm a person with a particular visible disability. I don't know if this factor matters, but I guess this might add some background to the question. I'm a recognized engineer in a world class company. I have a wide circle of f...

friends

@ExtrovertedMainMan That's an interesting question, but I'm really not sure we can answer that :/

The good news is, there is a lot of article about gaslighting, so OP won't have too much trouble finding an answer even if their question is closed

10:58 AM

@Ælis Yep, that one could probably use more details :) Comments there are good!

isn't it intrapersonal?

aside from the point that what OP describes sounds nothing like gaslighting

I dunno, gaslighting is something between two people... I wouldn't call it an Interpersonal Skill though...

It's like Ælis said, it's not really answerable until OP shows that a.) they understand what gaslighting is and b.) describes their own behaviour more closely, like comments ask them to do.

@Tinkeringbell Car accidents also involve at least two people.

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ So they're not intrapersonal unless you hit a tree!

Till now, that is. You never know what Musk comes up with tomorrow.

11:03 AM

I would never trust a car.

@Tinkeringbell That's interspecies, probably more complicated

I don't even trust myself with a car.

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ As long as cultural context is provided, should be fine :P

I think trees take offense to being hit.

Just an educated guess.

@Tinkeringbell how to detect if you're doing something is entirely something you do on your own though

@Rain I confirmed with snailboat that the two variations are perfectly acceptable and neither is superior to another.

11:08 AM

If this were a more general "What is gaslighting?", then fine. Given that gaslighting is malicious in nature, I think it's kinda tricky to do it by accident, so the first question is moot, or only answerable by stating the definition.

It'd be a skill in the sense that robbing a place without leaving fingerprints etc. is a skill.

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Made me consider the following: Is entirely avoiding intra personal interactions (to an extreme, not even leaving prints) an intrapersonal skill?

I was actually considering answering this question, starting with the definition of gaslighting and explaining how it's not applicable to his behaviour, but could be to his friend abusing their partner.... (but wasn't able to word it decently yet).
So is it really not answerable?

Looking at it the same way as questions about etiquette: If someone read something about a certain etiquette rule and now asks if he broke it in a somewhat vague situation then it's true that more details could be useful, but a perfectly valid answer just explains how that etiquette should be followed (or ignored). Or am I seeing this wrong?

11:27 AM

@Imus Well, the question is pretty clear: They want to detect when they're gaslighting. They're not really asking what gaslighting is or how it should be done (or not). It's slightly different to me...

Though I must admit I wrote a similar answer once on a specific theory

@Tinkeringbell detecting that they're gaslighting is something you do for yourself -> intrapersonal

and you can't really answer that without mentioning what gaslighting is to begin with

True, though intrapersonal is more used for emotions:

> relating to or within a person's mind:

Intrapersonal intelligence is the ability to understand oneself and one's emotions.

@Imus the part about his friend is rather vague. The abuse could be anything.

@Tinkeringbell fair enough. My first impression from the question is that OP is wrong in his definition for gaslighting. So then the question becomes, do you answer the question as is, and be completely useless to the OP, or do you interpret the underlying question, and provide an answer the OP can use?

Q: How can I improve my selfsteem

0

Well I think lack of selfsteem makes me feel jeleous of the people around me... even my best friend I really need to give myself the love I give others. Any advice?

self-esteem

@JAD I think in this case, the comment underneath the question is the right way to go: Ask what OP understands about gaslighting

Because that's not really clear in the question.

11:34 AM

ergo, close for unclear.

@Imus here's the Q&A pair I was thinking of: interpersonal.stackexchange.com/q/12149/1599. But at least, there OP showed what they thought about the Social Penetration Theory, how they understood it.

@JAD I think so, yes.

Put on hold as unclear. Sorry Imus, your answer shall have to wait a bit, until OP clarifies their understanding of the term gaslighting.

But if they do, the approach you were thinking of taking for an answer could turn out quite well :)

11:54 AM

I already deleted my failed attempt of an answer anyway :p

I may or may not answer it when/if they edit the question

12:39 PM

The conversation about the gaslighting question got me thinking. It seems like there is agreement that the question would be good and on topic if the OP explains what their understanding of gaslighting is and also what they've done that they think may be gaslighting.

On the other hand, the help center specifically refers to questions that ask us to adjudicate “right” and “wrong” in a situation or whether something is rude/racist/sexist/[insert other discriminatory terms].

To me, these two sound quite similar

"Is this rude" vs "Am I gaslighting my friend"

It seems that the key difference may be that the gaslighting question is specifically asking about the OPs own behavior

That's true. And the gaslighting might fall under that a bit too if phrased like that. But this is specifically about detecting if you're gaslighting, and I think that may work a bit better than 'Am I gaslighting'. It could be steered toward 'Did I understand gaslighting correctly', like the Social Penetration Theory question.

And yeah, the part that's it's specifically asking about own behaviour helps a lot too

The same portion of the help center mentions "Focus your question on resolving your issue, rather than whether there is an issue or not."

@Tinkeringbell which in turn can be reprased into: "what is gaslighting?"

and there you have a slippery slope to a good question :)

Which makes me think it would be better suited to being a research question about what gaslighting is

@Rainbacon To me your comparison doesn't stand. It's like comparing "Is this rude" vs "Am I currently clapping my hands". "Is this rude" isn't about fact, the other question however is

12:43 PM

@JAD True, but that would be a bad question again I think... If the SPT question had just asked 'what is SPT' , it might've been closed...

@Tinkeringbell why? It sounds on-topic. It even sounds objective :O

@Rainbacon Maybe, but I don't know if we're here to just give definitions to words like gaslighting (it's not even really an Interpersonal Skill...)

@JAD I'm not too fond of questions that basically ask 'give me a definition of this word'.

@Tinkeringbell It is a term in communication, so I'd say it is.

@JAD We're Interpersonal Skills though, not 'communication terminology' :P

@Tinkeringbell but then your "did I understand correctly" is just a indirect way of asking for the definition

12:46 PM

interpersonal.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2347/1599 < One I wrote about Pickup not really being an Interpersonal Skill either ;)

@Ælis I see where you are coming from in that rudeness is not a specific behavior, but rather a meta classification of a set of behaviors. But I don't think that invalidates the comparison. Both questions boil down to "Here is a behavior I have seen/done, is it insert bad thing here>

Maybe this one needs a meta question...?

@Tinkeringbell It's certainly not a skill one would use to interact nicely with others

@Rainbacon nope. I'm not even sure you can do it by accident

@JAD Probably not, though I've definitely seen some people accused of such

12:55 PM

So, we can basically do two things:

1.) Wait if OP makes the effort of adding what they understand as gaslighting, and a bit more details about what they did that makes them think they were gaslighting, then see if it can be turned into something similar as the SPT question, or maybe even something similar as my street vendor question....

2.) Start a whole meta debate now ;-)

I'm not sure of what you expect to accomplish with a meta debate?

the only benefit I see of a meta debate is to pre-empt the edit

@Ælis :P Well, chat is quite busy discussing this particular question, and often such things are better moved to meta at some point, so other people than just chat regulars can have a little say too ;)

@Tinkeringbell It's not really formulated as an entire question here either. It's just some thoughts on the topic to see if we're all on the same page

If you're bored, feel free to turn it into a meta question, but I don't really see a complete one here yet :)

Hum, I guess I see your point (even though people who aren't chat regulars can write the meta themselves), but don't count on me to write said meta (partially because I wouldn't know what to say)

@Imus That

1:06 PM

I see the gaslighting question more like an "I recently heard about cursing. I believe I curse a lot but can't tell myself, how can I recognise that/when I'm cursing?"

Hehehe I don't think I won't turn it into one either, because I favor point 1: Wait until OP adds more information, then decide how to turn it into something on topic.

Yeah, also, how many non-chat regulars are there perusing meta?

@Rainbacon I think there's a few ;)

similar reasoning can be applied: ask me what I believe is "cursing", what I have done (only I don't really know since I don't recognise it as cursing myself)

@Rainbacon Upper_case, OldPadawan and some other I would say

1:08 PM

@Rainbacon To argue in Tinks favor of meta question: The better question is: how many people here would read back the entire chat that they missed while asleep/off for a day/...

@Imus interpersonal.stackexchange.com/q/3223/1599 < Basically 'Someone told me what I did might've been rude, how can I do better?'

@Imus I do ^^'

@Ælis and I'm sure some others do as well, but I doubt it's half of our active userbase :p

@Imus I do, although recently y'all have been making it harder and harder for me to do

@Rainbacon To much chattiness? I will admit, I don't read everything @M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ says :p

1:10 PM

@Ælis Something like that

I think yesterday all of you managed to create 4 pages of transcript :P

That was one of the most chatty days I've seen in a loooong time!

Yeah, yesterday was really crazy

I was trying to read the transcript on my phone during my commute, it just kept going

@Tinkeringbell the silence in between must 've been too awkward ...

If there was any, sure! :P

Sid

"How do I ask my parents not to worry too much about me?" - Is this a valid IPS question?

1:16 PM

marks as duplicate :P

Q: Sandbox for Proposed Questions

@Sid It will depend on what you actually put in the question. If you are afraid to hurt them, have them get mad at you when you will ask them, then it's one topic. If you want to ask them to stop calling so often but they are doing it anyway, it's one topic. If you are not afraid to tell them "please don't worry" but they do still worry, it might be off-topic

@Sid "How to communicate/demonstrate to my parent that they don't need to worry about me" might work

If you aren't sure about your question, the best solution is to write it in the Sandbox

26

What is the Sandbox? This "Sandbox" is a place where InterpersonalSkills.SE users can get feedback on prospective questions they wish to post. This is useful because writing a clear and fully specified question on the first try can be difficult. There is a much better chance of your question bei...

discussion questions sandbox

Quick, someone come and take my computer away so I'll stop writing meta comments

Takes out rifle from Wanted film and shoots Rainbacon's computer :P

1:33 PM

@Rainbacon Now you have to tell me under what post those meta comments are!

@Ælis The one on the mod election announcement

In my defense, I don't believe that I crossed any lines, but I did post a comment so large that it had to be posted as 3 separate comments (I try to avoid splitting when I can)

@Rainbacon It's really annoying not having the bot :/ I'm glad you checked on that post and see the comment, I wouldn't want this user (or any user, really) to think that we are ignoring them

Depending on their response, I may have to disengage.

@Rainbacon I really think all of you did all you could. The user is clearly not wanting to provide any details, so there's not much left to do. Continuing to try to convince them they should will probably only make them more upset.

Magisch

I have to comment on the comment bot not being there to prevent superflous commenters from commenting their superflous comments

we should all comment on that

1:47 PM

@Tinkeringbell Exactly. Unless they decide to change based on my most recent comment, the thread is not worth continuing

@Magisch My comment is that I know it's driving @Ælis crazy

@Magisch I have to say that I can't follow you guys anymore and am iching to write a comment asking to explain what the comments are all about

oh, the comment bot is gone? I got it ignored, so I didn't notice :o

@Magisch Sobbing

@JAD Yes, they aren't even in The Closet and know we don't know what is happening on the sites (main and meta) anymore :'(

perhaps, maybe, browse the site? ;)

@Ælis anyone know what happened? Were they sad that they were ignored most of the time? Their vigilance always underapreciated? Forced into early retirement despite working for free, or did they finally get promoted to an actually paying job instead?

@JAD That's for discovering bad questions that didn't make it into the review queues yet. Not for finding comments ... such a newbie \s

1:58 PM

@JAD But what if someone comment on a very old and inactive post?!?

@Ælis if someone comments on an inactive post, is it still technically inactive? :P

(I know it's not bumped, but still :P)

@JAD if the OP is long gone and nobody answers I'd say it's technically inactive yes :)

@Imus nah, they became sentient and decided they wanted to become a skydiver :P

@JAD Hope they do it from inside a black box, at least they'll survive the fall after not having any hands free to pull the parashute

@Imus Their boss (box :p ) died. We try to find a replacement to both comment bot until they get a new boss (box) but the candidates are doing a terrible job at it (they don't work most of the time)

@JAD Don't play with me, this is a sensitive subject :'(

(jk)

2:03 PM

@Imus what happens when a bot falls from the sky?

shatter into bits?

@Ælis Their* sorry, starting with the wrong choice of there/their/they're turns your argument invalid. Please try again :p

@JAD x)

Magisch

2:57 PM

@Tinkeringbell these are some cool rubber duck parrots

Em C

3:09 PM

@JAD if someone comments on an old post and nobody else sees it, is it really chatty? 🤔

tbh I mostly miss the meta comment bot, especially since we have elections running right now

2

@EmC Yeah, not that we have a lot of election discussion going on on meta

Em C

@Rainbacon maybe everyone's questions were already answered by the questionnaire :P

Maybe, I hope the election gets more votes than the questionnaire did though

3:28 PM

@EmC well you can add regexes to it :)

Em C

@avazula it doesn't look like it's running right now?

what I mean is, main bot is handy too, but I still feel like I can count on people to flag stuff that needs looked at. meta comments, on the other hand, I usually still want to see, but nobody will be flagging unless it's really rude

so basically I leave the recent meta posts open and check in on them periodically :P

4:45 PM

ooh, @Ælis my IPS rep is 5354

El'endia Starman

Quick, downvote an answer!

(Or gain 100 rep, I guess that works too.)

But it's nice because it is 2 consecutive 2 digit numbers

El'endia Starman

That's true.

Q: How to ask if I can mow my neighbor's lawn

2

My neighbor and I share a lawn. It isn't clear where the property line is without looking it up in an official resource since there are no physical barriers between us. His house is quite a bit nicer than mine. We have had a few pleasant interactions but certainly are not well acquainted. He move...

neighbors helping

@Rainbacon EmC rep has been stuck at 9998 for more than 3 days. This is really making me sad, I'm glad you choose to share your nice rep number with me #tooSerious :p

5:15 PM

Man it's annoying doing dev work this week. I'm working on building an admin portal (which for some reason is a separate application) for the site we are building. There is only one account set up currently for testing all of the ancillary systems we have (CMS, admin, etc) for this specific site. The mandate is that all environments of all software use 2 factor authentication with a phone.

The one test account we have is set up to someone else's phone (he's halfway across the country from me), so every time my session expires in the test site, I have to ping him on slack to get the MFA code.

The most ridiculous thing, is that authentication is not set up to work at all with localhost

So I can't even debug this thing when it's running on my own machine

user15026

That sounds frustrating.

Quite

I've been pestering people to get all of the developers access to these sites with our logins (the whole thing runs through the company's active directory) but so far no dice

6:10 PM

@Ælis That . . . explains a lot

You're definitely missing out though. I'm basically Mr Bean without all the recent lame movies.

Granted, also without the past good movies, but still

7:06 PM

I don't have anything decent to read. I'm trying to find a book where: 1) The main character is a woman (or not a cisgender guy) and 2) There isn't a love story between the main character and a guy (deep friendship is fine, complex love story isn't). But it currently seems impossible ><

user15026

@Ælis Oh, I can likely recommend many thigns

user15026

What sort of story?

user15026

(also, are non-hetero love stories, even as background things, acceptable)

I like fantasy, funny story and science fiction too

user15026

Have you read Becky Chambers A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet?

7:10 PM

@Ash Background love story are fine I just don't want to have love triangle and other related stupid things

user15026

@Ælis Alright, then I have a few recommendations!

@Ash (I also want to read it in French but start recommending things and I will see if it has been translated or not)

user15026

A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet has a love story in kinda but it's not about that - it's the first in a series and they're REALLY good. Seanan McGuire's Incryptid books (starts with Discount Armageddon) are fun, as are her October Daye books (starts with Rosemary and Rue).

user15026

Nnedi Okorafor's Binti books are short novellas and they're great, as are her Akata Witch books.

@Ash I'm not a huge fan of short novellas, I find them too short ^^ But "A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet" is available in French and I might like it, thanks for the recommendation :D (I will also take a look at the others, I just need more time to find them in French)

user15026

7:20 PM

Cool beans. I read a lot and I read a decent variety of things so I am always up for recommending books to people :)

@Ash I read a lot too, which makes it harder to find books sometimes ^^

@Ash Do you know "Who Fears Death" from Nnedi Okorafor? Seems to have been the only one translated in French

user15026

@Ælis Yes! It is quite good. I'd recommend it

@Ash Is it dark? I don't really appreciate dark stories, it doesn't go well with my mental health ^^

7:35 PM

Ow, but dark stuff is cool :/

user15026

@Ælis Oh, it might be a little dark

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ I use to enjoy slightly dark TV shows, but I can't watch them anymore, it gives me too much anxiety :/

user15026

But A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is very....cozy, I guess is a good word? Nothing is too dark in it

I found part of what I'm gonna do in summer today

@Ash I'm currently reading the beginning, I like the style, I will probably buy it :)

7:37 PM

in Language Overflow, 9 hours ago, by M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to read every novel of Cormac McCarthy

It's about cisgendered males though. Except they probably end up dead most of the time.

user15026

He's an author I've never super loved.

He probably sounds philosophical

You don't love those guys, you just read their work and think for a couple of hours

We had to read on excerpt from one of his novels and answer questions about it on one of my AP tests or maybe the SAT, I hated it

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ "But this initiatory journey, full of hopes and revelations, turns into a descent into hell ..." Yep, probably won't read that ^^

Well, I watched a movie based on his novel, haven't read them yet.

@Rainbacon cum hoc ergo propter hoc?

in The Screening Room, 2 days ago, by M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Movie of the day: No Country for Old Men

It's a bit of a heavy load, yes

If you want more of a Coen satire, you should go for Burn After Reading

ankiiiiiii

8:25 PM

@Ælis If you might want to taste Real rural life of India before independence, Premchand. His novels and short stories are still relevant :)

I mean they are decent. Love and marriage are crucial part of them but not in way that a French person might expect.

All in all, I think it's a bit hard to find something that'd meet all the three criteria of 1) not love-centric 2) not dark, and 3) no stereotypical straight male main protagonist

ankiiiiiii

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Someone needs to develop filters for such properties.

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ I think I had a bunch of children's books meeting those criteria ;)

2

@Tinkeringbell they definitely fail 1. At least behind the scenes

I dunno.. maybe there was a lot of love in them, in all shapes and sizes, that's true