A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies - <AUTHOR> https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/333965/firing-mods-and-forced-slippery-relicensing-is-stack-exchange-still-interested <comment><USER2> I see a lot of people arguing about mods being too strict.

I abhor the recent trend of content decontamination like many others do. But for Q&A sites like SE, I think it is a necessity to stay on topic.

Yes, some moderators might have been too eager in some cases, happened to me too. But since these people are all volunteers, I think they should get some support from the community.

I mean I might have to look for another job if SE ever gets shut down and a lot of knowledge would immediately be lost.

Many people seem to know some mods personally. I have spend a lot of time on that site and couldn't even name one moderator by name/handle.

Quite ironic that a site with a wealth of knowledge has problems with monetization. Some things in the internet economy seem to be quite off.

<comment><USER3> > necessity to stay on topic

Try a little exercise: ask a computer literate person not familiar with SE to find out what questions are on-topic on [https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/)

<comment><USER4> Ask about...

        software development methods and practices
        requirements, architecture, and design
        quality assurance and testing
        configuration, build, and release management

Not all questions work well in our format. Avoid questions that are primarily opinion-based, or that are likely to generate discussion rather than answers.

Questions that need improvement may be closed until someone fixes them.

Don't ask about...

        explaining, writing or debugging code
        support for tools or products
        finding or recommending products or services, including tools, libraries or packages, programming languages, books, scholarly papers, tutorials, articles, or blogs
        career or education advice
        legal advice or aid

from the faq/tour: [https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/tour](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/tour)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This resignation notice from a moderator on the Christianity Stack Exchange appears to provide the most detail about what's going on: [https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6718/b...](https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6718/brothers- i-must-go)

<comment><USER6> The whole pronoun drama that is inherently American is tearing down international communities left and right despite it not being even an issue.

<comment><USER7> If it really wasn't even an issue, this wouldn't be coming up as often as it does, though, would it? To me, "if someone tells you they prefer singular 'they', use that" is non-controversial, just like "if someone tells you they go by 'Goldie,' use that" should be. Insisting "No, I am going to call you by the pronouns I believe are 'correct' for you" is akin to "No, your legal name is 'Marigold,' and I am going to call you 'Mary.'" Insisting that you will not, under any circumstances, call a person what they've requested you call them is -- to me -- pretty clearly being a discourteous jerk.

There are a lot of valid complaints about the way Stack Overflow moderates in general, but I don't get the impression that this particular squabble is over moderation practices -- it seems to be about upcoming changes to SO's Code of Conduct. I don't know what those changes are, so I'll reserve judgement. I am certainly hoping that it doesn't boil down to "I cannot abide being required to refer to transgender women with 'her' and 'she'," though.

<comment><USER8> It's StackEexchange. Pronouns don't matter. I've never seen a reason for this person pronouns to be used. No one's generalist are topic of conversation, and it's not a a gossip forum, so there is no reason to use third person pronouns to refer to users at all!

If this is true, it's damning:

> Now if I avoid pronouns altogether by sticking to proper names or > disengaging from the individual, that's being considered an insult too.

The complaints seem to be about some proposed new rule requiring users to explicitly write other users' pronouns, for no other reason than as a _performative_ display of respect. This is quite different from a rule that says "If a user states that they prefer pronoun X, don't use other pronouns."

<comment><USER9> Moderators, as community leaders, need to go out of their way to signal inclusion for trans people. If they are unwilling to they should resign or be fired.

<comment><USER10> I think that connects with events like Princess Diana touching a patient with AIDS, Mr. Rogers inviting a black man to share the pool with him, etc. It's a top down change the role models (in this case moderators) can implement to improve equality and show humans as humans which in my experience goes a long way toward shutting down any *phobic type mentalities. It's never an easy or quick change but it's important.

<comment><USER11> You can't force or even ask someone to be a role model because than that's not being a role model. Much like telling someone to volunteer makes them "not a volunteer".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My understanding is that the train of events that resulted in mod Monica Cellio's demodding from SE started with a gender-related complaint tweet ([https://medium.com/@cellio/dear-stack-overflow-we-need-to- ta...](https://medium.com/@cellio/dear-stack-overflow-we-need-to- talk-13bf3f90204f)). Companies are now _very_ sensitive to this pattern, esp. true for SE due to the ongoing changes there.

<comment><USER8> That Twitter kerfuffle was in 2018. Has there been ongoing train of events since then?

Monica mentions "this rule mandates specific, positive actions." but not what the rule is, which I find disquieting. What is the rule, and if it's so bad, and also public (it's a new rule everyone has to know, right?), why is being kept secret?

<comment><USER13> There's been a steady breakdown of trust and goodwill between SO Employee's and moderators/power users over the last year. Part of why this blew up so fast is probably that there's no good will left between the two groups anymore; and people immediately assumed the worst and reacted in anger.

This is a decent (long) summary of what's been happening.

[https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/331513/lets- take-a-...](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/331513/lets-take-a-look- at-the-interaction-between-staff-and-the-power-users-of-the)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Every one of these community groups inevitably has some sort of internal political strife of some sort. I've never found any meaning in attempting to engage their politics in any more than the most basic sense.

The groups always exaggerate the impact of actions upon the rest of us when it's usually a no-op as far as we're concerned.

E.g. Reddit iama had this massive controversy around a Reddit facilitator being fired and everyone predicted insta failure or whatever. Lots of time passed and the product is still pretty damned successful (Bill Gates was on it within the last year). I'm sure Wikipedia has had "I'm stepping down" posts and whatnot.

Perhaps the learning is that it isn't a worthwhile way to seek meaning in your life to give away volunteer hours moderating sites unless they're your own or you're paid for it. It is a pointless place to put your self-worth because disagreements will occur and they will be enforced as the site owner desires. Your hours earn you no power.

<comment><USER15> Misguided yet understandable conclusion.

People enjoy doing things for others. It's a deep Need people have. If mass violence and wars, natural disasters of all kinds through the ages, have not been able to make us more selfish and wipe out that need, internet drama is not going to either.

The process is messy sure, and if you are experiencing it for the first time it can be confusing, repulsive and misleading. It's not a good idea to follow those feelings and make conclusions. Because those conclusions will obscure from your view, the reasons why anything good happens in the world.

<comment><USER16> If sure you didn't intend it, but your tone "misguided", "if you are experiencing it for the first time..." is rather condescending.

Bear in mind there are many of us with many years in the online trenches who have reached the same conclusion - participation is one thing; giving over a huge part of your time and energy is more questionable.

Also the idea that people do it out of an altruistic need to help may be true in some cases but neglects the significant motivation of validation, the need to feel noticed and appreciated through upvotes and other reputation buzzes, and the following increase in "power" and "status", which isn't so obviously positive and healthy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have always found Monica Cellio to be a great moderator. If she has been fired then something is deeply wrong over at Stack Exchange.

<comment><USER18> First manager I've had, great guy and despite his shortcomings I'd work with him again. Straightforward honest guy, did he work well, mentored me well. Then one day he assaulted another coworker in the break room.

Someone's on-the-job performance doesn't mean they are always and forever in the right. Given the lack of any concrete evidence posted but lots of hand- wringing and pearl clutching about vague incidences, I think reserving judgment is the proper course.

<comment><USER19> A "Director of Public Q&A at Stack Overflow" answered with:

"We aren't going to share specifics out of respect for all individuals involved but this is a site reaching millions of people and we have to do what we believe fosters a spirit of inclusion and respect. When a moderator violates that, we will always do our best to resolve it with them privately. When we can't we must take action."

([https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/a/5197](https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/a/5197))

So it look like we won't have anymore information, at least from the SE side.

The fired mod answered in the comments:

"Inclusion and respect are important, yes! I never said otherwise or did anything to violate either the current or forthcoming CoC (as best I understand the latter; y'all _haven 't answered my questions_). Please read the email I sent in response to my firing. It doesn't have to be this way. "

<comment><USER8> I understand SE respecting privacy by not publishing details about the firing. I don't understand Monica raising a complaint about being fired, giving a lot of background info, saying he knows why he was fired, but writing in tangles to avoid stating what he believes triggered the firing. If it's something about pronouns, or whatever it is, he should say so. Otherwise it's just "I was fired for something that they think is justified but I won't, but I won't say what, and I ask your support."

<comment><USER19> I read that more as "I disagreed and commented on a future CoC change, but I won't discuss a CoC change that's not been publicly revealed, because it's beside the point".

<comment><USER19> Well, I read a post from another ex-moderator[0] and it seems the CoC change has a part about pronouns, but it doesn't mean that all the changes are about this and that Monica left because of the changes on pronouns. But that still doesn't change the fact that "firing" a mod for disagreeing with and commenting on a future change of a CoC seem wrong, especially since it didn't look like SE tried to discuss the issue before firing them.

[0][https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6718/b...](https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6718/brothers- i-must-go)

<comment><USER19> Last comment and I'll stop updating that thread with new information.

So the disagreement and comments by Monica regarding the CoC was about pronouns. But Monica had waited before another ex-mod talked about this [0], I think because she didn't want discussion about this CoC change to distract from her issue (being "fired" as a mod without discussion).

[0][https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-...](https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack- overflow-inc-sinat-chinam-and-the-goat-for-azazel/5200#5200)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I am legitimately curious—and concerned—about the relicensing of answers. It really seems as though they _shouldn 't_ be able to do that. And if they _can_ , can they also change the license to "all rights reserved by SE"?

<comment><USER21> Like GPL, CCBYSA allows you —the licensee— to pick a future version of the same license. That is, if you receive a copy of work under v3, you can make it available under v4, no questions asked.

That's all SE has done here. Exercised a clause in the license. If you don't like that, don't submit content under licenses that allow it.

<comment><USER20> I don't think that's true, see: [https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/4.0_upgrade_guidelines](https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/4.0_upgrade_guidelines)

> Original contributions remain under prior version unless express permission > to upgrade is obtained.

<comment><USER21> Edit: I'm misreading the text[0]. Section 4, clause b:

> You may Distribute or Publicly Perform an Adaptation only under the terms > of: (i) this License; (ii) a later version of this License with the same > License Elements as this License ...

That only covers adaptations. Ignore me.

[0]: [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- sa/3.0/legalcode](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> So much politics about that. I go on on SO from Google, find solution to my problem. Sometime add my own answers. And sometime I post question when I can't find solution. End of the story. Why the fuck it need to be so complicated?

<comment><USER23> The problem is, of course, the humans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Reading between the lines, it looks like a queer mod felt unsupported by SE over a long period of time, and SE eventually decided to make a code of conduct change. These mods disagreed with that change (some using language like "thought crime") which precipitated their resignations?

<comment><USER25> > reading between the lines

The lines here are so blurry, I can't make heads or tails out of any of this. All I can tell for sure is that some of the mods are upset about something (but won't or can't say what) and they're leaving SO. The forced abstraction of this whole saga reminds me of stories I've heard from people who lived under communist dictatorships: they'd have to peel back multiple layers of insinuations to try to figure out what was actually meant. The way some of the commenters on here are dancing around saying anything concrete suggests that there are a few people who do know what's going on but are afraid to come out and say what it is.

<comment><USER5> I read through the resignation notices linked from OP, and this one seems to provide some more detail: [https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6718/b...](https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6718/brothers- i-must-go)

<comment><USER24> > If person A comes along and demands that I refer to them by their "preferred > pronoun" (even if it is a mismatch for their genetic sex or the grammar of > the language being spoken) and I refuse, that's considered an insult.

Yep, there it is.

<comment><USER26> No, not really.

> Now if I avoid pronouns altogether by sticking to proper names or > disengaging from the individual, that's being considered an insult too.

It seems like the new CoC requires that not only you don't disparage another's belief, which is fine and everyone agrees with, but you have to actively show that you agree with their point of view as well. You can't remain impartial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is there any detail anywhere about why Monica Cellio was fired? Will no one leak the internal chat that was supposedly the justification for her firing?

All I can see online is everyone vaguely talking around the issue.

Make the facts public and let people decide for themselves.

</comment><comment><USER28> Anyone else felt disconcerting about the reoccurring theme of platform attracts communicated generated content, only to shift interest/motive once critical mass is achieved?

<comment><USER29> Community starts with good people; creates good content; attracts more people; that new people tends to average; contents tends to average; new people tends even more to average; contents quality becomes average; community isn't good anymore.

The cycle certainly didn't start with groups over a computer network, but I think it's very unlikely that it started before written texts. So there's ~8k years window there. It's not literally timeless, but does feel like so.

<comment><USER20> GP wasn't talking about the community, but of changes dictated by the corporation running the website for that community, which is an important distinction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> In most, if not all of the resignations the primary reason for resigning was the way the firing of one moderator was handled. The internally announced changes to the policies were not necessarily the reason for the resignations. The headline is pretty misleading in that regard.

</comment><comment><USER31> What I am curious why haven't we seen a quality mashup of a SE site? Some sort of interesting curation/filters etc.

Even the new CC-share-alike allows commercial mixins [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- sa/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) .

So being that SE started with SO and thus heavy programming emphasis there should be a plethora of interesting mashups.

Instead the only SE content derived sites have been banal copies.

<comment><USER32> Google will kill it like the Wikipedia clones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Spotted this on the hot question list, totally out of the loop on the latest SE drama, can somebody fill me in?

<comment><USER34> There is a perpetual tension between those who want SE to be helping everyone, and those who want to curate a helpful resource. People involved with community moderation aspects tend to fall into the latter group.

For the last half decade or so SE has progressively abandoned this latter group, leading to a lot of pent-up frustration. Some changes SE has made are sensible (e.g. striving to be more welcoming and more inclusive), but the volunteer work of curators has only become more difficult. SE refuses to implement new tools to aid moderation, so that e.g. spam fighting is mostly done by volunteer projects.

That only sets the general scene. Since the last year or so SE has stopped engaging the community on Meta, mostly just announcing changes top-down. Tweets by third parties have larger impact on SE policy than long-standing complaints by the community. This has led to a further deterioration of the relationship. The illegal changes to the content license a month ago are a perfect example of this top-down, uncooperative approach.

Now the actual drama starts: in a closed moderator chat, there was some kind of discussion or disagreement. I'm not privy to the details. Not all of this is nice, e.g. it seems that SE is unwilling to protect trans moderators from vitriol by other mods. But to everyone's confusion, Monica Cellio was suddenly removed as a volunteer moderator. She is known as being extremely reasonable, experienced, and sincere. While she might have tried to discuss sincere questions, it is beyond belief that she would attack another moderator.

So moderators and other engaged users are deeply frustrated, see a company that no longer engages with the community, does stupid decisions, and has now fired one of the best volunteer moderators in a despicable manner. For a lot of people, this is the straw that broke the camel's back. E.g. one mod I know decided to resign because they now see themselves completely unable to achieve any positive change on the site. And if Monica isn't a good-enough mod, how can they hope to be remotely adequate?

Disclosure: I wrote the linked Meta.SE question. It is my belief that SE the company and SE the community need to cooperate for both to be successful. Yes, the community can sometimes be toxic. But the company seems to have given up completely on engaging with the community, and that does not bode well.

<comment><USER35> I really wish more details about this was available.

> it seems that SE is unwilling to protect trans moderators from vitriol by > other mods.

Reading Monica's post made me pretty sure this was trans related. I'm sad that I was right.

> [From Monica's Post] unlike the rest of the CoC, this rule mandates > specific, positive actions.

This is something I've heard many times from anti-trans activists in order to justify their purposeful, and intentional misgendering and dead-naming of trans individuals. I'm not saying that is what Monica is advocating, but my spidey-sense is definitely tingling.

> [From Monica's Post] chastising me for raising issues and saying my values > were out of alignment.

Again this is something I hear from anti-trans activists. We saw similar rhetoric from homophobic individuals back in the 90s. That their religion and values dictated that gay people were bad therefore they couldn't <insert action here>.

\---

Without knowing more it is hard to say, but even if this isn't about trans people Monica's arguments aren't inherently right. One person's religious beliefs don't justify the disregard for others. A very extreme example would be that many KKK member's religion states that black people are inherently inferior, and we don't give that belief consideration.

If you know more, please do share, because right now it seems like one sides arguments are valid, but they can quickly fall apart depending upon the specifics.

<comment><USER34> I understand your scepticism, and was thinking hard about this before I published the linked post.

Anti-trans and anti-CoC sentiment are certainly part of the issue at hand, but likely not by Monica. Some of the resignations may be partially motivated by hate, many of the responses definitely are. However, there are many other aspects of the firing that are problematic by themselves, regardless of the reason for the firing.

It doesn't matter what Monica believes, only how she acts and speaks. It is my understanding (based on hearsay) that at no point in this incident did she make statements that would be considered transphobic by a reasonable person. While she was uncomfortable with upcoming CoC changes, she was also asking for clarification and guidance in good faith. Definitely not in that "I'm just asking a question!" trolling style. Asking sincere questions would be the sign of a potential ally, it is illogical to shut those down. However, some of the relevant correspondence is in personal emails, so we'll never know the truth.

I'm confident that she didn't say or do anything that would violate the current or upcoming SE CoC, but that the director firing her felt that Monica's questions were evidence that she would not uphold the upcoming CoC. This is silly: if a mod feels they are unable to fulfil their position they can just resign, no need to boot them in advance. I dislike the "thoughtcrime" meme, but here it might actually fit.

There's also an aspect that I find more troubling, which is the legitimacy of CoCs. They only protect the community when violations are investigated fairly. Normally the problem is that the CoC is not enforced enough. Here, a CoC was enforced without there being a violation, and that gives ammunition to the idiots who think the sole purpose of a CoC is to silence insufficiently progressive speech.

Edit 1: the first resignation is in that explicitly lists the CoC as reason for resignation [1]. The CoC will apparently require that correct pronouns are used.

Edit 2: the new CoC will allegedly require pronouns, i.e. will not allow the avoidance of pronouns. As a person who prefers non-standard pronouns, such a requirement is counterproductive because it requires some people to act against their conscience, whereas avoiding pronouns still avoids misgendering and lets everyone save face.

[1]: [https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6718/b...](https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6718/brothers- i-must-go)

<comment><USER36> I'm not perfect, but I understand the need to use the correct pronouns. Ultimately Stack Exchange needs to make this new CoC public. People should know the guidelines to post on a site and not unintentionally break rules that one can't read...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The policy in question appears to be affirmatively requiring moderators not to (deliberately) mis-gender trans people, or allow user content to do the same.

All these ex-mods wrote these coy essays with discussions of free will and human rights in order to avoid discussing the issue at hand.

Trans people are surely a more important part of the StackExchange community and business than a few unpaid volunteers.

I am not sorry that Monica's feelings were hurt by a demand for basic human decency.

<comment><USER38> >The policy in question appears to be affirmatively requiring moderators not to (deliberately) mis-gender trans people

This is either incorrect or relies on an unconventionally broad notion of "misgendering." Normally misgendering is understood to be the act of using pronouns other than a person's preferred pronouns, the point of controversy is that now simply avoiding pronouns can be considered an act of misgendering. This is new territory.

<comment><USER39> If you very conspicuously avoid using pronouns for someone, it's pretty obvious what's going on and that you're deliberately avoiding gendering someone correctly. It's not as bad as using the wrong pronouns, but it's still very disrespectful.

<comment><USER20> I think we need to see this policy.

Particularly on a Q&A site, avoiding gendered pronouns altogether strikes me as the _most_ practical policy. It's what I (try my best to remember to) do on Hacker News. I don't know what pronouns the GP prefers, and I can't very well ask them right now, so if I have to refer to them, I'll either say "they" or "the GP".

<comment><USER40> The specific complaint made by one of the mods is that avoiding pronouns for or disengaging from a specific person to avoid using is viewed as improper under the new CoC. That's not the same as avoiding pronouns generally, it's differential treatment of an individual for not conforming to your preferred gender expression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Do Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky still a say in how SE is run? If yes, now would be the perfect time to step in and moderate the discussion.

<comment><USER16> In the linked post Jeff Atwood is in the comments moaning about the title.

<comment><USER42> I believe it was also Jeff Atwood who, for the longest time, could not fathom why people did not like being forced to use OpenID to log into Stack Overflow. Like, he could literally not fathom it and agonized in blog posts over his own inability to understand people (he was quite honest about it). Even though they caved on this point, to this day Stack Overflow actively fights new users trying to get in and participate on the platform (I have long since given up).

<comment><USER43> Jeff seems to have a lot of trouble empathising with users, especially when they want something that clashes with whatever he has discovered is the 'right' solution. See blocklists in discourse, why people join unions, &c.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Back in the day I used to be among top users on that site - they even sent me a T-shirt at some time. Left several years ago, as the site became toxic.

I'm not mentioning this "top user" thing on my resume anymore, because not relevant.

The site is still an excellent source of information about all things that were cool ten years ago, such as Java, Spring, SQL, Python.

</comment><comment><USER45> RIP SE

Reminds me of the company take overs where the key asset is human capital and they all just walk out the door after the deal. Congrats you bought an empty building for billions

Don't think SE is ever going to be profitable if they can't keep key figures happy

</comment><comment><USER46> > "they think I will in the future violate a thoughtcrime-style provision of a > Code of Conduct change that hasn't been made yet"

Seems like a code of conduct issue?

</comment><comment><USER47> Why did this story drop off the front page so quickly when it was one of the most popular?

Is the flag system being abused?

</comment><comment><USER48> So why hasn't an alternative to SO emerged where users can come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, ask and learn! Come, ask questions and get expert answers without money and without price

<comment><USER49> Isn't that how literally any forum operates? Maybe the SO format has some merit that made it come out so far ahead of any kind of forum?

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> The old system, whatever it was, incentivized bad mod behavior and ruined the experience.

</comment><comment><USER51> This is natural selection at work.

Stack Exchange has become a frustrating site to use.

"Closed as duplicate: different and unrelated question"

reopen further explaining the question and how its not related

"Closed as duplicate: the first question that was immediately closed with no replies"

OR!

Google around, find SE link on issue, everybody is arguing about why the user wants to do it that why, convinces them to do it another way, only I don't have that option, so I open my own question, and its closed as a dupe of the one from google where the original question was never answered.

or

Post helpful answer that actually answers the users question as asked without berating them for wanting to do it that way

Get yelled at in the comments for creating noise?

\---

The moral of the story is that stack exchange _needs to die_ so that something else can come from its ashes that is able to look back at SE as an example of how not to do shit.

<comment><USER52> Ah yes, the good old "X/Y Problem" [0]

Doesn't matter if Y is non-negotiable, or if I've purposely constrained Y, to get a specific answer for a specific technology.

How infuriating for a "Questions and Answers" site, to be told when you're asking a question, that the question you're asking is wrong, and that _" you should instead have asked ..."_

I swear to god, the SO mods are the dumbest, most priggish, humourless beaureucrats in existence.

[0] [https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is- the-x...](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy- problem)

<comment><USER53> About 90% of the time it _is_ an XY problem, though. A couple clarifying questions and it turns out the OP really needed something much simpler.

For example, people who insist they can't use a Laravel package because of "performance", but it turns out they just don't know how the composer autoloader works.

<comment><USER54> No... Just answer the question.

You're not there to babysit the question asker or convince them to change their approach/hair style/choice of library.

I know it's frustrating to see people doing something wrong, or that you don't agree with, but you know what you can do?

Just... don't get involved if you can't answer the _actual question_ that was asked, and if it's a bad question, let it die a natural death.

<comment><USER55> If Y actually has an answer - but often enough Y is so convoluted that it just won't work.

Asking the poster about X, and offering a solution Y' which will solve X should at least be attempted.

If the poster insists on Y, then he'll also have to accept the answer "sorry, you can't do it that way, for the following reasons".

<comment><USER54> > Asking the poster about X, and offering a solution Y' which will solve X > should at least be attempted.

No!

Goodness me, why is this so difficult?

It should _not_ be attempted. That's an arbitrary expression of _your opinion_ on the poster.

If the question can't be solved in the way it's asked let it die gracefully with a "no you can't do it that why" and suck up the down votes when someone comes along and proves yes you actually can.

I know it's frustrating _for you_ , but asking a question _isn't about you_.

It's a glib response to suggest that this is just done when Y is a terrible question for new users.

It's also very common when Y is a very good __just very difficult or obscure __question.

I think it's quite clear that a common sense approach isn't working on this topic.

The solution really is, if you have nothing meaningful on topic to contribute, then don't.

There really needs to be a way to make this behaviour on SO punitive somehow, giving people points for it results in the current situation.

<comment><USER56> Well, I disagree despite the condescension (which isn't as disarming as you think, btw).

Qs on a Q&A site become a sort of permanent record that other people stumble across, not just a wham bam thankya ma'am transaction that only the Q-asker sees. By revealing XY problems, a better service is provided for everyone who stumbles upon the Q.

> Goodness me, why is this so difficult?

Because not everyone agrees with you. This faction war has been going on at SE forever.

<comment><USER57> > Qs on a Q&A site become a sort of permanent record that other people stumble > across

The fact that it is a permanent record that lives on is another argument in favor of the "just answer the damn question".

Context changes. Requirements change. Someone in the future might need the exact answer for some reason, but instead they get some useless back-and-forth and low-effort condescending answers that is super-specific to that asker.

Asking for more context, adding disclaimers before answering or linking to alternative solutions in the comments is fine, but it's a pain in the ass when the answers doesn't match the questions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> that's like, not a "large number" but i digress... just wanted to say that i empathize with the mod that wrote they just were just tired. mods getting tired is reason #1 i left a few communities in the past.

it usually means that things aren't looking good. but there is little that could be done about it. i have not seen it last though. a new wave of people tend to come along with a fresh view on how to handle things. the meantime, though, is what's hard to live through. it's what makes people tired and what makes them move on...

</comment><comment><USER59> Its bittersweet to see Stack Overflow continue its downward spiral. Given all that is happening there, I'd give it about 12 months before they start implementing a paywall there of some description.

<comment><USER60> I doubt the paywall idea to be honest. They have other revenue streams like SO for teams.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> It's not clear to me. Were those people paid or volunteers?

<comment><AUTHOR> mods are volunteers, who provide their time for free to improve the site, I'm not aware of any mods that are paid.

<comment><USER62> How is that acceptable? People need to be paid for working.

<comment><USER63> Volunteering is a common concept in many communities. We have volunteer fire fighters, volunteer paramedics, volunteer librarians, volunteer social worker, volunteer ...

Some of these in fields, and sometimes even in close alignment to payed people.

In the context of SO there is a community producing Creative Commons (while there was recently a license change making the company less trustworthy) contents to help people and some people love helping others and the assumption is that the value this brings to all is bigger than the value for the company. Until recently the combination seemed to work. The company runs the platform to advertise their job boards and enterprise versions of SO and the community manages the content. But recently changes seem to be frustrating.

For comparison see also Wikipedia volunteers vs. Wikipedia foundation, Mozilla foundation&corp vs. Contributors, and even people happily submitting pull requests to Microsoft products on GitHub.

<comment><USER64> Wikipedia and Mozilla were at one time mainly Non-Profits that people volunteered at for the same reason people volunteer at other non-profits, to benefit wider society

Both are turning more and more to be more profit-seeking, (Mozilla more than Wikipedia ) and it is tarnishing their reputations

SE has always been a for-profit business, this makes Volunteering more like Free Labor and less like "doing something good for humanity".

Generally speaking, I do not believe For-Profit business should be allowed to seek Volunteers for their labor, this includes SE, Reddit, etc

If a business model can not pay for labor, then it needs to be a Non-profit Foundation, not a for-profit business

<comment><USER18> > SE has always been a for-profit business, this makes Volunteering more like > Free Labor and less like "doing something good for humanity".

> If a business model can not pay for labor, then it needs to be a Non-profit > Foundation, not a for-profit business

Considering executive compensation at many non-profits, I don't think non- profit status alone is a good indicator of anything.

As for SO / SE, I didn't volunteer time and effort in light of their non- profit status, I volunteered in light of their mission. It was about putting in some amount of effort to make the world a better place. I couldn't care less if they made money off of it, just like I don't care if someone takes my open-source work and manages to make a business of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There is no detail of the actual argument, just loads of people claiming to be in the know and indicating toxic behaviour and dramatic battles behind the scenes.

There's a lot of flouncing resignations and "we need to talk" style essays also revealing little of substance.

Considering the passion involved some people have clearly been hurt, but perhaps that's due to the amount of time they have invested in somebody else's commercial enterprise ("our community") while believing it's something more.

Perhaps what they are trying to say is the "something more" (presumably the voluntary contributions) is being undermined by paid staff. It's not clear.

At the moment it all reads a bit like a tin pot Game of Thrones though.

<comment><USER18> > There's a lot of flouncing resignations and "we need to talk" style essays > also revealing little of substance.

I feel similarly, I've read all of Monica Cellio's posts and still have no real idea what is going on. Lot's of talk of DMs and messages and emails, but nothing concrete posted, just he said / she said, all while alleging personal innocence and purity.

If there is some concrete evidence and examples, put up or shut up. This is the internet, your word isn't worth much.

<comment><USER65> Well, they were internally discussing a proposed Code of Conduct. I imagine mods are bound by an NDA, and management are choosing not to share.

<comment><USER66> Ah. Very frustrating to read complaints that omit key info. Would have been nice if they explained that they're under an NDA.

<comment><USER67> I agree it should have been clarified, but the initial intended audience was meta users who would be familiar. Elected moderators need to accept the [https://stackoverflow.com/legal/moderator- agreement](https://stackoverflow.com/legal/moderator-agreement) agreement before they're giving their privileges, and they have to agree not to disclose any information that they get obtain using their mod access, such as the private discussions between moderators and staff here.

It might not be legally binding, but Stack Overflow could plausibly delete their account as punishment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> I got downvoted to oblivion for reporting a bug to them, with several SO devs trying to explain it's not a bug, this doesn't surprise me.

</comment><comment><USER69> Without studying it thoroughly I would comment: Great, finally! Moderator abuse was the biggest problem on SO, without any oversight.

</comment><comment><USER70> Yay, maybe interesting questions/discussion won't be shut down now!

<comment><USER71> I have the feeling the people who fought back at the annoying closing and overly strict rules got pushed out, not vice versa.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> What's the best alternative to Stack Overflow?

<comment><USER72> Well ... Google?

 _shrugs_

<comment><USER25> Nearly every google search I've done for the past decade pulls up SO first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> The whole concept is pretty asinine:

"Collect points to gain the power to fuck with other peoples questions!"

</comment><comment><USER74> I personally decided to boycott the site for several reasons explained here. In short, the site allows dicks to run rampant and I find more answers on GitHub these days.

[http://bit.ly/2mfUvCs](http://bit.ly/2mfUvCs)

</comment><comment><USER75> Stack Exchange has developed the same group of power people that rule Wikipedia. They have arcane rules with the major effect of keeping people out.

Stack Exchange is good to read, but hard to ask a question that is not immediately due to some rule.

</comment><comment><USER76> The moderators don't add value.

<comment><USER16> I think this is untrue. Some do, some less so.

Certainly there is a toxic tendency for _some_ mods to become power crazed, assume a higher understanding of the world than the lowly non-mods and mod everything into oblivion.

There is also sometimes a tribal back-slapping tendency that doesn't always weed out this nonsense but encourages it.

I don't know if that is involved in this case.

<comment><USER67> There are a lot of very toxic moderators on the network.

As far as I recognize, none of them are among the resigned. They'll probably be more prominent now that reasonable kind people like Monica have been removed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> In order for a community to succeed, there must be a continual rotation of the people in power so that no one can be corrupted by it. Moderators to me are the same as a dictatorship. There shouldn't be any moderators on SE, the community should be voting on what is valid question and upvoting the best answers as it has always done. There is no need for a single person to police each community. If something is off topic then the community can vote on removing or moving the topic or answer.

The issue with SE is the fact that they have allowed moderators to have too much power and too control over the communities. In changing their policies it has caused a removal of the moderators so that communities are force to come together to survive then I feel that this was a good step for SE as a whole. Though there will be some hard times at first I think that SE will become the site that it founders actually envisioned.

<comment><USER19> I think the issue is not just moderator vs rest of the community, but also SE company (well, its employees) vs the moderator vs the rest of the community, with all groups having different purposes and goal (and even the moderators and community have more sub-groups, around openness, quality, governance and so on). It's not just the case of mods having too much power.

<comment><USER19> And one could even add more fault lines, between SO's community and mods and the rest of the sites of SE, since the rest of the sites don't have the same issues as SO, for example regarding discrimination, inclusivness, welcoming..., but rules are made and applied by the SE company on all the sites, creating even more issues.</comment></comment></comment>


EFF's 100-Day Plan - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/our-100-day-plan <comment><USER2> Unlike the vast majority of end users, many HN readers have inside influence over the technology threats - even if it's just lobbying for addressing them in your company and spreading the word to others. That gives us even more responsibility than most citizens. Here are EFF's recommendations:

* Tech Companies, Fix These Technical Issues Before It's Too Late

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/11/tech-companies-fix- the...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/11/tech-companies-fix-these- technical-issues-its-too-late)

The U.S. (and other countries) will only be free if its citizens make it that way.

</comment><comment><USER3> This reminded me to donate.

A lot of people in Trump's camp relentlessly defends the 2nd Amendment, but in my opinion, that is just a purposeful distraction to the real weapon we should be defending: a free and open internet.

Now this also means defending against disinformation (ie. fake news), which is not something I saw on the EFF's plan.

It's honestly very scary now that Theil and Palantir is in bed with them.

<comment><USER4> > a free and open internet.

> defending against disinformation

Pick at most one.

<comment><USER5> Disagree - The tools for hyperbole, opposing viewpoints, and factually false information do not prevent people from publishing it. Aggregators (facebook, HN et al) choosing to promote more vetted info is not the same as preventing people from publishing it.

In fact I would go so far as to say that pushing for allowing anyone to publish on a free and open internet is necessary for defending against disinformation. The alternative is censoring (in a generic sense, not necessarily a law sense) things, which can heighten disinformation dramatically.

<comment><USER4> I agree that a free and open Internet is the best defense against disinformation.

It's a lousy defense. Massive amounts of disinformation will be shared (are shared) on a free Internet.

But "defending against disinformation" sounds like the excuse the government will use for censorship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> TLDR: The same as it has been.

> Make no mistake: privacy, liberty, and accountability are not partisan > issues.

> We've seen digital rights come under threat no matter which party controls > the Oval Office.

<comment><USER6> >Make no mistake: privacy, liberty, and accountability are not partisan issues.

I don't think they believe that. Or at least they didn't whine so much about Obama, who was horrible for digital privacy. And Hillary would've continued that legacy, but of course they didn't whine about that either.

<comment><USER7> > _And Hillary would 've continued that legacy, but of course they didn't > whine about that either._

As Mr. President would say, "Wrong."

Here they are whining about her eeemaaails:

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/foilies-2016-recognizi...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/foilies-2016-recognizing- worst-government-responses-public-records-requests/#selfserver)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > 2\. We will test and leverage the Freedom of Information Act.

Wait... isn't Obama's administration already the worst ever when it comes to FOIA denials ?

<comment><USER9> Obama isn't president anymore, so that isn't really relevant.

<comment><USER10> It's the same civil service though.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why so many contagious in my small town? - <AUTHOR> Hi, I am Marco and I live in a small town in Italy called Viadana (in Lombardy to be more precise). The exact location is: https://goo.gl/maps/UsUKshzvHGwVZ4nL6
In Lombardy, we are all following the same strict rules and we are forced to spend most of our time inside our house.
What I am unable to understand is why my small town has so many contagious, much more than a bigger city like Mantova.
The following is a table with all the nearby towns, with number of citizens and official contagious count:
Name         # Population   # Contagious <comment>=      </comment><comment></comment><comment>   </comment><comment></comment><comment> Mantova      49400          32 Castiglione  23700          29 Suzzara      21300          4 Viadana*     20150          64 Porto M.     16000          9 Curtatone    14900          11
Further details about surface and density can be found here: https://www.tuttitalia.it/lombardia/provincia-di-mantova/50-comuni/popolazione/
Up-to-date contagious count: http://www.altramantova.it/it/cronacaam/mantova-am/24775-emergenza-coronavirus-aggiornamento-i-contagi-salgono-a-456-in-provincia-di-mantova-impennata-di-casi-a-viadana-ora-sono-64-cresce-anche-mantova-che-arriva-a-32.html
Is there any explanation? If not, which kind of data I should collect in order to be able to find out an answer? </comment><comment><USER2> I haven't looked in detail, so I can't give you a definite answer, but I offer you this maxim:

Random processes clump.

When you have things happening at random you'll find that there are clumps here and there with gaps scattered. If you look at something and find that it's well spread and reasonably even, then it's not random.

There will always be some places that have more than average, more than "expected", and there will be places that seem magically to escape.

So maybe there's no reason other than it's simply where you are, and it's mostly random. Maybe there is a reason, but really, there might not be.

Edit:

The comment[0] by gus_massa[1] is completely plausible.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22609125](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22609125)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=gus_massa](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=gus_massa)

<comment><USER3> It's a good explanation for a lot of cases and patterns, and it must be the first explanation to try. For example for cancer, that apear with a random distribution, there are spatial and temporal clusters. People usually try to find an explanation for them, but most the patterns are just noise. Even uniform random produce more clustering than what people expect.

But in this case I disagree. When there is an initial part of an epidemic with an exponential growing, the time of arrival of the first infected person is very important. It is growing like x2 each week, so an alternative explanation is that the first case arrived to the city one or two weeks earlier.

It can be a mix of the two cases. The x2 grow per week is only an average.

@OP: Sometimes is good to run a few simulations to see how this work. Start 1000 or 1000000 towns with 1 infected "person" and each day the total number of infected persons is multiplied by a random number between 0.9 and 1.3. After two months, look the distribution of the outcomes of the simulated towns. Most will be near the mode, but there will be some lucky and some unlucky outliers. Note that this is a very bad epidemiology model, and the numbers are totally made up, but is simple and enough to see the clustering.

(I made and Exel with 1000 "towns", and I got most of the towns with 10-11-12 ill people. But I got two towns with only 2 ill people and a vey unlucky town with 81 ill people. YMMV)

If the initial patient reach the town a different day, you will see that the towns that started the infection earlier usually have more ill people, but some lucky or unlucky towns are in the wrong order when you sort them by the number of patients.

Formatted table

      Name         # Population  # Contagious
      </comment></comment><comment>=====  </comment><comment></comment><comment>  </comment><comment></comment><comment>
      Mantova             49400            32
      Castiglione         23700            29
      Suzzara             21300             4
      Viadana*            20150            64
      Porto M.            16000             9
      Curtatone           14900            11

</comment><comment><USER4> You may have read about the 31st patient in South Korea? He didn't have any symptoms himself and infected thousands of people, so they got a giant clump around him.

You may have one or a few people like that.

[https://www.repubblica.it/salute/medicina-e- ricerca/2020/03/...](https://www.repubblica.it/salute/medicina-e- ricerca/2020/03/16/news/coronavirus_studio_il_50-75_dei_casi_a_vo_sono_asintomatici_e_molto_contagiosi-251474302/) BTW.

</comment><comment><USER5> In short: only bad luck. gus_massa gives a thoughtful explanation in another answer.

Cheers from Milano.</comment>


Good sleep, good learning, good life - <AUTHOR> http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm <comment><USER2> I love this guy.

Great article about him here: [http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_woznia...](http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_wozniak?currentPage=all)

See his apology at the bottom of <http://www.supermemo.com/english/company/wozniak.htm>

<comment><USER3> The apology is strange. It seems predicated on a false notion of efficiency, assuming that somehow one's interactions with other people can be "efficient" in the same sense as one's interactions with a book. But that's not at all true. I am reminded of Freeman Dyson's comment soon after he met Feynman:

"Feynman is a man whose ideas are as difficult to make contact with as Bethe's are easy; for this reason I have so far learnt much more from Bethe, but I think if stayed here much longer I should begin to find it was Feynman with whom I was working more."

More generally, working with and learning from other people requires dealing with all sorts of "inefficiencies"; they're not optional. But if you're working with the right people, those inefficiencies are more than compensated for in other ways.

<comment><USER4> > working with and learning from other people requires dealing with all sorts > of "inefficiencies"; they're not optional.

I don't think he's all that interested in working with other people. In other words, he's not seeking to optimize his relationship with other people so much as he is finding a convenient excuse for not seeing other people at all.

<comment><USER5> "In other words, he's not seeking to optimize his relationship with other people so much as he is finding a convenient excuse for not seeing other people at all."

Which is sort of foolish. A big problem with being hyper efficient and blocking out assorted noise and distraction is that you end up filtering out serendipity. You become very efficient at some local maxima. If nothing else you risk missing out on learning about some new, better way to be efficient, but mostly you miss out on the weird random stuff that comes from the odd conversation with people.

It's like people who only listen to [right|left]-wing radio or follow [right|left]-wing Web sites. You get really good at reinforcing the same beliefs and attitudes. (Same is true for people who stop paying attention to new other programming languages and paradigms.)

I've reduced the number of local gatherings and general conferences I attend because of, overall, a poor return on the time invested vs tasks I want to complete, but don't want to become a hermit altogether because at the better gatherings there's a reasonable chance I'll learn about something interesting out of the blue.

<comment><USER4> > Which is sort of foolish. A big problem with being hyper efficient

I think you're defining a metric by which your life is a success, but I'm sure you'll agree other people can be aware of this and still have other goals. This person probably doesn't need to work for a living (passive income from his software), so he can afford not following your otherwise quite sensible rules about serendipity. He can dig deep into a narrow subject, which may end up bringing him more satisfaction than aspiring to be something of a Renaissance man. He doesn't have to be all HackerNewsy, entrepreneurial etc.

Besides, let him be a hermit if he wants to. It's kind of comforting to know that there is no high score or awards ceremony at the end of our lives. Local maxima don't sound so bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Summary (from the bottom of the page):

 _Sleep is important for learning! Sleep deprivation results in intellectual deprivation!

Sleep as much as you feel you need

Avoid alarm clocks

Forget about trying to fall asleep at pre-planned time! Let your body decide!

Forget about trying to fall asleep quickly! If your body decides it is the right time, it will come naturally!

Do not try to make yourself sleepy! It is enough you stay awake and keep on working/learning long enough!

It is much better to eliminate the source of stress rather than to try to forget stressful situations right before the bedtime!

Learn the details of your sleep timing (how many hours you sleep, how many hours before you need to take a nap or go to sleep again, etc.). Use this knowledge to optimize your schedule.

Adjust the timing of intellectual work to your circadian cycle (see Fig. 5)

Stick with good people! The bad lot will often ruin your slumber

Be careful with caffeine. Drink coffee only upon awakening (or after a nap if you take one)

Do not go beyond a single drink of alcohol per day. Drink it at siesta time

Quit smoking!

Use siesta time for a nap if you find it helpful

If you cannot fall asleep in 30 minutes, get up! You are not yet ready for sleep!

If you experience racing thoughts at the time when your body calls for sleep, the best method is: get up and use ... SuperMemo for 30 minutes! Few other activities can be equally taxing to your tired brain (do not expect this to work before your circadian timing though)

If you sleep it out and still not feel refreshed, be sure you do not sleep against your circadian rhythm. Try free running sleep. Remember that you may need 1-2 weeks to synchronize all bodily functions before this starts working!

If you cannot get refreshing sleep even in free-running conditions after at least a month of trying, consult a sleep specialist (see: Sleep Disorders). Remember, however, that a bad night is a factor of life. Few can avoid it. Do not get alarmed even if it happens weekly_

I'd be interested if a qualified person could corroborate these recommendations.

</comment><comment><USER7> Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, a neurologist, or an endocrinologist. I'm in no way qualified to be talking about this.

I have a fairly severe form of delayed sleep-phase syndrome: left to my own devices, as when I was on summer vacation back in school, I would gladly stay awake for 24 hours and sleep for 12. I've long noticed anecdotally this pattern is associated with geeks. Ask yourself: if a 6:00 AM Twitter update says your geekiest friend is waiting for his code to compile, is it because he woke up early or because he hasn't been to bed yet?

It turns out there's a reason for this. There's a gene called the ASMT gene, which codes for enzymes responsible (in part) for the synthesis of melatonin from serotonin in the pineal gland. This gene is often deleted in individuals with autism or Aspergers syndrome, which results in _extremely_ low levels of serum melatonin. The effect is so strong that even family members of autistic children, even those not themselves diagnosed with autism or Aspergers, have been shown to have abnormally depressed melatonin levels. More information: <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2199264/>

Melatonin is one of the biggest chemical regulators of the sleep cycle in humans, and increased melatonin at night has been shown experimentally to reduce the time of sleep onset. I'm not aware of any studies comparing the effect size between autistic/Aspergers patients and healthy controls, but it stands to reason that the former group might stand more to gain.

I've personally experienced _tremendous_ benefit in my sleep patterns from taking melatonin. I spent my entire teenage life showing up to classes in a sleep-deprived haze because I wasn't aware of this. Hopefully I can save someone else from that.

Now, for the catch: We have no idea why Aspergers symptoms are associated with reduced melatonin synthesis. Melatonin is a regulator of neural plasticity during fetal and early childhood brain development. Melatonin is synthesized from serotonin, and serotonin levels at various stages of development are drastically different in autistics/Aspergers compared to healthy children. We don't know to what extent these are causes or effects of autistic symptoms, and what effect there might be on development from long-term melatonin supplementation during early childhood. However, in healthy adults, the safety of long-term melatonin use, even at doses many _dozens_ of times higher than the maximum clinically effective dose, has been shown to be completely safe. How you generalize from that is up to you.

<comment><USER8> _I've personally experienced tremendous benefit in my sleep patterns from taking melatonin._

I did better with taking co-q-10 in the morning. For a long time, I couldn't tolerate melatonin. I would feel like I wasn't fully awake for up to three days after taking it. When my health improved enough that I could tolerate it, I still needed co-q-10 in the morning to feel fully awake.

Co-q-10 is the co-enzyme of melatonin and wakes your brain up in the morning. It is made in the body in a complex (17 step?) process. A bottleneck at any stage can leave you deficient, so many people are deficient. If you take co-q-10 in the morning, your body will produce a small melatonin spike about 12 or so hours later. If you take melatonin, it does not increase production of co-q-10. So taking co-q-10 can do a lot more in terms of healing both sides of waking/sleeping cycle of the brain chemistry. It is also gentler/subtler than melatonin.

Lots of people use melatonin to good effect, so I'm not trying to knock it. Just trying to expand on the topic of nutritional supplements and brain chemistry wrt the waking/sleeping cycle. Thanks for bringing this up. :-)

<comment><USER9> I'm betting on a placebo effect of the melatonin. taken in pill form it is only effective for a few hours.

<comment><USER10> It's hardly a placebo effect if it has an effect for a few hours.

I've struggled with insomnia my whole life. If I'm able to fall asleep in the first place, I'm usually able to stay asleep long enough to get rested.

I only need the effect for about an hour, maybe 90 minutes. Long enough to fall asleep.

<comment><USER11> I think the comment refers to the placebo affect for "I would feel like I wasn't fully awake for up to three days after taking it."

<comment><USER10> Ah, right! Rereading the thread, that seems the more likely interpretation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> High school students like me, unfortunately do not have means to get the necessary good sleep that everyone needs.

The school system will continue to impose this miserable condition on us.

<comment><USER13> While some studies have indicated that adolecents would benefit from starting classes later in the day, I don't believe it's the silver bullet that you believe it is.

I'm 27, and I quoted that when I was in High School. But the truth is, I seldom was wound-down and in bed by 9 or 10 PM. I was irresponsible with my bed time. All my friends were the same.

I think you would be surprised at how much of the "misery" you and your peers are self-imposing. Do your homework when you get home, skip the Daily Show, shut off the computer by 9PM, and in bed by 10. I understand you'll think "easier said than done" but if you're truly miserable, take some responsibility for it!

<comment><USER14> _I think you would be surprised at how much of the "misery" you and your peers are self-imposing._

It's a pity the article is so long, because otherwise you might have encountered this sentence before composing a reply:

 _It won't be enough to demand an early hour for going to bed. If you ban the late evening Internet surfing, you will just swap a dose of evening education for an idle tossing and turning in bed._

You can't necessarily change your biological clock by an effort of will, even if you know exactly what you are doing -- which few people do. Your biological clock has a "mind" of its own. No matter how much "responsibility" you take for your schedule, and how much intelligence and full-spectrum lighting you apply to the problem, you may find yourself unable to be optimally awake at 7am. Especially if you are a teenager.

Meanwhile, I'm afraid that everything about this reply rubs me the wrong way. It is a textbook example of its kind [1], and it illustrates why broken designs persist for decade upon decade. School day starts too early for the typical young person's biological clock? We survived it, so should you! Third- shift workers causing accidents at 3am? Your grandpa worked third shift and survived with 80% of his fingers intact; so should you! Medical interns forced to work continuous shifts of 24 hours or more, even though studies have shown that they therefore make avoidable errors that harm patients? We survived it, so should you!

It's so much easier to instruct the victim on coping techniques than it is to contemplate changing the system that it becomes a reflex: You poke an adult, and out pops a sanctimonious lecture.

\---

[1] The world would be a better place if every text editor came with an alarm that rang every time someone typed the word _peers_. ("Hi! Microsoft Word has noticed that you sound just like your mom! Can Clippy help you with that?")

<comment><USER13> The trouble I see here is you're equating a propensity for high school kids to push the envelope on _everything_ with medical residents and shift workers.

Sanctimonious lecturing? I think you need more time in the field. Stop by any house with kids on a Friday night about 2300 and you'll see kids and adolescents alike dozing off, barely able to keep their heads up. When bed is suggested they sit up a little straighter and protest "I'm not tired."

What you missed in my original post (somehow, it was only a paragraph) is that I spent 4 years in high school quoting these sleep studies. Just like I spent 4 years quoting the Tinker decision, and debating Hazelwood.

But the truth is that staying out past curfew and putting my homework off until the last possible second and staying up to watch Conan and the Daily Show had absolutely NOTHING to do with my "biological clock." It was me, dozing off, and snapping to, my backbone stiff, saying "I'm ok, i'm not tired."

<comment><USER15> > _... I spent 4 years in high school quoting these sleep studies. Just like I > spent 4 years quoting the Tinker decision, and debating Hazelwood._

What do Tinker/Hazelwood have to do with sleep? Or are you suggesting that siding with the Warren court decision was some kind of youthful indiscretion that thankfully the Rehnquist court backed off on? Though I was never a writer for a high school newspaper, I'm damn glad in CA we have some legitimate protection for student journalists and other student speech.

> _But the truth is that staying out past curfew and putting my homework off > [...] had absolutely NOTHING to do with my "biological clock."_

How can you possibly assert this? First, your suggestion that you personally would have been fine if you'd just been less stubborn is counter-factual speculation. But second, your assertion is flat out contradicted by careful scientific research on the subject.

The whole "personal individual willpower is the only causal mechanism in the world" fallacy so pervasive in our society is really distressing to me.

It leads to terrible policy aimed at blaming the suffering rather than trying to help them achieve better outcomes. It's great that poor diets; low-paying menial jobs; living in physically dangerous gang neighborhoods; getting stiffed out of insurance, pensions, etc. by unscrupulous businesses; deaths from "reckless driving" on poorly planned streets; getting imprisoned for decades for drug possession; getting straight-up scammed by not carefully reading through all the fine print on contracts intentionally designed such that their real implications differ substantially from the signatories' mutual understanding; becoming pregnant as a teenager; catching a venereal disease; etc. etc. are subject to free will, and can be avoided by the smart and careful. But while that's good advice for individuals trying to navigate the society – "do your work", "get enough sleep and exercise", "eat right", "read the fine print" – it's atrocious policy, because it ignores cognitive biases and intuitions and focuses only on narrowly construed technical responsibility. The result is inefficiency, poor health, unnecessary death, &c. &c. And we "teach" people to be "personally responsible" by condemning large numbers of them to bad outcomes, with nearly no evidence that any learning actually occurs as a result.

Most importantly, it eliminates empathy for those in rough situations. After all, if all outcomes are based mostly on personal merit, the down-on-their- luck must just deserve what they get.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I actually like his apology. It resonates with how I have been living of late. I don't expect to do things exactly like I this "forever", but if you have a serious goal, it can be extremely effective (and even necessary) to cut out distractions and refuse to participate in social expectations that you have realized add little or nothing of value but take away a lot from you in terms of time, energy, mental distraction and so forth.

I also like this bit from the article and very much identify with the sentiment he expresses:

 _Bundled up in parkas with fur-trimmed hoods, strolling hand in mittened hand along the edge of the Baltic Sea, off-season tourists from Germany stop openmouthed when they see a tall, well-built, nearly naked man running up and down the sand. "Kalt? Kalt?" one of them calls out. The man gives a polite but vague answer, then turns and dives into the waves. After swimming back and forth in the 40-degree water for a few minutes, he emerges from the surf and jogs briefly along the shore. The wind is strong, but the man makes no move to get dressed. Passersby continue to comment and stare. "This is one of the reasons I prefer anonymity," he tells me in English. "You do something even slightly out of the ordinary and it causes a sensation."_

</comment><comment><USER16> I've wasted way too much time due to sleep issues.

My Miracle Mix:

\- Morning: _100m Provigil_ (ordered from an Indian pharmacy, naturally!)

\- Night: _Melatonin_

I don't take provigil on the weekends and sometimes skip a weekday so I don't build up tolerance to it. Some people say it's like adderall without any nasty side effects. Just do it and thank me later.

<comment><USER17> any side effects? Stay up too late?

<comment><USER16> Nadda. Just don't take it in the afternoon or evening.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is it not ironical if at 0130 hrs in the morning, i could not sleep and start browsing hn and i get to see an article that tells me to get a good sleep and life ?

<comment><USER18> 0130 hrs IST it is ..

</comment></comment><comment> cool-RR I hope someone will post a summary of this here.

<comment><USER19> It's hard to summarize. There is a lot of data and a lot of stuff to cover. I'll grab a couple of parts for you and I hope others can summarize others for you. :)

Why we need sleep:

Your brain needs sleep because your brain uses it to organized and optimized the experiences of the day. Without sleep your brain is unable to support new learning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have Asperger's and DSPS, and have noticed that taking Piracetam helps me regulate my sleep cycle. On days when I take it, I begin to feel sleepy right around my 16th hour of being awake. I have also noticed that when I have not had decent sleep for a few days, taking Piracetam puts me to sleep within a couple of hours of taking it.

<comment><USER21> I found exactly the same thing. I've had problems for years with roving sleep cycles to the point that it seriously interfered with my life. After I started taking piracetam it settled down within a week or two. I also wake up feeling completely refreshed and ready to go. I haven't seen this effect documented anywhere - it was completely unexpected.

<comment><USER20> It is good to know that you experienced this effect as well. I also have not seen it documented anywhere. The stuff is simply great. I am in a third world country (Colombia) and in a backwater town to boot, and Piracetam is both readily available and inexpensive. What's more, it's a local generic brand, and the quality is very decent.</comment></comment></comment>


CERN day 2 - <AUTHOR> https://remysharp.com/2019/02/13/cern-day-2 <comment><USER2> Day 1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19143064](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19143064)

</comment><comment><USER3> Tape based storage cost less than HDD per terabyte. Even if it's slow, it's often used to make backups.

<comment><USER4> And tape consume very little energy over its lifecycle compared to disks. If you keep your archives for 10 years, energy costs add up quickly.</comment></comment>


No - you are not supposed to take breaks - <AUTHOR> http://jasonshah.tumblr.com/

<comment><USER2> I would like to offer an alternative view.

When we were with my daughter at her first or second pediatrician visit, he demonstrated a couple of very amazing things to me. The second was that as he spoke to her, she would fix her eyes on his face, then briefly glance away. He said that this is a normal part of attention, where in periods of high stimulus, the baby would look aside, very briefly, then look back at the person talking.

I remember an article written by an astronomer who would work in 15 minute periods of intense thought, then take a break from it.

In my own work, I often "look away", or take breaks, as get fully engaged. Whether or not it is giving the subconscious a chance to work on the deal, I couldn't say.

So taking breaks is part of the deal.

<comment><USER3> i think his post is actually in agreement with your comment. his point being that things like: reading HN, updating twitter, deleting email, etc is not really "taking a break". it is distracting yourself for a piece of instant gratification.

a real break is taking a walk, or "looking away" as you say; getting away from the screen.

<comment><AUTHOR> right. to expand, i feel like these are "weak breaks". we don't have the will or self-control (or perhaps, we are SO deeply passionate about our work) to be OK with taking a real break. so instead we have to do things that make us still feel like we're being productive just so we can feel justified.

for example, reading HN makes me feel like i'm taking a productive break. i'm learning about startups, keeping up with tech news, etc. but in truth, this sort of break rarely achieves the intended goal of a "strong break" (e.g. taking a walk): allowing me to recharge.

thanks for the comments! my first HN post with discussion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In case Jason posts something else and his tumblr updates...

[http://jasonshah.tumblr.com/post/14100621401/no-you-are- not-...](http://jasonshah.tumblr.com/post/14100621401/no-you-are-not-supposed- to-take-some-breaks-and)</comment>


Bay Area's high prices, traffic could spur exodus - <AUTHOR> http://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Bay-Area-s-high-prices-traffic-could-spur-11037498.php <comment><USER2> Given how many comments here lament the requirement to live in SV, this makes perfect sense. It's sort of shocking it hasn't actually started to happen, based on how much people talk about wanting to leave.</comment>


Log on Like It's 1985: A Fragment of Minitel Returns - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/silicon-revolution/log-on-like-its-1985-a-fragment-of-minitel-returns <comment><USER2> The Wikipedia page for Minitel is fascinating:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel)

It also answers the question of why '3615 SM' \- 3615 was the code to dial to access Minitel, and Minitel services were often advertised as '3615 [service name]'.

<comment><USER3> In the 80s and 90s, walls everywhere in France were covered with posters advertising for minitel services (mostly sex/porn related, so called "minitel rose"). It was a really big industry...

3611 was the yellow pages, free for the first few minutes.

the numbers 3614, 3615 (up to 3619 IIRC) were actually defining the price. All 3615 servers cost the same; 3614 was cheaper, and 3616 more expensive. Some services were accessible through several prices, for instance 3614 AIRFRANCE and 3615 AIRFRANCE: you dialed the 3614 first, and if there was no line available, tried the more expensive (but otherwise identical) 3615...

<comment><USER4> another common one was 3617.. can't recall if it was business only or tariffed anything though.

ps: I'd love to try a slow / low res internet with cute devices like a minitel. Maybe with slightly increased specs and slightly better interfaces (functionally, not ~aesthetically). Remember when things used to take time ?

<comment><USER3> Yup, 3617 was common for more expensive services. I don't remember the exact price but it was really high. Usually professional stuff, like "3617 INFOGREFFE" (to get legal information about registered companies), etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> amiga-workbench Very cool, as a side project I've started programming an esp8266 to plug into the back of a Minitel and act as a telnet client, and consume the reddit & 4chan API's.

The documentation is a bit difficult, I'm having quite a bit of trouble with the block drawing mode. All the literature is in French and reading it is slow going.

</comment><comment><USER5> One of my favorite episodes of my favorite podcast (Reply All by Gimlet) is about Minitel: [https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/french- connection](https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/french-connection)

Well worth a listen.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have very fond memories of the UK equivalent of this, Prestel, which I accessed on a 1200/75 modem from a BBC Micro. In terms of simplicity and reliability in many ways the modern web is s step backwards from those old systems.

</comment><comment><USER7> SM chat server available from [http://sm.3615.live](http://sm.3615.live) .

</comment><comment><USER8> Anyone remembers those information terminals that we at BART stations in the bay area back then?</comment>


Attack of The Frames: VideoEgg Introduces The Twig Ad Bar - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/15/attack-of-the-frames-videoegg-introduces-the-twig-ad-bar/

<comment><USER2> I'm not so sure the VideoEgg's frame is 'evil' like DiggBar's frame. It looks to me as if the ad is inserted into the current DOM at runtime and thus the URL for every page using the technology isn't a VideoEgg URL (could you imagine if an ad company told their customers that, from now on, their pages would be served-up with the ad company's URL?). If it doesn't take over the URL and is just nodes dynamically inserted into the DOM at runtime, then no harm done, right?

<comment><USER3> Exactly, this is a totally different beast which requires the website author to put the VideoEgg content on their site explicitly.

The article on TechCrunch seems to be written with little understanding of the toolbar or how it actually works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The web would be another beast all together if it wasn't for ads. Look at all the Newspapers that are crumbling but still publishing online. The CS monitor recently stopped printing but for a weekender though it updates its website every day. Sites need ads for revenue and I don't think VideoEgg's bar is too intrusive. In fact I wouldn't mind a bar like that on a tv if it meant shows didn't have to pause for a break every ten minutes. I could see it running on the bottom of online videos too instead of having an ad run at the start.</comment>


Learn how to code a Facebook app in 20 minutes with PythonAnywhere - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pythonanywhere.com/35/

<comment><USER2> Deploy one in 5 minutes (by me!): [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgiONvm5JB0&feature=plcp](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgiONvm5JB0&feature=plcp)

<comment><USER3> BTW your Python example app is broken and has been for months. Someone opened an issue on Github (with code to fix) but it's been ignored for months now. <https://github.com/heroku/facebook-template-python/issues/7>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> ...and you can charge this 200-500 buck a pop!

Easy money, I say. Still is.

EDIT: Before I get flame, this is just tongue-in-cheek for all the FB marketing agencies out there charging this crap by thousands.

<comment><AUTHOR> The internet, it's just a big ATM really.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, but you sure need to type more than 4 digits to get that cash!

<comment><AUTHOR> I was promised internet money!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love things like this. Things that truly encourage people to just build even if it is very basic. It is such a good learning tool!

</comment><comment><USER6> The shareable web console is very nice. Is that a third party open source component or did you developed it yourselves?

<comment><AUTHOR> Developed it ourselves, well the JavaScript terminal is shellinabox (<http://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/>) but it's connecting via websockets to a Tornado server that does all the interesting stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Incredible! I really wish this was at my disposal when I started working on my side project a couple months ago.

I haven't even played with PythonAnywhere yet, I'm just commenting on how great the tutorial is. It excellently fills in the gaps between django and the facebook interface.</comment>


Pioneering research shows 'Google Generation' is a myth - <AUTHOR> http://www.bl.uk/news/2008/pressrelease20080116.html <comment><USER3> I feel fortunate that I am young enough to have grown up with the influence of the Internet, yet old enough to have had a formal introduction to the card catalog and good old fashioned go-to-the-library research. I can't imagine what High School would have been like if the Internet had been taking off - <USER2> don't think I would have graduated.

</comment><comment><USER4> This sounds like "if it takes more effort, it must be better" nonsense.

Further, I didn't see any mention of a control group. Are the children simply acting like children, or have their analytic skills actually deteriorated because of Internet use? I very strongly suspect the former.

</comment><comment><USER5> So basically all they're saying is that young people try to minimize the amount of work they do and have short attention spans. Exactly how is this pioneering research?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was going to write something as well, but I grew impatient!</comment>


Creativity is a great motivator - <AUTHOR> http://tomrothe.de/posts/sketchbook.html <comment><USER2> Creativity but also productivity. The problem with a lot of school work is that it produces nothing. Class notes, homework assignments, and marked exams all are trash because no one wants to look at those things again and the content has no unique value. But building things and pouring our hearts into things and having a vision for something we could possibly create... these are the activities that we really need to be practicing, and that have value in the real world. It's not surprising they're also highly motivating as well. Most of the work I kept from my school years is from art class.

<comment><USER3> That's too rational. You need to have all the notes and stuff as well. You need to learn and expand your knowledge before you can go into practicing something. Even though I agree that I'll never look at my old university-notes again, they did serve a very real and important purpose in the proces towards teaching me how to build something. Reflecting upon what you're going to build, holding meetings and taking notes are important processes in mastering something. Even though it might seem a bit dull or not worthwhile compared to building stuff.

<comment><USER4> I agree with you. But I think what needs to be emphasised is that the teaching should be geared towards creating something throughout the semester or at the end of semester, instead of just culminating in an exam that in the end that nobody wants to see. I know some subjects still needs the exam approach, but it would be nice if more classes are designed in a way to build something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great article. You really are a great teacher - not content just to teach facts and techniques - but wanting your students to really develop a passion for programming.

I liked the example where you said the student painted pixel by pixel. If it was a forced assignment it would have been intellectual torture, but because it was something the student came up with as an outlet to their creativity, something tedious became enjoyable.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you very much!

For me also, the moment when I saw my student creating something so cool was breathtaking. It also proves so many of my fellow colleagues wrong, who keep going on that today's students don't have the motivation as they used to in the past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some of my earliest motivation to learn programming was to build games. That proved too challenging to learn very quickly, but I had great fun drawing things on the screen and making the PC speaker play music (simulating polyphonic sound by switching between notes very quickly).

Seeing the results pop up on the screen was certainly a highly-motivating factor (and satisfaction with text results from algorithms came later ;-) )

</comment><comment><USER7> Repository: [https://github.com/motine/sta](https://github.com/motine/sta)

</comment><comment><USER8> Reminds me of how to design programms second edition and their world programms

Working with shapes to learn programming makes a lot of sense to me.</comment>


Dthreads: Efficient Deterministic Multithreading (2011) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://people.cs.ksu.edu/~danielwang/Investigation/System_Security/dthreads-sosp11.pdf <comment><USER2> > DTHREADS achieves cross-thread memory isolation by replacing threads with > processes. In a multithreaded program running with pthreads, threads share > all memory except for the stack. Changes to memory immediately become > visible to all other threads. Threads share the same file descriptors, > sockets, device handles, and windows. By contrast, because DTHREADS runs > threads in separate processes, it must manage these shared resources > explicitly.

They seem to be using a processes' copy-on-write memory to keep the dthreads isolated until commit points. At commit points they deterministically merge the pages back.

Algorithmic errors are still possible due to data races, but they present themselves more like logic errors because they're deterministic. They'll fail the same everytime.

Interesting.

</comment><comment><USER3> If Dthreads match the performance of pthreads, how is it possible that 7 years from the publication they aren't widely used?

<comment><USER4> Because they don't solve any actual problem? Races typically occur due to the asynchronous nature of _external_ inputs (packets arrive...whenever, for example). This project doesn't solve that problem because it only enforces determinism _within_ the program. I'm sure you _can_ design a program such that it suffers from entirely internal, self-generated races, but that would be what percentage of all race bugs? 1% ?

<comment><USER5> Races occur due to internal program behavior that is different with exactly the same external inputs.

In your packets example, if we were to feed the external inputs through a record/replay mechanism we could debug the multi-threaded program reliably and deterministically.</comment></comment></comment>


Hamagen - Israel releases an app for tracking exposures to Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@oleiba/hamagen-fight-coronavirus-and-preserve-privacy-b1631693bb46 <comment><USER2> Here is the source code: [https://github.com/MohGovIL/hamagen-react- native](https://github.com/MohGovIL/hamagen-react-native)

Maybe it could be cool to fork per country?</comment>


Slack Is Raising Another Round at Up to a $1B Valuation? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/23/slack-is-raising-another-round-at-up-to-a-1b-valuation/

<comment><USER3> Slack is pretty great, we use it where I work and for coordinating communication between teams in different parts of the US, the UK, India and Australia, it is fantastic. It is quite crazy to think what is essentially a more modernised version of IRC is worth one billion dollars. Either way, I think it is a highly deserved valuation for a tool that is undeniably a lot less painful than Google Hangouts, Skype or Email. Great job Slack team.

It also seems besides creating an awesome communication platform, Slack have discovered the secret to time travel. According to the article, _" has been growing wildly since launching at the end of 2014"_ a product so successful it launched in the future and is doing well in the present. Nice quality writing from Techcrunch.

<comment><USER4> We just started using it at our company. We have a lot of remote workers.

I think part of _why_ it's so good is because it's "just" a modernized IRC. It seems like most other other communication tools fail to deliver that feel of community that IRC does and as a result fall short. Slack despite my initial misgivings seems to be delivering though.

<comment><USER5> > I think part of why it's so good is because it's "just" a modernized IRC

In fact, the worst part about slack is the completely unnecessary attachments UI. When I click on an attachment, just open it in a new tab and let my browser handle it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Slack is a great case study in b2b apps. They built a product essentially used like a consumer product, but for business purposes. The interface is targeted at people, not businesses.

And yet they have ~15k customers [1], but massive investor hype and potential valuations. The equivalent consumer app would require more on the order of 15 _million_ customers to achieve the same.

[1] Read it somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER7> last time I used it, Slack had a pretty bad design flaw. each organization has a #general channel that cannot be unsubscribed from (aka, every person in the company must be part of #general). it got very annoying when users spammed (@channel) the entire channel. many devs on my team sent feedback to Slack asking them for the ability to leave #general.

Their response was something like "we rely on everyone being in #general so that we have a single place to deliver broadcast messages"

This leads me to believe that their underlying code does not really have a concept of a user's 'organization', otherwise they could send based on that. Separate those concerns!

<comment><USER8> Why is this such a big deal? You can turn off the notifications for the #general channel. So why not just turn off the notifications for that channel or use the "Only when mentioned or one of my Highlight Words is used (default)" option?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> We've been using Slack for quite a while now after trying HipChat, FlowDock, etc, and love it.

The major selling point for us is it's incoming Webhook API.

We use it to communicate deployment status, major customer events, and general fun & hilarity (/giphy).

</comment><comment><USER10> At first I hated Slack. Jabber was definitely Good Enough. But I couldn't live without it anymore. My tip: use it to it's full potential, you'll have to give up on the IRC and Jabber bridges.

</comment><comment><USER11> Not really [https://twitter.com/SlackHQ/status/525352862285430784](https://twitter.com/SlackHQ/status/525352862285430784)

« We can confirm that, as reported in TechCrunch earlier today, it is likely that we will raise money "sometime in the next six years." »

</comment><comment><USER12> After trying and failing to get everyone to use use email/facebook/aim/google hangouts for a community that I help manage, I moved everyone to Slack for communication. Right now we're at the free tier, but if we ever make some money - I think moving to the paid tier is something we will do.

</comment><comment><USER13> The github notifications for slack are _super_ verbose, compared to hipchat -- even with their compact mode option. Hard to know what was going on in the channel.

We tried it out and unanimously decided to not migrate everyone from hipchat.

</comment><comment><USER14> I really think that Slack's best quality is as an email killer. I get close to zero emails from within my company. It's kind of shocking how much more productive that makes me.

<comment><USER15> This is true. I have an email account that gets effectively zero email (other than Slack notifications). Don't know if this makes me more productive - <USER2> seems like more of an interruption than email, but it's definitely interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Ugh I really wish my team would start using slack, but they're way too apathetic to try it.

<comment><USER17> I suspect you may be my coworker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder how much Hipchat got bought for, I believe Hipchat is more popular then Slack?

<comment><USER19> The only advantage Hipchat has is that you can run it on your own servers. Slack is so much better for users it's not even funny.

<comment><USER20> can you give me a short tl;du why it's so great?

<comment><USER19> Sure. The main thing is that Hipchat is just very buggy. It does not handle disconnects or intermittent connectivity well, requiring a lot of app restarts. My coworkers have been reporting a lot of issues with the mobile apps simply not working. The desktop client has many operations that block the UI thread for several seconds needlessly (like starting a private chat).

But those are just bugs. These are the features I really miss from Slack:

* Ability to select a recent message you sent and edit it to fix typos. Hipchat uses s/oldtext/newtext, but it does not work consistently, and is only designed to work on the most recently sent message.

* Github-style emoji, like :+1:. It's really weird have a different emoji set and syntax in Hipchat.

* Better per-channel notification preferences.

* Waaaaaaaay better integrations with other services.

* A more attractive UI, and other subjective things like that.

<comment><USER21> Could you elaborate a bit on what exactly is better in channel notifications and 3rd party integrations?

<comment><USER19> Well, Slack has per-channel notification settings, and HipChat does not. So with HipChat I have to choose between more notification spam, insufficient notifications, or not being in as many channels as I'd like.

I'm starting to forget what it is I preferred about the github integration in slack as opposed to HipChat...it's been awhile now. But there are also just so many URLs that do something useful in Slack but don't in HipChat (for example, rdio).

Another annoying thing about the HipChat desktop client is modal dialogs where there shouldn't be. If somebody pings me in a room I'm not in, a modal pops up, which can be activated accidentally while I'm typing a message in another room, causing me to lose the notification, or get immediately (well, with annoying lag) sent to the channel that pinged me, interrupting the message I was typing and destroying my flow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Soon a billion dollars won't even be cool and the kids will laugh at Justin Timberlake.</comment>


Should parents meddle in their kids' classroom assignments? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2227233/

<comment><AUTHOR> The Game Theorist blog discusses this article:

[http://gametheorist.blogspot.com/2009/09/matching- problem.ht...](http://gametheorist.blogspot.com/2009/09/matching-problem.html)</comment>


Formcake – A Form Back-End API - <AUTHOR> https://formcake.com/ <comment><USER2> There is startlingly little information on this landing page, even though the service is still in an early access stage. I'm reluctant to sign up for "updates and early access" without knowing what "Flexible and powerful integrations" includes or getting a glimpse of the "Clear documentation" or "Advanced, easy-to-use API."

</comment><comment><USER3> Clever, but I wonder who the target demographic is.

We're lucky to be in an era that has too many options for backend integration, both self-hosted and cloud, "monolith" and microservice.

I can't help but feel that anyone who can set up something to receive webhook notifications would likely just cut out the middleman.

People who don't know what a webhook is have SurveyMonkey and Google Forms.

What am I missing?

<comment><USER4> If this lets you configure how the webhook is sent, you might not need to set anything up. Example: form is posted to Formcake, which then sends a webhook to Twilio that sends an SMS to the inserted number (for validation).

The Zapier integration, on the other hand, is even more flexible. Using a similar service, I built a fully static website for a Mother's Day campaign, where the form was processed by a Zapier action that added the info as a row to a Google Sheet. No custom backend at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is this in any way different then [https://formspree.io/](https://formspree.io/) ?

</comment><comment><USER6> I can't open the navigation on mobile (chrome) and if I switch the "desktop version" feature on the navigation button in the top right corner disappears.

</comment><comment><USER7> Probably it would be better to wait to submit this until it is actually available.</comment>