The Awkward Silence

Morning!

dhein

@avazula Huh who is that unfamiliar being on the detailed dotted wall?:D

@dhein This is I, Ms Ava, who once looked like Janet, then like Tiabeanie of Dreamland thought she was a princess, but came back to her true nature, which is a beekeeping aircraft who draws stuff!

3

dhein

7:51 AM

@avazula 1 dot for every part of the journey? :D

Morning :)

Morning! :)

Q: Don't know if my friend is gay

8:14 AM

@dhein maybe? :D

Extroverted Main Man

9:06 AM

0

My friend seems to have come out as gay while drunk but we don't know? Do we ask him or just leave it? And if ask how do we do so?

awkward-situations

9:25 AM

calling that awkward is kinda disrespectful tbh

@AlexRobinson you're right. I removed it.

9:41 AM

thank you

10:29 AM

I just learned that one of my coworkers has a piercing under the tongue and I have sooooo many questions! (this coworker don't seem to have piercing anywhere else). However, I'm trying to be polite, so I can't ask them for now and it is really frustrating ><

Google is your friend ;)

Probably, yes :p But it won't answer the "why do you do it?" and "is there a special meaning behind it for you?"

Oh, that's true :)

@Ælis honestly, I don't like people asking me why I got my tattoos. Every time I'm asked all I wanna say is "why not?". It's just my feelings but I thought you might like to know that some people don't really like being asked ;)

@avazula Do you mind if people ask more specific questions too, like what they mean to you? (Because that's also sometimes 'why' you got them, but not as easily answered with 'why not')

10:44 AM

@Tinkeringbell It's not that I mind, it's really just that I have nothing to say to answer these questions... It felt good, so I did it. :p

people seem to be disappointed when they find out there's really nothing to say

@avazula I figured some people would not like this kind of question (because, I believe, some people asking those questions are also badly judging at the same time). I guess I'll just have to wait to know this coworker better before asking them those personal questions

@avazula Yeah :P I guess tattoos and piercings come with some kind of expectation to me that 'why would you go through the pain of getting one, if not for some deep spiritual reason?' :P

@Tinkeringbell "I was drunk"

But I've seen enough programs on TV that fix bad holiday tattoos that I also know that is false :P

@JAD Yeah XD

Shouldn't this question be deleted? Since OP account is gone eyeballs-here

Ah, I know why now: interpersonal.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/18724

10:58 AM

@CaldeiraG I'll delete it. It was actually an underage user...

'Under 16' and 'in England' :(

@Tinkeringbell :\

Should we leave comment when voting to delete an answer to an off topic question? I'm thinking about this answer. I find it would be a bit "mean" to leave a comment asking for backup when I perfectly know that the question is not a good fit anyway :/

@Ælis "Hey, I know you've answered a question that's now on-hold, but if this is going to be reopened your answer needs back-up"

(Or something like that ;) )

@Tinkeringbell What about that: interpersonal.stackexchange.com/questions/23444/… ?

Looks good!

11:53 AM

I'm dropping this. If anyone wants to jump in and tell the answerer they should edit that into their answer, that could be nice ^^

eyeballs-pls | unfriendly? | interpersonal.stackexchange.com/questions/23444/…

12:07 PM

@Ælis Yes. But I'm leaving it for a few more minutes, as I replied to it and hope we can figure this out.

1:02 PM

@Ælis It's gone :)

Hey @OldPadawan if you have a minute: Are you familiar with the differences between Very Low Quality and Not An Answer flags with regards to how they behave when a post is edited?

And if anyone has time, it looks like the OP of this answer has updated their answer, but it's a bit spreadsheet like. Perhaps it can be turned into an edit that adds all the info there into the 'story' of the answer.

@Tinkeringbell Thanks :) (and thank you for the comments too :) )

1:27 PM

Dang, it seems like IPS is the only SE site to limit the number of HNQ questions Oo (source: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/338009/…). I must say, I'm surprised. I would have expected other SE site with potentially controversial content (like religious SE site) to do the same

@Ælis I think the religion sites are much further along in their 'community growth' and don't get as much content that is unfit for HNQ reaching HNQ anyway :)

But I should ask a religion site mod (looks at @El'endiaStarman ;) )

True, but still. I find it amazing that we would be the only one using the option of limiting your number of HNQ!

@avazula Aha! You are an aircraft. I knew I was missing something about you

I don't see many religious HNQ stuff either way. If at any time there is at most 1 question of them in HNQ, what's the point of a cap?

@Rainbacon I'm many things >:)

Nov 22 '18 at 10:24, by avazula

@Cashbee I'm not a ninja. I'm a aircraft.

Currently I'm also a sad dev. Nexus is down and my boss doesn't have time to issue a new certificate :(

so I don't have much to do D:

1:43 PM

Hey, I'm a sad dev too

We just don't have a lot of work to do in general, despite the narrative that "there's so much work to do"

@JAD So that you don't end-up unlucky enough to have 5 of them in HNQ at the same time (because HNQ questions are harder to moderate)

@Rainbacon how's the JH going? Any news?

@avazula Nope, I finished all the interviews I was doing, got no offers, and am back to square 1. I need to put out a bunch more applications, but I just haven't done it yet

:(

I hope you'll find something that suits your desires

eugh why does server maintenance have to be now

1:57 PM

@Rainbacon I hope you will find soon. Finding a new job is really hard, especially when you are already working full time and don't have much energy to spend on job hunting :/

@Ælis Yeah, and my energy goes quick when job searching

I can definitively relate to that

@AlexRobinson No clue, this seems unscheduled.... MSE still works ;)

Should be back?

@Ælis any site has a cap of 3 iirc

@Ælis Weirdly the part that takes the most of my energy is the application itself. I'm fine once I get into interviews, but it takes so much energy to get to that point

2:12 PM

@JAD Isn't it five?

@Ælis I know it's an unpopular opinion but I think that's okay, we could handle it.

Q: Updating the Hot Network Questions List - now with a bit more network and a little less "hotness"!

5 it is, my bad

369

Some of you may have noticed that we've been making some changes to the Hot Network Questions on the back end over the last week or so. I'm here announcing our first round of changes to how the HNQ works and give you some ideas of why we're starting here and where we're planning to go in the futu...

discussion hot-questions announcements

goes back hiding before I'm yelled at for saying this

:p

even so, odd of that happening are pretty small for sites that rarely have 1 question in HNQ

@avazula Well, I suggest we at least try having two of them at the same time before we go back to 5 ^^

2:15 PM

@JAD my next appointment for a tattoo is at 1PM ... does this excuse still work? :p

It's Nov 12, go update your Windows 10 1803 :p

or live in the dark xD

or use Linux :p

@avazula depends. Are you drunk right now?

@CaldeiraG that's no problem. We're still on W7

@avazula what tattoo are you getting?

@JAD Well, you should update it :p My company is slowly upgrading all computer to W10

I've been saying that for a few months now.

AFAIK, we're the only team still on W7 for some reason

2:24 PM

I'm getting mixed signals: One team is apparently e-mailing me that my laptop should be updated from 7 to 10, the other team is e-mailing me saying I should order a whole new laptop.

@JAD If I tell you I don't know does that mean I'm drunk?

@Rainbacon hold on a sec

@Tinkeringbell If you get a new computer that's somewhat better :p

@JAD Well it's fine to stay, most hospitals are still running XP :p

@CaldeiraG Sigh.. probably but I almost never use that laptop anyways, I only use it to use the VPN and access stuff I can't access via weblinks.

@Rain Here it is <- Nice back target

And it's a pain to order a new one, and it's a pain to get the current one upgraded.

If I were to order a new one, I could order a smaller one (like managers have)... that would save some hauling heavy stuff...

But you need to go to an office anyways and I'm always at the client office, so that's the first point I'm not looking forward to

2:28 PM

@avazula Ooh, that's cool

I see :)

i wish my work would get me a laptop that beats this dual core 5th series intel cpu...

@Rainbacon I wanted it to be on my shoulder but the tattoo artist said it was too big so it'll go on my back, which ... was not what I had planned but heh, life is full of surprises :)

@AlexRobinson :\

quadcore here

@AlexRobinson I have no clue what kind of cpu my current work laptops have... I know I got the company one with an ssd, because we had to run VMs and this helped a lot. The client laptop is looking a lot older, but it doesn't matter much because we're only using it to connect to a remote server where we work.

2:31 PM

it's a desktop though

5200u, boots off a 120Gb hdd, takes ~15 mins to be able to do anything from pressing power on

@Tinkeringbell SSD's are fast :p

All our stuff runs on remote VDIs

but I do have 32gigs of RAM

@AlexRobinson 0_0

Can I show off?

@JourneymanGeek Go ahead :p

Add some RGB strips for 100% more performance XD

2:37 PM

Actually the motherboard and cooler have RGB

I turn it off

My other PC is a 3770 with 32 gb ram as well

(upgraded, I want to run VMs on it)

...

is a z390 gaming model strictly necessary lol

Uhm. I would say a good deal of that is lovely excess.

The 3770 has a new heatsink, and just really needed a clean and new thermal paste

very nice :)

I ended up swapping the heatsink for some unlisted cooler master model that's insanely good and a few other things off AliExpress

Honestly, stuff from Aliexpress are pretty good if chosen carefully XD

2:47 PM

i really wanna upgrade my personal rig to a ryzen 3700 and liquid cool it... my wallet said no

@JourneymanGeek Noice

@JourneymanGeek That looks great :D

@AlexRobinson I told myself something like that the last rig

I just figured out this work laptop has only two cores too :)

XD

my current personal machine is ryzen 2600 and rtx 2060 ( OC'd) with 16GB of RAM

i planned out about ~£700 of upgrades idly that i don't need and can't afford... you know how its like

2:56 PM

I have the money to buy a new PC, I don't wanna spend it though :P

Lemme look up the list for my Desktop. I should have the receipt somewhere in my mailbox still...

@AlexRobinson That's a beast, I run a i3-2120 at home x_x

it does decently aha

i'm very proud of my GPU because it hits 2.1GHz and runs stable... 2.2 though a bit unstable

16 GB RAM (I thought I had more o.O), a Ryzen 7 1700 processor and a GTX 1070 8GB graphics card...

@Tinkeringbell That's not bad at all XD

3:02 PM

(all with RGB :P)

@CaldeiraG Yeah, it runs IPS chat just fine! :D

@Tinkeringbell XD it sure does

using that laptop to run IPS....

have you ever heard of the word "overkill"?

(the bad thing is I don't even really know how well that holds up to the specs discussed in here... I just gave my brothers a budget :|)

CPU - 8 core, pretty good. GPU - 1070 - still a very good GPU

@Tinkeringbell It's better than my PC and I do gaming but I would say it's a computer for more atleast 3 years

1000 series are still very good, a 1070 can easily beat a 1660 (which is newer)

3:08 PM

1070 trades blows with the 2060 doesn't it?

Like I said... no clue :|

@AlexRobinson Yeah, a 2060 is probably 10/15% better

it looks like a ~£1000 laptop or more

@AlexRobinson Tink said it is a desktop :p

12 mins ago, by Tinkeringbell

Lemme look up the list for my Desktop. I should have the receipt somewhere in my mailbox still...

It's a desktop ;) at the time I paid around 1.638,69 for it ;)

in euros

3:11 PM

oh my bad lol

one day i will learn to actually read

No worries ;)

Also... the idea was that I'd end up using the desktop for gaming or programming... but I suck at games and I get enough programming to do at work ;)

i very briefly owned a 1080 founders edition that i'd bought second hand... had to send it back because it nearly died and it was bottom 2 percentiles for performance

@Tinkeringbell just because you suck at games doesn't mean you can't play them :D

with your own pace you can learn how to get better :)

@CaldeiraG Yeah... I do play Stardew Valley :P Does that count as a game :)

i mean... its a game... not that it'd remotely stress your desktop to run lol

3:18 PM

True... and to be honest I also bought it for my Nintendo Switch and play it on there way more often.

We did setup something so my switch controller also works with the pc, so perhaps I should try a game again soon.

the switch pro controller is the most ergonomic controller for me. i can play on it for 8+ hours without my hands hurting, compared to something like the Dual Shock 4 where after an hour i need to do some hand exercises

It's way better than using keyboard to navigate for me.

kb&m is more usable 95 times in 100 for me - but i do love being able to lie down on the sofa and play smash on a wireless controller

3:36 PM

@Tinkeringbell Of course :)

Em C

@Ælis a couple ones are penalized (SO, Workplace, Software Engineering) (Christianity used to be too a while back, but not since 2015) -meta.stackexchange.com/questions/316904/…

i think us having a limit of one at a time is sensible and useful

Em C

it does keep things pretty calm :)

4:12 PM

@Tinkeringbell The bigger reason is as JAD said a couple messages later: Christianity.SE very rarely gets a question on HNQ.

@El'endiaStarman Yeah :) Do you know why though?

Not enough voting? Or enough people handling bad content?

All of the above. It made sense for SE to penalize us in the heyday of the site, when it was much like IPS is today. After 8 years however, traffic is lower and there's not as much voting. That's the biggest reason we don't see stuff on HNQ very often.

@Tinkeringbell does not enough people handling bad content imply more questions in HNQ?

It mostly seems to me like that would be a problem after a question hits HNQ

@JAD for IPS, it did yeah... Some stuff would get quick answers instead of down/close votes... Or bad answers that weren't deleted so counted towards the hotness score ..

@JAD oh, that too... Kind of a self reinforcing cycle

Without the 8 hour delay, stuff could be on HNQ in 20 minutes or less

@Tinkeringbell When are you applying the changes? :)

4:21 PM

it's a bit of a snowball yeah

the reply it's from the starred message of the meta post

so you don't need to click on that :p

@CaldeiraG We were thinking of giving it around a week ;)

@CaldeiraG too late :P

20 minutes to get on HNQ... wow

I've seen that happen on SFF too

@AlexRobinson It usually took a bit longer I think ;) I just picked a number out of thin air. But it was very quick

4:24 PM

the ping sound just scared the ever loving h*ck out of me because i forgot to mute this tab

@AlexRobinson x)

@Tinkeringbell Ah nice :D in general I agree with keeping the answers :)

7:25 PM

Well, I thought it was safe to click on the "active" tab of MSE. I was wrong ><

Yeah I won't recommend doing that again this year.

The "newest" question tab seems better though. So things are improving I guess. Also, I do hope we will still get some fun stuff to do around Christmas/the end of year, but I'm afraid that the community won't react well to it :/

It's hard. Some people are of the opinion that until everything is somehow magically fixed, no single employee should be allowed to work on anything else apparently. Even though, with the lawyers involved, there's next to nothing either a dev or CM could even do... Those will indeed turn something fun into something terrible.

Then there's the thing about balpha no longer working for SE, and if I understood correctly he usually worked on making Winterbash happen.

I do think Winterbash may not happen this year.

@Ælis If you need something safer to do, I'm working on a sandbox post

@Rainbacon I'll be glad to take a look once you post it :) Also, it reminds me that I still have one sandbox question to write and another one to post on main ^^

@Tinkeringbell But isn't there more than the "hat thing" around Christmas?

7:35 PM

@Ælis From what I've seen, it's hats + a contest where you can win some swag. Last year was a bit special with three or four contests, because of SO being 10 years old...

@Tinkeringbell Well, it's silly but I still want to be able to win some (useless) swag ^^ So, I guess I'll just have to wish for a contest and see what happens. It would heartbreaking me if the winter things were to be spoiled by all the current controversy

Maybe we should plan something special for IPS/IPS meta, just in case?

@Ælis We could have a 2019 bounty contest

I'm torn, personally. Such a contest would likely be posted on MSE and ruin my holidays because I'd try to moderate it not matter what... On the other hand, yeah... I don't really appreciate the current attitudes around 'anything that SE does that isn't reinstating Monica is wrong' :(

Get some high rep users (cough cough, Rainbacon and Ælis) to offer up prizes and have people nominate and vote on the best answers of the year

I can sponsor a few 500 rep bounties for that :)

7:43 PM

@Rainbacon We could, but it doesn't sound very original? So, it could be a nice first idea, but I definitively think that we should do something more

@Ælis It's absolutely not original. I got the idea from a contest that was happening on IPS when I first joined

@Rainbacon Maybe we should also reward question? Like the best question get a bounty on them so they gain visibility and potentially better answers?

@Ælis Well, I would first wait until we can be really sure no winterbash is happening this year...

but then we'd probably be late planning stuff...

@Ælis Hmmm. I'm not fond of that, because it would also carry an undertone of 'whatever is here now isn't good'. That's not a very cheerful thought to spread during holiday feasts ;)

@Tinkeringbell I'm thinking, we should just plan and have more fun if we actually have both :D

@Tinkeringbell >< I really wish I could reward questions as well as answers, though :/

@Ælis Same here! But as we can only do answers, and bounties are used for exemplary answers, I think it's best to use them for that if we want to spread holiday cheer :)

7:46 PM

@Ælis You could make a feature request, though I think that feature has been requested before (I'm just too lazy to go look for it right now)

@Ælis Planning should probably go via IPS meta then ;)

@Tinkeringbell That's a great idea, I'm gonna write a question :D

@Rainbacon Oh yeah, pretty sure this one as already been asked (but I, too, are too lazy to look it up :p )

@Ælis Do know that people may end up on here providing some backlash...

So be careful :|

I'll try to, but you seem to have a better understanding on "how things might go wrong" than me, so I can't promise anything (because it's harder to avoid traps that you don't see)

Well, you might want to just focus on that meta post, where animuson said it won't be likely MSE would have a winterbash... and try to keep out current events in the question already...

Make it as neutral as possible, perhaps even just leaving out any reference to Winterbash at all, and ask what/if we can do something fun come holiday season? :)

Or, if you want to, I can take a stab at it tomorrow...

It's a bit of a question of conscience: Do you just want something fun around the holidays, or do you want to make a specific stand against the current level of anger on MSE...

(I'm obviously more a fan of the first XD)

8:01 PM

@Tinkeringbell Hum, let me see what I can do (ps: I just want something fun too :) )

Ok, @Ælis, here is my sandbox post if you want to take a look

@Rainbacon No need to ping me, I'm very good at stalking IPS meta :p

(all this to say, I already knew before you pinged me :p)

scohe001

@Rainbacon I'm guessing you're familiar with nohello.com?

Well, I just created to new meta tag. I have to say the meta tag fun was really missing :p

A: Sandbox for Proposed Questions

@scohe001 it sounds vaguely familiar

Sandman

8:17 PM

0

What is the etiquette around greetings in online communication in India? india etiquette online-interactions greetings Background I live in the US and work with people from a rather diverse set of cultures. We are spread across several cities, so most of our communication takes place on Slac...

8:28 PM

@Tinkeringbell I don't remember there being swag other years for Winter Bash.

@user58 Oh, then I was just lucky!

The existence of Winter Bash has been precarious for a few years now, what with the prevalence of soul-selling for hats... now, with the current mood on MSE / the network as well as balpha being gone, I... kinda doubt it'll happen this year, unfortunately.

scohe001

No more watches and cutting boards :(

*glances at sharp knives somewhere over my head*

Q: How could we have some more winter fun?

On a funnier side note: here is a T-Rex race facebook video :p

Introverted Meta Man

8:35 PM

2

As you might know if you have been on SE long enough, IPS and the SE network go pretty quiet between the 21st of December and the 4th of January. As someone who spends a lot of time on IPS, seeing all this inactivity makes me really sad (where are all the fun things to do???). So, I was thinkin...

discussion contest fun

@IntrovertedMetaMan Oh, right, I forgot about you ^^'

→ 1 message moved to Trash

:p

AGirlHasNoName

@Ælis Ohh so that's why I dropped that silly ritual...

Q: how to ask someone about something without accusing them

8:50 PM

@AGirlHasNoName I'm glad that you did if it means that your children are less likely to get intoxicated by what you cook them :p

Extroverted Main Man

9:01 PM

0

I would like to know how to ask someone about something without accusing them. If I want to know if someone at work has used my computer, can I ask "Have you used my computer?", without insulting them? I know that if I were to say: "Have you been using my computer?" it sounds like I think the p...

etiquette

@ExtrovertedMainMan hmm, I feel like that question is too broad, but I'm not sure how to guide the user to clarifying

@Rainbacon Maybe try to find a duplicate first? I feel like this question as probably already been asked before (I won't look it up myself, because I'm suppose to go to bed like... now...)

Hi good evening :) just finished counseling. Kinda glum today

@ElizB Sorry to hear you are a bit down

:(

Would destroying @El'endia in an online word game help?

9:18 PM

@Rainbacon it's okayish. Just need chatty company lol

@user58 hmmm don't tell him I said maybe? Hehehe

I can tell him later lol

Hmm, chatty. Ok, here's a picture of my cat

She had a not fun day yesterday. The vet said she needs to lose some weight

Ah yeah

Put the cat on the treadmill?

Well we already put her on a diet

A treadmill probably couldn't hurt

Ah how is the cat dealing with it? Probably not as happy

Bait with tuna? Lol

Nope, she's not happy

9:23 PM

@user58 You think she can beat me at Codenames? Ha HA!

@El'endiaStarman who knows, anything's possible

I don't think she likes tuna that much. She used to have tuna flavored food, and she didn't eat it very much

Haha we have the game we can try haha

Codenames

For playing the game Codenames. New players, see puzzling.meta...

@Rainbacon alright then pick a flavor they like?

9:26 PM

I was thinking a more fun approach would be to get a drone and mount a laser pointer on it

Omg i have to see that

Cat thoughts: "I'm scared of the drone, but I wannagetchathatredthing!!!"

@ElizB I think we're about to start a game in the chat room El'endia linked, if you want to join ;)