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Robert Columbia
Robert Columbia
8:00 PM
@SmokeDetector tpu-
 
Machavity
Machavity
@Daniil It's been 5 mins and no Drones nomination :P
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer, potentially bad keyword in answer, repeating characters in answer (169): Вопрос по svg (path), не получается заполнить прогресс-бар by user389451 on ru.stackoverflow.com
tpu- feedback received
 
Makyen
Makyen
!!/watch- green[\W_]*+cre?st(?:[\W_]*+(?:oil|cbd|\d++|[\da-f]{4,}+))*
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
 
user435118
@Machavity Who said I was going to nominate straight away? :P
 
user435118
8:13 PM
I’ll probably nominate tomorrow or Wednesday
 
Machavity
Machavity
Speaking from experience, there's definitely no FGITW benefit
 
user435118
What’s FGITW?
 
Machavity
Machavity
fastest gun in the west
It means you were the first in
 
user435118
I don’t want to nominate straight away when the election starts though, or should I? thinking
 
user435118
My post is ready...
 
Machavity
Machavity
8:15 PM
TBH, the bulk of what will win you a diamond is your nomination score
Not that a brand new beta site is gonna have a lot of high-score people. But still, you're a high rep comparatively speaking
 
user435118
Not the highest rep, 2k vs 4K but I am the only one to award a bounty
 
user435118
AFAIK you get a point for that
 
user435118
Do you think I should nominate or wait a bit?
 
Machavity
Machavity
1 point per 1k, up to 20
Using the Candidate score SEDE you score a 10/40
 
user435118
checks the other potential candidates
 
user435118
8:24 PM
Scores: 12,10,10,8,7
 
user435118
I can up the score to 11 by voting a bit more
 
user435118
Ooh, @Machavity you have enough rep to vote ;)
 
user435118
@Machavity
 
user435118
> Do you think I should nominate or wait a bit?
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Potentially bad keyword in answer (1): Help in determining whether I have a male or female kitten by Ven on pets.SE
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Potentially bad keyword in answer (1): "ones" substitution for plural uncountable nouns ✏️ by Venca B Spam on ell.SE
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Potentially bad keyword in body, repeated url at end of long post (101): erro module '../Schemas' by Senshi BAKA on stackoverflow.com
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
8:51 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Potentially bad keyword in answer (1): Downloading Oracle database 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.2.0) on Linux via wget by kgkrishna on stackoverflow.com
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Potentially bad keyword in answer (1): Quantitative finance/mathematical library for Java ✏️ by Marc on stackoverflow.com
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Potentially bad keyword in answer (1): Is an array in JS is a pointers array? by user12995588 on stackoverflow.com
[ metasmoke ] ci/circleci success on 98c493e: Your tests passed on CircleCI!
fp- feedback received on erro module '../Schemas' [MS]
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Mostly punctuation marks in body (29): Add character in beginning and end of column ✏️ by Arjun Sarihyan on stackoverflow.com
fp- feedback received on Is an array in JS is a pointers array? [MS]
fp- feedback received
 
user12986714
user12986714
@Makyen I suppose that if there is a failure one cannot merge that branch to master...
 
Makyen
Makyen
@user12986714 That's not an absolute requirement. Keep in mind that we routinely get random failures on the functional test, which appear to be due to a bug in the testing library, not in our tests.
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@Daniil want my unsolicited opinion?
(oh and @Makyen MS should be fixed)
 
user435118
@ArtOfCode Sure
 
Makyen
Makyen
@ArtOfCode Great! Thanks!
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
9:04 PM
@Daniil Not sure how much you crossed paths with Shog, if ever, but... the guy was basically the guru of moderation. This is pretty much the same as he said to me when I was looking at an SO nomination. Please don't take this as personal criticism; it's not - this is simply what I think you need to do better at before you go for moderation.
Same applies as I said to you last week about privileges, and the advice I posted in the Drones election room applies too. It's not about what you're in it for. It's about what you appear to be in it for, and whether you're going to be able to stick it out, learn, and do things for the right reasons, or whether you just want to hit buttons. (Scathing, I know - like I said, not personal; some folks really do apply just to hit buttons.)
 
Thomas Ward
Thomas Ward
FYI: There was a power disruption at my location that may have blipped the network access. This may impact Metasmoke as things stabilize.
 
user435118
@ArtOfCode so you think I shouldn’t nominate?
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
This room has made some of the youngest moderators the SE network has ever seen, so if anything you're in the right place. That said... I'm not convinced you're ready for moderatorship yet. Moderatorship on SE isn't like moderatorship on reddit or X or Y or Z, if you're familiar with other kinds of moderation elsewhere. Diamonds here are taken much more seriously, and come with a much higher degree of responsibility and expectation of you. I'm not convinced you could handle that, yet.
 
Mithical
Mithical
Think long and hard about why you're nominating. What's your motivation?
 
user435118
@ArtOfCode I have to disagree, I don’t really see your point...
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
9:08 PM
I was one of them; @Undo was one of them; our other original founder was one of them too. I don't know about the others, but I nominated when I probably shouldn't have done and I paid for it in trust with my community; I acted when I should have shut up and listened to other, more experienced moderators instead.
 
user12986714
user12986714
@ThomasWard Could you then open the ping access so I can setup a watch of MS on my pc?
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Potentially bad asn for hostname in body (1): Why my slideshow is scrolling down my screen? ✏️ by sketchman luke on stackoverflow.com
fp- feedback received
 
user435118
@Mithical To assist the drone site to grow and expand
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
My point is that moderating on SE is a significant responsibility, and you've gotta be prepared to sit back for at least six months to a year, shut up, and learn it. If you poke at the tools for a month and go "yeah I know this now", you'll pay for it later; I did exactly that. Moderating ain't all about the tools - very little of it is about the tools, in fact - there's a huge amount of social experience and ability that you need to be a good, successful moderator here.
 
Undo
Undo
Ooh, young mods?
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
9:10 PM
There's an extent to which life experience helps with that, too.
 
Makyen
Makyen
@user12986714 You can just fetch a page that doesn't require any database access, unless you are also wanting to test that it can access the database, which is a failure mode, then fetch a page that requires minimal database access (maybe just the SD status page?).
 
Undo
Undo
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
...which, yeah, okay, I don't have huge amounts of, but even the 6 extra years of it that I've got since becoming a moderator... yeah. I nominated way before I was ready.
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Potentially bad keyword in body (1): How to get a clean screenshot? by Emre Özel on stackoverflow.com
 
user12986714
user12986714
Great
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
9:11 PM
And I only realised that in, like, the last year.
@user12986714 or this
 
user12986714
user12986714
@ArtOfCode I am now just doing "$ watch wget metasmoke.erwaysoftware.com/dev/blank";...
 
user435118
@ArtOfCode I think I have those social skills you are talking about
 
user435118
Do you not think so?
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@Daniil I thought I did too.
I did not.
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, link at end of answer, potentially bad ns for domain in answer (147): What are the best Pakistani business directories which provide free SEO services? by AishaKhan on stackoverflow.com
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
9:13 PM
@Undo yup, Drones election
 
Mithical
Mithical
@ArtOfCode I didn't either. To some extent, I still don't.
 
Undo
Undo
@ArtOfCode that's gonna be pro tem, right?
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@Mithical I'm sure I still don't in some areas :P
@Undo aye
brand shiny new site
 
user435118
@Undo Yes it is, Art does not think I am ready...
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
Oh there's a face I haven't seen in a while... o/ @thesecretmaster
 
thesecretmaster
thesecretmaster
9:14 PM
Hullo!
 
Undo
Undo
Here's another thought on being a new mod, young or not: Times are very different than they were when @ArtOfCode and I and most of the young-mod troupe came aboard.
 
user435118
@Undo Do you think I’m ready?
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
oooh, that's one I didn't think of
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
tpu- feedback received
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
SE was lax and friendly when I came aboard. It's a beast with no morals now :P
 
Undo
Undo
9:15 PM
That has good parts and bad parts, but overall there's much less of... some intangible attribute
When we started, the things you read on meta about the mod community were true
Now basically everything has changed, especially in the last year or two.
@Daniil Can't answer that one way or the other, haven't been around you enough (real life and all). But I'll tell you a story...
(crap I sound like Shog)
 
user12986714
user12986714
@ThomasWard expect repeated requests from ip 162.221.127.222 for page metasmoke.erwaysoftware.com/dev/blank every two seconds
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@Undo bahahaha. I was only just repeating Shog's advice to me up there ^ :P
@user12986714 two seconds miiight be a little excessive
 
Undo
Undo
@ArtOfCode eh it's a <10ms page
 
Makyen
Makyen
@user12986714 Why every 2 seconds? That sounds way too often.
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
it ain't exactly a heavy request, but every 30s would do the job of uptime watching
 
Undo
Undo
9:18 PM
Not gonna hurt anything either way
 
user12986714
user12986714
Would add wait to my script
 
Mithical
Mithical
@ArtOfCode I'mma drop this here
4
56
Q: I no longer feel safe moderating this site

MithicalIt's been just over five years since I joined the Stack Exchange network. I was awarded my fifth Yearling badge, over at Science Fiction & Fantasy, around a week ago. I became interested in the upkeep and moderation of the site not long after. One thing led to another, and I was appointed to mode...

discussion moderation
 
Undo
Undo
Anyway, story time. Long ago, about 2013-14, I really wanted a diamond. Was around 13-14 years old
Not really for power, more because of all the shiny buttons
So I grabbed the first site that looked doable on Area 51, was a heavy participant, etc.
6
A: Moderator Nominations

Undomain | meta | a51 | meta.SO | combined Area 51 profile for Undo http://area51.stackexchange.com/users/flair/83418.png profile for Undo on Stack Exchange, a network of free, community-driven Q&A sites http://stackexchange.com/users/flair/1703573.png Why should I be a mod? I love the co...

Sorry, I'm a slow story teller
 
user435118
@Undo No problem :)
 
Undo
Undo
That was back in the ye olden CM-chosen pro-tems process
At that time, I'd been working with a then-big name in the diamond community, on... this project
The OG Charcoal, where the name comes from now
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
9:22 PM
@Undo bah, I forget who
 
Undo
Undo
Really?
ManishEarth
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
gargh, of course
 
Undo
Undo
There was some back and forth behind the scenes that I didn't see until much later
But Manish pulled me into a chat room and asked the reverse of what you're asking
(hold on trying to find it)
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@Mithical never said it at the time: that completely blindsided me. I missed the flood of transphobia... I saw pockets of it, but... I guess most of it passed me by, and I still haven't figured out why
 
Undo
Undo
Eh it's lost to the passage of time
Anyway, we went back and forth for a bit on whether I was 'ready'
Me thinking I was, him pointing to some nebulous concept of 'seriousness' or something like that
Man, why can't I find that room now
Anyway, I wasn't ready
And I did it again
Astronomy.SE
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
9:26 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Potentially bad ip for hostname in answer (1): Unable to upgrade Flutter: no origin repository configured by Abhijnan Bajpai on stackoverflow.com
 
Undo
Undo
Once again, passed by, despite a fairly high voted nomination post and support of the rest of the people
A now-departed CM had, somehow, figured out I wasn't ready
SR was the first site I was genuinely interested in, had some ideas of where it should go, and got nominated by someone else without really wanting it
(okay, I kinda wanted it, but SR was new and scary and I wasn't sure)
And that same CM figured out I'd finally crossed the line from wanting a diamond because diamonds are shiny, to just being willing to serve a site for a while
 
user435118
@Undo So they removed your nomination?
 
Undo
Undo
Just didn't pick
Old process, remember
No community voting
 
user435118
Oh yeah
 
Undo
Undo
This might not be you at all; I'm no mind reader
But if there's some large-ish part of you that's just looking for more shiny buttons, beware
 
user435118
9:30 PM
Very interesting story :)
 
Undo
Undo
There's no CM in the loop anymore that can make those choices. Basically anyone can write a compelling enough nomination, win, and then you're thrown into the fray
The fray is not really a fun place to be if you've got the wrong attitude
 
user435118
@Undo I don’t get why you are implying that I shouldn’t nominate?
 
user435118
Even though you don’t know my intentions?
 
Undo
Undo
I don't know you well enough to imply either way
Telling you what I know of my intentions then, and that it would have gone badly
 
Mithical
Mithical
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
9:32 PM
Thing is, basically exactly the same happened for me, except I won a nomination and got a diamond before a CM realised I wasn't ready for it... so I got some friendly advice on moderating, instead. Best advice I've ever gotten. I really shouldn't have nominated for another couple years, at least.
 
Undo
Undo
aha
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
@Mithical ah, ya little... I was nearly there :P
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer (87): necesitaba ayudaa by NoneNobody_Nothing94 on es.stackoverflow.com
 
Undo
Undo
Hah, didn't realize that was public
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Potentially bad keyword in answer (1): How to write from the male point of view? by Acid Kritana on writing.SE
tpu- feedback received on necesitaba ayudaa [MS]
 
Undo
Undo
9:33 PM
So yeah, I managed to convince Manish by the end of that I was 'ready'
 
Mithical
Mithical
some manual combing through old Space.SE chat transcripts was all that was necessary :P
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
 
Undo
Undo
I'm slippery with words that way
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
 
Undo
Undo
in Ctrl-Z, Aug 2 '13 at 16:01, by ManishEarth
It's just that you seem quite intent on getting the diamond -- I'm not really comfortable about that (personally)
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
9:34 PM
fp- feedback received
 
Undo
Undo
^ That right there is sage advice
 
Mithical
Mithical
I have a bit of a similar story, actually
I first ran for election in January 2016. If I had won then, it would have been an absolute disaster. I was not ready enough in any way: in terms of my maturity level, social skills, or network experience.
(I was 13 at the time, BTW.)
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of answer, potentially problematic ns configuration in answer (61): Keyboard key stuck or not being recognized; how to fix by Shah Jahan on apple.SE
tpu- feedback received
 
Mithical
Mithical
The next time was August 2016. This was similar to @Undo's Space.SE story: I got interested in the site as it went into beta, contributed heavily during private beta, and nominated for election.
Why, though, did I do that?
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
This seems like a bit of a theme :)
 
Mithical
Mithical
9:38 PM
Thinking back, it was because I wanted to get access to the tools, influence, and connections that mods have.
I would not have been the best choice for the site. It wasn't a topic I actually knew that much about or even was interested too much in.
(And when I was in fact offered the position after a mod stepped down... a year or two afterwards, I declined because of those reasons.)
By the time I was actually appointed a moderator - February 2017 - I had improved somewhat. By that point, I knew the SE system very well, and I had gathered some writing skills that helped communication.
I still probably wasn't quite ready for the task, though - which had some ramifications.
I didn't speak up when I should have internally in our mod team - I relied on the more experienced (and older) moderator to know better than me.
Which wound us up in a situation where a CM had to step in, and we lost a contributor to the site.
 
Undo
Undo
Which site was this?
 
Mithical
Mithical
I've only ever had the one diamond :)
My point being: If you're not mature enough, that's going to be bad for the site, even if you think you're ready.
Now... anyone can make a mistake.
But it's easy, when you're significantly younger than the other mods and less experienced, to let yourself be easily swayed and to go with the flow - which is just as bad as acting on your own and not working with your team.
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
tpu- feedback received
 
Mithical
Mithical
To sum up: Even if you think you're ready - and even if @ArtOfCode thinks you're ready ;) - there can be things that you just haven't considered that you'd do well to think about.
 
Thomas Ward
Thomas Ward
@user12986714 Easier said than done. MS sits behind HAProxy
 
Mithical
Mithical
9:49 PM
There are, at the very least, a few essential questions to ask yourself first.
 
Thomas Ward
Thomas Ward
@user12986714 which is NOT the MS box
so your pings won't do anything, they'll just ping the WAF on the border of the network.
 
Mithical
Mithical
The first being: What are, actually, your intentions? "help the site" sounds nice and good, but is that actually what's going through your head?
Are you prepared to stand up for yourself with your peers - but also to listen, take advice, and change what you're doing if necessary?
 
Thomas Ward
Thomas Ward
@user12986714 reduce it to every 30s unless you want border network protections to trigger on you. every 2 seconds is excessive
 
Mithical
Mithical
Are you ready to always be held up as an example?
 
user435118
@Mithical are you speaking to me or just generally?
 
Mithical
Mithical
9:51 PM
Both.
Are you familiar enough with the engine and how the system works - and to learn an entirely new set of tools on top of it?
 
user12986714
user12986714
@ThomasWard it is now at about 40 seconds per wget
 
Mithical
Mithical
Can you own up to mistakes and admit when you're in the wrong?
Can you communicate well - both to your peers as in the mod team as well as to anyone you may have to "discipline"?
 
Undo
Undo
Slightly different topic:
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
so... @Daniil I know this might seem like we're piling on and criticising. Like I said, try not to take it personally; this is meant to be friendly advice from some folks who've been exactly where you are. Take it or leave it as you will, and you don't have to answer these questions here or publicly, but you should think about them for yourself.
 
Undo
Undo
Doing this was the best thing possible for me in a lot of ways
 
Thomas Ward
Thomas Ward
9:53 PM
@user12986714 that's well outside the DoS triggers, so you should be fine. But yeah I also wouldn't trust pings to be a good indicator of MS being up because even if the box replies the DB could be seized :P
which is what the wget shows ;)
 
Mithical
Mithical
@Undo I was going to get to that next :P
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Potentially bad ns for domain in body (1): Run commands on boot of raspberry pi by Andrew on raspberrypi.SE
 
Undo
Undo
Got to sit under many, many very good people, CMs, etc. It taught me to handle criticism and disagreement, how to make people quit talking past eachother, and... sometimes I catch myself sounding exactly like Shog
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
Ah, gotcha. I found Shog's advice to me... and I have permission to quote directly from TL, so you can bet your ass I will. "I don't think you're at all ready to be a Stack Overflow moderator. Your nomination, and your answers on meta, both struck me as naive."
 
user12986714
user12986714
@ThomasWard I suppose this is unlikely to offer protection of crafted DoS attacks (some db queries, but I cannot show it here according to Charcoal's security policy)
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
9:54 PM
He was harsh, but he was right.
 
Undo
Undo
@ArtOfCode ... please tell me you have a link to this? Somehow missed it
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
Some of the best advice I ever had.
@Undo what do you take me for, of course I do
it's... something
 
Thomas Ward
Thomas Ward
@user12986714 true but the MS ingress point (WAF) has a lot of web hardening/protection bits from a good set of the 'typical' attack vectors with a Snort instance. But yeah if you discover a security issue we detail how to report those securely.
 
Undo
Undo
@ArtOfCode Dang I miss that guy
 
Thomas Ward
Thomas Ward
@ArtOfCode ah, quoting the Great and Powerful Shog.
@Undo yeah he was pretty awesome.
 
Mithical
Mithical
9:56 PM
@Undo pop by Discord sometime
you can occasionally catch a wild Shog + i believe he holds video chats fridays
 
ArtOfCode
ArtOfCode
but they are about Java sometimes, so... hit and miss :)
 
Undo
Undo
@Undo And some things that are more of a mixed bag: I've learned survival techniques here that are a bit iffy. I can remember something you said nine months ago and throw it in your face when you disagree with me next. I can be brutally honest, sometimes just brutal. I can communicate "this is stupid" by altering writing style a little bit.
 
Mithical
Mithical
While serving as a moderator I learned a lot about communication - which, I maintain, is the most basic and most essential skill a moderator needs. If you cannot communicate effectively, you cannot moderate effectively.
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
 
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