English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

jlliagre

00:12

@Vikas Chandrayaan-3 took off on Bastille Day (Vive la France ;-) to make revolutions!

CowperKettle

@Vikas Great! I hope the rover starts rolling soon

CowperKettle

00:51

Word of the day: penny lick

> Penny Leake, Research Analyst for Europe Gas and LNG at Wood Mackenzie.

Nice name. Penny Leake.

@Robusto Now I know

CowperKettle

01:28

"You know what they call cheese in Paris?"

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jlliagre

01:41

Quarter Pounder with cheese in Pulp Fiction scene

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CowperKettle

07:07

> The hobby of collecting sugar packets is known as sucrology. Sucrologists normally collect the small packets of sugar that are most commonly found in restaurants, hotels and airlines.

Xanne

Wordle 797 2/6

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@CowperKettle I am one of those. I only do artificial sweetners, though.

Vikas

08:07

@CowperKettle It has started rolling already.

I'm a bit disappointed with image quality.

Here is a video: hindustantimes.com/india-news/…

Mari-Lou A

Hello all, may I ask any of the moderators, Andrew Leach, Laurel, and tchrist, a few quick questions? Are flags anonymous? If they are, do you sometimes recognise who the author is? Can Community mangers and/or SE staff identify the user who raised a flag? Thank you so much.

Vikas

IIRC, I once flagged a chat message and another user from another chatroom knew it was me who flagged it.

Mari-Lou A

08:47

@Vikas Do you think the user had had a previous discussion with you and made a lucky guess?

M.A.R.

08:58

@Mari-LouA not a mod but I'm pretty sure flags aren't anonymous at all.

Vikas

@Mari-LouA It could be. I'm not very sure.

M.A.R.

@Vikas chat flags work differently. If this user wasn't a mod they assumed it was you, they didn't know for sure

Vikas

Yeah maybe.

M.A.R.

You have more than 10k network-wide, have you never seen or handled chat flags?

Vikas

I see notificiations sometimes here near my avatar.

M.A.R.

09:00

The blue circle that occasionally appears on the upper right corner of your avatar is an indicator for how many flagged messages there are.

Vikas

Yeah same.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle what part of it is a 'logy'? Doesn't sound like a 'logy' to me

@Mitch are you crying or laughing

@alphabet it's a very mysterious drug, which is part of the reason it took so long for doctors to firmly warn patients against using it. There are several autoimmune diseases where nothing we've developed over the years works as well as hydroxychlorquine. At the same time, it means that people with rare diseases who tend to be familiar with their rare curse take the drug

Everyone else has no reason to.

Who knows how many Trumpsters developed arrythmias or eye problems during that hydroxychlorquine frenzy

Vikas

I don't know how I have 10K reps.

I remember only 4K.

M.A.R.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/behcets-disease/#:~:text=Beh%C3%A7et's%20disease%2C%20or%20Beh%C3%A7et's%20syndrome,a%20number%20of%20other%20conditions).

Vikas

> Inflammation is part of the body's defense mechanism. It is the process by which the immune system recognizes and removes harmful and foreign stimuli and begins the healing process.

So what are examples of inflammation? I've heard a lot about it but don't know what it is.

M.A.R.

09:13

@Vikas you bumped into a door or something and your arm is now red, swollen and painful. That's the most vivid example of inflammation

Or if you touched poison ivy

Vikas

@M.A.R. Okay. Is fever or common cold also inflammation?

M.A.R.

For otherwise healthy people, most causes of pain in the limbs is caused by inflammation

Vikas

Google Hindi translate shows it as "swelling".

If I follow that, fever or cold is not inflammation.

M.A.R.

@Vikas you catch a cold. Your immune cells produce two classes of compounds. One class goes to a center in your brain and tells the brain to set the body temperature higher, because a higher temperature is not good for bacteria that have infected you.

Vikas

@M.A.R. Yeah so is it (the extra temperature) also considered inflammation?

M.A.R.

09:17

Another class causes runny noses, pain (sometimes all over the body), things like that. This process caused by this second class of compounds is called inflammation.

Vikas

Oh. So it comes down to the definition I shared above.

M.A.R.

@Vikas catching a cold causes a fever and causes inflammation.

Vikas

Okay.

Thanks.

M.A.R.

@Vikas yes but there are other common reasons for 'swelling'. It can be edema, I.e. plasma, the fluid in your veins, leaks to the tissues, usually of the leg, so the leg swells.

Inflammation can cause edema because those immune compounds change how the vessels behave.

Vikas

No, I mean this definition:

8 mins ago, by Vikas

> Inflammation is part of the body's defense mechanism. It is the process by which the immune system recognizes and removes harmful and foreign stimuli and begins the healing process.

M.A.R.

09:20

If they get leaky, they could cause edema

Vikas

@M.A.R. But swelling is not always necessary to be considered as inflammation?

For example, in common cold or fever we may not get any swelling at all.

M.A.R.

@Vikas imagine a small wound. What's happened is many, many cells have died. Before the tissue, say, your finger, can return to normal, before new cells take their place, the remains of the old, now-dead cells need to be removed. Immune cells get attracted to the site of damage to do exactly that. They produce these compounds to 1) help even more immune cells get there, and 2) activate each other.

That's what NHS means by inflammation being a normal part of healing.

After the dead cells have been cleaned up, other non-immune cells show up and begin producing the matrix, the base of the tissue. Then they divide and replace the dead cells.

Now imagine a larger wound, like a knife stab.

Mari-Lou A

@M.A.R. thanks.

M.A.R.

It's more likely than a small papercut that something else also happens. For example, the wound gets infected. This prolongs the inflammation phase: The immune cells won't get disactivated because they're fighting bacteria and producing inflammatory compounds in the meanwhile

This prolonged inflammation phase also means the wound is less likely to heal well, and will leave a scar even if treated properly

Vikas

@M.A.R. I get it now. But again, swelling isn't a necessary feature of inflammation?

M.A.R.

09:30

So that's why people don't like the word "inflammation". The body experiences inflammation whenever there is something to fix: The cold, a wound etc.

@Vikas sure. As I said, inflammatory compounds (referred to as cytokines) change how the vessels behave. A lot of the time this change isn't big enough to cause leaking and noticeable swelling.

IOW, inflammation is a very broad concept. When cholesterol plaques narrow the coronary vessels in someone's heart, it's inflammation that blocks the vessel completely and causes a heart attack

Vikas

Ah okay.

@M.A.R. And that's why it is discussed a lot.

M.A.R.

@Vikas exactly. It's code for "something's wrong". And this inflammation sometimes fixes things, a lot of the times makes it even worse, because the immune cells don't know what happens when they cause a ruckus. Everything from allergies to Alzheimer's is linked to inflammation

I mean, this is France. Banning innocuous things is a national pastime of the government: WiFi, GMOs, burqas.... But now, if you want to buy a piece of chocolate with a toy inside that has caused children to choke to death, no problem! — Obie 2.0 4 hours ago

jlliagre

10:06

@M.A.R. Haha, Wifi, GMOs and burqas are good for your health as long as they're prescribed in homeopathic doses.

CowperKettle

11:49

@M.A.R. It involves deep research

CowperKettle

12:02

Police in Moscow detained a 64 yo man just before he managed to commit a crime, that is, to lay a bunch of yellow and blue flowers under the Soviet Ukraine monument. Now he faces up to 40 hours of municipal work, or a fine of 20 thousand rubles.

It's always better to prevent a crime than to wait for it. Proactive policy works best.

M.A.R.

13:25

@CowperKettle you sound sarcastic. Next time you're threatened by flowers, don't expect the police to come to rescue you.

Laurel

@Mari-LouA Flags are not anonymous to mods (or CMs, etc.) but other regular users won't know who raised them. We mods can even check old, handled flags, either through your user profile (same way you can) or by post.

(I'm assuming you're asking about the regular site and not chat. Don't ask me about chat, it's really terrible :p )

Also also, feel free to actually ping us in chat (using @username) if you can. I've been in the room here pretty consistently so you should at least have the option to ping me

Robusto

13:40

#Worldle #581 1/6 (100%)
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https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

🌎 Aug 25, 2023 🌍
🔥 10 | Avg. Guesses: 4.38
🟧🟥🟩 = 3

globle-game.com
#globle

Daily Quordle 578
5️⃣8️⃣
7️⃣6️⃣
m-w.com/games/quordle/

Wordle 797 5/6

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jlliagre

13:58

#waffle581 3/5

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🔥 streak: 19
🏆 #waffleelite
wafflegame.net

Robusto

Is that a Belgian waffle?

NYT Spelling Bee doesn't accept gibbet. What, are you kidding me?

Vikas

#Worldle #581 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐🏙️🪙
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

jlliagre

Wordle 797 3/6

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Robusto

I consistently underestimate populations because I grew up in the era when India only had about 600 million people.

NYT doesn't accept beetling, either. I'd have thought those people would have larger vocabularies.

Vikas

@Robusto They want words that I also understand.

Robusto

14:04

@Vikas Better hope the New Delhi Times gets that game then.

Vikas

New Delhi Times

New Delhi Times is 1986 Hindi-language political thriller film directed by Ramesh Sharma and written by Gulzar, starring Shashi Kapoor, Sharmila Tagore, Om Puri and Kulbhushan Kharbanda in lead roles. The film is about a newspaper editor who exposes the politics-media corruption nexus. The political drama film with a controversial storyline about political corruption and media, ran into trouble when film distributors and television refused to run the film, though later it went on to win three National Film Awards. It remains one of few Bollywood films to tackle the issue of corruption in media...

Heard it first time.

Robusto

Daily Octordle #578
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jlliagre

@Robusto Yes, a wåfe

@Robusto Floating anagram.

Robusto

@jlliagre Yes. Of course I picked the wrong anagram first.

jlliagre

Wåfe

Ene wåfe c' est ene påstedjreye k' on fwait avou on cadon, k' on ndè poujhe ene locêye po mete dins li fier ås wåfes. Les wåfes levèt, mågré k' i gn a pont di yesses divins (come dins les mitchotreyes, fwaites avou del påsse di pwin), pask' on eploye del farene fermintante. == Les sôres di wåfes == Les wåfes å souke (co lomêyes di Lidje), grosses et spesses. Po les fé, on mete des groumiote di souke å mitan del påsse (on spotche li mwairon, mete les groumiotes di souke so ene mitan, pu rascovri avou l' ôte mitan). Les molès wåfes (co lomêyes di Brussele, ey en inglès Belgian waffle) k' on pout...

Not enough Waloon in this chat! ;-)

Robusto

14:16

I haven't any Waloon at all. Maybe I don't eat enough waffles?

jlliagre

Daily Octordle #578
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Mitch

@M.A.R. I meant it as a reply of laughing crying to @Vikas's previous comment about starting the linked official video with 'Ji han' (= 'Yeah') because that one announcer kept using it over and over like a bored teenager.

@Robusto YOu can never eat enough waffles.

Aug 21 at 17:36, by Robusto

@Mitch Your assumption that they are people is an amusing one.

@Robusto They're probably understaffed?

@M.A.R. OK so I'd expect that all vertebrates (or at least all mammals) have both mechanisms, full body fever and localized inflammation, as evolutionary creations to help hold back bacterial or viral infection and help local injuries.

But... a lot of medicine, of the palliative kind, attempts to -stop- those body reactions. Fever reduction medicine (like NSAIDs) and anti-inflammatories (like NSAIDs) respectively (but also for the latter things like ice packs to reduce sewlling).

So primary question... shouldn't we let the body do what it is good at (fevers and inflammation)? Because presumably those mechanisms are selected for?

And secondary question... the pharmaceuticals to treat fever and inflammation seem to use the same mechanism, even though the two processes are distinct. That seems contradictory, or rather maybe fever and inflammation -are- the same mechanism? The scientific question to be ansered is 'What's up with that?'.

Vikas

14:50

@Mitch We should, as long as body doesn't want to die. Sometimes body wants to die and we don't want to die.

Robusto

@Mitch That is an inflammatory remark.

Mari-Lou A

@Laurel Thank you. One last point, how come some flags are handled faster than others while some flags go pending for weeks?

Robusto

@Mari-LouA Don't those go into the queue for users to handle them first? Unless you specifically call a mod in the flag, that's why they might wait for weeks.

Mitch

Robusto

@Mitch Don't you ever wake up in the morning feeling absolutely dead? This is where you go to report that.

Mitch

15:07

Maybe they're just good planners? "I'm not feeling so good... I've made a todo list and this is one of the items"

M.A.R.

15:27

@Laurel aw, you've been dying to mentor someone about SE

@Mitch all vertebrates is too expansive. Maybe reptiles, birds and mammals.

You have some simple vertebrates that gained the title merely through connections, not hard work. Be the boss's nephew and things like that. They barely have a mouth let alone immune systems

@Mitch if you let the illness run its course, yeah, probably having that 38.5 deg C fever is better than not having it. I have no idea if there's actually any clinical evidence for that, BTW. So why stop fever and inflammation? Because they're bothersome.

Your body needs to remind the brain that something is wrong. Once you know that, you don't need to feel the pain constantly, or to cough all the time (which is also an inflammatory response in case of a cold)

Besides, fever in kids is dangerous and can get out of control. So since we're no longer cavemen, we can have the kid snugly tucked in until the cold runs its course, and give him/her an NSAID to kill the fever and possible pain

Michael Rybkin

In the field of economics, the commodity value of a good is its free market under optimal use conditions.

I'm not sure that I understand the phrase "its free market". Would I be correct assuming that it is possible to say that "a particular good has its own free market"?

Robusto

15:44

@MichaelRybkin I think it needs ". . . is its free market value under optimal use conditions."

Michael Rybkin

@Robusto Oh I see now. It felt like there was something wrong with the text. This piece of text actually comes from Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_value

Robusto

@MichaelRybkin Wikipedia makes mistakes too.

Michael Rybkin

@Robusto yeah, the errare humanum est principle worked, works and will be still working.

@Robusto Thank you.

Mitch

16:19

@M.A.R. is another thread altogether but don't most -living things- have some sort of immune system? I mean even trees get sick sometimes.

Maybe not single-celled organisms.

@M.A.R. Yeah I get that fever is dangerous but that seems counterproductive... does that mean fever saved more kids than killed them and that's all that evolution cares about it?

Robusto

16:47

@Mitch Evolution doesn't give a shit. Survive or die, it only rewards the winners—and usually for a short period of time.

M.A.R.

17:50

@Mitch well, if you'll define it as "any mechanism that combats other hostile organisms" then sure, even single-celled organisms have immune systems

@Mitch of course. Statistically a 41 deg C fever is much rarer than a 39 deg C one

Laurel

19:05

@Mari-LouA The cynic in me says the alternative is that all flags would be pending for a while... In all honesty, behind the scenes I would say things are a mess. I personally am contributing more to SE right now than I really have the capacity to (which unfortunately is mostly going to things other than old flags), which is rough. I'm planning to talk to the other mods about stuff like that hopefully soon (when all or at least most of us are active again — it is still the summer)

If you do have anything that you think could be a (public!) meta post, that's probably better than a mod flag, even if it's about something that only mods can do like merging questions. It's easier if the community can decide what needs to be done and just have a mod show up to press the button(s). (Obviously complaints about specific users and similar should still be flags.)

@M.A.R. Ah, a mentee, ~~someone who I could teach how to do all the things on my to-do list~~

M.A.R.

19:22

@Laurel hit me

Er, not with the modhammer

Laurel

Wow good thing you clarified

Unfortunately a lot of the stuff I'm doing is behind the scenes, but one of the big things on my mind that isn't is trying to sort out close voting here. Can we get everyone on the same page where we're not closing 80% of all posts via a series of meta posts? Should we suggest going back to 5 votes for close/reopening (or maybe even 5 close/3 reopen)?

Meanwhile on ELL I'm thinking we might need to do the opposite, since the close vote queue is pretty long (but I actually did draft up a meta post for that)

Going back to ELU again, a long time ago I even created a list of posts (all about etymology because I'm biased) that I think were wrongly closed/deleted and could be fixed up, but the effort to fix them eluded me lol

Not to mention routine stuff in other posts like transcribing images, fixing links, editing bad grammar, retagging, etc., etc, etc

Robusto

20:07

@Laurel I think we might want to consider 5/5, but not 5/3. Bck in the old days I was for reducing the close vote criterion to 3, but now I feel it's just too quick, especially since there is a small coterie of dedicated closers who appear in most closings.

Laurel

Yep, I feel the same way

2

Mitch

@M.A.R. OK. So that means I'm using the term as not usually used. For what is usually used, are you saying, let's say, crustaceans don't have an analog to (substantive) vertebrates? Where does it start for vertebrates... fish or amphibians or what?

@Laurel There is a small coterie of reopeners

waves from the back

Cerberus

21:04

@Robusto OK I have been saying this for many years...

Robusto

So maybe we should workshop it? Take it to meta.ELU?

Cerberus

I'll vote for it.

Laurel

@Robusto Is there anything more to discuss before posting it? You can use @alphabet's data. I can feature it too

I say this periodically but I'm also willing to help out with any efforts to reopen main site stuff too (at least as much as time allows :p)

Anyway I need to get off my phone and into the pool :3

alphabet

@Robusto I have mixed feelings on this, since we do get a lot of low-quality questions that need to be closed.

My proposal: make it so that, once a question has been reopened, it can't be closed again without a large # of votes. To avoid close/reopen cycles.

And make it so that upvoted questions are harder to close.

And use my data to figure out who is abusing their close vote privileges & like, talk to them in chat & tell them to simmer down a bit.

Cerberus

Are any of these proposals realistic, would SE consider doing these things?

@alphabet This could be connected to having a chat with people who always leave negative comments to questions.

Robusto

21:19

@alphabet I don't think the dev teams want to do that much work, frankly. Then everyone will want some kind of special features.

alphabet

@M.A.R. I propose we start an Internet pharmacy selling alprazolam to people who need to calm down a bit before commenting.

@Robusto Indeed. But I do think that just raising the close vote threshold may make things worse, not better; this is more of a cultural problem than a technical one.

Since it will also make questions that should be closed stay open.

Cerberus

I don't think there is much harm in that.

Our problem is the opposite.

Laurel

@alphabet I don't think it's a bad idea to require an escalating number of close votes but this idea is more likely to happen

alphabet

We do get a fair amount of, uh, shitty questions though.

Laurel

SE just doesn't do the feature requests that people ask for

alphabet

21:23

Also: we have more than five people who abuse the close vote privilege. So questions will likely still get closed, just more slowly.

Laurel

Hopefully we can also work towards a shift in voting culture

alphabet

@Laurel Yeah, but I'm skeptical about changing the threshold. I don't think that that will help much.

I think the result will be that the same questions will get closed, just a few hours/days later than they would be otherwise.

Laurel

I had wanted to gradually tackle how each close vote reason should be used starting with opinion based which some people use instead of answering objective questions with no clear answer

alphabet

If we had exactly 3 people who closed things too often, then raising the threshold would work. But we don't.

I do think that clarifying the reasons would be good. IIRC SE has some ability to alter close reasons on a per-site basis.

Laurel

Not most of them

alphabet

21:29

Case in point: when a question gets reopened, it will often get closed again by a different 3 users. So for those questions we have at least 6 people willing to overuse the close button.

Laurel

Only the 3 site specific reasons can be edited, and mods can do that

@alphabet that's always the case unless a mod is closing it

Regular users only get one close vote per question

alphabet

Exactly.

Laurel

Probably I should just change the research close reason to make it so you have to actually findthe info in a resource

alphabet

I think the effect of raising the threshold would mostly be that questions would get closed more slowly; I don't think it'd much affect which ones get closed. But IDK.

@Cerberus Can't we just suspend users who are too mean in the comments? I think mods can suspend someone for a few days if they're throwing temper tantrums.

Laurel

@alphabet yes, please flag

I've talked with mods from other sites who are native English speakers but are afraid to ask here. There's more than one and it's not like I'm soliciting opinions like that. We need to do something even if it's only going to be a little effective in reversing this

Cerberus

21:42

@alphabet I didn't mean actually mean, but just negative in general. Always complaining, always criticising, always saying the question doesn't belong.

A prime example is E. A.

Robusto

@alphabet It doesn't have to be that precise. You generally see most of the same gravatars on the closed questions. Some are nearly always present, including the aptly named KT.

@Cerberus He is the troll under the bridge to ELU.

Cerberus

22:07

@Robusto I do think he believes that he is doing what is best for the website.

alphabet

22:33

@Laurel Wow, that sucks. Is it because commenters are mean or because their questions get closed?

@Cerberus Mods can at someone who isn't in a chat room, if you Laurel would like to have a word with them.

@Cerberus KT casts a lot of votes, but his/her "badness" (in terms of # times overridden by reopen) isn't unique

Another option: revoke some users' close privileges. i.e. give a user a warning. If they, later, cast any close vote, suspend them.

@Cerberus Indeed. If I respond to those comments with "Awww, somebody's a bit grumpy today?" will I get in trouble too? /s

CowperKettle

I'm 2.1% Black

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Laurel

@alphabet One of the conversations was about gatekeeping via telling people to do research (which is not exclusive to this site). The example they gave is that someone told them to google for the answer, but google didn't have any answers. (I've seen that too and I hate it)

I don't think the question was actually closed, but I didn't check

alphabet

If I ever say something negative, I blame the fact that I (a) am from Boston and (b) have mental problems.

@Laurel One idea: we could state specifically that the "do your research" only applies if something can be found in a dictionary (or etymonline). So we allow all easy questions related to grammar. Might irk some people though.

Laurel

(It wasn't closed but got 2 votes to close)

Cerberus

@Laurel Yeah, two reasons I often see abused are "you need to find the answer yourself because I know I could", and "I can't think of an answer so it must be unanswerable".

alphabet

22:47

Possibly relevant comment section debate I had recently:english.stackexchange.com/questions/611541/…

Laurel

@alphabet I could get behind that. It would probably lead to many more migrations to ELL, which idk how to feel about

alphabet

TL;DR: EA claims that all easier questions should go to ELL, regardless of whether they're from native speakers (go to the end of that thread).

Cerberus

@alphabet This is exactly what that closing-reason was when we first instituted it.

alphabet

> Such questions belong on a site aimed at more basic questions: 'The answer is of course simple for anyone who has studied the basics of grammar.' ELL has this function; it is possibly misnamed from a pragmatics point of view. ELU is aimed at linguists and proficient Anglophones. – Edwin Ashworth

> If ELL is not open to native as well as native speakers, it is probably breaking some legal requirement. There are many native speakers who have more basic questions than are on-topic on ELU. Certainly the question here is too basic for a site aimed at linguists and proficient (not necessarily native-speaking) Anglophones. [...] -- Edwin Ashworth

Laurel

@alphabet Technically ELL allows native speaker questions too, but it feels kinda backwards. I'm not going to tell someone to go to ELL simply because people are going to bully them about the nature of their question on ELU

alphabet

22:52

@Laurel The difference should be in their primary target audiences, not in the level of question difficulty. There's no objective way to measure whether a question is difficult enough for a given forum.

Laurel

Yep, I would prefer to just assume that everyone who asks on ELU wants a potentially complicated answer instead of assuming they just want an easy rule of thumb like people on ELL would want

alphabet

The attitude EA is expressing seems to be: if your question makes me think you're dumb, I'll vote to close it and move it to ELL, where I think they're OK with dumb people.

Laurel

Tho I do give complicated answers on ELL but who's going to stop me lol

alphabet

I see zero point in having one forum for easy questions and one for difficult ones. But it's quite sensible to have different ones for different groups of people with different goals.

Laurel

I wonder to what extent the other ELU mods share my opinions on all this

alphabet

22:58

But c'mon. Should Stack Overflow make a separate forum, Stack Overflow Dumber, so that all overly easy coding questions can get migrated there after a few put-downs in the comments section?

Laurel

That's been suggested, but ironically usually by self described noobs

It came up like yesterday again

alphabet

If a question obviously seems to be from a learner, it should go to ELL. But there's no "minimum difficulty level."

Laurel

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Q: Would it be a terrible idea to split SO up into a tiered platform?

It seem that with the sudden increase in popularity, SO is developing some problems, bad/lazy questions (I'm guilty of this myself, it's hard to get a grasp on the SO atmosphere when you first start), good programmers answering less questions as a result, etc. I'm no expert and wouldn't meet mo...

Oh they have a tag

alphabet

Here's my proposal: instead of the research reason, have the reason be: "Do not post questions asking what a particular word means or what its etymology is, unless you have already checked commonly available reference sources."

Easy grammar questions will get moved to ELL if they seem to be from learners. Or we'll just answer them, marking them as duplicates as often as possible.

Laurel

We could also change the popup on the ask question page to help a little with that. Right now it kinda reads to me: look at all these other places you could ask, gtfo without any guidance on how to actually ask

alphabet

23:13

Ultimately though, I don't think there's any way around just talking to the most problematic users directly.

Laurel

Yeah...

I just hope they eventually agree

Arguing is exhausting

alphabet

You're the moderator. You're not required to get people to agree; you're the one in charge.

Nor are you required to debate or convince people.

Laurel

Unless they're also moderators.... lol

alphabet

Ah.

Laurel

I think as long as I can get tchrist on board it'll work, but I'm hesitant to bother him rn. Let's just say he's been busy off site lately

alphabet

23:29

Ah. I hope you mean good-busy and not bad-busy. (Sorry if I'm missing context.)

It appears we have six moderators

Though some of them seem to be relatively inactive

Laurel

@alphabet Well, you'll just have to ask him when he comes back. I'm probably the only one who knows what's been happening with him (other than him) and I'm not sure how much he would want to share. But he is gradually returning to SE

@alphabet I have to be honest, between here and ELL, I haven't even talked with all my co-mods. I have to constantly remind myself who they are lol

alphabet

@Laurel OK. I hope he is doing alright & won't ask any more questions.

@Laurel Huh. You don't have some secret chat where the cabal plots things?

Laurel

@alphabet Well we do but not everyone shows up!

We have several secret chats

Shhhh

alphabet

@Laurel Ah. Are the other mods active? Andrew Leach certainly is but the others seem not to show up so much.

Laurel

Under normal circumstances tchrist would be active and NVZ is also active but quiet. Everyone else not so much.

alphabet

23:39

Ah. I mean, you just need to make sure there aren't any active mods who oppose whatever you're doing.

Laurel

Yeah pretty much. Like for example I edit like a tyrant but nobody stops me so we're good

alphabet

In terms of deciding how best to discipline the problem children

Laurel

Lol

Tbh I kinda do feel like I'm everyone's mom sometimes, which is weird when I know the person I'm talking to is like 70

alphabet

I believe that the feminists call that "emotional labor"

It's not your job to be a grown man's mom. That's his wife's job, duh. /s

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