Meta - TopAnswers

Monica

Yup.

samcarter

This brand new "Articles" thingy on SO sounds very much like our beloved "Blog Post" ....

Jack Douglas

That is the underlining problem though :)

Andriy M replying to samcarter

They'll be lucky, because they won't be confused

samcarter

Is https://topanswers.xyz/meta?q=1829 what happens if the developers live next door to Greenwich? :)

samcarter replying to kus

:) although I had to improvise a bit because I did not know the name of the font from the codidact logo, so the `u` and the `k` are a bit too thin...

Monica replying to kus

I think that was the idea. :-)

kus replying to samcarter

codiduck reminds me of codidact

Pax replying to FoggyFinder

Absolutely. I think that's where patience and empathy come in for answerers --- to have the patience to guide the questioner to a better question.

FoggyFinder

nice article. Sometimes it's hard to ask Q properly when you have no idea where to start though

Pax

This is a good page about asking good questions https://www.mikeash.com/getting_answers.html

samcarter replying to Mithrandir24601

:) Welcome to TopAnswers!

Mithrandir24601 replying to samcarter

Created an account just to say how fantastic this is :joy:

Monica replying to samcarter

*laugh*

samcarter

@Monica Codi, the duck: 
![Screen Shot 2021-05-28 at 13.46.50.png](/image?hash=eba5b4b838adae3a9f987bbbac8590d45a03a11cef8ea0f51ff107af89dc28b3)  
(just some silly doddle, I hope it makes you smile)

Monica replying to samcarter

That too. Neither able nor willing to report accurately, then.

samcarter replying to Monica

Given their statistical expertise shown with the 0.015%, I wouldn't be so sure they are even able to report the data correctly :)

Monica replying to samcarter

Presumably they *allow* anything, but would filter out anything they don't like into "other", even if any particular item had more responses than some things they didn't treat that way.  I no longer assume they'll report data honestly.

samcarter

It is surprising they still allow freeform answers in their survey for questions like   
> Please name up to 5 other online developer communities you belong to

:)

Monica

There's now an answer about this part of their new policy: https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/364763

Monica replying to Jack Douglas

These ads are chosen by the communities, so any interference looks bad to me. Last year CMs with 101 rep (i.e. could only downvote because they're CMs) were downvoting them, which was also dishonest.  They should leave the communities alone and let them choose.

Jack Douglas replying to Monica

Thanks for sharing that Monica. I'm not surprised they closed the door on our ads, but doing it quietly without fanfare would have come across less petty!

Jack Douglas replying to samcarter

Thanks, will do :)

samcarter

@Jack Could you please have a look at https://topanswers.xyz/tex?q=1778 ? Maybe you can merge the accounts?

samcarter

:D

Monica replying to samcarter

Thatmustbeit. :-)

samcarter replying to Monica

Just blame the overeager space bar on your keyboard -  It needs some tranquillisers :)

Monica replying to samcarter

Oh, sorry!  Thanks; I'll fix that.  (Odd.  Usually I *do* write it as "TopAnswers", without the space, but for some bizarre reason didn't there.  And I can't blame the red squiggles from the browser, since it doesn't know "Codidact" either. :-) )

samcarter replying to Monica

Nice reading material - thanks for sharing!     

(I though of TopAnswers as a single word without space, at least that is how it is used on the front page)

Monica replying to samcarter

I said some things about that: https://cellio.dreamwidth.org/2099446.html

PeterVandivier

RIP

PeterVandivier

lost a long one

PeterVandivier

TIL chat messages don't get cached :cry:

samcarter replying to Monica

I think the open source projects should take this as a big compliment :)

Monica

We're doing different things, and doing things SO doesn't offer.  They're already the 800-pound gorilla; more gracious people wouldn't reach for the hammer like that.

Monica

Woo hoo!  They're afraid of us and think we're competition!  (I jest.  It's actually sad that they still see it that way, that they are unwilling to conceive of "both/and" and insist on "either/or", as in either you support SO or you need to be squashed.)

samcarter

Someone seems to be afraid....  
![Screen Shot 2021-05-18 at 15.23.52.png](/image?hash=66ab6cdf644e33bfcd858c51d11df77e323440c40a439b9bb04d8b5a1ab36f6d)  
(https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/364556/237989)

Jack Douglas

:)

samcarter replying to Jack Douglas

Oh, that's exactly what I was looking for - even easier than having to tell which community to search! Thanks a lot!

Jack Douglas

you can't explicity search tex.se from meta.se though

Jack Douglas replying to samcarter

Only a partial trick - you can restrict the search to the current community by prefixing with `!` and a space, eg `! profile`

samcarter

Is there a trick to specify the community for a search? I have cross-community feeds enables and normally the search will show me results from all the communities, but sometimes I would like to only show results from e.g. meta

Pax replying to Jack Douglas

Might not be a good idea? If I thought of editing something, but then I got to a point that I edited it too much that I might as well send a new message so I clicked 'x' --- I would want the message to remain. I _could_ make sure to copy my message first before clicking 'x'...but I forget and accidents happen. Opinion: it's more frustrating to lose a draft of your message, than having to "Select all text", then "delete" a message  you no longer need to send.

samcarter

(this also explains how to abort an edit, I was always reloading the page because I did not know how else to do it)

samcarter replying to Jack Douglas

Ah, that makes sense! I thought the black cross would just remove the names from the ping and not cancel the comment. Thanks for the explanation!

Jack Douglas replying to samcarter

Yes, clicking the black cross cancels the edit but leaves the text — perhaps it should delete the text too.

samcarter

If I reply to somebody in chat and later edit the message and click on the black cross to remove the ping, the message is not edited but a new one is posted instead. Is this status by design or a bug?

samcarter

:thumbsup:

Monica replying to samcarter

Thanks for letting me know.  Looking into it.

samcarter replying to Monica

Someone seems to have trouble signing up to codidact, could you take a look? https://topanswers.xyz/transcript?room=1789&id=95396#c95396