The Water Cooler - 2018-05-26

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12:56 AM

@DarkCygnus The question was "on hold" so there was no other way for him to "answer" it at that point. In this case, I would ignore it. Perhaps he plans to convert it to an answer if/when the question gets reopened, or he just wanted to help the OP even if the question doesn't get reopened. Helping people get their answers is more important than following arbitrary rules made by Jeff, Joel and their descendants IMHO.

@ChrisE That was one of the weirdest comments I have seen on the mod election. Especially since the candidate hadn't made a single post here for over a year.

Crossed the river styx

@MaskedMan Yes, I've run into this fellow before. Funny how a few people who have either been inactive or just plain haven't participated at all, suddenly found interest.

However, since I am no longer in the running, I feel I can resume my usual snark. Of course, I would never do this just to annoy anyone deliberately.

I do like this new icon though.

2 hours later…

user351211

3:02 AM

Talking about people behind their backs isn't nice.

4:55 AM

@gwp Glad you realised it.

6 hours later…

11:13 AM

@ChrisE You also weren't elected last year ;-)

2 hours later…

Crossed the river styx

12:49 PM

@gwp I love people who appreciate irony.

0

Q: Reopen the question on finding good candidates?

This question (How to find good candidates amid tough competition in the job market?) was closed as too broad. However, it asks a single practically answerable question. It has already received a couple of answers and a few comment-answers. In any case, it seems to have only a handful of solution...

discussion specific-question reopen-request

2 hours later…

user351211

3:02 PM

@Crossedtheriverstyx & @MaskedMan I haven't talked about anyone behind their back. The Cabal is upset because I asked them questions about their candidature in the moderator election and because I endorsed a candidate.

3:27 PM

This is the only nominee whose answers are motivated by helping the people asking questions. Everyone else has lost sight of that because they are motivated to protect the site from harm. It is sad that this person has down votes and the protectionists have up votes. — gwp May 19 at 19:44

This is the only nominee whose answers are motivated by helping the people asking questions. Everyone else has lost sight of that because they are motivated to protect the site from harm. It is sad that this person has down votes and the protectionists have up votes.

user351211

@MaskedMan Correct

Leaving aside the fact that this does not describe any of the other candidates, doesn't it look like talking behind their backs?

@gwp Why do you think our questionnaire has had so many questions about making this place more welcoming to the new users if all of us are trying to protect the site from harm?

None of us have any objection about endorsing any candidate, you are certainly entitled to do so. However, commenting on the motivations of other candidates was probably not necessary.

user351211

That was written on the election questionnaire which is somewhere all the candidates frequent. That is very different from The Cabal talking about me here without giving me a heads up.

@gwp What is the difference? We are not talking behind your back. Everything that we post here is publicly visible even without logging in.

You are also making an assumption that every candidate keeps going back to that post to read the comments on all the other candidates post.

Crossed the river styx

@gwp, I wonder how you managed to ascribe motives to others when you haven't engaged the site in a year.

user351211

3:34 PM

The questionnaire has questions about welcoming new people because this is an issue which has been on many people's minds since that blog post came out.

Just like that, we can assume that users frequently come to this chat room. In fact, people come here more frequently than that post. There is a direct link on the main site which leads here in 2 clicks, unlike the meta post which you have to go searching for.

user351211

Most of my questions were related to examples where nominees behavior was contradictory to the answers they gave on those questions.

@gwp ... and who do you think posted those questions which were shortlisted in the questionnaire?

Crossed the river styx

@gwp So, who is in this "cabal" you seem to think exists.

@gwp There was a long discussion going on with one candidate where someone was asking why a question shouldn't be deleted, and the candidate was repeatedly trying to defend saving the question. That sounds like an example of "protecting the site" as against "helping users" to you? I guess we have to agree to disagree in that case.

Crossed the river styx

3:37 PM

@gwp, you seem very evasive, and defensive at the same time. Just curious, what motivated you to come back after a year's inactivity, and why do you have such open hostility for several users here

@MaskedMan I'd like to see any specific complaint as well.

@gwp We are addressing you directly, now. Speak your mind

user351211

In wasn't inactive for a year. I've only had an account for 22 days although I've been watching for a long time.

Another candidate was being grilled for closing a post, then editing and getting it reopened, whereas "protecting the site" would have meant keeping it closed and getting it deleted.

user351211

The Cabal is a group of people whose priority is to curate a collection of archetypal questions. They goal is more important to them than helping people with questions. This is why so many good questions get closed (on hold) with so much as a comment to explain to the questioner why.

Crossed the river styx

@gwp Who makes up this cabal? Care to elucidate rather than level vague charges?

@gwp This is a problem **only if those questions which could have remained open get put on hold for trivial reasons**, such as poor formatting, not including a question mark, or not using proper English. (related: my answer to question 3 above) Unfortunately, casting a close vote is far easier than editing the post and thus we tend to cast close votes more often than editing.

To improve the situation, **we should exercise more restraint when casting close votes**. This doesn't mean "never cast close votes", but **rather restrict their use to questions which cannot be edited to fit our site…

From this, you somehow concluded that I was contradicting my comment elsewhere (where also I was defending getting the question reopened). I didn't see how you reached that conclusion.

user351211

3:43 PM

@MaskedMan It is a problem because new users never have a positive experience.

@gwp What is the problem? Me encouraging people to use close votes judiciously and encouraging people to edit and reopen?

Crossed the river styx

@gwp still waiting for specifics

@MaskedMan I'm feeling MUCH BETTER can you tell? ;)

@Crossedtheriverstyx I can see you feeling better. :)

user351211

The problem is that the people here how frequently vote to close (hold) questions have no idea what the experience of a new user is. They talk about putting questions on hold as part of a process but what actually happens this that questions which could be useful on the site are put on hold and nobody who votes makes any effort to explain what the new user should do to get help.

@gwp Are you sure nobody ever tries explaining anything? You seem to know an awful lot about the site in just 22 days.

user351211

3:50 PM

I've been watching for a long time

The number of times we ("The Cabals" as you call us) have bickered with each other to get a question reopened far exceeds 22.

user351211

Most of the time, there is no explanation.

user351211

This is The Cabal. The established users who's instinct is to enforce rules and then back each other up.

@gwp If you have been watching for a long time, I am surprised you have missed all those cases where we posted comments explaining what needs to be done to reopen the question.

user351211

@MaskedMan that a minority

user351211

3:53 PM

@MaskedMan and it shouldn't be necessary because most of the questions closed should never be closed in the first place

Crossed the river styx

@gwp still waiting for specifics

@gwp ... and that is irrelevant to the discussion. We were talking about your claim that all the other mod candidates were "protecting the site" and not "helping users". Do you have specific examples of @ChrisE @MisterPositive @motosubatsu @Snow and me doing so? (I am excluding @DarkCygnus who posted his nomination after your comment.)

Crossed the river styx

@gwp name five questions that should never have been closed, and why

user351211

@MaskedMan workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/112459/… was closed by at least on of the people you listed without any comment to explain why

@gwp It was also edited and reopened by 2 people on that list. Next.

user351211

4:08 PM

@MaskedMan only after I pointed it out

user351211

@Crossedtheriverstyx
https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/112459/how-to-start-participating-in-open-source-projects
https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/91879/should-a-company-simplify-technical-interviews-just-to-increase-diversity-in-wor
https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/112949/small-quantity-purchasing-problems
https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/112925/promotion-or-leave
https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/112920/whats-most-important-in-professional-world-portfolio-advance-skills-or-grade

user351211

The bar shouldn't be "why should these questions be left open?", the bar should be "is there a reason they should be closed"? That difference is fundamentally the problem with the approach which leads to way to many questions being closed.

user351211

I think one thing we can all agree on is that this conversation isn't going to get us anywhere. I won't trouble you anymore.

@gwp Should I take this job or that is off-topic here. There is no way that question will be acceptable here.

Crossed the river styx

The phrasing of the first one was way too broad. It was closed, edited and reopend. That is how this site works, and should work

Thank you for the list, but you didn't explain why you think they shouldn't have been closed @gwp

4:17 PM

@gwp ... and what is the problem with that? You are a part of the community too. The point is we didn't shoot you down when you pointed out that it should be reopened. None of us here monitor the site 24x7 to see which questions can be reopened. People casting too many unnecessary close votes is a problem we are trying to fix, and it won't happen overnight. Constantly complaining about a problem we are trying to fix also doesn't contribute anything constructive towards that effort.

Crossed the river styx

@gwp As maskedman said, why are you complaining on problems we have spoken very publicly about,, and are actively working to correct

@gwp I also don't see any reopen-request posts for any of those questions. Making those posts would have probably helped to get them reopened by now, or at least, we would have understood what needs to happen to reopen them (or why they cannot be reopened). I am not so sure keeping a list of "closed questions that shouldn't have been closed" helps the askers in any way.

4:40 PM

The closure rate on TWP is something of a problem at times, especially with regards to new users. Heck I even made that aspect one of the central points in my nomination post! unfortunately it doesn't really have a simple silver bullet solution. And it has been a frequent topic of conversation here in chat, as are individual questions and talks about how we can salvage them. I'm not saying we are always perfect (I'm certainly not!)

Part of helping people is also to know when you can't help them.

But generally those of us who are regulars In here who have been running in the election are here to help people. @crossedtheriverstyx has spent hours in here providing one on one help with another user who was having a tough time at work, I've seem @snow spend time chatting with users here when their question/situation didn't fit into the SE format and remember that as much as we might banter around rep and badges we are all volunteers and are here to help because we believe in it

@AnneDaunted this is also true... The site scope is limited for very good reasons, we aren't lawyers, we aren't trained counsellors and we all have only so much we can do

I seem to remember some of us doing a resume review for a couple of people here as well. I have myself walked one Indian user through multiple incremental improvements to his resume.

@motosubatsu To add to that, @Crossedtheriverstyx is also helping that user over email "offline" from our perspective. To me, that alone is worthy of being a moderator, although the community clearly disagrees with that.

@MaskedMan very true.. I exchanged mails with him as well, although not to the extent that Richard jas done

The SE format is also simply not a good fit for many types of questions, basically everything too chatty (and it's also not SE's purpose...). It was not really intended for discussions, and comments and meta (clearly for discussing things, yet in the SE format) were rather ad hoc solutions. If it doesn't fit in here, there are other websites, too (at least so i heard. Didn't check since I found SE).

4:54 PM

~~Damn Link Fu gone wrong. Sorry, due to my OCD, I had to put that link in there somehow.~~ Fixed with Mod Fu. :)

And sometimes, situations are too complex or individual as that someone over the Internet could solve the problem. And then some, maybe well-meaning but clueless, user tells them what they should do, but missing many info it leads to trouble for the OP.

We need to constantly remind ourselves (and others) that we are unpaid volunteers who come here to learn and to help others in return for virtual points and badges. We don't come here to screw people's lives.

I don't think any of us have ever claimed we never made any mistakes. I find it a bit disappointing when people assume that mod candidates are some sort of "Avengers" who are chosen to save the world or something like this.

-1

Q: How could I make my coworker stop eating when I see it so I can stick to my diet better?

My coworker is eating a lot of unhealthy stuff at his workdesk and I am on a diet due to overweight. How could I make my coworker stop eating when I see it so I can stick to my diet better?

professionalism communication coworker annoyances

Now mod candidates - go and save the world!

@AnneDaunted I'm not going to lie, my first thought was "strangle him, that should make him stop eating permanently".

@AnneDaunted I'm tempted to mark it as a duplicate of this question from yesterday ...

35

Q: How do I deal with the political promotional items in the workplace?

I have been looking for similar questions on the exchange but I haven't found anything. Although, I have come across discussions on avoiding discussing political issues. A colleague of mine has placed political badges for an upcoming referendum in the company canteen promoting one side of the ca...

But since casting close votes ruins experience for new users, I have helpfully explained why in an answer. 😎

5:12 PM

@MaskedMan Like a template question with a "mind your own business" answer such new questions are duplicates of?

@AnneDaunted That's a good idea. I am wondering what a good canonical question would be for that.

"Should I mind my own business?" ;-)

Crossed the river styx

5:26 PM

@MaskedMan what irked me were the shots coming from people who do not participate on this site and only came to cause trouble. However, since I got better, some people have had SECOND THOUGHTS once I backed down and RECOVERED

5:37 PM

Maybe tvtropes.org should somehow be integrated into SE.

Crossed the river styx

@AnneDaunted it has so much useful information

Maybe some extra bar, e. g. right next to "The Water Cooler"

@Crossedtheriverstyx Yes that has been my concern as well with the whole episode. Can you imagine in real life I board a flight to a certain foreign country just to troll a certain President, and create nuisance on a "tourist visa"?

Although @ChrisE would strongly disagree with me, TV Tropes Will Enhance Your Life.

Folks, what do you think about getting rid of the tag annoyances? I acknowledge that our tags need a major overhaul and I will probably work towards it after this election, but can we pick some of these low hanging fruits in the interim? I thought of checking the pulse here before making a formal meta post.

It seems a bit superfluous - if it didn't annoy them somehow, they probably wouldn't ask how to change it. It adds no information (like a tag problem or so).

5:59 PM

@AnneDaunted Thanks. It also sounds close to the toxic-people tag that we got rid of almost a year ago.

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