Timeline for Can we turn down the campaign heat, please?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
26 events
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| Mar 20, 2017 at 10:32 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://meta.stackexchange.com/ with https://meta.stackexchange.com/
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| Dec 1, 2014 at 18:56 | comment | added | Shog9 | Yeah, something is broken there @Iain - I've tried to figure out why, but not seeing it; need to enlist the help of the guy who wrote it. Will get back to you on that... | |
| Nov 25, 2014 at 14:06 | comment | added | user9517 | @Shog9 I agree that one of the advantages of the software is the ability to re-use answers. Unfortunately the utility is low as it's often quite difficult to find the duplicate that you know exists. Please take a look at meta.stackexchange.com/questions/232242/… and the related posts. Thanks. | |
| Nov 24, 2014 at 4:55 | comment | added | HopelessN00b | One of the advantages of answering in comments, rather than in the answer, is that it doesn't prevent the clean-up scripts from auto-deleting a bad, closed question with a negative score. You can answer a bad question and help a poor soul out, but without having a bad question stick around forever because it has an upvoted answer to it. | |
| Nov 24, 2014 at 3:01 | comment | added | Katherine Villyard | @Sirex, I clicked through to your profile and you shouldn't be afraid of the answer button. :) | |
| Nov 24, 2014 at 1:42 | comment | added | Sirex | Yeah i guess. It's just that a 'comment' seems to fit the 'heres some information' type help rather than a 'this will solve your issue' like an 'answer' might. Sometimes i have too little time to fully research, document, and articulate even the answers i know to be true. So i just want to point people in the right direction, even when it might otherwise constitute an answer. | |
| Nov 24, 2014 at 1:29 | comment | added | Shog9 | I know it can, @Sirex. But please, don't be afraid. | |
| Nov 24, 2014 at 0:04 | comment | added | Sirex | @shog9 sometimes i do this when it's not an answer but meanly guidence, advice, tips, or occasionally when i'm only mostly sure that its right and no-one else has responded. the 'answer' moniker can be scary sometimes. | |
| Nov 23, 2014 at 23:53 | comment | added | Shog9 | I've done the same, @KatherineVillyard - but one must be very cautious in doing so. One of the big advantages of this software over traditional forums is the ease with which answers can be re-used by others with the same or similar problems, thus reducing the strain involved in repeatedly answering common questions... But this falls apart if questions are not answered. | |
| Nov 22, 2014 at 4:46 | comment | added | Katherine Villyard | @Shog9 Answering questions in comments: I've done this, but usually when it's a link-only answer that I don't think deserves an upvote. The one I did today was someone who wanted to upgrade software on Ubuntu to a version unsupported by his distro. Someone told him to upgrade his version of Ubuntu. He asked how. I linked to AskUbuntu on how to upgrade. That's not a "real" answer--it's a comment with a link--but he clearly needed the help. | |
| Nov 22, 2014 at 1:29 | comment | added | Shane Madden StaffMod | @HopelessN00b The change I'm proposing is a relatively major change in the scope of the site, or at least how the community should be treating the scope of the site - it may not work out how I want it to work out, but I don't think it makes any sense to call it "same-old same-old" since it's definitely something that hasn't been tried here before. | |
| Nov 22, 2014 at 1:02 | comment | added | HopelessN00b | @ShaneMadden You may be right about the way my approach ends up, but it seems to me that your approach, being more of the same-old-same-old, results in SF being the helpdesk for SO/SE (more so than it is already). And that's not a good direction for the community either. And, just for the record, I'm not opposed to "too easy" questions, as you seem to think, but I do oppose being or becoming a low-quality helpdesk. ("My SSH connection breaks, why?") In fact, go check out my last half dozen or so answers. All of them are to very simple, possibly even "too easy" questions. | |
| Nov 22, 2014 at 0:49 | comment | added | Shane Madden StaffMod | @HopelessN00b Metaphors aside, the point I'm making is that any approach that banishes "too easy" questions like the one you're referencing is unsustainable. I think the direction you want this site to go in deals with the symptoms and not the real problems, and leads to an increasingly small and insular community. | |
| Nov 22, 2014 at 0:38 | comment | added | HopelessN00b | @ShaneMadden I picked auto mechanic off the top of my head just as something that clearly has no connection with programming in any capacity, just like many of the questions we see (and the ones I complain about and find embarrassing for the site) are likewise, completely unrelated to systems administration. (For example, that you reopened today from the developer asking why his SSH connection times out, while providing no details whatsoever that might help answer why. This is, at best, a question for the help desk, which were I to get it, would be closed as unworkable, more detail needed.) | |
| Nov 22, 2014 at 0:31 | comment | added | Shane Madden StaffMod | @HopelessN00b That attitude is exactly why a change is needed, because the "automobile mechanic" in your example is really "anyone who doesn't fit an increasingly narrow definition of "professional". If you're going to declare that anyone who doesn't ask a perfect question on the first shot should be written off as not part of the target audience, the target audience quickly approaches 0. Which, I understand, is how some people would prefer it, but that's not a healthy direction for the community as a whole. | |
| Nov 22, 2014 at 0:02 | comment | added | HopelessN00b |
@Shog9 Perhaps I didn't word that well. A large number of the complaints we see are from people who aren't sysadmins at all/in any way shape or form. Does what these people think about the site matter at all, given that the site is supposed to be for sysadmins? To use an analogy: I'm an automobile mechanic and I asked a question about why my computer's Windows code is so slow on Stack Overflow, and those mean jerks downvoted and closed it! Of course it's about programming, because my computer runs programs! OK, but since he isn't in SO's target audience, why care what he thinks of SO?
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| Nov 22, 2014 at 0:00 | comment | added | Shane Madden StaffMod | @Iain As I mentioned over here, this is something the community team asked me to look at several months ago; that's been in the works for a while. | |
| Nov 21, 2014 at 23:47 | comment | added | Shog9 | It matters when there's confusion over what attitude "sysadmin" implies, @HopelessN00b. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman | |
| Nov 21, 2014 at 23:45 | comment | added | Shog9 | I will definitely endeavor to be more direct here in the future, @Iain. | |
| Nov 21, 2014 at 22:45 | comment | added | HopelessN00b | @Shog9 Re: the answering questions in comments, yes, a lot of that is trying to be nice and help, or show pity to a poor soul hopelessly over their head. A lot of the rest of that comes from people who haven't included enough information so that the commenter is certain of the solution, but it's probably/maybe $suggestion. Regarding the rest, well, yeah, we are sysadmins. Maybe you and a big lot of people who contact you don't get what that means, or understand it, but since the audience for this site is supposedly professional systems and network administrators, does that matter? | |
| Nov 21, 2014 at 22:42 | comment | added | Michael Hampton Mod | The questions which I see as "not professional" fall into two categories: Most are home user or development environment questions which, for some reason, weren't considered good enough to migrate to SU. Others are end users who are asking us when they need to contact their company's helpdesk, as there's nothing we can do; even if we did answer their questions they wouldn't be able to implement them, so we would never know if they were right or wrong. The "minimal understanding" reason really needs to be rewritten entirely. | |
| Nov 21, 2014 at 22:23 | comment | added | user9517 |
Fair enough but I haven't seen anything on mSF from you or the SF mod team so perhaps you've been a bit to pink-and-fluffy about it. You're dealing with sysadmins here you need to be much more direct - seriously.
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| Nov 21, 2014 at 22:19 | comment | added | Shog9 | Short answer there is simply that I dropped the ball, @Iain. The long answer is... There's not a lot I can do. I've talked about this a few times, publicly and with the mods in private, but at the end of the day, it's up to you folks how you want to be perceived - and whether or not you're willing to make that happen. | |
| Nov 21, 2014 at 21:01 | comment | added | user9517 | Well, over 6-8 weeks later nothing appears to have been done. If it was bad 2 years ago it certainly hasn't got any better. Why hasn't his been addressed? | |
| Nov 21, 2014 at 21:00 | comment | added | user9517 | On (or around) 6th Aug 12 you, Aarthi, Robert and I think Anna posted a video/recording of a meeting you had. I remember part of it well and even linked to it and commented on it in the Comms room. Sadly the youtube video is no more but what I particularly remember about it was that SF came in for a bit of a beating over snark etc. That section finished with you saying something like 'Serverfault yeah I'm going to have to deal with that'. | |
| Nov 21, 2014 at 17:23 | history | answered | Shog9 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |