sopython Meeting Transcripts

• Last edited on Nov 11, 2014, 7:23:52 PM by Ffisegydd

Meeting - 21/05/2014

Below is an edited transcript of the meeting to discuss policy and issues within the Python chatroom.

The main agenda of the meeting was to discuss possible problems with so-called “help vampires”, including what the problem is, how to stop it, etc.

Certain messages have been removed (mainly posts by Ffisegydd giving partially complete copies of his notes).

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Jon Clements

I’d like to talk about the room

Ffisegydd

@Peter you about?

Peter Varo

yes, sir, yes!

I just finished my DynamicArray implementation :D

soooooo… what is the occasion?

Jon Clements

I think we’d agree we’ll agree this is the most friendly room ever

Peter Varo

I agree that we agree

Kevin

Among all the ones I’ve been in, yeah

Ffisegydd

I’ve only been in Python but we do seem rather friendly.

Jon Clements

we’re being misused for “vampires”

Games Brainiac

You only need to look at cpp or js :P

@JonClements vampires?

Peter Varo

omg cpp is the worst

Ffisegydd

@Games blood sucking creatures that sparkle.

Peter Varo

it really is

I tried to ask for help for about two times..

Kevin

The ol' help vampire problem. The background radiation of the site.

Peter Varo

(I don’t know why I even bothered for the second time, anyway..)

@JonClements do you think so?

Games Brainiac

@PeterVaro there’s a special technique to it :D

Jon Clements

Y es

I really think so

Games Brainiac

so yes, we have help vampires? too many of them?

Kevin

I think the pertinent question is, even if we recognize the issue, what can be done about it?

Jon Clements

Exactly

Peter Varo

first star in the room – woohooo!

Jon Clements

as an RO team, let’s just take a stance

Peter Varo

what do you have in your mind @JonClements?

Ffisegydd

What stance do we take though? If we’re too lenient then it’s as if nothing changed. If we’re too strict then we risk ruining the friendliness of the room.

Peter Varo

I don’t think either you can create rules about this..

If one asks 18.5 questions in a row, we shall call one a vampire

Games Brainiac

@Ffisegydd As long as we don’t become js and cpp, it will be fine. We’re all softies, but we can’t let everyone know that :P

Kevin

Hmm, maybe establish some kind of minimum expectation of effort. I’d l.o.v.e it if everybody came in with a SSCCE on hand.

Games Brainiac

so this is the question: what kinds of vamps are we dealing with here?

I mean there are newbies, that appear as vamps, but they just need some help.

Ffisegydd

But then again some of the best conversations are conversations where it develops naturally, where multiple people contribute and there is discussion on various aspects/theories/methods.

Games Brainiac

Should we target repeat offenders?

@Kevin Well, chat is more for discussion rather than a question per se. Atleast thats how I view it.

Jon Clements

indeed

Games Brainiac

So repeat offenders?

Ffisegydd

What else can you do but warn them though and ask them not to do it again?

Peter Varo

I think there is only one way to handle this.. we have to keep quiet when someone became a vampire (the same idea as don’t feed the trolls)

Games Brainiac

just add them to your ignore list

Ffisegydd

The problem with that is that they can go on annoying other people

As RO we should be dealing with problems, not ignoring them.

Kevin

If an otherwise upstanding member helps a vampire, do we scold them?

Peter Varo

umm.. that’s absolutely right..

good question Kevin, I don’t know..

Ffisegydd

How do you define a vampire though? Someone who asks repeated continual tiny insignificant questions?

Like “What should I use? What’s a list? What is list.append()? What is list.insert()?”

Games Brainiac

Yea, lets get that down first. I say two kinds, people who ask google-able questions 5 times in a row. People who post questions that are better for so than for chat (repeatedly).

Ffisegydd

I think if anyone comes in and asks a question then that’s fine, but it gets to the point where you have to say “Enough is enough.”

Kevin

I’m such a bleeding heart… I helped the guy who asked “how do I find the length of a list in Python?” when googling that exact phrase gives you the answer

Jon Clements

bbl

Games Brainiac

@Kevin No wonder you still use tk (sorry, had to take this cheap shot) :P

Kevin

Nursing Tkinter to health like an injured bird, that’s me

Games Brainiac

Kevin Scriptingale.

Kevin

I want to find the happy medium between giving the answer and lmgtfy

Peter Varo

okay, let’s jump ahead, before we define any kind of activity or any kind of person: what if we know someone is a vamp, then what?

Games Brainiac

All right so far: repeat offenders. How to classify them? Me: googlable questions; Other categories?

Ffisegydd

It’s not just a googleable question though. Almost all questions are googleable.

Peter Varo

^{^}

Ffisegydd

It’s whether it’s difficult/understandable as well.

Or asking for opinion is another good thing, that’s something you just can’t get on the SO main site.

Games Brainiac

well googleable meaning the answer is clearly explained in [first page] google search result or a SO search result

Ffisegydd

Ok then. So basically define it as something that is pretty simple and is easily explained by a Google search.

Games Brainiac

in a nutshell, yes. Its harder to articulate googleability. It is not a predefined metric. Unfortunately.

Peter Varo

I see this very differently: it is not about the kind or the depth of the question, but the time between the questions – that shows if one tried to understand your answer, tested it in his/her code, etc. maybe even googled it, or read the docs

I don’t think that is wrong if one asks about a list.insert()

Games Brainiac

gemmel’s “what have you tried”

Peter Varo

we can gently show one the docs

but after that if one asks about list.remove() immediately

Ffisegydd

I’m trying to note down what decisions we come to btw

Peter Varo

then we know one is a vamp

Games Brainiac

So, repeat offenders, who ask the solution to a simple (well documented) question or problem.

Kevin

Ok, that sounds reasonable to me

Games Brainiac

lets set the repeat cap to 3

Peter Varo

(I was just thinking about the title of this doc of yours: Vampires Sucks)

but what should they do if they don’t?;)

Ffisegydd

There’s nothing we can do but ask them to stop and remove their posts.

Games Brainiac

is there a way we can give these users a temporary ban?

Peter Varo

is removing necessary?

Games Brainiac

removing would be too hostile.

Peter Varo

@GamesBrainiac only mods can do that

Ffisegydd

Well if they continually do it then yes, or if they onebox things.

We already do remove posts if they onebox their question 5s after asking it for instance.

Peter Varo

hmm.. I don’t like this idea at all

Games Brainiac

or what we can do is not give them write access

Peter Varo

that makes us the same as the cpp room

Games Brainiac
they can see, but not speak, so python chat will be a gallery to them

Ffisegydd
I don’t think you can remove write access can you?

Peter Varo

we can’t

Games Brainiac

yes, you can make a chat room a gallery for others

Peter Varo

one can only change the whole room to read only

Ffisegydd

You can set the room to Gallery (I think?) and then give everyone else but them write access

But that would be seriously laborious and you’d have to add each new member to the write access list.

Peter Varo

but that will be the end of the room..

ThiefMaster

Or use a bot for it. But still, it’s a very ugly workaround

Even the JS room only does it temporarily to mute overly annoying users

Games Brainiac

yea, and the js guys are hardcore :D

Ffisegydd

I don’t see a problem with removing a post (not everything they’ve said) if they’re being annoying or breaking rules continually.

I wouldn’t sit there and totally censor them, that would be too nasty/pointless.

Games Brainiac

Lets leave that as an option, but what other options do we have?

Ffisegydd

Ask them not to.

That’s really it.

Games Brainiac

Hmm, lets run with that.

I don’t want to remove posts. It totally sucks :(

Peter Varo

@GamesBrainiac I can’t agree more

Kevin

Is there documentation on this gallery feature?

Peter Varo

@Kevin we really don’t want that, believe me

Games Brainiac

@Kevin yea, nag puppy about it

Kevin

I’m just wondering if we can use it in concert with some other technological solution… Like if we could grant everyone write access by default, with the option of revoking later

Peter Varo

there is no option for that afaik

Ffisegydd

Have R.A.B.B.I.T in the room and have him automatically give people write access and then keep it in permanent Gallery mode

Games Brainiac

This is how I see it. So this vamp is asking you questions. You’ve answered for the second time. Now for the third time. You can at that point tell them that they already know what needs to be done in order to find out the answer. But you can also change your approach. Instead of giving them the answer, why not tell them to do something, like “google it”.

I mean tell people to use google, don’t become their personal assistant unless, they have a valid discussion topic.

Kevin

@Ffisegydd Yeah, that’s pretty much what I was thinking. Not that I support or oppose it, just wondering if it’s possible

Peter Varo

@Ffisegydd it feels pretty hackish for me, since it is not a “builtin” SO feature

Ffisegydd

Yeah I’m not sure it’s a good idea or not, but it’s probably possible

Games Brainiac

@Ffisegydd No, then we would be asserting complete control over it. We are important yes, but this room eventually belongs to all the users.
even ones with overgrown canines :D

Peter Varo

can we ask other room owners to support our cause on meta, to add a new feature to chat? and this feature will should be: ROs have the right to silence someone for a short period of time..

Ffisegydd

We could try it, I’m sure JS and cpp would love that feature :P

Peter Varo

I know it is a mod privilege right now..

Ffisegydd

Oh I thought of another way to stop help vampires btw, or at least a method to possibly “distract” them.

If they have a genuine question which would be a good fit for the site then ask them to post a full question.

Peter Varo

ask back? :D

Games Brainiac

I think we need to piss them off with lmgtfy

Kevin

balpha’s current opinion on the “allow all, silence some” request is here, for reference

Ffisegydd

The problem with lmgtfy is that 1. it takes time to do it and 2. it gives them their answer (in a way :P)

And yeah I do see (and agree) with balpha’s points.

Kevin

I think it’s fine to tell users to try google, but as diplomatically as possible. because users with hurt feelings can become much more disruptive than asking overly simple questions

Peter Varo

but when they become disruptive I have no hard feelings removing their messages

Games Brainiac

I see your point. But annoying vamps is a good idea, just the implementation needs some work -_-

Kevin

Bluntly, I want whatever response gets them to stay quiet ;-)

Ffisegydd

The problem is as well that a lot of the time the people don’t understand that they’re being help vampires.

Games Brainiac

Yea, should we have a synchronised list of marked users on a google doc?

Peter Varo

then here is the solution:

let’s create a new page on sopython or a new paragraph on the etiquette page, whatever

Walle Cyril

why create a new room ?

Peter Varo

and link it to someone who acts as a vampire

Ffisegydd

(That’s one of the things I’ve got on my “agenda” - What changes need to be made to the etiquette)

Games Brainiac

@PeterVaro They’re not going to read that. Too much text.

Kevin

@WalleCyril We’re discussing policy changes. so this is like a Meta Python room

Games Brainiac

@WalleCyril Its nothing fancy anyone can have a say.

Ffisegydd

We’ve got to remember and keep in mind that some people just want an answer and to run but some users don’t understand that they’re causing problems.

But who will behave if it’s pointed out to them.

Peter Varo

I stick with the gentle warning by linking a new page-> who are the help vamps?

Games Brainiac

@Ffisegydd Smart people will build a network up for that kind of stuff. Python chat can’t be the swiss army knife of all problems.

Peter Varo

(which holds a link to google :))

Kevin

The ask and run users are incorrigible, but repeat offenders can hopefully be made into productive members of society

Games Brainiac

@PeterVaro Seconded. Said page will have little text. Also motion to add a google docs page of repeat offenders

Games Brainiac

@Kevin The ones that can be made productive will only need a gentle warning.

Ffisegydd

I wonder if it’s possible for Jon to put a sopython wiki page that is “private”

Peter Varo

ol' puppy can do anything..

Ffisegydd

So has read-only access similar to the write-only access we already have.

Kevin

Hmm, when you modify a write-only page, how do you know that it worked? :-)

Ffisegydd

<.<

>.>

>.<

<.>

Games Brainiac

you can’t do the last one, i tried :P

Kevin

That’s the only way to part the veil and read that which can’t be read.

Games Brainiac

arrite i g2g sleep
ciao guys

Kevin

see ya

Ffisegydd

rbrb @Games

Peter Varo

rbrb

as a matter of fact, I leave as well

is there anything else I can help?

(I don’t know if my appearance was any help at all)

Ffisegydd

I don’t think so, maybe try to have a similar meeting again sometime. And yes I think everyone helped :P

Kevin

Yes, kudos all round

Peter Varo

all righty

then rhubarb all

Peter Varo

(probably I bbl in the main room)
~

Kevin

That’s some good progress, I think. Let’s have another one soon.
But now, I can smell my dinner in the oven…

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Meeting - 23/05/2014

Below is an edited transcript of the meeting on 26th June 2014.

Ffisegydd

room topic changed to python-meeting: Room for python meeting. Note that unless ThiefMaster gets back to us everything in this room will be technically public (but at least as far as the transcript on sopython does any personal details will be removed from text). (no tags)

Martijn Pieters

cannot promise much attendance, sorry.

tristan

I see time vampires as more than one type

Peter Varo

I copy my opinion here too:

tristan

another type, which i find more of a problem lately, is someone that expects follow-up, real-time help and he goes through a series of problems that could be googled

Peter Varo

there is no need of change. however, it would be nice to have RABBIT back, and add him a few features

tristan

Kevin

I think, if help vampires do any harm, it’s because the room can only support ~2 conversations simultaneously, so it stifles potential discussion when they ask a bunch of follow up questions. But this is a real gray area, because necessarily all discussions stifle other potential discussions.

tristan

Sure, but see this morning about the “why can’t I Python like I PHP”

Ffisegydd

I think the 2nd version of Tristan’s is much worse than the 1st.

Kevin

And it would be silly to say, “stop talking, you’re stifling a potentially more interesting discussion”, and then no one talks for half an hour

Ffisegydd

Or at least would potentially cause more trouble.

Martijn Pieters

BTW, for future reference, a Dystroy (SO user) has created dystroy.org/miaou

Which is a Stack Overflow chat server clone with private rooms.

tristan

Multiple people gave interactive, play-by-play “here’s how to learn” and the end result was him asking “how do i python like i php”

Antti Haapala

yeah that was pretty annoying…

tristan

Not to overload, but then there’s the time vampire that makes you shoot at a vague, moving target

See yesterday’s “Is there a reason why a dict doesn’t persist in Flask?” No example code, a vague problem description, some editorialized pseudo-code, some terse “you don’t understand what i’m asking and i’m not going to offer more help”, followed by “forget it, i’m moving on to something else.” 10 minute pause “so, debug this other thing for me”

Antti Haapala

I suggest that if someone says “I should then study php” then everyone should just chant in unison “please do so” :D

Jon Clements

Okay all, we should at least try and put some of these discussions into order

Ffisegydd

Well at the moment we’re on #1 I think

Martijn Pieters

has got to go now, sorry. Bad timing.

Jon Clements

All valid points and concerns

Ffisegydd

Jon Clements

@Martijn I understand

Martijn Pieters

leaves the window open to read the transcript later.

tristan

big edit up there, sorry.

Jon Clements

I believe they are

Ffisegydd

Tristan has summarised three types of “help vampire”

Jon Clements

we’re a phonemal (although biased on that aspect) room

Ffisegydd

s/phonemal/phenomenal/ ;)

Kevin

I don’t think they’re a terminal problem. The chat room will survive regardless.

Jon Clements

We’ve all put a lot of time into this @Kevin

Ffisegydd

I don’t even think they’re that much of a problem at the moment, but I think they’re a potential problem.

Antti Haapala

yeah, they are like 50 kg benign tumor :d

Ffisegydd

And it’s easier to stop something at the beginning than once it has settled in.

Jon Clements

I think we’re too kind for our own good

Kevin

@JonClements No arguments there

tristan

Sure, but it negatively affects the quality of the room. I’m burned out on putting on my kid gloves when the asker really needs to be called an asshole for not respecting others time.

Ffisegydd

Ok I think #1 is pretty well done, and it was only to “warm up” anyway. I think #2 is the main point of this discussion really.

Kevin

^{^} now, if core members are getting burnt out, that’s a problem.

Ffisegydd

Continue discussing what you were saying, I’ve only put that in so it’s obvious how the conversation evolves.

Jon Clements

Never sure - that’s why I’d like input

Kevin

question askers are a dime a dozen, but good question answerers are much rarer, so we want to cultivate a welcoming environment for them.

tristan

Ffisegydd

At the moment when someone is taking the piss they’re asked to read the sopython chatroom etiquette.

Zero Piraeus

I think the thing is spotting early when it’s going to be a long interminable series of thoughtless followups.

Ffisegydd

We should only ask them to ask a question on SO if it’s an appropriate question to ask there.

Jon Clements

we let too many members take the piss already

tristan

And what to do then @ZeroPiraeus?

Zero Piraeus

… and having the discipline to say “you’re better off googling it” or “this should be a SO question” and stick with it.

stick with it being key.

Kevin

yeah

When I ask people to make a post on SO, and no one else is providing help, they usually do it.

Jon Clements

I know many of you think of me as “head” of this room - I’m not

Zero Piraeus

There are a lot of regulars here who can lead by example by politley refusing further interaction, and politely siuggesting to those who do interact “you’re not helping them; let them look in a more appropriate venue”.

Kevin

(possibly it’s more effective for me than others because I stroke the user’s ego. “Your question is most worthy of being posted”)

Jon Clements

@Zero just all politics about stuff then

Zero Piraeus

Everything is politics :-)

tristan

I don’t think that sinks in though @ZeroPiraeus. That’s the hard part - if the asker was willing to reason to read, he wouldn’t type every tiny question into chat instead of google.

Ffisegydd

Before now I’ve seen people literally type a question into chat that was meant for google after being told something.

And it is yamming annoying sometimes.

Jon Clements

So, do we become apparently “nasty bastards” or do we just…. I don’t know sighs

Ffisegydd

“Use a dictionary” - “What’s a dictionary?”

There is a difference between being cpp and being straightforward.

If it is causing members to stop helping future people who ask great questions then we should stop them.

Kevin

@tristan I think they’re willing to listen, if you can appeal to their self interest. ex. “you’re more likely to get a good answer by [asking on SO/reading the manual/googling it]”

tristan

I mean, it’s like if we had a cutoff for rep, that might help, but then we’d get the more insidious time-vampires that have decent rep for asking dumb-but-popular questions like “how does i jquery”

Jon Clements

okay… @Ffisegydd may I interpret this meeting for a moment?

Ffisegydd

Please go ahead.

tristan

@Kevin I don’t see that as our responsibility.

Kevin

I agree, but I’m chiefly concerned with what combinations of buttons most quickly silences the vampire

tristan

Clicking the mute button?

Ffisegydd

I think the important thing to remember/realise is that we are here to help people. And feeding help vampires is not helping them, it’s just making them more reliant on other people to solve their issues.

Jon Clements

I’ve worked very, very long and hard on this room (hoping it’s appreciated that’s not something that’s done the next day(… it is no one’s responsibility to sacrifice their time here… We’re a good team - we just happen to respond to people that we really should just ignore - but just in our nature I guess

thefourtheye

Cabbage :)

Jon Clements

@thefourtheye cbg good sir

@Ffisegydd please proceed with your points if necessary

thefourtheye

Why @MartijnPieters doesn’t have access to our room?

Ffisegydd

@thefourtheye he’s eating his dinner.

thefourtheye

Okay :)

tristan

I’m not here to help people in general. I’m here because I like chatting with most of the regulars. I like helping others, but I don’t join the room to be a clumsy, human instance of pdb

Kevin

@Ffisegydd Right, that’s a secondary benefit to my “self interest” approach. Unlike “buzz off”, it directs them to useful resources.

Ffisegydd

As I was saying. We’re not helping people by feeding them, as Terry Pratchett once said “Build a man a fire and he’ll be warm for a day, but set a man on fire and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.”

tristan

Haha. I think the worst part is that sometimes the approach we take doesn’t sink in.

I sincerely think that sometimes newer users will just roll with the punches and eat humble pie on a single question, then turn around ask a series of vague questions an hour later.

Ffisegydd

We do have repeat offenders.

Kevin

@tristan Yeah. Once they’re like “google didn’t help, I can’t provide a SSCCE because reasons, and I’m not at liberty to explain my input & [expected/actual] output” then I’m pretty much like “I can’t help you then”

tristan

I posted this in general chat, but also will repeat here: I’m somewhat playing devil’s advocate.

I think deciding on a unified way of getting to that end point is really what we/I would like.

Ffisegydd

Agreed.

I think the “regulars” for lack of a better word need to be unified on this.

There’s no point half of us saying “Sorry this is inappropriate” and another half giving in.

tristan

“I’m not arguing with you because I find it enjoyable, I’m taking this approach because I want you to be better at asking questions for the sake of this room/your personal good/because otherwise this will keep happening”

Kevin

This is true.

I’m willing to become more discriminating about what questions deserve a response.

Zero Piraeus

Maybe one problem is a disconnect between what regulars think the room is for and what first visitors think it’s for?

tristan

@ZeroPiraeus +1.

I feel like if there was a “python teacher’s assistant/lazy google” room, it would be empty though.

Ffisegydd

That’s true. SO itself is seen by a lot of first time users as a one stop shop for a quick answer, why should they think chat is any different?

Kevin

@tristan Yes, same phenomenon as on the main site. Q&A sites that don’t cater to the experts become ghost towns.

Zero Piraeus

If so a carefully-worded preamble to the etiquette page at sopython might help: “The Python room at SO is a community, not a helpdesk. We like helping people out, and we have some very knowledgeable people, but if we tell you you’re better off with an SO question, or Google, or (resource X), we’re probably right.”

Jon Clements

@ZeroPiraeus I could live that

tristan

Yeah, I could deal with that. And a short-form version of “how to ask good questions.”

Zero Piraeus

Something we can point people at, short enough that they’ll actually read it, and then the discipline to say “no, really, this isn’t the place for what you’re asking”.

tristan

To follow up on your point @ZeroPiraeus: what is the SO room for?

Ffisegydd

We should only ask them to post a full question if it a decent question though.

We don’t want to be sending people to the SO site just so we can make 5 other members close their question.

If we know it’s a bad question, don’t suggest it.

tristan

But then it’s on the room regulars to explain why it’s a bad question.

Kevin

I don’t expect new users to read that preamble without being prompted to, but it will be nice to have it in writing, as a defense against people saying “you’re being mean by not helping me”. Nope, just following policy.

İnek Şaban

I appreciate your effort on bringing the chat’s quality higher guys, really. But see the difference between real help vampires and someone who just needs the best way to do something.

As you can see from the Python chat room, I solved many problems myself, but is it the best way to do it? I don’t know, but it works just fine (well, great) for now.

I could’ve solved many of the previous questions myself, maybe using an array instead of a dictionary (and I would’ve discovered the issues with doing that later myself), but what I was searching was not really a question but an opinion, exp…

(see full text) (see full text)

To be sincere, yesterday I was also a lot tired. I know, I should’ve just avoided “asking” a question in the first place.

As you can see I’m trying to put more effort now in expressing myself.

Ffisegydd

I do understand what you’re saying @İnekŞaban, we’re mainly worried about the really extreme cases (of which you are not).

thefourtheye

@Kevin May be we can have a bot ping the first time users with the preamble, like in JS room.

Kevin

that would certainly be more likely to attract their attention, yes

Zero Piraeus

@thefourtheye +1

tristan

@İnekŞaban To be safe: I didn’t bring up your example to offend you or because I see you as a “problem” in the room, but it was a perfect example of where it dominates the room’s attention to teach you how to present questions that we can answer.

And yes, @İnekŞaban – you are not the extreme case at all.

Antti Haapala

@İnekŞaban an extreme case would refuse to read a python tutorial for example when prompted to do so :P

Ffisegydd

If R.A.B.B.I.T came back we could have a !premable command that spewed out some nice looking jazz.

Antti Haapala

wish there was a so-chat/irc gw :d

tristan

gw? gateway?

thefourtheye

@Ffisegydd Also instead of we saying harsh statements, we can have the bot say it?

Jon Clements

okay.. we had a point 3 @Ffisegydd?

tristan

Hah, I see that as cowardly.

Ffisegydd

Short answer: No, not really :(

We can just ask them to respect them.

Kevin

@tristan Well, I’m already a coward, so it doesn’t bother me ;-)

Antti Haapala

ignore :D

tristan

I don’t need to proxy what I think through an anonymous front.

İnek Şaban

@tristan But you nonetheless brought my issue on the surface and that’s not a bad thing. I just wanted to outline the distinction between the two different categories :)

Kevin

I hate being confrontational.

Antti Haapala

I wish there was temp ignore

İnek Şaban

@AnttiHaapala He! That’s just pure laziness :P

thefourtheye

@tristan Atleast that would protect us from them targetting individuals and waste their time, no?

İnek Şaban

I personally read them before asking a question, and that’s what everyone is supposed to do I think

Ffisegydd

The issue with ignore, that I brought up the other night (and only really applies to RO), is that by being an RO you take a responsibility to help the room prosper etc, so we shouldn’t be ignoring things, we should be solving them.

tristan

I’m fine with someone targeting me if we had the option to mute or block them from the room for a time period. I’m not going to hide behind a bot.

Ffisegydd

Obviously “normal” users: please feel free to ignore whomever you want :D

Jon Clements

Flag for mod attention

Kevin

Inek effectively said what I was thinking at the start of the chat. That a series of questions dominates the room’s attention, doesn’t necessarily make them a vampire.

Jon Clements

where it a room I’d +b the user

tristan

I think if users could be muted with a reason that is communicated, that might help. “You have been muted because: You have been provided the documentation needed to solve your question and you refuse to read it.”

thefourtheye

@Kevin Recently I saw somebody asking for keywords to search for, even after giving a lot of hints :‘-(

Jon Clements

kline 'em or possibly gline

tristan

@Kevin : A series of questions around “why am I getting this error” followed by the asker changing the question after each suggestion, without ever posting their code" isn’t “great” for the room though.

Kevin

I believe some people really don’t have the knack for composing good search queries. So “what should I search for?” isn’t an immediate red flag for me

İnek Şaban

Enforcing these rules could be done by building a regex based on SO’s quality filter (not necessarily) that matches possible low-quality sentences and then make the bot send them a message explaining to improve their question. Just an idea that could be improved upon

tristan

Yeah, I actually don’t mind when someone asks “how do I solve this for myself in the future? I tried googling the output, but don’t understand what I’m reading”

Kevin

@tristan Yeah, I agree. There’s a point where it’s good to say “stop. Think carefully about what you need to ask.”

thefourtheye

I wish I could show you that conversation :(

frostnational

@İnekŞaban I’d be hard to implement

tristan

NLTK + a bot is a clumsy solution to a human problem.

Ffisegydd

@thefourtheye I recall it.

İnek Şaban

@frostnational Not really, you just need to build an heuristic against possible “red flag” sentences

tristan

@İnekŞaban have fun writing that.

Martijn Pieters

is back and reading up.

Kevin

I don’t know that SO’s quality filter is publicly visible anyway.

So we’d be building it from the ground up if we wanted to emulate it

İnek Şaban

@tristan I have to do that for my own project..sigh :P

Ffisegydd

I’m gonna move us on unless anyone else has anything else to say on #3?

İnek Şaban

Of course Kevin. What I meant was to model it on the SO’s quality filter, not necessarily borrow its code

tristan

#3. So we came down on “no” ?

Ffisegydd

@tristan unfortunately I think so, ROs can remove posts but it’s time consuming.

Ufoguy

I’m really ashamed to say that I type questions that should go into google on the chat.

a lot

But from now on I will google first

Kevin

I did that myself this morning :-x

Ffisegydd

We had the idea the other night of making the room Gallery mode and giving everyone write access automatically and then removing their access if they’re really causing trouble

İnek Şaban

I do that every 10-15 minutes

:)

Kevin

tristan

@Kevin but you’re a regular.

thefourtheye

@Ffisegydd But how do we know that if they have learnt “the lesson”?

tristan

I don’t mind answering quick/one offs from regulars.

Ffisegydd

Shouldn’t matter.

tristan

You don’t see the room as a helpdesk or a “pff if i type it into google, i won’t get the tl;dr” version.

thefourtheye

So its permanent?

Ffisegydd

Regular or not really.

@thefourtheye no no only temporary

tristan

I think it does/should matter if someone is in the room for the community versus “lazy ask mode”

Zero Piraeus

@Kevin That’s the thing … throwaway easily-googled questions can lead to interesting conversations.

Ffisegydd

And I don’t like the idea myself.

rlemon

@Ffisegydd works well for us

Ufoguy

Many times other people googled the answer for me and posted the related SO question1

!

rlemon

however access control tab gets unviewable after a few thousand people pass through the room

Ffisegydd

@rlemon “us” being C++?

rlemon

JS

Ffisegydd

Ah ok

thefourtheye

@Ffisegydd That is okay :) Temporary ban looks good, maybe we can periodically lift the bans?

rlemon

our bot handles granting write access when a user enters the room

so we don’t have to do it by hand

tristan

@Ufoguy and if you did the same thing (this morning you didn’t even read the documentation that I provided for you), you need to put in your SO questions “I have read (and actually read), the following SO posts and they do not answer my question for [valid reasons here]. Here is my code, here is what I tried, here is what happens when I try to run it.”

Ufoguy

Yes!

İnek Şaban

And if you/we built a chat bot that linked to the faq and tracked if a user read them or not, if they didn’t they would get an annoying message until they did?

Ufoguy

I’m lazy and I need to change

İnek Şaban

Though I think it’s heavy yeah..

rlemon

!!help

Caprica Six

@rlemon Information on interacting with me can be found at this page

rlemon

^ bot in the JS room

Kevin

Neat.

Ffisegydd

@rlemon thanks for bringing the bot in for us to see :D

rlemon

if she gets annoying ping me and i’ll take her out of here

she is always in the sandbox as well FYI

İnek Şaban

@rlemon Add a link tracking and you’ll be a myth :)

rlemon

she won’t do access control for multiple rooms. just ours.

Ffisegydd

Ok so we’ve got the potential of using a bot for #3, let’s move onto #4.

tristan

That saves on the wrists… “Google it” question

!!google

with a message that we agree on.

Caprica Six

@tristan The Google contains no such knowledge

Ffisegydd

Antti Haapala

add the said carefully worded preamble …

Kevin

for #4, I think we all agreed to add a preamble to the etiquette page

Ffisegydd

Yep definitely.

Kevin

Argh, beaten!

tristan

Ffisegydd

Are there any other pages as well?

Such as “How to ask a question”

Or such

tristan

Yeah, a short version of how to ask a question.

rlemon

I have lots of suggestions, but they are mostly all to troll people reading the page

tristan

ESR’s version is far too long for someone that didn’t bother to google in the past.

Ffisegydd

:D

rlemon

konami code is a must as well

Kevin

The only thing that we could add to the language-agnostic version of “how to ask a question” is “be really, really, really sure that your indentation is correct”

İnek Şaban

Guys, many newbies will just skip the bot unfortunately, so you may find a way to make it annoying for them not to read the rules ;) Just a thought

thefourtheye

@Ffisegydd Well, if we add the ToC, people might browse through all our pages ;-)

Ffisegydd

Maybe make a “How to ask a question” specialised for chat.

tristan

even a checklist – “You have searched SO for similar posts. You have a code sample and the output. You have a clear problem description. You have put the responses to these items in dpaste or a gist.”

@İnekŞaban then they get temporarily muted.

rlemon

:looks through pile of gists for useful ones for room owners:

frostnational

+1 for checklist idea

İnek Şaban

@tristan Umm.. I suspect that would work as well..

But let them know they were muted, so they knew they did something wrong

Kevin

@tristan That sounds pretty nice, actually. “Can’t help you yet, you haven’t finished step #5” kind of thing

tristan

anything that makes it so i could do like !!checklist to bring that up, then say “you didn’t do item 3 on checklist” or !!google to bring up a text that’s like “this is something that can very easily be googled. please respect the community”

Ffisegydd

Alright then. Onto (the last one) with 5.

While we’re here I thought I’d ask.

More bunnies.

There haven’t been enough bunnies lately.

Kevin

Everyone should agree with everything I say. When I’m not around, people should say, “where’s Kevin?”

Antti Haapala

and when you are there, we will say that “You should consult the authoritative source, that is Kevin”

Ffisegydd

When you’re here we should just say “There is Kevin!” repeatedly

İnek Şaban

Oh.. for point #5 I think that the Python chatroom is the most “liberal” and friendlier

Zero Piraeus

How long can the descriptive text for the room be? Perhaps in place of the “productive cabbage” bit a concise version of the checklist?

tristan

@Kevin i write it on my walls when you’re not around.

@ZeroPiraeus “New here? READ THIS BEFORE TYPING ANYTHING”

rlemon

(incoming links)

Kevin

@tristan room descriptions can’t have hyperlinks, though. That’s why we don’t have it now

rlemon

this is a little auto-complete snippet manager thingy. | this adds a button to the chat toolbar for one click 'gallery’ / normal switching | this produces an easy list of users to select from and send a welcome message too

Kevin

Only ugly full links.

rlemon

this adds a similar user list button thingy that allows you to bin all visible messages from a user

İnek Şaban

!!s/ANYTHING/ANYTHING OR YOU’LL GET JAVASCRIPT ALERTED TILL THE END OF THE DAYS

Caprica Six

@İnekŞaban That didn’t make much sense. Use the !!/help command to learn more.

rlemon

@Ffisegydd you might like some of these.

!!s/.*/hahahaha/

Caprica Six

@rlemon hahahaha (source)

@İnekŞaban That didn’t make much sense. Use the !!/help command to learn more.

@İnekŞaban No matching message (are you sure we’re in the right room?)

Ffisegydd

Thanks for that @rlemon, that’s very handy.

rlemon

who is flagging

Caprica Six

@İnekŞaban s/ANYTHING/ANYTHING

İnek Şaban

Whatever xD

tristan

I hit one because it’s turning into spam town instead of discussion.

rlemon

ask him to stop

Ffisegydd

Right.

Caprica Six

HAMMERTIME!

rlemon

flags are system wide.

tristan

I did not know that. My bad @rlemon.

Ffisegydd

Unless anyone has any other business then I think we should chill there. I’ll put the full transcript as well as a summary on sopython for people to read.

Thanks to everyone for coming and giving their opinion.

tristan

Take care all.

---

Meeting - 26/06/2014

Below is an edited transcript of the meeting on 26th June 2014.

Ffisegydd

Sup

Jon_Clements

Ahh… this looks funky

Jon_Clements

And has an upload button

Jon_Clements

1

Jon_Clements

Awesome

Ffisegydd

Doesn’t normal SO chat have an upload button too?

Jon_Clements

Well yeah - wasn’t sure if this one would though

Jon_Clements

Has a preview button as well which is quite nice

Jon_Clements



Ooo… and pinning does images :)

Martijn_Pieters

Heyo

Martijn_Pieters

Or, rather: Cabbage!

Ffisegydd

ello

Martijn_Pieters

We should have nabbed the next room instead.

Martijn_Pieters

This is only room 100..

Martijn_Pieters

So Thurs, 14:00 UTC

Ffisegydd

Yeah that’s the plan

Ffisegydd

No idea what the agenda is.

Ffisegydd

Ask Jon.

Ffisegydd

I’ll also definitely absolutely finish the transcript from last time before the meeting. whistles

Martijn_Pieters

@Ffisegydd: Transcripts speak louder than text attributed to you in a random chat room!

Martijn_Pieters

Hrm, Miaou auto-completes to any name on the server, not just for those in the room.

Jon_Clements

1 1

1) My availability and “stepping down” time-scales

2) sopython.com wiki and server access

3) General thoughts and feelings about how the room is doing - any areas we could improve in…

Jon_Clements

That’s the agenda

Jon_Clements

Please add anything if required

Jon_Clements

I’d like to keep it to < 1hr if possible

Ffisegydd

If we have time we could maybe talk about Nidaba. Would be nice if we could get to the point where other people could get involved, would hopefully mean things go quicker than me blundering about :P

Jon_Clements



@Ffisegydd I’ve also done a bit behind the scenes, I’ll share these more with you when your blundering becomes more frustrating than educational :)

Ffisegydd



relaxing foyer music

Kevin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSsiS-v6_6M&feature=kp

Kevin

Ooh, this starred list has embedded images.

Jon_Clements

@Kevin I know - that’s very cool right?

Kevin

Ew, I have to scroll down manually to see new posts

Kevin

The coolness is thus cancelled out.

Jon_Clements

But you had a “coolness” fell for a few moments - that’s what counts I guess

Kevin

Yes.

Jon_Clements

And it appears it even has little clickable thingies to expand messages

Ffisegydd

BANGS GAVEL

Peter_Varo

I played with this yesterday – and although I don’t really like the UI/UX of SO Chat, this MIAOU is even worth

Peter_Varo

anyway – everybody is on board?

Zero_Piraeus

Present

Peter_Varo

@Martijn_Pieters ?

Zero_Piraeus

It’s not actually 14:00 UTC as advertised, so maybe he wasn’t expecting to have to be here yet …

Ffisegydd

Wait

Ffisegydd

Shit

Ffisegydd

…

Jon_Clements

Wow - a really inconvenient time for a toilet break… brb

Ffisegydd

runs away

Ffisegydd

Yeah I got the times wrong it’s in an hour. hah.

Ffisegydd

(we’re not on SO so I don’t feel bad about swearing so all I can say is) FUCK UTC.

Jon_Clements

Everyone’s here though - doubt we’ll get more

Jon_Clements

brb

Lev

DSM isn’t here

Kevin

Everyone should just use Eastern Standard Time, the one true time zone

Kevin

On account of me being in it

Peter_Varo

@Kevin actually everyone should use Internet Time

Peter_Varo

Swatch Internet Time

Swatch Internet Time (or beat time) is a decimal time concept introduced in 1998 by the Swatch corporation as part of their marketing campaign for their line of “Beat” watches.

Instead of hours and minutes, the mean solar day is divided up into 1000 parts called “.beats”. Each .beat lasts 1 minute and 26.4 seconds. Times are notated as a 3-digit number out of 1000 after midnight. So, @248 would indicate a time 248 .beats after midnight representing 248/1000 of a day, just over 5 hours and 57 minutes.

There are no time zones in Swatch Internet Time; instead, the new time scale of Biel Meantime (BMT) is used, based on Swatch’s headquarters in Biel, Switzerland and equivalent to Central European Time, West Africa Time, and UTC+1. Unlike civil time in Switzerland and many other countries, Swatch Internet Time does not observe daylight saving time.

Zero_Piraeus

lives in a southern hemisphere country with DST; has family in a northern hemisphere country with DST; dates don’t coincide => time difference can be 3, 4 or 5 hours depending on what week it is :-/

Zero_Piraeus

But it does mean I’m used to using UTC as a reference clock :-)

Jon_Clements

@Ffisegydd would you be so kind to bang the gavel again, and we shall commence

Ffisegydd

Sure you don’t want to wait for DSM and Martijn?

Ffisegydd

(and thefourtheye)

Jon_Clements

nope - I’m sure they knew what 1400 was meant to mean

Ffisegydd

I dunno I stated 1400UTC which is in ¾ of an hour :P

Peter_Varo



@Jon_Clements but in UTC it is 1:14 PM

Ffisegydd

Up to you

Peter_Varo

wow – the editing looks nice :)

Ffisegydd

Oooh it does…

Jon_Clements

If no one disagrees, I’d like to proceed

Ffisegydd

BANGS GAVEL

Kevin

The first two meeting points don’t look like they require much audience participation anyway, so it’s not so bad if people come in half way through

Jon_Clements

So, I’ll get straight onto #1 then

Jon_Clements

I’ve spent nearly 2 years building our room up

Jon_Clements

from nothing to something we can all and do appreciate

Jon_Clements

(I hope!)

Kevin

hear hear

Zero_Piraeus

murmurs of assent

Jon_Clements

and further work commitments and such, I’m not going to have the time to be here as often as I’d want to be

Jon_Clements

For some reason, I’m apparently the owner of the room

Martijn_Pieters

Martijn_Pieters is in, but it isn’t 14:00 utc yet, is it?

Jon_Clements

@Martijn_Pieters cbg :P)

Peter_Varo

@Martijn_Pieters we mixed up the time zones..

Jon_Clements

when it comes to adding/removing ROs, or talking about room policy, apparently I am the one to talk to

Ffisegydd

I think it’s fair to say that while we generally do the majority of things by consensus/vote/committee it’s also not unusual to have a leader/chairman/puppet. And you are our puppet.

Jon_Clements

All I’m saying @Ffisegydd is that there’s an apparent need for me to be here for these things to happen

Jon_Clements

or even sometimes, “get stuff done”

thefourtheye

And thats good :-)

Jon_Clements

So, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about stepping-down

Ffisegydd

Stepping down to what degree? Just being less active with work or revoking your Sceptre-Of-Room-Ownership?

Jon_Clements

I thought about both actually :)

Jon_Clements

but I need to bear in mind the best interests of the room

Jon_Clements

I don’t think it’s quite ready yet for me to do that

Jon_Clements

so, I’m going to “step back”

Zero_Piraeus

You’ve intimated that the new job comes with serious responsibilities - does that mean you have to consider things like “what would the board think” in terms of your participation in the room? Just curious …

Jon_Clements

@Zero_Piraeus I made it very clear to the board about my participation online. Surprisingly they still accepted for the role :)

Zero_Piraeus

Glad to hear it :-)

Jon_Clements

Anyway - in short

Jon_Clements

I need to stop being your GOTO

Jon_Clements

I’ve spent a few days considering this

Jon_Clements

I reckon Kevin and Kieron would make a good team to shape the future of the room

Zero_Piraeus

Kieron = Ffisegydd, right?

Ffisegydd

You’ve revealed my true name to the world! Now I am powerless! explodes

Jon_Clements

@Zero_Piraeus yup - hopefully I spelt it right

Ffisegydd

Luckily you spelt it wrong so I didn’t actually explode :P (there are probably a dozen different spellings so I don’t hold it against you)

Zero_Piraeus

Works for me … would have suggested the same, were it my place to do so.

thefourtheye

Congrats Keiron James Pizzey and Kevin :)

Peter_Varo

I support the K&K team as head of ROs

Peter_Varo

(both the decision and the team)

Ffisegydd

We need a third K-person to round it off. Then we’d be KK…wait…

Kevin

Thanks for the votes of confidence :-)

Jon_Clements

@Ffisegydd I was just thinking that

Ffisegydd

But yeah thanks for the vote of confidence as Kevin said. Will try to do the best we can.

thefourtheye

You guys can start with throwing a grand party :D

Ffisegydd

Jon_Clements

@Ffisegydd @Kevin you guys will do great…

Zero_Piraeus

Do you have a timescale on this? I know you’re thinking “stepping back” rather than “stepping down”, but I’m sure it’d be useful to K&K to have an idea at least.

Jon_Clements

November

Jon_Clements

Actually, maybe even before September

Jon_Clements

Can only plan “n” many things in advance before my brain melts

Ffisegydd

Would you like to move onto 2) then?

Jon_Clements

@Ffisegydd if all attendees agree to, yes

Jon_Clements

although I have to pee… brb

Peter_Varo

about ROship one more thing: I mentioned to Jon earlier, but then I will mention to you too, and especially for K&K – I will remove Inbar from the RO status, as he didn’t show up for the last 18 days, and actually when he did it was for a few words only, and this was going on for the last 3 months at least.

Peter_Varo

(I know it is not related to the 1) but still RO topic)

Zero_Piraeus

@Peter_Varo I agree.

Ffisegydd

Yeah I remember him mentioning he’s been epic-busy at work. If he comes back and is active again then he can always be re-instated. (same for poke if he ever returns)

Kevin

Well, we have precedent in un RO-ing absentee owners before, so OK

Peter_Varo

I thought the same thing

Peter_Varo

okay, then – I agree, we can move on to #2

Zero_Piraeus

Just before we move on … a hearty round of applause for all your work, Jon :-)

thefourtheye

Yeah, he surely deserves a standing ovation…

thefourtheye

clap clap clap

Kevin

Yaaaay :-)

Ffisegydd

CLAPS WITH GAVEL

Peter_Varo

1

Kevin

I considered making a nice macaroni art piece in appreciation of Jon’s hard work.

Kevin

I didn’t actually do it, but I thought of doing it, and that’s the next best thing, isn’t it?

Peter_Varo

:)

Ffisegydd

(you do realise we’re applauding @Jon while he’s taking a leak right?)

Martijn_Pieters

Martijn_Pieters claps!

Martijn_Pieters



Congrats K&K, excellent choice.

Lev

 I thought I was the only one thinking about it

Ffisegydd

Oooh the linking is like the editing. Nice.

Peter_Varo

it is, way nicer than SO’s..

Peter_Varo

:)

Kevin

That linked post is causing a very strange horseshoe-shaped artifact on my screen.

thefourtheye

1 1 

 Oops, he might not hear… We may have to clap louder :D

Peter_Varo



but the images on the starred lists are also animating —->

Peter_Varo

that’s quite frustrating.. I mean when it is a GIF

Kevin

Kevin

I’ll just never mouse over a linked post, I guess. Problem solved.

Ffisegydd

While we’re on #2 people can have a quick look at this

Jon_Clements

back

thefourtheye

Before @Jon_Clements returns, @Kevin and @Ffisegydd how do you guys feel?

Ffisegydd

It’s a js piece using a web text editor that @Peter linked to me I was thinking of adding it to sopython wiki for editing.

Ffisegydd

Would be much nicer and we can write a “Ctrl+K to indent code” js piece as I’ve written there.

Ffisegydd

@thefourtheye that question really reminds me of

Ffisegydd

thefourtheye

lol

Peter_Varo



 that comic strip is so familiar ;)

Peter_Varo

okay, so, let’s move on to #2

Jon_Clements

let’s do that - #2

Ffisegydd

BANGS GAVEL ON ZERO’S HAND

Jon_Clements

@Ffisegydd you’re pretty much running the show on that one… tell us?

Zero_Piraeus

 pokes Ffisegydd in the eye

Ffisegydd

Well we need to get the servers moved across/merged/whatever so it’s all on one server, but that’s something for you and me to sort out sometime.

Ffisegydd

After that I’d like to actually have a database backing the common questions list, so the questions are stored somewhere and can be added with a form (can be controlled so access only)#

Ffisegydd

I’d also like to add the Ace.js web editor rather than the one we have at the moment

Ffisegydd

Incidentally is there anyone here now who doesn’t have access to the wiki but would like it?

Ffisegydd

(edit/write access I mean)

Zero_Piraeus

I know I do … DSM is the newest RO; dunno if access has yet been granted.

Ffisegydd

DSM already had access IIRC

Jon_Clements

@Zero_Piraeus he does

Ffisegydd

In terms of Nidaba I need to get back on it, might speak to Games to see whether he wants to get involved with it. And if anyone else wants to get involved then please step forward.

davidism

Only ROs for now? I’d be happy to contribute to the wiki and nidaba.

Peter_Varo

 I think I have but I haven’t actually used it.. anyway, I don’t want to make promises, but a facelift would also be appropriate for the Wiki/SoPython site

Ffisegydd

No the wiki access is for anyone who wants to help/we can trust not to vandalise things.

Jon_Clements

@Peter_Varo yup, I think the whole front-end needs an overhaul

Ffisegydd

I don’t know anything about CSS/web design so can’t really help with that end, but I’m learning Flask slowly so can add bits and pieces for the back end.

Ffisegydd

Eventually I’d like to have Nidaba on Github so it’s easy for people to access/help with.

Jon_Clements

for now though, we’ll focus on the back-end and get that working in a wonderful way, then focus on the front-end

Peter_Varo

 right now, I’m very busy, I really am, but I will take a look at it in the summer, probably mid/end-july

Jon_Clements

@Peter_Varo we’re keeping your logo that you so kindly donated :)

davidism



I work on data aggregation/correlation/analysis all day, big Flask app that I designed, so I think I could be of use for the backend.

Ffisegydd

@davidism that would be fantastic, we should sit down some other time (so we don’t bore everyone here) and discuss it.

davidism



ok, just putting it out there, don’t want to detract from the meeting

Kevin

 That sounds good. I don’t want to commit to anything since I don’t even know what technologies are being used, but I’d still be interested in poking around.

Ffisegydd

That’s pretty much it for #2.

Jon_Clements

@Ffisegydd you have root access to the server… I’m happy to go with whatever you decide

Ffisegydd

There are many plans and all are slowly progressing. Eventually we can strike back at PHP with Nidaba.

Ffisegydd

Oooh @Jon actually for #2 is there anyone who needs access of the server removing?

Peter_Varo

okay, I think the tasks are clear – and I also fully support a git repo for the development – whether it is the front or backend

Peter_Varo



or the repo idea is only for Nidaba?

Ffisegydd

Poke/Inbar have been inactive for a while and so have been removed from RO, do they have any access that needs removing from the server? I’m not suggesting they’d ever do anything but they may have keys and if their laptops were compromised/stolen/whatever…

Ffisegydd

@Peter_Varo the git repo can be for anything. We have an sopython github account which can host as many repos as we need.

Peter_Varo

that’s nice

Jon_Clements

I hadn’t considered that… I trust them as individuals, hadn’t taken account the “what if”

Ffisegydd

https://github.com/sopython

Ffisegydd

They may forget they have keys etc and sell laptops. You never know.

Jon_Clements

so yeah, maybe lock the accounts for now

Kevin

Seems sensible. suspending unused accounts reduces the “attack surface area”

Peter_Varo

true, I also vote for the closing. aaaaand I think we arrived at #3

Ffisegydd

#3 is basically “Any Other Business”

Ffisegydd

So…anything? Any ideas? Throw anything out.

Kevin

All room members should mention the chat room in every comment they make on SO, thus providing us more traffic.

Martijn_Pieters

 I’ll settle for ‘every other comment’.

Zero_Piraeus

There’s a link to the chat in my profile / flyout-popup-ID-chip-thingy. Not sure how much that helps.

Ffisegydd

Same here (which is how JohnY found us who is an old friend of Jon’s, small world!)

Jon_Clements

Ashwini also has/had it on his profile

Ffisegydd

I think traffic is okay at the moment.

Ffisegydd

We have a great group of regulars and get randoms in.

Ffisegydd

We get some semi-regulars.

Jon_Clements

Not quite sure why the constant name changes and avatar changes though.

Ffisegydd

And we have some people who stay for a week or two and then leave once they’ve sucked all the help they can out of us :/

Jon_Clements

@Ffisegydd do you think that’s an addressable problem?

Kevin

So it goes.

DSM

Are there really that many name changes? (Although I guess if there were simultaneous name/avatar changes, I might not have noticed.)

Peter_Varo

@Ffisegydd I wonder if the goal really is to grow as big as we can..

Ffisegydd

I don’t think it is, we won’t be able to help everyone effectively in that case.

Jon_Clements

The way I envisaged the room was to build it strong

Jon_Clements

not big

Peter_Varo

^ +1

davidism

I think we’re at a nice balance right now.

Lev

Is helping people actually the primary purpose of the room?

Kevin

Yeah, even though we can theoretically have an unlimited number of users, there’s limited bandwidth in how many conversations can go on at once.

davidism

But then again I’m relatively new.

Peter_Varo

@Kevin I think actually 3 is way more than one can follow..

Peter_Varo

so it is very limited in such terms

davidism

1

 I see it as more of a meta-python-so

Ffisegydd

I think helping people is one of the purposes, but by no means as the only (or even primary) purpose.

Kevin

I just like being part of a community :-)

Lev

I agree.

DSM

ISTM at most three ongoing conversations are workable: one random silliness, one on-topic, and one random stream of the chatroom used as google. We’re often in that situation, and it seems to work well enough.

Lev

It’s just that optimizing for helpfulness is not what we need then

Ffisegydd

For instance R have two rooms. One for newbs to ask questions and one for people to discuss R on SO and coordinate CVs/just generally chat.

davidism

Android has the “no default usernames” rule…

davidism

but I don’t think that would change much here

Peter_Varo

 I know you didn’t suggest that – but I don’t think it is a good idea to divide our “forces”

Ffisegydd

(I’m not suggesting we have 2 rooms btw)

Peter_Varo

:)

Jon_Clements

heck no!

Jon_Clements

1 2 

We’re room 6 - with the best team ever!

davidism

There may be two pythons, but they are in one logo

Jon_Clements

Anyway, point #3 was to be about does everyone enjoy the room, and do we have any thoughts about improving it, or do we have trouble that hasn’t yet been identified?

Ffisegydd

I think clamping down on help vampires has been discussed to death before. And I’m not sure it’s worth going into it again just now (as it’s been a long discussion already and that’d take up a lot more time). I’ll sort the transcripts for the last meeting and then we can see what goes on from there.

Zero_Piraeus

I think we could do a little better at encouraging the kind of “help culture” we want.

Jon_Clements

@Zero_Piraeus how could we do that?

Zero_Piraeus

i.e. We’ll help out, but expect people to learn from the help and not come back with a question that demonstrates not having learnt from the help given.

Zero_Piraeus

Well, code dumps are a personal bugbear of mine …

Peter_Varo

@Zero_Piraeus I think that is the default behaviour of all of us

Ffisegydd

I’m about to LMGTFY Ufoguy FYI…

Peter_Varo

+1

Lev

we won’t stop you @Ffisegydd

davidism

Right, but there’s no consequence for coming back with more bad questions, and eventually someone bites (me too). Maybe two strikes and if you haven’t learned, no write access?

Jon_Clements

Well all.

Jon_Clements

Been a great meeting, and I sincerely appreciate everyone’s time

Jon_Clements

ty for bothering to attend

Ffisegydd

I’m gonna leave this room open btw so anyone can access it if ever we need to hold another one or you want to read back on things etc

Zero_Piraeus

I’m in favour of being friendly (don’t want us to become etiquette nazis), but … dunno. IIRC we can’t restrict write access without making the room read-only by default.

Peter_Varo

we can’t.

Jon_Clements

@Ffisegydd good job

Peter_Varo

@Jon_Clements ty2 and thanks again for all the hard work so far

Kevinreply

ditto

26 Jun 15:29

davidism

@Jon_Clements thanks for your great work

Peter_Varo

I’m also leaving – or at least be only in two other rooms where you can find me :)

Peter_Varo

~

Ffisegydd

ta puppy.

Jon_Clements

@Ffisegydd grab the gavel, bang it down, and we’re done

Zero_Piraeus

moves hand

Ffisegydd

I’m not gonna lie guys…I don’t actually have a gavel. I was just pretending to. I’ve just been typing BANGS GAVEL this whole time D:

Jon_Clements

really!? You had me so convinced all that time :(

Martijn_Pieters

I am so disappointed in you now, @Ffisegydd

Meeting 2014/09/10

Ffisegydd

AGENDA

1. sopython-site status

2. nidaba status

3. Is room owner presence/coverage good during off hours?

4. REDACTED

5. Open house.

5a. From Kevin “discuss adding ‘no solicitation’ to the room rules”

6: Is there enough cabbage stockpiled in case of natural disaster?

Peter_Varo

kebidzs

IntrepidBrit

Feels very cloak and dagger

Ffisegydd

It is. I assume everyone has their ceremonial cloak on?

Ffisegydd

Damn H+S not allowing us daggers.

Jon_Clements

@Ffisegydd strange though how H&S doesn’t exclude the trapdoor over the alligator pit…

IntrepidBrit

H&S doesn’t let you. I’ve got my sgian dubh in my sock ;)

Ffisegydd

I’ve got a letter-opener-one-of-those that’s got a Robert Burns verse on it

IntrepidBrit

Works. Just think of it as a menacing potato peeler

Peter_Varo

guys (those who live in the UK) – how could you resist and don’t eat Jelly-Belly all day?

Ffisegydd

Easily. I don’t want to become a Jelly Baby myself.

Peter_Varo

my brother brought me some yesterday – and I can’t stop it

Ffisegydd

Are they Jelly Babies or Jelly Beans? Different things.

IntrepidBrit

It’s difficult. Some utter YAM has put a Jelly Belly machine down the corridor.

Peter_Varo

@Ffisegydd grr.. fair enough..

Peter_Varo

I’m talking about this one here: http://www.jellybelly-uk.com/flavours/

Ffisegydd

How do you eat them? My SO bites the arms and legs off first to leave their head in tact, thus prolonging their pain.

Ffisegydd

Ah ok I’d call those Jelly Beans but ok

IntrepidBrit

It’s a particular brand of the damned buggers. Tasty and all over the place

Ffisegydd

I was thinking about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jelly_Babies

IntrepidBrit

which are equally tasty and evil.

Peter_Varo

I love jelly babies tooo!

IntrepidBrit

Legend.

Peter_Varo

but you can buy those in hungary too

Kevin

I’m not fond of gummy candy. I prefer chocolate or peanut butter.

Peter_Varo

although we had jelly benas only for a limited time

Ffisegydd

My flatmate made some chocolate and peanut butter oat cookies the other day.

Peter_Varo

peanut butter over everything, yeah.

DSM

If you like chocolate, and you like peanut butter, I have an idea which will blow your mind.

Ffisegydd

Okay it’s 4pm shall we get going?

Kevin

I am ready for serious agenda goings-over.

Peter_Varo

please ;)

MattDMo

the kerning on the letter c in the room font is off…

Ffisegydd

Ok. @davidism would you like to start us off with sopython-site?

davidism

Sure.

Ffisegydd

(And while you’re doing that I’ll think about something to say for nidaba…)

davidism

Cabbage all, I’m the lead developer of the site.

davidism

We’ve done a major rewrite in the last two months, and we have more ideas to implement.

davidism

If you want to keep up with what’s going on, or contribute ideas, we keep our todo list on this trello board.

davidism

The latest change came out last weekend. Any authenticated users can make “draft” wiki and canon pages. These are only visible to users with the “editor” permission.

davidism

Editors can move a page from draft to published. Before, only the admin group could edit the site, which was a little dangerous. This way, we can let people contribute without having to vet them as much first.

davidism

There’s also a “community” flag on posts. If a page is in community mode, anyone can see and edit the page. So we can work more collaboratively on writing a canonical question, for example.

davidism

The major upcoming features are search and history tracking, but there’s a bunch of minor things that can be added or fixed along the way.

davidism

If anyone would like to contribute, the project is available on github. We’d really appreciate anyone’s contributions.

davidism

The code is also a pretty good resource for people asking about the Flask framework in the chatroom, so point them to it if you’d like.

davidism

That’s all for now. Melon!

Ffisegydd

Cool.

IntrepidBrit

politely applauds

Ffisegydd

Corvid has been helping with sopython and is looking to continue to help.

Peter_Varo

very nice @davidism, thank you guys for the effort

Zero_Piraeus

Yeah, great work :-)

Ffisegydd

One particular thing we’d like to do which I’d like to draw attention to is a re-design of the look of the site. We’ve used Bootstrap for the site itself and we’re using a theme which we got called United (which is based on Ubuntu IIRC).

Jon_Clements

I think it’s fair to say that we really appreciate the lead you’ve taken and the work you’ve put in davidism - it certainly has given us a more “professional” feel - and an online presence that people can take seriously :p Great job!

davidism

Thanks everyone. :)

Ffisegydd

So we’re not just looking for people to help to write the Flask side of it, but also anyone with design experience (Peter and Matt I think have some experience in this) that’d be much appreciated too.

davidism

And yes, if you are interested in design, the site definitely needs a good theme.

Jon_Clements

(of course - that theme should ideally involve cabbage :p)

Peter_Varo

(and jelly beans)

davidism

If I can’t enter the konami code and have cabbages fly around the screen, what’s the point?

MattDMo

I’d love to begin working on a new theme (with Peter if he’s interested), but since the site content is dynamically generated, it’s a bit tough to do testing…

Ffisegydd

Hmm ok

Jon_Clements

@MattDMo we can set up a wiki entry that includes all the relevant pieces of markdown that can be used and I believe that could be used as a base for styling?

Ffisegydd

Well you are in the “editors” group if ever you need to steal some of the markdown

Peter_Varo

as I mentioned earlier, I still don’t want to promise anything – but I’m gladly be a consultant, and take a look at the design in different stages of the process

IntrepidBrit

Shouldn’t be too bad for testing on a dynamic theme. Just do unit testing with a headless browser (like phantomJS), to test core functionality… Unless there’s more involved that I’m not aware of?

Peter_Varo

@MattDMo I have no idea, what you mean by that – even the most dynamic site could be tested in the design perspective

MattDMo

@Jon_Clements yeah, I think that could work. I can always crawl the site and save whatever pages I need locally.

davidism

There’s a way to freeze a flask app into a static site. I could try that if you’d like.

MattDMo

a static copy could also work…

Ffisegydd

@Matt I can add you to both the Trello and the Github if you want. That’ll mean you can add/edit cards on Trello and make your own branch with design changes, etc.

davidism

Ffisegydd or I can add you to the trello page, and we have a chat room for discussing this too.

MattDMo

on a slightly random note - what flavor of Markdown do you use? Is Markdown Extended or GFM allowed?

davidism

Not sure if you need to be invited first, but the link is https://sopython.slack.com/messages/sopython-site/.

Jon_Clements

@davidism Stewie needs to invite via using an email addresss I believe

Ffisegydd

I think he has to be invited. We can sort invitations after the meeting.

MattDMo

ok

davidism

It’s hoedown, which is a fork of sundown, the parser github uses.

Ffisegydd

Ok unless there’s any more questions let’s get onto Nidaba (which will be quick (because I’ve pre-typed everything :P))

MattDMo

I’ll see if I can mock up some Markdown that uses as many features as possible, and we can use that for a single testing page, then we can do a static grab later

davidism

Let’s move on, we can discuss the site on slack chat later.

Ffisegydd

Nidaba, for those of you unaware, is a machine learning project aimed at studying the questions and answers in the Python tag on SO.

Ffisegydd

Not much work has been done on Nidaba as of late, I’ve mainly been busy reading books and such on machine learning rather than code but that is soon to change. Antii has been playing around with some ML for his own projects and we’ve been discussing it also.

Ffisegydd

The Nidaba Trello is here, for the moment it only has ideas for features and articles I’ve found useful on data science.

Ffisegydd

One thing we did do was get in touch with some of the devs who have done something similar (and official) on SO for low quality posts. They gave us a lot of very interesting ideas and hopefully when we get somewhere we can get in touch with them again and see how things are looking maybe.

Ffisegydd

Games Brainiac and myself will soon begin entering Kaggle competitions for machine learning experience and we’ll hopefully put what we’ve learnt to use for Nidaba (incidentally anyone who is interested is welcome to join us).

Ffisegydd

As far as a road-map for Nidaba? I think the main thing is to decide on a database system (for the moment we’re using mongodb but that might change). Then we need to get the database up-to-date and use websockets to automatically update it. From then on we can actually start working on the code.

Ffisegydd

Annnnd that’s all I’ve pre-typed.

Ffisegydd

@Jon did you manage to write anything down about database ideas? (I won’t blame you if you didn’t, but if you did now is the time to share :P)

Jon_Clements

/me shakes his head :(

Ffisegydd

Ok then :P, any questions/suggestions on Nidaba?

Jon_Clements

However, I did manage to find and put up to github the RABBIT stuff and the websocket listener prototypes

Ffisegydd

Ah yeah. Part of Nidaba will be the inclusion of a bot in the SO chat.

Ffisegydd

This bot will announce and suspicious posts automatically.

Ffisegydd

And may receive commands (!!say Hello, etc)

Jon_Clements

Plus praise @Peter_Varo with its eternal love and admiration :)

Peter_Varo

:D

davidism

We definitely need to consider what the api will look like. I see Nidaba as the backend analyzer, while RABBIT or the sopython-site are the frontend.

Peter_Varo

(which is the most important things of all)

MattDMo

Have you thought about hosting at all? I use Webfaction for my personal stuff, and it’s really easy to set up projects there, and the pricing is really good. They even have a websockets project, I just noticed…

Ffisegydd

We have a Linode server for the moment.

Ffisegydd

@davidism I agree. That’s something I have little experience of (designing APIs and how software integrates in general).

Jon_Clements

@Ffisegydd we’ve also still got the DO server because some idiot didn’t shut it down properly :p

tristan

I think API consumption/creation are always at odds and really, it’s a pointless discussion until one offers at least something (also, sorry I’m late and just jumping in, just got back from dentist)

Jon_Clements

@tristan if you managed to come away with the same amount of teeth as you went in with - congrats :)

IntrepidBrit

(As for hosting, I might have to operate my own mini-server farm at some point in the future. If I do, I’m sure we could self-host without it costing a bomb? Hopefully this will be happening in 6+ months)

Ffisegydd

I’ve actually got a gold crown, because I’m totally bling.

tristan

Same teeth, just cleaning with a drill. @Ffisegydd, I’m, unfortunately, incapable of being as gangster as you.

Ffisegydd

Ok I think everyone is up to speed on both Nidaba and the state of mine and Tristan’s teeth.

Jon_Clements

Probably best to discuss the API at a future point when we know more about what we can/can’t/will be able to do with nidaba…

Ffisegydd

Number 3. is something that @Jon added so I’ll leave it up to him to explain :P

tristan

When hosting becomes an issue, I can help out. I have far too many years of experience dealing with scaling/automation.

IntrepidBrit

Good to know @tristan

Jon_Clements

Very useful to know :)

Jon_Clements

Well volunteered there sir :)

Jon_Clements

@Ffisegydd errr - point 3 is room coverage?

Ffisegydd

Yeah

Ffisegydd

Agenda is in the Notable Messages to the right.

davidism

I’m taking the controversial stance: I’m for room coverage.

Jon_Clements

Okay - I’m not sure we can do much about it, but due to some infuriating clients that have had me in Skype meetings at 3am, I’ve noticed that we still have quite an active room membership, but mostly (except sometimes Peter & Davidism) no ROs at that time… so we’ve got a bit of a window where we could be trolled

Ffisegydd

As you said, I’m not sure this is something that can be avoided.

Peter_Varo

(I also finally managed to shift my life back to the normal hours – so I won’t be anymore there around 3 or 4 hopefully)

Ffisegydd

bahahahahaha…give it time @Peter…we’ve got an open bet on when you’ll start living on LA time again. I’ve given it 3 weeks.

Zero_Piraeus

I’m often around during the quiet moments; I don’t make a point of making my presence felt, but I do kinda sorta keep an eye open.

Peter_Varo

we’ll see:):)

Ffisegydd

If I’m right I get £100 and I’d be willing to split it…

Jon_Clements

So - I think in the time being - could we possibly keep an eye on the transcript during those times, to make sure we haven’t got crap/missing questions/or just have people join then never come back ‘cos no one’s there…

Ffisegydd

I’m up for that, I tend to read through the previous transcript in the mornings anyway.

MattDMo

I suppose the bot could help with that

davidism

I tend to drop in at random times if I’m up at night, just to keep an eye on things.

tristan

I’m UTC -4 or -5 (depending on season) if that helps.

Zero_Piraeus

Currently UTC-4 too.

davidism

UTC-8

Zero_Piraeus

Oops, UTC-3. Damned daylight saving time …

Jon_Clements

It’s not important - but it’s certainly a bit of a chink in the armour when we’re otherwise very well covered… anyway… don’t think there’s much sure to say on it, so unless anyone wants to say anything/offer any ideas, then probably should move on to the next (ugly?) point :p

Kevin

I’m the same time zone as tristan.

davidism

The room gets a bit off topic at those hours, but I haven’t seen anything bad come up.

MattDMo

as am I.

Heh. Right let’s crack on. The last bit might be really short or really long, not sure.

tristan

Cool.

Ffisegydd

Basically: open house! Anything and everything to do with sopython.

Ffisegydd

Any ideas/problems/whatever?

Kevin

Yes, issue 5a on the agenda. Let me fetch my speech…

tristan

We seriously need to start keeping treats around for the puppy.

Ffisegydd

I’ll start off with an opinion: “Yellow puppies suck are awesome”

davidism

I’ve got something after Kevin.

DSM

I’ve got something after davidism.

Kevin

This topic was prompted by a conversation this morning where a user was “Looking for some part-time sweat equity from a Python dev”. Depending on your definition of “sweat equity”, this could be considered a stock-for-services offer. (although it could also be interpreted as “who wants to work on my project” with no implication of reimbursement).

In any case, it reminded me of previous events where a user would join and say something much more direct like “I need to frob a million widgets. I’ll pay $X for a script”. I believe the general consensus is that we don’t want that “work for pay” solicitations in our room. If this is the prevailing opinion, it would be good to add it to the room rules, so that 1) newbies that read the page can better understand the room culture, and 2) offenders can’t hide behind the defense “there’s no rule that says I can’t do this”

Ffisegydd

I agree. I think people should be able to get projects going on open source or whatever but when you start discussion money it becomes a bit…off….

Ffisegydd

For example, the whole of sopython-site and nidaba is a project ran through the room, but it’s all open source.

tristan

I support this. I don’t see enough of this behavior to be really concerned, but if it was allowed, I’d just tell people that are completely lost/want teh codes to send me an email at tristan@[ the business i run ]

Kevin

Yep, “who wants to team up with me” requests seem fine by themselves

Peter_Varo

I definitely agree, it deserves a bullet-point in the rules

davidism

The chatroom is not an appropriate place to find a business partner.

tristan

No solicitation, no recruiting.

MattDMo

Maybe we could add a link to Careers if they’re truly looking to hire a dev

Ffisegydd

Ok I’ve added it to the sopython-site Trello

IntrepidBrit

Wholeheartedly agree. Not a big issue from what I see, but doesn’t mean it’ll always be that way…

tristan

Meh. It’s a chat room; we’re not responsible for funneling people to SE’s paid offerings

Peter_Varo

okay, I guess it’s davidism’s turn

Jon_Clements

@IntrepidBrit I think I’ve seen it 2/3 times now… so it happens, but not often, but completely agree that something should be added to the rules

tristan

hooray consensus

Zero_Piraeus

I can see the value of putting something on the etiquette page … in practice I think we handle this well already though (Soviero being a case in point; he’s raised the subject two or three times and been gracefully steered away from it).

Ffisegydd

DEMOCRACY! WOO! Thanks 'Murica for teaching us democracy and giving us all freedom :)

tristan

yw ;)

MattDMo

you’re welcome

Kevin

haha

Ffisegydd

(OT: @Peter I see what you mean about some of the lettering on this page…)

Peter_Varo

that was MattDMo who spotted the kerning problems out

Zero_Piraeus

There was a brief period after the “help vampire” meeting when I thought we got a bit too policey IMO; it’d be good to retain our famous good humour on this :-)

tristan

oh man, i’ll have to get a whole new schtick when i move to Urop.

tristan

Yeahhh, I was supposed to write up a “here’s how to tell if you’re a help vampire” thing, but then got sidetracked and the room got better.

tristan

I think the help vampires come out around exams times.

davidism

@DSM you can go ahead, I need to reword my topic.

DSM

One of the enjoyable aspects of the room is the rather dry humour, in which ironic routines

can go on for quite a while. But as much fun as it is for us, newbies – whether because of

lack of familiarity with us, with Python, or with English – may not be in a position to pick

up the joke. So I think we should have an unofficial policy of not trolling newcomers, even

if they’ve just violated room rules by asking a question they shouldn’t have, etc.

DSM

We can say nothing, or we can give the real answer, but I think we should avoid giving dry joke answers to n00bs.

IntrepidBrit

Fair point. I suspect that I’m complicit on this one. Somebody smack my wrist

Ffisegydd

Yeah probably same here. I’ll smack your wrist if you smack mine.

Jon_Clements

@Ffisegydd you’re double smacking yourself?

davidism

I’ve definitely done it. It’s typically late at night, the question is just bad and I’m feeling a little silly. But yeah, it gives the wrong first impression.

davidism

Perhaps try leading the asker to the answer if you don’t want to outright tell them.

IntrepidBrit

Deal

Kevin

I think the farthest I’ve gone in trolling a question asker is to provide a functional yet hideous solution.

Kevin

Replete with unnecessary lambdas and itertools and single letter variable names.

davidism

How to compare two strings: http://chat.stackoverflow.com/transcript/message/17376874#17376874

Jon_Clements

That could be construed as “dry humour” :)

Ffisegydd

Ok then. @davidism yours?

Peter_Varo

okay – so last point, I guess: @davidism?

Peter_Varo

:D

tristan

I disagree, I don’t think we should self-censor for the sake of people coming in and just expecting free help for questions that would get closed on the site.

MattDMo

but isn’t chat in a way for questions that really aren’t appropriate for the main site? Within reason, of course…

tristan

No.

tristan

Chat isn’t “crappy questions overflow”

Ffisegydd

No but chat is for questions that would get closed on the site in the sense of “opinion based” and such

MattDMo

no, I don’t mean crappy questions, but more along the lines of “which framework is better” or things like that

Jon_Clements

@tristan I think what @DSM is implying is that if it happens on the site, it’s clear cut the question is closed and off-topic… while in chat, sometimes it could be construed that we take the mickey out of newbs, rather than just say “that’s a crap question”

davidism

Yeah, recommendations, “I can’t find the docs”, etc are more acceptable, but there is a limit. But that shouldn’t change our behavior. Still be nice.

Zero_Piraeus

but we don’t want to become a clique … in-jokes are fun, and making fun of persistent annoyances is fun, but if we get into the habit of making fun of newcomers who just don’t know the rules yet, there’s a danger of accidentally becoming a bunch of jerks.

tristan

And we shouldn’t be able to “take the mickey out of newbs” and annoying people?

tristan

I don’t think this is a real problem and I won’t modify my behavior.

Ffisegydd

That’s fair enough tristan, we’ll just take the mickey out of you instead to release our needs :)

davidism

I’ll tell you to be nice if it gets out of hand.

tristan

@davidism sure, please do, but my point is that I don’t think it’s gotten out of hand. We’re still markedly different than IRC snobs.

tristan

If someone comes in and says “why is python slow”, I’m still going to spin a web of lunacy.

isedev

“Ignorance is voluntary and confusion is temporary.”

davidism

My topic: I’d like to establish what the conventions are for moving messages to Trash. I remove recent questions with a message, as well as the more annoying gifs. I’d like to be a bit more aggressive with trashing, but want to know your opinions first.

Ffisegydd

I do similar (as well as anything abusive, etc but that is obvious)

Peter_Varo

@davidism what do you mean by “more aggressive”?

isedev

On what basis do you trash?

Zero_Piraeus

what do you want to trash that you currently don’t?

tristan

I really wish that chat had a “collapse this image.” I could write extensions for chrome/firefox if someone reminds me that I said I’d do it by the end of October

davidism

Same with stars as well, we get on these feedback loops sometimes where a bunch of 1-stars come up in the middle of conversations. I can pretty much tell that they won’t survive @Peter_Varo, so should we unstar them more quickly?

Kevin

I’m fine with moving gifs. I’m personally quite lenient about recent question links, but I support the initiative of other ROs to do what they want with them.

Zero_Piraeus

I propose a complete moratorium on removing stars until I get my Outspoken badge.

Peter_Varo

I think you can leave it there => that’s what I’m for, as the last hope of starred messages ;)

Kevin

@davidism, I think the current unstarring speed is good. If you unstar right away, what’s to stop the other guy from starring it again?

Peter_Varo

^ +1

Peter_Varo

you never know what is star-worthy for others

Ffisegydd

I will unstar things that aren’t meant to be starred (like someone thanking someones answer with a star which I believe we ask not to be starred in the rules)

Ffisegydd

And I’ll do that straight away

Jon_Clements

(anything written by Kevin it would appear :p)

Kevin

Immediate unstarring may cause users some annoyance. Either “This buggy system won’t accept my stars” or “these cliquey room owners don’t respect my opinion”

Kevin

But wait 24 hours, and they probably won’t even notice.

Ffisegydd

But then I’ve also known to troll the other ROs by starring everything that Kevin says in a conversation so who am I to talk?

isedev

Again, on what basis is it done? Are there a set of reasons people can read and understand or is it assumed 'common knowledge’?

Ffisegydd

(though I do clean the star list up myself after a while :P)

davidism

OK, I agree with you guys, just wanted to figure out what the guidelines were, since I’m the newest owner.

Ffisegydd

Stars are removed if the message is > 3 days old AND it has less than 3 stars.

tristan

I think that’s fair.

tristan

Needs a star a day up to 3 days.

isedev

Yeah, that sounds reasonable. What about trashing?

Ffisegydd

Messages are generally removed if they contain something annoying (like an animated gif that some may find distracting) or if it’s someone posting their brand-spanking-new question into chat.

Ffisegydd

Or if they’re offensive/abusive of course.

tristan

I like that starred messages that stand-alone as content (see my current starred message) tend to stick along longer.

Ffisegydd

But then they’re also usually flagged.

Jon_Clements

Pretty much anything NSFW should go as people do use chat at work :)

Kevin

We also sometimes trash poorly-formatted code blocks. I’m fine with this, provided the user submitted a better formatted one in the intervening period.

Kevin

Trashing the old one before they make a new one is a bit less friendly

Jon_Clements

Of course - ideally they should edit the code block while they can instead of posting again…

Kevin

Yeah, this usually only occurs for users that can’t figure out the editing feature within the time limit

tristan

i feel like we’re trying to objectively solve something that we all agree is subjective

davidism

Or people who just txt spk 1 word per line, and don’t understand editing.

isedev

Well perhaps some guidelines reflecting the above on sopython might ease any ill-feelings by newcomers (if there are not already). As far as I can see, it all pretty much common sense.

tristan

I feel as if the newcomers that read sopython are the same newcomers that don’t have a problem.

isedev

no but you can point them at it… shows it pre-established and not just been tailored on the fly for them.

Ffisegydd

Right is there anything else? Speak now or forever hold your cabbage!

tristan

i like turtles

Jon_Clements

Okay… just extending on what @isedev mentined

Ffisegydd

Duly noted.

Jon_Clements

Shall we have a section in the rules that says “Why did my message just get moved to Trash?” and list there the reasons that would have happened…

Kevin

I am in favor of that

davidism

Avocado

Ffisegydd

I’ve added it to the Trello card along with solicitations.

Ffisegydd

https://trello.com/c/29Gte0BT/82-edit-rules-for-solicitations

Peter_Varo

if there is nothing else, then thanks @Ffisegydd for managing this event

Jon_Clements

Awesome - well - I can’t think of anything else

tristan

hear hear

Ffisegydd

Awesome, thanks guys.

davidism

Melon to all the peaches and pears that attended.

Peter_Varo

:D

Ffisegydd

It’s 30 minutes past when I usually leave for home, my boss is gonna be worried at my sudden passion.

Jon_Clements

Cool… let’s all head down the pub :)

Peter_Varo

yyyyaaaaaayyyyy

isedev

heading out the door already

tristan

pub it is. i’m starting to regain feeling in my mouth, which means it’s time to lose feeling in my brain

Jon_Clements

@tristan LOL

davidism

I can walk across the street I suppose, beer before noon is totally acceptable at work.

Peter_Varo

is the pub on another tab? :P

Jon_Clements

Right everyone - thanks for very muchly for your time - hat tip to Stewie for arranging it :)

tristan

cheers

Peter_Varo

because I can’t find it in my browser..

Peter_Varo

back to room/6

Peter_Varo

rhubarb ~

Jon_Clements

@Peter you have to use a special browser :)

isedev

rbrb

IntrepidBrit

Rhurbarb guys. Thanks for organising and running the show :)