The Awkward Silence

Tinkeringbell

19:18

Introducing “The Loop”: A Foundation in Listening

Sara Chipps and Juan Garza on November 25, 2019

TLDR; We’re going to be sharing our product development process with you, from feedback loops to timelines. We’ll be doing so through our new series – The Loop. You can give us your thoughts on what you’d like to see us do by filling out this survey: Through the Loop. We’ll also be releasing Moderator Training and some new feedback mechanisms to help us form decisions as we grow.

Since the early days of Stack Overflow, our community has seen a lot of growth and change. As we reflect on 2019 and start thinking about 2020, our company also continues to rapidly grow. We have new l …

For those of you that hadn't picked up on it yet.

Rainbacon

I saw that earlier on Twitter

Ælis

Lots of nice answers so far on the clothing shopping question, that's very nice to read :D

Rainbacon

19:35

@Tinkeringbell I would imagine that there will be a wave of backlash on MSE over that. I hope you have a lot of spoons

Tinkeringbell

So far two questions, one of em has the potential of getting nasty, but I saved up a few spoons ;)

Rainbacon

I'm reading through the one with the nasty potential now

@Tinkeringbell Oof, yeah, you're going to need those spoons

Em C

19:56

I commented on one... almost regret it, but not quite

AGirlHasNoName

20:07

ohh that's getting ugly. I'm staying out for sure.

Em C

yeah, I'm going back to my code :P

AGirlHasNoName

I went back to the shopkeeper question. That second answer is great.

Em C

@AGirlHasNoName you mean ekl's?

AGirlHasNoName

umm no Tesset

I didn't like ekl's. If I am shopping I don't want to be approached at all. Even a "Can I help you?" is more attention than I want.

Em C

ahh yeah! that's why I asked, you never know which way people have them sorted :)

AGirlHasNoName

20:14

ohh fair. I have it by votes... but that shouldn't be a given

Em C

I liked that one a lot too, seems like really actionable and well-explained advice :)

AGirlHasNoName

It was a lot of what I wanted to say plus more. (It clearly comes from experience too. Well supported.)

M.A.R.

@AGirlHasNoName same here

I'm not really an assumptiony person (at least IRL) but it often feels like I'm cattle or something

Oh look grass

Wait.

This grass looks a bit, hmm

Tinkeringbell

greener!

M.A.R.

Yes yes exactly what I was going for

Em C

20:27

to be fair, ekl was just suggesting an alternate phrase. so I don't think they were suggesting to start asking that if the OP wouldn't normally have said anything

M.A.R.

Anyway, they never show up when you need them to

ekl sounds like a wizard with a conflicted character

Em C

they did also say not to be too enthusiastic :P

@M.A.R. is that.. chaotic neutral?

M.A.R.

The worst part is "I'm just checking around" works as an answer in English but not in Turkish

AGirlHasNoName

I agree. I didn't upvote or downvote the question because I don't think it was bad

Just that it wasn't good either

Em C

(all I know about alignments is what I've picked up from memes)

@M.A.R. what's wrong with it in Turkish?

M.A.R.

20:31

It's just a wizard

@EmC Doesn't work culturally

We don't deflect questions as easy

ankii

@user58 sometimes it won't go back to hiding..

Em C

huh, I see

M.A.R.

@user58 How does that help anything

Ælis

@Rainbacon I didn't read the blog post yet, anything I should know?

M.A.R.

I mean, sure, close voters definitely need education everywhere, but if anything has stayed true, it's that it's not in the help center how to be a good close voter

Rainbacon

20:34

@Ælis There are a number of things, but the one that is going to cause the most problems is that most of the functionality of meta is being moved off of meta

M.A.R.

@Ælis At this point, SE building a cute animated orphanage for newly born pups is going to get backlash on Meta.SE

Can't blame 'em. Some of 'em.

Rainbacon

So far from the posts about it on MSE, there is a lot of concern that this is the next step in SE removing community input entirely

Note: that was me phrasing it nicely

Ælis

@Rainbacon So users are upset that they won't be able to rant on MSE anymore? :p

scohe001

I don't think it's removing community input entirely. It sounds like it's removing public, group input entirely. The new system sounds far more private.

Tinkeringbell

It's... a thing we'll have to wait and see.

Rainbacon

20:37

@scohe001 Yeah, that's a better way to phrase it

Tinkeringbell

> We’ve revisited the best use of our Meta Sites and will communicate the transition rollout to the community in Q1 2020.

Sounds to me like nothing is set in stone yet.

Ælis

@scohe001 I like privacy, talking in public is scary, especially if you have a not well-liked opinion

Rainbacon

I was mostly trying to give Ælis an idea of how the folks on MSE are currently reacting to the news.

Tinkeringbell

Oh. Yeah. People are reacting like MSE is going to be entirely shut down next week, which isn't true ;)

scohe001

@Ælis that's true, but it also gives you a much better feeling for how the community feels since you can see reactions to others opinions.

M.A.R.

20:39

@scohe001 Eh

Rainbacon

From what I've seen, one of the big concerns that a lot of people have is that SE is planning to create a focus group for feedback

> create a new working group of users that we’ll lean on for regular feedback.

M.A.R.

The arrow is a permalink Tink

Tinkeringbell

Yeah, I want to get a permalink...

in Tavern on the Meta on Meta Stack Exchange Chat, 2 hours ago, by Catija

There's a lot of "support" that's not "customer support"... things like "How do I format stuff in chat". :P

There.

M.A.R.

Am I being too pessimistic, because I think private feedback would mean even less than meta.SE posts do now.

Or is this the Iranian apathetic teen in me.

Rainbacon

There's concern that SE will just solicit feedback from people who ideologically conform with the company. (Note I'm not endorsing this opinion, only mentioning that others have it)

Tinkeringbell

20:41

So, MSE is probably useful for a bit of that stuff, which means that can stay. Network knowledge isn't suddenly useless ;)

M.A.R.

Well, not a teen anymore technically. Take that, World.

user58

I don't think interpreting "customer support" as "user support" is too insane.

M.A.R.

@Rainbacon I have it, and others.

I think orange juice is better than banana milkshake.

@user58 It's not insane, just unrealistic.

Tinkeringbell

@M.A.R. I don't know... I mean, technically... you're not going to spend money on surveys about stuff you're not working on?

M.A.R.

To the point of being insane. Meta-insane, if you will.

Ælis

20:43

@Rainbacon Hum. Not sure I like this. It often sounds like a good idea until you realise that your "feedback group" is not diverse enough and that you are ignoring a large part of the population.

Tinkeringbell

Soooo... if you get invited for feedback, that may mean something is up?

M.A.R.

@Tinkeringbell Full disclaimer: It's gonna take a lot to actually get me to read that Blog post and the meta post about it

. . . Well, the comments and the answers to the meta post.

Tinkeringbell

@M.A.R. Read the blog post, ask me questions here. Stay away from MSE :P

M.A.R.

It's like a rewind of a tape to me, and am pretty sure is to you (pl.) too. SE is looking for solutions and finally implementing things, but the ideological alignment is totally off.

2

Tinkeringbell

If they're going to shut it down, we might as well get used to discussing stuff here :P

(disclaimer: They're not, at least not next week)

M.A.R.

20:45

So if you're a pain in the investor arse, get ready to be slowly wiped from the whiteboard.

@Tinkeringbell At least not next week. Extremely reassuring

Rainbacon

But yeah, as @M.A.R. pointed out. We're at a point where any announcement made by SE that isn't giving Monica a diamond again is going to be received poorly by some (very vocal) segment of the population. The size of the segment depends a lot on what that announcement is.

M.A.R.

I am such a sharp and pointy person.

Tinkeringbell

@M.A.R. Hey, I'm pretty sure that if MSE was about to be shut down soon and I knew it, I wouldn't keep quiet about it. I'm truly disastrous at keeping secrets.

Ælis

@Rainbacon I pretty sure if Monica were to get her diamond back, people would still be upset...

M.A.R.

WE NEED MORE DISASTERS

scohe001

20:47

@Rainbacon Oh I'm sure an announcement giving Monica a diamond back would be poorly received at this point too. People would argue it was only to dispel the legal action and try to cover their butts. Too much has gone too far downhill in the Meta community at this point imo

Ælis

@Tinkeringbell Oh, that's good to know! :p

M.A.R.

@scohe001 The gist of it being that "SE is dying" is a sentence I would have completely disagreed with three months ago.

Rainbacon

@Ælis Well, that's true. I've been saying for about 2 years now that I think we're at a point in time where a lot of people just want to be mad.

M.A.R.

@scohe001 well, to me things abroad got ugly as soon as I got to hear from this person so he's like the fifth squirrel of the apocalypse to me

user58

→ 2 messages moved to Trash

might want to avoid getting too political

scohe001

20:50

@M.A.R. Oh don't get me wrong. I don't think SE is dying at all. Quite the opposite in fact. But the Meta community is absolutely on its last legs. It's eating itself alive. The whole thing isn't sustainable, whatever happens.

M.A.R.

I have been invited to eat junk food

@scohe001 Eh, apoptosis. Controlled death. To me a platform like this is dead as soon as I tell myself "OK, not gonna find anything good there". This process has been inarguably hastened crazily in the past months.

Or arguably. En garde

But chat

I hope it stays alive forever!

Goes to post on meta "let's get rid of the rep system"

scohe001

Oh gosh idk what I'd do without chat

My boss would probably be worried that my productivity had gone way up. Can't have that happening.

Rainbacon

@scohe001 I know I'd probably be more productive at work. *stealthily checks if manager is watching

M.A.R.

As someone who's in recovery from a week of internet loss . . . It's ugly.

Ælis

@M.A.R. I didn't know you had death wish xD

M.A.R.

20:54

I almost contemplated getting my chores done.

Tinkeringbell

Anyhow... apparently posts on MSE are now randomly giving out 'something bad happened's, so ...

scohe001

Huh, can y'all access this question? I'm getting a server error (but the rest of Meta is working fine)

Welp. I guess there's my answer lol thanks @Tink!

user58

....the irony, though

2

Tinkeringbell

Sssshhh :P

Well, I'm going to do another load of laundry, I'll see what's still up when I get back :P

M.A.R.

IT BEGINS DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUN

Ælis

20:55

@Tinkeringbell See, they are closing MSE after all! :p

M.A.R.

Meh

Checks the timestamp of last activity on meta.SE

Ælis

@user58 I want to star that, but I don't want Tink to get mad at me for it x)

M.A.R.

Nov 6, then Oct 18?

Something like that. I don't want 58 getting any more rep.

Em C

@scohe001 I suspect everyone will see an error with that link ;P

We're investigating an issue with a build. — Taryn ♦ 1 min ago

Rainbacon

Hmm, my console reports a status of 302

Ælis

21:02

> By the end of this year, we will have completed discovery for the working group of users and will have identified the people we would like to recruit.

M.A.R.

Error SORRY, META BYE BYE?

Ælis

Any idea on how they are going to choose?

(cc @Tinkeringbell)

Tinkeringbell

@Ælis Not yet. To be honest, it all still sounds like 'just ideas' to me. First seeing, then drawing conclusions ;)

M.A.R.

Bluntly, I'm sure it's not gonna be satisfactory to me, but it's not going to be obviously biased either

Ælis

Well, I haven't finished reading the blog post, but I like the "just ideas" so far :D

M.A.R.

21:08

Just ideas of just ideas.

Street justice, that is

Ælis

I just finished the blog post. That's a lot of change, I can see why MSE users are all over the place about it ^^ Change is always scary, but I liked what I just read :)

2

Rainbacon

Looks like they got the errors on MSE fixed

Tinkeringbell

Yep, that too

A build went out to meta that had an unexpected null in certain circumstances. We have a fix and it's building out now. — Dean Ward ♦ 13 mins ago

Rainbacon

Oh, the shopping question just hit HNQ

scohe001

21:24

Looking like a controversial week for IPS HNQ :p

Rainbacon

@scohe001 Well so far we've had a question where religion was at the core and one where gender was at the core. Does that mean that on Thursday we'll get one that is primarily about race?

Em C

don't jinx it..

scohe001

22:41

@chumpbot pewpew

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