English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Goddamn, but being good at your job doesn't spare you from bullshit. I constantly keep getting called in at the last minute to pull some loser's crap code out of the fire. Which means I wind up working on crap code, under a deadline, with no upside and plenty of downside.

Ice Boy

6:17 PM

You are the man :-)

Robusto

But I just want to build cool shit and have people leave me alone with their shitty problems.

I hate shitty problems.

Ice Boy

we all do

Robusto

But I hate them the most.

hey

@Robusto If you see them in such way then you gonna hate them. So it's better to think 'i will solve this shitty problems and help losers.'

Robusto

But I don't give a crap about losers and their code. This ain't the Salvation Army.

Ice Boy

6:30 PM

@Alraxite Here it is.

hey

I think i should sleep. It's already 12.

Alraxite

@IceBoy Yes, I did find a post similar to this. Though none of them explain how chat duration correlates with number of valid flag votes.

But thanks.

Mitch

7:29 PM

@Shog9 You're a tropical fungus?

Stack Exchange

7:45 PM

Limerick Machine: Eating a big piece of pie Caused juice to spray in my eye It started to sting And what’s th…

posted on September 11, 2014 by sgdi

Eating a big piece of pie Caused juice to spray in my eye It started to sting And what’s the worst thing I ended up getting a stye

mathh

8:09 PM

Why does 'go to bed' not contain an article, 'the' or a possessive pronoun/noun?

'Bed' is a singular noun, so shouldn't it contain at least one of those? Doesn't such a grammar rule exist?

Andrew Leach

8:29 PM

"Bed" is a place. Like "Go to London".

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus In Canada after taxes it's €180

I have no idea what's up with the Danish price.

tchrist

8:50 PM

I dismiss the overwhelming majority of chat flags as bogolicious.

Ice Boy

I endorce your dismissal :-)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Supposedly there are real, truly offensive chat flags? Shog said so. My sampling says no.

tchrist

It’s become a vicious gotcha-game. If they were really concerned, they would flag a moderator. But they don’t: they try to rabble-rouse others into agreeing with them.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I have seen real ones, so I have no doubt that Shog is right about that. The thing is, the real ones innumber the faux ones by a substantial and troublesome margin.

Remember the 10k flag queue on regular posts?

People would use it for piling on more and more flags.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist Well, what I meant was that I had the impression that from the analysis of the chat flags most of the flags were deemed relevant.

tchrist

Oh. On that I have no opinion nor insight.

And even less data.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

8:55 PM

Well, it seems odd, because the vast majority of flags I've seen are bogus. But TPTB don't agree with me.

Or they have a very low threshold for "offensive" or "flaggable"

tchrist

You’re drawing a false conclusion.

I have seen nothing saying that TPTB consider the majority of flags you have yourself seen to be valid, despite your own perceptions about them.

It is possible that you and I see more of the bogus ones for some reason or another.

Shog gets to look at the data en masse and see patterns that we with our anecdotes never can.

There is no reason that both positions cannot be simultaneously true.

Although if I have some of history of dismissing flags that I oughtn’t’ve, I kinda would like to know about that.

Not to disagree: just to understand.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I am assuming that the chat flags I see are a random selection of whatever is being flagged whenever I am online.

It is the only way I can sample flags.

Yes, my data set is relatively small.

But I have never once hit "valid".

Well, almost never, anyway.

tchrist

I have, but few and far between.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

< 1%

tchrist

Also, I believe that your assumption is flawed.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

9:02 PM

So I am shocked when they claim that, like, 80 or 90% of flagged messages get marked as validly flagged.

tchrist

I am thinking that we are all of us presented with whatever chatflags show up whenever and wherever they do so, not that each user only sees a random subset.

Shog9

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 it's worse than that; it's skewed toward stuff that folks aren't reacting quickly and viscerally to.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Well, what I mean is that whenever a flag arises, it gets randomly assigned.

KitFox

To be fair, @GnomeSlice completely skews the results.

Johan Larsson

makes sense to show them to many for fast processing

Shog9

9:03 PM

Tangentially relevant:

13

A: Flags in chat are defective by design

I've been thinking about this issue for several weeks now, and I recently got my hands on 120 days worth of actual chat flag data. The data covered all cases where at least two people found a message flag-worthy (including the original flagger) and at least one person thought the flag was not val...

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That is what I doubt.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Shog9 That's true. I guess I'm less likely to see a flag if a million others have already seen it and approved it.

GnomeSlice

@KitFox What results?

KitFox

1 min ago, by Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

So I am shocked when they claim that, like, 80 or 90% of flagged messages get marked as validly flagged.

I was teasing you.

GnomeSlice

Heh.

KitFox

9:04 PM

Thanks for the tunes, btw.

GnomeSlice

NP, the one I posted today kinda sucks though

the cover art is better than the mix lol

KitFox

I'm not judging you.

Ice Boy

Don't test me pal.

GnomeSlice

I'll have some better stuff tomorrow

KitFox

I look forward to it.

See you.

Shog9

9:05 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Chat.SE is even worse for this - there are hundreds of moderators here who can dismiss or approve a flag, so the length of time anything valid is going to remain visible is vanishingly small - it doesn't take a million or even 5 users, it only takes one (with mod powers).

GnomeSlice

In the meantime I guess there's this:

►

tchrist

I know there have been perennial kvetches about why all 10k users get out-of-room flags.

@Shog9 Is there one chat domain, two, or many?

GnomeSlice

I still think that flags should only be visible in-room for something like 30 seconds, and if they don't get enough actions applied then other people should see them

Shog9

@tchrist because there are a lot of rooms without constantly-active 10K users/room-owners.

@tchrist 3

But flags are rare as hens teeth on chat.MSE

tchrist

MSE has its own, then SO, then all the rest?

Shog9

9:06 PM

yup

Ice Boy

I wanna know how did you ever come up with oughtn't've @tchrist :)

tchrist

Did Pops look only at offensive flags, or also mod flags?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Shog9 So maybe the chat system shouldn't apply the flags until some time period has passed, to allow people who like to actually go into the room and see the context of the message a chance to vote? And moderators... well, they should be instructed to act only when informed.

@IceBoy ought + not + have

Shog9

@tchrist only inoffensive

I mean, inappropriate

tchrist

@IceBoy Because I don’t believe in spelling pronuncifications like Lawler awdnovs.

Shog9

9:09 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 maybe

There's a tradeoff there too though

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Shog9 Because whenever I see a flag I always click through to read the context, and by the time I get back it's too late to vote

Anyway, gotta run.

Shog9

I'm not sure anyone's yet complained about folks from all over the network descending on some hapless room after a flag has been raised, but I'd imagine that'd be more common if more flags were visible for longer.

tchrist

The thing with the offensive flags, besides there never being time to figure out the context, is that they are prone to the pile-on rabble-rousing votes in a way that mod flags never are.

Shog9

well, that's somewhat by-design

That's why you can disagree with them, after all

tchrist

Oh, we get very blue here whenever a flag or three gets hoisted.

Ice Boy

9:12 PM

Blue like Jasper's avatar.

tchrist

Is there some nascent concrete proposal under which chat flags would be made more effective at accomplishing their goals, whatever those are?

Well, prenatal.

Ice Boy

I think chat flags should be done away with.

tchrist

Because?

Ice Boy

Too subjective.

tchrist

There has to be some way for the community to police itself.

Without them, we become Youtube comments.

Ice Boy

9:14 PM

Let the mods do it.

tchrist

Oh, you meant to leave mod flags.

Scalability?

Ice Boy

Yes

And more mods like you

tchrist

I’m not a mod.

Over my dead body.

Ice Boy

I know

Johan Larsson

@Mitch what message did you flag?

How is the new job Tom?

tchrist

9:17 PM

I would not be surprised to learn that the original idea of offensive flags being 10k visible is because the community standards in one community’s room can thereby be allowed to diverge somewhat from those of another’s.

However, this “strength” becomes a weakness when alien users pass judgement on a community they do not grok.

They lack the cultural context.

But without them, there just aren’t enough 10k users, let alone real moderators, to do anything in a timely way.

And we don’t want to let bile and abuse burn a bleeding ulcer through our communities by festering.

Ice Boy

In the math room you can be flagged if you drop the minus sign :-/

tchrist

Now that’s silly. You should only flag the people who write U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS instead of U+2212 MINUS SIGN. That’s both offensive and inappropriate, for sure.

Ice Boy

We take pedagogy very seriously there.

tchrist

I have heard, though, that the Math room and the C rooms are flaghappier than many another room. If this is true, then I really do wonder what it might be about their respective community cultures that makes those rooms so different from other rooms in this regard.

It is the clique problem?

Ice Boy

Egos

tchrist

9:24 PM

Every person has an ego.

Entitlement bullies?

This sounds . . . unhealthy.

Ice Boy

Arrogance too.

tchrist

I only ever hang out here, or sometimes in the Tavern, and while both places are clearly full of personalities, with just a few unmentionable exceptions I do not find either room to be attractors of people who are positively of the troll/crank/asshole category.

Ice Boy

There are a few math cranks.

tchrist

If there are abusive personalities there who make SE an unfriendly place in those other rooms, then it seems within the purview of those place’s moderators to rectify the problem, even if that means sticking a sharpened wooden stake up the evil ones’ butts. You cannot let poison become part of the culture, Vlad.

There are a lot of SO mods. You would think they would keep a lid on it.

Math perhaps is different, but they would also attract SO mods, I would imagine.

Alraxite

Popular rooms tend to accumulate a bunch of immature people or people inexperienced with the guidelines of proper flagging.

tchrist

9:29 PM

But I hear you saying that you don’t think this is being handled well.

Alraxite

Maths.SE has a very large user base.

Ice Boy

Plus mathoverflow

tchrist

I forget how to get to the place where they summarize the different chat rooms and chat users.

Alraxite

@IceBoy I think MathOverflow is no where as large.

tchrist

Like how busy they are.

I do not understand why Math has so large a community.

Almost no one does mathematics, after all.

Alraxite

9:32 PM

People like Maths.

tchrist

That is different.

Alraxite

And it is easy to gain reputation there.

Ice Boy

Once ell gets out of beta this will be English overflow :-)

Alraxite

So it's addictive.

@IceBoy I hope so.

By which I mean its domain name should be changed.

tchrist

@IceBoy You know, Ancient Greek or Sanskrit would have a mood better suited to that verb than English has.

If and when ELL should ever by the Grace of God and Acts of Congress, or perhaps vice versa, someday manage to claw its prenatal way kicking and screaming up out of the bastard bowels of the daemonic underworld into the blessèd beatitude of a full-fledged SE site, then and only then might this the whilom ELU be justly rechristened English Overflow, and hidden on the far side of the singularity through which no pineapples shall ever venture.

I know that’s what you meant, but thought I should beautify your curt words with the embellishments they were due.

Ice Boy

9:40 PM

clap, clap, clap

tchrist

What aren’t embellishments ever più bello than the original?

Isn’t flagging of the weak a perennial rite of passage at those hoity-toity boys-only boarding schools the snooty class send their wayward whelps off to?

Oh wait, I think I have an extra letter there.

Ice Boy

Yes, the so called Ivy League feeder schools.

tchrist

I was thinking more of those dens of iniquity that the more bourgeois Britons consign their pubescing sons to.

Fagging

Fagging was a traditional educational practice in British boarding private schools (nearly all "public schools" in the English sense) and also many other boarding schools, whereby younger pupils were required to act as personal servants to the most senior boys. While domestic servants were common in family households, the custom reflected household task distribution and taught pupils about service from both ends of the relationship. Under school rules, fagging might entail harsh discipline and corporal punishment when those were standard practices. Fagging was sometimes associated with sexual abuse...

Hence, flagging.

> taught pupils about service from both ends

tsks

Ice Boy

:-O fag-master?

Great username :-)

tchrist

9:56 PM

That’s just the chief paedogaga, that guy who always hordes all the rolling papers and makes the plebs do monkey-tricks to get any.

Well, Britain does have nuclear submarines. You have to get recruits for those from somewhere.

Robusto

10:29 PM

@tchrist That caught my eye as well.

Ice Boy

Who do you like in the game tonight?

Robusto

I dunno. Steelers, given that the Ravens might be demoralized from the whole Ray rice thing. On the other hand, it might give them some "Fuck you" spirit.

Ice Boy

Bal -2.5

Robusto

That's the line.

-2.5 is nothing.

Ice Boy

Yep

Robusto

10:35 PM

Not even a field goal.

If I were a betting man I'd stay away from this one.

Ice Boy

9 outa there last 10 meetings have been decided by 3 or less points.

Robusto

Pick 'em.

Ice Boy

Yep, right on the razors edge

I'll take the points and the steelers because of what you said about the demoralization factor.

Robusto

I think the Ravens are getting the points because the game's in Baltimore.

I figure home-field advantage is worth a field goal. Vegas doesn't even give them that in this case.

Pats are gonna suck hard this year, if the Miami game is any indication.

Ice Boy

Baltimore is minus 2.5, so they have to give up 2.5 points at home where they should be getting 3 points

Something is fishy here :-/

Robusto

10:52 PM

No, it means they're favored by 2.5.

Steelers are the dogs in this one.

Ice Boy

Yes, that's what I'm saying.

If you are favored you have to give up points.

The dog gets the points.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Right, so the prices really suck!

@IceBoy What? Which dog?

Ice Boy

The under dog.

Robusto

@IceBoy So it makes sense that home team should get at least a field goal, all else being equal.

And they're not even getting that.

Ice Boy

Yes. The home team gets +3, but here the home is -2.5.

So that is 5.5.

That's why I said something fishy is going on.

Considering 90% of their last 10 games have been decided by 3 points or less.

Robusto

11:06 PM

@IceBoy No. You're doing the math wrong.

Getting points means you're a dog. Giving points means your the favorite.

Minus means giving. Plus means getting. Comprende?

Ice Boy

Yes.

Bal -2.5

@ Bal

Robusto

Baltimore is the favorite by almost a field goal. At home. Just about makes sense, within half a point of making sense. There's no 5.5 anywhere.

Ice Boy

Ok, I'll take pit and you give me 2.5?

Robusto

That's how it works.

Ice Boy

I will take pit +2.5, you wanna "bet"?

Bal has to win by 3 or more for you to win our "bet"

Robusto

11:16 PM

40 mins ago, by Robusto

If I were a betting man I'd stay away from this one.

I don't bet on football.

Only within my family. We have a pool. I passed on this game.

Ice Boy

It's not a bet, it's a "bet"

Robusto

I'd rather have the Steelers.

My picks this week, straight up:

Denver
San Francisco
Seattle
Green Bay
Washington
New Orleans
Tampa Bay

Ice Boy

Straight up is no fun. But I like your picks :-)

Mitch

@JohanLarsson This was a couple years ago. Probably Matt or Cerb. We wanted to see how quickly it would draw in mods.

Robusto

@IceBoy Straight up can be a bitch. Out of seven picks, you'd be surprised how often the dogs win.

Ice Boy

11:27 PM

Yep, there are no guarantees.

Mitch

That's not fair. What's wrong with this world?

Ice Boy

What's not fair?

Mitch

The fact that there are no guarantees.

Ice Boy

That's why they play the game.

They play the game because of the very fact that there is no guarantee of who will win and by how much.

Unless Vegas calls.

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