Timeline for Worse than usenet? Our image to prospective new users.
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
16 events
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| Dec 21, 2011 at 8:31 | comment | added | user62491 | IMHO, I really feel like this whole conversation could be summed up as "don't be a dick"... which, in more diplomatic terms, is part of the FAQ... just Flag/Vote to close as appropriate, comment why and be on your merry way. If a user responds flippantly, there's no reason for you to as well. Remember we're supposed to be professionals, and professionals are polite, especially in situations where they have every reason not to be. | |
| Dec 12, 2011 at 21:57 | comment | added | sysadmin1138 Mod |
@MarkM If the user responds indignantly (still without reading the faq), then it should be fair game. This is where I strenuously disagree. At that point the question should be closed Not Constructive. If they come back indignant about the closure, do what @Iain and @JohnGardeniers do and keep a level tone about why it got closed, and mod-flagging for either further hammering or a timed lock, and possibly a mod-message if needed. Piling on is never appropriate, and I hammer it whenever I see it.
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| Dec 12, 2011 at 18:51 | comment | added | MDMarra |
I should say that being overtly mean is certainly never welcome anywhere as a first response, but a very short comment containing something like Read the [faq] before you post next time. is certainly warranted, IMO. If the user responds indignantly (still without reading the faq), then it should be fair game.
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| Dec 12, 2011 at 18:50 | comment | added | MDMarra | @sysadmin1138 And I, personally, don't think that there's anything wrong with that exchange. We're not catering to anyone other than professionals in our field. Most of the "piling on" happens to users that ask things that are way OT. The chances that they have an opportunity to influence a SA is slim. The chance that the SA in question wouldn't know that the complainer is a cheese-head is even slimmer. I do see your point, I just don't think that it's a problem. | |
| Dec 12, 2011 at 18:34 | comment | added | sysadmin1138 Mod | @MarkM To use your example, the NASA engineers would reply to you using rather harsh language, at which point you, the cheese-head, would tell everyone you know that NASA engineers are bunch of blow-hard elitist bastards. That would get to someone who doesn't know of your cheese-head status, who would form an opinion of NASA engineers based on your experiences that says they're prickly and suffer fools poorly, and don't talk to them unless you're exceptionally well qualified. | |
| Dec 12, 2011 at 18:09 | comment | added | MDMarra |
"The offended non-professionals we leave in our wake lead general perception that ServerFault is just like every other sysadmin community in being prickly, sarcastic, rough-and-tumble havens of thick-skinned smart people." I really fail to see the problem here. This community isn't for them. That would be like me being pissed that NASA engineers won't answer my emails asking if the moon is really made out of cheese.
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| Dec 12, 2011 at 18:06 | comment | added | Sven | @sysadmin1138: Thank you, that is about my sentiment, and you do a much better job of explaining it. | |
| Dec 12, 2011 at 18:04 | comment | added | sysadmin1138 Mod | @Iain The screen I see is the total answers across the site per day. So that one question that gets 50 answers since it's kinda funny and made the SE Top Questions list will mask 40 unanswered questions elsewhere on the site. The SE stats you see there show those 40 unanswered questions in the percentage. Another way to view the numbers I see is that we're getting fewer answers to questions than we used to, but are answering more questions at all. More one-answer questions I guess. | |
| Dec 12, 2011 at 18:00 | history | edited | sysadmin1138Mod | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 690 characters in body
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| Dec 12, 2011 at 17:56 | comment | added | user9517 | @sysadmin1138 So that's questions that are unanswered rather than the number of answers a question gets. Interesting, my perception was that it was going up stackexchange.com/sites shows 82% and I thought it had been lower. Having spent some time in the unanswered bowels of [linux] [centos] [ubuntu] [iptables] I suspect that most questions that can be answered are and what's left needs culling which is another project. | |
| Dec 12, 2011 at 17:53 | comment | added | Chris S | @Iain, while the number of unanswered questions is decreasing; the total number of answer posted each day is also decreasing. SysAdmin could be correct, but it could also be attributed to people recognizing one correct answer to a question instead of debating several possible correct answers; possible a side effect of a narrower definition of "Question". In any case, correlation != causation; we should be careful drawing conclusions from the little bit of raw data we have. | |
| Dec 12, 2011 at 17:51 | comment | added | sysadmin1138 Mod | @ChrisS Good point, I'll add some action-items. | |
| Dec 12, 2011 at 17:47 | comment | added | sysadmin1138 Mod | @Iain One of the metrics I can get at is a list of answers-by-day. The trendline is chaotic, but downward pointing. | |
| Dec 12, 2011 at 17:42 | comment | added | user9517 | What exactly do you mean by answer rate ? | |
| Dec 12, 2011 at 17:32 | comment | added | Chris S | The noobs who ask those Questions probably aren't the people you want to attract to be Answerers. You are correct however, we don't want to scare off potential sources of knowledge. I'd like to upvote this, but it seems like an extended comment/observation... no "answer" to the situation. | |
| Dec 12, 2011 at 17:25 | history | answered | sysadmin1138Mod | CC BY-SA 3.0 |