Lately I go to the main page and see a large quantity of flags in the little notification box at the top of the page, like this
53 flags is a lot, right? Like, an emergency maybe? So I click on it and there is one single flagged item:
What gives? Is this FAD or a bug of some kind?
But hey, you set out to build yourself 50+ communities, you don't get to wonder if not every single one of them is completely identical to every single other one.
I grew up in a small town in Eastern Kentucky, and we played a game called sookie (soak e). This game is very similar to dodge ball except that it is every man for himself. Adults taught us this game and it was what it was called when they were children so the name goes back to at least the early...
@RegDwight — Honestly, I don't look at the flags on SO. I only get a vote there even on edits, so I don't even bother. Honestly, I don't bother with the SO site at all, much, unless I have a question or it turns up in Google.
I do not mean to stir up any commotion here, but today I looked at the list of my answers and realised that one (lousy one) had disappeared on its own. Curious I went to check it out and discovered that the entire question had been removed. May I ask for a brief answer as to why the question was ...
In a song video made by an American acquaintance, there is a joke that I don't understand.
I am not a native speaker, and I guess most English speakers would understand what makes his joke funny.
Is it on-topic to ask what is the meaning of his play on words?
As asked by Jeff Parker, here is...
This morning, Jeff says that if there is a hint that the person is not 100% confident of their English skills, then the question is very likely to be off-topic.
> if the person is not absolutely 100% confident of their skills in English, and the question is about a joke, the signals STRONGLY point to the question being off-topic.
@JSBangs Yes, the only thing he's done to me is, when I told him I didn't understand his logic for closing certain joke questions was:
"that's just basic ESL "explain the meaning of these words to me" stuff. Remember this site is supposed to be for experts so the standard here is high -- if it is simply ESL or explaining pop culture references that is insufficient."
"This isn't a subtle problem; english.se has enough severe quality issues as-is without adding pop culture guidance and ESL joke translation services to the litany of standing problems."
Honestly, this makes me want to throw my hands up and say "screw this".
So what Jeff is saying is, "Some problems encountered by some people learning English are OK, others are not, and we reserve the right to arbitrarily redraw that line at whim."
@Kit i actually agree with Jeff that benign dictatorship is preferable to open democracy on this kind of site, so in principle i support his right to act unilaterally even if i don't agree with all of his specific actions
that said, he's not threatening to shut down the site. indeed, he's not really doing anything at all with our site, other than popping up every now and then to complain about something that doesn't actually bother any of the regulars
I couldn't disagree more with the way he keeps saying he doesn't like the job we mods are doing without any attempt to show us what he is talking about.
@JSBangs I agree that true democracy is a clusterf*ck, but we have a solid ruling committee. I think we should be the ones to decide where the lines are drawn.
@JSBangs Easy for you, as a mod I put a lot of effort into tedious stuff, trying to make this site a better place. I spend time thinking about questions, answers, comments, and flags, trying to decide if I should take action here, or do something there. I care a lot about what happens.
And then every so often a big kid comes by and shakes my ant farm or pulls a leg off my pet spider or stomps on my sandcastle or whatever
@Kosmonaut Is there some non-confrontational way to, well, confront him about it? Because I think a topic on meta "Jeff, please explain yourself" might be a bit, um, over the top, but I've never seen him in chat. And he needs to explain himself.
@Martha i suggest an e-mail. the SE overlords are busy, and I've had a lot of trouble getting them to notice meta before. but a nicely-worded email got their attention
Hi all. I think I need a lot more coffee before I understand what's happening. For the record, I don't think there's anything wrong with the jokes and I'm confused about why they're different from any other "explain this to me" question (it can be a bad question if the author puts no effort in, or it can be an interesting question).
@aedia In my honest opinion, I think Jeff had a knee-jerk reaction to seeing questions centering around jokes, because they are clearly off-topic elsewhere, and then when it was pointed out that they can actually serve a purpose on EL&U, he didn't want to admit acting rashly.
I didn't understand some of the closed joke questions without the explanations. And I'm a native speaker, my job involves writing, and I got a perfect SAT verbal score (although perhaps that doesn't make me serious enough for some people).
@JSBangs That stuff should probably be sorted through to figure out what fits and what doesn't. But again, today I really can't muster any motivation whatsoever.
Lately I go to the main page and see a large quantity of flags in the little notification box at the top of the page, like this
53 flags is a lot, right? Like, an emergency maybe? So I click on it and there is one single flagged item:
What gives? Is this FAD or a bug of some kind?
On mars do place largest canyon in solar system.
It do meeting every two years with Earth.
you do understand my?
In a song video made by an American acquaintance, there is a joke that I don't understand.
I am not a native speaker, and I guess most English speakers would understand what makes his joke funny.
Is it on-topic to ask what is the meaning of his play on words?
As asked by Jeff Parker, here is...
English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…
English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…