EL&U Mod Privileges Summit

What about a representative of the SE "Community Team" that closed ELL. Given that most any consensus we come up with would need buy-in from them, I think we need a rep.

@RegDwighт Do you have an opinion on that.

RegDwighт

9:58 PM

No idea.

I'm really a bit disoriented right now.

More than usual, that is.

MετάEd

I have to make one vital clarification about "a site for experts." Its okay to ask simple questions as long as they are thoughtful, intriguing questions posed as you would ask them of an expert. Overly simple questions without research or forethought should be closed. That sort of moderation-for-quality applies equally whether there's one English site or two. There's no lowering of the bar for a so-called learners' status. Actually @phoenixheart6's idea falls more in line with how we build community: A more consistent solution longer term. — Robert Cartaino 3 mins ago

RegDwighт

Well good luck with that.

Mitch

Is Robert Cartaino not overrideable? There's no voting on such things. It's such a big autocratic WTF. Is he the TPTB now that JA is gone (or not an owner/developer)?

RegDwighт

@Mitch he's the Community Manager.

MετάEd

His profile says "I am the Director of Community Development for the Stack Exchange Network."

Mitch

10:02 PM

and so he is the 'one' super moderator who can do anything?

ELL is not a 'spite/troll' site created by jerks in collusion just to mess with people

MετάEd

So no, in that position he's not overrideable. In fact his buy-in to any consensus about changing editorial policy seems more or less indispensable.

Cerberus

> So my idea is, maybe this is a good segway into starting some ELU sites in other languages.

Mitch

so consensus (the definition/voting/committing process) can alwyas be overridden by the theocracy?

Cerberus

I don't want to have to ride Segways.

@Mitch Yup.

Mitch

better than a segyoo.

Cerberus

10:05 PM

Buddhism is the only answer.

@Mitch Whadda?

RegDwighт

@Mitch That's the single most unfortunate thing about it. The proposal hasn't been up for four days; it has been up for almost four months. In that time, the example questions haven't changed, the audience hasn't changed, the scope hasn't changed. The only thing that has changed was the number of supporters.

Mitch

(how someone who doesn't know might pronounce 'segue')

RegDwighт

That is, if they really wanted to shut it down for any of the reasons stated, they could have done that on day one.

Mitch

@RegDwighт and also changed was the level of caprice wielded by Cartaino.

RegDwighт

That would have left five people scratching their heads in disbelief, rather than a hundred.

@Mitch we should be careful about not singling him out. He's in the line of fire because that's his job, but they likely had a meeting or five.

Mitch

10:07 PM

To be totally honest, I am somewhat unsure of the viability of the ELL site. But I'm effing mad as hell that single empowered people can capriciously (OK it was not caprice but a long wait to exercise the power for something long desired by Cartaino) do

@RegDwighт Oh. sorry in advance.

RegDwighт

No one was sure of the viability of the ELL site. No one is ever sure of the viability of any site.

That's the whole reason why Area 51 exists.

And why beta exists.

Or is supposed to exist. )))

Cerberus

@Mitch Oh, yes, of course.

@RegDwighт Agreed.

We should just have been allowed to go into beta and see how it went.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus I would go down that road, except if you struggle to get enough native speakers to keep GLU and RLU and WhateverLU alive, your chances for getting native speakers who are also interested in English is infinitesmal.

MετάEd

@Mitch I don't understand why the Area 51 process was not followed to completion. But I do not see this as an abuse of power. These are SE properties. They crowdsource a lot of the operation, but they do make the final management decisions.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт Yeah I didn't understand that proposal at all.

RegDwighт

10:12 PM

Just ask yourself, how many of the people who committed to ELL are also native speakers of Dutch? There you have it.

Or Chinese, for that matter. If you think I'm exaggerating on purpose.

Cerberus

@MετάEd What's the definition of abuse of power? I don't know what to call it, except that I strongly disagree with 1.) the decision and 2.) the way it was executed.

@RegDwighт Hey!!

I count for three.

That's 1.5 %.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus and you need three hundred.

MετάEd

@Cerberus I think that's how people feel when they are on the wrong end of ordinary mod decisions or even downvotes that go against them.

Cerberus

1 %, then.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus look at all those proposals with 400 and 600 and 800 committers...

Cerberus

10:14 PM

@MετάEd Possibly.

@RegDwighт Look, as in how? I think my opinion on 80 % of those proposals is well known.

As far as "expert" and "interesting" go.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus "look" as in that 200 is not the magic number.

Cerberus

Oh, OK.

Ohh you meant with my eyes, not my derrière?

MετάEd

Okay, all venting aside about how the ELL decision was taken, I want to see if a consensus can be found about what the editorial policy should be here going forward.

I will say very plainly that I think the vast majority of basic questions that are posted here should simply be closed.

RegDwighт

Actually I'm not even sure if this room here is viable.

MετάEd

I'd like to see this site foster Q&A between professionals and expert amateurs. To do that I would, and do, actively discourage the use of it as an interactive thesaurus or ELL go-to.

@RegDwighт Right, but that is the sort of thing you don't know until later.

RegDwighт

10:24 PM

I am totally expecting a reply on meta that we are not supposed to be fragmenting the community like that, setting up Elite Clubs.

I can change this room to gallery, if it isn't already, so that everyone can at least read, but that might not be enough.

MετάEd

@RegDwighт It is gallery.

RegDwighт

Ah, good.

MετάEd

Transparency = good.

RegDwighт

Since you gain closing powers at 3k and not at 10k an outcry from everyone in-between would be justified.

MετάEd

@RegDwighт I am not necessarily opposed to lowering the bar. @KitFox suggested 10K and probably has a good reason though.

RegDwighт

10:27 PM

I just checked, we have 152 3k users.

MετάEd

@RegDwighт What about making it an all-owner room so that anyone can invite in an interested user?

RegDwighт

I'm not sure there's such a feature. At least I'm not seeing it.

I mean, anyone can always invite just by posting a link.

But explicit write access has to be granted by owners.

I think that's how it works.

Anyway, it's past my bed time. We'll see how this pans out tomorrow.

KitFox

10:51 PM

Hi.

I suggested 10K? Oh, I did.

3K does make sense.

MετάEd

All right, what I am going to do is grant owner access to anyone I invite.

Cerberus

Hey, slow down.

Feeds

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KitFox

@MετάEd You don't need to worry about the mods. We have absolute access no matter what.

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Cerberus

10:53 PM

For any discussions about the status and viability of this room, I think we should first have a preparatory meeting!

Let's open a room for the meeting.

MετάEd

@Cerberus This is my room and I can make you an owner if I care to. Possibly an abuse of power.

Cerberus

Noes!

I pwn U.

MετάEd

@Cerberus Yes.

Cerberus

Not owe, own.

MετάEd

room topic changed to EL&U Mod Privileges Summit: Ongoing meeting of active users with mod privileges such as "vote to close", to try to find consensus about what direction EL&U should take. (no tags)

KitFox

10:58 PM

You want me to update your meta post title?

I think it's fine to include 3K+. I forgot the close vote level. I was thinking about delete vote level.

It should be open to all members who can close questions, I think, since that's the action we're focusing on.

g2g good luck later

MετάEd

@KitFox I have just done it.

Feeds

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Feeds

11:21 PM

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FumbleFingers

Hi guys. I supported ELL, but I was always a bit dubious about how we'd keep it separate from ELU in practice. Robert says it ain't gonna fly, and I respect both his reasons, and his right to apply the guillotine (a considered, collective decision by TPTB, I'm sure). So how about maybe we just "suck it in" and settle for using a new tag ELL to identify the stuff we'd like to have gone there if the sister site hadn't turned out to be stillborn?

MετάEd

@FumbleFingers ELL or no ELL, I think ELU suffers from lack of editorial standards, or inconsistent editorial standards, for what it accepts, and routinely accepts a lot of stuff that should just be deleted.

@FumbleFingers That's background. Now what I think is that anything tagged ELL is highly likely to fall into the category of stuff I would just delete.

Feeds

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FumbleFingers

@MετάEd I think you have to be very careful about deleting (as opposed to closing) superficially trivial questions. Sometimes the headline "answer" is screamingly obvious to native speakers, but the "backstory" may turn out to be quite subtle and/or interesting.

MετάEd

11:36 PM

@FumbleFingers Closing is the first step to deleting. But of course if a closed question is improved I would reopen.

StoneyB

@FumbleFingers et al My understanding is that an ELL tag would be meta and hence strengst verboten

MετάEd

We should close questions without research, for one.

FumbleFingers

...I also think we've got a lot more users with sufficient rep to affect "editorial policy" than was the case, say, a year ago. So it's no surprise we don't [yet] all speak with one voice.

MετάEd

@FumbleFingers And never will. But that doesn't mean we can't get a broad consensus on some things.

FumbleFingers

I wouldn't normally delete a question for lack of research.

Feeds

11:38 PM

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FumbleFingers

Just out of interest - what can I do now I'm added to the list of room's owners that I couldn't have done before?

Feeds

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KitFox

@FumbleFingers Add users.

StoneyB

11:54 PM

Which do we want to do?: 1) Banish bad questions and the people who ask them … 2) Banish bad questions but encourage the people who ask them to come back with better questions … 3) Encourage people to improve their bad questions … 4) Fix the questions so they’re good questions.

FumbleFingers

@KitFox But why would I need to do that? Can't anyone just come here anyway, without being "added"?

user19161

It's spacious in here.

FumbleFingers

@StoneyB Before we decide what to do with "bad questions", we probably need more of a consensus on how to identify them.

KitFox

@FumbleFingers It's a gallery. Anyone can read, but only we can write.

FumbleFingers

hi jasper

user19161

11:56 PM