cellio | Entries tagged with stack exchange

Some of my readers might be interested in this. There is a new Stack Exchange Q&A site, just started in beta, for people interested in building and moderating communities. The claim is that this isn't just online communities, but all the questions I've seen so far are about online communities -- web fora, Stack Exchange sites, Reddits, online games, and so on -- and I expect it to skew that way for a while. The site is, perhaps unfortunately, named "Moderators", but it's not just for or about the people who run these sites. I've asked a well-received question from the user perspective, a question about schisms, a question about content curation, and a question asking about user engagement on mailing lists versus web-based communities, among others. (And here are some I've answered.)

If this topic interests you, please check it out and maybe help build the community. Early questions and answers can have a big effect on the shape of a new beta site.

I have published authors among my readers; can any of you answer this question about how publishers view prior self-publishing? If you self-publish on Amazon and then later seek a conventional publication contract, are you out of luck because of the prior publication? (If you can provide a supported answer, rather than speculation, I encourage you to do it there. And if you do it in the next few days you might pick up a bounty, if you care about Stack Exchange reputation.)

As many of you know, I'm a moderator on two Stack Exchange sites, Mi Yodeya (where I was elected) and Writers (where I have a temporary appointment, until the site graduates out of beta). Stack Exchange has more than a hundred sites and I participate on some other ones to varying degrees. One where I've answered a lot of questions is The Workplace, which, as the name implies, is for questions and answers about things that come up in working life -- management, working with remote employees, job-hunting, work environment, recruiting, work-life balance, and so on. The Workplace graduated from beta several weeks ago.

Graduation means electing moderators, and people started lobbying me to run. I wasn't going to; I can do a lot of good for the site as a high-reputation regular user and, while I'm willing, I wasn't itching to pick up a third moderatorship. Eventually I consented to run (and you can see my answers to the questions from the community here). As one of six candidates for three positions (and there were no bad candidates on the list), I figured I'd probably come out in the middle of the pack somewhere (3rd means elected, 4th means not). After all, there were other candidates who wanted the job and are capable.

You can see where this is going, of course.

But, seriously, roughly a third of the first-place votes in a single-transferable-vote (Australian ballot, preference ballot) scheme? (See the results.) For context, jmort235 (the next-highest first-round vote-getter) was a beta moderator widely considered to be doing a good job; I assumed he would be the top vote-getter by rather a lot. And I don't think it's that people were gaming the ballot;¹ it doesn't seem like that kind of community.

I haven't downloaded the ballot data to see what else was going on in there; I've only looked at the summary charts (and corresponding output from the tally software). It looks like for most ballots only the first-place votes mattered, so I'd have to look at the raw data to see how I compared to others on second- and third-choice votes. I might at some point but it's not a high priority for me. (On the other hand, if I could slurp all the data into CoMotion... but I can't.)

*Blink*

¹ In a preference ballot you do a round of voting and if you don't have a winner, you drop out the lowest-voted candidate and redistribute those votes. (In this particular flavor you also redistribute "excess" votes for winners.) Since it's "safe" to assume that jmort235 will get a seat, people might deliberately vote for other people first and give him their third vote (everybody gets three choices, ordered). That can backfire, of course, so if you're that kind of voter you need to make sure you're not hurting your candidate.

Two items seen in rapid succession today:

Here's why you're not hiring the best and brightest: (Jeff Atwood) talks about making telecommuting work so that you really can hire the best employees, as opposed to the best employees willing to live in a particular location. I once applied for a telecommuting position at a company that seems to get it as far as that's concerned, and a lot of the stuff they do is reflected in this article.
What do programmers care about? (20-minute video): Joel Spolsky (Stack Exchange, Fog Creek) talks to recruiters about how to recruit programmers. If you've read Joel On Software you already know a lot of what he has to say here, but I still found it interesting to watch.

Can you help? Somebody asked a question recently on Writers about guidelines and heuristics for when to use screen shots in technical documentation. The question isn't looking for opinions or what you, personally, do but, rather, formal guidelines along the lines of what GNOME does for its documentation. So far it's only attracting opinion answers. I, too, have opinions and practices that I follow, but I can't source them either and I'd like to see the question get a good answer.

Speaking of Writers, I wrote a little something about writing good API reference documentation (like Javadoc), based on advice I've given informally over and over again -- finally wrote some of it down in a public place. Feedback welcome.

I recently saw an article with interesting-seeming observations and analysis of Modern Orthodox Judaism. I'm not all that tuned into the MO community and can't evaluate its credibility from inside, but I found it an interesting read. If any of y'all would care to tell me where on the spectrum from "yup" to "WTF?!" this is from your perspective, I'd be interested.

Finally, a little something for those who use the text editor vim (which I gather is related to vi?):

I'm pleased to announce the publication of Purim - Mi Yodeya?, a booklet of questions and answers about Purim drawn from Mi Yodeya, the Stack Exchange site for high-quality Jewish Q&A. And yes, because it's Purim, the book does include some Purim Torah, humorous interpretations of, well, just about anything Jewish.

Questions include:
- Would Esther really have kept quiet?
- Why did Esther make a second party?
- Why do we publicize the miracles differently on Purim and Chanukah?
- How should we teach the violent parts of the Purim story to children?
- Can you reject others' friend requests on Facebook?
- How do we survive the zombie apocalypse?

...and more. Go, download, read, share. And for that last section, maybe have a drink to put you in the proper frame of mind. :-)

Those of you who enjoy the religion-related posts here might be interested in this new blog (see intro post) for questions and answers about the bible, particularly the Hebrew bible (Tanakh). There's a link there for question submissions, and there are a bunch of posts there so you can get a sense of what to expect.

And while I'm plugging sites, I'd be remiss in not mentioning Mi Yodeya for all your Jewish Q&A needs. And I'd say that even if I weren't a moderator there; I'm a moderator there in part because it was already an excellent site when I found it, so I stuck around and tried to help.

I haven't really prepared a "year in review" post, but here are some random notes and thoughts.

On the job front there have been ups and downs but the year ended on an up. After thrashing about earlier in the year, being moved from one short-term or ill-defined task to another while people juggled charge codes and contracts, I finally got to settle into something (a) interesting and (b) that takes advantage of my particular specialty, and I rocked. I got a new manager mid-year (my first remote one, too; he's in AZ), which always carries some uncertainty, but he and I really click. He specifically appreciates what I do and wants to help me find more opportunities to do it. Excellent!

The cats have settled in well. I was only without cats for about 4.5 months, but they felt really empty. I mean, Dani's and my relationship is strong (no worries there!), but there was still something missing. That Erik, Embla, and Baldur all died within a span of 10 months (and the last on the day I returned from a frustrating trip to Israel) may have had something to do with that.

I continue to really enjoy my job as a moderator on Mi Yodeya, and last winter I was also appointed as a moderator on Writers (both Stack Exchange sites). On both sites I get to work with great teams on interesting content. I'm still trying to figure out how to increase the tech-writing content on Writers. I need to ask and perhaps self-answer some questions to nudge things along, I suspect.

2013 was a terrible year on another Stack Exchange site. What was supposed to be an academic-style biblical-studies site turned into a cesspool of Christian dogma. I know it's possible for people of different religions to have civilized, respectful discussions about the bible (and other religious matters); I've seen it. (I have thoughts on what makes it work when it works, but I'll save that for another time.) This site was supposed to be non-religious (though obviously most of its members are religious), like a secular university. But it didn't work out that way, and the evangelical moderators (there's no diversity on that team) either can't see or don't care about the damage being done. Everything I did to try to help get things back on course was thrown in my face -- with personal attacks, offensive (usually anti-Jewish) posts, and assorted misrepresentation. So I'm done with that; I have better things to do with my energy. There are a few good people there who are trying to turn some things around; I wish them much luck, but personally, I'm done.

I've had ups and downs religiously and congregationally. My rabbi is fantastic and I like my congregation, but there have been changes in how we approach services, and too many weeks I just don't go on Friday night because they're doing something kid-oriented or entitled (sisterhood service, Reform-style bar mitzvah, etc), and that's frustrating. The Shabbat morning minyan continues to be excellent and the spiritual high point of my week, so that's all good. I'm just trying to figure out Friday nights, and some of it is bound up in questions about whether the Reform movement is right for me at all (except I have this fantastic rabbi and he's worth staying for). It's just that sometimes, being rather more observant than those around me and caring about the halachic and other details that most shrug off, I feel like a mutant.

This year was the last Darkover Con, so On the Mark re-assembled to do a concert. That was fun, and it was nice to see friends I haven't seen in a while at the con.

I'm sure there's more, but this is what I've got right now. Happy 2014 all!

The contest being run on the Writers Stack Exchange site (focusing on genre-related questions and answers) ends at midnight GMT December 8. (Oops, I thought it was a couple days later -- sorry for the late reminder.) New questions in genre-related tags, and new answers to existing questions, are eligible for prizes, detailed on the linked page.

(Previous post about this contest here.)

Stack Exchange has a site for writers -- all kinds of writing, including technical (why I'm there, mainly), but mostly fiction. November is National Novel-Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and we're hoping to see some increased activity because of that. Stack Exchange is all about asking good questions and getting good answers. I'm a moderator on this site, which is in beta and trying to grow.

As a tie-in to NaNo the site is having a contest for new questions and answers in genre-related tags -- questions about science fiction, fantasy, children's writing, mysteries, historical fiction, more. See the linked post for details. (Yes, questions about fan fiction are ok.) Winners get either writing-related books of their choice or a one-year subscription to Duotrope, a market-tracking service (winner's choice). Plus, of course, if you have questions, with luck you also win useful answers to those questions. :-)

Please feel free to share this with people who would be interested.

The Stack Exchange site for questions and answers about pets is now in public beta. Most of the people there now seem to be pet owners, though the goal is to also attract some professionals (like veterinarians). I know a bunch of my readers have pets, so you might want to check it out. (This was my first Stack Exchange private beta. Interesting to watch the earliest stages of a site forming.)

There are, as expected, a lot of questions about dogs and cats, but also house rabbits, fish, birds, assorted reptiles, and some others. A week into private beta nobody had yet asked how to give a cat a pill, so I rectified that. (I thought I asked it well and expected it to pick up votes more quickly than it did.) The top answer right now advises the towel technique, but my cats are smart enough to run when they see me approaching them with a towel... (Fortunately, right now Giovanni's allergy medicine comes in a liquid form, but I've had the pill problem before and am sure I will again.)

Can anybody answer this question on Mi Yodeya? Is it permissible for a Jew to participate in an online religion-related community that is largely made up of Christians?

The halachic issues are, I am told, complex and nuanced, and that's even before adding the internet into the mix. (Maybe in-person meetings like local study groups are different from internet-wide discussions that leave a permanent record.) I'd like to see, if not a definitive answer, a summary of the relevant issues (with sources). I've just dropped a bounty on the question. If you can answer this, or share the link with someone who can, I'd appreciate it.

The eerie, plaintive voice of the shofar is a wake-up call, one that for me is muddled when in my congregation we have groups of people (mostly children) blow in what turns into a competition for who can hold t'kiah g'dolah the longest. People smile and chuckle and lose the meaning in it. This year, by some quirk of fate, every service I attended in Elul and for Rosh Hashana had but one shofar blower.

On Rosh Hashana morning I closed my eyes during t'kiah g'dolah, listening to the faint cry grow louder, stronger, more earnest with each passing moment. I imagined myself at the foot of Har Sinai, hearing but not seeing the divine shofar blast, taking in but not understanding the thunder and smoke as God prepared to speak. At Har Sinai and in services in my congregation both, I was in the presence of the awesome, fearsome God who could, in an instant, judge me for death or for life. Reflecting on my failings of the last year (and longer), I knew I had not truly earned the outcome I prayed for, but that somehow God might accept my teshuva anyway if I do it and mean it.

"Arise, you slumberers, from your slumber", the Rambam proclaims, "you are wasting your years in vain pursuits that neither profit nor save". I've read those words in our machzor every year, but this year they jumped out at me and then followed me home for more examination. The Rambam isn't talking about the relaxation and fun we all need in our lives, I don't think; he's talking about the pursuits that we put real effort into without gain.

Like a certain online community I've helped build over the last two years, only to see it go in a damaging direction while its custodians look on and do nothing. Perhaps I should have known that any "neutral" religion-related community would eventually be dominated by evangelical Christians who do not see their own bias. I've been trying to set the community back on its original course of respectful dialogue, but now I realize my efforts are ineffective. I could keep trying, but this year's lone shofar called me to re-evaluate this vain pursuit that neither profits nor saves. There are others who need my attention more, chief among them my own neshama, my own soul/spirit.

The Unetaneh Tokef prayer tells us that on Rosh Hashana it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed, who shall live and who shall die, ...who shall be troubled and who shall be tranquil. Last year it seems I was decreed to be among the troubled; this year may I merit to be among the tranquil.

-------------------------

Related thoughts, and a discussion of site direction. And yes, this was the subject of my "sunk costs" post back in March; obviously I didn't manage to stay gone after I left.

I am thrilled to announce the publication of Mi Yodeya's haggadah supplement! At the Pesach seder we are supposed to ask questions (about the exodus from Egypt and about the rituals of the seder, and anything else that comes up along the way). Mi Yodeya, a top-notch Jewish Q&A site (if I do say so myself :-) ), is all about questions. So we compiled some of ours that are on-topic for the seder into a book, a supplement to the haggadah. I hope you'll download a copy for possible use at your own seder (or just to read) and that you'll tell all your friends.

Go to http://s.tk/miyodeya for more info and a download link.

This is how Internet time works.

Late Tuesday night, somebody made the following observation in the Mi Yodeya chat room: hey, the text of the Pesach haggadah is freely available in digital format, a key element of the seder is asking questions, we're all about asking and answering questions, and we've got a lot of good Pesach-related content...so why not publish a haggadah with material drawn from our site? Reality set in soon thereafter and the proposal was amended to: why don't we publish a haggadah supplement this year, as a free PDF download that people can print and take to their sedarim?

The real discussion started on Wednesday, with people posting lots of suggestions, voting positively, and volunteering to help. Someone asked how we were going to organize the content since some copy-editing, filtering, reformatting, and whatnot would be needed and we'd need a template and... and I said leave that to me. (Organizing multi-author writing projects on tight deadlines? Been there, done that. :-) ) So I proposed a format that could be easily transformed to the final product, mocked up a couple questions as proof of concept, and got buy-in. We were, by this point, collecting links for questions to harvest, and somebody collected a list of useful tags to search for questions. I said I hoped we could ask our site's designer to design a cover page for us. Style and review guidelines were suggested somewhere in here. I started planning the formal call for submissions and its logistics.

Today Stack Exchange's lead designer showed up saying he has permission to do our design and production for us if we can give him the content. Awesome! And he can work quickly. I never would have thought we would get that kind of support (and asking for it had not been on my radar). So tonight I posted the call for submissions with detailed instructions (designed to make this as easy as possible for everybody), and off we go.

I'm excited because not only is this a cool project, but I can personally benefit from it this year. I'm not going to Toronto with Dani, and if I can round up enough interested people I'll be holding my own seder on the second night for adults who want to engage with the text and who don't care how long that takes. In other words, I'm aiming for the opposite of the "when do we eat?" seder.

I will, of course, share a link to the results later. Meanwhile, if you have any burning questions about Pesach this would be an excellent time to ask them, and if you're somewhat knowledgeable in this area and inclined to do some editing, drop on by. :-)

Monica

building and moderating online communities

question for published authors

not the result I expected

link roundup

Purim!

(religion) blog pointer

excerpts from 2013

Writers.SE contest ends soon

for my (fiction-)writer friends

pets

seeking halacha relevant to online religious discussions

the shofar call

Haggadah Mi Yodeya!

Internet time

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