Dear Stack Exchange, Inc. • Hacker News Board

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#221

Post by puzzledbythis » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 6:54 AM UTC

Buge wrote: post #104

fenwick67 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is helpful, but still far from a couple paragraphs. Nobody owes me anything on this, but I am not taking the energy to parse through this and then SO's responses and then reread TFA to get an actual factual sequence of events here, which ultimately ended in someone losing their moderation status on a Q&A website. This probably comes off as really callous but honestly, Watergate or the Bay of Pigs or (more close…

On a mod and employee chat group, they were discussing a new future code of conduct. One element said "You must use people's preferred pronouns if given". A mod (volunteer) (Monica) said "Is it OK if I never use any 3rd person singular pronouns?" She got no answer for a while and was then fired as a mod on Friday at 6pm less than 1 hour before before Shabbat and Rosh Hashana (she is Jewish and a mod of the Jewish Sta…

Could you please help me understand how this relates to Cellio's previous concerns in October 2018 about a problem with Twitter and customer support and moderation?

Does that concern ( https://medium.com/@cellio/dear-stack-overflow-we-need-to-ta... ) have anything to do with the pronoun code of conduct problem at issue here, or is it totally unrelated other than Cellio's involvement?

I have to admit, having read Cellio's summary of the situation, I'm puzzled why "avoid using pronouns to refer to people where possible" would be a controversial view. If you use the wrong one, it may cause harm. If you use none at all, your interaction is more futureproof. For example, if I write about a person who feels comfortable being called "him" but the person later chooses to prefer being called "her", but if if I had avoided using "him" entirely in the first place, then I would never worry about having to retroactively edit or delete my writing to avoid harm.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#222

Post by tzfld » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 6:56 AM UTC

I have read every hn submitted articles about this drama, but I still don't get what this is all about. Maybe because of my english not being the best.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#223

Post by sgt » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 6:58 AM UTC

I'm confused here. What's the TL;DR of what happened?

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#224

Post by slavik81 » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 7:01 AM UTC

greggman2 wrote: post #167

wpietri wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think SO is poorly designed as a system. It certainly does encourage people to ask not-so-great questions. It doesn't handle them particularly well. And then expects people to clean up the mess for free. Those people of course feel stressed and overwhelmed, so are inclined to be rude, aggressive, and hasty in their decisions. Like ldigas, I long ago gave up on SO because of bad moderation experiences. I'm grudgingl…

As someone who answers quite a few quesitons on SO I'd really like to see posts that were perceived as wrongfully closed to see if I agree (haha) and also to see how to fix the system. Of course I have no hope that S.O. will change anything. When they started their "be nice" campaign I suggested the "CLOSED: This is a duplicate" message should be changed to "CONGRATS: This appears to be a duplicates so you win! There…

> As someone who answers quite a few quesitons on SO I'd really like to see posts that were perceived as wrongfully closed to see if I agree (haha) and also to see how to fix the system.

This person[1] was getting unexpected results when calling is_integer. According to the duplicate, the solution is that they should call is_integer... which is what they were doing. The original close voter commented 'sorry I didn't read your question properly before suggesting the dupe', but it remains closed.

The question was answered in the comments: this surprising result was due to floating point error and rounding done by the print function. However, it could not be posted as an answer, because the question was closed. I voted to reopen, but the vote failed.

[1]: https://stackoverflow.com/q/49847677/331041

EDIT: The share link I posted takes me to a different question when I'm logged in than it does when I open in an incognito window. WTF.

EDIT2: Apparently serving completely different pages to logged-in users and logged-out users is by design. https://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/271077/

Here's a link to question [1] that should work for everybody: https://stackoverflow.com/q/49847677/331041?noredirect=1

EDIT3: It doesn't work. Sorry. I tried my best, but only logged-in users will get the correct page from the links I posted.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#225

Post by mister_hn » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 7:04 AM UTC

p1esk wrote: post #92

mister_hn wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've got compensated in visibility. I don't know any moderator with less than 20k points to date. And the more points you have, the upper you stay in the ranks and you can always embed their badge in your website. So, yes, they don't earn money, but they receive visibility

What does this visibility mean? Can it be converted to cash somehow?

yes, if you do freelancing

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#226

Post by beerandt » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 7:07 AM UTC

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #205

beerandt wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's pronouns. More generally, it's "I expect you to conform with the way I perceive the world, even if it's not the way you perceive it." The entire point of a pronoun is to convey my perceived relation to the noun. We do it all the time with possessives and formalities; if gender is truly a fluid, to-be-perceived, non-biological construct, then why shouldn't we treat it the same way?

Based on Monica Cellio's blogpost ( https://cellio.dreamwidth.org/2064709.html ), I think what happened is that, last year, she posted saying that she prefers, when possible, to refer to people in ways that don't require using pronouns at all. Later, this was misinterpreted to mean that she refused to use people's requested pronouns, and she was fired from her position. That might have been reasonable if she had actu…

You're giving them too much credit. She said she'd prefer not using pronouns at all. They said if she avoids using pronouns, she's just as guilty as using the wrong one. Then they fired/de-moded her based on her stated preference, assuming she would not follow the future rules.

They also did this at 6 pm on a Friday. She's Jewish.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#227

Post by Arnt » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 7:09 AM UTC

steve19 wrote: post #193

vunie wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the same place as you are, but in relation to wikipedia rather than stack overflow. I remember adding a [citation needed] tag to an inaccurate claim, and then discovering that my change has been reverted. The reason the moderator gave was that [citation needed] didn't look good on the page. How do you argue with people like that. I'm not going to spend hours reading on wikipedia's policies just make it better.…

Can you give an example on how to word a question?

On Stack Overflow? A good question contains a reproducible problem (or at least an understandable question) and it's worded such that people with the same problem will find the question and answer by googling.

Better than that is better, but that's the threshold between bad and good.

So include error messages instead of just typing "I got a certificate error when …", because people who get the same error will paste their error message into google. Some of then paste it into bing. None type "I got a certificate error when …" into google.

Stack Overflow is about building a knowledge base where people find answers. SEO is essential to that.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#228

Post by corobo » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 7:13 AM UTC

greggman2 wrote: post #220

corobo wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see lots of volunteers answering questions and only voting to close the bad ones and they are bad ones. Before answering questions in future give them a bit of a Googling. Find the ones someone like yourself didnt spend time on, the ones that instantly got closed as off topic or duplicate or moderator was grumpy today so closed. I get it, wealth of free information and that, sure. But these are the top results in…

isn't that what a closed as duplicate question does ? it has a link to the answer. noindex doesn't help. we don't know how to word all questions so leaving the duplicate question indexable gives search more chances to connect a questioner with an existing answer

In theory yes, in reality it just serves to surface the duplicates that aren’t duplicates of the question at all.

In the absolute ideal these questions would be answered instead of closed as dupe but right now it just means following a trail of dupes and closures to maybe find the answer before giving up and going back to the search results.

Instead of that, give the user the wrong answer straight away so they can just back up one to the search to continue digging

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#229

Post by dna_polymerase » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 7:27 AM UTC

OccamsMirror wrote: post #198

fenomas wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think much of what feels bad about StackOverflow now stems from the surprisingly braindead way it treats duplicate questions. Currently, moderators close the question with a link to the question they think it's a dupe of. Why not instead let people answer the question with a link to the answer that they think solves the poster's problem? If they're right then the asker can just accept that answer, and if not then p…

I've come across so many questions closed as dupes for answers that are years old. The tech has changed, the answer is not the same. The question is a duplicate, sure, but the correct answer is now different. The mods are ignorant and quick to act poorly. StackExchange has sucked for several years at least.

> The question is a duplicate, sure, but the correct answer is now different.

Also, often I see newer and better answers under the 'original' question, but they never get the upvotes or the 'correct answer' badge. Sometimes I completely overlook them because they are just not as visible.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#230

Post by NobodyNada » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 7:32 AM UTC

puzzledbythis wrote: post #221

Buge wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a mod and employee chat group, they were discussing a new future code of conduct. One element said "You must use people's preferred pronouns if given". A mod (volunteer) (Monica) said "Is it OK if I never use any 3rd person singular pronouns?" She got no answer for a while and was then fired as a mod on Friday at 6pm less than 1 hour before before Shabbat and Rosh Hashana (she is Jewish and a mod of the Jewish Sta…

Could you please help me understand how this relates to Cellio's previous concerns in October 2018 about a problem with Twitter and customer support and moderation? Does that concern ( https://medium.com/@cellio/dear-stack-overflow-we-need-to-ta... ) have anything to do with the pronoun code of conduct problem at issue here, or is it totally unrelated other than Cellio's involvement? I have to admit, having read Cell…

> Does that concern have anything to do with the pronoun code of conduct problem at issue here, or is it totally unrelated other than Cellio's involvement?

No, it's an entirely seperate issue. However, it's a symptom of the same general problem of the company prioritizing its political/profit-seeking/marketing agendas while ignoring its community (there were dozens of relevant feature requests that had been ignored for years, yet the company took drastic action within 40 minutes of a Twitter post).

> I'm puzzled why "avoid using pronouns to refer to people where possible" would be a controversial view.

None of the details are public; all we really have so far is a couple vague summaries, plus a few more hints and implications. However, it seems the company's reasoning seems to be something along the lines of "if you avoid using third-person pronouns, then you're refusing to acknowledge people's identities."